This type of abuse still doesn’t make me as mad as the abuse of antibiotics by doctors themselves. (Until recently I didn’t know that doctors will actually prescribe antibiotics for viral infections.) It’s hard to blame the public for something they don’t really understand… but doctors have no excuse.

This is actually supposed to be a post announcing the start of a “Thing A Day” project here at the Beemouse Institute. I’m going to be writing about my Things over here, on a posterous blog, so I do not risk offending the casual Beemouse subscriber (no doubt used to my chaotic, haphazardly spaced updates), with regular posts about Things every Day for an entire Month.

What thing will it be today? I have no idea! I love mysteries.

Mission San Juan Capistrano, January 2010

I just have this for now– a photo I came across from the archives.

Luna the Innocent, 2007

She is straight out of a religious mural, as far as I’m concerned.

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

This is a great opportunity to check out the space if you haven’t yet, and also have a chance to see other art at Capitol Hill venues (see a venue list here). If you come, I will show you my babies (I mean photographs) and explain my fascinating artistic process (it involves malfunctioning neural synapses) and tell you about the photos, and I will also tell you about creating plastic spiders with lasers.

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 of my photos has a shot of the cover of the book “Thin” (Greenfield, Lauren, David B. Herzog, and Michael Strober. 2006. San Francisco: Chronicle Books), which is a photodocumentary about girls in an inpatient eating disorder clinic. It’s an extremely disturbing book (especially the photos of diary excerpts), and I imagine it’s highly triggering for people with eating disorders. Today it was favorited by someone with “thin” in her flickr user name, and started to get a bad feeling as I went to check out what other images she had favorited… her favorites were all thinspiration.

Book queue, 2007

Today I discovered that people with anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa have been posting revealing self-portraits on flickr, showing off protruding bones and disturbingly concave areas… I feel so sad and scared when I look at these photos, not only because some of them are very young, but because there are predatory flickr users making approving sexual comments about these photos, praising the girls for being sexy. It’s the worst combination. You have these people with a mental disorder, suffering horribly, and then you have the sexual predators encouraging them and giving them the attention they want so badly.

A psychologist once told me that in an inpatient psych ward, you’ve got to keep the people who think they’re Jesus separate from the people who are seeking Jesus.

I took some screenshots of a few image/comment pairings that I found, which are behind the links because I don’t want to display them out on my main blagoblag page. I used a mosaic filter to preserve identity and modesty of the girls, but you get the idea. I did not hide the identity of the flickr users who commented.

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

The girl in photos 4, 5, and 6 also had posted cell phone pics of herself receiving feeding through nasogastric intubation at an inpatient treatment facility somewhere.

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

This isn’t a comforting list, because a lot of these symptoms also accompany chronic disease, but it’s better to be aware of them and get them checked out, than to ignore them! If you are prone to ignoring your state of health because you find doctor visits unpleasant, you will just have to get over it– take care of yourself for the people you love and who love you back. If you don’t, I will rap the backs of your lazy-ass knuckles with my medical assistant stick of authority!!

The mnemonic “CAUTION” can be used to remember some early warning signs of cancer: Change in bowel or bladder habits; A sore that does not heal; Unusual bleeding or discharge; Thickening, lumps, or changes in the shape of the testicles or breasts; Indigestion or difficulty swallowing; Obvious change in a wart or mole; and a Nagging cough or hoarseness of the voice.

You should be alert for changes in your bowel habits (for example, changes in the color, consistency, size, and shape of stools) or a change in bladder function. Constipation and diarrhea over a period of time could be a sign of colon cancer. Be alert for signs of blood in the stool (it can appear as obvious red blood, or if the bleeding is high up in the intestines, it will be digested and appear as dark/tarry areas of stool). Blood in the urine looks like reddish-yellow or dark red urine.

You should be alert for sores that do not heal (for example, a sore in the mouth, or white patches on the mouth and tongue). Since cancer cells are not bound strongly to each other, cancers tend to be fragile and bleed easily. Cancers may grow into blood vessels, causing the vessels to rupture. Watch out for blood in your phlegm, stool, and urine.

Gastrointestinal changes can be cancer warning signs. Take note of persistent diarrhea or constipation, difficulty swallowing, nausea, vomiting, unexplained weight loss, pain after eating, or frequently feeling full, even after eating only a small meal. Also take note if you have a persistent cough or hoarse throat, or having trouble swallowing. If any of these are chronic, inexplicable problems, see your doctor.

When looking at skin, keep an eye out for changes in the color, size or appearance of moles, freckles, and warts. Other skin signs that can indicate cancer are darker looking skin (hyperpigmentation), yellow skin and eyes (jaundice), and reddened skin (erythema).

Jen’s primitive nasal speculum, 2007

Richard sends mad love to the laydeeez, 2007

Richard is like, “The honies can resist neither my large wooden kraft letters nor my tropical print shirt.”