Finally finished this one "Ex Exxon Exec."  5/22/11 

Found a frame at the thrift store, brand new in plastic for five dollars... brought it home and it happened to be the exact size...
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Medication for migraines, "Topiramate"  has helped tremendously.  Wish I had seen neurologist much much sooner...

Can't wait to start art class either next week or the week after. I am getting very nervous and anxious now...

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It is the End of The World again and I cannot decide how to celebrate. I kind of feel like I should be out in Central Park since the sun is out and it is so nice,  also I will avoid being crushed by tall buildings and glass and people...  If I stay home, the high-rise next door is likely to crush me or the river may rise enough to drown me.  Times Square may be having a party...

I may just stay home and paint.   My "sinus" headache is here but it slight.  The Topiratimate or whatever for migraines knocks me out cold and I was groggy all day yesterday after taking the first one Thursday night.  Today I'm a bit groggy but not as much so, although I could easily go back to bed.
  I sleep well, too well on it actually, I could easily sleep all day.

Needless to say I had a panic attack worrying about medical stuff, cancer,  colon, brain, age, yada yada... death and dying coupled with the ghost of my parents and this headache/art experience AND the RAPTURE today,  even though I think it is silly MUST on some level at least the coincidence level be adding to the baggage...

Yesterday I spent too much money on art supplies and saw the doctor and did little else.

I bought 4 canvasses, they were on sale I wasn't expecting it and they come in sets of two so I bought two huge ones and two medium ones but I think I will use everything I have and finish everything I have left undone, or at least work on those,  unless I get inspired,  while I am feeling like it and or before the sun goes down or before The Rapture, which ever comes first. I have the greatest natural light in this apartment. 

What are YOU doing this Rapture Weekend??? 
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Is a very complex and multi-faceted concept with several meanings which are strictly related to context.

That is all about insanity.

Last night I took a Toprimate for the first time and woke up feeling fine.  This is a medication from the neurologist and can be used for several things,  seizures mainly but I don't have those, she gave it to me for the headache. 

By yesterday afternoon I had an intense headache, but this was totally up the back of my head and what I call a "dirty ache" which is different than an intense sharp pain,  I also describe yesterday's pain as a "frying pan shape" as if you had a frying pan on the back of your head, it isn't the heat, but the shape, the feeling is a smoke filled room noxious headache that I attributed to stress and some crying.  I have not cried in ages and ages and I cried yesterday for like 5 or 10 minutes 2 or 3 times.

I stayed home from work.   I had to schedule appointments and needed to sit down at a clean table and spread out all the papers and make a list and hit all the targets.... then I lay down for a while and napped...

I spoke to a Dr. who reassured me and filled me in on some other even more scary stuff and added testes I hadn't considered so now I need a colonoscopy.  I knew I would be told this eventually... BUTT  I am not looking forward to it.

I have been fortunate enough to have been in a colonoscopy procedure like five thousand times in all of it's smelly glory.  I even know the Dr. I have decided I would have do it because of his gentle nature and am prepared to tell him not to let a resident touch the scope...  and watch the turn at the top of the descending colon cuz I think it is severe... don't force...

 ( i think that is the left one, I point and say "look at where the patient is pointing" and never use words like right or left or up or down, to save my mental energy for linguistic process, safety reasons,  I leave those mistakes for Dr.s...

( I interpret for patients who use visual languages and do not hear/speak, read lips,  nor read nor write in general, often have little to no formal education and often have other mental disabilities)...

Now that I have the reality, the idea of someone I actually know doing this is weird... but I have to process this information about myself.  

In fact I took today as well and am continuing to process.

I knew I was overloaded yesterday so at 12:30 I packed a small paint set and novel and drawing materials and got some nice deli lunch and went to Central Park to take care of my inner-self.

The weather did this for me.

I sat and ate and read and drew some sketches of the Guggenheim Museum and noticed the shapes in the shadows which I would have never noticed before.   Then I went into the gift shop and bought a book marker and a nice cut out card of the Manhattan skyline for myself.

After I got home the headache came on and I lay down by 4.  I listened to relaxation therapy cds and when I opened my eyes again it was 8:30PM so I ate and took the meds and just went to bed.

I am up early and feel great.  I already watched an old movie on television.

I have to get out of the habit of Facebook in the morning, I should come back here... I used to be here regularly to vent... remember?

Dear Weblog, hello again.... please stop doing Facebook in the morning.

Start drinking more water,  before coffee.... drink less coffee they tell you it could be healthy...

Xanga in the morning is good.

You:

1. Vent.
2. Edit live so practice proof reading and reediting which you were always too lazy to do with paper or any novel or short story...
3. Keeps you off Facebook so no one who actually knows you personalty will have to wonder if you are insane or not...  none of you here know me personally I assume, except a scattered few,  those I know who know would have little interest in reading this drivel as I drone and vent bla bla bla...

anyway... xanga better than Facebook. .  Facebook actually scares me,  it changes, it does stuff,  it makes decisions for me and it includes people from every aspect of my life in the same venue so I am wary but quick fingered and brain wordy in the morning.  Don't do it.  I already Facebooked even today.. before this and regret it... shit... I left like 5 comments on someone's post and I can imagine how many people have already hidden my status updates....  of the few I even allow status updates...

anyhow... going ....

turn off the news.  do the yoga DVD's you purchased or just sit quietly.

have breakfast early.

I have a Dr. appoint today and that is all until Monday... I am going to leave it open but I have a ton of cool stuff out to play with and list and sell on Ebay, mainly I broke a wooden chest full of my whole collection of Tarot cards and antique fortune telling items and divided it into keepers and spaces wasters/ sellers and I discovered the keepers are a LOAD of artistic IDEAS, ARCHETYPES and ICONNERY.  I LOVE ICONS.

AND the wooden chest provides 6 wooden surfaces to paint on. 

Also, I am going to do this with the same thing with my computer!  I will put ART on the metal SIDES of the computer CHASSIS!  has this been done before,  I mean taking it apart and using the flat metal panels as surface of painting...

anyway.... bla bla bla... less coffee..... tea... more water.....food.... yogurt, exercise..... starting my day...

how is your day?  FRIDAY SATURDAY SUNDAY!

There is a MISTAKEN APOSTROPHE in here, I SAW IT but I CAN'T FIND IT AGAIN and am giving up... I HATE FUCKING APOSTROPHES>>> stop using them... just stop using apostrophies...
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Took longer than I thought.  I need to learn to wait and leave.   Not only to Do, as the great swami said,  but to Be,  as he said,  do be do be do.... he even made a Frank Sinatra joke about it...

I need to stop and think.  I don't know what to do with something like this other than paint it.  Is it right or wrong? Is it finished?  What the hell is it?  Who is it?  Where does it come from and why does it look like that and this is possibly why I need to take the classes. I am so exited I can hardly wait.  I am aware of the social anxiety of going to a new place and interacting with people.  I am afraid of meeting the instructor and worry I will remain afraid of him... why?  The urge to paint and learn and the excitement to actually understand what I am doing and see what I can do and grow into is overpowering the fear of  actually doing all this and just staying home and bla bla blabbing about stuff like I have been doing for the last 50 years.
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I realized over night there is a connection between anemia and several serious illnesses.  I am one step closer to being really worried, I can't wait to get this all over with and find out that nothing is wrong.

I am in denial but aware of my rightbrain/leftbrain infringement....  Thank god I practiced...

Fear is beginning to make me quietly contemplate....  the future looms and I don't weave well....
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I have come to the severe conclusion that there is probably, most likely absolutely nothing wrong with me mentally. 

That kind of fucking scares me... that idea... that thought,  that conviction.....
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...self actualization,  sigh.... nuttin' left but to sit back and enjoy the ride!  Woo Hoo!!
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I edit this about one half hour later.   The above is impossible, I believe,  I think  this:

Student: "So you have actually reached total self actualization and overcome your ego"
Buddah: "I have."
Student: "..but that has to be a lie."
Buddah: "It is, and you are supposed to kill me and not be asking questions, fool"....

I just made that up.... I am not a Buddhist, but I believe this is what it means... to believe in the human convention/ the concept of "achievement" and "Top" being finite is an error in thinking.  To believe another can do this is foolish.  You are your own answers.  They are internal, not from other people.
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If this is true, then the tools of creation (choices and avoidance of forced obstacle  in the physical world and the potential  of the essence of man, consciousness/very weak electronic pulse after death) must actually be limitless...

 wow.

but no one knows what "truth" actually is so it is moot and all up to you and circular to begin with.  The limit of the human brain.  

There is a God. 

Religion is a hoax.
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I found out yesterday that I may have a brain tumor or infection of the brain.   The infection is unlikely because I have a healthy immune system, however it needs to be ruled out.

By COINCIDENCE (there is that "word" again,  oh how it bugs me)  my NEPHEW<  who is approx 10 years younger that I am is having a tumor removed from behind his eyeball TODAY,  in California.  I don't know the details except that it is an outpatient procedure and they are going in through the nostril.  Had I known this yesterday,  I would have told the neurologist, I will have to call her.  I will have the MRI of the brain ASAP... to see what is happening.  My nephew had severe headaches as well and visual disturbances.

I am not aware of any personality changes nor unusual thinking or perceptions with him nor any new talents or abilities, however, Mom suffered from Migraines too so there may be a genetic thing going on.

I am not worried about a brain tumor.   Everything I have worried about in the past has not been true, so I am going to wait and see and not second guess....  my luck and history is telling me now that because of the previous statement, it WILL be a brain tumor... but if it the same thing my nephew is having,  an outpatient procedure can't be that serious unless it has a biopsy of a pathogen or cancer...

I don't worry anymore about things I can't control.  I've long since overcome my fear of death and am just curious to find out about what is going on....

What ever happens, I hope I don't lose my newly discovered artistic talent.

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very cheap set of oil pastels/gouache on paper

Plus I am making some stuff on the parts of an old broken chest.

These will be antiqued over and made to look aged.  The gypsy sign will have lettering... the icon, possibly gold leaf, I don't know yet... I am using bits of wood that I would normally have tossed out, I keep them now to paint on.

these will be coated with a chemical that claims it will cause the paint to separate and crackle,  after I burn and beat them and make them look old... I'm not sure what yet... I'll do something.   Gouache paint is made for this type of use, fast drying and not too mixable, very flat and opaque,  it can be thinner, meant to be used in coats...  used by sign painters for a long time...  I'm trying new materials...

I feel like I may have been a sign painter or printer in a past life...  I should use the old fashioned word...

"I fancy I were a printer or sign maker in the lifetime ago"

I also started another sketch today and worked on a painting I am doing called "Easter, Astoria NY"...

I also got my head examined, twice, by two different medical Dr.s.  both figuratively and literally....

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....I'm not kidding