When I painted my first picture of Lavender Muse and scanned it in, I adjusted the left arm in Photoshop, because for some reason it looked wrong. I decided that I'd drawn it too short and lengthened it. Having done this, the proportions seemed to make more sense, but my feeling that something was wrong with the arm remained. It seemed like it wasn't attached properly. But because I'd already spent so much time on the piece I decided to leave it and move on.

The second major piece that I did of Lavender also had this weirdness to it; the left arm seemed incongruent with the rest of the body somehow, although I knew that the proportions and anatomy of the drawing itself were fine.

After this, I had a premonition in which I was on stage during a concert, a huge arena show, and when I came right up to the edge of the stage to survey the crowd, a person in one of the first few rows pointed a gun and shot me in the left shoulder... I fell back onto the stage, bleeding from the huge artery there, presumably losing the arm. I am unsure if I died in this vision.

As long as I can remember, I always wanted to be the villain. I wanted to play the bad guy. I did not necessarily want to triumph; when playing make-believe with my friends I would consent to my 'destruction,' because that was how make-believe went. The good guys win and the bad guys lose. I've realized lately that the premonition reflects my secret desires; I want to be killed, preferably on stage, at the height of my power. I think this is the only way I could achieve something resembling immortality. It might just be that I don't want to grow old.

When I was very little I saw an animated cartoon called 'Grendel.' I didn't know it was based on a book. It was about a monster who wasn't really a monster. He tried to do good things, got punished for it, and then decided to do bad things instead. Then a knight came along and tore his arm off. He sat in his cave and waited to die. I never understood why they would be so mean to the nice monster, or why he would suddenly do terrible things.

Today I had a sudden compulsion to research both 'Grendel' and 'Beowulf,' the epic 11th century poem that its setting is inspired by. 'Beowulf' held no meaning for me. I knew my urge had something to do with the fact that Grendel loses an arm; I scanned for the verses where it's actually cut off. Then I looked for 'Grendel.' I knew it was a retelling of 'Beowulf' from the monster's point of view, in the vein of 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.' What I learned from reading about fifty reviews of the book was this: Grendel does not see himself as a monster; he tried to get along with humans but they would have none of it, they loathed his appearance and treated him like a beast until he at last decided he might as well be one, whereupon the humans pounce upon him, righteously proclaiming him to be the monster they always knew he was; Grendel decides he likes being a monster and takes pleasure in his atrocities; in the confrontation with Beowulf, the knight, Grendel is told that his existence is only justified by the humans he makes war against, and in realizing this Grendel acquiesces to his own slaying.

The book is likened several times to 'Frankenstein,' another blueprint of my life.

When you're a monster, your demise is a foregone conclusion; it's left to you to decide how you will act out the scene.