Heading Back To Bass...

Lead residue from bullet fused into bone.

In movies and comics and stories, when someone survives being shot, they just remove the bullet and that's all.

In real life situations, as the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun and travels through the air, the metal gets extremely hot.

When it comes into contact with a hard surface like bone, it's like dragging a piece of chalk across the pavement. It leaves a metal residue that gets fused to the bone itself.

The gray part on the photo is the lead residue from a bullet. It only grazed the bone here, but still left behind residue.

Over a period of years the lead can slowly start to leach out from the bone causing lead poisoning.

Long-term lead poisoning is something that's not often talked about with gunshot wounds, but this is how it happens. Even if you remove the bullet fragments, its not enough, because you can't remove the residue.

You can't remove the lead residue but you can give medications to lessen the impact of lead on the body.

I almost never see this mentioned in stories except for medical dramas. But honestly it would be great to see this touched on more.

i miss the late nights where things start to quiet down, then raise up again because the delerium of tiredness makes the dumbest things funny. i miss the chaos and calm of it all, how the meets felt like a true gathering of friends, how they all felt like second family.

it genuinely saddens me that it's a thing that "was", instead of a thing that still is.

Well, some briars behind us in the neighboring property were cleared and it spooked a couple of rats.

I was cleaning my little back yard and noticed something come in from under the gate. I didn't have my glasses on so I initially thought it was a squirrel or small rabbit since we get those too. Until I realize it's keeping to the fence line. Squirrels and bunnies don't keep to a fence line like that. I take a hard look and realize it's a rat.

It made it half way up the fence line towards the building before my dog noticed it and just went for it. Cornered it and killed it. I had never seen my dog do that before. I was just busy raking the clippings from mowing and all of a sudden, all the hair on the dog's back went up and he lunged towards the fence. Not a single sound out of him. Just lunge and chomp and now we have a dead rat.

Obligatory pic of the stone cold killer.

So I married the guy I met in early 2010s tumblr

I went YEARS without even sketching. I don't think I drew anything from 2015-2020 outside of a silly drawing or two.

I have no formal training in art. The last actual class I took was in high school, 20 years ago.

I am using a borrowed, dated, iPad with only Sketchbook to doodle on.

On top of working full time, I'm also a parent and spouse with a home and volunteering commitments, to say nothing of writing I do on the side. Being able to garner a smidgen of free time to practice my art is a damn win.