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  • A Jewish New Year

    It's a rainy dreary day, a day off from work. I knew it was going to rain, I like it. I planned a nice relaxing indoor rainy television holiday for Rosh Hashana.

    Growing up in California we did not have these holidays nor the awareness of them.

    I meant to set candles out on all the window ledges last night at sunset but as soon as I got home I lay down for a second and had one of those "death sleeps" where you just go black deeply and wake up stunned at 8:30 PM and it is already fully dark...

    I am not Jewish, but I celebrate all holidays.

    It's a nice dark morning, I hope it rains all day long. Sometimes I love rainy days.

    I wonder if it is that the sunshine might tempt me to go out.

    I planned this but now I feel a bit overwhelmed, the place is cluttered and a mess and I don't know where to start.

    Should I put on a light and start picking up? Should I plop down and put on a movie? Should I go out for breakfast?
    Should I do chores, pay bills, attend my accounting and get it done and out of the way?

    Should I do a yoga session? I have yoga DVDs and sometimes I do yoga... I should do it everyday.

    I have more coffee in the pot, I'm printing out the Times Crossword and taking the next hour to relax. I got up extra early. If I get tired again I will nap.

    I love these 'blank' days. The next one is Columbus day!

    I dreamed last night, a long convoluted dream but no details...

    If I think about it, I feel a bit frustrated.

    It seems a time of transition, a cycle... going through a cycle...

    I'll ride it out.... riding the cycle...

    I just love these Victoria Thompson Gaslight Mysterys, they put you right there in the late 1800s Manhattan! They are fast and easy reads but disappointingly short! This is the 13th and now I'm gonna have to wait a whole nother year for the 14th, I"ll be finished with the book today...

    I have a feeling that one day these will be a movie or a series.

    There is one Protagonist, she is a doctor's widow and has chosen to be a midwife and betray her high society upbringing and parents.

    She just happens to get involved in helping solve murders with a Stg. Frank Malloy, an Irish Police officer, the lowest of low according to Society in Gaslight Manhattan and you can tell, although her skirts are thick, they are hot for each other. The writing is smooth and detailed and takes you right into life in Manhattan in that time.

    Since she is a midwife she gets into the cracks and crannies of the Lower East Side, now, after delivering a prostitute's baby unknowingly in a brothel ( shocking, to say the least ) she is involved in the murder of a woman who had a rescue house for prostitutes....

    This is during a time when ladies swoon and people actually die of "Apoplexy" the catch phrase for any type of natural death that was unexplained and people were superstitious. Ladies could die from a good shock, the rules of society are followed by the high class and the low class are as low as they are today!

    Living in New York City in the late 1800s was really not pretty and an awful experience for a lot of people....

    It talks a lot about the politics of the city at this time and the corruption and bribery too. You had to pay the police to solve a murder and homeless people roamed the streets. Bored society ladies set up settlement houses and helped the poor while their husbands all had mistresses which they knew about...

    There is a lot of room for drama and foul play.

    They are a very quick and easy read too.

    Do you get the day off?

    Are you aware of Rosh Hashana in your region of the world?

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  • Goodbye Summer...

    ...you are just a hazy blur.

    I don't remember much of summer.   I spent early spring going manic and discovering I had "trigeminal neuralgia" and dealing with medication that caused confused thinking and heavy sedation...

    ....oh,  the Spring ended on a rather painful note.   Two solid weeks of nightly headaches from "Suicide Disease" thinking it was a migraine, seeing an ENT and getting my sinuses scoped out in vain,  until the appearance of my dead parents as one single unit encouraging me to become an artist,  and an explosion of artistic creativity literally overnight prompted my physician to encourage me to see a neurologist.

    Anyhow... I am glad that is over.   Struggling with powerful medications and trying to live a normal life is difficult.    Before that I was anemic and began to consume massive amounts of coffee, replacing even my water intake with coffee to the amount of 3 POTS PER DAY which I BELIEVE encouraged the flare up of the Trigeminal Neuralgia...

    Anyhow... that all seems over and here I am,  my dull and boring self again , afraid to socialize or meet people and just wanting to sit in my cozy apartment and read or do crossword puzzles as the Fall sits in.
     
    I am trying to do artistic stuff.  I am much less creative and motivated.

    I feel I shift from hemisphere to hemisphere and at the artistic time I was the opposite hemisphere that I am in now. 

    I used to love Fall the most.   The artistic stuff this past Spring and Summer was very positive,  something good came of it after all.  I did attend a class a The Art Student's League and will so again...

    I have a slight sense of uneasiness about me and I am not sure why..
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  • Fall Happened a Week Early

    in Manhattan. 

    The cold air came down in about 10 minutes last Thursday night and I rushed around and closed all the windows.

    I think I dreamed of the rain,  being in a rain storm.

    I used to say the Fall was my favorite season but I had a good spring and summer, it's a close third.

    I am so exited about the bicycle plan for New York City.   Next summer, says the mayor, there will be a bicycle sharing program in the city like other cities, Paris and Washington and Boston, I believe... 

    I am going to take the bikes for  rides through  the park initially. I don't know if I would use it for transportation but I actually could in the nice weather.  

    I love riding a bicycle.

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  • Shine On Harvest Moon

    The Harvest Moon retains its orb shape as it wanes.
    I see it pass through 3 windows, now seeming to set
    in the west as the sun rises in the east to drown it out
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    I drew a pen self-portrait by force.

    I am writing by force.

    I will leave for work extra early
    by force.

    I have been exactly 5 minutes late the first 2 days back at work.

    If I am late today,  it will not again,  be my fault.  I am leaving early.

    There is something to be said about force.
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  • I Worked Late Tonight

    I don't like working late.
       I do like gaining extra money or extra time off.
     I should do this more often. 
    It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
    I am of two minds.
    I have always said as much.

    I used to work extra jobs and freelance at night all the time. 
    I haven't done it in years.
     I am fortunate and have grown lazy.

    I don't have much going on and am bored.
      I don't feel artistic.
      I don't know what happened.  
    I saw the artist De La Vega over the weekend and he complemented my work.
    I feel so honored.
    I must exercise this gift.

    Writing about it here is ingraining the desire into my psyche.
      I will wake up with the relentless desire to create, draw, write and improve my very existence and the world in which I live.

    I have more than one gift. 

    I have been flighty in this life,  aloof and unmotivated.  
    One might say I have had it too easy,  on the outside.... 

    On the inside,  my life has been a great difficulty, in the earlier years. 
    I have much to be thankful for and few regrets. 
     That alone is something to be thankful for,  few regrets.

    I have also experienced emotional and physical pain beyond measure.
      
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    I am very blessed.
    I have been where few will go.
    'trigeminal neuralgia'
    I saw stars.

    I need to use the advice I have been given.
      Writing here and now is writing.
     I started out not to write,  as I have nothing to say,  but you can see here,  I have written.
      I will attend writing and drawing. 
     Drawing everyday as a discipline needs to be developed.

    This is the same advice I have had for writing and exercising  and anything worth doing.
      Discipline, it is hard to have.

    Force yourself.

    I feel I need to make myself write something here.

    One time I did yoga for six months religiously and I was so flexible and healthy I felt great!

    When I had a boyfriend who went to the gym,  I went to the gym and worked out too... 
    I tend to do things other people do. 
    If I am left to my own self,  I sit....
    I am very sedentary and I have no discipline.

    I feel very unartistic these days.  
      I must be totally in my left brain.
     This is the normal me,  or the majority of me,  when I was manic, or in my right brain,  I was very outgoing and artistic and did a bunch of stuff.  

    I wonder if that will happen again. 
    Now if I do art or something it is like I have to work at it.

    I will attend drawing workshops at The Art Student's League.
      I will finish the college application and go back to school.

    I am bored now in life.
    I don't seem to have a goal.

    Oh yes, there is photography,  it seems like everything is a hobby.

    I feel like an octopus. 
    I spread myself so thin
    "..and master of none"

     I forgot I had so many things to do.
     What was I thinking.
     How can I be bored.

    I feel just like my life is about to start all over again.

    Something is around the corner, I have had this sense before.
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    ....All I have to do is look out the window to see I am blessed beyond measure.

    I am so thankful,  I'm not asking for anything else.
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  • Nothing Much

    Random Thoughts:

    People would describe themselves as objects

    Ted Ward, whom I was in love with, mentioned to this to me, 
    he was a psychology major, each time I would say I felt like a plain old slice of bread.

    He thought it was terribly interesting.

    I wonder whatever happened to Ted Ward.

    It has been raining for 3 days or 4 days I cannot remember.

    I stopped reading one book in favor of

    COWBOYS VS ALIENS because I saw it on the stands in paperback and knew I wanted to see the movie, at some point. 
     I didn't rush to the theater to see it,  movies come on the television screen nowadays.

    I like to read a novel (this is a "novelized" screenplay but it is better than I expected, as far as the writing goes)  before I see the movie for some reason. 

     I don't know why because I am generally disappointed.

    ...oh, now I know why,  because it's always a better story in your head.

    I don't have a lot to say these days.

    I'm on the Plateau of Mundanity and that is a better place than The Valley of Grim, how I wouldn't mind taking another step or two toward the Peak of Perfection

    ...  I'm not complaining.

    I must have had a Manic episode for 4 months.

    I don't remember ever having a "manic" episode in my life so this must have been my first one, however it is possible I had them and did not recognize it...

    I did not spend thousands of dollars but one Dr. told me something that was correct,  I was manic,  now I see it.  I spent too much money on art stuff and had really grandiose ideas about stuff...

    And I did not know I was anemic and was drinking 3 POTS of COFFEE A DAY

     I hardly remember the past four months, I remember a lot of pain and confusion and artwork and existing in the right hemisphere of my brain and speaking with my deceased parents.

    I miss them and the artwork but I don't miss the pain.

    I do not know what to believe about this.   I do believe in the afterlife and life after death and everything I know and read about quantum physics points to this.

    I would say I breached a wormhole and my mother/father found me.

    I say mother/father because the entity was both entwined.

    this makes sense because they are both part of me,    also this seemed like
    leftbrain/rightbrain

    mother right brain
    father left brain

    like I could feel it up there.

       After all,  I have been practicing out of body travel,  trance meditation and many of those things and lucid dreaming, heavily as a teenager and when I was younger and had lots of free time.

    I do not disbelieve it,  nor do I believe it was symptomatic of illness.

    I really wish I could have meeting with Dr. Michio Kaku most of all.

    I believe the spark of life goes on.   I don't know how but I believe it on a scientific,  subatomic,  electrostatic level.

    I was on Seroquel for one month.

    Oh My God what a trip..

    I don't know if that month was FUCKED because of the Seroquel or because of the illness but the Seroquel made me feel like this :

    Now I'm not on it. 

    It was to help me sleep.

    I needed something else to wake me back up so I stopped it and went to something I had used before.

    It gave me horrible horrible neuro muscular side effects where I felt I had to constantly clench my muscles and it also made me stop breathing upon falling asleep if I did not keep the dose constant!

     The neurologist quantified these side effects where the other Dr. did not seem to be aware of them.

    I am in a stable place

    bored.

    I feel like a plain old slice of bread.

    I find myself packing my bag for work

    I pack little medicine bags,  emergency bags,
    in case I get sick at work I have always done this, .. Now I see why.

    "Trigeminal Neuralgia"
     I don't need to do this anymore.

    Now I know if I get this "migraine" I just go home and go to sleep because nothing will work
    (the neurologist was adamant about me not calling them "migraines")

      I feel a sense of freedom.

    I have only had 3 or 4 "headaches" on the medication so far and they have been at most a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 was the worst.    10 is Emergency Room pain.

    I am a different person now.

    A banana,   peeled.

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  • Dental Phobia

    I have it in the worst way.   I was also not raised with good dental habits, as in visiting one every 6 months.

    I am in dire need of an upper denture.  My face looks sunken in on one side because I have no back molars, I had to have them surgically removed on one side.  On the other side, the molar on top is a cap and the bone beneath is very brittle... there is a whole thing with the sinus cavity being directly there and caution about breaking the floor of my sinus cavity when I had a tooth removed on the left.  I am afraid to have anything at all done so I never went back after the oral surgery.

    I need to go today to start a plan for a denture and I worry the mold making  process will pull out the cap and break the fragile sinus floor bone... I am so paranoid.  I think I have a cavity and to top it off  I think I broke a tooth on a butter rum Life Saver last week at the Transit Museum.

    Gosh Bum!   I am full of anxiety.    

    I so hate this....

    Do you have dental phobia?
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  • I am restless today, it is 9:00 AM

    How will I channel my energy?

    As a model,  mother was scattered,  with spherical thinking.   The linear line of thought, a ball of twine tightly wound around an hourglass;  if you listen long enough there would be a point instead of idle chatter.

    I will make a list and set a timer and allow for precious moments to bleed by while the constant 10 minute reminder of what I am doing tries to keep me on track.

    It is a beautiful day of this extended holiday time and again I am torn between attending chores in my apartment and doing something in New York City ,  like going out to Coney Island or renting a bicycle in Central Park.

    It is also the first day of September which is the official end of summer in the minds of us all,  with Labor Day right around the corner...   I am starting a new book.  I could go to breakfast, it is still early.

    My only problem at this juncture is social anxiety, I need to get with people and that is the hardest thing I am finding myself able to do.  I cannot go out or force myself to socialize.  I was invited to a BBQ on Long Island this Saturday and I declined... I am anxious about going out for an evening for a beer or something plus I have no one to go out with.   I have isolated myself and alienated myself from everyone who knows me with social anxiety and turning down invitations.

    I am thankful I am not depressed; there is a bright side.

    I just had to spew.
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  • Shoe Fetish / 5 Pairs of Shoes for My Birthday

    The older I get, the more I like my shoes.   This is nothing sexual,  I just like how they look and then how they feel on my feet.   I didn't really want or need anything except rubber shoes.   I wanted rubber shoes because it rains a lot and I am tired of going to work on rainy days and spending the day with wet feet.  It has happened a couple of times and I wished I had a pair of rubber shoes for those specific days and lo and behold if I didn't pass by the store window and see these on sale: 
                                                                          

    So now I have nice pair of rubber boots to wear on the wettest of wet days,  other than my hiking boots.

    These came in olive green as well and it was difficult for me to decide.  I wanted the olive but these were more practical,  I convinced myself, when in reality it does not matter a whit.

    I told myself, a rationalization which would have made sense to another person ,that the black will go with dress pants.    

    They did not have my size at Shoe Mania of these specific shoes so I had to find them else where.   The second place I looked,  DSW,  Designer Shoe Warehouse had exactly one pair of these in my size and when I saw them I just had to have them out of the blue:

                                                                   

    They are the cutest Keens,  I have a blue pair,  I LOVE KEEN  and I just discovered these same pair in black/grey and black/olive...   if I had seen the other two colors it would have been a difficult choice but this color scheme was what they had and they had exactly ONE pair of size 9,  which is my best size.

    I have a 9 foot and an 8.5 foot and can wear from 8 to 9.5 depending on the specific make of shoe... 

    Anyhow... this was a bit before my birthday but I considered these early birthday presents and besides the rubber, I really just need sneakers... which I still don't have...

    Then for my birthday,  shoes I have seen but would not buy because they were too expensive,  just happened to be on sale.   Three pair in fact and they are:

      I like these a lot.  I don't need them I just like them.

    These are weather and watery too.   I regret buying them now but what it is.

    These I loved a while back but they were too expensive to buy.  When I look again they are on sale,  this specific birthday motivation makes me fork over the cash.

    So now I am a man with more shoes than I need.  I did not need these shoes and only wanted the rubber ones and then of course for "Birthday" I felt like I needed to get myself something ,  I do like the boots that were on sale... so I got these and two pair of pants and one shirt... 

    I did this instead of renting a bicycle and riding around in Central Park or going to Coney Island. 

    I shopped all day and thought about buying a Nook, and E Reader,  I have so many books already here to read... I will wait, I don't need anything and I put money in savings to match my spending, I always try to do that...

    This new moon seems to be a fruitful one..  That is what Virgos thrive on and I am quite the Virgo, all my Virgo friends tell me....
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  • Subway Token / My Birthday

    Well it is my birthday.    I had a private post waiting to post photographs about my visit to the NYC Transit (subway) museum,  here is what I have written and had on hold:

    A few posts back I blogged about how I had found an "antique" subway token in the flower bed in the middle of Park Avenue.

    I was wrong. 

    Yesterday I went to the New York City Transit Museum in Brooklyn.   I learned that the first subway token was minted in, I believe the 1950s... anyhow, not an antique.   Perhaps slightly vintage.   It is the quarter sized token and those were minted in the 1980's so this one is not vintage at all.

    The Transit Museum was interesting and small.  It is a working subway station and there are antique subway cars on the tracks you can go into.  Every once in a while they have a trips you can ride in the vintage cars to Coney Island and stuff,  that sounds like fun.   It was interesting to go into the vintage cars..

    ....Rather than delete it I will just leave it.... 

    I don't feel like photographing the subway token.  There are scads of images on the net and since it is not an antique... Also the trains and to be honest, the transit museum was a bore.

    Today is my birthday.  Yesterday was the big hurricane which thankfully petered out before it did much damage to Manhattan. I did not even have to cut my flowers or morning glories or plants.   Everything was fine.  My roof leaked.

    I don't know what to do today.   I am alone and have nothing planned.  I am off of work until Wednesday and then again so until after Labor day.   I do not travel at this time of year because of the weather and times in the past when I spent rained out vacations,  besides I am a Californian in NYC there is always a ton to do.

    In fact, today I may go out to Coney Island and lay in the sun and sit around a bit.  I don't generally sun bathe because of skin cancer but I'll use sunscreen.   I'll take photos...   

    It is getting annoying to edit and crop the photos.  

    I have ADHD,  I always suspected this.  The neurologist told me.

    She said I had a "Ferrari" brain... I Googled it....  She was at that conference where it was described I guess...

    I have always suspected something was wrong because I can't do stuff unless I have the interest...  there is more to it that that but bla bla bla... at this age what matter is it?

    I may rent a bicycle and ride around in Central Park.. 

    I am not sure.   I am thankful,  there is nothing I want and no where i want to go.  I have everything I want and need . Happy Birthday to me.  My life gets better and I get happier as I age.

    Maybe I'll do art, I don't know.  I have not been artistic.  I am cycling through a non artistic or non motivational period.  I am not depressed and am thankful.

    I am not reading any books.   

    Life is dry and mundane at the moment and there are few if any wants or complaints.

    All my needs are met.     I can say I am content and can not ask for any better at this very moment,  right now.   Except for the faintest feeling of boredom, and the idea that I don't really feel like doing anything,  everything is in balance today.

    I have the whole day to do whatever I want and the storm is over.  I want for nothing. 

    Thank you.
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    ...actually I would like help.  I would like someone who can, to lay their hand on me and provide healing by energy.  I know someone has healing hands. 

    I would like someone to help me with ADHD so I could focus on writing my novel or short stories and have discipline to paint and create and not just do stuff as it comes and have to be manic about it...
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    ...I had 3 wisps of dreams.  I am getting information, or trying to.  This fact came through.

    I bought a new tee shirt.  In the dream the tee shirt had something written on it.  I did not remember upon waking but got the message that there was a message.

    the next night I dreamed I was getting information written across the inside of my forehead across the top,  a message which simply was "now you are like a receiver and are opening for messages and information coming through"   writing this down.

    Last night I had a vivid dream but have already forgotten.   I must remember:

    MINDFUL

    (even when my mind is full)   ( de la vega)   "good things are coming "

    (thank you so much for the message on my birthday)

    Antenna up.
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