My desk at 5am. I will be starting my French lessons in a few minutes! I was very excited to have a reason to get these French Christmas cards - I had some more people to write. My address book is an old Filofax from the Nineties which I have trashed, dumped in the sink underwater, everything. It doesn't have dividers anymore, I have to look up everything page by page. I should check at Office Max for dividers I suppose, they had them a few years ago and I needed them then too. My faithful wreath. I bought the wreath at a store for 3 dollars, and then I added the berries, twigs and tiny pinecones, it's a garland I bought for no other reason than the tiny pinecones. It found a purpose with the wreath.
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My Christmas ornament I made, which annoys my brother. He saw me putting the tree up already, and I was playing the Vince Guaraldi cd, Charlie Brown Christmas, so I might get away with it this year lol. He said my ornaments were depressing because there were too many strings, which was kind of the whole idea lol. Anyway, there is room for his horrible Walmart bargain bag of red and gold glass balls, which my Mom bought for him last year. I let him do the tree his way for three years, but this year, I was just in the mood. I left him his hangers I bought in case he wants to add something to the tree. Actually, I like it when he expresses an opinion, or expresses anything, really. It's just this year I can't take just Walmart balls ha ha. Actually, I went to Walmart this week and saw the same set of balls for sale, only in deep purple and silver. I quite liked them. Our Eighties living room with my Seventies starfish ornament. We don't have lights on the tree, so I can't really get a picture, it's backlit as you can see and anyway, I hate flash usually. My Mom is coming for the holidays though, and she always brings us lights left over from my Aunt's decorating. She puts up 15 Christmas trees in her house, one for each family member, decorated with special colors and themes. It's a big house and it is fun to be there because she loves to decorate and really goes for it. Her wedding anniversary is Christmas Day, so they do it big. So that my beloved French teacher is represented this year. I was taking a moment away from my lessons for a coffee at Kangaroo. On the way home, I decided to look at wrapping paper at the Dollar Store. I was looking at the paper and I looked up and saw this jewel of the east. It's great! C'est formidable! An early vote for France. I made this several years ago, with some other ornaments. It makes me smile.
I drive by my old school every day on the way to the gym and back. When I first came back here, completely mentally ill, I thought I was supposed to register to go to school again. I was confused and I was upset because I was like, I can't face another exam lol. Some time later, I went back to apply to work in the guidance counseling office, and to put my name in for substitute teaching, which anyone with a bachelor's degree can do. I got the idea from remembering a cheerleader who graduated before me. She came back to be a substitute. I don't actually think I was able to put much together for a resumé, and my old principal had retired, there was no one to say hi to there. I wandered the halls for a while, and watched the cheerleaders practice. School buses never change. I kind of hate that. Like it would be exciting if they totally went for something new and a different color. I hate to think that things haven't progressed, it's exciting when they do. In Italy, we had tourist buses with air conditioning and televisions, this was in the Seventies. We could do better here. My safety deposit box at the bank. I have been coming here once a month or so for a year now, as I have been trying to sort out my details in life, as has my Dad. I have always loved it when people had them in films. I imagine paintings and documents and so on. Mine has a small box of unimportant jewelry, mostly gifts from my mom dating from my childhood. And it has the papers to mine and my brother's disability trust. Doing things like this is very good if you are mentally ill, like having to work out even the simple math of balancing a checkbook is really really helpful. I have done well with this and I am kind of glad that I thought of it. That I did, made Dad research a trust for us. I don't know what we would have done otherwise, but we would have had no security the two of us. So I like this ritual. My treasures, including a spare key to my bike lock. I lose these all the time, because time passes in between bicycle outings and then I have to buy another lock lol, because I can find the lock but not the key. In 2013, I got my disability, and I also found a nearby free yoga class. I decided to get my bike in order so I could ride it to the class. It went well, but it was a bike replacing one I had really loved, and had had fitted especially, and this bike doesn't take corners well... I fell off just trying to get to the bike rack once lol. Anyway, riding a bike here is way more dangerous than in London. People here just don't expect a cyclist, and they aren't as well trained at driving. White silk poinsettia at the bank. I still can't believe I can do things like go to the bank in the middle of the afternoon. I'm like, not used to this freedom to do what I have to do and I have to say I love it. I stopped in on my way home from the gym, my miracle drug that is. Today I thought, I'm really getting my chakras in line. Like, you have to really deeply reach your muscles to make sure that your spine and your hips and so on are centered properly. I noticed improvement today, and I added a couple of stretches to my yoga warm up at the gym, which I remembered from my class last night. I just cannot believe it, every day I can improve and there are new ideas, or remembered ideas, it's like great every day, my life since September. I really didn't know I could ever function at this level, even before I was ill, but at 52, I'm pulling myself together and really, it's better than ever I remember. Yay!
After my yoga class tonight. This was my first visit back to this studio since a couple of years or more ago. I was quite overweight then and I really couldn't keep up very well, and I was just not even able to enjoy my muscles, i couldn't feel them. So, tonight was much better for me and I was able to keep up with the class. The class is called Flow and Restore and it is a bit more advanced than the last class I took there, and it was a small group. My yoga mat had dust on it so it is not sticky anymore. On the way home, I stopped into Walmart and bought a yoga towel for the mat. I really hope it works, because the ones they are selling in the shop are $100 lol. Oh well, I am having a really lovely season, and if it comes to it, it will be a nice investment. :) My therapy building, ready for Christmas season. I really don't recognise my life any more and I am so happy. I drive past therapy on the way to yoga, as they are both downtown in the Historic District. It's just I have been so sick and so incapacitated for so many years, and I'm like totally doing yoga and other exercises, weights and cardio, I have a therapist I see every week, I am enjoying already choosing ideas for presents for everyone. I'm happy. It's so crazy and it's really great. I have a food system I can understand and that inspires me, so I think you know, I can keep this up. I really like it. Thank God, and thank you to my loved ones and everyone else, really. I'm so glad to be here. Holiday gift bows on the way out of Walmart tonight. I also bought some ornament hooks for the tree. I will probably put it up this week sometime. Usually, I get really into this. I made my Christmas ornaments mostly, then I added gilded pine cones, sea shells, and from childhood, some summer I can't quite recall, I have a real starfish for the top of the tree. The ornament hooks were just 98 cents. I can't believe it that things sell for less than a dollar anymore lol. My brother rejected my ornaments last year, but if I get there first I can put them on ha ha ha.... Then, he can add his glass ones if he wants. It's just, you know, one of the only things I accomplished in all my time ill, making those ornaments. I guess my brother doesn't see my concept. At the yoga studio, by the door. I really am glad I have chosen yoga. I like all kinds of yoga paraphanalia too, lol. I like the industry around it. I had a Ganesh I found in Kathmandu many years ago, it was made out of a piece of quartz, it was transparent, and someone had painted it beautifully. In one of my episodes, I smashed it. I saw this statue and I thought ok, I have made my peace with whatever it was that was disturbing me. I am really appreciating where I live right now, and I'm so glad I have come to a point physically and mentally that I can enjoy this studio. I thought the instructor was really good, even though she got left and right confused, lol, which I do all the time, so I was kind of mixed up. Oh well, I will bring a twister board next time instead of my mat lol. It would be really fun to do that... And there is a next time, I signed up for next week and I'm so well balanced that I am even entirely fine with the tuition. I can't really understand where my perspective went, but I would totally rather be doing what I'm doing now than throwing my savings at a hotel for a few days. My accountant in the UK said home should be a sanctuary. I think that is true, but really, it isn't your home, it's your mind.
Stepping outside on the way to the gym, Autumn leaves, yesterday. I document the leaves at least once like this all the time, like every year. I remember when my parents first built this property, there was no lawn, it was just sand. My Mom and my Dad and my brother planted the lawn, by dotting it with sprigs of grass, hundreds of dots. I was supposed to help but I got out of it somehow, maybe I was sick, I can't remember. Traffic on the way to the gym. I really like it when the road looks white and the sun kind of bleaches everything out. I haven't managed it yet, but on this road it goes like that in morning, heading east, the wires are white. I haven't photographed it yet because you have to be in the middle of the road, and this road is heavily used. I like that the car is a Spectra. Black and white - I like the sun bouncing off the car in monochrome.
I wrote Christmas cards this morning. No one does this any more, and even Barnes and Noble brings out the same cards every year, minus the box that I, their only customer, bought the year before. I love writing Christmas cards, even though I never get them from other people. I shouldn't say never, sometimes my Aunt in Oregon will send a late one after the New Year, but mostly I just do this because I like to do it. I started it in London, when I was away from the US and friends and family elsewhere. I didn't do it when I first returned here, some years later, a divorce and all that happen, my illness emerged. But, some years after finding a permanent home here at my Dad's, I started writing again. I have to think it's appreciated, who doesn't want real mail? I go long on the postal service, and if people keep journals in stock in the stores I'm very happy. This year, I could write that I quit smoking, joined a gym, and am learning French each day. I was very happy to be able to write some good news, as these are people who know I'm ill and have been wishing me the best for years. It has been a lovely way to see out the year. My French lessons at Barnes and Noble this morning. Mostly I wanted to share a picture of this notebook I found there and bought for my lessons. I think it's great. It is so nice that people are wanting things like this, it's heaven for me.... I have friends in Paris, and one of my Christmas cards I wrote entirely in French, with an apology for the mistakes, which are inevitably there. It was nice to try and compose. I should do it more often. I have in mind to try it here sometimes, with a translation, but I need more exposure to vocabulary. My friend, Sophie Fiennes, has had the idea that I could upload her first film here. I am very excited about this. It is a lovely film, a really nice short, very poetic. It's on U-Matic and so it has to be transferred to digital media, and she is busy working on a couple of projects right now, but I hope to put it up in the next 18 months or so, maybe later if she's not able to get to it. I have also asked an online friend to allow me to put one of his sonnets here. He is a former Marine, who has schizophrenia. He is very good natured about it. He said he one day had the idea that he had won the Nobel Prize, so he bought a ticket to Stockholm. It ended up being a trip around the world until his credit card froze and he was admitted to hospital in Vancouver, BC. He was a medic. He has written hundreds of sonnets, and his chapbooks have commanded as much as $30 in bookstores, used ones. Hopefully he will release one for us. The filled croissants at the British Petroleum store. One great thing about being careful about what you eat, is that you can be incredibly observant and cheerful about what every one else is getting. I thought these were interesting, I have never heard of the 7 Days bakery company. But then, there is a Mexican bakery that supplies some stores here called "Bimbo". lol. Anyway, I thought it was festive and I'm in the mood for Christmas. The Fresh Market has Piroulines, the big one, for $3.99. I might get one for Mom for Christmas. She's coming up for the weekend then. A painting reference from yesterday's trip to the Asian market. I love yellow, and I thought it would be a good exercise to try and paint these because the black lettering will be nice to try. I love the red too. I want to do it when the paint is all quite wet, just a kind of physical exercise, experiment for me. I'm painting small for the first time in my life since university, and I love to paint quite boldly, using a lot of paint. The Asians put so much nice design into everything. This cooking pot reminded me of jewelry, a bird's nest, and a television that belonged to my Grandmother. I had to photograph it quickly, because the security guard was eating his lunch right behind me on this aisle, which was narrow. They let me take some pictures, but they started with "can I help you". I told them it was for my blog. People sometimes don't mind that. This pot has gold accents. Really really nice.
The wreaths at The Fresh Market, and an absolute treasure from the Asian market. Friday is my shopping day, and I kind of look forward to it every week, though every day is great. The display at Fresh Market was great and I left the croissants where they were... The BP is selling croissants with either vanilla cream or chocolate inside. After Food Lion, my Belgian local supermarket, and the Fresh Market, I was driving to the bank, because I want to pay my credit card bill, and I decided to have a look at the Asian market and it was really great. I was so happy to find this shampoo. I feel sure it will help me in my life and work lol.
I got these on the way home from the gym. It closed today at 4, for Thanksgiving. I couldn't finish my workout there, so I got some coffee and came home to finish my floor exercises and then take a walk around the block, which is about thirty minutes of cardio. Walking on the ground is different to walking on the treadmill, and it made an interesting change. I used different muscles. It was biceps and triceps today, and my left arm is aching lol. I am using the smallest weights ha ha. I would like losing fat and more definition, just enough, nothing wildly serious. I just want to get as close as I can to the thirty somethings at the gym... a personal best will be fine.
My brother's bath. I chose this picture for Thanksgiving because it reminds me of every studio I have ever been in, maybe especially one in London. My brother has OCD as well as schizophrenia, and he can't handle sharing the kitchen and so on. This mess is the best he can do and I think of him quite as an artist - he's actually a musician - and I think it's really good that he can think this far, that he can cope. Every time I walk down the hall and see this, I'm reminded of the freezing cold studio I had in Brixton, London, that I shared with a glass artist. Maybe it doesn't seem so, but there is a lot of real appreciation going on here. A normal person would throw it all in the bin and probably move and never look back, but my brother keeps working with these things and has for many years, I like even that one mug he broke the handle off of and still uses, and the other mug says "courage", which my Mom gave to him for his last birthday. Anyway, he doesn't want to share the kitchen because of his condition, so this is his idea instead. I had to adjust my thinking to accept it, but I think it's fine. Some of my prints from my digital camera. I'm thinking of entering some pictures, two so far, in the Plastic Camera show in San Francisco, California. If anyone is interested, google Rayko Photo Center. It is $30 to enter three images, more, for up to ten in total, allowed. I have never done this kind of thing before, but I happen to have a lot of images from a plastic camera and I should have more by the February deadline. Let's see what we can see.
Some of my Aperture Priority experiments. Ok, it was a major, major achievement to make these pictures lol. I was a complete technophobe and I watched the Nikon Fundamentals class three times before I finally did this, after trying to get an answer to an exposure question that was just, well difficult. There was nothing left to do but quit asking and try it. So I tried it. I'm really happy about that. I'm like, you know, seeing that I can maybe do quite a lot of experiments like this, with more interesting subject matter. My question was, if one is shooting something white outside, if you increase exposure, will it blow the whites? I was inside with these, and quite a low light, really. After this I think one has to work quite hard to blow the whites though. It has to be worked out by trying it I guess. I had it done by a DP for my first music video, to please the record company, so I had a vague idea of what could happen. But it was on film, which I don't really know any better than digital, I just don't have to translate a chemical process to a digital one with my um stupid imagination lol. Anyway, I didn't get a pixelly noisy mess even on quite high ISOs. One day I will know with even more confidence what I'm talking about lol. I just have a patchwork of little pieces of information, so I have to keep learning and trying this until I'm not so mental about it lol. Some key words by Patanjali, I think. The photograph to the right is of my uncle's horse, my Mom took the picture.
I signed up for a flow and restore yoga class on Sunday afternoon. I'm really looking forward to this. I have lost a lot of weight since I last went, some wintery night months ago. I can fit in my exercise clothes and I can sit on my legs such that I can do like child's pose, without a pillow. I'm excited. I did not expect to have to deal with my weight so much in my life, but the psych meds have the effect of weight gain, significant weight gain. Now, I can even reach the floor to prepare a fire in the fireplace without feeling my knees will give way lol. It was pretty bad. I just returned home from the gym that I love and I think it will be very nice to have a yoga session I don't have to coordinate myself, though I do that and I like it. It will be nice to be in that atmosphere, it's downtown, and the lighting is nice and the people are nice. I'm trying to adjust my workouts to restore some bounce and flexibility, because weights are new for me. I love them, but I want to make extended stretching movements too. The weights are lifting my upper body quite a lot and I'm not sitting or standing so deeply into my hips, which makes me feel as if I have a waist again. It's nice. I enjoy these classes, it is so nice to be among people again, and everyone is so beautiful. I haven't had this much exposure to people and reality in like, well since the Nineties. It's fantastic. |
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