I have been feeling down lately, and I think it is during these times I want to pull inward, withdraw all my feelers, and make myself invisible… Someone who has 15k photos on flickr can’t really do that. (However, should the federal government or the FBI ever need build a psychological profile on me, they will have ample pre-existing material, and I will have done them a service by being so transparent.)

During the times when I want to hide, maybe it should help me to remember all the times when I have been helped by a stranger’s willingness to “donate information to the Internet”. Usually we think of contribution in terms of technical facts or artistic techniques– but information in memoir form is also helpful. Sometimes I forget how enormously useful it has been in the past to realize that I am not alone.

In some ways, I think my willingness to be share information on the Internet is a reaction to how my parents viewed information. For example, my stepmom believed that all personal information could and would be used against her, and so she guarded it carefully. Even from me. She also snooped through my room and read all my personal diaries when I was a child. Nothing was really mine, and I was allowed no personal boundaries.

A few thoughts on how this experience affects me as an adult:
- Preemptive sharing may be a way of protecting myself from someone taking
- I really understand that information is valuable, and so when I share it, I’m making a gift

When I was in the Scientific Illustration program at the U of Washington, we learned that it’s wise to share information about the “artistic experience” when marketing our art. Non-artists like to understand what artists do. They want to know what the artist was thinking, what their life is like, where they got their inspiration. They want to know how the piece was made and what the process was like, from start to finish. Of course, not every consumer of art wants to know these things, but… I think it’s safe to say that artists of all kinds can increase the value of their work by being more open people. An artist gains much by sharing! And since we’re all artists of some kind… well, you get the picture. :)

Tiny moon, 2010

(painting by Bend, OR artist Mark Rada)

He had bought me a painting of crows and power lines when he was in Bend recently for the national cyclocross championships. I burst into tears. I haven’t done that since he proposed to me. Crows and power lines… two of my favorite things!

If you guys think buying jewelry or clothes for a girl is risky, imagine how risky it is buying art for an artist. But he did it anyway! And I freaking adore it!

Bew hew, I still want to cry whenever I look at it… I don’t know why. I feel humbled by his love.

When I talk to my friends about how dumb/disappointed I feel, a lot of them say things like “you’re being too hard on yourself”. This is so strange to me– especially because I am privy to the original data of how truly, truly hard I used to be on myself. Right now I feel like I’m just setting reasonable goals, and then failing them, without expecting it to happen. That’s not being hard on myself– that’s just a crappy life experience that makes me doubt my ability to plan and succeed at the things I want to do.

One of the very dark places I went this autumn had to do with humility. I learned to talk about things that were horribly embarrassing (granted, probably only embarassing to me). I learned to be more vulnerable. I learned to be vulnerable to people who had absolutely no idea how vulnerable I was being. I started off the quarter feeling like I was learning something about failing with grace– that I didn’t have to be perfect, that I shouldn’t expect perfection in the first place, that it’s possible to deal with the ill opinions of others and just do my own thing…

And yet here I am at the end of the quarter, failing, and feeling horribly ungraceful. My self-image itself seems to be degrading in ways I have never felt before. Some part of my brain feels like I have spent so many years failing that I should just accept that I am a failure and be done with trying, and move on to easier things. Ironically, I have enough practice now to recognize that these thoughts are typical of how I think when I am depressed and anxious, and so I’m not sure if I can use them to make decisions.

Even though end of this quarter has left me feeling truly, fundamentally more stupid, and less capable in my ability to maneuver through life with grace, I suppose I am still better off. I see the “character building” benefits of failure, but I just wish… that I didn’t.. experience so much of it. For the crap I have put myself through these past months, I’d better have a fucking stellar character that provides me with some real benefits in exchange for my misery.

And I can talk and talk to myself, and try to sort it out in language, and end things on a happy note about a silver lining– but that still doesn’t really soothe the deep feelings of failure. I can only assume they will end up going away, the way feelings do when you can leave them alone for a while.

Lot for sale, 2009

I am heading into the last week of finals for this quarter’s Medical Assisting classes, and today was the first day in a while I got to sleep in as late as I want. I had the following dream (much, much edited… if I included all the details, it would bore the living daylights out of you, even as it fascinated me):

I dreamed I was stuck in a world much like our own, but it wasn’t the same, and I wanted to get back home. Occasionally random people would appear in this alternate world, like I had, disorientated and not knowing how they arrived. The people who lived in this alternate world had eventually accepted the appearances as ordinary, as they had been happening for a long time. After my arrival, I had begun to make friends, but I was still a strange outsider (I couldn’t stop talking about all the things I remembered from home, or all the things that surprised me in their world), and I was very lonely.

This world was governed by a distinguished couple, a beautiful man and woman in their 40s, maybe a King and a Queen. They were always accompanied by two albino twins, conjoined at the neck, also male and female. The twins were young, about 6 years old, and they always gazed on the King and Queen with these beatific, loving, innocent child smiles. Those little twins scared some of the residents. I found out that the twins had actually given birth to the man and the woman, but no one would tell me how. The twins never spoke.

In their world, they were under a sort of martial law, and I was drafted to help protect some assets. I was trying hard to keep up with everyone, running drills, lifting things, following orders, but I kept falling behind, and desperately wanted to be back in my own world where I belonged and I was good at something.

I talked to the King and the Queen, and they told me in secret that there actually was a way to get back home, but few people undertook the journey and succeeded. What I would have to do was follow a road, made of yellow brick, for a long, long time, until I reached…

At this point, I interrupted them excitedly. “Wait– I will travel on this yellow brick road for a long time, and eventually reach a big city, where a special man with great powers lives, who can tell me how to get back home?” They were stunned, and I told them that in the world where I came from, there was a legend about this man– and it turns out he is a fake. I told them the story of the Wizard of Oz, and all the dangers that the characters in the story experienced, and then when I reached the end of the story– the part where it turns out that the characters really did get the things they were looking for, I burst into tears. I realized that I might never get home, but I would still probably learn valuable things alone the journey.

There the real plot of the dream ended, with some bizarre arguments between real-life characters, overflowing toilets, and strange animals– the standard– and I woke up at 2pm with a migraine.

The feeling that stuck with me the most was the astonishment I felt when I realized that a fiction in my world was a complete, serious reality in theirs– And the sadness I felt when I realized I may never make it home, but still had to make good with the lessons I learned on the journey.

Embroidered butterflies, Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Chinese Garden, Vancouver, BC, 2006

September 7, 2008: Little Mia having fun playing in the sand at Matt and Melissa’s wedding at Golden Gardens. This wedding was so heart-warming that I went into a depressed stupor halfway through because I couldn’t help but compare the event to my own wedding, mulling over how depressed I was at that time. But this time, looking at their wedding photos just filled me with joy. It made me realize I was quite depressed at the time of Matt and Melissa’s wedding (I think due to family issues). I am happy there is such a positive difference between the me of last summer and the me of the current summer. What an incredibly long way I’ve come!

September 8, 2007: Here I am hamming it up with a bundle of dried lemon balm and some found costumes. Richard took this photo. We were moving out of “deck house” and into “noise house” (our current residence). Strangely enough, these shoddy homemade tutus are still looking for a permanent home. They are on our hearth right now, waiting to be taken down to storage bins in the basement.

September 8, 2006: My silky morning glories were blooming.

September 7, 2005: I went to Golden Gardens with some friends (here Shawna and Katie are shown), and we were cold on the beach. Fall was approaching. We snuggled in blankets.

September 5, 2004: Richard stares out over the water as we ride a ferry back to downtown Seattle. He looks so young here. I believe we were out hunting for wedding venues.

September 6, 2003: Sylwia pretends to be a fish, swimming gracefully in the air. A group of us went to camp at a very civilized campsite (I forget where). I remember there was lots of pavement, lots of RVs, and a water main that was leaking at the base of our campsite, making a huge mud hole. Park maintenance had to run a pump in order to keep it from overflowing, and we were sad because they were rude to us. Eric and Elliot took turns heaving giant rocks into the river, making everyone laugh.

September 10, 2002: I was learning to make wire-wrapped jewelry. I was also trying to learn how to photograph it, which was harder than I ever imagined. I had so much fun playing with those minuscule sparkling gemstones

September 5, 2001: Wow. This is Richard and I on our way to Burning Man for the first (and only) time. We are so young here. This is eight years past! We were very much in love then, as we are now. It’s a happy photo. I can’t believe Richard and I have been together so long.

One year ago I was not taking photos, but I was in the middle of my 365 Sketches project, and I drew this:

Bones, 2008

Two years ago we celebrated Shawna’s 30th birthday. Before Cynthia, Jen and I went over, we took silly self portraits at my house with my camera remote:

Autonomic nervous system, 2007

Three years ago, Scott and Katie got married. I took home some of their flowers:

Centerpiece leftovers, 2006

Four years ago, I went blackberry picking with Jen, and got her to pose for this photo:

Crime scene, 2005

Apparently I did not take photos during the second week of August in 2003 and 2004.

Seven years ago, Richard and I were in North Carolina visiting family, and from this picture I surmise he was feeling a bit angsty:

Richard, 2002

(Oh, what’s that Grandma? No, I told you we aren’t Satan worshippers, and I was serious!)

Eight years ago, I was wearing a crown of mint on my head and kissing my honey:

Kiss, 2001

Summer has been interesting so far. I can’t say that interesting is always pleasant, but… at least I’m finding things interesting in the first place. Even if life is going badly, when I am feeling well-adjusted and highly-adaptable, novelty feels pleasant.

Having known this about myself for a while, I can use it to make a mental check of my emotional state. Depression is something I worry about a lot, having had to drag myself out of it by tooth and nail so many times in the past. If I’ve been wondering if I’m sliding back towards an emotionally depressed state, I can ask myself, “Is novelty pleasurable?” If not, I make a note to keep checking in on myself. I keep Richard informed. If I decide I am actually depressed again, then I have to make that call to my psychiatrist. These few steps make up a seemingly simple plan; it was anything but simple to arrive at. I had no one to teach me these things.

Maybe some day I will have the vocabulary and skill to explain what clinical depression has felt like for me. I hope so. I want so badly for the public to be more educated about depression. In general, our society is not knowledgeable enough to recognize the symptoms of mental illness (except for the really obvious ones you can learn about on TV). We do not seek help for mental issues as skillfully as we seek help when we break a bone. On top of this, mental illness is still a taboo subject that many people don’t even want to deal with at all. For many good reasons, we hide it in ourselves– but we need not.

It’s a frustrating situation to contemplate.

I had a strange experience this morning. One of my cats acted cruelly to my other cat, and I was so upset that I just burst into tears and couldn’t stop crying. What the hell? Usually I regard my cats’ behavior with amusement, even when they do “bad” things, and I try to think about how I might train away the undesirable behavior and encourage harmony in the household. I don’t take it personally. But this time, I did take the behavior personally– not quite anthropomorphizing, but certainly adding creative interpretations– and it was so obvious to me what was happening (this nonstop crying and feeling disturbed), that I realized much faster than normal that this was a flashback of some kind to my childhood. I realized it had to do with something that happened when I was in a foster home when I was 5-6 years old, which is too crude and stupid to talk about even here (where I talk about crude and stupid things as a matter of course).

I guess part of me wants to talk about it, since it seems like the only form of justice my tormenters will ever get, even if they never know it… but I can’t force myself to do it, yet. It is hard to figure out what is appropriate and inappropriate to blog about. I know I have already crossed boundaries that most people would never cross, in sharing personal information, but I do it because I want other people to benefit from my experiences.

Anyway, I have this to say to people who treat kids like a worthless pieces of shit: if nothing else will motivate you to stop but a fear of exposure and embarrassment, think about this: I can almost guarantee you that any kid you abuse will toot your deeds all over the damn internet, in one form or another. If you’re lucky, they won’t use your real name, but it’s not hard to put two and two together in this wonderful “information age”.

In this blagoblog, I walk strange lines between piecemeal autobiography, talking about my art, and just ordinary musings on things that excite me. It doesn’t seem like all those things belong in the same place. When I talk about my art, I consider it business-related. But in the physical workplace, I would never dare talk about my life history the way I do here. So what makes it okay to mix all these things up in a blog? I don’t really know if it is okay. It certainly doesn’t feel good while it’s happening, this slow parceling out thoughts (for an indefinite period of time (to an undefined audience))– it’s unnerving.

Yes– so even though I don’t know what’s going on with me this past week, I just know, “It hurts!” At least I know enough about myself to understand that it does hurt, which is something I couldn’t have told you ten years ago.

Oh, hell. I really did just mean to post some fireworks photos when I started this post. Here they are:

Untitled, July 2009

Untitled, July 2009

Untitled, July 2009

Anyway, I just watched it, and discovered something bizarre… I have the facial mannerisms that I remember my dad having while he sang and played the guitar! We make the same singing faces!

I guess humans learn facial expression by mimicking others, but it’s truly strange how accurate the imitation is, considering that we are not learning consciously OR able to observe ourselves in order to make corrections. This might explain why I confused adult ballet instructors with my non-beginner grasp of “style”, even though I had never taken ballet class before– I just used to watch lots of ballet on PBS when I was really little. God only knows why I loved it so much.

Does this method of learning work better if you’re really little? Does it mean that I’m a very visual learner since I learn best this way?

Here are some of the faces I think I acquired from other people: I learned Dead Sad Face from my mom, Pissed & Bored Face and Contemptuous Face from Alison, and Fidgety & Self-Conscious Singing Face from my dad. (My dad also taught me Helplessly Laughing Your Ass Off Face which is usually accompanied by vigorous Slapping Of the Knee (or punching the nearest person repeatedly, but I think that was my own invention)).

I learned Twitchy Eye Face and Serious Phone Support Face from Richard, but I can’t reliably produce those, yet.

This is my mischief face (I’m on the left)– I made that one up myself early on!

Jess, Errin, Anna, December 10 1981, Photographer unknown

^[1]Is it weird that I use “butcher” to mean “do something horribly”, but “slaughter” to mean “do something really well”?

Additionally, I just finished reading Dancing at the River’s Edge, co-written by a patient (with a serious autoimmune disease) and one of her doctors, and it just pretty much kicked my ass halfway to hell. That book has things in it that I would never want Richard to know about what I go through with lupus… I would not ask my friends to read that book. I might ask my family, if I thought my mother or father would give two shits. Even though it’s depressing, it’s still full of amazing information, and I highly recommend it to anyone in a caring profession who works with chronically ill patients. I will probably buy it for my family doctor.

Although the book was a downer, it was affirming at the same time. Having the most soul-chilling aspects of living with chronic illness articulated in a very astute manner makes them more real. I think I spend a lot of time trying to make them less real, because it is very very lonely. I will go back to the book when I am feeling less raw, and pull out some good quotes to share. It’s full of solid content goodness. I actually kind of can’t believe it was even written– I didn’t think people talked so candidly about such things. Don’t people turn away from pain, death, and disease whenever they can? Even doctors do.