Warm Verbal Tea

Disappointments

2011-09-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

Not that I have abandoned this blog, far from it. It's simply that I do not feel the same motivation that I had for writing that I once did. I know that isn't much of an excuse, but at least it is an explanation.

It's somewhat fair to say that I been feeling poorly, but perhaps that is a bit of an understatement too. I've been grappling with a lot of issues related to my self-concept. It feels as if I am falling into a direction in life that I wouldn't have chosen for myself if I could have avoided it. It seems that, for the rest of my life, I will be as poor as ever. I have far too many debts from school, a tremendous burden that will sap the opportunities for a life with simple pleasures: a wife, a home, a family, etc. My naivete was extreme in my college days, but there was no-one to tell me where I was headed. And of course, I might have not listened anyway.

I feel a bit upset when I consider how a future life of poverty was incurred as a result of my striving for something better (a PhD and professorship), and then failing at it because of my ignorance of myself, my difficult and (also failed) romantic experiences, and seeming inability to endure it all. But there it is. It cannot be bargained with or changed. It was real and it happened. Therefore, I must continue on and face consequences of actions that I did not know I had chosen at the time.

I am trying to make the best of it. One of the things I most frequently hear from friends and family is that "life is what you make of it." True enough to provide some hope and thereby small measure of comfort. And yet, while one can try to improve life and circumstances to a degree, no-one seems to acknowledge its severe limitations. Life restricts opportunity as much as it provides it. The difficult life lesson is learning how to accept its restrictions with calm equanimity and be unperturbed in the face of failures.

I wonder how people who experience a persistent and oppressive injustice in their life learn to cope with the outside forces that prevent them from attaining their visions of comforts and happinesses. I should consider myself lucky that I do not experience racism, persecution, hunger, and etc. that many people the world over do. I suspect that the key is to ignore the restrictions imposed from the outside and learn to be content with the life one leads on the inside, but as with everything, knowing something isn't the same as doing it. Or in my case, feeling it.

I hope to continue on my internal path of change, so that I conform my behavior to my vision of a better and happier self. Faced with frustrations, depressions, irritations, and unhappiness it seems hard for me to get there. I will not, and cannot ignore restrictions. Most modern folks I talk with say this is the way to get happy, but really they seem to be advocating blindness and ignorance. There should be a richer path of acknowledging injustice, pain, and disappointment without it sending your emotions careening over the edge into an expanding void. I grasp at the solid iron bar of calm acceptance, but it still seems a little out of reach.

Inflated Pride

2011-02-28T23:47:00.001-08:00

On my bed are two balloons: one, blue, and the other green. I bought them a couple of years ago in one of those dollar store packages of balloons you get at the grocery store or Walmart. Most people buy balloons for some party giving occasion, but I bought them because I intended to use them for a photoshoot for a student design project for a book about clowning. In the end, although I took the pictures, I did not use them for the project. Instead, I took a picture of a classmate wearing the clown nose I had bought. She had an anxious, almost sad expression. The balloons came home to rest on the television nook for a year. I took them off about a week ago, intending to use them for a friends party. I was a guest, but even for all of my outward hilarity, I felt out of place. For one, I was among the very few attendees who did not have children. Most of my friends were distracted by their offspring for much of the visit and our conversations only occurred in brief half-minute exchanges that are difficult to piece together into an entire thread. Thought is broken up, and lacking words to fill the spaces between us, emotion fills in the cracks. This time, it was anxiety and embarrassment for having become this old without a clear direction in life, and a certain sadness for being middle-aged and not having a place entirely of my own or a career that marks me as a reasonably successful person who has the means to provide solely for himself and, perhaps, one or two others. The balloons came home in my jacket pocket, and somehow, through a series of small and unremarkable and forgettable daily actions, ended up on my bed next to my evening reading material.

---

I have had a couple of tormenting dreams. The most memorable of which was not the one in which I experienced the hell of being in a place or among people who I did not wish to be around and responding to their terrible actions. No, the most memorable and meaningful one centered on how my vision of myself, my self-concept, is opposed to reality and is mildly delusional in a mundane manner. However, please do not think that I mean to say "delusional" that I imagine myself as some character like "Napoleon," or think of myself special and unique, apart from every other human on the planet. Other than the experience of being human with human thoughts when we find ourselves by ourselves with moments for reflection, I do not live in a world separate from reality, nor do I have such a disconnection with reality that I cannot operate as a functional member in it.

The delusions that I mean are the ones that the generality of humanity has about itself in our era. We each think of ourselves as the heroic actors struggling in the movie or play of ourselves, and how we are being either shaped by tragedy or accomplishment, we thereby achieve the natural results of our endeavors, endeavors that most of us judge to be good.

And yet, this belief is nothing short of vanity.

As young people, this sort of vain thinking is so extreme in its improbability as to be utterly laughable if it was mentioned aloud. As adults who have mellowed (or tried to) in their years, the struggles we imagine lend to our shaping as beings of pure virtue surrounded by difficulty are much, much more mundane. No longer do we imagine ridiculous success filled with fame and fortune; instead, we find our "heroic" struggles in paying bills, dealing with co-workers or relatives, or some other life event. But, in its way, this sort of thinking is can be no less vain or laughable.

Which leads me to my dream. I cannot say what the images were that played in my head, who the "actors" were in this dream, or what I saw. Frankly, I have forgotten it; perhaps, if I try to recall as accurately as I can, I saw myself. The real meaning of the dream was in its impact. I realized that how I see myself in my daily actions, how I comport myself in my head and the thoughts I have about myself, can be in complete and utter conflict with how things really are. My thoughts, which I believed were a reflection of reality, a pilgrim's path of virtue, were in fact, imaginings that were vain to a such degree that it led me to blindness.

My attachments to how I want my life to go, to how I want to direct myself to this new heroism of virtue, lead me to think of myself as an heroic actor. And yet, to really be a decent man, I have to give up this stupid thought. I am not a mighty hero, standing tall with a sword of nobility against the gales of ungodly daily enemies. Enemies representing everything from my propensity for anger when a driver cuts me off, or my pride of intelligence and creativity I feel I receive an unfair criticism about my work. Yes, I do need to fight against those things, to give up anger and pride. But to imagine myself as the heroic actor in this play of myself? That is too much limited thinking. It makes me the center of a universe that disdains me for silly haughtiness and spits me out towards wretchedness.

I must strive to be a better person who can attain virtuous qualities and do a good deed or two a day, but I should also give up the idea that I am a better person for doing so, because that leads to pride, which causes blindness, and then people fall. And when they fall, the fall horribly hard and damage themselves. There is another thought here about seeing the end in the beginning, about how recognizing how this path of pride and vanity will lead to falls, and therefore, seeing danger ahead, one can avoid it. But I will leave that thought for another time, so that I may better try to hold on to the feeling of being exposed in my dream for my vain thinking which has led me to this wasted day and feelings of remorse for the stupid things I say and do in these occasions. I truly want to be a better person, I want to be virtuous, but life can really show me up sometimes, so I have to guard myself from too much stupidity on my part and recognize that, for how much I think I know, I really don't know anything.

Slight Frustration

2011-02-21T21:08:00.001-08:00

I think that I feeling a slight frustration from wanting to be more accomplished than I am at art and design, hearing about more people without training describe themselves as designers, and not knowing how to earn an income from doing what I am doing now. I have been told that I should write a book, but I don't feel the passion for it like I used to. I may think up an idea for a story or two, but really hammering something out does not seem like it is in the cards for me. I fear that I rely to heavily on cliches, don't do enough reading (like everyone else), and wouldn't have something to say.

Although, the creative idea that I have lately center on the nonsense tales of the 19th century. It seems like 21st century could use an update that isn't a mere imitation of the past. There are plenty things in the world that are ripe for parody and satire, and the deft use of metaphor would go a long way of helping certain people be aware of the layers of nonsense that have built up over the years. (If I may digress: maybe they are seeing it? There is a lot of tumult in the news lately in many countries. People are suffering under the burden of not knowing what to do or where to go to solve their problems. Another person reciting those problems to them in a literary way isn't going to put food in their mouths or make them less miserable.)

I guess I am trying not to get too stuck too much in a limbo of despair. Yes, there are a lot of people out in the world who call themselves designers and maybe do not have all of the skills that they need to have for that job. Maybe, the world is too much over-saturated in media anyway and a new designer isn't going to bring real change to the world. But then again, maybe there is still room for me. Maybe I do have something to say or offer to the world in my chosen profession that will set me apart from the rest. I know that I have some talent, but I am frustrated that some people still haven't recognized it yet. I know that I can do this and be great at it. I know that I can achieve this and astonish everyone, but getting to that point without succumbing to my old "friend" of melancholy is going to be the real challenge. I cannot let him chill my heart into inertia or inaction. I must continue to strive to do my best and not allow poverty to keep me back too much.

There is something real here and I have to work even harder in the next few weeks to push myself forward to get it done properly.

All I hear

2011-02-20T21:52:00.000-08:00

Today was long day full of work, and frankly, I am tired. However, the weird bit was that I did not get as much done on my homework as I really needed to. I should have, but somehow it all got away from me. I think that when I get home, I will need to refocus a little bit and make my priorities a bit more firm. I need to finish an illustration, adjust some photos, finish a catalog project, make a mock-up for a website, adjust a word press template, and fit enough time in for rest and relaxation. I should have worked even a little harder than I did, but my mind is on vacation at the moment and I all hear is reggae music.

Going along

2011-02-16T21:48:00.000-08:00

My last post was pretty gloomy, and frankly, I was in a gloomy place. I have done a lot of personal reflection since then, and I feel that I am in the midst of turning over a new leaf. I wish I could say that I had some kind of awakening that was like a jolt, a sudden insight that opened up a new reality, some kind of startling cause to get me to try and turn things around, but the simple fact of the matter was that I was tired. I was miserable and tired and did not want to be like that any more. Years and years of struggling and focusing on all of the bad things in life, things which were as real as the moon above, had chilled my heart to such an extent that I lost a lot of hope. Hope has gotten some bad rap, and I think most of it is deserved. Hope is like that one aunt who listens to all that airy flute music, is concerned about her cat's feelings more than the local homeless people, and thinks that good things happen to people if they think good thoughts. It's pleasant to think so, but if you're going to be able to move out of a lot of pain, you have to acknowledge that there is a lot of pain out there. Life is difficult, plain and simple.

Still there is an element of choice in how you feel about life being difficult. If you choose, or more likely, simply don't choose, life's ugly side will present itself to you with growing volume and intensity. It's like the absence of light, you can invite it in, or it can sneak up on you. However, if you allow yourself to think good things on occasion and do good things for other people (and not be so focused on your selfish needs and wants), then real hope, quiet hope for the honest small things in life, can begin to grow. And that quiet hope is like a rock, a visionary individual protected with the armor of faith from all of the poison arrows of doubts and sorrows.

I have chosen not to feel bad for the mean things in life, the sorrows, and the pains it holds. Yes, I still feel some sadness and confusion for some it, but I will really try much harder to not be overwhelmed by it. I will not allow myself to let its darkened arms wrap themselves around me and freeze my heart in its place.

All of that having been said, today was a little bit of a difficult day. It was a kind of day which, if I hadn't just spent a couple of months trying to recover and reconnect to better myself, I would have spent a few miserable weeks in bed. My artwork was rejected publicly for reasons that cannot or will not be made clear to me. I had more than one instance of someone making the wrong inference about me and my life. An instructor, without consciously meaning to, even teased me about my handwriting on an assignment. The sum total of those events made me feel, for the thousandth time in my life, like I was truly out of place. I feel as if no one really understands me or where I come from. If I could count for you all of the times that I have been called weird, unusual, or something similar, you would be astonished the number.

And yet, I will try and choose to see this as my particular path in life. There is nothing that I could do differently to change this day. It has already happened. I will try to remember the silver linings to these clouds and hope that tomorrow will go smoother. If life itself is an educational experience, then I can learn from it, and if I can learn from it, maybe I can get better at it as I go along.

Anguish

2010-11-14T15:52:00.000-08:00

It is hard not to hate myself for my lack of success with most things I try my hand at. I feel like a reverse King Midas at times; everything I touch turns to rust. If there is something beautiful and golden about life, you can be sure that I am going to ruin it somehow. Usually, it is through my desire to preserve it, or capture it, or even, sometimes, just witness it. And, of course, when I touch something beautiful or golden, innocently at first, then with the desire to possess, it crumbles before my eyes in that dirty rust pile. You would think that I could be used to that as often as it has happened to me, but each time it happens, I am so distressed and distraught about it, that I can barely function.

I feel monstrous, like there is an inherent flaw within me that causes this to happen despite my best intentions. And this monstrosity creates a pain that burns into a searing white hot blast of hatred for myself. I eat the fire of hate and it boils in my stomach, a toxic crucible of molten pain. And in that crucible, the devouring snake of nihilism, grief, anguish, and tortuous cruelty winds itself upward to my heart and swallows it slowly in the grotesque opera of self-destructive hatred. My brain tries to speak to my heart, to soothe it, to prevent the snake from completing it missions, but it can't be heard above the heart's screams.

And then, the snake, having eaten its fill whispers its forked narrative of hatred. I become the monster of hate for myself. My snake heart convinces the brain that I am the most hateful person on the planet, that god has decided to hate me, that it is my destiny in life to be isolated, alone, and ugly. My brain, struggling to pull logic out of a locked or hidden closet, says that there are things I can do to prevent this from happening. But the snake heart is more convincing; its words have more sting. "You will not be successful," in one venomed filled word. In another, "you will always be alone," and "women do not like you," in another. My brain cannot make reply because these words seem to be couched in the deepest truth.

---

I am in utter anguish about my failures. I want so much to connect to a special person, but it is not for me. I have prayed, pleaded, bargained, and struggled until I cannot sleep anymore, but it is no use. I am monster. Hated, ugly, and alone.

The Accident

2010-11-08T11:28:00.001-08:00

I'm still searching for still waters and trying to keep an even keel. The period directly after my graduate school career (and breakup with my then girlfriend) was the biggest upheaval in my life so far. I truly hope with a visceral feeling that there isn't anything in the future that comes even close to that. It was a trauma, pure and simple. It has been a handful of years since that event; I can vividly remember those handful of days at the end, and remember the extraneous details that most would have forgotten. The first several years was struggling to cope with the reality of what happened, the loss of everything (including very nearly myself), and new realities it had created. Recently, it seems that I am beginning to see how the dust has finally settled just a year or so ago. And Now, I am in another period of great change, but this time it is my own choosing.

I was riding along in the car "of life," and hit a tree. At first, I was unconscious, and then I was recovering from the immediate injuries of that for the longest time. The pain was excruciating and forced me into difficult positions and hideous thoughts while I recovered. I do feel like I can start working towards goals again. This period is akin to physical therapy. I do have my scars and, so while the injury no longer hurts like it once did, I am a little tender in those spots and am more likely to react when I wouldn't have otherwise. I need to learn how to control that reaction.

To that end, I think I am going to try to recenter myself. Instead of looking outward for solutions, instead of analyzing inward for new insights and answers, I am going to try and forget all of that and work on developing an inner calm. During the healing process, I may have tried a a few things that I thought would be the shortcut to recovery. I realize that there are no shortcuts, and so, maybe meditation, thoughtfulness, and calm is the new way to go. If I have the self-discipline and the courage to face the horrors that life sometimes contain, I really do think it can help me.

Turning Invisible

2010-10-24T05:45:00.000-07:00

So, yeah. I'm pathetic. And no, I am not pathetic in the hipsterish, too cool for his own good way. I'm simply pathetic in the aging, not really that important to notice anymore way. It's like I am slowly turning invisible against my will. I'd like to fight it. Hell, I am trying to fight it, but some fights are lost even before they get started.

I'm not sure how I could describe the multitude of thoughts that lead me to the above conclusion, probably because any amount of detail would reveal too much about myself and other people. As for myself, I seem to care less and less these days about how many people perceive me, which is mostly as an epic (but nice enough) loser. But even losers can be noble about wanting to protect other people's privacies, so I keep my damned mouth shut.

The basic problem I seem to have at this exact moment is "wanting" and not "having." And, being who I am, I think about how I could have what I want if I worked really hard for the next several years. Scratch that. There is no guarantee that I could have what I wanted if I worked hard. I guess I mean to say, I could have the chance to get what I wanted. Time will not wait for me to catch up.

I think about how my life got to this point. (Like I always seem to do. This entire blog is nothing but several years of me sifting through the momentary grains of sand that make up my life.) I think about the many, many mistakes I seemed to have made without realizing, of course, they were mistakes at the time they were happening. For example, I should not have ever tried to go to graduate school as English major. It is not for poor kids who don't already have money to burn or powerful connections to exploit. Poor kids with aspirations can usually only hope to be middle class providing they learn a sale-able skill. Not going to graduate school really wouldn't have prevented the mountain of debt I accumulated during my first pass through college, but it might have lessened its overall mountainous size. I also should have realized what was happening in that earlier relationship I was so committed to. I should have simply "let go" years earlier.

And many other thoughts like these about past events. But, then again, like I said, I didn't realize these were mistakes while they were happening. There was no warning bells clearly delineating any of the consequences of making those seemingly small and daily choices. I believed that, if you really want to make something of yourself, to improve your lot in life, you go to college and try to go as far as your brain will take you. I did not know that you could ruin your future with a lifetime of debt. I really did not know that by hanging on a relationship that had long since ended, that was draining me of self-esteem, I would be condemning myself to middle-aged regret and loneliness, and that I would be compounding and reinforcing that condemnation by preventing myself from exploring other, perhaps healthier, relationship opportunities. At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was being faithful, noble, pure in heart, and well-intentioned.

Now, looking back, I try to untangle the Gordian knot with rather old and stiff fingers, tracing each ropey path back to its source, usually discovering another source behind that other source. And slowly, the choices I made begin to look a lot like fate. If I did not know that choice A would lead to consequence B, then how could I have prevented B from happening? If my problem now is that I do not have the means to provide for the people I love, can I trace that back to generations of poverty, systematic economic oppression? Can't anyone in the history of the world can? If yes, then why not also me?

Many of peers have said that I have always had full control over circumstances. And I do recognize that one can have an impact on own's fate. I do feel that one can work to improve their lot in life and try and make the best of things as they are. But, I cannot agree that you can fully choose your own fate. This is not a popular idea in our modern world, where independence and choice is an ultimate virtue. You say things like this and people react emotionally. The truth of the matter is that there have been, and will always be, forces beyond our control that will shape our lives as much (and in some cases, more than) our own choices.

And, for me, this where the frustration has crept in. I do not know how, among all those past mistakes, all those past choices, I could have prevented becoming a lonely middle-aged man in the depths of extreme poverty. Conventional wisdom is that one can control their own fate, and they implicitly mean that one can "fully" control one's own fate. I wish I could agree. I can't. Experience has taught me different.

Trooping through the Grass

2010-08-07T01:24:00.001-07:00

I am not sure why I have been so tired lately, or why I have needed to take a nap in the middle of the day. Perhaps sleeping is my reaction to stress. I've been feeling the sort of existential disconnect that make great novels, and of course, it is all connected to considering my place in the world and the state of affairs it (and I) am currently in.

It seems that my biggest challenge during this stage of my life is learning to be happy in the face of everything that seems to be headed in the wrong direction. I wish society was nicer, more concerned about the true and beneficial growth of the individual, less concerned with the material selfishness of getting ahead, less focused on contention and pain, and committed to taking care of those who are less fortunate. When I say all of that though, I realize how far away that I am from fulfilling those conditions personally. Evidence of the disconnect I mentioned earlier perhaps. But enough of being vague.

---

During my afternoon nap, I had a dream that I was at Woodstock '69 listening to a concert being given by a lesser known musician. She was on stage playing her guitar. She was very beautiful, but did not seem especially connected to the crowd. She had some sort of weird face jewelery that I could not make out entirely, but it was interesting and stylish. Eventually though, as the crowd surged and morphed around the stage, I found myself wandering out into the nearby fields of tall and sunlit grasses.

As I stood looking out toward the horizon, I noticed a small troop of hippie children walking down the sloping hill in front of me. They had long hair and happy faces. They were playing a sort of game. I sat upon the ground and watched as they walked almost single file through the tall grasses, laughing and talking. They seemed to have a single minded purpose to their play, but what that was, I did not have a clue. I watched as they filed passed me. I considered taking a photograph of the stripling in front and the older children behind him. The kid in front was a happy-enough child leader who had a long and wild tumble of curly hair falling about his shoulders. They did not take much notice of me. I turned to watch them go and edge themselves along the garden behind me. The afternoon sun was warm and friendly.

And then I woke up. I really don't know what the dream symbolized if anything, but I remember a sort of wistfulness about it that stuck with me for an hour or two. I think part of me felt like I was being "passed by" in life in general, that I was missing something. But I did not (and do not) know what.

For most of my life, I think I have felt like an outsider looking in on things. An observer who can see how some of the puzzle pieces fit together, come to an insightful conclusion that others can be impressed with, but the price of having knowledge that others do not is the isolation that it imposes. It is a shame. I am trying to participate more in my own life, be an active leader of it and directing it to where I want it to go. But I do not think that I am having much luck with that. I go between wanting to steer my life in satisfying direction and figuring out how to cope with the things one must face in life that can not be changed, or live up to the serious consequences of decisions that seemed frivolous at the time. (One of my greatest frustrations is how a seemingly innocent and inconsequential choice that I believe will lead to some small measure of happiness turns out to have serious long term and unhappy consequences for the future. If only I had the ability to predict this better, maybe I would not feel so trapped in the future.)

The Sting of Pain

2010-07-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

Just this afternoon, I got a call from a sad friend who is having a bad time lately. And I offered as much hope and support as I could for anyone in a difficult circumstance. I think I did a pretty good job, but perhaps that is because my struggles with depression has given me some hard won experience about how to comfort a sad person. I tried to say all of kinds of things I wished someone would say to me when I am feeling down.

But at the end of the conversation, when my friend was feeling slightly better, I began to experience a kind of malaise or emotional slump. I had all of this work that I wanted to do, but instead, I was side-tracked into thinking what was wrong about me. Why, for example, I am nearly a forty-year-old man with no decent prospects of a comfortable job, nice house, family, etc? Have I ruined my life already? Did I have a string of bad luck? Did I ever really have a decent chance? I think I just want the classic American dream sort of stuff. I am not a teenager, so the fantasies about being rich and famous have mellowed down into a comfortable life with people who I love in a place that is secure enough from financial disaster that I won't have to worry about losing my job or a place to live. Security is my biggest dream, and I dread losing it. Maybe the American dream is dead, and now exists as some sort of phantom haunting people who still believe in it, or maybe being exploited by people with power and money to keep the masses pliant and full of hope for a better life while being ripped off by people with power and money.

I am trapped by my desires for both security and a ridiculously romantic and deeply emotional relationship from an attentive and attractive woman. The first is something that eludes my grasp, and the second, as ugly as it is to say, is sort of dependent on the first. Most of the women in our society are not going to want to have a romantic relationship with a man who has no money, no job, and no prospects of climbing out of the staggering debts he accumulated at University. Universities may have once been avenues for getting ahead and attaining that sort of social mobility that would make me happy, but now it seems they are shells of what they once were. They have become enablers of foolish hope. They will earnestly feed you lines about how they will make you life better, get you a job where you earn a middle class pay, and charge you exorbitant fees in the mean-time. When you graduate, and those things do not materialize, you feel cheated. You see many, many others bitter and depressed about their college experience, and you slowly begin to feel like a giant chump.

I would write more about my own frustrations about this life and the things that once seemed possible but no longer are. But at the moment, I find myself in a position to where my most immediate desire is to figure out a way to remove the sting of pain from the heart of someone else. I am not sure that I can, but I really wish I could.

The Monster

2010-05-18T22:53:00.001-07:00

Life has been more painful than usual lately. I could elaborate on the details, but then that would only cause more pain to others and wisdom is more often found in silence. So, the breath of speech is held, and the invisible fingers of mist wind slowly around my neck. Clasped over my throat, those fingers massage the pain into an increasing strangle. I will not share that with anyone more than is absolutely necessary for me to try and get rid of it. So, you won't know what it is that is bothering me, or the confused mess I feel myself in.

Details aside, I will say that my depression is in full form. I have personified in the past as a hulking monster, yet seemingly-affable, that sits beside you on a low stool and whispers in your ear from behind how much it loves you. This is the monster that eats your horrified shadow while you watch, powerless to resist. And once having had your shadow eaten, you become part monster yourself, inured to the good feelings the same way you were before, emotionally numb with only the hints of a dull cold shock of pain glazing over your eyes to indicate that anything might be really wrong. You are zombie. You are ghost.

I have wrestled with this monster before. I wish him on no one because he is truly an evil that has no hope of redemption. Even the hands of compassion are withered and decayed when they reach out to it in the hopes of soothing him. But, his is a nature that cannot be soothed, a devouring fire that burns and sears mens' hearts. The villagers of happy life have selected me, the warrior against the monster of depression, to venture into the dark and chilly bogs of pain and prevent him invading their town. They trust that I can do it, even if they do not see the scars of horror that gets branded on my own soul. My shield is nearly broken and my sword is chipped from a million constant skirmishes, but it is my duty to face it. I have been selected. And it is much my fate to be banished from the town and fight this monster in order that others will not have to face him on their own. I will not share him. The monster, part my own creation anyway, is solely my responsibility. As a traveler, hunter of this frigid beast, I can see the outskirts of the town of happiness, peer at the huts, watch the men hold their children and express love for their wives and the people they care about. But, I know they will also never see me. I am hidden in a thicket of brambles, lost in an envelope of a million shadows. I venture further into to the shadows to face him again. He will never see the town as I have. I know I can stop him from that, but it won't be easy. The mortal dangers of the battle are frighteningly real so it is imperative that I do not lose to him.

Abstractions

2010-03-30T06:44:00.001-07:00

Just going to note here how long it has been since I last posted on my blog, but I am not going to say too much more about it. I was pretty busy last term, and thinking about topics for blogging that don't reveal too much personal things about myself or other people is hard. I can see how the really "honest" writers, as they would depict themselves, wind up making a lot of enemies because of their willingness to mine their personal lives and interactions with other people as source of material for their writing. I am not the sort of person to do that. I'm much more private, which probably means that I don't take as many risks as I should or is necessary for improvement of my writing, but I am not willing to potentially upset many people.

It turns out, as far as I can see, that most people live somewhat complicated lives that are filled with partial secrets. What do I mean by that? Okay, well -- just for a minute think about how multi-faceted people and their interactions with others are. I behave one way with my friends at school, and their perception of me is shaped by this behavior and the collection of previous experiences with me when we interact. I make "claims," stated and unstated (as we all do), about my life. And so, they wind up with a "perception" of me. I, in turn, interact with my friends at school based on my "perception" of them, as well as the "perception" of myself when we're interacting together. However, I behave in a slightly different way with my sisters based on a similar process of interaction and the collection of experiences they have had with me in the past. All of which might lead them to see me in a way that appears contradictory to the way my friends see me.

It is a differential kind of definition of one self. These perceptions of me and the way they modulate together together are all true, and yet, never complete. So, I am not defined as a person in the absolute, but in they ways my temporal interactions are perceived by myself and other people. No one can ever say with 100% certitude that I am "quiet guy," because sometimes I am and sometimes I am not. That definition also depends on your experience and interaction with me, which because no-one is with anyone except themselves all of the time, is only part of the picture.

Why am I bringing all of this up at the moment and being so vague about talking about other people. I suppose the real reason is that I am frustrated by my own lack of close interactions with the people I currently have some daily experience with. I want to be emotionally closer to certain people, but the collection of traits and attributes that define me to those people (perhaps true insofar as any statement about people can be true) seem to prevent that. They might say to themselves, "oh, that zhaf, he's a real card!" Or they might say "zhaf is a pretty quiet guy." Or they might say, "I like zhaf, but he kind of weirds me out." Or they might say, "what is that guy's deal?"

As I walked into campus the other day, I passed by the bus stop. I am nearly a forty year old man with and unconventional (but not inappropriate) manner of dress. I would say that I look a little like an old hippie. I was raised by hippies, so this isn't all that unusual to me. Since the bus is just about to arrive to pick people up and drop them off, thirty people are standing there. Some are sitting in the bus shelter alcove on the bench, most are standing in a loose group together with lots of personal space between them. They each have their own personality quirks. I particularly note the one guy with the unusually large beard. Almost without exception, they stare at me as I walk by. Each seems to be noticing my unusual appearance, probably especially the two long braids hanging along the side of my face. I feel like an outsider even though, to my mind, I am expressing who I am. My hair is the one area of personal expression to the outside world that is totally in my control. Maybe I would be a snappier dresser if I had the money for nice clothes and a stylist or fashion consultant.

Another thing that I am realizing as time goes on is that poverty, and the daily experience of it, especially as an adult, has shaped me and my thoughts more than I would really care for it to. I am less likely to feel that life is going to be fair than I was when I was younger. So, yes. I know. I know. The old cliche, right? The one that says "life isn't fair." I always knew that, and so did you. But the stronger belief in our culture is one that says the opposite, but not explicitly so. This other belief is that if you want something, and work hard for it, it will eventually happen for you. This is the counterpoint to the "life isn't fair" cliche: "hard work will be rewarded." Perhaps one reason that it is not explicitly stated in a similar cliche is that when it is explicitly expressed, most people will realize that it isn't true. So, it does it work underneath the surface of yourself. And in my case, I am realizing that in the war between the poverty experience of "life isn't fair," and the middle class value of "hard work pays off with rewards," the "life isn't fair" side is winning.

I am trying to improve my lot in life with school, with self-improvement, with minor (outward) image adjustments, and the occasional realization or two. And yet, the whole process can be a frustrating experience, maybe because I am at the middle of my life and I still don't have a lot to show for work I have done. I feel like sometimes I am condemned to be trapped by difficult circumstances, and when I finally work my way out of them, it will be too late to achieve the kinds of things I would have wanted to achieve. It's complicated, and sometimes, it feels like a fresh disappointment is waiting around the corner. For example, the new one is a regret about not being more social in high school. Yes, I had other issues going on at that time that helped prevent that, but I think - what if? Anyway, enough of this kind of self-analysis for now.

The Cat and the Colecovision

2010-01-25T11:19:00.000-08:00

School has been really busy lately. There are a million little things that I could be doing at any one moment, but for the last two days, I think I ran out of steam. I am definitely going to be picking back up tonight, and then of course, for the rest of the week. The plus side of everything is that I have not yet fallen behind on my major projects, but then again, it's only a beginning so far. I have to print out some things and consult with my instructors about the progress of the projects that I have been working on.

One of the projects is for a phony catalog for a fake company that we make up on our own. I chose a classic videogame company as my company because I happened to have a lot of the items left over from my past. It did not reuqire me going out and spending a bunch of money, although, truth be told. I did manage to spend a chunk of change on the center piece of the catalog, a working classic atari game system with several cartridges. The colecovision that I have left over is my own, but years of neglect and poor care have made it a little ugly. I spent more time cleaning these silly things than I did photographing them. Another issue that I will need to address at some point is my lighting. I need about another light, maybe some white gauze for a phony soft box and a reflector. Unfortunately, I only have two hands, so I can't hold four things at once while I click the shutter button and hope everything comes out right. The cat picture above is a representation of what I have been working on, minus the cat of course. I think I need to work on having more confidence with my vision for this thing. I know have an interesting idea; I just wish I could feel better about my ability to execute it. Also for this project, I drew a bunch of gophers, for the company logo.

Overall, I think things have been going well. I am on a better schedule, school is going pretty good so far (even as busy as I have been), and for social life stuff, I decided to really jump on board with the whole facebook thing. Not the quizzes and games as much as the ability to reconnect with old friends. I know that some people are already sick of it, but I am not sure if I am going to give it up as easily. I jumped on the whole personal blog bandwagon when it was popular many years ago, and even though the blog fad has worn off to a large degree, I am still plugging away at it. I feel like I should post more, but if I manage a post at least once a month, I think I am doing good.

My Break

2010-01-10T23:38:00.001-08:00

School has started once again, and Monday will be the beginning of the second week. Perhaps the most surprising thing about this term is how I am already very busy. There are a million little things that need to be done just about each day, and it is hard not to get too overwhelmed by them. Fortunately, I think I am still on top of it. I have not turned in anything late so far, and that is always a good thing.

On the downside, I knew last term was going to be a bit of a bear because I was playing catch up from a terrible last year, but I thought I had one class nailed down well enough to get an A. It turns out I did not. The last two major projects did not meet the instructor's expectations, and that might be a result of my not consulting with her frequently about it. And that, my friends, is a hard thing for me to do, for a lot of reasons. One of them is that I feel like I am almost always am bothering someone with my issues if I end up talking to them about myself for more than two minutes. I know that there are some students who would have no problem parking themselves in the instructors office for a half hour or more monopolizing their time, but I am not that student. I guess I am the exact opposite: the student who the instructor never hears from unless there is a problem that needs to be worked out, but even then only for a minute and a half.

It will be an interesting tomorrow. I hope I have managed my time well enough to where I will not be too overburdened with work during the middle of the week.

So, catching up on personal news for a moment, I spent most of the winter break housebound. I seriously did not get out of the house except on maybe two or three occasions. I sat in my room and played games or watched television. I even took to standing outside in the cold sunlight just to feel air on my skin again. And, I suppose it goes without saying that I spent a lot of time on the internet. I did manage to draw one or two things, but I did not feel like I had the energy to work hard on my art like I thought I was going to. Fortunately, a day before school started, my sister loaned me her car for several months so I at least can finish this term with transportation. The term after that might be slightly more problematic. Getting out of the house has been nice too. (The drawback to being out and about though is spending money, something which I try very hard not to do since I hardly have any.)

One bad habit that I got on winter break was that I stayed up until 2 or 3 am in the morning and woke up at 10 am or later. This meant that my first week of school has been difficult to adjust to because my schedule has been off. It's my own fault for making that mistake of course, but I am hoping to change that soon. Today, I took a nap in the middle of the afternoon, and tonight I will go to bed at a decent hour. This, I hope, will reset my internal clock a little bit so that getting up at 6 or 7 am on Tuesdays will not present as much of a struggle as it did last week.

I did read more like I wanted to during the break, but I did not finish the book I started. I also intend on buying a notebook so I can write more often offline when the mood strikes. My overarching goal is try to be more creative and artistically accomplished with my art and various school assignments. I have two more terms to really knock this stuff out, and then it is on to finding real work at an actual job. We shall see how it goes in the next few weeks.

Finally Finals

2009-12-11T18:27:00.000-08:00

I somehow managed to come out of my latest depression. I think getting back on a steady medication schedule, as well as being really busy with school for the last week, really helped me pull out of it. I almost did not finish my courses this term and was(am) still worried about both my ability to complete the school year, or hold a full-time job when I get out. The economy is so bad right now that finding work seems really difficult. But, finals are finally over and if I don't think about much of anything, I have at least a couple of weeks to relax and catch up on sleep.

The biggest event as of late was that my car died. I really wish it hadn't, but to be honest, it was a long time in coming. It was an elderly car, 20 years old, and had 300,000 miles on it. I guess cars aren't meant to last too much longer than that. The specific cause of the car's death was the broken timing belt. It threw the engine out of time, and that caused the engine to run poorly and bend a valve. Someone (who knows these things) said that the broken timing belt likely caused other problems that would not be discovered until they opened the engine and looked inside. It was becoming ever more clear that the problems my car had were going to cost a lot of money to fix, more money than it was worth to fix. I suppose I could have tried to get the repair shop to fix those problems, but the money I would have spent on repairs would be better allocated towards a new(er) car.

My friend from way back called me last night to see how things were going. It was interesting to hear about his life: a job, a family, a house. Three things I don't have yet, and now that I am reaching the center of middle-age, these things seem even more unlikely. I am at a point where those thoughts are not as depressing as they might seem. It is just a different set of realities.

The weather has been overwhelmingly cold lately, and tonight, the local stations were predicting a little snow, and a lot of freezing rain. If the power goes out, it will be very inconvenient. Life will get a lot slower and a lot colder. However, I have already chosen a book I am going to read as a way to entertain myself if that happens: Charles Dicken's "Hard Times." One of these days, I am going to go back to Bleak House and read that, but I found it a little hard to focus on it, especially when I was so busy with design work. I hope the power stays on and the temperatures get above freezing again, but in case it doesn't, I've got a flashlight, a few blankets, and a book to read.

Magic Stop Watches

2009-12-01T03:04:00.001-08:00

If I had a magic stop-watch, I think I would probably use it every other day. Click!, and time would be frozen. Just for maybe a day or two, so I could get my bearings, sort some personal emotions out, steel myself for the inevitable unpleasantness that would await me when time began again. Living time out of synch would be more of an alignment for me, since as it is, time always seems to be marching ahead before I am ready for it.

There were only a thousand things that I should have done over the weekend, but by Monday, there were a million. And all I could do was lie in bed all day. I couldn't even muster enough courage to eat dinner. I will try and face the music tomorrow. I am contemplating a long discussion with both my instructors about the nature of my depression this time, but frankly, even though it might be necessary to do have these talks to salvage my grades and my term, I would rather do almost anything else: push a marble around with my nose for a few hours maybe.

Every day that I experience a struggle with my depression, I find myself trying to cope with the fact of its disabling reality. Depression, for me, is not merely a set of circumstances that come together in a poor or awkward way to make me feel bad. I feel bad because of a chemical imbalance in my brain that is akin to a broken bone in my leg. A broken bone is not a perception; it is a fact, an existent reality that is indifferent to all opinions. You do not say, "if I just pretended my leg was not broken, I could walk on it without a crutch or a cast." You would not tell other people with broken legs that, "it's all in your head, your leg is not really broken. You just don't have the proper strength of character to walk around like a 'normal' person."

Another one of the various things that I am finding about depression is this: in order to try and live a normal life I have to do a couple of things. The first is perhaps the easiest: take my medication every day. I used to be resistant to it thinking that I could "will" myself to be better, but having been on the right medication for the last couple of months, I am finding that the difference it makes is hard to deny. Taking medication, while the easiest of the various tasks depression demands of you, is not always easy. If you don't have money for medications, you have to scrounge money for it, get free samples, or pray you get on a patient assistance program. For instance, I ran out of the free samples of medication I got from my doctor the other day and did without for about a week. He gave me a prescription for the pill form of the medicine, but it took a day or so to fill it, and then it still cost nearly 40 bucks or so, even with a discount. In the mean time, I had "titrated" off the medicine. That sort of yo-yo'ing on and off medicine makes you more resistant to it, not something that I want or need to have happen.

Depression also seems to be requiring me to talk to people about it when it affects my life negatively, and not always the people I want to discuss it with, and the people I do discuss it with may not always understand. Depression has a stigma (even in 2009, even though it seems like the whole world has it these days). And, I find that among certain people, depression is equivalent to weakness. I can't change minds like those or expect much sympathy or understanding, even if the law, school attorneys, or anyone else for that matter, might require those in authority to have a sympathetic response. You can see the dissonance in their eyes as they look at you warily. In any event, the talk with my instructors that I am contemplating having might go something like this:

"Hello, Mr. H----? Yes, hi. I am just wanted to talk to about my school work. I haven't been able to complete our most recent project lately because I have been experiencing a heavy bout of depression, partially due to the illness I had last week, which in turn caused me to fall behind on things. I know I should have called yesterday to inform you about my absence, but it took all of my courage to eat breakfast and take a shower. I am so sorry if this causes any trouble. I am hoping to get things completed by the end of the term, especially for your classes. I know that there may not be much that you can do to help me out with my projects and their tardiness, but if there is something, I would appreciate it more than you can imagine. Once again, I apologise."

I would then try to explain how my depression affects me, or even what it is again in terms of brain chemistry. I might even go so far as to show him the medications that I am using. I had a letter from the disability office at school about my depression and perhaps need for my time, but it is largely a symbolic agreement of goodwill between the student and the instructor, a paper tiger. As far as I know, there is nothing where the instructor would be "required" to grant me more time without penalty.

I do happen to think that most of my instructors are sympathetic people, but I also worry that they don't understand. Maybe they see me as complaining too much, as an ineffectual weirdo who can't get his act together on any given day of the week. I have seen those internet post from instructors complaining about one difficult student or another. Having been a college instructor (okay, graduate teaching assistant), I know that a lot of students have problems. So, it would stand to reason, some instructors might be completely inured to lot of pleading from students. I've met a couple. I may say depression cripples my life sometimes, but I worry that all instructors actually hear is a feeble excuse along the lines of "the dog ate my homework."

I would write much more about all of this, but it is time for bed. I really, really, need to pull it together, face the music, take my lumps, and move on with school and the rest of this term. I hope that I can salvage some of it. Even if I can, I will still have a lot of work to do, and I am hoping that maybe when I get into the lab, and start making progress on my work, the thin and whispery tendrils of hope will creep in again and I will pull out of my emotional nose-dive.

Cold Fire

2009-11-30T04:04:00.001-08:00

The other night I had a dream of sorts that was really quite amazing. It wasn't about images, except maybe geometric shapes forming a circle. The the inside of a temple dome perhaps. In any event, the real substance of the dream was an emotion of an intense happiness that radiated to the core of my being. It was just a little unreal, and felt almost too happy, at least more than what should seem normal in real life. I tried to hold on to the feeling in the dream but, just like that, it slipped away.

Tonight, that dream seems ironic because I am fairly certain I am really depressed at the moment. I am worried about my long term ability to support myself and pay my already accumulated debts, which are substantial (at least to me.) The anxiety I feel about the future is the spark that ignites a cold fire that burns through my confidence, my hope for myself, and my sense of security. Medication helps, but my supply was interrupted for a bit because the doctor's office ran out of free samples. The various people I talk to during a day would say my depression is a natural result of not having medication for a few days, but I can't help but think the medication is actually masking my problems, which are real and "out there," not just internal. My problems have a substance that is unaffected by whatever attitude or emotion I happen to feeling at that moment.

If I had the opportunity to make other choices over again, I would. Graduate school would be one of those things I wouldn't do. Too much money and not enough return. I think my hopes were exploited for money by colleges that were willing to promise brighter tomorrows. Maybe if I were from the middle classes I aspired to, I would have been able to navigate grad. school better, been able to reap the rewards of familiarity from professional colleagues that so often helps people get ahead.

Right now, it is the middle of the night (4:00am.) I have class in 12 hours, and at two over-due projects still to do. I should have spent the last four days working on them but, except for a marathon homework session on Wednesday, I spent most of the time in bed doing not much of anything in particular.

I would try talking to other people about it more--people who have special meaning in my life--but to them, it just seems like I am complaining about things I can't really change. In that regard, they are right, except I would say lamenting or grieving instead of complaining. The responses from others that I seem to get are either along the lines of "me too," or "fake it until you make it." "Somehow things always work out for the best," they say.

But, I feel that I am too educated to believe that is always the case. Yes, maybe things aren't as dire as they seem, but then again the world can be very cruel and no amount of wishful thinking is going to change difficult circumstances. I've always disliked those philosophies that say that internal positive thinking creates an outward positive reality, an emotional telekinesis that says you can manipulate your mind to attract (when they often mean force) good, and typically material, benefits. The universe is turned into your personal butler, and all you have to do is to learn the trick to get it to do your bidding. Want 500 dollars? Send positive energy into the Universe to get it. Seems highly dishonest to me, even offensive.

I think that the honest acknowledgment of the seriousness and reality of my problems would help reassure me that my perceptions are real and not irretrievably distorted by depression. And, that, for some reason I don't clearly understand, would make me feel better.

Perhaps, a big part of why I would feel better might be that I'd feel reassured that my grip on reality has not slipped, that my judgment is still intact. And then, if that were the case, I would have the firm hope that since I knew the problem as objectively as I possibly could know it, I might be able to find a way to adapt, or even (dare to hope) find a solution.

I've lost at least 10 pounds in the last couple of weeks. I hardly eat breakfast anymore. I am behind in my work. My car is getting more unreliable. I have no money. I am not where I want to be with my art. I feel like a fraud much of the time. I haven't been able to take a shower since Friday. I still cough up phlegm more than a week later, even though the main symptoms of the virus I had have gone away. At times, I really don't like myself very much and can't see why anyone else would either.

Still, for all of that, I will go to school in the morning (six hours from now maybe), and I will try to work on my projects as best as I am able. Sometimes, after the last class is over for that given day, the anxiety surfaces and I feel it best to flee for home and get in bed again.

Yeah, I do try to fight it. The thing about it now, as opposed to three or four years ago, is that, even though I am more aware about the depression I have and its physical causes, I am less able to force myself through it as I was when I was a young man. Ignorance about my depression gave me the strength of will to blunder through daily activities with a tenacity that usually carried me pretty far. Nowadays, I feel like the fighting I did back then to push through did more harm than good. It was futile. So often, during my weaker moments, I find myself back in bed, doing my best to forget about my problems. And trying to forget takes up a lot of energy, almost to the point where I can't really do much else.

Busy week

2009-11-14T01:20:00.001-08:00

This week has been pretty busy, with the end of result of my being sick. I slept most of the day today, but now, I am up at 1:00 a.m. and it feels like my eyeballs are going to explode. I just took some Nyquil, so let's see what happens. I am really hoping that I feel better by Sunday at least, because being sick really stinks.

So, it has been constantly raining for the last couple of weeks, and I mean constantly. And yet, when I woke up on Tuesday, I saw daylight and was told that it was going to be sunny until later in the afternoon. Now, here's the thing. I have a brochure project due in class in a week or two, and the project is supposed to advertise a local town as a vacation destination, but due to the rain, I haven't gotten the photos I needed. I had to make an executive decision. After a moment of thought, I called up my instructors and told them that I wasn't going to class that day. I then spent the next six hours or so taking landscape and architecture pictures of the given town. I got a handful of strange looks from the locals, especially since I was using my tripod to get the photos I needed, but looking back, I am glad I took that day off from school because the rain started up again and hasn't really stopped since.

Wednesday was Veteran's day, so I had that day off from school too. I spent the majority of my time that day reviewing the photos I took and color correcting them as best I could. I probably could use another photo session of the town, but I don't really want to drive out there again -- four separate trips should be enough.

Thursday, our class went to the major art museum in the biggest urban town of our state. I have to say, I wasn't all that impressed with the exhibit we went up there to see specifically. Yes, it was interesting, but it wasn't all that different from things I have seen before. Some of the items on display could easily be found as reproductions for sale on internet sites. However, after the official class tour was over, I decided that I would stick around and see the rest of what the museum had to offer and that part was much more interesting. I met up with the foreign exchange student and we took a leisurely walk through the rest of the exhibits. It was nice to have a companion as we walked past famous, and not so famous, works of art. I liked the Kenny Scharf and the Basquiat works, but the classical impressionist stuff was pretty cool too.

And, of course, on the next day, I got sick. My head is killing me, and the chills I had earlier in the night have been replaced by a fever and the sweats. I really hope I feel better soon. I have too much work to do to be sick for very long.

Famous Designer

2009-10-21T23:45:00.001-07:00

Designer Presentation

Tonight, I went to a presentation given by a famous designer about her work. You might be able to tell from the image who it was, especially if you're familiar with the work she's displaying, but then again, you might not. I am not going to say who it was just because this is my personal blog, and I wouldn't want keyword searches on her name directing people here. I am still not sure if I care if that happens or not. Whatever. For the time being, in my uncertainty, she'll remain a mystery (unless you already know.)

So, at the beginning of school term, the instructor in my layout class mentioned that the famous designer you see in my photo here would be appearing in our state in two places: one place in the state's biggest city, and one at the state university about forty minutes away from where I live. I'm intrigued by successful people, so I knew that I wanted to go, and the state university one sounded like my best option.

Normally, I have another class that meets at the time when I should be getting in my increasingly elderly car to drive the forty minutes to this presentation. And this other class is about forty minutes in the totally other direction. It seemed crazy to drive forty minutes to class only to spend a half hour there before having to leave to go to the presentation that would now be eighty minutes away. Staying home from school seemed like the only sane choice.

In my typical fashion, I wasn't sure where I needed to go, so at the last minute, I called this other school's library. A student worker answered the phone and introduced her self with an unusual name. Although I had already thought about the question I had planned to ask her, I was thrown off. My question came out in chunks, and finally I stopped in mid-sentence. I stammered, "excuse, me. I am sorry. What is your name?" She repeated it, and I replied in what I hope was a friendly tone, "wow, that's an interesting name." It was very stupid thing for me to say because I should have said "nice" or "beautiful name" because interesting is what people say to be polite when they actually hate something. Of course, I didn't hate her name, I was genuinely impressed by it. It was totally out of my character to ask people personal questions like these, but for some reason, I did it. She was very friendly and answered the questions I needed to ask.

Even though I had planned to leave much earlier that I did and visit the art gallery, I only managed to get out of town with just enough time to get to the presentation a few minutes late. My first problem was that I took too much time getting dressed, and my second problem was the unexpected difficulties with parking. The school was packed with cars, and navigating on these gigantic campuses are always trouble merely for the sheer amount of student pedestrians and cyclists milling around and in the streets.

The venue in which the famous designer was presenting was entirely inappropriate for her for the simple fact that the room could not hold everyone who wanted to attend. I had overheard from another person that she was visiting from yet a third college. There must have been many other people, like me, who had come in from other places. I stood in the hallway in the back and strained to hear what the famous designer was saying. It seemed like she was presenting her works and talking about the concepts that they represented.

I had hoped that she would have talked about her background and creative process much more, rather than her somewhat mechanical cataloging of her work. While it was interesting to hear her representation of the subjects of her work and what she intended their thematic meanings to be, it wasn't as insightful as I had hoped.

The thing about works of art, any work of art, is that interpretation is such a personal thing that anyone can come to their own conclusions fairly easily (if they are thoughtful and rigorous thinkers.) The work, to each of us in its own way, speaks for itself.

As a student of design, it would have been more helpful to hear about her approaches to her subjects, how she tackles the visual problems and themes she encounters, or how she solves the problem of typography in her work. I felt that her presentation was essentially like looking at the vacation photos of another family. Yes, I am sure it was a nice trip, but can you give me any advice about how to go on my own adventure?

After the last slide, the lights in the room came on, and a representative of the college, a balding professorial man in an argyle sweater, announced that there were refreshments in the lobby and that the famous designer would be signing copies of her portfolio. The portfolio cost fifteen dollars more than I had with me, and I did not have a checkbook. Nevertheless, I intended to stick around and ask her a question or two if I could. I met up with some of my fellow students in the lobby who, like me, had driven from far away to get there. I was surprised to see one of the students who had graduated from the program a year earlier there. I nodded hello to him, and while standing behind a crush of people milling around both the designer and the snack table, we made polite conversation.

I was confused about whether or not he was going to this state college or had graduated from it years earlier. I tried to ask him about it, and he said yes to something, but I wasn't sure what he was referring to.

Moments before I had gone over to talk to him, he asked the famous designer if she could sign one of her posters with a phrase to the effect of "Go [College Mascot]!" It was silly request, and the designer expressed her reluctance to sign the silly phrase on the poster he chosen, one supposed to raise consciousness about the horror of war. He told her he had chosen it because it had the school's colors. I was little shocked at the frivolity and audaciousness of the request, but then again, that was his personality all over. She had told him that she would "think about it," and suggested that he stick around. I think her artistic sensibility was offended. I imagined someone during the renaissance asking DaVinci to sign the Mona Lisa with the phrase "Hot Chicks Rule!" Wasn't this the same thing?

While he was waiting for her to agree to his silly request, I chatted him up about his life after the school's program. He said that he was freelancing and earning enough money to pay his bills, something I found impressive. He said that he was steadily building up a group of clients. Laughing, he explained that he begins his first client meeting by quoting them a fee for work that is hugely exorbitant. But, as a special favor for them, he would make it cost only a third of that. It was an ingenious way of disarming client's objections about costs before they could even have them. The fact that he had clients with which to pay his bills only a few months after college actually made sense to me because he has an approachable personality that makes it easy for him to talk to anyone about almost anything. He puts people immediately to ease with his disarming, if frivolous, manner. If anyone ever could get the famous designer to compromise her artistic integrity and sign the poster with his silly phrase, it would be him.

We chatted for a handful of minutes more before I noticed that the line to talk to the famous designer had gotten rather short. I excused myself to stand in line. The woman ahead of me was asking the famous designer what software she used to lay out her type on the computer. "Adobe's InDesign" was the answer of course, and again, I was a little shocked. It would be like asking Herman Melville what type of pen he wrote with, hoping if one bought that same type of pen, they'd be able to write a famous novel too. Aside from the fact that any first year design student already knows that InDesign is pretty much the industry standard for this sort of thing, the question is so absurd as to be entirely beside the point. And yet, the famous designer was patiently and politely answering the question, appearing very professorial in her own right. I could imagine her teaching a freshman design course and having to say essentially the same things over and over again.

Then it was my turn. I always feel awkward in moments like these, partly because I feel that my odd appearance puts some people off. I am a bit of weirdo with an awkward manner, almost the complete opposite of the student who I had just been talking to a few moments before. And yet, I didn't feel my question itself was stupid. I first thanked the famous designer for an excellent talk, and then asked "what is your basic approach to typography?" She answered that, for her, she does a lot of hand rendering, something that was already apparent from even a casual review of her work. She also explained that she prefers type to communicate simply and be readable, too many fancy tricks are unnecessary at best and can ruin your work at worst.

I was a little unsatisfied with the answer even as I nodded obsequiously in an effort to appear graciously understanding. I consciously was trying to play the role of earnest student. Her answer was essentially the "text-book" answer I could literally find in most books about typography. Maybe she assumed I was just another idiot asking a stupid question. I had not yet figured out that I wanted to ask about her process.

I quickly followed up by asking what was the one thing, the one "bottom-line" thing, that she thought design students should know about typogrpahy. I said I wanted to know if she had any gems of wisdom about type and type design. She answered that it was important to work with it for a long time. She compared type to jewelry on your dress, the jewelry has to be the perfect complement. On a similar token, a bad piece of jewelry can ruin the whole outfit. It was at this point, I noted that the remaining stragglers in the room with us had stopped talking among themselves and were listening intently. As she explained her answer more fully, she began to address her comments to them as much as me.

At this point, I felt that asking any more questions would have been impertinent and excessive, so after she finished talking, I again thanked her for her answer and talk as a whole, and moved on. After getting a little lemonade from the snack table, I told the other students goodbye and walked out into the dark with them towards the parking lot. That one guy was still hanging around trying to get her to sign his silly phrase one his poster about war.

I had had a serious sense of deja-vu when I first drove on to campus. It made walking around in the dark after the presentation feel exotic and strange. I had a sense of wistfulness about my lost graduate school career in English literature, but I also remembered that the money I had spent chasing after it was looming ahead of me threatening financial disaster for years to come. I could not afford any more second chances.

Of course, there was the parking ticket pinned to my windshield that I half expected to see on my car when I got back. The talk went longer than the hour I put in the meter, and I did not want to leave to fill it up again and miss something important.

Fifteen bucks.

I could barely afford it, but it seemed somewhat reasonable for all of this. I imagined that if I had to pay for the famous designer's talk at the big city tomorrow, fifteen bucks would be a reasonable admission. After stopping at Burger King for the fattening burgers that I seemed to be eating too much of these days, I drove back home into to the dark, listening to the radio.

At some point, I need to take serious inventory of my life and get everything in order. If I try to look at myself from an outward perspective, it seems to me my life is in a mess. Thanks to medication, my emotions are not mired in the big blue trenches of depression as much as they used to be. Still, while my internal thoughts are not as oppressive as they were a few months ago, my outward circumstances are still in as big mess as they ever were. I suppose it is time I start trying to sort that all out.

Not Enough Sleep

2009-10-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

I am walking through the park towards the end of summer. While the park feels remote as it is in the hills and surrounding by trees, brush, and lush grasses, it is not too far away from the town where I went to college to get my undergraduate degree. I am looking at the creek down in a small gully as I pass over an asphalt bridge marked for bicycles, when a car drives slowly by.

A man in the car asks me for directions. I tell him what he needs to know, but then he asks for a big favor. He seems pretty desperate in a polite sort of way, so I tell him that I would be glad to help him out. I get in his car, and he takes a short drive to his house. He is a heavy set man, with cropped dusty blond hair and a bushy beard. He seems to carry around a plodding sadness with him, but I take that as evidence of his persistence and earnestness. He seems like he is a hard worker from who life occasionally demands too much. He says his name is Osbritch.

He explains that he and his wife have just moved out to the west coast from the mid-west. They are obviously mid-westerners as his house is decorated in that mid-west country style and his politeness seems genuinely habitual. He has two babies and he needs help feeding them. He struggles to get each into their high chairs, and it is obvious that he hasn't done this too much as he nearly drops one of squirmy babies out on to the floor. With a reaching strength, he manages to juggle the baby back into a stable hold, and we set about feeding the children.

Once fed, I look around at his house from my seat at the kitchen table. This home is attached to his farm business. The babies happily eat their snacks at the table as I watch him get up and start doing a little inventory at a few of the displays. He's over worked, but doesn't say anything about it.

At this point his wife comes home. Her personality is the opposite of his. While they're both friendly, she seems full of energy, talkative, and bright. He lives his life under the gloomy grey cloud of responsibility; she lives her live in the full, almost carefee, sunlight. Her name is Saija. Again, both of them are mid-westerners, and their Scandinavian ancestry is suddenly and obviously apparent. If he comes from the grainy farm lands of Kansas, she must come from the cold snowy north of Minnesota.

I immediately take a liking to Saija. She introduces herself as Osbritch goes about his business. She explains that she and her husband have moved out here to go to college. I ask which one, and she explains that it is the same one that I went to nearby those few years earlier. "No kidding," I say. I ask her what her major is, and she says "English," the same major I had in college. I explain all of this to her, and we share the common bond of the same interest. I offer my experiences as a source of wisdom about her future path. I tell her who I thought the best instructors were and how I think it best to navigate through the administrative bureaucracy. I offer my general wishes of good luck to her as way of support. I talk all about my experience in the graduate program at grad school, eventually explaining that I am currently studying design. She says she plans to become an English teacher. I really like Saija.

Osbritch comes back into the kitchen and sits down at the end of the breakfast bar. I ask him his name again, and how to pronounce it, as I want to make sure I got it right. I have made two new friends that I don't want to forget. "Osbritch and Saija," he says. I repeat them, but I can't get the handle on the exact Scandinavian pronunciation. He smiles and says it doesn't matter, even after I repeat their names a third time trying to get it right.

And then I wake up.

From a Tuesday Nap

2009-10-13T17:48:00.001-07:00

It's the g-d d--m zombie apocalypse. Four men, paramilitary types, are being attacked by another group of people. The men have retreated into an enclosed courtyard in the bad section of town. They hide behind concrete barriers, burned out cars, and assorted city junk. The people attacking them appear to be normal looking in every way. They don't act like zombies, at least not yet. They zombies are alert, intelligent, and persistent. The way the men know something is definitely wrong about them is that they can be shot many, many times before going down. The zombies attack the men with their own guns while getting overhead direction from a helicopter gunship.

The human men are under siege, but fight back hard. Gary, the leader of this group of four, shoots at the helicopter with his AK-47. He stands up from behind his cover, yells as he shoots, and the helicopter eventually goes down spinning. Still the zombies are coming. The men shoot one zombie twenty or more times, but he still advances with murderous menace.

Gary calls for a retreat as more zombies-who-don't-look-like-zombies pour into the courtyard. They retreat into an area of stacked container cargo boxes next to a railroad car which is buried partially into a hill. They quickly set up barbwire and booby traps. As the zombies enter the enclosed space, the men shoot them down in a hail of metal.

One of the zombies drops an odd looking device. It looks like a metal green drinking glass with a needle like point in the center. It has a rugged plastic bottom that can twist into a locked position. The men soon discover that this is a type of grenade. When it explodes, it releases an intense blue light that is somehow more harmful to the zombies than to themselves. They recover a few of these grenades from the zombie bodies, and using them, they stop the seemingly endless zombie advance. Relaxing as much as they dare to, they fall asleep from their entrenched position.

They are awakened by a group of five men and women. They point the guns at this group. Mike, an imposing black man of considerable height and muscle, and the leader of this new group, convinces Gary that he and his friends are humans and not zombies. Mike explains that, actually, the zombies are not people either, but they are an invading force of aliens. If the aliens do not get their nutrients by drinking some kind of milk, they start to act like brainless zombies. It is something about the earth environment that causes them to act this way. Hence, the confusion. Gary and his group of four men have been isolated for a long time since the fighting began. He hasn't gotten much news and this new information makes as much sense as anything.

Mike and Gary become an alien fighting team. They learn how to navigate through a world of zombie-like aliens, even as the aliens adapt to their new environment. Several months pass as Gary, Mike, and their band fight the invaders. The aliens have developed into a significant invasion force, entrenching themselves in the cities and building up considerable support resources.

The aliens can only appear like normal human beings for three or four days, after which they become the brainless aggressive types seeking to kill any human they come across. For some reason, the noise emitted by vacuum cleaners will placate the alien zombie aggression, like music soothing the savage beast. They brainlessly push their vacuum cleaners around until more clear-headed aliens come along and feed them their milk nutrient to restore them to clarity.

Mike and Gary discover this odd fact. After killing one of the vacuum cleaning aliens, they grab its vacuum and push their way into the city. The come across a zombie/alien super market. One of the clear-headed aliens, a sergeant-major type, impatiently directs Mike and Gary, who are faking the brainless shuffle of a zombie, into the store after giving them passes. Mike and Gary come to the center of the store where there are large shelves filled with foodstuffs, including the new milk nutrient mixture that is more effective at staving off the zombie effect on the aliens. They grab a couple of three-gallon sized jugs of it, planning on studying what it is about the nutrient mixture that the aliens need. They are in some significant danger by being this brazen with their raid. They know that as they begin to shuffle out of the store and back out onto the darkened streets.

And then I wake up.

Airball

2009-10-13T07:10:00.000-07:00

Another dream. I'm playing basketball for a team with national recognition in a large sports arena. It's my big chance and, against all odds, I'm blowing it. The other team has almost completely fouled out and have given up hope of winning. They are all on the verge of going home and some of them have already gotten dressed in their street clothes. For some reason, most of my team mates are not able to be on the court, but they are cheering for me.

I get the ball and shoot for a basket. It bounces off the backboard and out of bounds. Disappointment begins to creep over me and my team like a cold fog. The other team begins to perk up at this point. One guy, one of the ones who is already dressed in street clothes in an outrageous club style that looks ridiculous on the court, comes out on to the court to play opposite me. He has on a long white coat edged in white fur and wears a white, old fashioned, hat. He is not really offering any defense. He is merely there to distract and maybe rebound the ball. I shoot again. This time the ball goes wide and misses the hoop and the backboard completely. The crowd laughs. The street clothes guy deftly recovers the ball and bounces it, delighted to see that I have messed up again so completely. I have one more shot, and to my team's utter shock and dismay, I mess that up too. We are defeated. Or rather, I am defeated. Entirely. The other team, delighted as only sports teams can be in such moments, rushes out on to the court, jumping up and down with glee and abandon, hugging each other.

All of this means that I am going to become homeless. I, of course, get fired from the basketball team. I have blown my big chance and will no longer be earning a paycheck. I can pinpoint the cause of my homelessness to the exact moment I missed that critical shot. It is humiliating in an expected way. I think to myself, "Of course I screwed up. For me, there isn't any real chance of success. Ever. Failure will always be my destiny." Metaphorically, I wear failure like a worn bathrobe, an easy fit that feels familiar.

In reality, I am wearing a black jacket with the hood down behind my shoulders. I shuffle through my old neighborhood. It is a poor neighborhood, but I used to own a house here. I am consciously trying to learn how to be homeless. There is a culture to it. If I don't learn what is expected of me as a homeless person, if I am not aware of my surroundings, I will get attacked I am sure. Thugs looking for an easy target will take advantage of me as a source of thrills and use me as a punching bag. I see other people with their hands in their coat pockets, so I consciously put my hands in mine. A few people still recognize me from the days when I was on the team. That protects me a little, but also brings up my shame again in a mild form.

I walk through people's backyards, ignoring the bits of trash blown into the grass, lifting the latches on dilapidated gates on rusty fences. Back on the sidewalk, I approach my old house. There is a new family living there. I can see a few kids' toys in the front yard. That's how I know it's a family. It looks like they fixed the porch where the railing was broken. They have made a few improvements, sturdy improvements meant to last for a long time.

I feel a mild jealously that this isn't my house anymore. I want to look inside, and when I get closer to the back stairs leading into the basement, I lean to peek in. All of my things have been packed into broken down steamer trunks of various sizes. One trunk is smashed into bits as to be useless. It is obvious they are clearing me out. Of course, if they saw me standing there, they would not know who I was until I told them. But, I wouldn't tell them. That would scare them. They would probably wonder if I wanted to take the house back, if I was going to cause trouble. I wouldn't cause trouble. I do want the house, but there is nothing I could really do about it. I have no job, no money, and no hope of getting either. Certainly never enough to reclaim what I have lost.

I shuffle off again, away from their basement, and I begin to think about where I might sleep. I think about crawl spaces underneath outside porches. Places where I would be hidden from view. Small spaces that would take some effort to crawl into. Places where I might be hidden and forgotten about. Hidden even maybe from myself. Asleep so no thoughts about failure could bother me again.

And then I wake up.

Spirits

2009-10-08T08:38:00.001-07:00

It has been awhile since I posted last. For the most part, I have been busier than I was, but it has been hard to find the motivation to write as well. I am not sure why exactly, especially since I have been generally feeling better. School has started again. I am already into the second week of classes. It's nice to be back in a solid routine, but I've been tired when I finally get home in the evening, and maybe that's why I haven't felt like posting these past few weeks.

I probably would not have posted today except for the dream I had last night. I wanted to get it down before I forgot it. It is brief and perhaps not interesting, but it was pretty vivid. I am on a new medication and bizarre and vivid dreams might be one side-effect. In any event, here it is:

I am sitting in a tiny field with a few cats that I know. These cats start acting strangely, as if they all heard the same thing and were drawn to it. Slowly they begin walking towards the invisible call that they heard. As they walk, more cats--cats I don't know--gradually join the procession. It is a tribe of cats. They are low to the ground, still walking, but also almost stalking this hidden call. Finally, they come to the edge of a grove of trees. In unison, all of the cats begin to wave a single paw in the air as if they were trying to catch something. I sit still and watch.

Soon, I feel a presence behind me. There is a ghost cat, an ancient apparition that appears to the group. This cat looks almost demon-like. It has a smaller head, a jaguar like body exaggerated by lean skinny muscles, the eyes are burning bright yellow and blue. The cat's face is twisted into a permanent growl, a permanent scowl that almost looks like a hungry smile. Tiny beads are twisted into its fur around its neck. There is a tribal ear ring dangling from one of its huge ears. I know that this is an ancient cat, the cat of tribes and shadows, a spirit cat that has been a spirit for thousands of years. I cannot hear what it might be saying to the assembled cats around it, but these other cats are transfixed, silently communing with the spirit cat, listening to its inaudible sermon.

I strain to hear it. It is saying we must attack someone who, through carelessness (but not malevolence), harmed the society of cats in some way. We must teach this person a lesson. I know the person the spirit cat wants to attack. He is a friend of mine. I know he is motivated primarily by his love of money, but he is not an evil man. I am somewhat alarmed.

The cats begin to march in the direction of their target. And the spirit cat has transformed itself into a human covered in tattoos, wearing much of the same tribal jewelry, carrying a spear. His face is powerful. He glowers. His thighs, his sides, his ears have been blackened by war. He lopes toward the target with the assemblage of cats.

I try to talk him out of it. Speaking about the careless man, I ask "what if I could change his ways?" I ask, "what if I could get him to stop his harming cats out of his ignorance, make him aware of his wrong-doings?" The cat-man ignores me. I know that if I am to stop this attack, I must try this anyway.

Then I wake up.

I am not sure what the significance (if there is any) of this dream might be. I know that the vision of the spirit-cat was pretty intense. If I ever been as accomplished with my art as I want to be, I would do my best to capture what I saw somehow. Words are good, but they just can't quite catch it.

Sick Cat : Part Two

2009-09-16T01:11:00.001-07:00

Monday morning. I woke up after a fitful sleep with barely enough time to get the cat to her appointment to the vet. I was groggy and not full awake when the phone rang. It was the vet. He said he had "terrible news." I sighed. I knew that this was one of the possible outcomes of the blood work tests he had performed on Saturday. I had just allowed myself to hope that the vet would be able to perform the miracle I wanted and stop the cat's pain and make her feel better.

I listened to the vet rattle off a series of numbers that proved that the cat's kidneys had been irreparably damaged by some sort of chemical she presumably ingested, but after the phrase "terrible news," I really wasn't paying any more attention. I thought about my experiences with the cat outside, feeding her, watching her lounge in the farmyard, hearing her meow at me. When I became aware that the vet had stopped talking, I asked him what he thought would cause such a thing to happen. He said that it was more than likely anti-freeze. The cat needed to be put down. Anything else would prolong her suffering. He said that he could euthanize her any time I brought her down to the animal hospital.

I hung up the phone, and despite feeling groggy, got dressed and located the cat. She was resting in the hallway. During the past 48 hours, the hallway had become her favorite place to rest. I knew that because I had been checking up on her several times during those two days. She seemed to have more energy, and was eating a bit more, and drinking a lot more. The vet later told me that this might be a result of the fluids he had given her during our last visit. I felt overwhelmingly bad, but lacking a miracle kidney repair spell, what else could I do? I picked her up and held her close to my chest for as long as she could stand it.

I put the cat in my car while I searched again for the cat carrier I couldn't find before. This time I was luckier. I found it in the barn hidden under a plastic bag that I had not noticed before. I managed to fish the cat out of the backseat of my car and put her in the carrier with a threadbare towel for comfort. She was compliant enough, and was even purring as I placed her insider the carrier and then put the carrier on the passenger seat of my car.

The trip to the vet took a little too long because there was road work being done on street to the vet. My car was stopped by a young flagger with a long beard. I wasn't sure if he could see the carrier through the windshield of my car. The cat was becoming a little restless inside her carrier. I poked my fingers inside the gate screen to comfort her, and she obliged the offer by rubbing her face against them.

During this time, I was in a sort of denial. I thought that there might be a chance that the cat could recover somehow. Maybe if I gave her more attention, fed her more rigorously, gave her more time to rest, the cat just might be able to recover. This cat had been nearly as strong as an ox in her healthier days, so I reasoned that if there was any cat that could overcome this problem, it would be her. The possibility of the cat's recovery was all I could think off during our drive to the animal hospital.

The wait in the lobby was short as we were the first patients of the day. The vet tech led me into the examining room and told me that the vet would be in shortly. I let the cat out onto the examining table and began to pet her. She was purring. It was frustratingly sad to have to do this, and I couldn't help shake my head. The cat explored the table, and at one point even wanted to jump down to the floor. Instead of letting her jump, I put her on the floor so she could walk around down there.

The vet came in and I asked my questions about her possible recovery. The answer, explained in a wave of jargon, was no. If she was a human being, she would need regular kidney dialysis treatments, but they did not do that for cats. He said that the best he could do would be to put off the inevitable for several more days by giving the cat another fluid shot. But, in either case, the cat was going to die.

Not the answer I wanted to hear.

I held the cat again, and made the difficult decision. He brought in a blanket and gave her a shot of sedatives. When she was asleep, he came back in and gave her the final shot.

I told him that I would be taking her back with me so I could bury her behind the barn, essentially her home for the last couple of years. Whenever I thought of her, inevitably it was at or near the barn.

I placed her body in the towel, put it in the carrier, and drove it back. I found the shovel and walked out into the pasture and the morning's rising sun. I did not want to be doing this. It seemed like such an unnecessary shame. A younger cat, only about a year old, followed me through the field and sat in the tall grass as I dug a whole in a hard and dry ground. It was tough work, but eventually, I had a hole deep enough for her to lay in. I gently wrapped her body in the towel she had been sleeping on and buried her.

After I filled the hole, I sat with the other cat for several minutes and thought about mortality. As I get older, I find that life is over far too quickly. It feels deeply unfair, and this particular death seemed especially unfair. The cat died before her time. I hope that I get my own life sorted out to a reasonable sense of emotional equilibrium and financial stability before I have to leave this world. Leave this world like we all must do at some point. A point, that, as far as I am concerned, is very much in the distant future.

Sick Cat

2009-09-14T01:30:00.001-07:00

Every morning has it rituals, even if your life, like mine, is in a kind of disorder. One of my morning rituals is to take a little walk on the back walkway, which would essentially be a porch in any other home, but as this home is a confabulation of lower class architectural styles, it defies easy categorization. It is a brief walk, but comforting for its familiarity. Over there, for example, is the same barn, same little fence, same stand of trees, etc. Some people have their morning coffee; I have this little walk.

However, it was during Saturday morning's walk that my eyes fell on a cat that looked like it had crawled out from underneathe a rock. Its fur had lost its luster, its eyes had a rheumy non-focus, and its walk had the deliberate uncertainty of creature trying very hard not to fall over. I had seen this cat during the past week, and even then, I noted it looked like it was ill. Yet, this particular morning was something else altogether. The cat appeared to be deteriorating quickly. When another cat, an animal that, if it were human, could easily be described as a real jerk, lunged at the sick cat in the opening move of an attack, the ill cat did not react. It continued its sad walk towards the food bowl in the backyard with the singular focus of someone who is very ill. The attacking cat was confused for the non-reaction and sat suddenly still trying to puzzle the situation out for itself.

I had earlier debated about whether or not the sick cat needed to visit the vet. The thing that held me back was the cost. As a poor person, my money might be better spent on food and healthcare for myself rather than the cat. I had hoped my attention, a fresh can of cat food, and some rest would be all the cat needed to recover. However, looking at the cat that morning removed all doubt. This cat was dying, and I couldn't face myself if I ignored her plight. It seemed immoral to not help out.

I knew there was a strong chance that if I took her to the vet that morning, the vet might tell me that she was dying and there was nothing he could do for her, and oh by the way, that will be fifty bucks. However, if there was a chance he could lessen her pain, then it was worth a shot.

I scooped the animal up and put her in my car. I could not find the cat carrier for the life of me, and as this was Saturday, if waited any longer, the vet would close and I would have to wait a weekend that the cat may not have. The drive further convinced me that I was making the right choice. If this cat were healthy, she would have climbed all around the cab of the car, on the dashboard, into the back seat, probably even in my lap or by the pedals at my feet. As it was, she curled up in a little ball in the passenger's seat and lay there for the entire trip.

Her biggest reaction during all of this was in the lobby of the vet's office, where a dog the size of a pony happily barked at us. The cat, using claws sharpened from frequent outdoor use of course, tried desperately to climb out of my arms and onto the safe space on my shoulders directly behind my head. The dog owner, taking note of my painful problem, fortunately directed his son to take the dog outside so the cat could calm down. Once the dog was outside, she settled down into my lap as we waited our turn for the vet to call us into the examining room.

The visit with the vet was brief enough. He confirmed her dire condition to me, and while he was not ready to diagnose her without having blood work done first, he gave her a shot and some fluids before sending her home with me. She has another visit with the vet on Monday morning. All of twenty minutes later, I was $170 dollars poorer.

Fortunately, for the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday, the cat seems to be doing better. She is still very skinny, but her appetite seems to be returning, and she has been drinking plenty of water, something I hadn't noticed her doing before. Tomorrow will be part two of the sick cat saga that at some point I might document here in this blog.

Even though it is still possible that I will have spent over 200 dollars on a cat that will die anyway, I think, at least for the benefit of my conscience, I did the right thing. The animal was suffering and it was in my power to do something about it. The cat has a nice personality and is way too young to be dying of so-called natural causes. And, someday, I hope to have enough money in my bank account to not have to worry about whether I can afford to do the right thing. Apparently, one of the lessons in life is that doing the right thing is not always in our control.

Sleeping Wrong

2009-09-12T02:10:00.001-07:00

I am not sleeping the way I should be. I go to sleep around 1 a.m. most nights, wake up at 10 a.m., and then take a nap in the middle of the afternoon. The nap is a recent occurrence of the past two days. You would think that nine hours of sleep would be enough, but then again, those nine hours are pretty restless. One night, I woke up at least ten times, tossing and turning. Other nights, I am awoken by the cat around four a.m. because she needs to be let outside.

Today was hot, at least 90 degrees, which made my afternoon nap more unpleasant than refreshing. I did wake up with more energy, but I had a metallic taste in my mouth and was very thirsty. I need to eat and exercise better to improve my health, but my mood makes finding the motivation to do either very hard. On the other hand, I have not being feeling 100% physically aside from the problems I just mentioned. I had a weird phlegmy cough that made me think that on top of everything else, I might be coming down with a cold or something.

But all of this: the not eating right, the not feeling well, the not getting things done is just a sideshow to the thoughts about college and my future. Of course, I am talking about two futures, the imagined one of five years ago, and the real one. The first future is the failed one. I had imagined that I would be successful as an English Professor and that, by now, I would be well on the way to publishing papers in literary journals, grading freshman essays, and doing my best to achieve the financial security I imagined for myself. The reality is that I am back in school trying for another career path that has a lot of similarities to the other failed one, except this time I am questioning my ability to achieve the new one in light of my past failures.

I had been telling myself that the reason I did not become an English Professor was largely a combination of circumstances and bad luck. If I made a few decisions that slightly altered things as they were, I would be in an office, pouring over those essays. But now, the benefit of experience, combined with my ill mood, makes me think the problem lies "not in the stars," so to speak, but in myself. Maybe it is a defect in my ambition. I seem to want more than I can realistically achieve. Therefore, I over-extend myself emotionally and financially, only to collapse into a heap of failure, paralyzing my will or ability to get on my feet again. Maybe there really is a physical source to my issues. Maybe, due to brain chemistry, I am not as equipped or able to gracefully navigate the world of social interactions the way a "normal" person might. I don't know.

I spend most of the day either thinking about such things or trying not to think of them. The latest worry is a form of concern about getting older. My youth is fading and that is becoming daily more apparent. I can appreciate the wisdom of age, but sometimes, that is cold comfort in our culture, where youth is sometimes seen as the highest moral virtue.

Daily Frustrations

2009-09-10T01:23:00.001-07:00

Today was much like the day before. I did not post yesterday like I had planned, but I already can't remember what I did yesterday, so posting about it now would be pretty pointless. I helped my mom out today around dinner time. Dad isn't here and she gets a little lost without him. Dad is taking a vacation on the east coast to visit family, so I am doing some of the things that he normally does: loading the dishwasher, corralling the pets, getting the mail, etc.

I still need to clean up my place. There is a bunch of clutter lying around that makes it harder to get all of the work I planning to do done.

I know that I should write more here about what I did during my day, and while there are a few things that I could talk about--like my trip to walmart or the grocery store--I really can't seem to justify the purpose of doing so. There isn't an artistic meaning to what I do during the day. Mostly, I try not to think too hard about things, hoping that, somehow, the mystery of life and the whirlwinds of unbidden thought will suggest to me a new way of thinking that will provide the renewed spirit I guess I am seeking. If I think about the larger questions in my life and look at my actions as if I was an outsider to myself, it feels as if I was moving underwater.

I am frustrated with things without a logical reason for being frustrated. I am told that my issues are essentially a question of brain chemistry and DNA, and therefore, it seems a little fated. If I am made that way, what hope is there for permanent change? I can take pills, but there are permanent issues with that too. There are things that are unchangeable about my physiology.

Part of the answer for me might lie with reading more literature, as in the classic English literature sense. Yes, this might be escapism. But it is one of the few things that gives my mind something interesting to think about, and because each work has an artistic purpose, it makes the thinking seem worthwhile.

I don't know what else to say here. I am tired again. I still need to do several things in the next few days: check the school schedule for the details on my fall classes, fold my laundry, work on those photos, get my hair cut, and clean up this cluttered room.

Tired Again

2009-09-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

Since I posted this morning, I'm not going to spend a lot of time posting tonight. I spent much of the day on the computer again, and in that digital world, I made some progress that made the game a bit less stale than before.

In the real world, I think I am coming down with an illness of some kind. My joints and head ache, and I've been coughing occasionally. I am not sure what I have yet, and I can't be convinced that whatever I have is a result of my junk food diet. Perhaps, I only have a case of the physical blahs.

The biggest point of progress I made today was, aside from visiting with my family members, I did some laundry. I'm out of clean clothes at the moment, so a fresh batch of clothes is a bit necessary. I turned off the television for the majority of the evening, and I found that the night passed a little more slowly. I was feeling tired by nine thirty or so. I should have went to be at 10:00 p.m., but some habits are hard to break.

I will try to get more accomplished tomorrow, including those pictures that are dogging me. The barrier at this point is money, but I think I can overcome it to a degree. Tomorrow, my dad gets ready to leave for his trip to the east coast. He will spend a week and half there, so I will need to help my mom out with a lot of things including keeping all of the cats fed. That's all I can think of right now. I am too tired to keep writing at the moment.

Rescuing the Man in the Fire

2009-09-07T10:51:00.001-07:00

Last night's dream was pretty emotional, so rather than wait until tonight before recounting it, I figured I should get it down now, just after having woke up. Already, I have forgotten some of it.

I am at the scene of a pretty intense fire. A fire that is raging through some apartments in Greece. Everything is pretty chaotic, but I note a man is stuck out on a balcony. I want to rescue him, and because there is a sloping wall that comes really close to his balcony, I think I can. However, the firemen at the scene (the man on the balcony also happens to be a fireman) don't want people getting close for safety reasons. I stand helplessly and watch. Soon, the building deteriorates in the blaze. The firemen haven't gotten to him in enough time to rescue him. The wire railing of the balcony pulls away from the building as the bolts come out of the wall and the concrete flooring he is standing on begins to sag. The balcony slips off from the building, and the man dies in the fire.

Seven years pass, and I still think about the tragedy of the fire often. It is a painful memory that feels like a loss for me as much as anyone. Yet, somehow, through the reading I have been doing, I have figured out a way to travel back in time, even though the time travel will come at some personal cost. For instance, I will lose all the close friendships and relationships of the present. I might be able to rebuild them as I grow back through time, but that is uncertain. One can only travel back in time, not travel forward. Even though it will be a sacrifice to go back, I know I have to do it. For me, there really is no other choice.

So, I go back seven years in time to the scene of the fire. It is just as terrible as it was before. I see the same distraught man on the balcony, but instead of hanging back as the firemen want me to, I directly go over to him. I calmly put a ladder between the wall and the balcony so it works as a bridge and pull the man over to me. He is so grateful he can barely function, and soon after I have rescued him, the entire building collapses. He is in tears and somewhat injured, but he is deliriously happy to be alive. I am soon hailed as a hero in the Greek Press.

I gain a very small amount of fame in Greece, but soon, he gets on with his life, as do I with mine. It turns out, aside from being a fireman, he is also an artist. As I have saved his life, I have become a "friend of the family," so we remain in contact to a degree. His family is as grateful to me for saving him as he is.

At one point after the fire, his friend shows me some of his art, which is stored in large drawers at the library. Technically the art is near perfect. The brush stokes are interesting, the shading is perfect gradated, etc. But, despite of its technical achievements, the art has the strange quality of being devoid of real meaning or merit. It is like the soul has been removed from it, but I chalk that up to his "not knowing" how to create this rather than his being "unable" to do it. I suggest to his friend that he tells the man to think of his dreams and try to figure out the emotional logic of them. If he can tap into the problems presented by his dreams, he can represent them in his art and thereby become a much better artist. His friend tells me that he will pass along the message. Shortly thereafter, I wake up.

Sunday Bird

2009-09-07T00:27:00.000-07:00

Last night's dream was a little weird. The streets were being flooded with water, and for some reason, there were a lot of lions and tigers that were being displaced by it. They lounged like lions and tigers do on the concrete walls and stairs of the city as I crowded into my apartment room and watched them warily from the large living room windows.

I did not get up at decent hour like I had planned, but instead slept in again until 11:00 a.m. However, I didn't stay in bed like I had the day before. I got up, ate breakfast, and eventually took a shower before surfing on the computer.

Yes, I did spend a lot of my time in the world of Azeroth, but not as much as yesterday. I did a few dailies and helped a friend with some quests, but for the most part, I was bored. This game is offering me fewer and fewer surprises. I could start over with a new character, but I think that the game is going to be stale for me until the release a new patch or until the new expansion comes out. Being bored with this silly game may not actually be a bad thing though. I think it will give me more time and motivation to work on some personal art projects as a way of entertaining myself.

During the afternoon, I was feeling really tired, perhaps due to low blood sugar. I didn't have a lunch today. Anyway, I had dream when I took my nap. I was with my girlfriend and she was playing a pachinko like game where you rolled a single ball bearing on a large table. You had about five or them to roll, and if they rolled in the right spots, you won some money. There were a couple of spots that represented cards, like ace, queen, and king, but for the most part, there were spots that represented amounts of money, like five hundred or fifteen hundred dollars.

When I woke up, I went outside for a little break and I saw a large ring necked pheasant in the driveway. At first, I thought it was a duck, that was until I saw the large feathers on its hind end and recognized it for what it was. It meandered out of the driveway and on to what I assume were better places to forage for snacks. Essentially, I went off to do the same.

After dinner, I returned to the Internet. I am finding television less and less satisfying these days as there isn't much to stimulate my mind, and the mindless shows that keep me company are becoming increasingly more mindless and less easy to withstand. I enjoy the occasional art show, science documentary, or political roundtable (if done right). I also like watching the creator driven cartoons on the kid's channels for the artistic creativity they employ. I imagine kids watch them for the manic craziness, and while I appreciate some of that too, it's also fun to look at stuff like the designs of the backgrounds or the color schemes. In a way, it's like watching a moving watercolor.

Yet, tonight, there really wasn't anything I found I could enjoy watching, so I turned the television off and surfed around the net and listened to the Internet radio. There was an interesting article about a famous photographer that I read online. The insights it gave on the high art world of new york photography was what I found most interesting. I know that in my humble design program at school, no-one will ever get to similar heights even though nearly every eighteen-year-old art student secretly harbors those ambitions. Forgive my cynicism when I say that colleges are adept at selling hope to those who can barely afford it.

I am not sure what tomorrow will bring. I know I need to look up my schedule of classes for the fall term. I also should clean up my room to the best of my ability. If I make it out of the house again, I will consider that a bonus. Finally, regarding the photos I took yesterday, I think a handful of them came out not-terrible-looking. Still, I made a huge mistake. I had the shutter speed set way too high. That is why if you look at my photos, like the one in this post, you can see a lot of "grain." During my previous camera outing, I must have turned up the shutter speed to take a few pictures in low light. And, I forgot to really check my settings when I pulled my camera out for this latest photo trip, ugh. I could have also used a telephoto lens to get better pictures of the egrets, but as I have no money for such things, that will have to wait.

Egrets and Pelicans

2009-09-06T01:26:00.001-07:00

I stayed up way too late tonight. I am tired, but I needed to write in my blog before I hit the hay. Today was not a big bust on productivity even though it seemed to start out that way. I went to bed at a decent hour the night before, about midnight. However, I managed to sleep until 11:00 a.m., and then I stayed in bed surfing on the computer for another two hours. Usually when I surf the net first thing when I wake up, I am reading design blogs, the opinion pages on the online newspapers, or looking up things on wikipedia.

Today, there was a really interesting article in the New York Times about Ikea's decision to switch typefaces in their print catalog. They had been using Futura, a very nice choice, and decided to switch to Verdana. Most of the response from design types was that this was a crazy choice. I have to say that I do think that the typeface is unfortunate, especially since Verdana was designed primarily for a computer screen, but some of the people objecting come off sounding like real art snobs. I saw similar things happen in my writing classes when I was getting my English major. Some felt that grammar served the needs of creativity first, while others, a majority of others it should be said, felt passionately that the rules shouldn't be broken, ever. They might later claim that a true artist can break rules whenever they felt like it, but in practicality, they heap scorn on the unknown innovators, good and bad alike.

I woke up from a dream where I was interviewing a cowboy named Cole at a Western themed restaurant. We were at a corner booth discussing the details of the movie and stunts that needed to be shot. There was a scene in which a cowboy leaps into a bullring, but when it was filmed, the stuntman injured his back, so we had to have a meeting to discuss how to avoid that kind of thing from ever happening again. There was much more to this dream, but I could only remember the last few scenes of it.

The productive part of my day came in the afternoon. Remember yesterday when I said that I wanted to take pictures? Well, as you can see from this post, I did it. I drove to Baskett Slough after feeding myself some lunch and shopping for razors at Walmart. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing, and the deciding factor was my noting that the storm clouds were beginning to clear up a little so the rain had stopped. I knew that Baskett Slough would be closing for the winter season, so I wanted to see it before that happened.

I surprised a bunch of Egrets at the little pond where they congregate. They moved from the side of the pond where I had parked my car towards the farther end to where it was harder to see them. They moved rather gracefully, and for the most part were quiet, except for a guttural honking noise they made once or twice. An elderly man and what I assume was his middle-aged son stopped near my car and used their binoculars to look at "the pelicans." I am not a bird person, but I am pretty sure pelicans are something else all together. Shortly after they arrived, I got back in my car and drove over to the hiking trail. The hike was nice, but the fact that I was out of shape was soon brought home to me as I trudged up the hill. Fortunately, there was bench halfway up that provided me when a few minutes rest so I could catch my breath and move on towards the viewing stand at the summit. I took many pictures as I went along, including a few of myself that only seemed to show me how old I was looking these days. My hair is much more thinner than I want it to be, and there are noticeable wrinkles around my eyes as I squint in the sun. Despite all of this, I enjoyed my hike. I should do things like that more often so my body doesn't have the terrible reaction it did.

I made it back home around 4:00 p.m. There was a health survey in the mail for me from a college doing a statewide study. I indicated that except in the rare instance, I don't get any healthcare, primarily because I cannot afford it and don't have health insurance. The mail will pick up my responses on Tuesday since the mailperson won't show up again until then.

For the rest of the night, I spent my time watching television, adventuring in the digital world of azeroth, and later, when there was nothing on television that I cared to watch, I listened to the radio. I saw the new remake of the "Get Smart" movie that, although mostly dumb, I found it a bit entertaining.

After I post this blog entry, I will read for a few minutes in bed before falling to sleep. I'd still reading the Paula Scher design book, "Make it Bigger." I'm enjoying it tremendously, and at some point on this blog, I should write about what I thought of it and why I liked it. Hopefully, I will not sleep in tomorrow morning for as long as I did today. That is a bad habit that will definitely have to be broken by the time school starts.

Fridays of Indolence

2009-09-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

Today was mostly a waste. I did not get out of my chair for much aside from a break to stretch my legs outside, to feed the cats who were prowling around their food bowl, and take a late afternoon shower. I should have done much more, but I was really tired when I woke up this morning and thought I should wait until I had more energy. Unfortunately, the energy I was waiting for didn't come until about six p.m. when it was really too late to do anything of real importance.

The dream I had during the night was the most interesting part of my day. For some reason, I was in Japan, either as a tourist, or as an English teacher. I did not have many friends there, but I did get out of the apartment a lot and walked through the city and into the city parks when I could. There was a nice modern park along the river with broad white concrete walkways and a pedestrian bridge that stretched across it. At one point in my dream, I found that if I jumped into the breeze at the right moment and threw my arms behind me, I could glide about twenty or so feet above the ground for a really long time. It wasn't flying exactly, but it wasn't merely jumping really high either.

I went to the park to practice this pseudo gliding as much as I could. It was hard to control at some points. I remember clutching and then breaking a high tree branch to both prevent my crashing into the tree or my drifting off out of control into the sky. I think I was afraid that if I got too good at this, I might not be able to get back on the ground. I jump glided above a few people's apartment courtyards and saw a kitten or two among the clotheslines and cramped sidewalks. Most of the people in the apartment block I was staying at and flying over were fellow foreigners.

Now back at the park again, I continued to jump glide. I noticed that I was wearing a weird robe like shift with African-Dashiki-like embroidery along the collar. My hair was down around my shoulders. It was about this time that I woke up.

Back in the waking world, like I said, I did not do much the entire day. I drank way too much root beer and ate a bunch of leftovers. I listened to podcasts on Itunes again as I played computer games. I thought about the friends I should be calling to see what they were up to. I also considered going out for a drive a few times, but I couldn't find a real motivating reason why I should do either. As this is a holiday weekend, the roads would be way crowded and probably not worth the hassle.

There wasn't much on television. I find that it is getting hard for me to watch television without becoming a little irritated at what superficially appears to be going on in the world. I am beginning to suspect that what is being presented on television is an increasingly distorted view of the world and its interests. Of course, I always knew that television distorted things (*I mean, as a former English Major, I could go on and on about the construction of narrative and the editorial aspects of merely choosing what to show and not to show), and yet, it seems to me the distortions of television are getting worse. When the nightly news consists primarily of stories about the misbehavior of celebrities, I get a little depressed. If the popular version of history is to be believed, there was a time when the news told people about what the editors deemed civically important to know, not necessarily what they thought would increase ratings and thereby sell commercials and increase their profits.

Tomorrow should be a little better for me. Among the many things that I would like to do eventually is take more photographs with my camera. I've not taken many pictures lately, and I want to change that. A picture in these posts would certainly break up the wall of text I've been producing lately.

Talking to Yourself in the Street

2009-09-04T00:12:00.000-07:00

(Just a side note before launching into today's post: the previous entry on this particular blog was number 200. It's sort of amazing to think that I have been doing this blogging thing for as long as all that. My other blog is even longer at post 325, my first blog that began over six years ago. I know that six years is not a very long time in most contexts, but compared to who I felt I was then to now, it feels like forever.)

Today, I woke up early enough in the morning to get a shower and start driving into town for the final meeting on my calendar project. I was in such a rush to get out of the door and on the road that I forgot my cell phone on the drafting table in my room. It had left it on the charger cord and only remembered that it was still at home as I was pulling on to campus.

I wasn't expecting any phone calls, nor did I have any calls of my own to make, so it really didn't matter if it was home. Still, the cell phone is such a presence in my pocket these days, it feels weird not to have it. It is also weird to think about how something that seems like a necessity today was something that I comfortably did without for several years before. I remember thinking to myself how odd people seemed talking on their cell phones out in public back when cell phones first started showing up in any kind of great numbers. If you passed by someone talking on the phone in the street, you might have needed a moment or two to note that they weren't addressing you or that they did not have a mental illness. One usually only saw mentally ill homeless people talking to themselves in public before the advent of the cell phone. Today, phones are evolving further, and it won't be long before we're holding them in front of our faces to talk each other instead of pressing them against our ears merely to listen.

Once on campus, I printed up my calendar project, had the meeting with the art gallery director to get her approval on it, and then worked on fitting it into the printer's online template. The fact that I am getting a heck of a deal on the printing costs almost makes the various idiosyncratic weirdness of their print process worthwhile. They don't use the industry standard software that the majority of their clients do, so their is ton of fussing with things on the computer to get things to print correctly. However, because all of this fussing occurs on the computer or over the phone, you really have to cross your fingers and hope the project comes back in the way you envisioned it. The last thing I would want to have happen is for the calendar to come back folded nine ways to Sunday, and have eight of those ways be wrong.

I expected the process to take an hour or so, but the adjustments and the uploading took three and half. Thankfully, we (me and the lab/print technician) finished it up before my 2:00 p.m. meeting.

The meeting at 2:00 p.m. was concerning some minor administrative issues regarding my finishing up incompletes that I regrettably received in Fall 2008. My plan thus far is to finish them up this term, but I've been in school long enough to know that even the most carefully laid plans can get irredeemably haywire if you don't shepherd them through the bureaucracy as you go along. Fortunately, it seems that things will work out.

I bought a sub sandwich when my school obligations were done, ate it in the computer lab, and talked with the art director and some of the other students for a bit before finally returning home. I spent much of the evening at home in front of the computer surfing through design and photography sites, watching television, and playing silly games. Later that night, since there was nothing on the television worth watching, I listened to some Grateful Dead on Itunes.

This is my second day on the new medicine, and I cannot tell if it is having an effect or not. My arm is a little sore where I put the patch, and I am more tired than usual, but I can't tell if any of this is related. At some point, I plan on getting a hair-cut, but I have to make an appointment, and I have to emotionally commit to spending about 20 bucks to do something I only half want to do. I also need to finally finish up that picture project I've been promising everyone that I am working on. Tomorrow might be the right day for that.

The Rest of that Same Day

2009-09-01T21:58:00.001-07:00

After that morning meeting (see post below), I finally drove into the city and eventually made it to the community college campus. I needed to finish up the calendar project that I was working on for the art gallery.

Briefly stated, the art gallery calendar is an unfinished project from spring term that has been dogging me for weeks. The calendar is both a poster/flyer/mailer that the gallery director (also the head art instructor at the college) can send to interested people informing them of the various dates of the various shows. The calendar also features some works from the various artists that will be on display during the school year. I volunteered for the project because I had the most time availability and because I really needed to have something I made for my "studio practices" class go to print.

It turns out that getting artists to e-mail you print-ready samples of their work is like organizing an all cat marching band--maybe you could get the cats to line up neatly in rows, but the good Lord help you if you need them to march in unison or play instruments while they do it. That process combined with my own finding out of how to do things in InDesign, or trying to get the department chair's approval on my layout extended the project to the very end of the deadline.

I just found out today that the calendar must be sent to the printer on Thursday no matter what. After meeting with the gallery director for the fifth and final time, I made the necessary edits and sent a PDF off to the department chair for e-mail approval. I hope it passes her inspection. On the day after tomorrow, I have to return to campus in the morning and format the calendar to the printer's template. I will also cross my fingers and pray to all that is good and holy that it will return from the printer as perfect as can be.

While on campus today, before meeting with the art gallery director for the last time, I made an appointment to see the disability services coordinator. This next term will be more than unusual and I want to check in with the disability services offices to see if there is any support I can get should the unforeseen happen. Last Fall term, I had a problem finishing my classes, a problem related to the fact that I was switching counselors at the time. The best solution to making up those classes was to wait until next year and finish them up when they were next offered. I would not be enrolled officially in the classes as I had already paid for them and attended seven weeks of them before. Instead, I would sit in on this year's classes and pretend last year's didn't happen.

Speaking on a purely personal level, this is a not a problem for me. In fact, it's an ideal "do-over." However, administratively, this could present a problem or two since I am not in this term's system. My meeting with the disability service office should help me clarify what, if anything, I would need to do to protect my rights should I have problems.

After my afternoon meetings and appointment makings, I went home and watched television and surfed on the computer. I re-read my first year of blog postings and noted, with some mild regret, that my writing was much better when I was reading all of those complicated college articles and classic novels for my graduate courses. As my blogging frequency dropped, so did the clarity and creativity of my writing. Yes, there were more than a handful of awkward phrasings and absurd over-exertions in the creative vein, but it was definitely more interesting to read. I hope I can recapture some of that as I try to post much more often.

Typical Relationship Movie

2009-09-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

Anyone who cares to read this should already know that I don't assiduously document the minutiae of my life in this blog. Even with the events that I do happen to document, there are details here and there that are inevitably left out, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes not. It's the nature of the beast. Aside from not wanting to upset anyone with what I may or may not say, my act of putting text on a given page requires an editorial discretion will alter and distort events no matter how accurate I try to be.

In college, I encountered novelist Tim O'brien's idea of "story truth" versus "happening truth," an idea that says that sometimes something can be more accurate and emotionally true in story even if it depicts things that did not actually happen. The obvious example in his case is the Vietnam War. You can come closer to the truth of that war by fictionally portraying how things felt rather than coldly documenting facts as they happened. There is something about how we as human beings need stories to tell ourselves about our lives and our experience of psychic trauma that makes this idea resonate for me.

Consequently, while I do try to accurately describe the events I portray in this blog as they happened, for me, the more important element to my postings is how they seemed or how they felt. It's an important caveat I felt I should note.

---

Today, I went to my morning meeting and, I believe, I inadvertently insulted a woman by telling her that I did not feel that "the relationship" entertainment genre of movies were any good. You've seen this movie before. When Harry Met Sally is the most famous and has the added benefit of being pretty good, but the majority of these movies are terrible and, to my view, wind up reinforcing horrible gender stereotypes and do actual harm in society as some people take them as illustrating a great truth about men and women and how they interact.

Love Story gave us, "love is never having to say you're sorry," which most people today would say is utter B.S. It's shocking to modern ears to hear how wrong that sounds, right? Yet, no one lives beyond their own time, so when the same type of B.S. ideas are presented in these modern movies, they sound normal and therefore unremarkable. Yet, as culture inevitably evolves, the distance of history might reveal some of those ideas for the trash they actually are. It might be hard to watch this type of movie in fifty years without laughing at the nonsense they seem to present as ultimate truth.

The women in these movies are typically attractive, smart, goofy, and earnestly seeking a "good man," a "good man" defined as someone who will be a modern prince charming that can provide to the woman's every emotional need without making any demand of his own. Midway through the film, the women express their frustrations at not finding mister right (or mister right not changing fast enough) and will try to change something about themselves only to realize the "good man" will love them for who they are not who they try to be. They revert back to wanting to be "rescued" by that prince charming. The men are attractive, slightly dumb, mostly neanderthals who really only want to have sex and will do or say anything to get it. Through their crazy adventures with these women, they wind up learning important lessons about themselves and somehow transform into the "good man" for the woman protagonist. They end up together and more emotionally connected as movie promised they would.

Real relationships, real gender roles, are far more messy and interesting than that. Of course, these relationship type of movies may put a spin on that basic formula by changing a detail here and there, but for the most part, that is all they are. I dislike horror movies for pretty much the same reason: simplicity of plot and character. Horror movies sometimes have the edge though in that they can be about the monster (like zombies) more than about gender, but not always.

Anyway, going back to the meeting this morning, I indicated some of my reservations about such movies to someone who recommended one to me. I could sense she didn't share my opinion and suggested, subtly, that since I had not actually seen the film in question, my opinion was uninformed. I don't have to see a horror picture either to know what I am likely going to see.

In any event, I regretted bad mouthing the movie for the effect it might have in future meetings. I still can't help feeling the same way about those terrible movies; I just have to resolve to be more careful with my phrasing in the future. I don't yet know much about this woman. I don't have a clear sense of her biases and opinions and she doesn't reveal much. We might be too different to reach an understanding on many issues. I am reserving judgment at the moment.

DMV and the 21st Century

2009-08-25T23:50:00.001-07:00

Today wasn't quite as productive as yesterday, but I did manage to get my car registration renewed and I picked up the medication I needed. During the afternoon, I got really tired, right around 3:00 pm or so. I seriously considered taking a nap, but I didn't want to be up all night since I am trying to get bed at a decent hour every day.

Last month, I got my car's renewal registration form in the mail, and while I had a whole month and half to go online and pay the registration in just a handful of minutes, I waited until a week before it expired so I was forced to go the DMV. Typical for me. Still, I didn't mind going to the DMV, that is until I found out that I couldn't pay with my debit card; they only take cash or check. In the car, as I was driving back for cash money, I shook my head. I don't know why I expected the DMV to join the 21st century and allow debit payments. Plastic is so ubiquitous these days, I haven't written a check in several years. It was a minor inconvenience.

That was about it for the things I meaningfully did today. Yes, I watched television and surfed on the internet in the evening. I am making more progress in the world of warcraft game, a game that is becoming boring in its routines. It is the other people in the game that make it interesting, and now summer is winding to a close, it looks as if they have less and less time to log in.

Anyway, last night I went to bed at 1:00 am, tonight I will be in bed before midnight and should be asleep soon after. I am reading Beowulf in bed and can fit a few pages in before drifting off to sleep. It's interesting to think how rings played such an important part of their ancient culture. I could explain more, but it's tired and I am going to bed this very moment.

Arguments over Dragons

2009-08-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

Today wasn't so bad as far as getting things done. I worked from home for the first part of the day fixing up a logo for the place I work. I tinkered with it in illustrator, and then put it in place onto a facebook page. Work needs to have a business facebook for reasons I am not entirely clear about, but I figure if the facebook page can drive people to the internet sales site, then it could be very good.

And yet, without input from the boss, I could only go so far with it. I needed to ask some questions about the information that was going to be placed on it. Consequently, I went down to work and tried to finish it up there. I also discovered, in the process of doing that, the bosses' computer wasn't properly updated. Therefore, in addition to doing the facebook changes, I downloaded and installed fourteen updates, three of which were "high priority." The boss had been having a lot of problems with her e-mail program. I am really hoping that this will clear it up. I stayed almost an hour after closing working on her computer.

During the evening at home, I did not do much else except watch television and play on the computer. I suppose it will be no surprise to anyone if I said that I played World of Warcraft. Most people already know what that is, but for the uninitiated, it is a game of swords, magic, and dragons that you essentially play online. I am not sure how many people play on each of the different game servers, but imagine each server like a small town consisting of a few thousand people.

Like all towns, there are a variety of people in it, but I know that the average player is a young male with plenty of time on his hand. Yes, there are a few women who play regularly, and perhaps more rarely, older people in their mid-forties or more who also play. But for the most part, one is subjected to the views, attitudes, and opinions of the various young men in their teens and twenties, and often the chat can be a bit crude.

I wanted to run one of the quests for the Tournament of Champions tonight, so I joined a looking for group channel. It wasn't too long before I was invited to join a group of four other people who wanted to do the same thing. Unfortunately, the leader of the group was being rude and wasn't reacting politely to simple requests. He wasn't being outright mean, but I could tell by the way he was talking that he was teenager with maturity issues. I endured silently for awhile, but when I asked for some assistance in marking the order of enemies to attack, he flat out refused. At that point, I left the group. I have been in other groups where similar behavior occurred and they almost always end badly. Such players are usually known to "ninja" the game rewards (steal a nice sword for example), rather than give other players a fair chance to roll for it.

Immediately after I left, the leader whispered to me that he was "only joking" and that I was being a "expletive-deleted." I tried to respond by saying that I thought he was being rude, and his insults only proved it, but he immediately put me on "ignore." The ignore action was interesting because it indicated to me that he had probably been involved in arguments with other players before, and this was his way of having the last word. Only more evidence for me that I had made the right choice.

So what was the point of me writing all that? It seems so inconsequential to note the ill-behaved teenager. The reason (or more properly, the significance of this), as best as I can describe it, is that I confronted bad behavior even though I knew it would bring conflict. I intensely hate conflict of almost all kinds, even when it is necessary to point out, as in this case, bad behavior. I wasn't rude about leaving; I merely left.

While being an angry teenager full of hormones gives someone more of an excuse than others, I have to say that I really don't understand why people are so impolite and mean to each other. If you're a player of this silly game, and you want to get things done, and you need other people to help you, the first thing I would think you would remember is to be polite to other people. If you insult them, or treat them poorly, you shouldn't be shocked if they don't want to help you.

The nice thing about this incident was that a mere hour later another group, one much organized and better equipped that the first one, invited me to run that same quest for the Tournament of Champions. I felt a little vindicated because I had stood up for myself, and I got to do the quest too.

I would rather not talk about video games since I feel somewhat self-conscious about playing them. They have a certain childish stigma for people who play them at my age. Then again, I did want to write about what I did during the day, and more often than not, my life is lived online at times so what I have to talk about will obviously include it sometimes.

Tomorrow, I need to renew my car's registration. I should probably check to see when school begins officially again. I should also try to live a little less of my life online and spend more time in the less electronic and pixelated worlds.

Trip to the Grocery Store

2009-08-24T00:40:00.001-07:00

Today was shaping up to be quite like the day before it, nothing done of any real value. During the afternoon, I thought really hard about going out to buy a hamburger and then swinging by the grocery store, but I couldn't force myself to do it. The anxiety I was feeling at the time wouldn't let me do it. The best I could do was wander around the backyard watching the cats, or sitting on a tree stump in the sun, and think about where my life was and where it was likely going to go. If I want a better future for myself, I am going to have to get things under better control.

I was feeling bad enough to get back into bed for awhile. I didn't take a nap, although I considered it. I just rested for a bit while I tried to convince myself to feel better. I was also a bit hungry, but I couldn't really find anything in the kitchen that I felt good about eating. Sure, I could have another bowl of chocolate cereal, but then that'd be my second meal of chocolate cereal, and even one is too much sometimes.

It was my hunger that made me answer yes when my parents called and invited me to a steak dinner. A part of me still did not want to go, but I went anyway. At dinner, I shared some of the news of the day I had heard over my top sirloin and rootbeer. I didn't finish it, and I plan on having it to eat for monday afternoon lunch. Afterwards, I mentioned how I needed to get gas for my car, so dad asked if I could pick up a few things from the grocery store. He gave me a wad of bills.

So, I managed to get one of the things off of the list of stuff I wanted/needed to do this week: go to the grocery store. The money I got from my parents paid for the wet cat food and milk. For myself, I bought some juice, jalapeno pepper slices for nachos later, and a bag of wasabi flavored "crisps," which I thought would be like potato chips but turned out to be more like rice cakes. I really didn't think I had the money to splurge on things that might go bad if I didn't cook them in the next week or so. And, I think that I had already bought enough junk food, so I didn't really need anymore of that either.

At night though, I parked myself in my chair and watched a little television and, as usual, played computer games or surfed on the web. I am definitely going to be in bed much earlier than I have for the past couple of days. Last night, I was alseep at 3:00am. The night before--4:00am. Tonight, I'll be in bed at 12:45 or so. I may read for about 15 minutes (a good way to wind down).

I guess I should be proud that I made it to the grocery store, my big accomplishment for the day. Tomorrow, I am planning to get a little more work done than I have over the weekend. School is fast approaching, which means that summer is nearly over, and which also means that I don't have as much done as I thought I would. My grandiose plan for the summer was to complete a bunch of work projects, get back into a regular schedule of drawing my comic, and do more of my own personal art projects like make a few paintings. My summer of anxiety and feeling down has proved to be very unproductive, but worry and emotional nonsense seems to takes up a lot of time.

Latch of Productivity

2009-08-22T02:32:00.001-07:00

Every day, I am supposed to write fifteen minutes of stuff. The problem is that I am not sure what to write about. If I keep saying that today I did nothing, and yesterday I did nothing, and tomorrow I did nothing, then what's the point? I don't want to express any strong opinions because a) some of them would be wrong for a variety of reasons and b) even if they weren't, the way the world is so polarized today, if I asserted one thing, someone else would get upset because they believe something else. Anyone who knows me knows that intensely dislike contention.

So, I am going to talk about art. I like looking at it, and sometimes I really like making it. The problem is that I don't do it often enough. The last thing I worked on, aside from the never ending summer school project, and the little work I do for the family business, was a comic that I have not finished. It was the art project that was truly for me alone.

During the spring term of last year, I had a figure drawing class that I really enjoyed. I think I have some talent for drawing. The instructor was really encouraging. It was a hard class to earn even a "B" in, but I managed it. It was also the one of the few classes where I wasn't worried about the letter grade I would earn at the end of the term (unless it were a D or lower). My primary focus was not on the grade, but on trying to get the skills I needed to make a composition that was interesting and pleasant to look at.

I think that I am overcritical of myself a lot when it comes to my art. I know that I don't do it enough. So I get discouraged when on the occasion I make some little art, and it inevitably doesn't look like I had imagined. Then I tell myself, well you don't draw enough, so you have no reason to expect that it will look any better than it does, which is a factual statement of the truth. Of course, that factual statement of the truth discourages me even more and makes it less likely that I will do the art as often as I want. It's an emotional catch 22.

I've been considering using a to-do list of my weekly goals for myself as a way to get moving forward on some of things I need to do, and try to get myself out of my rut. Even when I am not doing anything except watching television or surfing the net, I feel like I am disappointing someone. It makes me feel bad, and causes me a lot of frustration toward myself that I try to resolve by distracting myself with empty activities.

Seeing as today is Friday, I am going to include here a list of things that I want to do. First, I want to finish that unfinished comic in some form and put it on the web. Second, I want to talk to the gym people about my getting a refresher on the rules. I want to fix myself a breakfast of eggs instead of cold cereal at least twice a week. I want to go to the grocery store and do some personal shopping. I want to finish that CD project for my family. And lastly, I want to turn in some pictures of the logo I have been working on so that will be off my plate of things to do. I give myself to next friday to get these things done. I know it doesn't sound like much, but there is an emotional lock on the latch of productivity that makes it very hard for me to open.

Writers of the Past

2009-08-21T01:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if I am ever going to really get my act together. I have a ton of stuff to do during a typical day, and I can't seem to even motivate myself to get half of it done. Of course, this daily problem of being as productive as I want leads to me thinking that my future circumstances are rather bleak.

My eventual goal is to live a somewhat normal life with a regular job that I can enjoy (at times) and a quiet place of my own. Most of my friends my own age have this, but I don't and I can't help but think that is due to my serotonin problems. I sleep too much sometimes; I feel marginally good sometimes, but mostly my mood is down; I spend too much time vegging out in front of the television.

I know that everyone has their problems, but sometimes it seems a little unfair that their problems don't seem to affect the way that they think sometimes. No one likes getting criticism, especially if it is undeserved, but most people seem to be able to shake it off faster than I do. They resolve to do better next time, or write that person off somehow, but when I am criticized sometimes it can put me in a tailspin of depression that lasts a week or so.

And, of course, I can recognize how morose all this musing about mood is, but it doesn't stop my from feeling a certain way. It's illogical, and wastes my time, and I should just get over it, right?'

I think about famous writers I read in college. I remember one poem by Sylvia Plath that seemed to compare her anger and frustration about her father to the Holocaust. Of course, my remark was something along the lines of expressing a little shock at the audacity of comparing your personal problems with your father to the genocide of millions of people. And yet, Sylvia Plath's problems seemed to follow her to the end of her brief life, and to her, they were real and serious problems. Melville seemed to be frustrated about the course of his life, Hemingway struggled with his problems, Virginia Woolf, and on and on.

It's helps me to think that all of these writers had what appears to me to be depression, but they managed to write their works of art with clarity and enduring power. Their mental faculties were not dimmed by their emotional problems.

Today, I didn't get much of anything accomplished. I did put my dirty clothes in the laundry. I put a few things away in my room, although it looks as disorganized as ever. I fed the cats. I also took a nap in the afternoon, partly because I stayed up too late the night before. Tonight, though, I am going to bed a bit earlier. Tomorrow, my goal is to finish cleaning my room, and burn some picture CD's that I've promising people. We'll see how that goes.

Typos and My Slightly More Productive Day

2009-08-20T03:01:00.000-07:00

A word about typos: I make a lot of them in these blog posts, mostly because I don't really spend a lot of time revising what I wrote. I might leave out a word here or there; write the wrong word when I know better; and repeat myself unnecessarily. I could try to claim that this is some post-modern strategy to capture the disjointed way people think, but of course, that wouldn't be true.

Another thing about my writing: I think I have the "writer's block." I don't know what to talk about, or I am mentally censoring things I might write about because it is too silly, inane, I've said it before, I lack the confidence to do it well, and I don't have too many strong opinions that I feel comfortable writing about. As one could see reading the early posts in this blog, I was writing more often and, I think, more eloquently than I write now. Back then, I would post two or three times a week; now, I am lucky if I post once a month. The excitement of publishing your words on the net for the world to see was once exciting. Now, like the same food served over and over again, the posts (and the blog as a whole) has become much more bland.

Today, I woke up rather early for me at 8:30. I watched most of a movie on television called "Music Within". If you click on the link, you can seee that it isn't well regarded, but in spite of that, I liked it. Later in the afternoon, I caught another movie called "scenes of sexual nature," which wasn't nearly as salacious as it sounds. It was a british film that focused on the nature of relationships. Following seven couples conversations as they spend the day in an English Park. I can't say why, but I found the elderly couple's scenes the most interesting.

In between movies, I took a shower. After the second movie, I went into town to run a few errands, including taking my sister to the local fast food restaurant to get all her co-workers some ice cream. When I was at the ATM machine, the person in the car ahead of me forgot to take the debit card out before they pulled away and disappeared into the street. I grabbed it, made my transaction with my own card, and then went into the bank to drop off the abandoned card. The teller didn't seem too surprised as this sort of thing must happen on the odd occasion. I imagined that the person who absentmindedly drove off without their card was going to be having a bad day.

Then I went home and vegged out in front of the laptop and television. This day was more productive of the last, and I am hoping to get even more things done tomorrow. I know I must do laundry, and I should clean up my place a bit as things have been messy for too long. At some point in the next week or two, I am planning on getting my hair cut and my registration renewed for my car. The car thing must come first.

I stayed up too late tonight, and the 90+ degree heat makes it difficult to sleep in the day-time. I will work on getting to sleep no later than midnight. School will practically require the earlier bedtimes because of the long commute to the campus and the too early classes.

Puzzle Pieces of Myself

2009-08-19T01:05:00.001-07:00

Just a handful of weeks before school officially begins again, the heat has returned. It was slightly over 90 degrees today and the weather-people on television seem to be promising more hot days to come. The heat is better than the cold in most respects, but on the other hand, it also seems to sap the overall motivation to be productive. The late afternoons are nearly impossible. I am managing as best I can.

I have not been nearly as productive as I had envisioned before the summer school break. I had grand visions of doing a couple of paintings, writing nearly every day to keep up whatever skills I have left, and earn as much money working as I possibly could. And, of course, things hadn't worked out the way I planned. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. My plans tend to be a little overly ambitious, or so I've been told by the ones who apparently know such things.

Of course, when your brain doesn't produce the right amounts of serotonin due to genetics and environment, there is always the trap of believing things to be a certain way when they are not. Serotonin affects mood (apparently), and mood affects perception. I could say I haven't been productive regarding my work or my school without acknowledging the hard work I was putting in to control my mood properly and/or gain perspective. The brain is a tricky organ. I could be perceiving failure all around me when I am just being subjected to the stressors of everyday life. Another person looking in from the outside might notice achievements to be proud of that. As for myself, I may not see the effort or the work because they slide into my emotional blind spots of feeling inadequate, anxieties, and sadness. The gang up on objectivity and push him out the window.

This morning I got a phone call telling me I was late to an appointment when in fact the appointment maker was the one who had the date wrong, not me. I only realized this after rushing out the door in a panicked worry. I had my appointment anyway since it was convenient for everyone involved to just go ahead. I bought some shampoo at walmart afterward and then stopped for lunch. And then I planted myself in front of the television with my laptop in my lap and proceeded to waste a good portion of the day thinking on things.

In some ways, I have turned myself into a jigsaw puzzle. I am always looking back and forth at the pieces of my life wondering what goes where and how it all fits together. But then I wonder if maybe the "clues" about myself have no relationship to the mystery I trying to solve. Maybe the puzzle pieces don't add up to the picture on the box. Maybe there is no picture. Is it possible to have clues without their necessarily even being a picture? I am not sure. I am sure, however, that I am very tired, so I will end this blog here.

Illnesses and sporadic posting

2009-07-14T22:17:00.001-07:00

I've been sick these past three days, and I was sick for a few weeks last month or so. I am not entirely convinced my illness last month wasn't the swing flu. There was the upper respiratory component to it, but as poor as I am, I couldn't see the doctor, so nothing was confirmed.

The worst thing about being sick this time was that I kept waking up in the middle of the night with a tremendous headache, parched throat, and an inability to fall asleep again. This afternoon I took a four hour nap. My appetite is returning and my headache isn't as bad, so I think I am feeling a little better.

Aside from illnesses, I've been doing the same things I've always been doing: watching television, surfing the internet, drawing when I feel like it, and working when I can. My parents went on vacation recently, so I was also taking care of the farm, feeding animals and making sure the place doesn't burn down.

School is my last piece of unfinished business. I have a calendar I am working on for the art gallery that I need to finish. I will try to go to school and work on it tomorrow. It will depend on how I am feeling I think. I need to send my instructor a PDF of the calendar as it is now, get her revisions, get the template from the printer, and push the damn thing out the door. The project has dragged on far longer than it had to, partially because the artists wouldn't send their pictures to me fast enough, but mostly because I take too long with everything.

I will try to write more often. I had a chance to look at my previous blog posts from several years back, and it seems that I am always apologizing for not posting earlier. I guess I feel like I should posting every week or so, but maybe I should I accept the fact that blogging is just a sporadic thing.

Congealed into the Same Shape

2009-05-31T23:27:00.001-07:00

So, I haven't posted in forever, and I guess that is partly because I've been burned out on writing and couldn't find the energy to even make an attempt to post, and partly because I have no clue about what to write about. Life has been so unalterably boring in its routines for me that most of my thoughts for the past couple of months have focused on my life's seeming lack of direction. When I am not worried about the future and my potential to get a nice job and be self-subsistent, I am thinking about how much debt I have built up over this past decade and the apparently futility of getting it paid off, or I am thinking about how many of my previous goals have evaporated into the steams of utter failure. These aren't happy thoughts, and like most non-happy thoughts, they congeal into the same shape to become essentially the same thought. An, of course, that monotony doesn't make for good reading.

In the face of these thoughts and worries, I try to distract myself as much as possible with video games, television cartoons, the internet, and my college classes. I recently heard that the MLA and the APA are now recommending only one space after a period instead of two. After working with Indesign, the professional layout software, and considering the ubiquity of computers in academia, it's easy to see why this change is being made, but I am finding the habit hard to break.

On the school front, I managed to finish my packaging design project a few hours early. It's only a macaroni box, and my design isn't terribly exciting, but even if I do say so myself, I think it's remarkably competent. It is something my instructor would say is "a solid design that can't miss," but "doesn't take any chances." This is his way of saying it's worth about B. I will be surprised if I get something else. Most of his class sessions are fairly boring.

The only mildly interesting thing I learned during the last class was that before Adobe's Software came to dominate everything in the graphic design field most designers were constantly using their exacto knives--according to my instructor--"cutting ruby lith," something I have never even seen. All that constant use gave them surgical like precision when came to wielding said knife. As for my own recent project and exacto knife skills, it looks as if I had been caught in the middle of a particular violent earthquake while I was cutting out a little cellophane window on my product box. My folding skills were not much better.

The term is coming to an end, and the summer break fast approaches. It's odd to note how I won't be seeing some of my fellow students (nice people) ever again after these next two weeks. Most of them that I have asked haven't really indicated that they were getting a design job anytime soon. Their plans were on the more immediate problem of earning money to survive through the summer which could mean staying at their menial unskilled jobs for the time being. Thankfully, I officially have another year to go before I earnestly start thinking about such problems.

That's it for now. I will try to post something else in the next couple weeks. My lackluster blog goal is to try and post at least once a month, but don't count on that. There are so many things on my list of personal goals that aren't getting done, and writing blog posts aren't even on the top of that list.

Odd Mood

2009-04-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

I haven't been feeling well for most of the day. A sort of faint queasy feeling settled in the upper part of my stomach, and, only now, at the end of the day, is it starting to go away. I think this feeling might be the cause of the odd mood I am in currently. Well, actually, that and the thoughts I have been having about one of my assignments for figure drawing class. Let me explain.

I admire my figure drawing instructor tremendously. Perhaps I shouldn't admit this, but my overall opinion of community college instructors as a whole is that generally they are a mixed bag of the merely competent, the mostly mediocre, or the frankly terrible.

For example, in my first pass through this very community college ten years ago, I had a writing 121 instructor who refused to grade anything seriously. One of his more memorable assignments required us to find and stare at a spider's web for ten minutes and then write about the feelings inspired by that experience. Being a serious student and simply grateful to be in college in the first place, I followed his instructions. I found and stared at a spiderweb, and I felt like a total jackass. The only thoughts this was inspiring in me were about how incredibly dumb and pointless this was.

On the day assignments were due in this class, each student would read his or her two page essay aloud, while the instructor silently nodded and sat as a houseplant. His most common response was a rather cryptic, "good contact." And, typically, one student or another would wind up gushing about their feelings concerning spider webs in a far too personal way which was also revealing more about themselves than they realized. In a normal world, this should have embarrassed them tremendously. But, when you stepped in that writing class, you quickly found you were no longer in a normal world. Clearly, we were not being prepared to research or write the argumentative essays that the rest of undergraduate college was going to demand from us. Thesis statements? Building an argument based upon scholarly evidence? Thinking critically about arguments in class? Forget about it.

Suffice it to say, my large experience of college instructors has run the gamut, from community college to graduate school. My figure drawing instructor is one of the best. Not only is she scarily talented at painting and drawing in general, but she is super smart, and has fantastic teaching skills.

In any event, our latest assignment is to examine the "geological strata" of our lives and draw the things that have the most meaning to us as we have grown into the people we are now. Dividing our drawing paper into sections which might represent our childhood, teenage years, adulthood, we will bring to our portrait drawing experience the spirit of ourselves beyond our actual image. Yes, I know it sounds just as "ooga booga" as the staring at the spiderweb exercise ten years ago, but I think the difference lies in the fact that the writing class should have been teaching us concrete writing skills that would help us clearly communicate our ideas to others, while the drawing class is all about developing our self-expression.

And it is this "geologic strata" assignment that put me in the odd mood. I've been toying with some ideas in my sketchbook already. Initially, I think most people think about the objects that they had while they were growing up, like a favorite teddy-bear, a bike, or a videogame. Anyway, this was how the instructor was describing it. Later when I was working on ideas for it, what stood out for me most were not the things I owned, but the places I have been, the things I was doing, and, not least of all, a few very important people in my life.

In this vein, I was trying to remember the child I was in the late seventies. I know as one gets older, nostalgia has a tendency to color perception to the point where the facts matter much less than the personal narrative one slowly builds as they live their lives. Even with this in mind, this period seems unique.

My mother was still very young during this period, in her twenties. The "adults" in my memory of then were younger than I am now (seems odd to think of it now). And as young people are, they were are still very idealistic about changing the world. And, most of them were the spiritual version of hippies, much less into drugs and rock and roll than the ones seen now in popular movies and memory. And, I was absorbing all of this in. The idealism, the art, the youth, and the sense that the world would soon be changed into a paradise of happiness. The world, or rather my world, seemed full of a kind of hope that had less conflict between people, and had more honest, practical, emotional connection instead.

Of course, the world was changing. This was the era before the personal computer, before the arcades I would fall in love during my teenage years, and before the terror of nuclear war that seemed so present during the eighties. The electronic age had yet to reach my part of the world. Maybe it hadn't yet arrived for us since, we were also so desperately poor. So I guess I'm seeing this part of childhood as a more artistic and human world between people than the one we have now, which admittedly has its nice features, but also feels like it is missing something.

Hence, the odd mood that I mentioned at the beginning. The tragedy of my above description is that it does not really come close to accurately describing the half hidden moods, unconscious memories, and emotions that drift around these thoughts like a misty fog. Describing an emotion, especially one as inchoate as this one, is like describing the color green. How do you do it?

Homework and Worry about the Future

2009-04-12T00:37:00.001-07:00

I slept in this morning until about 11:00 a.m. or so, and sufficiently rested, I eventually went to the school's design lab to work on homework. I hate driving the hour it takes me to get there, but really, I had no choice. While I do have the software I need to make my little designs, I don't have the nice selection of typefaces that the school does, nor do I have the hundreds of dollars to buy the decent and legal typefaces that is required for professional work. Of course, I wish I did. Money sure is nice. It's still green, right?

I came back home, and while I had every intention of working on my projects more, I just couldn't find the energy. In fact, I was surprised that I got as much work done this afternoon as I did. The calculations just underneath the surface of consciousness were telling me that I could get the rest of my work done tomorrow with no problems. Tomorrow might tell a different story.

Still, especially with the economy the way it is, I remain uncertain about my ability to do a design job with the skills I am learning. Yeah, I get decent grades, but so do the hundreds of other students that have also been processed through the program I am taking, not to mention the thousands through all of the design programs in the state. College do a great job of exploiting hope.

Young people have a knack for envisioning themselves as masters of the universe. Not being a young person anymore, and now more intimately acquainted with failure, I am beginning to see the compromises that life forces people to make as they strive after the model of living provided by the larger culture.

I started to see this during my undergraduate days as an English major. Nearly every student in that program wanted to become a famous writer, but they rarely spoke about it. Instead, they talked about jobs teaching or becoming librarians. And when you think about the amount of English majors who are currently in or have ever been to college, and you compare that to the amount of English majors who become and stay teachers or librarians, you can get easily depressed. Less than 1%? Less than .5%? So, what becomes of those students who envision themselves as potential famous authors, and just a handful of years later, wind up working as a secretary in some office, or driving a truck at some warehouse job? Do they take up writing as a hobby? And when that fails to take them anywhere signficant, then what? The emotional realities of failure can burrow deep into your soul and burn slowly and painfully.

The same kind of process can happen in any of the so-called "creative" fields. I've traded my English major status for the small promise of becoming a commercial artist, but really it is the same thing. I suppose that it is possible that I could make a career out of design somehow, but knowing how life works, it is much more likely that I could become the operator of a postcard mailing machine, attaching barcodes to thousands of postcards at a time. Or something like it.

In each class I take, I do my very best to absorb the lessons as the instructors give them, but there is one class I am taking that is above the rest. It is my figure drawing class. I enjoy that class very, very much. Even if I got a 'C' in that class, I wouldn't really care that much, especially if I felt that I learned something and pushed myself a little. I can't explain it. Maybe it is the instructor (whom I really admire), or perhaps it is the subject matter itself. Maybe it is the fact that I am creating art for myself rather than trying to meet some commercial need with my design projects. Whatever it is, it makes this term enjoyable. While I'm not the best student in that class (I am one of the better ones, I must say), I am fairly positive that no one can surpass me in enthusiasm for the knowledge it offers. I'd write more, but it is time for bed and I am getting tired.

My Day

2009-04-06T23:14:00.001-07:00

Did not get a whole heck of a lot of sleep last night, maybe 4 or 5 hours, but it is my own fault for staying up a bit later than I should have, and then for not being able to fall asleep due my worrying about waking up on time at 6:00am. I worried for nothing. The dogs who live behind my place woke me up with their pathetic and insistent barking. When I had my fill of mean thoughts about little dogs, I dragged myself out of bed and steeled myself against the rest of the day.

After fighting through the typical morning traffic on the bridge into town, I made it to school and my morning design class with enough time to print out my homework and mount it on a 10x13" piece of matte board. The class, one long critique of said homework, was more than a bit boring, but then, of course, this is not surprising. The instructor has everyone gather in one large group to review everyone's individual work and make comments. If it is not your turn for the review, or worse yet, if your critique happened to be at the beginning of class, you silently sit with feigning as much interest as feasible in the instructor's comments on someone else's work, trying not to stare at the clock too much.

This particular homework was typography created for a movie about the "angel of death," who for some reason, is reaping an errant soul in an all night cafe. The instructor refused to give us any detail about the movie, arguing that "sometimes, in the real world, you have a project dumped in your lap, a project about which you know very little and must complete in a matter of hours." Yet, I'm very suspicious that one could ever know so little about a design project, especially when money is involved. People (read: clients) get really weird when it comes to money. Furthermore, the so-called "real world," in my opinion, has more flexibility and fluidity than the instructor can or cares to acknowledge.

The instructor was sick this morning and starting to lose his voice. Consequently, my review, which came in the last third of the total projects, consisted of little more than his choosing which design out of the three I created that I should continue with. Truthfully, I didn't expect much more than that. I've been through this process before and knew what to expect from this instructor.

The second class was a figure drawing class in the afternoon that was much more interesting. This is one of the very few classes I've ever taken where I am not as focused on getting a good grade as much as I am focused on trying to master the artistic techniques and the knowledge that will set my artwork a step ahead of the rest. Unlike the first figure drawing class I ever took, many of my fellow students happen to be very good. One student in particular has a mastery of the subject that inspires a tremendous amount of jealousy in the rest of us, but he is a nice enough person, even with his young man's tendency to devolve in a restrained fit of silly laughter about some guy's witticism about being "stoned," or "farting."

I suppose Graduate School, and the personal fiasco I experienced there, has made me realize how competitive the wider world can be. You might be the big fish in your particular pond, but that doesn't mean you still won't get eaten if you somehow manage to make it into the lake.

In any case, after class, I had a chance to talk one-on-one with the instructor about my artwork. I prefer to work with a drawing easel instead of the benches or horses that some of the other student's use. I turned my easel around toward the front of the class and waited for the instructor to finish talking to the model and then another student with the daily student question, "what is the homework." (Most instructors have a daily answer, "Check your syllabus.")

Now, in case you didn't already know, insecurity might as well be my middle name. In this regard, most of my conversation with the art instructor consisted of my asking if I "was on the right track," or if there was a technique or medium that was off limits for our various homework assignments. The answers, essentially, were: yes, I was on the right track, color is off limits, and I should try to experiment more with line variation, gestural strokes, and generally just loosening up.

Ironically, my versions of the quick warm up sketches we do during the first five or ten minutes of class look so much more polished that the one longer drawing I've made which we work on for more than an hour and half. My first quick three minute sketch has a vitality and fun to it that makes my longer drawing look like a complicated math problem that I've managed to get the wrong answer to. One looks good enough to frame, and the other looks like a decorated turd.

Conversation over, I eventually wended my way back to my car and, for the second time that day, fought through the bridge traffic to get home and rest. Since I have all of Tuesday to work on the homework that is due on Wednesday, I made a conscious decision to take the rest of the night off. I finally watched the series finale of the "Life on Mars" television program that had been previously recorded. I must admit that I was a little sad to see the show was over. While I found the science fiction element of the whole show more than a bit silly, the period police drama was highly entertaining. They should have had more of that. The final resolution to the mystery of what was happening to the main character was a bit of a let down. However, seeing as how the show had been cancelled, I am glad that they had enough time to at least resolve all of the loose ends rather than just having the show disappear.

Even though it probably doesn't seem like I did a lot today when you look at it objectively, it certainly feels like I accomplished a lot. The two hours I spend commuting on these school days are draining; plus, my shoulders hurt from all of the drawing I did, and my feet were practically killing me. I'm am so out of shape it is not funny. When I finally made it to my car on the other side of campus, I just had to sit behind the wheel for a couple of minutes to catch my breath. I think I needed the rest tonight.

The End of a Laptop

2009-04-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

A little over a year ago, I got a really nice laptop computer. Although Windows Vista was annoyingly fussy to work with compared to XP, it was still a great computer for doing my design homework, its original and intended purpose upon purchase. But, of course, it was also great for listening to the music and podcasts I downloaded from Itunes, for playing games like World of Warcraft, and for surfing through the many blogs that I read, some with an illustration or art theme, but most of them not.

And yet, during the Summer of 2008, I made a critical mistake that I am sure is not an infrequent one among fellow laptop users. During an afternoon computer surfing session, I found it necessary to attend to the natural biological result of having had a soda or two. I gently placed the nice laptop on the drafting table that I use for doing my art/design homework, and left the two cats sleeping on my bed unattended. I returned to the room just in time to see one of those cats, the particularly clumsy one, sniffing the laptop's monitor and nudging the computer towards the floor. My heart immediately leapt into my throat and I frantically threw myself at the drafting table to try and catch it as it fell, but the computer smacked the ground with a thud that broke my heart while the cat furiously scampered off the drafting table to hide under the bed.

Normally, my emotions, if not numbed to depression, are kept beneath the waves of myself as much as I can manage, my face normally the visage of stoicism. But this moment filled me with several strong emotions: anger at the cat for being merely a cat, rage at myself for being so careless as to leave the computer in such a perilous condition, panic at the thought that the computer may not work, and despair at the amount of money it cost to purchase and my inability to afford another. Plus, I also felt several undefined emotions that clashed against each other second to second giving me that light-chested feeling one feels in a crisis. Yet, I discovered soon enough that, while the hinge of the computer was indeed broken, the computer overall was still as operable as before. I thought I would be able to replace the hinge myself, but gave up trying when I found I could not get the speaker cover off to access it. The last thing I wanted was to damage the computer again in a misguided attempt to fix it.

For the next several months, I used the nice computer as before, except that I had to take special care to not exacerbate the broken hinge. I took an almost excessive and ritualistic care when I opened the laptop, making sure that I did not damage the hinge anymore. The only possible thing that I might have neglected during this broken hinge period was some magic incantation imploring the gods of electricity and pixels to have mercy on my computer and its mechanical injury. And everything went well until Spring Break when the monitor finally refused to light up. The darkness in the absence of the electric glow I expected seemed to seep out of the monitor and directly fill my chest with dark forebodings, some of those same panicked emotions that I felt that previous summer.

After extensive research checking on official repair service providers, one of which had recently gone out of business just a few months ago, my laptop ended up a Radio Shack, where an affable guy who seems to know how to replace parts but not diagnose problems attempted to fix the monitor as best he could. Unfortunately, even after a couple of hundred dollars, he was at a loss. My already tremendous distress was gradually building. The cost of the projected repairs was slowly closing in on the price of new laptop. Money is a constant source of worry to me as I never seem to have any. This was becoming one of those lose/lose dilemmas where a choice has to be made, but as each result is markedly unpleasant, one tries to put off said choice for as long as possible.

Things became even more stressful when school started up again and the computer lab was not open long enough for me to get my homework done. I utilized the available lab time as much as I possibly could, but only got about one-third of my current project done. Even when the lab monitor said that we had an extra hour beyond normal closing time to work, I still wasn't done.

And, just to make things absolutely terrifying, the instructor who assigned this particular project is very inflexible when it comes to due dates and seems to enjoy handing out 'F' grades under the mistaken view that somehow an 'F' will motivate students to perform better. Yet, for me, an 'F' is the torpedo of despair that can sink a student under a fresh sea of depression. (I could say much more about my feelings regarding this instructor and my view of his misguided teaching philosophies, but it might be wiser to let that go unsaid. My goal, when I think of this class, is to duck my head and get through it as best as I can. I don't want burden myself by dwelling on the unpleasant aspects of it for too long.)

Too soon, the last of the school's computer lab hours flew by, and I was still not finished with the project. Thankfully, my parents, whose generosity I constantly worry about stretching, came to my rescue by purchasing me a decent computer on the low end of the price scale so I could finish my school projects without having to cope with lab time shortages, the extra time and gasoline costs associated with commuting, and the few instructors impervious to the reality of students' various problems and their serious needs.

I am now working on the new laptop and am grateful for every minute I have with it. Should it be necessary to jump through a plate glass window to somehow protect it from falling off a table, I will do it and do it without thought or question. It is a rather sad fact of being poor to realize that your means of livelihood depends on just a few material things that can easily be damaged or lost somehow. I could cite a few examples that come to mind, but the ones that seem most insistent are the ones that pertain specifically to me. My school program unofficially requires expensive software and electronics: a DSLR camera, a computer, and a suite of software. This program is my last best chance for a lower-middle class life, my ultimate (and I hope realistic) goal. Without them or the assistance of my parents, my only safety net, I could easily be homeless, fighting for meager chances at an unskilled job, looking for work in a marketplace where the unemployment rate is at 10% or more. Not pleasant prospects at all.

It has been said by a few other people that I am rather resourceful in the face of problems; and, they have further said, considering my background, the limited successes I have thus far achieved are remarkable. This may very well be the case. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of energy to be resourceful and fight through a lot of these challenges. I am afraid that, at some point, I will run out of that energy and be left with nothing except the experiences of someone who has tried and failed.

Rolling Rocks

2009-01-29T05:06:00.000-08:00

It seems like every post in this silly blog is, one way or another, is about how depressed I am. Yes, it's true. I am depressed and, like solving a puzzle that is missing a key piece, it seems that I am trying to figure something out that isn't going to show itself. The last page in the book is missing, the puzzle piece is lost, the song is missing the chorus. I am plagued with the mystery about the depth of my own problems and the solutions I need to get back on my feet.

And so, the challenge seems to be to try and figure out how to be okay with not knowing how to fix "it." Of course, this is easier said than done. I wonder how Sisyphus must feel knowing that the boulder he is pushing up that hill will never get to the top. He'd love to get to the top because then he could stop pushing that stupid boulder and be himself again. Job done! Mission accomplished, right But, that ain't going to happen, and being a clever guy, I am sure he's figured that out. Being eternity, I am sure he's spent more than his share of time being absolutely disgusted by the fact that he's been cursed and damned to do something so pointless and frustrating. But, then what? Does he change his thinking about his task?

Knowing that he is cursed, does he try to enjoy the moment of the boulder rolling down the hill? The rolling of the rock is his moment to rest and watch the quick energy of the boulder tumble along the earth to reach the bottom. Does the tumbling become its own reward and bottom, for Sisyphus, become satisfaction? And why keep pushing the boulder at all for that matter? Why not sit on top of the rock at the bottom of the hill and enjoy the view: watch the sun cresting over the hill, feel the breeze weave itself around in the grass, and enjoy the shade on the cool side of the rock when the sun is too warm.

In a sense, this is what I think I am trying to do. I am trying to convince myself to enjoy being denied the top of the hill, which in my case, is a life without the ogres of depression. Maybe I should just enjoy the rolling of the rock, all those pleasant moments when they happen; and when I have my shoulder to the stone, maybe I should just remember that there pleasant moments will occur again in the future and leave it at that. Is this the wrong approach? Isn't it fatalism to say failure is the new goal, bottom, the new top?

The answer seems to be: sometimes yes, and sometimes no. There isn't a rule, and thus, I spend most of the day in bed either asleep as a way to avoid pushing my rocks of depression around, or I am awake trying to figure out how to be okay with it rolling down the hill.

By way of report (to myself) more than anything, I am doing a little better about getting to sleep earlier and getting my internal clock back on track. I have also drawn a little as a way to ease myself back into the old routines that kept the engine of my daily life going. I want to do a little more of that, especially as I have a lot of work that I need to do. I think I can change the current track of things, but it is hard, and that, apparently, goes without saying. My inability to get on track thus far is evidence of that.

Burning Memory

2009-01-26T07:21:00.001-08:00

I suppose one of the more interesting things about being depressed about life and your future is that you spend an awful lot of time thinking about the past. In essence, when you're not trying to numb yourself to the unbidden thoughts that are causing you your present anguish, you're spending much of your mental life in the past and reviewing how things went and thinking about how you ended up the way you did. You past becomes a puzzle in where you try to find the answer of "now."

Of course, you would naturally think that the painful thoughts of the present come from painful memories of the past, but this is not necessarily true. In fact, you can form fairly negative thoughts about past positive experiences by merely saying to yourself (in one emotional form or another), "just look at what I've achieved. It is such a shame I'll never get there again, will never have a positive experience like it." Sometimes, in your better moments, you can recognize those thoughts as irrational and wrong. Seen through the filter of depression, everything tends to turn into those bitter cold shades of blue.

Sometimes though, if you're being perfectly honest with yourself, you will remember positive moments in your life and will be absolutely correct if you said that those moments will never happen again. Yet, the mistake here is thinking about the "past specific" and turning it into the "future general." You would be right if you said that one specific moment of happiness in the past won't happen again, but that doesn't mean that there won't be happy moments like it in the future. that other happy moments that spring from places you didn't or couldn't consider at the time.

With all this is in mind, I would like to visit one of these positive moments. I will try not to make too many judgments about it. I just want to present it as I remember it.

- - - - - - -

My high school graduation was an awkward affair. I assume that most students are excited and happy to graduate, if only to finally be out of the various personal hells high school seems to create. I definitely was looking forward to high school being over, but unlike most students, I certainly wasn't excited. In fact, I was a bit anxious and depressed. I hated almost every aspect of school, and the ritual of the graduation ceremony was just one more thing about high school that I didn't want to be a part of. So while all of those other students seemed happy to parade before their parents and extended family, I was glum and depressed.

I sat rather forlornly in a cheap plastic chair, in a graduation gown that felt ridiculous to wear, on the football field with the rest of the graduating class. I looked miserably towards the bleachers where the parents and most of the teachers sat and tried not to worry about the future.

I had spent much of high school being the outsider, the weirdo, the loner, or whatever the modern trope is of the quiet student who looks glum and reads books all day. Instead of socializing with some group of friends, I sat in the hallway or library reading some book or another counting the minutes until I could go home. I guess was that kind of student until the bitter end.

By contrast, the valedictorian spent much of her speech talking about how great high school was, but as far as I could see, she only spoke for herself or a few friends. Being the studious and devoted daughter of the principal, I imagine her belief that high school was "the greatest part of our young lives" was somewhat natural conclusion for her to make, even if the rest of us were wondering what the hell she was talking about.

But eventually, the ceremony was over, and I was left to consider what to do with my life. College appeared to be out of the question since money was always an issue. I went home and thought.

But, in the most improbable move of my life, I shortly found myself traveling in a beaten up R.V. with people my own age, going to different towns and giving talks and presentations about World Peace. Actually, most of the so-called talks and presentations were us singing songs in public and doing small community service projects for a day or two. We would spend a week or two in a town before moving on to the next one. I spent nearly two years doing this.

I had some natural skills at organization, and although I intensely hated telling people what to do, these "kids" seemed to rely on me in the practical areas of daily life. They needed someone to figure when dinner was or where it was coming from so they had the time to focus on being spiritual.

Most of us were the children of hippie parents, and I suppose I was as well, although to a smaller extent. My mother was definitely a product of her generation, the late sixties and early seventies, but poverty and the various emergencies of her young life meant that she was more grounded that the stereotypical hippie. She wasn't the spoiled flower child who disguised her consumerism and self centered interests as high minded cultural and spiritual change. She belonged more to the genuinely spiritual and idealistic wing of the hippies who actually tried to change the world for the better, who believed that the world was, at some point, really going change for the better, and that it was partly her job to change it. Poverty can be a kind of purifying fire that burns way the silliness of "theories" to leave behind the pure gold of practicality.

This was one thing that poverty gave me as well: an ability to practically assess a situation and determine what might be the best thing that needs to happen. Whether that thing might be dinner, might be a time table for showers, or a day off to recharge our batteries.

There is much about this period of my life that I probably will never be able to adequately put into words. It was life times ten, life speeded up. Although we often made mistakes, both personally and as a larger group, I probably learned more about myself in that period than I ever did during my time in middle and high school.

So, with all that as background, here is the memory that I would to recall: I am on this "team" of fellow "kids." The oldest of us is in our early twenties, the youngest is just 18. We have already done quite a bit of traveling. Most of our time was spent in the suburban farm areas of our state, the wet forests and farmland ares I grew up in. But, we had just finished a week living in an artist community, a town of nearly 500 people in the extreme eastern, desert part of the state. It could have been a different country altogether as far as I felt. The familiar tall fir trees and various sloping hills that were often buried in fog and clouds had long given way to the rolling brown and yellow hills and sage covered stark plateaus of the desert.

Cramped in an old R.V., an R.V. old enough to still have the factory original 8-track cassette player in the dash, we drove to our next destination somewhere further along the high desert highway we were on. It was dark and very late, and we had already been on the road for a couple of hours. Some of my friends had individually succumbed to sleep as the hours grew later and the night longer. Someone was snoring in the bunk above the the drivers seat, the attic as it was called. The driver stared tiredly at the monotonous road stripes as they flashed in the headlights and quickly passed by the windshield.

One of my friends, someone to whom I was closer (emotionally) than the others, was reading a book at the breakfast nook at the back of the van. Much like a circular booth in a restaurant, the breakfast nook consisted of a cushioned bench seat that swept around a hard table anchored to the floor by a long metal pole. Behind the seat was the large rear windshield that framed his head against the dark. My friend sat in the middle of the back at this table, and I sat listened quietly to whispered reading.

As I gazed out of the window into the darkness, I saw what I imagined to be the last gleam of the setting sun. It took several moments for me to realize that the sun did not set in the north. I sat up intense interest and tried to get a better look out of the side window. I noticed several things all at once: the driver, my friend, the darkness, the road. But above all of these things, I began to take greater notice of the fact that there was nearly no-one else on the road. I had initially assumed that the absence of vehicles was because we were in a relatively remote part of the state. This was not a main highway and towns were few and far between. But I began to suspect the lack of other cars was due to another reason. I scanned the light along the top of the dark silhouetted hills trying to make out the silhouetted tree line at top.

It was then I saw that the light was not behind the trees, but coming from them. The trees were on fire. The fire appeared to be some distance away, perhaps twenty or thirty miles, but the flames, and now some of the trees, were clearly visible. I pointed this out to my friends who were awake.

We then took note of the red moon. The moon was the reddest I had ever seen in life then or since, perhaps due to the all of the smoke in the air. The driver turned on the radio to try and get a station. He managed to tune in one of the country stations that we could occasionally get to play for just a handful of minutes before drifting back into static. A news bulletin solved the mystery of no other vehicles on the road; shortly after we had begun our trip that afternoon, the state had closed the highway. No further traffic was allowed in either direction.

With the illusion of immortality clouding our young minds as it does most youth, we decided to pull over and watch the flames as they grew brighter against the deepening dark. The distance, one we thought considerable, made it feel safe to do so.

The fire took on an important and spiritual meaning that we all struggled to apprehend individually. Our chatter about the fire slowly died out and the excitement of this event was somewhat transformed into a stilled awe as we gazed at the flames. Our lives, in a sense, had just begun. The newness of our lives seemed connected to the fire somehow. We shared some unexplained kinship.

The destruction was both terrible and awesome to see, yet beautiful under the reddening moon. When I looked closely, I discerned tall trees, trees which I assumed had already lived for decades, explode in a sudden bloom of yellow and red. The sap inside the trunk had boiled until, like a piece of pop-corn, the entire tree burst in sudden brief intensity, the light from the explosion quickly fading back into and among the other yellows.

Silently, we stared at the forest fire, taking in the stunning vision for several long and quiet minutes. Then, somehow chastened in spirit, we climbed back aboard the R.V. to think about all we had seen and puzzle out the spiritual mystery that seemed to presented before us.

- - - - - - -

This memory of the trip through the darkness, the forest fire, and the exploding tree is what I wanted to examine again. There is still a mystery in there, both beautiful and frightening to look at, but of course, less important, less intense now that eighteen years has passed. I cannot explain the connection that we felt, but I can only affirm that we - - or rather, I, perhaps- - felt it.

There was a power in that may remain out of reach forever. In some ways, the forest fire I witnessed then makes me want to be a better person, a person who actively lives his life rather than let life flow over him like a flowing stream, pushing him around until he winds up in some strange puddle, slowly evaporating in an afternoon sun. In some ways, I do not want to figure out the mystery of the fire at all. I want to let it burn like the fire, work in the darkness, and feel that strange magic that I felt back then, when the world seemed to hold the promise of new discoveries, the chance for a life well lived and beautifully felt for decades to come.

A Couple of Dreams

2009-01-25T06:06:00.001-08:00

Lately, I have been trying to get to sleep earlier each night as a way of incrementally forcing myself into a more normal sleeping schedule. I do not want to stay up all night staring at my computer screen trying to not think about my myriad personal problems; unfortunately, I have found this is more difficult to put into practice than I had initially expected. It is far too easy for me to focus on the emotional set-backs I have experienced in the past couple of years, to dwell on what seem to be missed opportunities to improve my lot, and to float blithely on the stagnating ponds of introspection. To exert the effort to recognize these "default" negative thoughts and counter them can be particularly difficult, especially if my energy is low, and my emotional guard (sometimes exhausted) is down. Still, I am trying. What else can I do? There is a noble struggle in moving forward, even if it doesn't seem like you're going to succeed.

This has been the main concern in my life, especially these past few weeks: getting back on track and pulling myself together in spite of what appear to be depressing odds. If you were to see me, just assume that this thought is working itself around the many dark and electrical parts of my brain. I may be feeding the cats, a task that can take as long as twenty minutes, but my mind is continually singing verses of failure from shadowy and soul seducing songs. I'm fighting them most of the time. This isn't anything new, really. If you have read the past posts of this blog, you can read these various verses from those songs of failure.

However, sometimes, with all of the thinking that I am doing. I do come across some personal avenues that do not make much outward sense to me. These are the personal things that I find fascinating. At times, I think that perhaps the recognition of these points of confusion is actually a sign of progress because it highlights a place to start getting better or it illustrates a problem I haven't yet considered. Maybe, I say to myself, "this is another stepping stone on the path of healing."

One of these avenues that do not make much outward sense to me is my dreams. Admittedly, this is a small aspect of both my personality and my problems, but maybe, I hope to myself, these dreams will lead to the clarity I seem to be seeking so much of the time.

Recently, I have had a couple of dreams that have stayed with me. The reason for the dreaming is very probably due to my poor sleeping habits. However, the thematic message or the meaning of the dreams are much, much less clear. I feel that dreams have an emotional logic. If you can figure out the progression of emotions that are hidden inside your dreams, often hidden by symbolic imagery, you will have discovered an insight about yourself and will have gained a key to unlocking that part of your unconscious thoughts and motivations.

Here is an example of one of my dreams: It is dark outside and very cold, but the inside of the cabin is being kept warm. The cabin is somewhat rustic, and the low ceilings make it feel very small, despite the amount of people crowded inside. The walls are bathed in low yellow and orange light, almost as if the rooms are lighted by oil lanterns. The biggest room in the cabin is the dining hall, if it can be called that, but even as the biggest, it is only the size of a small living room in a cottage of some kind. The people cramped inside the hall are mostly teenagers, and they are sitting on long benches around wooden tables having tea and desserts. The furnishings are notable for their elegance and simplicity. The knick-knacks on the buffet and various small tables lining the wall are all obviously antiques of humble yet dignified quality. The hostess of this cabin, a late middle-aged British woman, is remarking on how delicious the tea is that evening, evidently pleased with it considering how quickly it had been made.

Suddenly, I walk in. I am a tall man, dressed in blue old fashioned breeches, large white billowy shirt, and paisley waist-coat. I silently put my great coat down on a table and sternly stride away from my officers in the tiny foyer into the dining hall to do a sudden inspection. The teenagers, mostly men as far as I can tell, all stand up at attention. I am irritated with this group for some reason. It may have to do with their lack of discipline, but I say nothing. I prefer to let them see my anger burn out slowly from underneath my furrowed brows. My stern manner does not dampen my ultimate duty towards them though. Ultimately, I know these people to be under my care and protection. I am doing my best to instill a sense of discipline in them, a discipline that they can feel bloom out from their co-fellows as a fireplace at home will slowly warm the hearth stones.

In another dream, I am journalist making contact with a college educated Afghani woman in her country. We have agreed to meet at a small town bazaar. Her country is in great turmoil, and she is not too happy with me because, to her, I represent all of the "Western" values and behaviors that she despises. However, her great desire is to tell "her side of the story," so she somewhat petulantly grants the interview. The interview in unusual, because as designed, it is more of a documentary than a one on one, back and forth, asking and answering of questions. Over the next few days, she will be showing me her life and the way she has to live it in the world of turmoil around her.

I am so grateful for her having agreed to this, I do everything that she asks. I ignore her thinly disguised contempt of me and contempt of everything that she believes I stand for, and I do my best to assimilate, however temporarily, into her society. I even adopt the local manner of dress to better fit in. Mostly, I commit myself to following her meekly around, drinking up everything she says with my ears, devouring everything I see with my eyes.

As we leave the relative safety of the indoor bazaar, I note the parking garage across the street is nearly engulfed in flames. Despite this, there are three or so men on various levels patrolling with rocket launchers, ready to shoot anything and everything they want. Their bodies burn in the flames, but they are unconcerned. Slowly, they pace back and forth on their respective levels as dark smoke rolls out from the top of the building. I cannot help but ask about the fire or the burning soldiers, but the Afghani woman expresses that very same contemptuous irritation that she had shown before in the bazaar. She considers me naive for not knowing just how much her country is in turmoil.

Both dreams have more to them, more parts that I have since forgotten. I can't remember the full dreams. In any case, I will probably dream again tonight as I have pulled another "all-nighter" that I didn't intend. Like I mentioned before, I hope to get back on a better sleep schedule soon. Still, blog posts will be few and far between. That may change when I start feeling better, but then again, I have a lot of other projects that need doing to that are suffering from my inability to pull it together. I guess we shall see when I am able to post next.

Getting Stuck

2009-01-12T01:54:00.000-08:00

Back when my future seemed to hold more promise for me than it does now, I planned on becoming an English instructor. I envisioned myself in some tiny office grading essays, with a window overlooking a nondescript University library made pleasant to look at by both familiarity and a handful of oaks below "shhhsh-ing" in a lukewarm breeze. I had thought I wasn't harboring any foolish illusions about this future fantasy because I paid keen attention to the warnings of my professors, listened to various academic experts, and read all of the advice - - by both expert and laymen - - I could find about a life in academia.

Thus, I planned on having a substantial amount of student loan debt, a tiny apartment (maybe even into my sunset years), and the aggravation of endless committee meetings with the attendant academic politics. Yet, even with those expected problems, the life of an English Instructor held out a modest hope of enjoyment. I liked to read. I liked discovering the history of ideas as humanity moved obliviously through time. I liked analyzing complex or interwoven themes in stories. And, I liked to write. English professors could be overworked and frustrated by a life in academia, but it might be a life of modest dignity and a way of supporting myself without relying on external help any more. Could I even dare to hope that I would earn enough money doing something I liked and was moderately good at to provide for a family and a home of my own? Those were thoughts that I quickly banished. The superstitious fears of my unconscious whispered that thinking such things might prevent them from becoming true.

After the seasonal excitement of filling out various college applications and writing hopeful essays, after the adventure of figuring out how and where to take the GRE's, I was accepted to a State College. I thought I knew the risks, and having had accepted them, I allowed myself to feel some excitement for the future.

And yet, as realistic as I thought I was being, I hadn't planned on my personal life causing so many problems as to prevent me from focusing on getting necessary work done. At the worst point, it took all of my effort to maintain the barest threads of my emotional reserve. So, when life made even the simplest and smallest of demands, I couldn't meet them. Checking my mail in the boxes outside, normally something so mundane as to not even be noteworthy, became a major accomplishment. Eventually, after days, and then months, of lying in bed or on my couch - - after masterfully stretching out every last chance I had with the college through pleading with various departments - - the University finally "invited" me to leave with a brief form letter. This ultimate outcome did not come as even the tiniest of surprises. Still, reading it fell like falling down a small embankment towards a cold and dirty creek. Just that month, the weather had been warming into spring, and I began feeling strong enough to develop a plan of action. I felt on the verge of turning it all around and regaining my footing. Until, the letter. I do remember thinking, in that pivotal, horrible moment (letter in hand held against the back of the envelope), how it was somewhat ironic that even with countless writing experts at the college, this final letter could be so poorly written.

What I did not know at the time was that my past history, my childhood even, laid the foundations for this crushing failure. Either through a series of bad choices or a substantial defect in my emotional makeup, my "being" was somehow trained for being derailed by problems. Almost every setback I experienced felt like a final puzzle piece completing an obvious, but as yet, unforeseen picture.

"Yes," my heart screams to my head, "you are indeed a failure. You are destined to be thwarted at your every turn. Life will not be enjoyable for you, and it is useless for your to try and make it better. Poverty will make it so you will not have the same chances as some. 'You can be anything you want with hard work and effort' is a bitter lie meant to make common people feel better about being brutalized by the system. Ad infinitum." This thought process appears to have been true since my early childhood, gaining new eloquence, new levels of complexity and certainity as I get older.

So, I get depressed and do nothing. Intellectually, I feel the duty of what needs to be done in life. "Yes, life may be horrible," but it is that way for everyone. The only moral choice one ever has is to live life steadily and grow beyond its terrible grasp, to not let the unpleasant things in life become strong swells that threaten to sink the ship of self. But knowing what must be done, I still can't seem to motivate myself to do it. The depressed part of my mind, that shadow devouring monster, dismisses the intellectuality of moving on by calling my mind's attention to the riveting pain of now. The future is meaningless in the face of the pain of "now."

In spite of all of the above, I think I could respond more to kind words and genuine encouragement, but most of it feels rote and false somehow. I don't know why. This could be the "bug," the error, the mistake. The "un-knowing" of the problem or how to fix it. I run through all of the code, analyzing the data to find the blank spot, the problem, but even if I find it, I do not have a clue about what to put there. So, I get stuck. I feel overwhelmed and get lost before even knowing where to begin.

Gigantic Mess

2008-12-16T01:55:00.000-08:00

My life, as of late, has been a gigantic mess. But I am not sure if it is of my own making (probably yes) or if there have been circumstances beyond my control that have led to my shutting down more than usual (probably yes on that too).

First, the facts. In the middle of this past school term, a term which is now over, I stopped going. I stopped working on my assignments; I stopped attending classes; I just plain stopped everything. From of the perspective of my fellow students, it was like I was suddenly kidnapped or stricken with an exotic jungle disease that required my immediate medical quarantine. Yet, if either of those two things had actually happened, I would strangely feel better. I mean, at least then there would some kind of tangible cause I could understand, an explanation I could grasp, put on the shelf, and forget about so I could move on with my life. As it is, I have stopped and caught in a soup of inertia and confusion about how things ended up this way or what to do next.

My total stoppage is in its fourth(?) week. Has it been longer? I've lost a normal sense of time. Since my disappearance from school, I have spent most of my time online playing World of Warcraft, sleeping, watching television, listening to music and literary podcasts, sleeping, reading books, and thinking about sleeping. I have been going to bed anywhere between 3:00 and 7:00 am., and waking up anywhere from noon to about 4:00 pm. I have work to do, and yet, I don't do it. It piles up and my motivation remains shackled, depression has frozen my feet in place and reached its chilly tendrils toward my heart.

Those are the facts.

Here is the trouble: I think I can only figure out about 40% of why I stopped doing everything. About that 40%, I will attempt to sketch out some kind of account.

One, I was overwhelmed with school work. There was much more than I had expected. A class that had been worth two credits in the schedule had a work load of at least six credits. The unexpected amount of work combined with my usual, and admittedly unrealistic, expectations to do classwork that far exceeded normal expectations. I don't want to be just a good art student. I want to be the best art student. Silly, considering the amount of work I am willing to invest in my various projects to achieve that goal.

Still, when I do work on a project, I want the instructors to exclaim that my work is really, really good--among the best that they have ever seen--and, yes, a part of me even wants my fellow students to be jealous. And, in the past, especially when I was an English undergraduate (and very probably much to my detriment) that had often been the case. I won prizes for my work, had instructors tell me that I should be going to a better college, and I often would feel the bewildered admiration of fellow students who wondered how I managed to pull it off. I may have been a big fish in a small pond, but at least I was the big fish. The praise was engine that kept me going more than I thought.

After a lot of reflection, and some therapy, I am fairly sure that I enjoy praise twice as much as a normal person should. And, conversely, I hate criticism twice as much. Professionals call this sort of thing "mood reactivity," a long step beyond the normal reaction of feeling good when someone compliments you or feeling discomforted when someone is mean to you. It is like being very easily sunburned. Just an hour under a harsh sun can leave you with a sting you feel for days.

Of course, negative critiques are nothing extraordinary in the context of an art class. Art critiques are part of the skeletal system of a creative education, and by necessity, a few of them will be negative. How else would one learn if not by trying and failing? Yet, I wasn't the perfectionist I wanted to be, and it upset me.

Example of sorts. I worked really hard on a postcard advertising an upcoming college play: Brighton Beach Memoirs. The director wanted the postcard to emphasize baseball, a wrong-headed emphasis in my opinion, but then again, "the client" always gets what they want, at least according to the instructor. I thought the proper emphasis should have been on the working class environment, the historical context of a looming war, and/or the emotional struggle of a young boy "coming of age." After hearing the director describe the play in class, it was clear to me that, to her, males were an amalgam of rough and tumble stereotypes, snips and snails and puppydog tails, a confederation of sexist clowns, and, largely, a mystery. But hey, baseball! Okay. I get it.

So, in the spirit of trying to exceed expectations, I did my research. I read the play, and I read aboutthe play. I researched poster design in the 30's, and looked at several "time-appropriate" typefaces. I found photographs of the very baseball players mentioned in the play in an old baseball magazine from the 40's. And, pursuing my industrious course, I made several sketches in different directions, got feedback from the instructor about which of them worked better than the others, carefully did several final drawings, combined all the elements in Photoshop, inked it and, finally, colored it. Perhaps even more importantly, while staying faithful to the director's original intentions for the card, I had managed to tweak it enough to pull in the broader interpretations I thought she missed.

So, when it came time for the presentation to the "client," the director of the play, I explained my work, my thought processes, my goals, my effort, to which she responded: "it looks too high school". Not that the particular imagery I chose was wrong for her vision of the play. Not that the colors wouldn't match the stage production goals she had. Not that the work communicated the wrong tone. But, that it was "high school." Meaning, to her, it was "unprofessional." The seeds of professional design I was trying to plant with my student work was not yielding any fruit. Hell, according to her, I wasn't even in the right garden. I was devastated. I asked my art instructor, "was it true?" Does my postcard look "high school?" I spent well over twenty hours on it, way more than the six or seven the other students had devoted. I had even watched a fellow classmate cobble a quick postcard together in the class previous to the presentation in about an hour. No, I was assured by the art instructor. With a minor comment or two about how to improve, she declared it overall a fine work.

So, okay, the play director was wrong about the postcard. I can admit that. A normal person would brush off the negative comment as "just her opinion," or "plain wrong." Or they might just chalk it up to some weird anomaly that happens in everyday life, like a full moon or something, right? But, the remark cut me. It hurt. I tried to hide my obvious disappointment when it was made, but I didn't do a good job. Some of the more sensitive and observant students offered their reassurances when class was over, to the tune of "I thought it was really good," with the corresponding verses of "I like the color," and "did you draw it yourself?" And, instead of making me feel better about my hard work, I only felt worse. Their nice comments were only emphasizing my inability to hide my disappointment and distress. When the mask of pleasant sociability falls, when the thin veneer of self-image that one so carefully builds has burnt away, and one stands exposed with naked and nausea inducing emotions, embarrassment shines as brightly as the sun. And every stranger's added syllable makes it shine even brighter.

So, the problem summed up, as I see it: I fully recognize that my mood has been much more dependent on my various interactions with people than it really should be. I should be able to provide my own support when it comes to needed an emotional boost, and I should be able to brush off criticisms that are uneccessary, or gently take them when true and offered in a friendly manner. But, I can't for some reason. Consciously, I recognize the ideal way to react, but emotionally, an arrow pierces the exterior and wounds my heart in a way that I never seem to be able to expect. I am the fool dancing on a ship's railing in the midst of a typhoon and is stupidly surprised when he inevitably falls off.

So, that's one thing I've been grappling with: schoolwork and attendant irrational mood reactivity.

Second, I am finding out that my depression is less like the flu and more like diabetes, meaning that it isn't something that you catch and get rid of, but it is a lifetime condition that will affect daily choices you make for the rest of your life. I still have my perspective, and I can parrot the countless medication advertisements on television by (ugh!) saying that a person can live their life with a chronic condition and "still have a normal and healthy life for many years to come." But, what the commercials don't communicate is how it feels to realize that, for the rest of your life, you will be struggling with something that you'd rather be rid of.

It is as if your shadow is grabbing you by the shoulders and pressing your towards the ground with the intent of burying you in a dark and earthy hole. You must exert the strength to push against him, and you can't ever have the luxury of forgetting he is there, because if you do, you're suddenly in that hole and he's carelessly tossing dirt on you. At which point, you have to exert even more effort to get out. It's exhausting mentally. I hate it.

The third part of that 40% I mentioned earlier, might be the fact that I am in between counselors. At the same time I was struggling with school, I was in the process of finishing up my sessions with the counselor I have had for the past three years. While I am still not sure how much this has affected me, I am beginning to think that it is affecting more than I think. I have been trying to find a new one, and by the grace of god, I will find out if I have one this next week.

In the mean time, I will try not to think too much more about all of this. At times I feel like I am lost in a dark and labyrinthine cave being stalked by a two starving coyotes. Yes, I know I could fight them off, and yes, I know that if I keep at it, eventually I will make it out of the cave, but not before I get bitten a lot, bump my head on the cave ceiling, and curse the darkness to the point of absurd futility, bitter about being lost. Maybe the key is to just stop and rest for a bit, maybe get some sleep, and fight the coyotes when my strength is up again.

Zombies

2008-12-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

Foreward: The following is a dream that I had last night. For the heck of it, I decided that I would try and write it more creatively than a typical dream report. As far as a personal background, which might provide some context to the dream (although I am not sure how yet), these past few weeks for me have been truly terrible. And this is not the "terrible" of a daily complaint, but the "terrible" of ruined college career and straitened circumstances of ongoing poverty. I have suffered some emotional setbacks which have stopped my school progress for this term, and I am not sure how to fix it. Now, the dream:

Confusion. Things stop working like they usually should. I am drive around aimlessly in my used station wagon trying to figure out what the hell is happening to everybody. There is the electric and unplaceable oddity one feels after a major national crisis, like a terrorist attack or declaration of war. But outwardly, other than a few more people walking out on the street, people who appear perfectly normal, not too much is different.

I am not sure what happened. Perhaps a meteor hit the east coast, or there was a biological experiment gone wrong. I remember that this is how it happens in the movies. But, now that it is actually happening in real life, I don't have no idea how it started, and I am pretty sure that I will never know. There isn't anything on the radio. In fact, all of the stations on radio are silent. I can't tune anything in. This is my first and biggest indicator that something is really wrong: the media, constantly present, has shut down.

My first impulse is to find and meet up with my family, but I can't find them. They aren't at home. I'm very worried and am desperately looking around. Driving around the suburban neighborhood, I pull out my cell phone and try to call them. The voice on the other end says, "I'm sorry. This phonecall will cost 12,450 dollars the first minute and 3,000 dollars for every additional minute." While it seems clear that society has very definitely fallen apart, I inwardly debate the cost of the call while staring blankly distressed at the phone. If the world is truly crumbling, it won't matter how much debt I incur now because no-one will ever be able to collect. Unfortunately, I'm so poor, I can't take the chance. I think, "Yet another indignity of being poor: having been beaten into submission by the exorbitant costs of things."

I have somehow found my way to the local hospital, three stories with the red brick facade. Stopping in the lot, I get out of the car and walk through the hospital corridors looking for someone normal to talk to. Someone leaps out of nearby examination room very angry and looking to bite someone, possibly me. I quickly back away and find another corridor to search, where I see an angry person biting someone else. This appears to be the only indication that someone has become a zombie: they are angry and upset. They want to bite. In another corridor, I come across zombie blocking my way, menacingly. But, oddly, I smile and give a little wave. It seems to work! The zombie stands up straighter, smiles and waves back and moves off to search for another potential victim. I discover that if I smile and act very pleasant, my zombie attackers become mollified and walk away.

Eventually, I find the E.R., where there is a nurse who, while having been bitten, is not yet a zombie. She is trying to treat other people who are not yet zombies. She explains that the zombie infection is spreading very fast and that my best bet is to leave and get out of town. Deciding that this is good advice, I go for the exit in the room beyond. There is a plate glass window between rooms so I can look back and still see the nurse treating people. Suddenly, I see that there are about eight zombies with her, circling around her as if to attack. I must be horrified, because an expression of shock and pain escapes onto my face. The zombies, surprised at my inadvertent expression, lunge at the window. I hit the fire alarm to cause momentary confusion, and turn for the exit. As I am rushing out, I see a baseball bat that someone has left by the door. I grab it and quickly get back in my car to speed away.

I am driving out onto the coast. Society has indeed fallen apart, and I have still not found my family. There aren't many zombies out here as it is too remote for them to find or survive for very long. I come across a giant coastal home that the rich people own, but are now abandoned. I decide to take residency here. I can see the lights of the nearby town in the distance from the back sliding glass doors.

- - - - - - -

I have now become an older man, perhaps about sixty. I found another normal person to be with, a woman, who has essentially become my wife. We are still avoiding zombies. It is late at night, and I am trying to shut off every light that is on so the zombies will not see that someone lives here. But, because of the odd shape of the house, with large cathedral ceilings in tall and narrow rooms, I sometimes have to use a ladder to shut them off. I have my bat nearby to fend off any potential attackers, and there are a couple more bats in the upstairs bedroom. I am trying my best to take care of my wife and reassure her that everything is all right. As I shut off the last light, the lights near the porch, I look out towards the lights burning in the nearby zombie city and worry if they will ever eventually find us.

Spider Blahs

2008-09-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I have been seeing lot more spiders that I usually do. And these are not small ones either, but large sized ones with funny looking antennae. Most people are generally creeped out by spiders. Fortunately, I am not one of them. Still, it's a little disconcerting to see these monsters and try to figure out where they are coming from. I did not offer any invitations to the spiders who live in the forest behind the house, and if by chance they read blogs, I would like them to know that they would do well to stay outside, preferably 200 feet away from the doors and windows. If I were a spider, I think that the trees would look like a nice place to live. I'm guessing they're on the move because they sense the upcoming change in seasons and need a place to come in from the cold.

Generally, I don't notice the little wild animals that pass through the yard. I'll notice a deer and her fawn only when I've startled them by tramping out in the yard to get to my car. I've heard, but not seen, the wild squirrels that live in the trees above the chicken coop when I am out collecting eggs. I'm afraid that most of my attention for animals is devoted to the seven or so cats that live out in the yard and behind the barn. By default, I am their primary caretaker. The big red barn in the backyard, the fact that I buy the dry cat food from the "feed store," and an ever present cat or two lounging out in the grass makes me feel like a farmer of sorts with cats as my chosen livestock. I imagine myself in bib overalls, chewing on a blade of grass, looking out over "my many head" of cats, and saying, "yessir! we've got ourselves a pretty crop this year. I reckon our operation will finally make a profit and we'll be able to affford that tractor!"

Aside from farming cats and avoiding spiders, I have not been doing much. My trip to the Portland Zine Symposium was my biggest adventure as of late. Mostly, I have been spending time at home trying to get my art going again. I've gotten the scanner working again for my art blog, and I made a little something for the Illustration Friday website. (If you don't already know, you can read what Illustration Friday is all about by following that link.) It's not the greatest work in the world, but I think it would make a pretty good spot illustration for the right article in a newsletter or magazine, even if it is cliched approach. I know that every artist is their own worst critic, so I try to keep that thought in mind in order to give me the perspective I need to create something. I've let too many negative thoughts shut down my creative motivation. As a consequence, I haven't practiced as much as I should have.

Someone in the news recently talked about the 10,000 hour theory, a theory that states one must spend 10,000 hours in a particular field to get really good at it. I'm not sure that I have spent 10,000 hours on my drawing yet. Ideally, I'd like to draw every day and gain the skills I need to feel satisfied and accomplished with my work; but then again, I would also like to exercise every day, find time to cook for myself every day, and while I am at it, win a billion dollars. School will be starting for me the last week of September, and I've signed up for a lot of work. I am sure that I'll be getting more drawing practice there. At least, the routine will be nice. (I'm a little worried about where I will get the gas money for the school commute, but I am sure that I will work something out.)

If I had to sum up, despite the anxiety I felt about not doing this and that, or anxiety about not being where I wanted in the future, I do feel somewhat good finally knowing (or having a clearer picture of) what it is that I want. I've spent a lot of time enveloped in a cold cloud bank of blahs, not knowing what to do, mists clouding every conceivable direction. Now, even though I haven't been anywhere, the mists are beginning to clear out and I think I can see which way I want to start heading. Like they say, at least it's a start.

Labor Day!

2008-08-31T23:03:00.001-07:00

If I had done something interesting over the summer months, I probably would have blogged more or at least tried to write something. But, I spent most of the summer hidden in a dark room contemplating where things went wrong for me and how I could turn it all around. It sounds depressing, but really it was just sort of stupid. On the one hand, it wasn't like I was pulling the wallpaper off the walls trying to get to the woman moving around inside there. But, on the other hand, I was upset enough to waste an entire summer trying to get my wheels spinning in the right direction again.

Sure, I did a few things here and there. I drew a few pictures, and I read a book or two: nothing too remarkable about either one. But mostly, I spent my time in front of the television watching reruns of cartoons and old sitcoms, or I was surfing the internet and reading up on other people's art blogs. The art blogs were interesting. I liked to read about how people created their works or how they explained the thought process behind them. And believe it or not, the cartoons were interesting too because I was watching them with a artistically curious eye. (I would note how the animators used color in the backgrounds to enhance the mood of the scene, or I would try to deconstruct visually how the characters were created and moved about.)

Portland Zine Symposium

On the whole, however, the summer has been somewhat of a bust. I suppose if I were feeling charitable to myself I might describe this "bust" as period as internal reflection and recuperation. School doesn't start for me for almost another month, so there is still time to make something of the summer and have some outward accomplishments justify the internal ones. The tendrils of negative thinking are always waving just out of sight, reaching towards me and threatening to pull me back into the stupor of nothingness, a darkened shell. The weirdness of depression is knowing intellectually how all of this works, but emotionally falling into all of the traps anyway.

In the spirit of breaking out of my darkened shell, I went to the Portland Zine Symposium last week. Initially, it was a little awkward being one of the oldest people there, but even still, I enjoyed myself. It was nice to meet some of the do-it-yourself comic creators I admire and imagine how I might be able host a table of my own comics someday. Aside from the customary pacing of the aisles to observe the wares people had for sale, I attended two "workshops." (They weren't quite a workshop as I imagine them, but then again, I am not sure what else they would be, so the word will have to do.)

The first workshop was a comic "jam," essentially an even where one person draws a single comic panel of a story, passes it to their neighbor and trusts that they continue the story somehow in a reasonable form or another. I started a comic where a person (who distantly looks like me) wonders if his cat is an alien. The end result was a four panel comic where an alien cat demands tuna in exchange for not blowing up the earth. I was actually impressed by the creativeness of the other attendees, especially since I had no idea how to continue a cat alien story and, somehow, they did. The second workshop was a discussion, and then a demonstration, about how to do some screen printing at home. Frankly, the screen printing sounded like a lot of work. I was uncertain about how such a technique would benefit me or my art, so I did my best to sit through it. I suppose if I ever came up with a simple T-shirt design screen printing would be worthwhile, but then again, the cost of starting up would be too much, especially as the first results would be inevitably terrible.

As a side note, the symposium and workshops took place at a university that I almost attended myself, so the strangeness I felt during the symposium was amplified by thoughts about how my graduate career might have turned out differently if I chosen this college over the other. Physically being in "the other classroom," an opportunity that I imagine doesn't happen to many people, and picturing myself teaching a freshman class there, was just another one of those weird moments of the past few years and the fiasco of my graduate school experiences.

We shall see in the coming weeks if I am able to maintain a new level of activity and redeem the rest of my lost summer. One goal I would be happy to achieve is a blog post once a week, but I am definitely not going to sink into despair if I can't make it. A secret (in my favor) that I haven't told anyone is I already have some comics drawn up that could be posted on my other blog tomorrow if I wanted. I have only to scan them in and voila! Most are diary comics with one or two of them being several months old. I think I would be happy if I could get them up in a week or two. But even if I don't post anything else for yet another month, I am at least hoping for better and more productive days. We'll see.

The Man in the Hat

2008-08-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

Many questions are raised by this video, but the two I really want to know are the following. One, where can I get an awesome hat like the one that guy at the bar is wearing? And, two, could I ever win a staring contest with him? (About that last question, the answer is clear: NO!) Side note: I actually have a CD of music written by the father of the man who composed the song in this video: S.D. Burman. He was also an uber-popular composer of Bollywood music.

It's on like Donkey Kong!

2008-07-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

Part of the problem, I think, about my not posting anything lately is that I feel that I should always post a picture of something with every post. Unfortunately, I haven't felt like photographing anything lately. In order to photograph something, you need to get out of the house and do something interesting, and I've been reluctant to do much of anything. Instead, I've been spending the majority of my time in Azeroth and the Eastern Kingdoms fighting dragons and exploring dungeons and such.

Yes. It's true. I've been spending most of my time lately playing the World of Warcraft game. For those who know, I have a level 70 protection Paladin and have been doing my utmost to gain enough reputation with the Shattered Sun Offensive to get that one shield. If I sound like a huge nerd, I suppose that's because I am one. It's useless to deny it. I just signed up for the lottery to play in the Beta Release of the upcoming expansion. I might get in, and I might not. Thankfully, I am an old fart, so I am not going to be crushed if I don't manage to get accepted. This is not 1986 and, despite all appearances, I've gained a little wisdom and maturity since my teenage years. It could be fun, but I'm not going to be losing any sleep.

My history with video games goes way back. I had a ColecoVision for crying out loud. A game system with one of the worst controllers ever! The box art on the cartridges were way more exciting than some of the games which, looking back, strongly indicated the need for imagination when playing them. If you could pretend that square dot on the screen was the barbarian from the game's box-cover, or that suspiciously duck-like looking object was actually a fire-breathing dragon, then you could enjoy these games like I did back then.

My favorite character in the history of Video Games is Cranky Kong (who appeared much later than the ColecoVision). Cranky Kong would frequently tell his younger relatives, Donkey and Diddy, about the hardships he faced in the early days of gaming. "Back in my day, we just had one button: and it was for jumping! And we were grateful to have it!" Sometime, I feel like him when I talk about these old systems. My sister nearly killed herself laughing when I showed her an original Atari 2600. ("OMG! It has wood panelling?!") Um, yes. Yes, it did.

When I was about eleven or so, I got in big trouble when I spent nearly $25 dollars on the Wizard of Wor game at the local 7-11, a convenience store about a mile and half from where I lived. I had to walk through a couple of trash-filled empty lots of tall scrubby weeds to get there. And I must have irritated more than my share of convenience store workers by turning in 100 dirty pennies, some of which had turned green with oxidation, and some which had been previously lost in couch cushions or on the floorboards of an old Toyota, just so I could get four quarters and spend about eight whole minutes playing the original Donkey Kong game.

I'm not that bad now. I have a Playstation 2 that I haven't touched in several months, and I can't even imagine spending $600 dollars on a Playstation 3. Even if the thing could make coffee and serve me breakfast in bed, $600 would be just way, way too much. But, when I have the spare moments and the inclination, I'm probably on my computer trying to gather enough netherbloom and slay enough demons to get that stupid shield. In a few small ways, it will be nice when the summer vacation is over and I can forget about shields, save the $15 bucks a month I spend for flying around on magic gryphons, and focus on school again.

Grinding the Gears

2008-06-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

I think I can feel my blogging gears grinding down. I say this because I'm feeling more at a loss about what to write on here, online, than I have before. Maybe this is the result of my not reading as much as I used to? When I was reading novels more regularly, the inspiration to write struck more often. Or perhaps, the revision switch on my brain is stuck in the up position, taking my thoughts and re-working them again and again to create an endless loop where thoughts bloom but action withers, leaving the writing that was to have been dry and unwritten.

More than just occasionally, I would have a dream which would lead me to think about blogging again. Perhaps, I would write about the dream I had where I was searching the town for the antique store, finding an old typewriter there, and then showing a stranger-friend how to operate it or use correction tape to fix the mistakes. Or I would write about the dream where I was searching for the little balls of light hidden in the pools of a garden, collecting them as I lowered myself into the water to swim through a watery park labyrinth. But, my motivation never built itself up enough for me to log online and start typing. I don't know why I never wrote, except perhaps to note how my mental state hasn't been what it should for the past few months.

School was perhaps the biggest stressor. I missed a couple of assignment deadlines and my grade consequently suffered. Frankly, it was a little hard to find the enthusiasm to design a fashion label for a T-shirt or create a recipe page for a cookbook project. Thankfully, I managed to salvage a passing grade in the two classes I was most worried about, but I since I consider myself a good student, I am a bit disappointed in myself that I didn't do better.

There have been a few things that I did that I am proud of during this period. For example, I took a lot of photographs in my effort to be a better photographer. The pictures in this post come from a recent hiking trip that I took in the local woods. It was nice to be in the fresh air and think about things in laid back way. One day, I would like to get a telephoto lens and play around with that, but I'll have to save up for that.

My short term plans for now is to enjoy the summer break and not worry about deadlines for now. I plan to draw more, and perhaps work on my silly comic, but if I don't get around to it, I won't worry. I'm thinking about going to the gym soon too. In any case, I'm going to try and not overthink things and just let myself "be." With the summer, I think I will have more time for blogging, drawing, and the unfinished projects on my plate, so I might have something posted here soon, but I'm not going to force anything either.

Another Video

2008-05-27T09:57:00.000-07:00

I've told myself that I should write a regular blog post and not just do another video, but that changed when I saw this. It was just too good not to post. Very entertaining. My personal favorite is the ferret, but you'll have your own I'm sure.

Tigershark Dancin'

2008-05-08T21:58:00.001-07:00

The above video is exactly why the Internet was created in the first place. And, it is yet further proof that bears have the most awesomest dance moves. Videos aside, I'm still hanging on the boring corner of the world that I always do. I'd write a more official blog post at some point, but at the moment, I am hip-deep in design homework, so that will have to wait until some future point.

Zombie Work Schedules

2008-04-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

For some reason, it is far easier for me to stay up until 3:00 a.m. than choosing to fall asleep at a more reasonable 11:3O p.m. I'm not a morning person in even the remotest sense of the word, but I am discovering that I am pretty much going to have to be in order to have a normal workaday life. Living the zombie lifestyle is nice for the amount of quiet and peacefulness that is available after midnight. There is nothing like it really. But, waking up at 7:00 a.m. after falling asleep in the small hours of the morning is like trying to push four ice cold cinder blocks off your bed with your nose and trying to roll them into a warm shower in the neighboring town. It occurs to me that the reason why all of those zombies in the movies are running amok is not their insatiable need for the culinary delights of a brain sandwich, but rather they are working on a severe sleep deficit and are angry about being forced to go to their mall jobs extremely tired.

Rainy Tulips

School marches on with its various art projects that constantly need doing. The maddening thing about all these art projects is that you can always work on a single one trying to make it ever better, but there is ever a limited amount of time to work on it, so you pretty much have to decide to stop at a certain point. I recently did a silly collage for a book cover assignment in Type class. I would have liked to have another week to experiment with glues and whatnot, but I was forced to hand it in after a poor laminating job that left a sizable burn mark above the little illustration I had made. I think it is about as obvious a large red zit on the end of your nose.

I guess this is coming up for me now because I have a major project due on Tuesday that I have yet to start, and I am planning on going to Portland on Saturday to go the Stumptown Comics Fest. I haven't started on it because I (wrongly) assumed that I had a couple more weeks. There were also several photo assignments I was rushing to complete too. As for tomorrow, I have been planning on going to Stumptown for months, so Saturday is a total wash for working on projects. I have the rest of tonight, hopefully all day Sunday, and most of Monday to work on it. We'll see what happens. I think I will get it in on time, but I want more time to work on the damn thing! Oh well, whattya gonna do? I think the real lesson for me is not how to assemble or research a nice looking art project but how to assemble and research a nice looking art project quickly. Working fast is not one of my strong suits.

I hope to take a lot of pictures tomorrow at the comic fest. I'm usually shy about taking photos of people though, so I may not be able to get any. But in any event, I am pretty sure that I will be posting about whatever happens here on the blog soon. One day, I will have my own comic and table at this thing, but for now I am content to be an attendee and observe all of the cool things that happen there. Since this is my second time, I now know more about what to expect.

Walkabout

2008-04-13T21:19:00.000-07:00

The back wheel tire on the passenger side of my car had a slow leak, a problem that I had been putting off for a couple of weeks. It's not that I especially hate going to the tire shop, but, I guess I really didn't want to spend an hour waiting around in a soulless white tile lobby wondering if Jimmy the tire tech was going to discover something worse than a nail in the tire. It's pretty much a given that, with a nineteen year old car, something will need to be fixed.

And, of course, when I eventually made it to the shop and spent the expected time in the waiting room, Jimmy indeed came out and told me that the leak in the tire wasn't the big issue. The real problem was the fact that the front two tires were "completely shot." Thankfully, Jimmy didn't give me the "I really can't let you drive out of here on those tire speech," but he might as well have. Now, I don't have the $250 to have them replaced, so I thought that I would wait a few weeks before I got them fixed. But, later that day, when I took my car to another place to have the oil filter changed, the oil change people noted (without me saying anything) that my front tires were shot. In fact, they even had me sign a liability waiver assuring that I wouldn't sue them if something bad happened to me by driving out on those bad tires! Good grief.

Forest Path

In spite of (or perhaps because of) the bad news about my car, I decided that I would go for a hike in the local wildlife refuge. The hiking trails had just opened up, and I wanted to get some nice photographs of the spring scenery. While I knew that I could use the exercise, I thought the time outdoors would be somewhat relaxing, a counterpoint to the stress of the car issues I was having. And it was a nice hike; although, I think I may have overexerted myself on the trails. I'm not as in shape as I thought I was, so more trips to the refuge for exercise may be in order.

One thing that surprised me about this hike was how many animals that I saw there. Normally, I will see an occasional bird, or a deer or two if I am there just after sunset. However, this time, I saw more animals than I had before. I saw several Geese, a few interesting birds, some ground squirrels, and couple of rabbits.

Geese

Silent Little Bird

Ground Squirrel

Rabbit

All the animals above were ones that I saw on this single three hour trip. There were more geese than anything else, probably a couple of hundred, and they spent the entire time honking above, and on, the small lake nestled at the bottom of the hill and below the hiking trails on which I walked. But they were not the loudest part of the trip, although I could definitely hear them the entire time on my hike. Something like the sound of gunshots was intermittently coming from the surrounding valley. It was a bit distracting. I admit I was very puzzled about blasts of noise in what should have been, to my thinking, a peaceful and quiet walk through the woods. But, I finally realized that the noises probably were meant to scare away the many geese away from the farms and vineyards that circled the refuge. It wouldn't take long for such a large amount of geese to devastate a farmer's precious crop.

I did see some deer too, but I wasn't close enough to get a good shot of them. It didn't take many photos for me to start longing for a decent telephoto lens. There were some really great pictures that I was unable to get because I couldn't zoom in close enough to get a nice shot. Photography can be an expensive pursuit. Tomorrow, I have another photography class. I will be taking a picture of my artwork for the studio project, and if all goes well, I hope to be able to post it here soon.

Seven Paragraphs of Progress

2008-04-09T23:33:00.001-07:00

Usually I try to post a photograph when I write these blog posts, but today, I'm not going to do that. Primarily because it is already my bedtime at the moment, and since I have to get up early tomorrow to get to class on time, I don't have the twenty minutes to pull up Photoshop and do the tweaks that I normally do to the pictures here.

Class went well today. I had a chance during the break to ask the instructor who were his favorite photographers. He listed, aside from himself (good grief!), John Sexton, John Shaw, Tim Fitzharris, W. Eugene Smith, and Ansel Adams. I checked them out online and each one is a technical master at taking photographs, which of course, I knew they would be. I discovered Todd Hido the other day, thanks to a link in one of the blogs I ready occasionally, and although I am the rankest of amateurs who know little about the field of photography, I think that I would have to list him as one of my personal favorites.

But the thing that struck me, as it often does these days, is how much everything costs. Art supplies aren't cheap, and the reality is you need to spend money to create art. I know that there are those who would argue with me on that point saying that a pen and paper aren't that expensive, but I would invite that person to go to the art store and shop for supplies. You can spend over 10 bucks for a single sketchbook, and for the very nice pens, around 6 to 8 bucks. I'd love to learn how to paint satisfactorily, but I'd hate to spend 50 bucks just to make a mess trying to figure it out. I've got an entire shopping list in my head of items that I know I can't afford. And unlike the video games I longed for when I was a teenager, these items might actually help my development career-wise and personally. But then again, maybe I'm delusional.

After the instructor let us go for today, I worked on a personal image that I put in my moleskine, a project for my typography class. It features an asleep cat character in a smoking jacket and fez reclining in a Victorian wing chair. It's a silly image that, frankly, could be drawn better. I'm not normally a very disciplined person, but I've dedicated myself to drawing more--at least once a day--and so far I've kept it up. Eventually, I will put that up too.

Finally, I am writing myself a reminder here to write a post here about the time I drove up the coast in the middle of the night. I was simulataneously processing the rejection of a woman that I was attracted to with the big life worries and concerns about my future.

Thoughts like those seem so grandiose now when I look back into my twenties. I really had no idea how insignificant I was to the grand scheme of life. Now, I knew I wasn't some monumental hero in the history of the world, but I figured that I would have more impact in the larger world around me. I guess this is the ambition of youth. No one ever grows up dreaming that they're going to be a patent attorney for the rest of their life, or worse yet, homeless. There are so many people that life has chewed up; my own problems amount to just so much whining.

Anyway, it was an interesting trip up the coast that I don't think I have posted on my blog before, so I am planning on doing that soon. This is my reminder.

Class Adjustments

2008-04-08T22:16:00.000-07:00

Today, I woke up early for some reason, perhaps it was the noise from the cat trying to weave himself through the venetian blinds in my bedroom. For some reason that honestly I cannot imagine, he's been practicing advanced mountain climbing maneuvers and apparently the blinds are some kind of kitty rock-climbing gym. The cat tends to get an early start on his day, so on these days when he starts his morning ascent at 5 AM sharp, I lumber wearily out of bed, chase him out of the window and around the room, and eventually capture him and unceremoniously toss him outside.

But I admit, there is also an equally good chance that the reason I awoke early was simply because I'm not on a good (read regular) sleep schedule. I tend to work better at night, so it is not impossible for me to go to sleep around one or two AM. Obviously, this is not a problem when I have an afternoon class the next day as I can catch up that same morning. But on the days that I do have a morning class, like today, well, I just pray that the classes that day are interesting. Otherwise, I'm nodding off in the afternoon and watching the clock.

Product Photography Exercise

Today, classes were fairly interesting, especially in the morning, but the afternoon was more of a struggle. The instructor during the morning class gave her impression of the design conference that she recently attended. She said that the future of design lays in the development of making things "work" and creating "dynamic media." Clearly the instructor was excited by the ideas that were presented, but she was a little ambiguous so I was left unclear about what she meant exactly. She indicated that design students needed to learn to write (copy?) competently to compete in the design market of tomorrow, that the design job we might get in the future may not exist today, and that consultation was becoming more and more necessary in the field. No designer is an island unto themself, apparently. We spent the rest of the day talking about the letters we had designed for our homework.

The afternoon class consisted of lecture of art principles that I have heard a thousand times before, and the review of Adobe InDesign software, specifically how to use the tabs and the various keyboard shortcuts related to the functions in the character palette. I drove straight home after class, lay on my bed, and tried to rest as best I could. I didn't want to nap because that would have messed up my sleep routine even more. Later that night, after dinner, I drew in my sketchbook to try to improve my drawing skills.

Tomorrow's class is photography, and the picture above will be one of the ones I need to adjust. I took about seven photos of that pot in various positions, one of which will be used as the cover for the phony magazine cover we'll eventually need to create. It will be a nice class, and by then, I will have enough rest to get through the day without wanting to fall backwards into the sweet embrace of sleep and a warm comforter.

More Reflections

2008-04-04T23:33:00.001-07:00

It slipped by quietly and nearly unnoticed: March 19th. Not only was that day the ominous start of the Iraq war, but it also happened to be the very day that this blog began. I had been sitting in the computer lab staring blankly at the copy of MS Word 2000, trying to force something interesting to say about Moby Dick. But frankly, I was a little bored, burned out, and anxious about finishing up my undergraduate career, so nothing was really coming to me. I listlessly flipped through the pages of Melville's novel and the loose sheets of notes covering my keyboard and glanced around the room. The room was nearly empty, only about seven or so students in a room of forty computers. A few fellow procrastinators were trying to write papers like me, but one student was watching an Anime show online.

I think I believed that if I did some "free-writing," a brainstorming technique we often talked about in my English classes, something about the novel would come to me, and that would magically help the words flow into half-hearted B minus paper. At least, I hoped it would. I surfed the Internet trying to force inspiration and motivation, and somehow, I stumbled on to my friend's "web log." From there, I surfed to a few others, and then eventually, to the Blogger site itself. I rationalized that a little free-writing on a blog, with the exciting prospect of an audience of some kind, would just do the trick for me and my paper.

Blogging then was slightly different, clunkier and less intuitive. Blogger, at least the free version that I was using, did not have the ability to host photos for you, that came later. I'm not sure if I remember right, but I think you even had to have your comments hosted elsewhere too. And, if you wanted to see how many people were visiting your site, you had to pay for their upgrade. I know it all sounds very silly to talk about the old days of something that is only a handful of years old, but, in the dotcom days before Youtube and Myspace, this all seems like ancient history.

In any event, rather than write a long free form post that I hoped would spark the idea for my Melville paper I was putting off, I surfed the net for various third party blogger addons (like comments and a site counter) and began learning how to do some basic HTML to adjust my template. The layout of the site is essentially the same now as it was then, with only a few minor changes here and there.

Finley Wildlife Refuge - April 08

I eventually wrote my paper, but I really don't remember any of that. I do remember watching the bombs explode in the night over Baghdad on CNN, and noticing, as I walked back to the computer lab to print something out, how eerily quiet the streets of the town were. It appeared as if everyone except me, a couple of other students, and a bored lab attendant, were at home watching the Iraq war begin to unfold on the television. 9 p.m. might as well have been 3 a.m.

So, in an odd spirit of things, perhaps in the spirit of changes and transitions, this blog shares its fifth year anniversary with the Iraq War. Tonight, I finally updated some of the links in the sidebar, and removed the links and image tags for the third part blogging services that no longer exist. (Blogwise and Feedster are no more!) Furthermore, partially because this is an old HTML site that I am sure no longer meets any sort of web standards (if it even ever has!), and partially because I don't have the patience to learn how to fix it, the comments have been, well, completely borked. I've decided to take them offline. In its entire five year lifetime, my blog has had less than ten total comments anyway, so I don't think they'll be missed. But if anyone is really dying to say something to me, I still have my [contact] link at the top of the blog page.

My current school issues are, for the most part, all worked out. I am in the right three classes that I need for this term, and the instructor that was seriously stressing me out last term is thankfully not teaching any of the classes I am now taking. His method of teaching did not mesh with my style of learning. During the very last session of that previous stress-inducing class, I literally held my head in my hands while I, and the rest of the class, listened to his tirade about why the majority of us were going to fail in school and later in our future jobs because we could not meet his ridiculous deadlines. I suppose this could have been his way of motivating us to work really hard and do well on the final, but it felt manipulative and condescending.

Today, I went to my usual bi-weekly meeting in the "Southern City," which, as it can be, was cathartic in its way, but it was cut short as we had run out of time to discuss every thing we needed. After finishing up at the meeting and grabbing something to eat at MacDonald's, I found my way to the art store downtown and bought a few supplies: a pencil, a fancy pen, a sketch book, and a presentation portfolio. Later wending my way back north to home, I stopped off at the Finely National Wildlife Refuge for a brief visit, it being one my favorite places to relax at on these off Fridays. The seasonal hiking trails had just opened up, but as it was raining off and on all day, I decided to stay in the car. Instead, I took photos like the one you see above, and listened to the birds sing their various songs while I tried to process the meaning of life in general, and my life in particular. I know I am trying to get back on my feet financially and career-wise, but I sometimes feel as if life has spun out into a direction that I truly did not expect and can, sometimes, barely control. If that sounds a bit gloomy, I suppose it is, but honestly, I am searching for that personal bit of meaning, an emotional meaning, not a purely intellectual one, that I think we must all find in life. I like to think that the birds and their songs were trying to help.

Beginning Again

2008-04-02T02:13:00.000-07:00

I got my grades last week, and while they're not the best I have ever done, they're certainly not the worst. It was nice to have the spring break not to worry about turning in projects and doing the mental math necessary to allocate the right resources to the right assignment. (E.G. If I spend the next two hours on assignment A, I'll have just enough time to finish assignment B, which means that assignment C won't get completed in time, but that class is not as important, blah, blah, blah. It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I've always hated math, and these kinds of bargaining formulas are no different than the classical algebra one encounters in college.)

Spring Break is over and I didn't really do much of anything other than watch television or surf the net. I think I am halfway through my second viewing of the Star Trek: Voyager series that have been replaying on cable; and of course, the M.A.S.H. series is always good to zone out with.

But, truthfully, towards the end of spring break, I was horribly depressed again. I've often tried to describe what depression feels like, and somehow, I think I always come up short. Unlike cutting your hand, or breaking a bone, the pain is not entirely physical. It affects your outlook on things (of course!), so objectively noting what you're experiencing the very moment you experience it is a challenge.

Skinner Butte Blossoms

Despite that challenge, I tried thinking about it, and while reflecting, I came up with a few images. For example, I imagined that depression is like trying to run underneathe the waves of the winter ocean, akin to surfing on the opposite sides of the water. The cold tumbling currents wrap around your arms and legs, stiffening them, while also dragging and pulling on your body with the slightest movement. Or, I thought, depression is like having a companion monster who claims to love you, sit beside you on a little stool as it slowly, and remorselessly, eats your shadow, your shadow being that essential part of you which always keeps you rooted to the earth. The pain, the physical part, (aside from the lump that is just nearly in your throat), is a muscular hand clutching at the bottom of your brain stem, pushing blood up into your mind with a pulse or two. Fortunately, the grasp of that hand loosened today by a bit, probably because I had to get out of my own mind and attend to the necessary duty of going to school.

But school is not without its own problems. The instructors, all who appear to competent in the field that they teach, while discussing the course and its requirements, insisted that we must keep notebooks. Now, to my view, notes are a personal responsibility thing. The notes and the method of taking them should always be individual to the student and adapted to his needs. Yet, these instructors insist on regimenting a particular method for keeping notes, organizing them and the like, and, of course, I balked. It seems, yet again (with corresponding flashbacks to my previous class with which I had trouble), that the instructors are emphasizing behaviour over knowledge. Rather than trust that each student will learn to the best of their ability, the instructors try to enforce a one-size-fits-all study method to a diverse group of students, and I cannot express just how much I hate this. But, as I thought about it, I figured that the real issue is that I have already earned an undergraduate degree and, in the process, have already learned how to think critically. So, rather than just passively accept what I am told like many of the other students do (especially the younger ones), I think about what the best method of learning on my own would be. And frankly, this notebook scheme isn't it. And that thought further led me to the conclusion that I have been a student for way too long.

I have a couple of school schedule anomalies that I will trying to work out in the next couple of days. It isn't anything too important, just another one of those hassles life throws at you. Speaking of which, I also need to do my taxes ASAP. And, I have a slow leak in the rear passenger-side tire of my car. Soon, I'll have those things done, but I really wish spring break was two weeks long rather than just the one.

Spring Break Respite

2008-03-21T21:56:00.001-07:00

Well, if you were following from the last post, I did call my ISP, and after about ten minutes of back and forth on the phone, it looks like the problem was that the cordless phone on the desk next to the accursed modem was way too close and interfering with the wireless Internet signal. So, note to self, the cordless phone and the wireless Internet modem are mortal enemies. The phone, since it is not attached the computer, was consequently banished to another room and the problems have been dramatically less.

Problems with school are also over, at least for the next or so. I've really been having a lot of problems with one of my instructors, problems not over the work that I have actually been doing, but over his teaching methodologies which, in my view, are focused on the complete wrong thing. I've broken out in a mild case of hives (seriously) because of the stress induced by that course. Right now, I am in that limbo between the end of finals and the day they release the final grades, and I really hope that I do well. But this term was more of a struggle than most. I've been bouncing between a philosophical "what-does-it-really-matter" attitude and a worry that slowly encroaches on that equanimity.

My Cat in the Snow

Regardless of what happens on Tuesday (which is when I assume the grades will be released), I am looking forward to relaxing on this week of spring break. I'm very relieved that I won't have to worry turning in assignments for which I have no enthusiasm or meeting some instructor's slightly out-of-touch demands. I do need to register for next term. And I might try to do in the next couple of days, but only if the spirit strikes. One of the things that I thought I might do is work on my neglected webcomic during this break. While I managed to make 100 posts on it, no small accomplishment in the field of amateur comics, the last one was posted in early July of last year. In any event, this next week's time for myself to recharge will be a nice change of pace.

Curse You Cable Modem!

2008-03-08T23:12:00.001-08:00

I've just tried to have a reasonable conversation with computer's DSL modem, a conversation which ended with the modem telling me--and I quote--to "go to Hell!" Therefore, this blog post telling you about it will not be very long (and of course there will be no pictures this time) because I only have a few brief moments to sneak a few sentences on to the Internet before the modem discovers me, gets itself into angry snit, and tries to strangle me with its USB cables. I see a furtive phonecall to the ISP in my near future. Let the Internet withdrawals begin!

Trauma in the Sea of Japan

2008-03-07T01:11:00.001-08:00

Before I first officially enrolled in college those several years ago, I thought I would read Herman Melville's Moby Dick. I was in my early twenties then and, recalling now, I'm not fully sure why I wanted to read it. Perhaps, I thought that reading such a dense book would be a mental challenge that would somehow prove my worthiness to attend college. College had been a much-hoped for but still unattainable goal at that point in my life, and I had some insecurities about my ability to "cut it." Work was remorselessly grinding the human spirit out of my body with its incessant demands for more circuit boards and its general lack of concern about any personal need I had was demoralizing. Even though I had some measure of responsibility, the bottom line seemed to be that I was a meat-robot needed to press buttons, feed machines raw materials, and enforce humiliating human resource policies that I hated. The act of reading Moby Dick at the point was more important than the book itself. The act of reading Moby Dick hinted at the promise of a better life that would allow me a measure of control and therefore dignity.

So, after my evening shifts at the factory, right before falling asleep in the sleeping bag on my bedding pallet (I had no bed at the time), I would read a one or two chapters in the early morning dark of 3 or 4 a.m. I admit that, initially, I skipped over some of the middle chapters that I found especially boring. I didn't understand Melville's metaphysical point of describing the nature of whales or the natural world. Yet, the description of the harpooneers and the process of nineteenth century whaling was very interesting, and the end of the book was exciting. And, going with the popular interpretation, which I must have absorbed from the mythology and popular culture of the book, I saw Captain Ahab as a man whose faulty pride and inability to give up his own anger towards the whale was the reason for his self-destruction. And that was that. Moby Dick was an adventure novel with a cautionary tale against "monomaniacal" obsessions and prides.

In college, I was reintroduced to Moby Dick in a couple of my literature classes. BY the end of my senior year at my undergraduate college, I wrote a paper about the book that won me second place and one hundred dollars in an essay contest. Not only had I gained a new understanding of the book, I was developing a new language for talking about it in terms of literary high criticism. Moby Dick was Dark Romanticism, with a captial 'R.' For me, Moby Dick had developed from a mere adventure novel into a metaphysical exploration of the nature of good and evil. The instructors and professors would frequently try to convince us students that book was arguing that the natural world was a morally dangerous place that inevitably lured people to evil, but on that point, I was unconvinced. Instead, I saw the book as an exploration of character that was less about proving a point about world's evil and more about one man's (Ishmael's) search for the enduring truths about God and his world through the agency of other people, the sea, and his own heroic-or-not actions.

And then, I went to Graduate school where Moby Dick was again discussed. I was finding that certain middle-aged men, the professors, really enjoyed the book for its masculine adventurousness and were using the book as a mirror of their own thinly disguised and unconscious attempts to self-aggrandize themselves as heroes. Like the man called Ishmael, they were on a heroic quest to definitively explain the world and the way it worked, only instead of through whaling, they were going to do it through high literature. I suppose this is why I enjoyed my classes with the professors (who were mostly women by the way) who were intent on exploring or moderating a good conversation rather than making pronouncements. I am not sure that I gained any deeper understanding of the book itself, as by this point, it had become familiar. Grad. School, it seemed to me, was about taking a few minor threads from certain books in the literary canon and trying to spin entire blankets out of them. Still, even with my frustration with this improbable process, I enjoyed the seminars ont he book. I had my favorite chapters, my favorite characters and scenes, and had gleaned a variety interesting facts about the book, its author, and the period in which it was created. Part of the appeal could also have been Melville himself. As I saw it, he was an earnest, if somewhat tragic figure forced to earn a living as a customs officer at the end of his life. Hawthorne too mainstream and a little phony, Poe was an adept drunk and liar, and Thoreau was a weirdo camping out in his own backyard trying to talk to trees.

And, now, with my academic literary life over, I find myself thinking about Moby Dick again. Thankfully, these thoughts are no longer encumbered by the high literary theories or concepts of Deconstruction, Dialectical Marxism, Perfomativity, Phenomenology, Signs, Signifiers, or Signifieds. Instead, I think of Captain Ahab. Rather than a villian who destroys himself and others over his foolish pride, I see him as a much more tragic figure. He was whaling in the sea of Japan, essentially doing his job in order to earn a living. There, he has an accident and a whale, the white whale, rips his leg from his body. I imagine the trauma and pain of such a physical assualt on the body and try to think about what that might be like to experience that. To feel your leg being pulled from your body, to feel the fear and panic of the event as it happens, to feel the fear of instant death or the worry of a lingering one, to be utterly afraid of leaving the world and your family before you're ready to linger for weeks just moments away from dying, to be fitted with a wooden leg replacement is nearly unimaginable.

And, often, it seems to me, for every physical trauma there is a deeper mental anguish that is at least twice as worse. The body always heals much more quickly than the mind. So, in light of this, what else was Ahab to do? He was a wounded man desperately searching for a way to absolve his trauma. He, of course, thought that he should hunt the whale and kill it. But, emotional traumas aren't as easily resolved and are never, ever purged. The challenge is not striking back at the embodiments of our pain but figuring out how to coexist and cope with the tragedy if it. And yet, how was Ahab to know this? He did the best he could. In a sense, Ahab's real death did not occur when he was dragged below by the whale, but when he suffered an emotional trauma that completely devastated him. The time between is Ahab as a ghost, a shade that represents what he used to be to others and only emptiness to himself. He is the present absence that captains the ship unswervingly to the death that began in the sea of Japan.

And, I suppose, for me, that is Melville's message: figuring out how to live with the pain that tries to destroy us, figuring out how to bear and endure the traumas that we encounter in life without sinking under to our own self-destruction. This where the application art to our own lives come in, which is for me, the message of literature: how do we learn about ourselves in a way that betters us individually and our condition as a society. So, speaking personally for just one example, I have a genetic tendency to depression that I have to figure out how to coexist and cope with. Before, I suppose I've always sort of thought about my depression as something to cure and be completely rid of. Instead, I figured I've learned that I need to manage it properly, so I am master of it rather than it being master of me.

Broken Shack

2008-02-25T23:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it has been forever since I last posted something here, and really, I am not too sure what to say about it. I guess I needed some kind of hiatus because of the demands of school have been a little much. As for December, it was nice just to have the break and "veg" out.

But, thinking further, perhaps the most difficult part of the last couple of months has been the emotional adjustments I have had to make to my new life. I'm in a transition in more ways than one.

For example, I went from having a regular source of income (okay, student loans, but still it was nice) to an income that is significantly smaller and a bit less reliable. I am eminently grateful for any amount of cash I can scrounge, but not having as much as I would need to live as independently as I would like has been a major stressor. Career-wise, I am in the midst of retraining from an Literature Academic to a "creative," which is what people who work in the field of Graphic Design apparently call themselves. That bit of jargon seems little arrogant to me because it seems to imply that everyone else in the world of work is somehow less creative, which of course is not true. For example, the creativity needed to keep a mindless job like flipping burgers or pumping gas interesting is significantly huge, and the creativity needed to please an insane boss is about as creative as one can get. But, as they say in academia, I digress. Essentially, I have been in an emotional malaise, in which depression plays it meager part.

In our North American society, a man my age has typically built up a series of resources and accomplishments: a steady job, a savings account, a retirement fund, a house or a car, a family, etc. And yet, it seems like I am still preparing for all of that. As much as people try to reassure me that these materialistic goals aren't the ultimate purpose of a life, they don't seem to acknowledge that not having them is a major distraction from finding or following that other true purpose. Once your basic needs are met (food, clothing, shelter, etc), you can move on to thinking about your emotional needs, and once those are met you can move on the next step and so on and so on. Now, most of my basic needs are being met (thanks to the generosity of others), but I worry because in a single moment, all the security and things you depend on can be taken away just like that.

This ability for things to change drastically (and not for the better) in a single moment is deeply unsettling. This was what I learned from my experience in graduate school. The course of my life significantly changed when I left it. So, um... so yeah. I am still trying cope with all of the realities of life that are a result of that experience and the current place I find myself.

There are a few things that I think I need to do. In no particular order, they are as follows: cook healthy food for myself, develop a regular (and reasonable) exercise schedule, develop a regular time for working and doing homework, develop a reliable time for relaxing from that, and developing my personal life to include more friends. I guess the basic message is that I need to take care of myself. In some ways, I feel like an old shack with broken slats that is leaning over, or a jumble of old and ragged clothes. I know I can turn things around, but it's hard.

Turkey Trot

2007-11-22T00:04:00.000-08:00

Wednesday morning, as I was driving into school I nearly ran over a group of four or so turkeys. Yes, I said turkeys. And yes, I know it sounds ridiculously improbable. I mean, what on earth were a group of turkeys doing wandering out in the middle of the road, just one day away from Thanksgiving? Escaping? Getting one final look around at the world before accepting their honored place in the Thanksgiving oven? At the time, I felt a small panic expecting an impending explosion of turkeys into a catastrophe of feathers, but I managed to recover enough to find that all of the turkeys, largely unconcerned about their near death experience, were in tact and casually meandering from the road to the field nearby. After puzzling over such questions, I figured that either the turkeys escaped somehow, or that someone had intentionally let the turkeys out in order to give their surroundings the appropriate decorative touch for the holiday. Wild turkeys aren't native to our area. The turkey episode actually helped in way because I had hardly any sleep the night before, so the brief terror I felt and the attendant adrenaline helped me feel more awake.

As if you couldn't tell from the previous posts, the last couple of weeks of school have been pretty stressful and unhappy, primarily because I had fallen behind on some important projects. I spent almost eighty hours! working on just one in a period of only a week and a half. I know this because, as part of the project, I had to keep track of the time I spent on it. It may not sound like so much, but remember, this was in addition to the other work and obligations I had for other classes.

Concerned about my ability to pass the class with my being behind in my work, I talked with the instructor which helped to clarify which homework had priority. The instructor indicated that while the late work will have an effect on my grade, it isn't as disastrous as I had imagined. Her concern was that I continue to come to class despite being behind in work. At least four students have dropped the class, two of which have dropped the entire program. Attrition is showing more and more, but on the plus side, the less people who complete the program means there is less competition from my design peers.

And, while I still feel unhappy about my prospects for a good grade in the course, I feel much better about passing the class as a whole. "Passing" this class is my academic goal right now. I can work on "passing and exceeding" in my future courses, and I feel confident that, in those future courses, I can better avoid the mistakes I made during this term. Today, I even managed to impress the instructor and the other students with the work we did in class, which was nothing more than construction paper cut-outs of small icons, but it felt good to get praise nonetheless.

The stress will ramp up next week (Dead Week) I am sure. If I had Adobe Creative Suite Three at home, I would be able to do much better with the homework I think. It's easier to work in bursts of varying length at home rather than try to hammer out marathon sessions in the computer lab. It might be better if I lived closer to the lab, it takes me an hour to drive to school one way, without turkeys of course. Tomorrow though, I set aside all of these concerns and will focus riding out the chaos of family Thanksgiving with as much equanimity as is possible to manage in a house full of crazy people.

Knitting Sea Chanteys

2007-11-11T23:46:00.000-08:00

Well, as if you couldn't tell, I've been a little stressed and depressed lately, mostly having to do with school and my life being in general disarray. While the threads of depression are still woven into my spine to some extent, I think I am over the hump on this latest bout of it. Wednesday will be the next day I will have to prove myself, so tomorrow and Tuesday will be full of work.

Today, I slept in for as long as I could, 11:00 a.m., before I had to raise my dizzy head from the pillow and get in the shower for work. Work was largely uneventful except for the appearance of creepy man skulking about the back of the shop. I only found out about him after he left, but I did make sure to tell everyone to let me know if he showed up again. It wasn't anything he did; he just gave everyone a bad vibe.

I guess I was preoccupied with the boss' computer. I noted her firewall was down, so I called her to ask about it. She explained that her Ebay account was hacked because of a weak password, and when she was corresponding with someone from Ebay to sort out the mess, took her firewall OFFLINE!?! to send them an e-mail. Frankly, I was a flabbergasted! The closest analogy I could think of would be if you were driving along the highway, saw a police barricade up ahead, and instead of slowing to a stop--the reasonable thing to do in said situation--you slammed the gas pedal completely against the floorboard hoping you could jump the gaping chasm ala Dukes of Hazzard! I tried to not sound too incredulous and consequently make her feel unduly defensive, but I don't think I succeeded. I did forget to write my time down, so I hope the boss catches my mistake before the checks go out. I will have to tell her about it soon.

After dinner, I settled in to watch television and surf the internet for cartoons, art inspiration, and illustration tips, something that I do more often these days as I seek to improve my skills. For example, Little Dee is one of the comics that I occasionally surf, and it is a pleasant read, especially seeing it develop as it has. I think Chris Baldwin, the guy who draws it, is really talented, and I missed meeting him at his booth at the Portland Stumptown comic fest this year. Little Dee, for those of you who don't know, is about a silent little girl who lives in the forest with a bear named Ted, a dog named Blake, and vulture named Vachel. One of Vachel's hobbies is knitting, which helps to explain the following bit of inspired creativity, a knitting sea chantey!:

We Rogues of Wool

I have never posted a video before, but this was too good to pass up. One of the reasons that I think it works so well is that the characters are so strong and developed. And, somehow, the combination of characters really manages to evoke a childlike sense of the world and the overall comfort of creation that children seem to feel. It was a nice boost and uplift in what has been a dreary past week or so.

Bad Surprises

2007-11-05T22:42:00.001-08:00

When it was clear that my graduate school career was pretty much dead, I had to do some hard thinking about what I was going to do next. I was deeply depressed, out of money, way in debt, and had met enough homeless people to know that I was only just a few steps away from sleeping out on the street.

I had spent eight years supporting myself with a bad job and going to Community College. After earning my Associate of Arts degree, I took a leap, got expensive college loans, and transferred to a State University where I spent three years earning my Bachelor of Arts in English. Then, I spent three years trying to meet the demands of grad school. In one way or another, I had been in school for fourteen years in school. Let me repeat, FOURTEEN.

But during grad school, personal troubles, most of which I couldn't help, overwhelmed me, and I found myself facing a personal crisis that, in many ways, is ongoing. In a period of months, I lost my apartment, my girlfriend, my career, and my remaining self-esteem. With the help of counseling and medication, I picked up what pieces I could and re-enrolled in Community College, this time in a design program. However, as a result of the grad school disaster, I am left with my share of emotional scars, one of which is anxiety about being out and around people. It may not make any logical sense, but there are days when I can get ready to go to school, put on my jacket, get my keys, and then find myself sitting on my bed unable to move. This happened to me on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Sunday, I had to work.

So, in class this Monday morning, I find out that the major design project that I believed was due next week is actually due this Wednesday. I am way behind on it. If I had found the emotional fortitude to go school on those three days the previous week, I would still be slightly behind, but I would be in much better shape.

Also, in a discussion of due dates for the remaining weeks of winter term, the instructor asked how many people had their own copies of the software we use in the course, software that costs hundreds of dollars by the way. Everyone--except me--raised their hand. This means that the other students can work on their stuff at home without being required to drive into campus, an hour away from home for me, and can work without having to worry about when the computer lab opens or closes. (The hours for the lab are pretty restricted for a College in my opinion.)

Suddenly realizing this morning that I was imminently facing a poor grade, or a zero, for this major project was depressing. So depressing in fact, that after class I drove the hour it takes to get home, turned off all of the lights in my room, closed the blinds and went to bed and slept for four hours in the middle of the day. When I awoke, I drove back to school and skipped my evening class so I could spend until 9:00 p.m. in computer lab working on the project. At 9:00 p.m., the lab closed.

Desperate, I called my sister and asked her if she could give me the number for the library at her University, which she did. When I called, I found out that it was possible for me to use their computers as a "community member," but only for a limited time, two hours a shot at most. My best option, I realized, was to go home and try to do as much on this project as I could offline. On a hunch that only comes to those who are truly panicked, I discovered that I can download a 30-day trial of the software I need, something I am in the process of doing now. I've spent three hours downloading it so far, and it will probably take a few more hours. The trial software is not going to help me tonight, but it is possible that it will help tomorrow night if I am still not done by then.

It is not at all certain that I will be able to finish this major project in time. Tonight, I was in the lab until it closed, and early Tuesday morning, I will be back again to work all day. And, I am still depressed, but not as much as before.

Cross Species English

2007-11-03T22:22:00.001-07:00

A bird bit me this morning. Specifically, a cockatiel. And while I thought it would be a nice surprise for the bird to join me in a warm shower, the bird decided it would be a nice surprise to bite the ever-loving fire out of my index finger.

It was one of those cross species misunderstandings that often occur because none of the animals I know can speak English. Heck, none of them even understand English all that well. The dog does much better than the rest, but he has no motivation to improve his meager comprehension unless there is a treat involved somehow. The dog's first and best language is the language of food.

But, if I could intelligently converse with the bird, I would have said something like: "Hey bird, let's go for a shower. I know how you really like playing with the mist and water. And to be totally honest, you seem a little bored of the fabulous vistas of the living room. A visual change of pace might really refresh you." The bird might then be able respond with something like, "Wow that sounds awesome! Let's go!" Or even say, "Gee, I'm not feeling up to that today; I'm stuffed from eating that delicious millet you gave me earlier!" Instead, ignorant of the bird's mood, and faced with the bird's obvious ignorance of my good intentions, I blithely stuck my hand in the cage only to have an ornery bird open up a can of proverbial whoop-@!& on my finger mere seconds later.

Cross-species English could have also helped with the above picture of Busby the cat. I would have been able to ask him to keep his pose for a minute longer so I could properly get his face in focus. As it is, the fence at his feet is in better focus than his face. You may not be able to see the difference in focus all that well with the above small picture, but you can really tell when the picture is at its full size. One of the basic skills of photography seems to be bringing to mind all of the variables and making the corresponding adjustments as quickly as possible before you lose "the shot." I have several more pictures of this cat on that same fence, but they are all terrible. The funny thing to consider though is that in the scant few seconds just before those shots were taken were really great "potential" pictures that are now irretrievably lost to the Fates.

On a personal front, I am still dealing with a lot of anxiety. I make several fantastic plans about what I am going to do in day. I even get dressed up and ready to go, but when it comes to actually getting in the car and driving off in order to put those plans into action, I run into an internal brick wall and sit in my room to stare at the wall instead. I tell myself: "O.K. I'll give myself just another moment, and then I'm off to run my errands or accomplish some meaningful work," but each moment slides by without much of anything happening. I don't want my school to suffer because I am having trouble getting out of the house, and I don't think it will this term, but it's going to be tough. Unless you've been there anxiety-wise, it is hard to understand. Sunday, I am going into work and so, in a sense, I will be forced to get out of the house. But the deadlines for some pretty important school projects are looming, and I am getting more anxious and nervous about finishing them on time. This next week will be crucial.

It seems like in this last year or two, I'm constantly discovering some new facet of feeling, some new emotional scar, that affects me more than I ever would have thought it could. I think I am healing them all and am becoming a better, healthy person for the future, but then again, I wonder if I am making progress or just wishing that I am. If you gain spiritual virtues through suffering, I suppose I am making some spiritual progress despite my seemingly outward failures. Sometimes though, it can be hard to tell.

Creativity and a Rut

2007-10-30T23:37:00.000-07:00

I've thought about posting to the blog here about a million times, but when I think about what to post, I find I am completely out of ideas. All the writing classes I took in college suggest that I shouldn't really worry about what to write and just start writing. Free writing they call it. It's good advice I guess, but something holds me back. The last few months have really brought home the difference between intellectual knowledge and emotional ability. Knowing what to do, and mustering the will to do it are two different things.

And, of course, while I felt a little lacking in creativity when it comes to writing, my dreams have apparently taken up the slack. I've been on a train, part of an early 20th century comedy team much like Laurel and Hardy, a tour guide on a small ocean trawler, and an antique dealer in a bizarre musical instruments. In one memorable dream, I lived in an ocean-front town, bright and summery, will several million people (including myself) milling around a large cliff-side estuary. An impossibly gigantic wave would occasionally sweep up the estuary and take a few of the happy people out to sea. Most everyone, however, was unconcerned about this seeming tragedy as it was an apparently normal everyday occurrence. I've had a couple of dreams that take place in ocean-front towns. In one, I lived in a small apartment that housed a few people who were part of an artist community. I'm not sure if any of this means anything.

I think I've been in a rut for the past few weeks. Other than school and television, I haven't done anything of note--except, perhaps, attend the funeral of an old friend. I hadn't seen him in over 15 years, and of course, I thought I had at least several more years to make a visit. His death was a little bit of a surprise. I made a special effort to attend his commemoration. Although he was not an Indian, he had a lot of Native friends to whom he meant a lot. I arrived just as things were beginning to start with a drum circle and singing, much like a pow-wow. Towards the end, they passed around an eagle feather fan with the idea that whoever was holding the fan could say a few words about the departed. I enjoyed hearing about my friend from the people he touched, but it also made me regret not having made the effort to have visited him earlier. Every once in a while, I find I'm thinking about him and his spirit and the stuff he had to deal with in his life.

As for myself, I am hoping to overcome my rut soon. I just need to work a little harder at it. I might be thinking about the past and the future too much rather than living in the present, but then again, I don't like that thought either. I can think about whatever the hell I like as long as I get what I need accomplished, right? It's a complicated balance that I guess I am still searching for. Maybe things will look better in the next few weeks.

Odd Comtemplations

2007-09-21T22:25:00.000-07:00

I've been in a odd contemplative mood for most of the last several days. The summer has now largely evaporated, and the memories of my doing anything substantial during this time are like steam vapors that drift far away from, and well beyond, my grasp. Somewhat hibernating within my darkened bedroom watching re-runs of the various Star Trek incarnations or fighting digital monsters in the fantasy lands programmed inside my laptop, I've effectively isolated myself from the outside world. And the sense of dull dissipation I've developed is like an inertia magnet that only attracts more void, more nothing.

Lately, most of my interesting adventures take place at night when I am deep asleep. For example, in one of my recent dreams, I am traveling through a town with a shallow river running directly through its center. While I am in the act of crossing it, I notice that the river washes over main street and somehow runs into a distant cavern far below. (Perhaps this is an unconscious echo of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Kubla Khan," especially the bit about "where Alph, the sacred river, ran :: In caverns measureless to man.") I manage to make it across the river, only to immediately find myself on a broad wrap-around porch of a wooden Victorian home. It is now dark outside, and I am locked out. I search around the edges of the front door and front windows for some way in, but am unable to make any entry. I begin to hear something, a rustling of activity, below the porch. Leaning over the steps in a brief investigation of the noise, a little girl, just a toddler, appears with large round eyes that are mysteriously shining with an eerie and watery luminescence. The little girl is scared, lost, and has been crying. Moved, I gather her up into my arms, holding her, and she clutches at my side with a strong monkey-like grip. She is still scared, but now a bit mollified that I am taking care of her. I awake soon thereafter.

I've given up on trying to interpret the symbology of my dreams during this period of odd feeling. It is too much work to delve below their surface meanings for obscure insights into my evolving character. But this is not to say that unanalyzed dreams like these do not also have a mysterious effect. It is like being scratched in the unconscious part of your mind: you may feel it's presence during your awareness of it while simultaneously awaiting for the sensation to vanish just as briefly as it appeared. I can still feel the itch of this dream somewhat, but I am also sure that, in another two or three days, I'll probably have forgotten it.

School starts on Monday, so this afternoon, to avoid the inevitable crowds, I bought the yearly parking permit. I am not sure what to expect from this next round of classes as my expectations for myself are under heavy reorganization. In the past, especially with regard to my own assessment of my potentialities, I had been a perfectionist expecting nothing short of total mastery, total success at the many things I attempt. But I am slowly learning that I have often been too hard on myself; the effect of which, when I am unable to meet my own impossible standards, has been to leave plenty room for me to berate myself or allow others to treat me poorly. (After all, if I feel like a failure, then I am unlikely to challenge you when you treat me as if I really were a failure.) Knowing this, I am trying to unlearn unrealistic patterns of perfection, but I have yet to develop a healthy alternative the holds the same motivation that perfection had. Will I always miss not having been able to get a Master's degree in English Literature? Can I feel the same way about a career in graphics that I once did for becoming a professor of literature?

The answers to these questions are not unrelated to my thoughts about perfection, answers that are still shrouded for me. I suppose this leaves me, essentially, in the odd mood I mentioned in the beginning of this post. When you come right to the bottom of this whole thing, I feel confused--a sense that I believe I may have been feeling for awhile now. But perhaps, this feeling of confusion is also a progress of some kind, especially if I remember that, only a year or two ago, I was coming from a place of feeling totally sure about all the wrong things. Certainty leaves too much room for blind spots.

P.S. It has been ten days since this year's fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attack in New York. I admit that I have been too self-absorbed to think about such things lately, but today, while searching through my lists of blogs that I read regularly, I stumbled on this web documentary. It is the thought-provoking account of that attack five years ago from eight professional photographers who were in New York when the attack happened and the towers fell. Towards the end, it perhaps gets too political for some, but if you have the time, I would highly recommend seeing it. Also, if you have the time, you may want to listen to a cab driver's first day driving her cab. It is has a similar connection to the events of 9/11, and happens to be from one of my favorite blog authors.

Pigs and Dreams

2007-08-15T21:44:00.000-07:00

I've heard that some people have a hard time remembering their dreams: these people will either say either they don't dream at all or the last dream they can remember having was several years ago. On the other hand, I can remember my dreams fairly easily. I might even have two or three memorable dreams in one night, which to me, seems like a lot. But at the very least, I will have a dream that I can remember about once every week.

This last dream that I had the other night was fairly disturbing. There was a very large pig underneathe a queen-size bed. It had lived there for several years, stuck and very probably in pain, but I had only just discovered it. Initially, I tried to feed it placing my hand near its mouth to feel its weak bite, but this was not working. I pulled the mattress and the box spring off to the right, leaned them against the wall, and released the pig from its imprisonment. Before it's snout was the only thing visible, but now the whole pig came into view. It was stuck in a metal frame and looked entirely hideous. I'll spare you the exact details of the visual, suffice it to say that the pig looked disgusting because it was covered with sores and wounds. Still, I felt pity for it and tried to bring it back to health after releasing it from its abusive confinement.

The dream has stayed with me for a few days, and the literary critic in me cannot resist trying to sort out and interpret the metaphors. In a way, (that I will leave completely unanalyzed), the dream is symbolic of a very rough two-week period for me. I have been eating too much, sleeping irregularly, and spending a lot of time alone. I'm going to be changing a few things soon that will help me come out of the funk that I find myself in, but at the moment, I am just trying to maintain some positive habits that will supposedly pull me into a better place. Despite popular cliches, staying still can sometimes be a type of progress.

Mossy River Bank

Anyway, all of this aside, I have been reading more, perhaps not enough, but definitely more. Right now, I am reading Rick Moody's memoir The Black Veil, and I enjoy the artistry of the sentences and the narrative so far. I'm hoping that it will provide me with some inspiration to get to my own writing. Writing on the blog can be problematic sometimes as it is a essentially a public medium. I've thought that I should write more in my personal journals because there I can be a little more free with my expression. I've read some of the journals I've written over ten years ago, and it is interesting to see how I have personally grown, but also note where the journal really works as good writing (in just a very few places), and note where it the writing is truly terrible (on nearly every page). I have had similar journal thoughts when it comes to my art. I really need to practice my drawing skills more, especially as I have not drawn a single thing since the final week of Spring Term.

Really, I have spent much of my time, perhaps too much, on the computer playing World of Warcraft. It has been a little easier emotionally to explore the forests of that silly game, than go for hike in the woods twenty minutes from my house. But, I have been making some attempts to get out of my so-called comfort zone. The cup of coffee picture at the top of the page is evidence of a recent trip to be out and about, and I am hoping that positive steps like these will help me build the momentum up to be more confident in general. In any event, I'm hoping the next two weeks go a little better.

The Unknowing Burden

2007-07-11T02:42:00.001-07:00

Depression is an ugly hulking thing that follows you around like a shadow, and the longer it stays with you, the harder it seems to get rid of it. Its ethereal tendrils seep slowly into your being tightening, minute by minute, its tangle of roots around your bones. You become comfortable with it's hot and weary presence, and unless you purposely try to notice it, it melts into your subconscious, disappears from view, and settles on your shoulders to become the unknowing burden.

It's this seemingly disappearing aspect of depression that sometimes confuses me. In the popular imagination, one usually thinks of someone with depression as a person who feels "sad" all of the time, of someone who carries grief around with them like a candle in the overwhelming dark, of someone who is always two seconds away from crying. That would be an "in-your-face" type of depression. But, for me anyway, that is not how it most often shows up. Instead, I sleep a lot during the day when I can (naps for two or three hours), and then at night, I can't seem to fall asleep until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. Depression also causes me to think a lot about my life in terms of mistakes I have made and opportunities I have missed, like the "wasted" money on graduate school, or my failed relationships. I don't feel like eating much, and when I do eat, it is usually only to fill my belly. I get headaches frequently. I almost always feel like I need a nap even if I am wide awake.

In brief, I feel like the mayor of failure-town. But these are not grief-inspiring thoughts as much as they appear to be evident "facts," and in the false guise of "facts," these thoughts mask the depression. The real fact, objectively speaking, is that my brain does not make serotonin like a healthy person, so these negative thoughts of failure have some roots in a very physical cause. I have the hardest time getting my mind around this concept, but there it is. Just as a person with a broken leg would have some trouble walking, a person with messed up serotonin levels has trouble being "not-depressed." I've been in a depressed phase during the last week or so.

Actually, I guess I would have to say that it has been more than a week judging by how often I have posted on my blog, but this week has been particularly bad. I've not met many of my goals and I have spent more than a few hours in bed during the middle of the day. I am trying to change that around, and I would have to say that I am making a little progress. After all, I am writing this blog post rather than telling myself how I should be doing something other than watch television. I also did some cleaning up by removing a lot of clutter and generally making things look nice.

Another thing that I managed to do just for myself was accidentally go to a Civil War Re-enactment. It was an accident because I had meant only to go to a State Park and possibly go on a hike in a natural setting. I looked up some nearby parks and made my choice, but when I got there, I found that there was a large reenactment group doing their thing. I took some pictures of the battle behind the "Confederate" side of things and then looked around at the various displays after the faux fighting was over. It was a nice distraction away from my various problems at the time. I further distracted myself by making a little comic about the experience. I think that the next two weeks are going to be better for me personally. I am already feeling good enough to a blog post, right? So, I think I have reason to hope for the future. Until next time.

The End of the First Year

2007-06-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the last day of my first year in the Graphic Arts program. Okay, so they are calling this program “Visual Communications,” arguing that designers do more than graphics, but whenever I stop to think about the businesses that buy the type of design services I am learning, I can’t imagine a single one of them wants to hire someone called a “visual communicator.” It sounds too damn new-agey, too esoteric, like something akin to voodoo. If I were a business owner trying to sell my product or service, I would want a graphic artist.

In my current plan, I’ve got two more years of this graphic arts program to complete. This next year is the one that I’m looking forward to because I’ve gotten beyond the silliness of introductory undergrad courses. (While some freshman kid straight out high school may not realize some college assignments are busy-work, a hoop for instructors to feel justified giving the final grade, I’ve done so many I can see them a mile away.) But now the appetizers are done, we finally start getting into the meat of the program. And then, I think I will be better able to judge if this program is going to get me where I really want to go, or if I should start in another direction.

Anyhow, I’ve spent the last couple weeks finishing up final projects. On friday, I went out for a mini-hike near some forest falls I know. This trip was a little different from the ones I have taken in the past though. Those previous trips were for pure pleasure, but this one was a little about business. Our final project in photography class is to create a shampoo ad. I figured that I would take a picture of two shampoo bottles near the waterfalls to convey the idea of fresh and pure. It was not the best pictures I have ever taken, but then again, they are not the worst either.

To setup, I had lie on the very edge of the water and hold the camera as steady as possible. Even still, my pants got a little wet. Also, while the idea of a forest stream and waterfall conveys the idea of cleanliness, the reality is that both are pretty messy places. For instance, the mud was thick and it hardly ever dries out cause it is always shaded by the trees, so it was tricky keeping dirt off the shampoo bottles while simultaneously trying to keep the camera dry.

The above picture is from that trip. While I was wallowing in the mud trying to get a perfect picture of a shampoo bottle, a man taking his cat for a walk in the woods came up to the bank behind me. It is not everyday someone takes a cat for a walk, so I asked him if I could take its picture. In retrospect, I should have asked him a lot more questions: what was the cat’s name, does he take his cat for a walk often, or even what did he do for a living. However, he seemed painfully shy (makes sense in weird sort of way), so I just made a random comment about how I like taking pictures of nature scenes like the falls.

The Barn Trip

2007-05-21T23:25:00.001-07:00

This morning started out with a minor walking trip through the dewy grass in my sandals up to the big red barn to recover the small pet carrier that is stored there. Normally, I don’t visit the barn that often; and I don’t think I have ever been in it at 6:30 in the morning. If I am not digging out a half of coffee can’s worth of chicken feed from the barn’s feedbox as the substitute “farmer” in place of my dad, I really have no call to be in that dark and dusty place. But this time I needed the pet carrier because the cat (the cat which I never had any intention of owning in the first place by the way–long story) was going in for her operation. This vet trip gained particular urgency in the last couple of weeks because the cat had been seen cavorting with the stray tom who lives in the woods behind the barn. Not a good sign since the last thing I need is another set of kittens: one set was already too many. In any event, I managed to pack her off into the carrier and have her driven to the vet. The cat is currently spending the night there after having been spayed just this afternoon. The other cat, much too young to be neutered yet, has decided to stop being a pain and settle down after an hour of trying to sit on my keyboard, assuredly some kind of feline entertainment.

The only other reason beside the pet carrier or chicken feed that might be cause for me to be in the barn is the fact that some of my old things are in its upper loft. These things comprise about eight or so boxes and are mostly filled with old textbooks or schoolwork scribbled down in notebooks from my undergraduate days of about six or so years ago. I tell myself that I should move them to prevent any more of the thick barn dust from settling on it, or to prevent the inevitable dew from wetting that dust and caking those papers with a fine mud thereby warping the pages. Probably, I will move it sometime in the summer.

Still, even though I was a little tired, I braved the rickety ladder and opened up a couple of boxes to retrieve six of my notebook journals that I had written during those early college days. Back then, I fancied myself as a writer of sorts, so I included everything that one who considers themselves a “writer-to-be” in those journals: poems, phrases that I thought interesting at the time, a few overheard conversations, or memories of things I had done. I had been to a few author readings, writer presentations, or library events where writing was concerned, and invariably, aside from questions about how to get an agent, the speakers mentioned that the best way to develop “the craft” of writing was to keep a journal. After all, artists have their sketchbooks, so writers should have their journals. Most of my journals were written before I had a blog of any kind, and in that regard, if I had never created a blog, I would probably have filled up a lot more than just these six.

I still keep a written journal to write things down when I don’t have a computer on hand to type something off real quick, but mostly the blog serves most of my creative writing purposes. I’ve only had a chance to read one of these older journal and already two things stand out pretty clearly. One, my writing was pretty terrible–overwrought and whiny–which I have to admit, I can still be guilty of, but trust me, it was far, far worse back then. There is a lot of awkward complaining about being lonely and trying to be a “good person,” which likely meant that I was really, really, really lonely and had more than my share of self-esteem issues. The second thing I noticed was how, back then, my writing was less focused on my personal problems. I suppose I use my writing more these days as a way to explore my emotional life and sort out how I feel about things or my past. Even though the old writing is terrible, I miss the creativity it expresses. I think I should go back to writing more poems. A few of my undergraduate professors had mentioned that I had some talent for it, but then again, that is the story of my life: potential that doesn’t seem go anywhere. Perhaps this is my basic personality, but I sure hope not. I’d really like to be able to have accomplishments to be proud of rather than a truckload of regrets for things I haven’t done or things that didn’t pay off with the results I really wanted.

Gaining Ability

2007-05-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

I only got about four and half hours of sleep last night, but despite that, I managed to get to school on time this morning without frantically speeding down the highway. Somehow, I also managed to finish up a lot of previously incomplete work during the afternoon. Energy and motivation had taken a vacation during the past couple of weeks, but surprisingly, for some unclear reason, I found them again. I just have a few more unfinished projects to complete in the next couple of days. I need to print up a few photography assignments on the school’s fancy Epson printer tomorrow, and I further need to complete a couple of overdue life drawing assignments by 11:30 a.m. It’s doable, and I am still confident I can get it all done.

By 5:30 p.m. tonight, I was ready to quit working on assignments and begin the trip home. It takes an entire hour from the school parking lot to my front door at home, so the trip is a bit of hassle, but today’s sunlight and light road traffic made the trip home almost pleasant. Between stoplights and the ever-present muffler fumes from the other cars, I had time to muse over how I’ve really gained some real artistic knowledge these past few months and, while I definitely need to practice my skills a lot more, began to reflect on how that knowledge is getting incorporated into my current work. I only have to look over at some of the beginning Art students struggling with their drawings and designs to see how I have gained an ability that they have yet to develop. I have noted in myself a tendency to be overly insecure about my own abilities, especially as that may relate to a future paying career. Self-esteem, anyone? While I am not sure that being gratified at noting my abilities above the other students is necessarily a healthy thing, it does go a little way to maintain my confidence in myself.

But back to the four hours sleep, my being up way too late was my own fault for not turning off the television at 11:00 p.m. like I had planned. Cartoons and late night comedy proved to be too compelling. The afternoon nap I took yesterday did not help matters either. The cats like to zoom around at midnight anyway, so my being up late accommodated their schedules if not my own. They seem to like to have an admiring audience to their feats of destructive acrobatics, but don’t seem to understand that I wind up watching more out of concern for the objects they invariably knock over than any admiration for their capacity to leap from the bookcase to the windowsill across the room in a rainbow-like arch. I am sure that there are more than a few things under the bed that either one of the cats has pushed or carried away there than I really care to know about: a dusty sock, a toy mouse, a deck of cards, or a forgotten scholarship application for instance.

My graduate school life of a couple of years ago seems like a million miles away today, but I can still feel its lack in my life. I want to clutch its memory with a granite squeeze and press it into the firmer side of my heart, but it seems less like granite and more like a drifting summer smoke chasing its way out of my hands whenever I grab at it. Summer days must cause me think of grad. school more than during the darker days of winter for some reason. I am not sure I will–or at this point in my life, even could–return to a possible future career as English professor. But now, and I mean right now as I sit in my chair typing this on my laptop, I feel the need read a lot more often between now my next blog post, whenever that will be. I hope it will be sooner than next month.

Midnight Worries

2007-05-02T04:11:00.000-07:00

Another night that I can't sleep all of the way through. This time, I am pretty sure I was awakened by the sound of my glasses hitting the floor, and the initial grogginess I felt wore off after a few minutes of searching for them under the bed. The culprit, as if I didn't know immediately when I heard the report of the frames bouncing on the ground, was one of the four cats living in my room at the moment. You know, cats are great in small doses, but for extended periods of time, they become like pebbles in your shoe: an irritant.

As for the Court I attended the other day (mentioned in my previous post), although it was very interesting, ultimately, it was also very disappointing. I discovered halfway through this process, that thanks to the State Legislature, if one gets a fine within a school zone, it cannot be reduced by the judge at all, which of course meant that I had to pay the full amount of the ticket, $206. The judge noted my driving record was immaculate up until the school zone ticket, further noted that my violation wasn't all that extreme anyway, and expressed his own frustration at not being able to reduce fines for cases like mine. (However, I'm not entirely sure if he was really frustrated, or if he was just putting on the show for the others in the courtroom and saying that he was frustrated to make me feel better for not reducing the ticket.) Overall, I did worse than the elderly lady who forgot her disability permit to park in a disabled space--a potential high dollar fine of which she only had to pay $20--and I did much, much better than the Mexican guy who, because of previous fines and violations, is likely to spend some time in jail. I felt bad for him because he seemed very worried.

School is going okay at the moment, but to be perfectly honest, I think I am feeling the wear of the appearance of not making any progress. It is like the hope and optimism I had for a comfortable future is being ground into a fine powder against the twin rocks of debt and my previous failure to complete graduate school as I would have liked. At this point in my life, mid-thirties, I imagined that I would be in a decent paying career, have health insurance, a nice apartment, and have a healthy savings account. Of course, I am still grateful for the continuing support that I have to actually pursue a new school path, a place where I am trying to build new hope as an artist rather than an instructor. However, all I have to do is think about the talented art students in my current drawing classes and see the evidence of even more talented students who have already completed the program to feel a lot of trepidation about the future viability of this new path. My talent for art maybe nothing more than a mediocre skill easily attained by others who have more energy and devotion. And in the highly competitive art job market, competitive as all jobs in the humanities are, you have to really stand out above the rest. I think my best hope for a career most likely lies in the ability to learn how to operate software like Photoshop, and not in the ability to create a work of art with the lyricism of craft. And as fast as computers change these days, my meager skills with Photoshop can disappear with the advent a new software standard, or more profoundly, a new technology.

I think about all the kids who wanted to be in the NBA compared the minuscule amount of kids who actually made it. Hoop Dreams, anyone? Or, I think about all of the kids I've met in the college who want to become famous movie directors. Their hopes far exceed their potential, but they don't know it yet. The film students who have any kind of experience in film making, however modest it may be, tend to keep these hopes secret knowing what an embarrassment that their foolish hopes can be. In the Literature world, it is like everyone who wants to write a novel, imagining the millions of dollars that will flood in when they do, but never put a word to page, or worse, never read a book--or if they do manage to tap something out on their laptops, cannot make even a simple sentence bend to their will, much less come to life.

I will try to get back to sleep for a little bit. School is in a few short hours. I will continue to go and put my time in there as it is my best hope for a brighter future, and I will try to remain optimistic about future success. But in the dark night of the early morning hours, optimism is a much tougher thing to hold on to than it is in the daylight.

Sleeping on It

2007-04-25T23:22:00.000-07:00

I woke up in the middle of the night (4:30a.m.) when the cat in my room knocked over an empty birdcage. The birdcage was okay but my heart took a few minutes to get started again, and then a few minutes after that to start beating normally. Night terrors are really no way to get up in the morning, but it turns out that they are pretty good for keeping you awake after the initial shock. I couldn’t get back to bed, so I made breakfast, took a shower, and drove into school.

The funny thing about the morning class today was that the instructor spent about half of it talking about how wordpress was a such great blogging system for posting your photos. Sure, blogging is great (I’ve done it for four years now), but I think that the instructor oversold it a bit. He seemed to indicate that blogging was a great way to get your personal photos noticed by the general public. Over these four years, I have seen the kinds of hits I get from “the public,” and unless I do something to appear in the papers (like win the lottery), it seems very unlikely that my blog is going to get noticed more than by a handful of people a week, and those people are usually looking for something else.

Tomorrow morning, I go to court. I’ve got a traffic citation ($200!) that I need to get resolved somehow. I am hoping that I can get it reduced significantly because $200 bucks is a lot of money for someone who hardly has any. I was told by a classmate who has gone through the process before that the most the judge can reduce the fine by is 1/3rd, so it is still going to hurt, but hopefully not as much. I’ve never done anything like this before, so it will be interesting to see what happens, but right now, I really need to get to sleep so I can wake up and arrive to court on time.

Drawing upon Thought

2007-04-06T03:36:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I went to the first figure drawing class I am taking this term. I was initially nervous because I had heard that this particular instructor is a little demanding; and also, I felt somewhat nervous because I had been out of practice for some time, the type of classical practice a college art class seems to require. However, towards the end of the class, the instructor wandered over to where I was drawing and commented that my drawing was actually very good, the sort of compliment which makes me slightly embarrassed. I nervously smiled, laughed, and then tried to point out the drawings flaws: the composition wasn't very balanced, the model moved so the back look out of proportion, etc. The instructor countered each one, partly for encouragement.

Compliments, it seems, are always harder for me to take because I am always ready to receive criticism, deserved or not. And of course, criticism is always seems easier to believe, easier for me to mentally support, even if I know it is not necessarily rational. Not rational, just how it is. When I was ten years younger or so, I once overheard someone talking about receiving compliments and that it was generally considered polite to simply say "thank you" and leave it at that, advice which I remembered and took at this occasion.

Despite my various personal insecurities, I am looking forward to this class. It is not very often that I have the time (or, admittedly, the discipline) to explore my art in this way, a not-uncommon problem among artists and fellow art students. Plus, I am hoping to gain a few insights from the instructor about the larger context of the art business and world to somehow become more of a self-starter. I look around at the paintings that hang in the various small-time coffee shops and small galleries and have the thought, perhaps naive, that I could do something similar once I learned the "secret," learned the right techniques, and got introduced to "the scene."

In a connected way, I have been having a lot of thoughts about getting my master's degree in English again, to work towards becoming a college instructor. It is the other area in my life where I seem to have some ability, and have received enough compliments from others, mostly instructors, to make me think that I have serious potential. However, enough major obstacles remain to where these thoughts are not entirely developed: for example, I can't afford much more debt, the competition for those jobs are fierce, and the idea of facing 30 or so people per class is a little daunting, even if the students are all mostly young and have their own worries.

Anyway, these are the types of thoughts I have at night, when I am alone and the thoughts pour in like cool soaking water. I went to bed too early tonight (technically yesterday) because I was tired, so I woke up in the middle of the night and began to write this post. But I can feel the fingers of exhaustion slowly curving around my back muscles and crawling up to my neck. It's time for bed again. When I wake up, I begin work on my scholarship application. It is due by 5:00 p.m. and I still have personal statement to write. I highly doubt that much will come of this application because I already have a undergraduate degree. It is even possible that having that degree will automatically disqualify me for consideration, but there is nothing in the application that says it will for sure and I certainly won't get anything if I don't apply. Time for bed.

Notes about Nothing

2007-03-27T20:35:00.001-07:00

It's been quite awhile since I have last posted here. I think that part of the reason is that I'm not sure what to write about anymore because, I guess, that the usual amount of whining I do on here is beginning to wear on even me. How many posts can I write where I talk about my daily difficulties in getting things done, or my being behind in due dates, or whatever?

I could write about 80's television because I spent my childhood devoted to it. I could write about books I have read, music I've heard, or art that I am doing but, the sad fact of the matter is: I am a lump. There, I said it. I am a lump. I've been spending most of my off time playing World of Warcraft, to the point where I am currently a level 57 paladin. The only reason I don't really blog about that is because I am a big enough nerd already; I don't want to put any more nails in that coffin, even though it is a certainty that the nerd question is probably already dead and buried. So, that leaves me with nothing really interesting to say. I'm pretty sure that, at some point, I may be able to turn that around, but right now, things on the interesting front look pretty bleak.

Conditions on the Ground

2007-02-27T23:03:00.000-08:00

This morning, I woke up to about three inches of snow on my car. On a normal Tuesday, this would not have been a problem as class starts in the afternoon. By the afternoon, the temperature rises, the snow melts, and the plows have had a chance to go by the house. However, I had an 10:00 a.m. appointment that, clearly, I was not going to make. I gave it the "old college try," by which I mean I attempted to drive on the snow anyway. A few harrowing and unplanned slides in to the opposite lane convinced me that while I was still only a few hundred feet away from the house I should turn back. Utter terror behind the wheel can give one a clarity of mind and decisiveness like nothing else.

The appointment that I missed, a meeting with the college career counselor, wasn't anything that was at the top of my list of things to do this day anyway. However, lately, (as if you couldn't tell from 90% of the other posts on this blog) I have been feeling some tension between my current career path as a graphic designer and my previous career path as a college writing/literature instructor. Even though I am not spending as much time reading Derrida, Lacan, or Barthes as I used to, I find that I still enjoy metaphor and analyzing creative works. (A recent trip to a major art gallery, and the corresponding paper that I had to write about it, helped me see that I am still talented in that regard. Instead of reporting on the mere anatomy of an artwork, doing tasks like identifying its overall color scheme or the describing the various kinds of colors that it used, I spent most of the time analyzing the theme and meaning of the work as a whole.) Anyway, I scheduled this appointment because I had got some advice that indicated seeing a career counselor would help me clarify these questions in some new way I can't yet foresee. I'll have to reschedule tomorrow or Thursday.

Once back inside the house, I settled in to wait things out. I spent most of the morning watching the snow pile up on the outside deck while painting on a school project. The lights went on and off about five times, which wasn't a problem as I was painting by the dining room window. It gave enough natural light to work by. Eventually though, enough snow had melted to where I was able to leave the house and get to school; and, fortunately, after a brief lunch break, I was able to make it to my class on time.

We spent the entirety of today's class learning how to retouch photos. It took quite some time to get through everything the instructor wanted to present. By the end of class, he had assigned a project in which you take an old, black and white photograph that had been ripped into pieces and clumsily glued back together and remove any evidence of rips or similar types of damage. I decided that it would be in my best interest to stay after class and do it right then, which I am glad to say, I finished. There was a lot more that I could catch up at school, but it was late, and I was hungry, so I left. I got home at about 7:00 p.m., which considering how I had worked all day, I felt was fairly long.

From everything I have heard, there is going to be even more snow tomorrow morning. And I've got a morning class then as well, so unlike today, I won't be able to wait around until conditions are more favorable. I am going to hope that it doesn't snow as much as they're saying, force myself into a determined sort of denial. It may only be foolish hope, but it is getting close to the end of the term, and I still have some work I need to catch up on. Less snow clogging up the roads mean more time spent buried in the computer lab working on homework. In any event, tomorrow brings what tomorrow will bring regardless of my wants and needs, so there's not too much use worrying about it. And right now, it's time for bed again.

Cities of the Past

2007-02-16T22:21:00.000-08:00

Today, I made another one of my bi-weekly trips to my former college town. Enough said about why. Suffice it to say that, overall, I find I have been inexorably drifting towards a greater personal forgiveness for myself over the things that happened back then, and, gaining a clearer perspective, discovering the ability to go forward without the past unnecessarily holding me back. It seems so easy for me to escape into analysis of what went wrong back then or thoughts about what could have been done differently that I often neglect exerting the effort to simply move on. And while I do think it's good to visit the city of the past and entertain your previous mistakes in order to learn from them, at a certain point, you really do need to pack up your things and leave it behind.

During the later afternoon, I visited the University Bookstore there, the one I used to go to, and bought a 1GB compact flash card for a fifty dollar savings over what I had paid for my other one at the mall. I hadn't really planned on buying one, but I couldn't pass up a price like that. My initial reason for shopping there was to scope out the price and styles of drafting tables; the prices there have been the best I have seen anywhere for drafting tables. However, after much looking, I found that what I saw wasn't exactly what I had in mind. When I was in high school, I had a large, smooth door set up on cinder-blocks as a makeshift desk. And even though such a setup is extraordinarily cheap, something much more likely to appear in dank dorm rooms or depressing bachelor apartments, I must have really enjoyed the space it offered and its low relative height from the floor because I kept thinking how a long door on blocks would probably work way better than anything I could buy. But all of this may be moot since: a) I don't have room for either a long door or a drafting table, and b) I am not sure if having either one would improve my art at all, the only reason to get one.

After looking at the tables, I unconsciously meandered over towards the desktop Mac computers for sale. From everything I have heard, it seems that if I am going to be a serious freelance designer, a mac computer is practically a necessity. The cost of the iMac I found most appealing is a little over a thousand dollars. Add the price of the student version of Adobe Creative Suite to that and you have an overall investment of about two thousand dollars, nearly the same amount I used to get from previous financial aid checks in order to pay rent and buy groceries for three months. Yes, it is quite a lot of money relatively speaking. But, I can also save for it a little at a time I suppose, an idea that goes back to the idea of exerting effort rather than dwelling on obstacles.

In any event, after all the shopping and looking, I drove back to the college in which I am currently enrolled and worked in the Mac lab trying to complete a couple of assignments from the past week. Getting there was a pleasant enough drive in cloudy weather, and the picture above is from the parking lot of the taco bell where I had lunch. As for work in the lab, I may need to go back tomorrow and finish what I started. If all goes well, I am really going to try and post something on my comic blog soon too, maybe on Sunday. It will be interesting to see how the scanner works after a couple of months of neglect. I think it will be fine, but you can never tell with technology, right?