and it isn't fair!

Lot's Wife. She looked back and BAM! God turned her into a Salt Lick. Okay, okay, a pillar of salt. Same difference. Genesis...I don't know chapter 11 or something. Anyway, in the usual tradition of Old Testament Atrocities, it seems terribly violent and horrible and eventually Lot's daughters have sex with him but this is way after  the mom is salt, so she never knows.
Anyway that story disturbed the hell out of me as a child bc I was thinking but that is not fair. - The pillar of salt part. Sunday School teachers 

conveniently left out the incest part...

Anway, so now it is 25 years later and i'm STILL so angry that things are NOT FAIR.
I'm 7 going "Omg even GOD IS NOT FAIR! seriously??"

So you get over it, I guess. and keep going. And I am mostly grown up and I try to accept that good people get laid off,  honest people will not get hired because their skin is too too dark and in most situations...there is not much I can do about it. Ignorance very often prevails. But some small part of me, when i see something so wrong, is just as indignant as little orphan annie when she witnesses the dog Sandy's abuse.
I feel like a child... I do not want to accept the corrupted, greedy, vain and shallow NORMAL.  I want to  stamp my feet and shout.

I overheard two women at work ripping apart a person who they deemed "ugly." It just seemed so completely immoral and awful to me. I can tolerate a lot of socially deviant behavior, rarely do I pass judgement on a person for a lifestyle choice that does not harm innocent people...But I can not stand the catty, mean, superficial flaky comments like that...that pass for conversation. Is it our American culture? The BRATZ pop diva phenomenon? celeb/media?  or is it specifically the southern pageant culture that i am - unfortunately  - surrounded by. Or do some people just suck at manners?
Bc really, this obsession with "pretty" is pretty gross. and unfair.
and i wanted to say "look lady, it is what is on the inside that counts!!"
but i am pretty sure no one would believe me.

gratitude

Witched and Stitched

Gotta dark spot right here on my soul, ya wanna see it? it may make you grow old la la la la
So one thing i am not afraid of is the dark. My first love is the moon, tattooed on my stomach right beside a stitch with five stripes....one for each member of my immediate family including me. This ink is not supposed to be pretty or fancy...just a symbol that I wanted... that I needed. A stellarscar had to have had a stellar stitch. i need beauty. beauty and is truth. and the truth it almost always has a black spot...that I can't ignore, or look away from. Maybe it's my chemistry, my past or this world, but please don't ask me to lie.

So one thing I am not afraid of is the light. I saw some angels floating, arms up, healed and holy.

If there is a sun (god) so bright, then how can i continue to Hug My Sadness Like An Eyeless Doll?

I need this pain.

"Oh don't be so mello-dramatic. " my T said that to me once. Yes, for real. But it was okay..like knowing her and her coolness and the timing...It was perfect. Like, it might have changed my life.

So strange those moments...that come together. Stitched in time. A seam a crease a moment that SOMETHING happened

In my head i go back, and pull them apart and see if there is anything in there. I am headed straight to that dark corner to see what is in there, straight to edge to see if anyone has fallen over and i'm headed straight to the river to see if there are any snakes....and there are.....

( i took that pic today - it is a Banded Water Snake)

usually.

Im headed under the consciousness too. Like the Jung lover I am, i want to poke around in there..terrified of what i won't look away from.

Then i get bored with myself.

So I make up someone new. Some mothlike and drawn to the light, someone who will leave the darkness alone.

someone with..an apple core star heart made just for you

Margaret Atwood: “Is it necessary to suffer in order to be a writer?” aspiring writers are in the habit of asking.  “Don’t worry about the suffering,” I have tended to say.  “The suffering will occur whether you like it or not.”

Strattera VS Prozac Part II

6 weeks of Strattera. I don't have much of an appetite, I am not eating much, i am GAINING weight.

My mouth is the sahara desert.

My stomach hurts and feels full all the time.

i'm just like wtf, man?

I have no script for life and nothing makes sense and  I feel trapped

Oh wait. Maybe my script is the pharmaceutical insert in the strattera box. :C

ON THE 'NOTHER HAND..... i have accomplished more things, my focus is better, i can do my - not-even difficult-in-the- first-place -  job without

feeling like a wild raccoon being forced to do long division for 12 hours with no breaks.

I am more depressed. not terrible, but more.

Apparently Prozac and Strattera are not friends. They block each other.

in my brain.

sigh. so whatdoido?

somebody somewhere

y      why cant i format my blog omg . so. Ahem. Yesterday one of my best friends made her facebook status update "i remember when i thought i was going to be somebody" and it kind of felt like a cold knife...her words did. I mean we tried. Really, both of us, we did everything right. After college...things just. Things are harder than you ever imagine...unless, I guess, if your family has tons of money or if you  know people....or.... is is just us? I know the whole economy is all screwed up GLOBALLY and all..Is it doubled bc of the horrible condition of our state? Most people I know are too poor to even MOVE to another state.  Do things seem so impossible because we are SINGLE? bc marriage seemed ...well kinda lame and besides there was no one to marry...but finanically I see where dyads make sense. How do you be thankful, on one hand, for running water and food and the chance to be this free and on the other hand think oh my god this is the poorest and 2nd worst (pollution & education & health) state in the UNION and i cant. get. out. and i cant STAY here.We didn't know this. We got art degrees. We followed hearts and dreams and worked really really hard at something that is not valued down here. At all. but we didn't realize..how little it mattered...bc we thought that in a SOCIETY such as ours there should be room for the poets and artists and dancers and theatres to work and survive and matter. We were taught that.....But..I can't find the room.and i sit at my desk for 8 hours a day and i work and i FOCUS and i speak and inside i am SCREAMING and slowly dying and the colors are just running down..all the painting that i am NOT DOING RIGHT NOW are freaking begging me..inmyhead...to bring them to life.and im not complaining..REALLY. im just trying to make sense of it. make sense of who i am.And how i fit into all of this.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of the most important holidays to me... I sincerely dread the winter and coming darkness, all those hours of no sunlight make it hard for my brain...I really feel Like Halloween is a time to get myself prepared for that, and to make it as festive as possible. I spent the first half of the day cleaning - and the second half with two grrl friends...we did the haunted history cemetary tour and watched Paranormal Activity at the local theatre. BUT! the coolest thing is that on the tour, we stopped by a law office that is also the local Historical Society Headquarters and they had a wall full of CLEMENTINE HUNTER ORIGINAlsI had no idea there were so many here in town, and the most famous ones to boot (big chicken) Ironically, this is just the day AFTER a forgery scam in the news. So that was amazing and exciting and I ran into my old Art History Professor so it was good to reconnect with her. I wore my witch had and witchy boots and kept thinking how Halloween is the one day of the year I can dress like I want to and no one STARES (like i wish i could dress EVERYDAY) and there were fabulous costumed strangers roaming about  and there were colorful mums and cornstalks decorating all of downtown.....Today I plan on making oatmeal cookies from scratch to take to some of the professors I am still friends with and then go visit my parents. I never eat the cookies I bake. Still. And I am holding off the loneliness...The air is still warm here but beneath that, the nights are gettin cool ..I am pushing back the cold wind swirling around the trees as they begin to bare their bark bones....Trying desperately to not wish for it to be my bones the cold air clings to. Putting this year to bed...remembering where all the ghosts of me have roamed. Gains and losses.

Sun sets on another year.

The Ruined City

So this is a new painting called The Ruined City. Yes, I am painting the end of the world. WELL.
Okay, It's not the end, really, just the way a really crowded crumbley city feels to me. And this is Louisiana and we know about crumbling cities.

I worked the hell out of the surface to get the cracklies in there and I am pretty happy with them.

Once a prof said to me, Ghost Girl, if no one buys your paintings it is because no one wants to be reminded that they are going to die. Bwahahhaha! Really? I think about it all the time, i always have. Not on purpose, either. I finally stopped obsessing but....i mean i still think about it. But it is only bc i LOVE BEING ALIVE (er usually) NOW. and Life tastes like strawberries and sticky sunshine kisses. But you can't just forget the cold death chill. Besides, i have seen some death and I wont forget it - it would be a dis-service to all living things to ignore it....as it would be to put death above LIVING. So love your life to death, says I. And move forward carrying your battle scarred heart. and sing a song of re-membrance and re-growth. Bc out of the ruins, we will rise.

Pretty New Drug.(and more lotus pods)

Some people dont have proper boundaries. Between themselves and other people or places or events or nature and it just gets so intensely close that the damn sunset might as well be INSIDE your heart. 
like jesus. 
but not really. 
This is the south. I can joke about jesus. and fishing. and dipping skoal and marrying your cousin. bc i do, in fact, work with a woman who is married to her first cousin. But the lady at the local college is a published poet who studied under Anne Sexton. This is a weird, jumbled up town.
Between the plantations, and 2 strips of fast food joints there is the moldy movie theatre and the 18th century graveyard.


The tattoo shop opened near a historical marker for the First American Fort ...located between the 17th century french fort and the spanish fort. and then down the road, near hte newspaper where i work, is where they put a marked down for the Native American burial ground the archaeology students dug up. I pass it on the way to work. Usually while i am eating breakfast. I eat in my car. I always do. Makes it less real. I would rather have lotus pods in my stomach than granola high fiber low fat sugar free all natural what-have-you.


30 Days Of Strattera. That is the movie i'm starring in right this minute. I called the doc to tell her that the sample packet was used up and we needed to plan a new course of action. I had a 3 page report in my head called What Strattera Did To Me and was ready to deliver it. Instead of the doc, i got the receptionist who said, "look, is it working? bc if so, we will just call you in a script." i stammered, "yes but..."  "okay, what is your pharmacy?"
oh yeah. I forgot. No one cares so much about the 2 lists I made; one of pros and one of cons.
"Rite Aid." "Okay-we'll-call-it-in-right-nowthankyoubye."


I understand that my neurotransmitters are just a very small facet of your JOB but, jesus, lady.
This is serious business for me. I dont take drugs lightly (anymore) esp not Big Giant Heartless Corp Manufactured drugs. Okay one more month. 30 more days. We shall see....


....until the lotus blooms inside me.

Lotus Pods

 

For some reason, I am having a terrible time formatting my blog posts.  Ugh. So here is a picture of my new goodwill dress. You like?
• i LOVE clothes. not in a fashion designer model-y sense but in a color texture pattern art sense.

I mean, i don't pay so much attention to what it is "in this season" as much as i get excited about visually stimulating things. like im in a COSTUME SHOP. And i LOVE shopping at goodwill,  I love diggin around in used clothes - I am not a germaphobe at all, but i can see where if you were, secondhand clothes could freak you out. A Lot.

So in the background you can see my new

watercolor - nude and lotus pods. Here it is closer. The design is off, but i was just practicing and ended up liking the figure. And i love those lotus pods. they rattle, and each little seed is is all enclosed in its own little pod.

All Tore Up

I love my Dog. But sometimes.
She is very. very. very.
Bad.
and likes to TEAR UP.

Like this painting that she obviously didn't like.

I am so tired.
I went to a meeting after work today.
A meeting of people who are trying to start a local nonprofit dog fostering/shelter program.

I am participating.  
in real LIFE.


Yesterday,  I went to lunch with one of my old professors and we had the grad school discussion.  Again.
He says, you know, if you don't want to eventually teach,
there is no point in getting the mfa (i have an ma)
See, that is the problem with me and Starting Things.
i don't start things that have ENDS. or GOALS. i just randomly DO THINGS.
and .....end up far out in the empty space between a star, a rib, and a blink of your an eye...
or rather lost in the purple lines beneath my own...

uh...do these bones make my hips look wide?  .....

Maladaptive Universe. congrats on yr starving!?!

Will power is continuing to paint when you know you suck

Continuing to write when you know you are not a writer

And continuing to eat when you think you are big enough

But you know there are people counting on you to keep going.

So yeah, I am working on this watercolor. Practice.

Non stop practice, it feels like.

So yeah, Im like, this is stupid. And pointless.

Buti keep going, I am still in that mode.

My moods, they don’t come and flash and go

They come and they settle and stay a while.

And I drink. And I smoke. And I paint.

Its bad, yeah. I know.

But the thing about addiction… is THIS. Don’t congratulate yourself

For your willpower when it comes to E.D.  – AN specifically.

Don't congratulate yourself for starving..when you LIKE it. when you are addicted to it.

Does anyone congratulate a drug addict for snorting all THOSE LINES???

or an alcoholic for drinking THAT MUCH??? no. NO. But it is the same thing.

resisting food is not -

NOT about having a strong personality..when it is something you are addicted to.

jesus. Does this society's love affair with thin NEVER end? really though.

I LIKED IT.

just like i like struggling to be a good painter..when

 i know...there are only a handful of good ones.

oh well.

its the struggle, right? the struggle for balance and for health.

"No Struggle.

No Progress "- (frederick douglass quote.)

hmm this painting is just a copy from a magazine. i do that sometimes for practice. but it kept looking more and more like me as a confused kid than as a fashion model in  NYLON. so i let it go and be that. ugly dress and all. then i made a butterfly with mis matched wings out of a different kind of paper and sewed that on. MALadaPTIve uNIVersE.

keep going.

That is all. Just keep going.

Girl I Used To Know

miss her sometimes.

Worth...Can you see where i 'm not? APD Avoidant Personality Disorder

Can you see where I am not? A few lines in the book "Wasted" reminded me of this picture I made.  Marya wrote of becoming obsessed with the gaps, the space around her. I identified completely with that.

In an old sketchbook of mine I found a page where I had, at about 16 years of age, written a number. My weight at the time. Over and over I wrote that number. And below it scrawled "oh i have worked so hard for every pound that I am NOT."


How did I end up working in the negative? I am operating in the empty space. The Dead Zone. Go Away.

So yeah, I finished the book and then went searching for books on Avoidant Personality Disorder. Ha. These two events, finishing the book and searching Amazon, are a cause and effect. The twisty thought pattern connecting this cause and effect is quite stupid. And simple. and Lame.

I loved the book, it was just as wonderful as all the gushing reviews said. Yes, this Book Could Save a Life. I became preoccupied with her MANIA, though.
I never read an ED book before. ever. I avoided them. I suppose in a selfish, yes-i -am -preoccupied -with -my- self- self -self- self -way, I wanted to read a book about ME.

A book that ended with a chapter on how to Save Your own Life. Yes, that is ridiculous, I know. God, i thought., Why are there NO books by Avoidants? Why are there not even but TWO self help books on Avoidants? (i ordered them both. used.)

oh. I laugh. I imagine there are countless books by and about avoidants stuffed under mattresses and behind couches and in closets with a matching terrified owner refusing to. Just REFUSING to.
Waiting for the Emily Dickinson story to play out.

(and it won't. ever)

or maybe not. Maybe no one cares. You "chose" to avoid (did NOT) and sitting your life out is not nearly as dramatic or interesting or much ANYTHING as a Prozac Nation type smart girl mania complete with screaming fights in public and blood and starvation and suicide attempts. Nothing for the APD but... Just the comfort of ISOLATION. Refusing.

bc really, you painted yourself into this corner. You blacked out the windows. You didn't even try. You refused to fill out the forms, take the tests, change locations, go to the meeting or talk to the person in charge. You refused to eat, or explain, or even show up. Or return a phone call. So there you go. And here you are.

The best book on APD was over 60 bucks so i could not get it but i'm going to try to get it through the libarary. This cinched it
"Avoidants are not simply afraid of criticism and humiliation -- the only reason for avoidance currently identified in the official literature. They are also afraid of being flooded by feelings they cannot tolerate, and of being depleted should they express these feelings. Most importantly, they fear acceptance as much as they fear rejection because they fear losing their identity and personal freedom. 

Yes, all the literature did say fear of criticism. I refused to identify with that. You can tell me I suck all day. I may agree with you, but i most likely also think you are no better than me. You people have pegged me wrong and i wont hear it. i refuse to admit this may be my problem.

Strange Aches. Unfinished Business

Marya is manic.  Im almost done with Wasted, so I look her up to see what else she has written. Her book Madness, which came out in April 2008, is about being diagnosed as Bipolar.  Everything makes much more sense, now. I was expecting a book about a girl with e.d.'s but as I was reading I actually thought, " can't believe no one diagnosed her as manic-depressive" (that is the old term for it, right?. Oh, but they did. Only it was a story for another day.
Her behavior in Wasted is terrifying to me. Mania is terrifying and fascinating to me bc I have most likely never felt a single drop of it....but it always seemed like a necessary something to counterbalance the EXTREME depth of my depression. After I emerged from the worst deep  and dark depression of my life, I told my T that my brain felt wounded...that i was actually waiting for an extreme upswing..something to knock the pendulum too far over into a realm of the OPPOSITE of depression..whatever that is. Mania, I guess. Instead I documented the time between waking up and having the first 'longing for death' thought. Gradually that time increased. Slowy, slowly crawling back to life. Once I had "but i don't want to die," run across my mind, and was so shocked and excited that I immediately told my T. My brain had only offered me misery and rather gruesome thoughts for so long...the first positive idea that floated up was stunning. An Organ offering thoughts was the only way i could describe My Own Thinking...I didn't feel like I owned my thoughts...My brain was just a sick organ rotting in my skull. Radiating outward the putrid god awful thoughts...
And nothing got accomplished. I avoided everything and everyone. I finished school, I painted ferociously, but i kept it mostly to myself and had shaking anxiety fits when I thought about a Plan for The Rest Of My Life. or Promoting Me. So I did nothing. And I become nothing.
So reading about People who had
a debilitating mental illness
and survived and
even achieved.
gives me strange aches.

Truth

drinking wine.
not drinking wings, although that would be nice.

can't type. never could.
hope will float up, i think it does.

31 years and i figured one thing out
you have to believe in yourself ... u really do.

bc no one else can. What they believe in
is their perception of you...
and it is very likely..well... Wrong.

What goes around comes around, and yeah
i did some dumb things.

ususally bc i was afraid
of the truth.
Can't tell the truth..dont know what it is.
Isn't the truth just whatever you want to hear?

no? oh.

well i have magic mirrors sewn into my skin
and what i am
is whatever you want me to be.
but that spell wont last very long.
and when it wears off..
you say, "i never want to see you again"
and the bad thing...
the bad thing is
i understand.

WASTED

I am reading Wasted…by Marya Hornbacher.(finally) I have sort of avoided it. E.D. related books give me alls ort of weird and conflicted emotions but I was ran across it in the library and couldn’t leave without it.  I was in the library bc I have been reading about the Celts and I picked a few more celt books (one history, one fairy tales) and a movie about archaeology digs of Celtic burials. I love all that..anthropology, material culure…of Others. Not Mine.

My culture is Wasted… And the ADD book self help book I picked up.

{LOSER.} shut up I amtryingtoimprovemyself

So anyway, Wasted, is on one level, something I can related to, and on another level, absolutely maniac terrifying.  The counting, the repetition, and the disassociation, the body image issues I can TOTALLY relate to. The fearless wild child ….I am shocked by and in awe of. It rings true though. All of the bulimics I have known, have been  much more fearless and outgoing…aggressive Risk Takers than the AN.  Surely, that is not true in all cases, but just the few I have know. 

The An part of me is absolutely terrified. Of. Everything. Any Change is upsetting and makes me quite aware that we are all going to die. It took an act of God to move across town… All the strength I had. It was like closing my eyes running off the edge of something. In reality it was. NO. BIG. DEAL.  So I find her experiences of fighting, drugs and sex and trouble to be absolutely mystifying.

I enjoy her writing style, how it flows almost poetry-like and has the rhythm  of a voice.

Gazing at her face on the cover, at her body..i wonder what it be like to talk to her…..to have known her in 1984, 1995, now.

What kind of brain does it take to make long series of cohesive complete sentences (NO FRAGMENTS) and express present tense thoughts about painful past tense.events?

A good one, it seems like.

The book is not a trigger so far, although I secretly hoped it would be. There I go, setting traps inside myself. Another Protective Chain Link, a Wall, a Silent little Cage. So besides just enjoying the artistic merit of her words, Maybe I'll learn something from this book. Somethin’ about getting free from this wasted cage.

Stars shine inside

So sometimes I start a post and then it just meanders off into various bits of poems and scraps of descriptions and then i read it later an think. Oh! Well that doesn't make much sense.

at all. Nice.

So i LOST my medicine. I had it all neat and tucked away in a little travel bag in my huge giant purse full of random necessities and ...at some point I noticed it was gone and i could not really remember the last time i even had it. So after 3 days of searching I began to feel strange. Not Effexor strange which was THE WORST ever. (effexor withdrawal felt like having your brain wrapped in tin foil and then microwaved) This fluoxetine withdrawal was not that bad but it was painful and so ...confusing everything got much more confusing. and then on my way to the pharmacy to get some more (i finally gave up looking) i lost the prescription ...so i search and finally find it in the recycle bin. and then you know, it goes on like that. Things are just lost and I screwed up all this stuff at work and my brain felt off kilter.
is this how it is gonna be? forever? ugh meds are scary.
This picture is about once..for a while i was obsessed with this pond and made up stories about the creatures that might live there and i made up a story about a woman who had a fish baby  - like a little mer baby and she had to keep it in the pond. It was magical-sad....like a curse and a blessing. I think i drew the baby I will have to find it. anyway. god my head hurts.
My right brain. it loves me much more than the left.

MEDICINE
So the doctor i see, she gave me tons of klonipin and stuff -  along time ago. and trazadone. and it just sedated me to no end. Really, i slept through like 3 years of college. I can't focus. Sedatives make me even MORE confused and unable to focus and i'm still anxious!! i'm just unconscious,too. So finally I tell her, you know, I don't want this. I'm not taking it..anymore.  And most of the antiDs I took didn't work, either She never wanted to give me flouxetine bc she was afraid i would lose weight. And even though i read about it and thought it sounded promising, I was afraid to ask about it bc I was afraid she would think I WANTED it. for the possible weight loss side effect. Well, finally there was nothing else to try, so she gives me flouxetine and  - IT WORKS. better than any antiD ever worked. Really. IT CHANGED MY LIFE. (and I didn't lose weight bc I eat on a plan pretty much. Appetite does not mean much, you know.) So is discussing meds the most awkward and weird thing for everyone? bc i really really hate it. Okay I am off to feed the right brain...and then to sleep.

altered altar

I have been working on this for like five years. Okaaay more like 5 months...I work on it and then toss it aside and then come back to it. I have sculptures of most of my paintings. That headless body. In a box in a Coffin, free standing or slumped. Broken pieces of them litter my house. a torso in a flower pot -  she is not Growing by the aloe vera  - just BEING there. She is.

My first sculpture class. I made a figure. Headless armless, jagged bone shoulders and hips with a fleshy belly and thighs. She was miniature, I was getting read to make a few life size ones. 

I grew. Abnormally. Attached. I carried her everywhere. In my purse. In my backpack. Placed her on the car seat beside me. She got chipped. I drew her in various locations, in various light.

I was AN "recovered" at this point. Or rather, i had traded one illness for a few other minor addictions....but physically i was all healed and i was emotionally healing

some trauma

with 

some art.

Every figure i drew, every figure i sculpted...

took me a little farther from that fucked up body

and all those fucked up things that happened.

Sympathetic magic, my love.

i guess.

so see that is why i am real pissed off about

and refuse to forget about

that girl that copied my paintings.

bc she doesn't know what they MEAN.

she just stole the images.

Which, of course, is morally reprehensible

(and unprofessional) for an ARTIST

and on the level of basic humanity and decency is beyond morally reprehensible but..?

People told me that imitation is flattery but i disagree.

inspiration is flattery. I was inspired by several of the women i went to school with.

The person that breaks into your house and steals your TV is not complimenting you

for having great taste in electronics. They are disrespecting all of your rights and taking your stuff bc they want to.....

and that is totes lame.

but whatever right. Art therapy is what I am thinking about here. I am also thinking about  my refusal to compromise. bc in some situations I know I would have more friends and more...money even and all that shit if i would let go of some pretty hardcore beliefs i have about loyalty and friendship and honor and truth and ....

but i wont.

So should i? Alter my altar? Change to whom I devote the deepest part of me?

Well if I am a witch, I'm a good witch. Devoted to the green growing things and moonlight.

Bloodshed with good intentions.

That bone goddess and the Hunger pit

are not for worshipping. They were for overcoming.