CD in about a year. She so called it, all the way. I can't believe these lyrics haven't been ringing in my ears before. But I get it now.
This is exactly how I felt.
I had a thought. When, in the future, the other women in his life are reminding him of our ill-fated romance, I bet they all picture me as Amy Winehouse. I bet our interlude will be known as his "Amy Winehouse affair."
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Dreams and sleep have meaning.
Wish Fulfillment? No. But Dreams (and Sleep) Have Meaning
By TIFFANY SHARPLES Tiffany Sharples Tue Jun 16, 4:15 am ET
Dreams may not be the secret window into the frustrated desires of the unconscious that Sigmund Freud first posited in 1899, but growing evidence suggests that dreams - and, more so, sleep - are powerfully connected to the processing of human emotions.
According to new research presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle, adequate sleep may underpin our ability to understand complex emotions properly in waking life. "Sleep essentially is resetting the magnetic north of your emotional compass," says Matthew Walker, director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
A recent study by Walker and his colleagues examined how rest - specifically, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - influences our ability to read emotions in other people's faces. In the small analysis of 36 adults, volunteers were asked to interpret the facial expressions of people in photographs, following either a 60- or 90-minute nap during the day or with no nap. Participants who had reached REM sleep (when dreaming most frequently occurs) during their nap were better able to identify expressions of positive emotions like happiness in other people, compared with participants who did not achieve REM sleep or did not nap at all. Those volunteers were more sensitive to negative expressions, including anger and fear.
Past research by Walker and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, which was published in the journal Current Biology, found that in people who were sleep deprived, activity in the prefrontal lobe - a region of the brain involved in controlling emotion - was significantly diminished. He suggests that a similar response may be occurring in the nap-deprived volunteers, albeit to a lesser extent, and that it may have its roots in evolution. "If you're walking through the jungle and you're tired, it might benefit you more to be hypersensitive to negative things," he says. The idea is that with little mental energy to spare, you're emotionally more attuned to things that are likely to be the most threatening in the immediate moment. Inversely, when you're well rested, you may be more sensitive to positive emotions, which could benefit long-term survival, he suggests: "If it's getting food, if it's getting some kind of reward, finding a wife - those things are pretty good to pick up on."
Our daily existence is largely influenced by our ability "to understand our societal interactions, to understand someone else's emotional state of mind, to understand the expression on their face," says Ninad Gujar, a senior research scientist at Walker's lab and lead author of the study, which was recently submitted for publication. "These are the most fundamental processes guiding our personal and professional lives."
REM sleep appears to not only improve our ability to identify positive emotions in others; it may also round out the sharp angles of our own emotional experiences. Walker suggests that one function of REM sleep - dreaming, in particular - is to allow the brain to sift through that day's events, process any negative emotion attached to them, then strip it away from the memories. He likens the process to applying a "nocturnal soothing balm." REM sleep, he says, "tries to ameliorate the sharp emotional chips and dents that life gives you along the way." (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)
"It's not that you've forgotten. You haven't," he says. "It's a memory of an emotional episode, but it's no longer emotional itself."
That palliative safety-valve quality of sleep may be hampered when we fail to reach REM sleep or when REM sleep is disrupted, Walker says. "If you don't let go of the emotion, what results is a constant state of anxiety," he says.
The theory is consistent with new research conducted by Rebecca Bernert, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Florida State University who specializes in the relationship between sleep and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and who also presented her work at the sleep conference this week.
In her study of 82 men and women between the ages of 18 and 66 who were admitted into a mental-health hospital for emergency psychiatric evaluation, Bernert discovered that the presence of severe and frequent nightmares or insomnia was a strong predictor of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. More than half of the study participants had attempted suicide at least once in the past, and the 17% of the study group who had made an attempt within the previous month had dramatically higher scores in nightmare frequency and intensity than the rest. Bernert found that the relationship between nightmares or insomnia and suicide persisted, even when researchers controlled for other factors like depression.
Past studies have also established a link between chronic sleep disruption and suicide. Sleep complaints, which include nightmares, insomnia and other sleep disturbances, are listed in the current Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's inventory of suicide-prevention warning signs. Yet what distinguishes Bernert's research is that when nightmares and insomnia were evaluated separately, nightmares were independently predictive of suicidal behavior. "It may be that nightmares present a unique risk for suicidal symptoms, which may have to do with the way we process emotion within dreams," Bernert says.
If that's the case, it may help explain the recurring nightmares that characterize psychiatric conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Walker says. "The brain has not stripped away the emotional rind from that experience memory," he says, so "the next night, the brain offers this up, and it fails again, and it starts to sound like a broken record ... What you hear [PTSD] patients describing is, 'I can't get over the event.' "
At the biological level, Walker explains, the "emotional rind" translates to sympathetic nervous-system activity during sleep: faster heart rate and the release of stress chemicals. Understanding why nightmares recur and how REM sleep facilitates emotional processing - or hinders it, when nightmares take place and perpetuate the physical stress symptoms - may eventually provide clues to effective treatments of painful mental disorders. Perhaps, even, by simply addressing sleeping habits, doctors could potentially interrupt the emotional cycle that can lead to suicide. "There is an opportunity for prevention," Bernert says.
The new findings highlight what researchers are increasingly recognizing as a two-way relationship between psychiatric disorders and disrupted sleep. "Modern medicine and psychiatry have consistently thought that psychological disorders seem to have co-occuring sleep problems and that it's the disorder perpetuating the sleep problems," says Walker. "Is it possible that, in fact, it's the sleep disruption contributing to the psychiatric disorder?"
By TIFFANY SHARPLES Tiffany Sharples Tue Jun 16, 4:15 am ET
Dreams may not be the secret window into the frustrated desires of the unconscious that Sigmund Freud first posited in 1899, but growing evidence suggests that dreams - and, more so, sleep - are powerfully connected to the processing of human emotions.
According to new research presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle, adequate sleep may underpin our ability to understand complex emotions properly in waking life. "Sleep essentially is resetting the magnetic north of your emotional compass," says Matthew Walker, director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
A recent study by Walker and his colleagues examined how rest - specifically, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - influences our ability to read emotions in other people's faces. In the small analysis of 36 adults, volunteers were asked to interpret the facial expressions of people in photographs, following either a 60- or 90-minute nap during the day or with no nap. Participants who had reached REM sleep (when dreaming most frequently occurs) during their nap were better able to identify expressions of positive emotions like happiness in other people, compared with participants who did not achieve REM sleep or did not nap at all. Those volunteers were more sensitive to negative expressions, including anger and fear.
Past research by Walker and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, which was published in the journal Current Biology, found that in people who were sleep deprived, activity in the prefrontal lobe - a region of the brain involved in controlling emotion - was significantly diminished. He suggests that a similar response may be occurring in the nap-deprived volunteers, albeit to a lesser extent, and that it may have its roots in evolution. "If you're walking through the jungle and you're tired, it might benefit you more to be hypersensitive to negative things," he says. The idea is that with little mental energy to spare, you're emotionally more attuned to things that are likely to be the most threatening in the immediate moment. Inversely, when you're well rested, you may be more sensitive to positive emotions, which could benefit long-term survival, he suggests: "If it's getting food, if it's getting some kind of reward, finding a wife - those things are pretty good to pick up on."
Our daily existence is largely influenced by our ability "to understand our societal interactions, to understand someone else's emotional state of mind, to understand the expression on their face," says Ninad Gujar, a senior research scientist at Walker's lab and lead author of the study, which was recently submitted for publication. "These are the most fundamental processes guiding our personal and professional lives."
REM sleep appears to not only improve our ability to identify positive emotions in others; it may also round out the sharp angles of our own emotional experiences. Walker suggests that one function of REM sleep - dreaming, in particular - is to allow the brain to sift through that day's events, process any negative emotion attached to them, then strip it away from the memories. He likens the process to applying a "nocturnal soothing balm." REM sleep, he says, "tries to ameliorate the sharp emotional chips and dents that life gives you along the way." (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)
"It's not that you've forgotten. You haven't," he says. "It's a memory of an emotional episode, but it's no longer emotional itself."
That palliative safety-valve quality of sleep may be hampered when we fail to reach REM sleep or when REM sleep is disrupted, Walker says. "If you don't let go of the emotion, what results is a constant state of anxiety," he says.
The theory is consistent with new research conducted by Rebecca Bernert, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Florida State University who specializes in the relationship between sleep and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and who also presented her work at the sleep conference this week.
In her study of 82 men and women between the ages of 18 and 66 who were admitted into a mental-health hospital for emergency psychiatric evaluation, Bernert discovered that the presence of severe and frequent nightmares or insomnia was a strong predictor of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. More than half of the study participants had attempted suicide at least once in the past, and the 17% of the study group who had made an attempt within the previous month had dramatically higher scores in nightmare frequency and intensity than the rest. Bernert found that the relationship between nightmares or insomnia and suicide persisted, even when researchers controlled for other factors like depression.
Past studies have also established a link between chronic sleep disruption and suicide. Sleep complaints, which include nightmares, insomnia and other sleep disturbances, are listed in the current Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's inventory of suicide-prevention warning signs. Yet what distinguishes Bernert's research is that when nightmares and insomnia were evaluated separately, nightmares were independently predictive of suicidal behavior. "It may be that nightmares present a unique risk for suicidal symptoms, which may have to do with the way we process emotion within dreams," Bernert says.
If that's the case, it may help explain the recurring nightmares that characterize psychiatric conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Walker says. "The brain has not stripped away the emotional rind from that experience memory," he says, so "the next night, the brain offers this up, and it fails again, and it starts to sound like a broken record ... What you hear [PTSD] patients describing is, 'I can't get over the event.' "
At the biological level, Walker explains, the "emotional rind" translates to sympathetic nervous-system activity during sleep: faster heart rate and the release of stress chemicals. Understanding why nightmares recur and how REM sleep facilitates emotional processing - or hinders it, when nightmares take place and perpetuate the physical stress symptoms - may eventually provide clues to effective treatments of painful mental disorders. Perhaps, even, by simply addressing sleeping habits, doctors could potentially interrupt the emotional cycle that can lead to suicide. "There is an opportunity for prevention," Bernert says.
The new findings highlight what researchers are increasingly recognizing as a two-way relationship between psychiatric disorders and disrupted sleep. "Modern medicine and psychiatry have consistently thought that psychological disorders seem to have co-occuring sleep problems and that it's the disorder perpetuating the sleep problems," says Walker. "Is it possible that, in fact, it's the sleep disruption contributing to the psychiatric disorder?"
Monday, June 15, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Another poster about the film and the trailer.
"The Collections" Trailer from turnitloose on Vimeo.
Please come to the opening Saturday, June 27th if you are in the Austin area. $10 admission gets you the DVD or one of Jill Pangallo's books, plus performances by featured collectors and others.
Austin Art Authority is the venue, 10 p.m. start time.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Saturday, June 27 I'm performing...
and I'm one of the collectors featured in the film.
The Collections: Screening and Performance
a delightfully inexplicable meditation on the topic of stuff
Host:
Max Juren, Jill Pangallo, Monofonus Press
Type:
Music/Arts - Performance
Network:
Global
Start Time:
Saturday, June 27, 2009 at 10:00pm
End Time:
Sunday, June 28, 2009 at 1:00am
Location:
United States Art Authority
Street:
2908 Fruth Street (behind Spider House)
City/Town:
Austin, TX
View Map
MapQuest
Microsoft
Yahoo
Email:
info@monofonuspress.com
Description
"The Collections," a new video series by Max Juren and Jill Pangallo is about what people save and why they save it. Inspired by Ann Stephenson's poem of the same name, the series features twelve, short interviews with collectors that provide a jumping off point for Max and Jill's multi-genre video and performance work. Their impulsive and improvisational responses cross-pollinate with the interviews to create a delightfully inexplicable meditation on the topic of stuff. It’s a new, 40-minute collection unto itself, completed from start to finish in just one month’s time.
Conceived, Written, Directed and Performed by Max Juren and Jill Pangallo
Executive Produced by Monofonus Press
Inspired by the poetry of Ann Stephenson
Including the collections of...
Christina Campbell, Juan Cisneros, Michelle Devereux, Kate Hersch, Jen Hirt and Scott Webel, Suze Kemper, Rachel Martin, Haleh Pedram, Michael Smith, Jack Stoney, Josh , and Ross
And featuring…
Elana Farley, Carlos Rosales-Smith, Amanda Joy Venerable as the “Dream Together” cats
Juren and Pangallo will host the premier screening of “The Collections” on Saturday, June 27th at the United States Art Authority in Austin, Texas. The screening event will include a variety of performances by local artists Michelle Devereux, Scott Eastwood, Elana Farley, Rachel Martin, Paul Soileau, Brannon Via, Haleh Padram, Amanda Joy Venerable, and more. The evening begins at 10pm. Entry is $10 with which you receive your choice, FREE, of “The Collections” dvd, Max Juren’s recent compilation DVD release, or Jill Pangallo’s recent book, “Let Me Entertain You,” all published by Monofonus Press. We hope to see you there!
I made Buster an ....
Edward Gorey-esque dog stroller or rickshaw so that I can still go on long walks with him even when it's 100 degrees and he's overcome by the heat. I think it still needs mosquito netting for the total effect I was going for. He is a Goth dog, after all.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Feeling a little sad and vulnerable
I think it's because June 7 last year was the first day of the real-life romance I wrote about in Les Très Riches Heures. And part of it is Bob's death.
And maybe it's because coming to the end of a huge artistic project always triggers a kind of post-natal depression in me. I had been writing since January, then editing feverishly during the past month, and now it's all done and out there and I wait. It's a new experience for me, putting what I've made out there. Usually I just make things and never show them to anyone. Since I put this work out there, I feel a little on pins and needles waiting to get some feedback from someone. Ali was, of course, right there, reading in the first few days and she's already given me notes. I do have to examine how I feel about making and showing vs. just making and never showing. Part of me feels that maybe it's time I do put my work out there. I think maybe some lessons I learned from Bob are talking to me these days...
I do know what I'm doing next, though, and started working on the first color plate for that series Sunday night. And I have too many conceptual ideas to even count. But it seems fairly obvious I am going to have to learn some HTML to pull off most of what I can imagine doing in the future.
And maybe it's because coming to the end of a huge artistic project always triggers a kind of post-natal depression in me. I had been writing since January, then editing feverishly during the past month, and now it's all done and out there and I wait. It's a new experience for me, putting what I've made out there. Usually I just make things and never show them to anyone. Since I put this work out there, I feel a little on pins and needles waiting to get some feedback from someone. Ali was, of course, right there, reading in the first few days and she's already given me notes. I do have to examine how I feel about making and showing vs. just making and never showing. Part of me feels that maybe it's time I do put my work out there. I think maybe some lessons I learned from Bob are talking to me these days...
I do know what I'm doing next, though, and started working on the first color plate for that series Sunday night. And I have too many conceptual ideas to even count. But it seems fairly obvious I am going to have to learn some HTML to pull off most of what I can imagine doing in the future.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Book is done!
I made my deadline, even with Bob's sudden death. It was 98% finished last weekend, but I finished dropping in all the bells and whistles last night and today.
Here's part of what I wrote about it: (there was a lot of other heady stuff about devising a Rhetoric of Love and creating virtual intimate spaces, voice being the evidence that the body still exists in modern art and assorted other art school blah-blah-blah.)
"...In other words, I hope I have created a post-modernist naturalistic feminist transmedia Existential Romance novel, with a family tree extending back to Richardson's 1740 work, Pamela." Of course, I have no idea WHAT will happen next with this work, but making it is what I care about.
Now I can sleep again. When I get in "the zone" there's just no stopping me. But I did finally clean house and do laundry today after one month non-stop burning the midnight oil. I'm going to go outside, stare at the moon and have a well-deserved cocktail tonight before I go to sleep to celebrate. My family and friends will probably be glad when I emerge and rejoin the living.
If I can just learn that song by next weekend, I think I'm still doing a music video with Cindy, Jimmie and some of the Kings and others in their circle. It has three chords; surely, even brain-dead I can pull that off.
*****
Beautiful side-effect of Bob's passing: people from decades ago are suddenly making contact with me, or I saw them at the memorial. That's a marvelous thing to come out of a sad event and reminds me, as an artist, that I am not an island. I am, in fact, a member of a huge, vibrant artistic community.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Dear Bob, We celebrated your life tonight...
as an artist, a dear friend, an old love, a magnificent teacher, a family member. Did you see us at Okay Mountain? We all expected to see your white pickup parked in the neighborhood, and all evening we spoke of how eerie it was that we all pictured you in the same spot in the yard in the same seat, with your long legs stretched out. Suze and I went together, fittingly, and brought a huge bottle of your beloved Bulleit bourbon with us for everyone to toast you, with a tag I made for its neck that read, "For Bob, with love, from Hard Women." Your students from all the way back to the 80's (including Suze and me!) were there. Did you hear the stories we shared, and how I told the crowd how it was you who named us Hard Women in the first place, and how you never missed a single show? (Suze had said earlier, "Maybe we should have shared more men?" And I said, "No." You were enough, separated, even, as you were by fifteen or so years in our romantic histories. But that is a funny shared experience between best friends! We'll always have YOU in common. And she told me about how she left a wedding to go have hot sex with you, while the bride, Malka, went next door and visited your beloved friend, Steve Jones.)
And did you see that Suze and I embraced your beloved Peggy, and she clung to us all evening, sometimes with the three of us putting our heads together? We took care of her for you this evening, Bob. She loves you so much, and it was so wonderful to know that you died at the height of a great love. I am so genuinely happy for the two of you, and so sad for Peggy that she must find a way to live on without you.
Your exhibition was beautiful, and even more so because it was works you gave each of us, not work for sale. Everyone shared their stories of how you gave them the works, and there was a tack-up wall of the drawings you'd always made for each crop of your grad students. You were so generous to us!
And I finally met your sister. She said to Suze and me, "You knew him better than I did." She said, "Now I understand why he didn't want to come to our house for the holidays. He had all of you, and was part of this artistic community." Bob, she finally gets it. She sees what you meant to us, that you weren't some kind of crazy recluse. She finally gets it, by hearing our stories and seeing the crowd there to celebrate your life as an artist. Yours was the biggest opening of the year!
There are so many people who will miss you here. We toasted the sky and talked to you -- could you hear us? Go in peace now, my old, gentle, mad sweetheart. Peggy is afraid you'll hover near her and she wants you to be released and find peace. Please hear her heart and do as she needs you to do now. We will take care of her, and her children are clinging close to her.
I regret I didn't have the opportunity to look into your watery blue eyes one more time and see your crooked grin. I regret what I didn't get the chance to say to you, so I'll say it now: Bob, thank you. Thank you for our brief time together, thank you for your art, and thank you for teaching me everything I know about artistic discipline. You were a great artist, a great teacher and a pure, perfect soul. You are loved, and you are missed. At every party we will miss you most of all because we know you would have loved to be with us; and you will be. Linda Montano sends her love, and as I told her just now on the phone, please go back to sleep now, and sweet dreams, my tall boy, my Ichabod.
Sending you my love tonight,
Rachel
And did you see that Suze and I embraced your beloved Peggy, and she clung to us all evening, sometimes with the three of us putting our heads together? We took care of her for you this evening, Bob. She loves you so much, and it was so wonderful to know that you died at the height of a great love. I am so genuinely happy for the two of you, and so sad for Peggy that she must find a way to live on without you.
Your exhibition was beautiful, and even more so because it was works you gave each of us, not work for sale. Everyone shared their stories of how you gave them the works, and there was a tack-up wall of the drawings you'd always made for each crop of your grad students. You were so generous to us!
And I finally met your sister. She said to Suze and me, "You knew him better than I did." She said, "Now I understand why he didn't want to come to our house for the holidays. He had all of you, and was part of this artistic community." Bob, she finally gets it. She sees what you meant to us, that you weren't some kind of crazy recluse. She finally gets it, by hearing our stories and seeing the crowd there to celebrate your life as an artist. Yours was the biggest opening of the year!
There are so many people who will miss you here. We toasted the sky and talked to you -- could you hear us? Go in peace now, my old, gentle, mad sweetheart. Peggy is afraid you'll hover near her and she wants you to be released and find peace. Please hear her heart and do as she needs you to do now. We will take care of her, and her children are clinging close to her.
I regret I didn't have the opportunity to look into your watery blue eyes one more time and see your crooked grin. I regret what I didn't get the chance to say to you, so I'll say it now: Bob, thank you. Thank you for our brief time together, thank you for your art, and thank you for teaching me everything I know about artistic discipline. You were a great artist, a great teacher and a pure, perfect soul. You are loved, and you are missed. At every party we will miss you most of all because we know you would have loved to be with us; and you will be. Linda Montano sends her love, and as I told her just now on the phone, please go back to sleep now, and sweet dreams, my tall boy, my Ichabod.
Sending you my love tonight,
Rachel
And now David Carradine is dead!
This is eerie! Because David Carradine was the movie star doppelganger of my dead former sweetheart! If I had to cast Bob's life, Carradine always seemed to be the perfect choice to play him!
We have no idea how profoundly connected we are to our movie stars. They act out our issues for us. They are our surrogates. This is so strange, that Carradine had no reason to exist now, without Bob.
We have no idea how profoundly connected we are to our movie stars. They act out our issues for us. They are our surrogates. This is so strange, that Carradine had no reason to exist now, without Bob.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
But obviously life is still worth living with a child and
...daughter-in-law like these two!
And Freak Show A-Go-Go was incredible -- like a queer Cirque de Soleil! And Jimmie's father and wife finally managed to make it to a show after, what? Seven years. I spoke with them for a minute and Jimmie's father made me very happy by saying Hard Women's artistic legacy obviously continues in our child. I was rocking the old Hard Women three foot long pony-tail, Madonna-inspired ringmaster outfit, leopard spats and high-heeled tennis shoes, so I was glad if he was only going to run into me once every six years I was rocking an outrageous look. And he did behave very nicely. I am so glad he was finally able to see exactly what it is his child does as an artist. And I was so proud of all KnT and Jimmie and Cindy had done to pull off this marvelous show.
A dear, old friend of mine has died.
He was also once my love for a few fleeting months five years ago. I am so sad. He was a sweet, gentle, crazy soul, and one of the best and most productive artists I've ever known. He taught me so much about artistic discipline, just as he taught generations of students at school about what it meant to be an artist. I hadn't spent any time with him since October, but I know he had a wonderful girlfriend of a few months with whom he was very happy. It appears he had a peaceful passing in the night. So many more drawings he would have made, so much more fun he would have had.
He will be much missed by so many, including me. Rest in peace, Bob. I will remember you fondly.
I have been constantly surrounded by death since December. When will it let up?
I finished the first final draft of the book and put it out to those who had agreed to be first readers. Now I wait. I would have been high on finishing, but my sadness over Bob's passing has damped down my mood about the book. No one has time to read right now, it seems, so I must be patient. But I stayed on the schedule I established months ago, so I am proud of myself for that.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Death. DEATH.
Why can we not ever have a Commencement without death?
I am completely wiped out from the one that occurred this time. I am just going to crawl into a hole and ignore the world for at least the start of this blessed four day weekend.
Commencement went beautifully, but I cannot shake the dark cloud hanging over it because of another student suicide, this one of a young Korean woman who would have been granted her PhD with flying colors tomorrow.
It's beyond understanding, and my heart is so troubled.
I am completely wiped out from the one that occurred this time. I am just going to crawl into a hole and ignore the world for at least the start of this blessed four day weekend.
Commencement went beautifully, but I cannot shake the dark cloud hanging over it because of another student suicide, this one of a young Korean woman who would have been granted her PhD with flying colors tomorrow.
It's beyond understanding, and my heart is so troubled.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
The human heart is so mysterious.
At work, I am dealing with yet another tragic student suicide. I don't want to trivialize the great tragedy by writing about it here. I'll just say it's very sad and my heart goes out to the poor, lost young woman.
Personally, I am suddenly furious with my former lover for his freeze-out since our parting in January. My contempt for him, long coming, has arrived. I am really angry with him now. As Ali says, "He's renting too much real estate in your psyche. I assure you, you aren't in his."
She's right. But I am truly angry, four months later. I guess it took me this long just to get over the sorrow, numbness and horror. But I am now. So the anger has arrived. Cue the orchestra: Carmen's made her entrance.
Another possible trigger: the book's so close to being finished. I think it's very good. My goal is to finish it by symbolic June 7. If I can finish it and simultaneously do the music video and all the other opportunities I have next in queue, that is. If not, shortly thereafter.
I take up no space in his heart or mind or he would have contacted me by now after reading my final posts to our private blog in the last few weeks. I'm erased, invisible, banished. Got it.
Why would he orchestrate this pathetic ending to a beautiful romance, knowing full well I'd lose all respect for him forever in the bargain? I suppose I'm angry with myself for being duped. I loved him, so I thought I knew him. I couldn't have been more wrong. As I wrote him, "I broke my own heart." I own that.
Personally, I am suddenly furious with my former lover for his freeze-out since our parting in January. My contempt for him, long coming, has arrived. I am really angry with him now. As Ali says, "He's renting too much real estate in your psyche. I assure you, you aren't in his."
She's right. But I am truly angry, four months later. I guess it took me this long just to get over the sorrow, numbness and horror. But I am now. So the anger has arrived. Cue the orchestra: Carmen's made her entrance.
Another possible trigger: the book's so close to being finished. I think it's very good. My goal is to finish it by symbolic June 7. If I can finish it and simultaneously do the music video and all the other opportunities I have next in queue, that is. If not, shortly thereafter.
I take up no space in his heart or mind or he would have contacted me by now after reading my final posts to our private blog in the last few weeks. I'm erased, invisible, banished. Got it.
Why would he orchestrate this pathetic ending to a beautiful romance, knowing full well I'd lose all respect for him forever in the bargain? I suppose I'm angry with myself for being duped. I loved him, so I thought I knew him. I couldn't have been more wrong. As I wrote him, "I broke my own heart." I own that.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
B&W Breakfast at Tiffany's
Just had a great photo session with Ali! I'll be editing for days. Movie Shoot II.
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