clickmom

Josh is fabulous

The naproxen is out of my system and I finally had a good night's sleep.  (Did I mention that after not sleeping 4 hours a night for 4 nights straight I finally figured out that insomnia is a rare side effect?) My aching knees are back, so that's a negative, but sleeping is just fabulous, so I'll take it. 

There is a pinch of drama going on with the old grad school group.  We are supposed to have a big city gallery show after our big campus gallery show, and the powers never really addressed this with us, so naturally, being such a dysfunctional group we never jumped on it and then we graduated and luckily the gallery who hosted the show of the class before us mentioned that they would like to host our show as a tradition, which was awesome, except they were pretty much booked through June, so our gallery show will be the very end of June which is not ideal since city folks tend to spend every waking minute between memorial day and labor day trying to figure out how they can get out of the city for the weekends, but what ever.  At the end of the day it is still a gallery show in NYC and that is sweet.  The drama comes in because one dude wants to show some new work and not his thesis work, and another dude insists we have to show our thesis work, and the first dude thinks we need to make work around a central theme to have a cohesive group show, which is totally hilarious since this group can barely be in the same room with each other without going on the attack, let alone all join hands and sing 60's peace songs while agreeing to all create special group compliant work. Then there are the few who think they're too good to answer emails, so if they are going to be a part of the show or not is unknown.  But I say MORE WALL SPACE FOR ME! if some people choose to not participate which is crazy wonderful. I don't care.  Pretty much my attitude is "Tell me when to show up and how much work I have to bring. I'll be there"  Also, we are supposed to man the gallery during our week long gallery show and I am so in to that idea that I could sit there for the entire week as far as I am concerned.  But, you know, I was not miss popularity at school, so I think there are at least a couple of students who would rather slowly bleed to death than sit in a gallery with me all day.  That's fine too!!  When do I show up for duty?

In other news, because my fun never ends, I had a toothache and got a semi root canal which I am pretty sure I am going to opt to remove instead of going through with the rest of the root canal.  I would like to slap all of the dentists who want to save my "perfectly good" tooth, because they are not open to my personal history of rot and decay and think they should just crown my tooth as if five years down the road they won't be shocked and horrified to discover that the entire tooth is magically destroyed under the crown and I get to pay up $$ again for the removal and implant I could have just had in the beginning.  It isn't like I wouldn't choose to keep my teeth if I had healthy teeth! I'm just trying to not spend half of the rest of my life in a dentist's office by foregoing the waste of time middle step.  But the dentists are like these annoying fucking robots who can only repeat the same SAVE THE TOOTH mantra as if my history has nothing to do with the decision.  I am so frustrated.  I had to remind the dentist that this is my decision and not his to make.  Idiots.  If time froze (except for me, naturally) they would unfreeze with stinging cheeks because I would run down and slap some sense into their frozen faces.

Josh is in a school play and Friday night was opening night.  The director ended up sitting in front of me and I tapped him on the shoulder to introduce me and the husband.  His response to "Hi! We are Josh's parents" was "I love Josh! Josh is fabulous!" so that was great because, as we all know, anyone who loves my kids is A-OK in my book.

 

 

it's a capital letter kind of evening

Last Sunday I woke up in my completely typical condition at the usual 6AM, used the bathroom and decided to get back into bed for some "I don't have to be anywhere today" snuggling time with sweet pea.  I hit the pillow funny and immediately scream/cried.

So, now I know what it feels like to have a pinched nerve in my neck.

When the anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxer I got from the urgent care clinic weren't doing much I got wind of a good chiropractor not too far away.  This newest chiro does eastern healing too.  Except she doesn't work on Mondays.  So Tuesday I managed to get myself over there.  First she had me face down covered in acupuncture needles, TENS pads and heating pads.  Then 25 minutes later she cupped me.  Holy mother of hickies.  I look like I was attacked by a large shop vac.  Then there was a massage, stretching and finally a chiropractic adjustment.  Voila!  I could kind of turn my head to the right!  Kind of.  My skin hurt though and I felt as if I had been massaged by the biggest most brutal deep tissue massager of all times.  My skin was so tender that the sensation of my feather weight down coat on my neck and back was too much.  Luckily it was warm enough that I could carefully and without turning or nodding my head make my way to and from the car without it.  I may have frightened Josh my making him yell CLEAR each time it was safe to pull out of the driveway.

I felt such relief after meeting wonder chiro for the first time that I stopped into a grocery store on my way home.  I got on line to pay just as the cashier asked the man for $9 something to pay for his 8 bags of groceries.  I thought to myself "He must be a super couponer. I gotta get in on that" but it turned out that the was on public assistance and upset that something wasn't covered by his food stamps. So he asked the cashier what wasn't covered.  She knew that some chicken nuggets weren't covered, to which he replied "THEY DON'T COST $9!" The cashier (a very pretty young black lady) started to look over the man's 2 foot long grocery receipt when he snarled HOW DO I KNOW YOURE NOT TRYING TO RIP ME OFF?!?! 

At that moment a giant flashing RACIST (cashier was black) sign went off and I began fuming.  I stepped toward the young (she was SO FREAKING young) cashier, gave her a wink and sarcastically asked how in the world she could call herself a cashier when she had not memorized the contents of this man's 8 bag purchase.  The man got angry at me and told me I could bite him, which was the most repulsive thing ever since he was not a sanitary looking dude, to which I replied I CANT BITE YOU, I HAVEN'T HAD A RABIES VACCINATION  The crusty old moocher revved up the store's handicap scooter shopping cart and burned rubber out to the parking lot.  Then I told the cashier that I was watching the dude incase he decided to make a complaint so I could stand behind him and set things straight.  In the end I was proud of myself for coming to her aid and also for coming up with that snappy comeback right on the spot instead of ten minutes too late.  Lil sis said next time I someone tells me to bite them I should say I DON'T EAT PORK.  Also, NyQuil isn't paid for by food stamps.

The next night I realized I was suddenly feeling much better and also discovered that the reason I had barely slept a wink since injuring myself was not the pain, or not only the pain, but the naproxen induced insomnia.  I can not take a medicine without enjoying it's rare side effects.  I am so excited to go to sleep tonight because I have high hopes that all of the naproxen is out of my system and I can sleep for the first time in 5 nights.

I had an interesting discussion with a friend today about the perfect bedroom heat setting.  We both agreed that 68 is too hot and 66 too cold and that 67 can go frustratingly either way. Also, I think I might have to get a second from the front tooth removed.  I think it's dying.  At least that is my own non-dental school opinion.  It's turning brown and it has become so sensitive to cold that I have to be careful not to breathe through my mouth when it's cold out.  I'm sure not feeling young lately! 

Here is something I never told you.  My first real "job" aside from baby sitting for kids in my apartment building from the time I was 10 was at Georgia Tech, where I spent my freshman year.  They had an arts center in the student center, which absolutely none of the engineering students used at all, and I got to learn all about pottery, silk screening, weaving, etc...  Great job, I played all day long.

me and my woods, evolving

It's been on my mind for a while to write something about the evolution of my relationship with the woods (or at least the woods I have been photographing) in the 4 years I have been in new town.  I don't think I have written anything yet, but if I did, you can either skip this or let me know which post was better written.

When we first moved to new town I made the conscious decision to keep my head down and not get involved with the schools or synagogue or even try to make friends because I was applying to Y@le and I was so sure I'd be enrolled in school a year later.  After Y@le spit in my middle aged house wife face rejected me (the first time) I had two thoughts, the first of which was that I would reapply the next fall and prove to the burnt out (oh, he made such a bad impression on me during the prospective student day) old coot who rejected me the moment he glanced at my application that I was serious about grad school and the second thought was that it had been foolish to work so hard on my portfolio and then only apply to one school. I considered other schools. I was determined to get in somewhere.  There are a few good programs in the city but I was reluctant to even apply as I could not imagine myself hopping on a  train and heading down to the city three or four days a week, especially carrying huge photographs. 

Whoops.  There I went, ZOOM, straight off topic.

So, point is, I made the decision to isolate myself.  Then I had to wait two years to begin an MFA program.  In the mean time, we ended up sending Josh to the teeny tiny trailer park school, and it was located past the dog park people kept telling me about.  I wasn't rushing off to spend time in that dog park because I had situationally made some friendly acquaintances at the fields near my house.  The big problem with the fields near my house is that some of the dogs that walk there are asshole dogs with ineffective owners and even though the asshole dogs were not bothering bear bait the people I wanted to walk with started avoiding the place because their dogs were under attack. So, eventually I went to explore the woods at the dog park and it was love at first hike.  Then the teeny tiny trailer park school cancelled their school bus service and instead of kissing Josh goodbye in my own driveway every morning I had to jump into the car and drive the 20 minutes to trailer park school, so I put bear bait in the car and hit the woods for a hike every day on my way home.  Now bear bait, my old dog love, was one anxiety ridden anti social dog.  On a walk she had one mission only and that was to keep moving forward.  As long as were moving she was fine.  This means there was no standing around and socializing for me. Sometimes I would come upon another dog owner walking on the trails and we would walk and chat for a while but that was about it. I loved the woods.  I loved looking at the shapes and lines and colors and I love the smells and the sounds and watching everything as it all evolves.  I was content to wander around the woods with bear bait my my side and have the woods be just a hike with visual delight thrown in.

And sometimes I would bring along my 35mm camera and take photos, even when my main subject was the family I would take those woods photos and show them to my first (friendly and helpful) advisor.  Then bear bait died.  I couldn't bring myself to go back to the woods I had so enjoyed with her. I finished the first project and needed a second project.  I choose to go back to the woods with my camera.  And I did, and I made some real good work there.  Without a dog by my side I was totally a fish out of water!  I went tot he woods to experience the woods to feel and breathe the woods but other people were there to get their dogs exercised and not to commune with nature.  By standing still taking photographs I saw more people than ever before, but the people were suspicious o me with my camera.  I wasn't one of them anymore.  No one seemed to realize that I was the very same person who had just been there months ago with my dog.  I almost made people nervous with my camera, as if I might be looking at and photographing them.  Sometimes people were nervous about their dogs being near my tripod but I always said "It's fine, I know I am in a dog park, the dogs belong here and I love dogs."  I still got odd stares.  But being there with my camera was about connecting with the woods, not the people.  

Then my book was ready to be published and it is a book of beautiful landscape triptychs, mostly soft and dreamy.  But they are very quiet and contemplative, and the woods is full of tress and plants of various stages of life and death and it is the end stages that stand out in this edit of work. 

Then sweet pea came into my life and I wasn't finished photographing for my MFA project, so I took my tiny new puppy to the woods and tried to photograph, except she would move the tripod by getting tangled with the leash.  I had to test her and see if she would stay close enough without me holding the leash.  And she was amazing!! Best puppy ever!! But I still had that tripod and that somehow made people keep their distance from me.  Then the spring came and by May I was still shooting just a little bit but had moved away from the tripod so I could move faster but still, that came was a buffer. Once I put the camera down two things happened. I became more approachable as the human with the dog and I opened up to the other people too.  When I was shooting I could not engage in conversation, or if I did attempt to chat I suspect it may have been obvious that my mind was really elsewhere. 

Fast forward to this fall and sweet pea and I were making friends! She is a good even tempered player, plays nice with all dogs and I was not completely distracted.  Then the robbery happened and I suggested to the people we hung out with that we start that group text incase someone needed to contact everyone else quickly (you know, incase the guy we all saw who we think was the lookout dude came back into the woods and we needed to tell the honest people of the park to get to the parking lot pronto!) and suddenly we all had each other's phone numbers.  Which led to organized meet ups and eventually coffee's at a nearby coffee shop after dog walking time.  We are also planning a girl's weekend at utopia. And now the dog park/woods has become a happy place of togetherness and the center of my social life! 

 If you read this far then you deserve a peek.  Here are two of my favorite triptychs from the book.

 

 

and

 

 

These two triptychs were also the two that hung in the group show for my graduation last summer.  Enjoy! 

 

unfair thoughts

It's 6 below outside.  I have this little song playing in the back of my head its one and only lines goes "I hate winter"  over and over again and this kind of cruel shenanigans is just the sort of the thing I am talking about!  How is a girl supposed to walk her dog on a day like this?  That's just insane! I've happened upon this existence where walking the dog is the one and only thing I can count on to get myself out of the house.  I really need to walk the dog.

Speaking of the dog, sweet pea, the pee-er of red blood cells is on day three of antibiotics. Let's hope this approach works indicating that a UTI was the culprit behind everything and not something more serious.  I don't think she was feeling herself yesterday, so now it's time to see what today brings.

Poor Evan, I was hoping he would just cocoon himself up in the house for a long long time but he doesn't want to and I am so worried about him.  I do feel like young men are targeted by police, so I am afraid to let him drive long distances.  Also, he wants to visit his friends in college, but I am so scared about that situation too.  I just feel like he has a big flashing light over his head and should be in places where I can protect him, like my own comfy family room, vegetating on the couch next to his father.  It's only for a little while! Well, a little while can be anything when you are my age a short while is an eternity when you are his age.  I get that. I remember being young. Still doesn't change my motherly desire to protect.

Here comes the sun.  Do your job sun! Send warmth!!

Yesterday we were talking about jury duty, because I told some dog friends I had gotten a note from the mailman that I had a certified letter at the post office.  I wasn't enthusiastic to pick it up fearing it was some bad news, like more jury duty, until I realized the zip code on the letter was my old grad school and that it was likely my diploma in the mail!  Then I ran to the post office and got my hard earned diploma.  But, on the topic of jury duty, I want to share with you , dear reader, how when I was young and foolish I did jury duty and when we got into the jury room I was the one who quickly convinced the other jurors that the man on trial was guilty without being considerate enough and we sent him off to jail.  I feel guilty about it all these years later, not because I sent him to jail, because he totally seemed to be 100% he was guilty, but because I did not really do my job as a juror and carefully consider every detail with that group of other "peers."  (We were all long from his peers as he was a middle aged black homeless man who was obviously mentally ill)  I foolishly though that this man would get to prison and have a better living situation than he would have had on the streets.  I also thought that in prison his mental health would be addressed and he might get some medication or something.  I was some kind of special idiot back then and I wish to apologize to the man I sent to prison, though I doubt he is still alive.  If I got jury duty today I would be the most conscientious juror ever.  Other jurors might hate me.  I would not take sending someone to jail as lightly as I took it 25 years ago.  

Back to the diploma.  I wish diplomas came with stars, like Michelin ratings, and the harder you worked the more stars you got on your diploma.  It kind of kills me that I got the same diploma as some of the people who rarely worked in my program.  I wish I could say that I had a three star diploma to their half star diplomas.  It would make it all so much more fair.  I guess I am thinking about fairness a lot today.  Well, that's not going to get me anywhere so I think I'll just go make myself some breakfast to eat while I stare at the outside temperature and will it to rise faster.

phase

In the world of "I'm going through a complaining phase" I will now commence complaining about my back. It hurts, again and beyond usual. I'm pretty sure there is one disc that is in prime position for a total slippage because this morning when I tried to do a pelvic role to release pressure I felt it pinch off and then unpinch again. Now I am kind of afraid to move. I did snarf down some advil, but that isn't going to solve anything. Neither is the pain killer hoard I have going on since people just love to prescribe to me what I refuse to take. It's kind of funny to me how every time I say shit like "Just give me three pills. I'm not going to use it more than the next two or three nights just to get to sleep" They don't believe and they give me weeks worth and now I have enough to kill a horse in assorted different prescription bottles, and in a world where I gave less of a fuck than the the bare fuck I am giving right now at this very second I would completely narc up and live in a pill popping haze for the foreseeable future.

I am so tired of being pain somewhere that I ordered hemp CBD oil off of the internet. I tried to ask Evan if he knew anything about it, but he kept telling me I'd have to move to colorado to get real cannabis CBD and that isn't going to happen, so I just tried to find something legal, hemp and that seemed reputable and figured in the worse case scenario I'll be taking snake oil. In the best case scenario it will be a magic anti-inflammatory and also do something about this freaky possibly allergy induced state I am in thanks to my autoimmune malfunction, which makes me allergic to everything on the planet including horses. (Which still seems completely unlikely to me). The upside I am hoping for is that it seems to help anxiety disorders, and I can't tell if I have legitimate anxiety from living with a husband in such poor health or if I might be tipping the scales into the over the top range. In either case, anxiety is supposed to be managed by CBD oil, so that could be the best side effect, after massive weight loss, that I could ask for.

I'm not the only one feeling less than 100% these days. I noticed that sweet pea was having some curious urinating behaviors so I brought a pee sample into the vet. They called me this morning to tell me it had red blood cells in it (must have had a lot because the vet asked if her urine had been pink tinged). I brought sweet pea to the park where she was less than enthusiastic about wrestling with her friends, and then went to the vet to pick antibiotics. We are going to treat for a bladder/uti infection and see if that helps. On the way home I stopped at the drive through car wash and had a good chuckle over sweet pea's response from the back seat. She was sitting bolt upright and looking everywhere. When I took her out of the car she was wet. I hoped it wasn't urine and that some how there had been ice clinging to her scant butt fur. But then 15 minutes later the cleaning lady walked in and sweet pea left a little puddle on the floor. The good news is that if it is a UTI then she is one dose closer to being cured. The worrisome news is that it could be things way worse than a UTI and I am not going to find out until I give her a week's worth of antibiotics and retest that urine. Hopefully she will not pee in the house too many times before we solve this mystery.

Waiting for the nothing that is something

Do you understand what I mean when I say waiting for the nothing that is something? I am always waiting. I am waiting for no one to need me. I am waiting to own the hours of my day. I am waiting to choose to do what it is I would like to do instead of what I have to do because it is my job to take care of the people around me.

It scares me when people say "Live every day as if it were your last day" because I live every day waiting for the day I get to live all for myself. If I knew that my time was up I'm not sure what I would do. If I knew that my time was up I don't think I would go out and photograph. If I knew that my time is up I don't think I would be printing photographs. If I knew that my time is up I wouldn't be driving over to the printer to talk about making a new book. I would like to be in the position if I knew that my time is up that I could hand all these photographs and books to the people I love and say here remember me when you look at these photographs and books. Remember me through my art. But if my time is up tomorrow I wouldn't be making art today.

If I knew my time was up tomorrow I'd sit on the couch and tell my kids how much I love them. I guess I do live every day as if it were my last day it just doesn't feel very satisfying to live this way .

In the meantime I have barely slept for three nights because I have been having strange guilt ridden anxiety dreams. I'm hoping that my state of utter and complete exhaustion will get me through tonight without waking me up four times feeling as if I'm the worst person in the world.

Last night the one dream i remember involved me taking a spin class with inappropriate gym clothes, claustrophobia, shamefully kicking a fellow spin participants frozen beverage and getting called on it and neglecting Josh who was an infant in a stroller by almost freezing him to death and berating myself for being an awful parent.

Even I can't seem to give myself a break.

stimulated

Another F-ing dog peed on me which is why I am considering hurting other people's dogs.  This dog's owner also admitted to me that her dog had peed on other people and I can not for the life of me why people who own dogs who pee on strangers do not watch their dogs!!!  Seriously, the next dog who even thinks of lifting a leg on me is going to get it! I did swat at this dog but it had moved away and now I am wondering what I can carry in my pocket and hold in my hand when standing in the field incase someone else gets ideas.  I think a taser or some pepper spray might do the trick, but I'm already weird for the "tree relationship" thing, (remember?) so I was thinking more along the lines of canned air or a super soaker.  Also, maybe I should wear a plastic poncho from now on. 

In the world of I now have super sonic hearing some of the time and the moron ENT wants to give me allergy drops to completely destroy my immune system I am in an almost constant state of over stimulated.  It is unfortunate.  Between my super sonic hearing, my usual super sonic sense of smell and the synesthesia I am dreaming/fantasizing about being locked in solitary confinement.  Except in solitary I could probably still hear the sound of the venting system (like right now the hot air blowing sounds like a freight train in the room) so maybe I'll have to buy one of those sensory deprivation water tanks instead.  Or a sauna.  I miss the smell of hot sauna wood.  I totally miss the posh club.  It's been on my mind due to the 20 pounds I have managed to gain since Evan got in trouble and also since I can tell that I am seriously out of breath when hiking around the woods.

I've decided that I just can't fight all of my weirdo idiosyncrasies and why bother?

Pretty much the sound of sports broadcasts are enough to push me over the edge of sanity.  Why the viewers of sports need someone to tell them what they're seeing is beyond me.  And why the broadcasters feel the need to speak in this artificial cadence is just ... beyond again but it makes me nauseated just thinking about that weird thing they do with their voices.  So, since the super bowl is on right now, (and apparently so important that the CNN app felt the need to let me know it had officially started-WTF?) I have sequestered myself in a different room.  The unfortunate thing is that I can still hear both the television and the sounds of the husband and Evan shouting at the television (oh dear lord, why????) and since I left my headphones upstairs next to the bed I am soon going to tip toe up there and stay up there for the duration.

Evan, with all of his new found free time has been going to the gym a lot.  He talks about bulking and cutting.  All I hear is "I have a superficial more than typical 18 year old dude obsession with my appearance"  Sorry Ev. I am looking forward to you getting through this stage.  Because what I would like to hammer into your head is that no one cares about your 6 pack besides you and that you would be much better served spending time trying to be the kind of guy who expresses emotions instead of masking them with machismo. I couldn't care less how much you bench press and every time you talk to me about gym stuff the only thing I want to say is "Don't hurt yourself!" but I don't say anything because then you would never to talk to me at all.

Also, certain despicable presidential candidates make my skin crawl and I am finding this to be the most unbearable pre-primary season ever.  Do we have to let everyone off the streets run for president?  Really?  

 

 

modify

I feel like I could easily slide into one of those people that does nothing but work.  If by work you understand that what I mean is take photos.  The reason why I don't take photos every minute of every day is because I feel totally anchored to this ridiculous house by the disabled husband, the cutie pie dog who I feel guilty about leaving, and by feeling like I have to cook nice dinners for the kids.  Not that I cook every night, but when I don't I feel totally guilty.  I'm the first one to tell others that guilt is a wasted emotion, and yet, here I sit, wallowing in it for things I do and things that are not in my control.  Jeez me.  Give myself a break!  In my crazy head dialogue, which never shuts up, I hear myself saying that once something happens I can photograph all day long.  Once sweet pea gets a little older, once Evan is back at school, once Josh graduates, blah blah blah.  I'm tired of listening to my own excuses.

There is a new and different dynamic at the woods, and it is fascinating.  There are a few younger dogs, and sweet pea likes to wrestle with all of them.  This young band of dogs are mostly owned by friendly middle aged women and they have started to get together for coffees.  I am included in this group and that means that over 4 years after moving to new town I am finally making some friends.  Crazy right?  That took forever.  They aren't the artist friends I was hoping to find (except I think one woman I don't know well is an artist) but they are good people.  Another point of interesting is that most do not live in new town, because the woods is in the next town over where folks tend to be a tad less entitled, and when I say I live in new town I get a look from people, so I quickly follow with "but I don't fit in there." and then everyone laughs and laughs and they tell me they thought I was more normal than your average new town middle aged entitled mercedes SUV driving bleach blonde.  I think DEFINE NORMAL and then I have my own private laugh on the inside.

Folks, I have been gaining weight at an alarming rate.  No pants of mine fit anymore, even the elastic waisted (should not wear in public) velour sweatpants I picked up along thew way are not fitting.  It's terrible. I look like Santa. I wish I could stop eating altogether. Life would be so much easier if I could just quit eating instead of modifying what goes in the void.