Flowers Again

Can't stop or won't stop? Regardless of which, I have too many garden pictures.

Trying To Stay Financially Calm

// $1 download //

[redacted]

The family budget will have to shrink, and belt-tightening can unsettle one's sense of security. Of course, I am fantastically privileged (fiscally and otherwise) in comparison to most people, but my emotional experience doesn't necessarily reflect that. Change often has this effect, at least on me.

Last night I was thinking about ways to save money. Less travel, which I don't mind. Not eating out as much--that gives me a pang, since I love our local restaurants, but it's not so bad. The thought that really shakes me is giving up my therapist. She charges $150/hour and I see her once a week: the sum ascends to $600/month. That's equivalent to my entire income.

Treatment would be cheaper if I switched to a Kaiser therapist, since we already pay for the health insurance, and copays are usually just $20. But I feel like this therapist, this specific woman, has added a lot of value to my life. She's been helping me be healthier. What if I leave her and all of my progress falls apart?

I am so fatalistic. At least my mom reassured me that I can keep living with them. And my dad explained the rundown of expenses: our most significant costs were things like food and automotive upkeep.

It's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. There is no need to panic about this.

// $3.45 sticker //

// $14 print //

4/23/2014

It feels luxurious to linger in a cafe, sipping my latte and reading a thrilling book. Of course, the ritual is self-indulgent, but not in a way that I react to with guilt. After all, why not indulge the good parts of me? I like the inner aesthete, and the story-seeker.

// Robert Couse-Baker //

This morning my dad asked me what my plans are for college. My head filled with a familiar pressure. I can't do it. And I don't know what to do. I've heard the spiel so many times, about why I should get a degree. I understand it. Maybe I don't think it's necessary, but I understand why it's useful. The thing is, I'm not convinced that I can do it. There's no evidence that I can do it.

I can't satisfy my parents. I can't be an adult. Who put my name on this list? Why am I signed up for this?

Fear Faces

Collage by Joana Coccarelli, described as "gemini" and "the zodiac attack".



Revised bookcover, I assume incorporating a self-portrait, by Angel Breton.



Untitled sculpture by Roger Hiorns. Photos by dun_deagh on Flickr: 1 & 2.

You Cannot Stop Me

I have so many rules for myself. Even when my goal is to lessen my own stress, I set rules: Don't pick at your face. Don't strip your cuticles. Approach exercise mindfully. When anxiety besets you, stop and wait, because the feeling will pass.

If I break one of the rules, if my state of mind fails to be optimally healthy, then I chastise myself. Which doesn't necessarily push me in a positive direction. It reinforces my absurd self-hatred, and the sense that I shouldn't even try because I will always be a disappointment.

// Quinn Dombrowski //

But really, I feel like I'm getting better and better. Today I am more balanced and sane than a week ago, and so on. Progress is scary. The more functional I am, the more I have to lose.

There are some indulgences that I cling to, like binge-watching TV. When I was suicidal in my little dorm room at Reed, I watched episode after episode of Malcolm in the Middle, stewing in misery, ready to break when touched. I remember sitting in that square "modern" chair, facing my desk, with my arms around my knees.

It's different now. I'm different. Things inside of me have moved. It's taken mountains to move them, if you know what I mean. Small knots that I've been clutching for years needed glacial shifts to start unraveling. The metaphor doesn't make sense, but I hope you understand anyway. I feel tender, like a bruise.

Another Pet Picture

This is my dog. Marcus the dirty-mouthed and adorable. So fluffy, and so desperately in need of a bath! He can be an irritating creature, but I love him very much.

Sunbunnies

The black-and-white chubby fluff-lump is Panda. She's the second cutest of our rabbits, but my first favorite. I like that she's crotchety and cautious. You could even call her contrary. Her partner, Rudy, is the opposite. Very rambunctious and enthusiastic. And he's much fluffier:

Justice

// smlp.co.uk //

Law & Order is most fascinating to me when it investigates issues of culpability. When is personal responsibility changed by circumstance or character?

For the past few years, my position on free will has been that it is an illusion.You're born with particular DNA programming, which determines how you perceive and process outside stimuli, thus shaping your progress as a person, as a human psycho-physiological entity. Nature is what determines your reaction to nurture, and you don't have any control over either. They both affect you, certainly, but not in a way that you can manipulate independently of who you already are... it gets circular.

And yet we think that we have the power to decide things without reference to our formative contexts. Regardless of my philosophical position, my brain is convinced that it is reasonable. Accordingly, society is built on the idea of responsibility for one's actions. I'm not saying that it shouldn't be! As far as I can tell there's no alternative. But how interesting, that the entire system of civilization is constructed around a logical fallacy.

// walknboston //

Pretty Will

// Eneas De Troya //

My goal for today is to be a knockout. Not in a slinky Hollywood kind of way, but with my own attitude. There's a certain look that I get, on my face, and a certain posture that I hold, when I feel gorgeous. Exercising regularly seems to help cultivate this sensation, as does wearing perfume. But the most important factor is resolve. I gather the threads of myself and braid them into determination. My aspect tends more toward "intense" than "carefree". But doesn't it always?

Bright wind. Caffeinated breath. Words come easier.

Pink Rose + Aching Toes

This is probably the eight millionth rose photo I've taken in my life. Dang it.

Today is about watching Law & Order (still), helping out my neighbor who has a broken thumb (she's paying me), and making my heels sore on the treadmill desk (my toes don't actually ache, but I had to go for the rhyme). I also worked this morning, but whatever. I'm grumpy about X not texting me all weekend, although to be fair I haven't texted him either.

Time to go make flourless chocolate cake.

Decafternoon

// PoYang //

I'm sitting at a cafe where the lattes are delicious and they cost $4. (Yes, they come with swirly foam like in the picture above.) My second one is being made at the moment. The baristas were happy to see me, 'cause I haven't been here in a while. Well, now I'm back, at least for a few hours. I drove my neighbor to a lengthy doctor's appointment, and this is where I'm hanging out until she texts that she's ready to be picked up.

I spent some time on running research: how to prevent injury, minimalist footwear, etc. I'm wary of overstressing my joints, and want to be informed as I get back into this. But there are fun parts too! Some free mixes to download: 1 & 2.

On the drive over to the medical center, I told my neighbor quite casually that I used to be in the intensive outpatient program. It's a little tricky to admit that. I'm not exactly embarrassed, but raw. Being vulnerable with someone you don't know well is hard. In fact, I find it wrenchingly difficult to be vulnerable with X, with whom I'm intimately acquainted. The rough part is worrying that your disclosure will adversely affect the other person's opinion of you.

Easy Go

// Steve Garner //

I have started running again, and I'm tentatively rejoicing. My fear is that I will crush myself. I want to approach this in a way that is healthy mentally as well as physically. That means focusing on form, on lightness and low impact, instead of distance or speed. It's difficult. My natural tendency is to land hard on my heels and my psyche.

Today I was listening to my body as well as talking to it. Between reminding my spine and stomach to stack straightly, and dutifully picking up my feet instead of pushing off from the sidewalk, I paused the internal monologue to check my status. Where is my breath? Where is it twinging? How do my soles feel about the ground?

Near the end of my course, I came to another long slope, a hill that wasn't a daunting prospect but an exhausting one. Cue internal whining. A different part of me said sternly, "Don't be lazy." I couldn't sort out what was genuine fatigue, a signal that over-taxation was nigh, and what was petty reluctance. The impulses refused to be separated. But I could identify the critical voice, because it was telling me frankly that I was weak and despicable for not charging up the incline. In defiance, I ceased my stride and started walking. I stayed vertical and pranced like a spooked doe in slow motion.

When I was in sixth grade, my class learned some of the ancient Olympic sports: javelin, discus, Greek wrestling, etc. A javelin is a long, pointed piece of wood. My teachers emphasized that how you threw the spear was far more important than how far you threw the spear. I remember a particular girl being commended for her grace, for the architecture of her movement. This was one of my first exposures to the idea that the process is more important than the product.

// Carole Raddato //

I'm a combative skeptic, so my response to that has always been, "Why?" (Imagine the question in a tone of bilious demand.) I've come to the conclusion that neither journey nor destination has any inherent advantage over the other; it's all about perspective. You can choose what your emphasis is. I have decided that it is healthier for me to stay grounded in the minute-to-minute actuality of my life. Not disregarding the future, but not privileging it over the current moment, as has been my tendency.

An example: I am going to take a sociology class this summer. In order to relax enough to go ahead and do it, I must suppress my worries: I'll never get a degree at this rate, so what's the point; I already have a humanities credit; this is a roadblock to becoming a self-sufficient adult... Instead, I want to think about learning, about the excitement of new knowledge.

My goal is to run with delight, to make space for myself between the steps. I want to saunter, well-pleased with myself, instead of rushing and tripping to catch up with an irrational ideal. Try as I might, it is impossible to flee from myself, to race out of this body and beyond this path. As my mother says, "Wherever you go, there you are." I am where I am.

Making & Media

Some collages with pink backgrounds. Sorry for the crappy scan quality! I'm not sure I care enough about these pieces to re-scan them with greater clarity. I hardly remember making the first one or what was going through my mind, but the second is a scribbly collection of hippie jewels that I cut out of a Pyramid Collection catalogue. Originally I was annoyed with how it turned out, the paper crinkled by the glue, but now I kinda like the silliness.

I wonder about collage, about the extent to which it's a genuinely creative art. The process is about creating a new context for the scraps, recombining them the way you would knit together severed pieces of DNA to create a new dinosaur. (That's a semi-obscure Jurassic Park reference.) But I owe a lot to the original image-creators, don't I? That's one of the reasons why I mainly use magazines and catalogues as source material, because I feel more confident that the photographers have been compensated, and that they released their work with the knowledge that it will be separated from them. I also try to thoroughly disassemble the original work, picking out discrete pieces and doing something new with them. I do try.



Recent media consumption:
1) Watching tons of Law & Order, wondering if it's unhealthy to stoke my cynical side.
2) Listening to an interview with Rosanne Cash, highlighting her latest album, The River & The Thread. It sounds beautiful. Being reminded of how many times I used to play "Seven Year Ache". I still love that song.
3) Reading The Red Lily Crown, which is a bit overwrought and rip-the-bodice-open, but definitely fun. This review on (The) Absolute says it well: "I love fiction set in this time period for all the over-the-top disregard for laws among the elite, and The Red Lily Crown has all the secret romance, murder, family backstabbing, and illegitimate children one could possibly dream up." Basically.

Pep & Flowers

Hooray for spring! I love the rich indigo of these irises, not to mention the cheery yellow spots!

I had a good therapy session today. EMDR is still somewhat mysterious to me, despite explanations like "the mind can in fact heal from psychological trauma much as the body recovers from physical trauma. When you cut your hand, your body works to close the wound. If a foreign object or repeated injury irritates the wound, it festers and causes pain. Once the block is removed, healing resumes. EMDR therapy demonstrates that a similar sequence of events occurs with mental processes. The brain's information processing system naturally moves toward mental health. If the system is blocked or imbalanced by the impact of a disturbing event, the emotional wound festers and can causes intense suffering. Once the block is removed, healing resumes."

Anyway, I've been feeling debilitatingly insecure about my relationship. Worrying like I'm back in middle school, about every girl he talks to and the length of time between texts. Of course, my anxiousness has nothing to do with his actual behavior, and everything to do with my own abysmal self-esteem. I gotta keep boosting myself and doin' my own thing.

Sunshine Clouds

// Jem Yoshioka //

Today, I am lazy. It's actually beautifully blue out, more like this than the illustration above.

Last night X and I went to the opening exhibit at SideQuest Gallery (follow them on Facebook!) and I stayed over at his apartment; finally got home around noon. Dad made pizza for a family lunch, which was perfect considering what I've been reading: The Godfather. In fact I've just been workin' on my book all afternoon, while spooning melted raspberries--I microwaved some frozen ones--out of a hot bowl.

It's hard to take a day off. I constantly worry that I'm not doing enough, but I also constantly feel busy.

Fatigue

// Naomi Chung //

// $7 brooch //

Last night I went to bed much earlier than usual, and this morning I did that thing where I turned off the alarm at eight and conked out for two more hours. My mom chided me when I grumped about the schedule-disruption, saying that I probably needed the rest and "sleep is not a waste of time". She was correct, as per usual. It's not like I didn't write about this recently. But my routine is messed up. I hate that; it makes me feel anxious and unsettled.

The negative emotions are a response to self-perceived failure. Once I establish a pattern and get used to it, deviating is wrong, not what I'm "supposed to" do.

Verbing Creatively

Yesterday I listened to Michael Krasny's interview of Austin Kleon (pictured above) on KQED Forum. The two men discussed Kleon's recent book, Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered. Basically it's a guide to artistic self-promotion. Most of the material wasn't new to me, given that I work in social media, but I still felt nourished by listening.

Something that came up during their conversation was the concept of "verb versus noun", as applied to personal identity. It's a play on this perspective-tweaking cliche:

// background painting by Fons Heijnsbroek //

Krasny and Kleon agreed that the key aspect of being an artist is making art, not labeling yourself as a person who does so. Kleon emphasized that a sustained daily practice is what cultivates creativity. It made me think, is there a disconnect between how I perceive myself and what I actually do?

My sustained daily practice is multimedia self-documentation. I'm constantly writing tidbits in various places, and I take a lot of pictures for my style diary. But I have trouble framing that in terms of a conventional artistic discipline. In my head these activities are distinct from "real" art, the kind you would find in a literary magazine or a gallery. I regard my projects as insignificant and insufficient. I yearn for something that feels more: more serious and more "good".

Further reference: Austin Kleon's most notorious work is Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative. He also wrote Newspaper Blackout, a volume of blackout poetry that is accompanied by a blog.

Hospitality

Graphic by Eric Fischer (as far as I can tell). The backstory is somewhat fascinating:

Travel both to 'hospitals' and 'medical centers' in tweets

Lines between where someone tweeted 'I'm at…Hospital' or 'I'm at…Medical Center' and where their previous geotagged tweet was. Brian Mount's doctor said told him that people prefer doctors north of them to doctors south of them.

A lot of people seem to go to Stanford Hospital from San Francisco.

(2158 pairs of tweets through June 18, 2012)

On a similar topic, this weekend I spent many hours sitting by my grandmother's bedside in the hospital. There were hectic moments, but also downtime, during which I recorded my impressions.

// 1 //

I am in the hospital watching my grandmother dying. Oh, she may not perish immediately. She may even pull through this visit to the land of vague, horrible smells and numerous tubes. But I look at her face, and it is remarkable that she has supermodel cheekbones under loose skin. Despite its unanchored sagging, her skin is very thin, thin enough that blood shows through, red in the cheeks and one large blue vein in her forehead. Her eyelids are small, warm yellow, and when her eyes open they are clear. The eyes are a lie; she is easily confused. Her lashes and eyebrows are short, almost transparent, but still she has almost full locks of muddy grey hair, threaded lightly with white.

I feel a great tenderness for her in this state of waning. She is like a fat but frail moon, swollen and yet so vulnerable. Her intestines are distended, the colon specifically. They are trying to relieve the pressure, sucking fluid through her nose and soon through a rectal tube as well.

With tears on her cheeks she told me I was an impostor. I did not insist that I was her granddaughter. If it isn't true to her right now, then it is not true. I longed to reach to wipe the wetness from her face, an ancient desire like a mother letting a baby suck, but I did not want to alarm her. And I wasn't sure she was firm enough to touch.

I told her who I was again, and again she was unsure that I was truthful. My substantiation was a flow of babble, describing my visits to her as a child.

// 2 //

It's hard to concentrate in the hospital. There is a large degree of randomness, and many sounds. Harsh sounds that the nurses don't seem to notice, the beeping of ineffective alarms and scraping as beds are pushed from place to place. I am comforted, though, by the soft creaking of some machine that is nourishing my grandmother's sleep, and by the blue numbers on the display that say her oxygen is at 100. 100 what, I don't know.

My grandmother also moves softly, shifting in her sleep. Her body is quiet for the most part, too tired and old to protest against the tubes and wires that track her functioning. A nondescript tan blanket, like the kind at a hotel, is rumpled around her shoulders. She grips the bar of the bed in her sleep, with a hand on which one finger has a monitor that glows red.

I think of her as a child who has played hard and fallen asleep. Last night she was down so deep in her fatigue that the nurses were concerned that she'd had a stroke. The doctor came in, worried in an abstract sense but personally unfazed. He pushed on her chest and shouted for her to wake up. For a moment she did, naturally distressed, but she sank back onto the pillows almost immediately. Like when you restart your phone even though the battery is run down--the start screen flashes and then lapses back to black.

Now we're in a warm, quiet private room. She slumbers. Neither of us will wake her, but when she rouses herself I will read to her.

In the hospital my attention is fractured not just by the noise, but by the feeling of limbo. We have exited real time and are occupied by constant faint nervousness. Yesterday my dad lightheartedly said to Grandma, "Hospitals are where people are born, and have their broken arms fixed..." The unsaid truth is that many people die here. Yesterday, when my grandmother was briefly in pain, she said, "I feel like I am going to die." I replied with some attempt to soothe and comfort her, but it wasn't a contradiction.

Luckily she hasn't been in pain for most of this ordeal. Scared, confused, and tired, but minimal physical discomfort.

// 3 //

My father is spooning broth and Jello into my grandmother's mouth. Suddenly music swells in from outside, like rich rainbow soap bubbles. I recognize Bonnie Prince Charlie's melody: "The Skye Boat Song". A little startled and mostly delighted, my dad puts down the spoon and pops into the hallway to check whose boombox it is. But there's a real harpist, with that swanlike instrument, plucking and strumming. Soon our turn with this volunteer is over, the musician moves on, presumably to charm some other hallway in the hospital. The melody stays in my head.

Deflated

I wrote this recently, but I don't remember exactly when or what prompted it:

Last Valentine's Day we had a terribly romantic dinner, white tablecloth and red roses. I asked in between sips of sparkling white wine, which of us did he think had more power in our relationship? He smiled like a cowboy and said that he did. I bristled. I don't know what I expected him to say, and I wasn't even sure that I disagreed. But his cocky declaration stung all the same.

We both have power over each other, which we can best exercise by undermining each other's egos.

// Andrew Seaman //