I remember when I was growing up I always wanted to be a waitress in a restaurant. Waiters and waitresses are just so good at that. I have had two work efforts in restaurants. The first one was making deli sandwiches. I couldn't get the ingredients straight. They put me in the kitchen washing dishes. I liked that a lot.
The second time I tried restaurant work I was a trainee waitress. I felt I could do the job, and the owner/chef had me follow the experienced waitress he had already hired. There was not enough room for two of us to be at the table at the same time. There were only about four tables in the restaurant. So, after a while, he said I could wash dishes. I was glad. I'm always glad to wash dishes. He didn't hire me though, he gave me $20 and sent me home at the end of the shift. I was glad to have a try at it, but I was nervous. I was hired once to work at one of my favorite restaurants as a waitress, but I just didn't think I had what it takes at the time. It felt great to get an offer though. I still marvel at what restaurants do. And when I am at home I sometimes practice having that kind of ability, waitressing seems to me to be something that is good for the mind, restful, active, like a kind of dance. Having been a lifeguard at the beach, where I spent hours just looking at the sparkle of light on the water, I thought that waiting tables would be a good next try, just to get out of the chair. After a nice North Carolina beach day, I'm thinking of old New York. Here is my knitting. I love that my Canon Digital Camera can get indoor light so well. The lights are off, just a soft light from the window. My Stationers box. I like to sketch. I am really taken with the drawings of Vincent Van Gogh, I have brown ink for that. My favorite thing is to get my Chinese brush out and sign my name with this ink. I just do it for fun and practice. One of my collanders. I like cooking spaghetti.
Years ago, when I first came back here to live with my Dad and my brother, I noticed that I was playing It's the End of the World As We know It, by REM, and I was feeling crazy and sad, and I was aware that I was somehow performing. I didn't mind, but I felt a little stupid.
I bought all the records I bought on recommendations. I had a lot of money for this, somehow, especially in London, but records started to get interesting in the Eighties. i listened to the Police, I remember. And The Cars. Blondie was on the radio. Some of it I didn't understand, but i knew it was urgent. I bought more than 400 albums and cds in my life. When I came back home here, after listening and crying and feeling desperately alone and afraid, I started throwing the records out. My brother argued with me about it. I just couldn't listen to that stuff anymore at that point. I had listened to the Sundays and my Mom startled and embarrassed me because I was listening to it on my walkman headphones. I bought it in London, this cd. Maybe it was secondhand, used, I don't know. I was singing the song as joyfully as I could. I had also bought Vanessa Carlton's cd, the one that had the song about walking home through crowds. I thought of walking to New York. I thought of walking through New York. I thought of going to find Justin at the Chelsea Hotel there. We could start over. I came home from the bank and my printer was out of black ink. So I went online and ordered it from the Canon Store. The Photographic Cyan light for the ink tank was blinking too, though not as much. i tried to order another one of those ink cartridges, but when I put in the order, I was also offered an ink cartridge set in full for quite a bit of money. I decided to order that. Then I accidentally ordered two Photographic Cyan ink cartridges, by adding one. Then I decided to check out. I didn't know why I was kind of distracted and I pressed visa instead of PayPal, and then I was required to put in my Visa Card number on it's own, with the safety code, of course. I then tried to check out and it said there was some problem with my identity or something like that, not in so many words. I closed the window after a few minutes and I tried to order the Photographic Cyan again. It gave me the same identity problem message again. I was excited because the order I had placed for the Photographic Cyan and the full set of 8 inks also came with extra sets of paper for printing my photographs too. I checked my email account to make sure that at least the order I was able to place, the first one, was accepted. I got confirmation of the order from Canon first. I read the letter and I went back to check their website according to the instructions and I could not find the key words they were looking for. I checked My Account, and it did seem to say that my order was taken. Then, I went back and after some indecision, I decided to file the Canon email in the Canon file on my email account page. I was also glad to see confirmation from PayPal that my placement order had been received. I was glad. I took a few moments to pick up my camera. I took the pictures you see here in this post so far. I'll show you some of the other photographs I took in my den. on the left is my British Flag style pillow I ordered from Target Online, a store I like. I was very happy to find this pillow. It came with a set of two. In front of the pillow, is a Food Lion bag. I shop there. I bought the bag, it was a set of five bags, for bringing two and from the store. They are well balanced and they are made very well. But the main reason I bought the bags is because the Store said they would feed hungry families, and I like the children's illustrations on the bags. I have a pension I bought, in England, when my ex-husband and I were just starting out in life with investments, such as buying a flat to live in in Brixton, London. It was in terrible condition this flat. We bought it anyway and were very happy to help out the two girls who were living there. I think there was also a third person living there, but we only met two of the residents. We had a lot of fun fixing the place up. We even put in a kitchen floor, the flooring had been ruined. I was particularly glad to find vinyl tiles for the floor. And I put them in in an irregular pattern on purpose, I thought the black and white squares, which I initially liked as an idea, was more fun to break up into different patterns. I cut them with my Exacto Knife, that I had bought when I was at University. Or, maybe it was one I bought in the diy store we chose. Anyway, I even signed our names in the floor by the doorway leading from the landing. I wanted it known that we lived there, and that we had done our best. The pension was something I suggested we go for. We put money aside in our separate accounts each month. I was glad to save this money aside. When I came to a resting point in my terrifying journey here to my Dad's house, I drafted a letter to Zurich, the bank that owns the pension, to have my funds donated to Oxfam. I thought it was a good choice. I didn't send it though, because I wasn't sure what the tax laws were, internationally, as I was now living in the States. I was kind of hoping the bank would honor the original agreement that I signed for this pension, which stated that I could have a lump sum at age 50, or have the money paid in installments yearly, or even monthly I thought, I wasn't clear on the system they were proposing. The investment firm we bought the pension with sold the pension to another firm. And it may have been sold again, I received a letter from them from an address in Malta. I have saved the letters as much as I can do, given my mental condition. Zurich sent a letter stating that I would be eligible to receive the pension funds at age 55, and that I would not be offered the original agreement, which stated that the lump sum would be an available option for me. I kind of wrote the Oxfam letter because I wasn't sure why the lump sum would not be available, since I really wanted it for paying the US Government, who had given me my Disability Allowance. I was holding on to that thought for several reasons. Concern for the taxpayers who are supporting me and for which I'm thankful, and also because against my will, I was distracted from paying taxes for three years, and I had the money to pay them. I paid my Dad's accounting firm the money they charged for drawing up the papers for me to sign for the second year I owed the taxes for, to make sure that it was noted that I really wanted to pay my taxes and that I didn't approve of people distracting me from that duty. In the following two years, I just drifted aimlessly a bit, though I was comforted that i was buying things that helped my mind a little, including chances to go to university and become a Marine Biology and Education major, which I was unable to follow through because of sickening, terrifying, depressing imagery and information that was presented in the Plant Biology course. The teacher spoke of "Fairy Rings" and the book had a sickening illustration of two medieval people as roots of an unknown plant, as if plants were people. I was really upset and though I liked the cover of the book for that class, I felt I absolutely had to quit the course. I was sad because I loved the Oceanography presentation, what I can remember of it. I only went less than a handful of times. I was upset that a band was presented at a presentation for students, and I was upset to be asked to stop smoking since I was the first person there and the only person there for quite a while for this scheduled event. And I threw my rather depressing blue dream or whatever style notebook in the pond that was there and I was glad. I was sick of writing about Stephane and so on. Imaginary things and scenarios, things that I didn't want or wish for. I'm just not that kind of diarist. The band reacted nicely. I was startled to be noticed at that moment and I was glad they made me feel alright about dumping the journal. I wound up in the hospital some time later, as I was really really raped and harrassed and terrified and annoyed in my apartment, which was near the school. I threw away my wonderful portfolio of APS photographs, that I had enjoyed so much, since Justin, my now ex-husband had given me the camera for my birthday and except for an unexplained smudge on the lens for my Grand Canyon photographs, I was really pleased with every single shot. I also threw out the digital and beta tapes of all the film work that my now-ex-husband had gathered for me to use. I was a little nervous about this act, but I am not sad to lose that work we did. I did not intend to use it for any example of further endeavours. And my ex-husband had said that he did not want to work together again anyway, years earlier in Los Angeles. I climbed in the garbage dump and pulled out a silk sash of industrial material to pull a tree, as much as i could, back into a vertical position. We had had a storm and the tree was leaning into the parking lot. I filmed the storm from my apartment. I just opened the door and filmed the tropical storm. I am not afraid of storms generally, and I just did not have the wherewithal to tape up the windows and leave. I was induced to writing graffiti on the walls of the apartment, and I was forced to take off my clothes and walk down the stairs into the parking lot to put some things in my car that I had bought at an Army Surplus Supply Store. I ended up being taken to hospital shortly after that same day. When i was in the hospital I called my Dad and he said he had had an eviction letter from the Apartment complex. He had co-signed the lease for me and the rent had been paid, although it was very hard for me to pay the rent on the days that I wanted to. I was forced to be late, but within the allotted time. My friend in my hospital room had a deck of what she called Christian Cue Cards, I don't know if I'm spelling it correctly. It might have been queue, I don't know. She showed me how to use them. I began asking questions about Stephane and I was dismayed that the answers were encouraging that I should one day somehow be in his company as a companion or something. I felt ridiculous doing this. Leslie was crying on the first day I met her there. She had an odd assortment of clothes in a plastic bag, it seemed she wasn't sure what she had to wear, or that someone else had brought her the clothes. They were nice clothes. blues. We were talking and she said that she hoped, maybe she said she prayed, that I would come to live at her house, after I told her about the eviction notice. We were just talking generally, getting to know each other and finding out lightly how and why we came to be there in Wilmington, where we had been living, things like that. It was my impression that she had somehow been tortured, and i even worried that she had had some kind of violent boyfriend problem or something. I wasn't sure and she was so upset i didn't think I should ask. I thought if I moved in with her in the room she was offering in her sister's house, that maybe I would be helping her to get away from a bad situation. Maybe with that guy i was wondering about. Not that she mentioned anyone like that. Leslie was very nice to me and seemed worried quite often, when we were living in the same house together. She gave me pretty peasant blouses, she did some craft things for the house, some gourds that were made into lamp shades. She made a shadow box.
She said she had only $800, from a dentist, and that before that she had worked in insurance. I was very worried, because $800 was not very much money i thought. She didn't seem to indicate any other sources of money, not that I asked. I thought how is she going to live here having come out of the hospital, for mental issues, on that kind of money? I somehow thought that she had sued for the money, and that there might not be more, there was no indication of that. The water was disconnected. I was disappointed. And worried for her. I had plenty of money from my alimony that year and I went and paid the $30 reconnection fee as well as the bulk of the bill, I can't remember exactly, i wrote a check and took it to the water building. The water was then reconnected. Since she had given me the peasant blouses, I was looking for something to give and reluctantly, because I hated the design, I gave her a $400 silk dress with flowers embroidered on it. The biggest reddest flower was kind of placed embarrassingly, I thought. So, when i gave it to her, I suggested she hung it on a hanger in the bath room, by the door. She did so. I thought I wish i had another idea for a present but I was baffled generally as to even why I was anywhere buying anything. I had been humiliated in that dress in Atlanta. You would have to see the dress to understand. I'm just thinking how glad I am to have my appointments and my agenda. I took this picture to show that kind of gratitude. I was able to call my Mom this morning and she sounded great, but I think my struggle is kind of taking a toll on her. I took some other pictures this morning. Another plates image. I have said it before, photographing plates was my first idea in photography. I was about 8 when I first imagined it. These plates are the second set of plates I have photographed. They are white, and I like the silver accent. These plates remind me of my Mom's plates. Mom and Dad are divorced now, but this was the pattern my Mom chose for her wedding present. My Dad brought them in for me some years ago. I was hearing voices and I was breaking dishes. So was my brother, breaking my dishes. He threw a dinner I had made on the floor and the pyrex dish it was in smashed all over the floor. Things have calmed down now. I don't cook for myself these days. I just have some frozen box dinners in the refrigerator freezer. I like those. I am trying to count my blessings. Divorce is hard and it takes time and money to keep being able to keep going, which I will endure. I'm just so happy to have a home with my brother. I really like this town I live in. And I even have a chance to meet a friend in a few days in Chapel Hill. I'm excited. This is from a local garden. I photographed it this summer. I posted it today because the weather is pretty. It is already September, and I am looking forward to enjoying each Carolina day. Thank you. I photographed Brandt Lane last Fall. My Mom had come to visit and I went to this garden on a second thought, to just look at what an October garden. I love this neighborhood. It is near the therapy office I go to once a week or so often. I'm so glad to have a camera. It really helps. After a couple of days here, Mom drove me to Cedartown, Georgia, in her Nissan Altima, where she lives. It was rainy a little on some days. And we had fine weather too. This picture reminds me of England. I was so glad to be able to enjoy really wonderful English living and language and so on. Not many Americans get the chance to do that. It was lovely for me and I'm glad to be where I am now, too. At home, I seem to have lost some of my Mom's flowers that she planted. I will think of some ideas. Maybe daisies of different varieties. I love those. Thank you My Keys and an important note. I'm off to the Post Office to send a card to my friend Susie and a letter to my Mom, too. I just came back from a drive to the Post Office. I went to the Farmer's Market on the way home.
There were Muscadine Grapes there, I was so glad to see them. They were for sale. The grapes taste really wonderful, but you don't eat the outside. Hopefully this will in time improve, although I actually don't mind. They taste like store bought bubble gum flavor grapes, but they are real grapes. Lovely. I'm thinking today, and some days generally, of a wonderful trip to Kathmandu. My ex-husband and I went there with friends. I got some good photographs, which I was hoping for. Just a few. My camera jammed. My ex-husband lent me his for a few moments. I have not seen the pictures in years. In a schizophrenic fit I tore them all up. I thankfully have one good photograph, of my ex-husband, walking up some stone steps. I really loved that photographic moment. I found a lovely frame for it at TJ Maxx. I'm really happy about that find, not long ago. A few days ago, I sent my ex-husband an email to his work address. I asked him if he could lend my things to me. Maybe he'll get the message I sent to his email address some day, some day. I no longer have his phone number to call for things like that. meanwhile, I'm waiting for the police to come back with a call that they have found my cameras that were in my apartment in Atlanta. And my bicycle which was taken from under the steps of my Wilmington home. (My new bicycle I bought to replace it is just not such a great fit.) Hopefully, one day I will get a note to come and collect it at the Station, or maybe they could send it UPS. Same with the cameras. I'm also missing two passports. One was taken from my purse in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I was visiting with relatives, while my Mother was receiving treatment in a nearby hospital. The other missing passport of mine is missing along with the cameras, and a Handbag, and Pounds Sterling 5. The there is the matter of the things collected from outside the house here. My Fuji Edeavour, at least two shoulder bags, one a flexible basket style and one a soft leather bag, with a pocket in front. It is a soft orange brown. It has a flower drawn on it by me. It also has blue thread, where I had amended the bag from a backpack style to a shoulder bag. Also missing was a plastic box of Oil Paint, the box is about 9 by 12 inches in size. About four inches deep. And finally, I need my chair, wooden, low seated chair for a grown up. It is a kind of deep seated chair with curved "arm rests" from the back section of the chair to the seat. I had bought if in Wilmington, and it was demanded from the house here in Fayetteville. I had to leave it on the edge of the yard by the road, along with the boxes containing the other things. Tree branches at the Post Office parking lot. Spring 2016.
I woke up this morning and went to get a blueberry iced doughnut and some coffee, but they didn't have the Hazelnut, so I went for my usual Diet Dr. Pepper. I'm getting a lot of pressure about my ex. I still have voices and visions, and it's difficult to go on with my life, because there are so many images of people suffering, and some of them look like people I know, or "should" know. It is really cruel to do that to me and the voice said they only did that to stop me from smoking. I think they did it to stop me from everything other than what they think is appropriate for me. Of course I'm upset to see images of people crying and feeling as depressed as I have been this year, terrified, harrassed, and yes suicidal and most of all as if life is so sad that it is not worth living at all. I can't help it. I haven't been thrilled with life myself. And everything I like, they try to make me hate it. In fact, that was promised to me. The voice said "I'm going to make you hate every thing you ever loved". I'm trying to go on. I have goals and one of them is my health. and I have the idea to travel to the beach and take some stills and moving images of the ocean. People have been unbelievably mean to me. It's just mean beyond belief. I just keep trying to go on after my divorce and I don't, well, I haven't been mean to people about it ever. Not once. I find myself with no friends and just really, the local people in the shops and my therapists and doctors to talk to. I really like these people and I'm completely upset that I see them changing dramatically or suffering generally. I don't manage these businesses, I just enjoy them. My things I made, like the fact that I chose, bought and reworked my wedding ring, are missing and my equipment has been smashed and stolen from me. No one writes a return letter, at least not often. And I just don't even know what to say or do. The offers are totally insane. Go back to highschool, go back to university, go back to working a North Carolina job for some hourly wage with no vacations. They are even pushing me to forget everyone I ever met and even to die or what. I have looked up friends on Facebook which is what my therapist really nicely recommended. And I just am totally terrifed at how that has been ruined for me, for even political reasons. I don't understand anything at all anymore. So, I concentrate on my idea, the ocean and images of it moving and still, and I think of visiting with my Mom, and I think of driving to visit where she lives because it is so nice for me to see my Aunt for a day out for lunch or shopping or whatever with my Mom and myself and any other cousins who might be available who can come. I don't know. I don't know I don't know. All I am told is that no one ever loved me or even liked me and that no one ever will. I really was some place with someone. And I do not understand being threatened and completely cut off from friends and family unless i'm left alone to think and do for myself. I'm 52 years old. People have been so totally mean to me. I'm told I should forget my birthday, change my name, lose my documents. It's totally insane. And cruel. My Ocean Wave Pillows for the sofa. I ordered them this year online when I had the money to fix up the house. I wanted them because I was specifically reminded of my time in California, in the loft there in the Santa Fe Art Colony buildings, where I lived for a couple of years or less. I wanted to think of the Pacific Ocean, and California, and LA generally. I like it there.
I'm particularly thankful that there are some nice juice fruit smoothies available to buy here, at Kangaroo and Food Lion. I think I remember seeing them at Harris Teeter a few years ago too, I only shopped there once. It reminds me of California. |
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June 2017
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