A history of Painting - now

While suffering with my eyes one morning I woke up with a picture in my head.
This was late December 2008, on a scale of 1 to 10, physically, i was maybe a 3.
I had finished with the shunt some 3 weeks earlier and my brain was thinking again, but there were differences that i was still exploring.
I really could not see.
I would group around in the morning for my patch to try to make sense of the world, but it was difficult.
I did not have any "prism" glasses to try to put things together. I was changing my patch over one eye every few hours.
I was not even thinking about going to work and actually was wondering if i ever would.
My swallowing was really bad and i was always choking and water was particularly difficult.
But this picture popped into my head.
This used to happen often, those were always my best works. They were what I call "inspired",
In my history, I would try to paint many things, some were good, some not so good. I learned a great deal from other works, particularly classical, but they used oils, not watercolors. I found older water color artists and was fascinated. Sometimes i would succeed, some times fail, but i kept it up. The period when all the artist in the local association did not want anything to do with me and I was selling a lot for a part time artist was when I would look at something and feel it. The feeling between me and the art association became mutual, they were working in a style by a local favorite, a Mr Sutherland. I did not like his style and of course, not theirs either.
Then there was this picture in my head that December morning. I had no choice, i looked to find my paints.

This was not everything i wanted, but it was a start and certainly better than the stuff i tried when i knew i had lost my painting ability.
I wanted suddenly to do something I had never done, a portrait in water color.
So first a sketch of a picture i found beautiful. I did not know this person, but was happy with the sketch.

Then someone i knew and was being kind to me while i recovered, also in mid January.
This was my first attempt ever at a portrait. My mother did portraits in oils and was very good at it. I was pleased.

I woke up wanting to create something i could only see in my mind. This was late January.

Remember, I have no glasses, so I am alternating my eye patch and working with full double vision.
Then another in February of something I could not see because I created the image to be in the past from what it is now. I have prisms for reading, but the vision is about 20.180 or so. I am using the patch more than the glasses.



Then a really ambitious project which was halted because of my return to work. it was large (20 x 30 in believe).

Now I see things and am inspired!




And this is where i am today!

Everything here is a mixture of watercolor board and cold press paper. I am having fun!

A history of Painting - The good stuff and what happens now

I explained in my last post that I had a "good" period". It was inspired by surroundings and nature and remembrances. From my parents in Colorado, I learned that snow scenes were fun (I still do not like snow to be in) and that fall was my favorite season.
I will also reiterate that the Stamford Art Association members at the time were uninterested in anything i did and did not even think they should be displayed in any of their shows (Do you think I am unhappy with them? Yep!) At this point I was selling 2 or 3 paintings a month with requests beginning to backup so I was completely unconcerned with what "they" said"
.
Colorado with snow


In the fall.


Vermont in the snow

remembrances:



Tomorrow what i have been doing now (and it seems that I am happy again!).

A history of Painting - painting till the break

I have records of only a few of my works and some are very poor photos by here it is.

I painted a bit in High School and College, but nothing really happened till I came out here.
The very first painting I did up here in Stamford was of a historic congregational church up on Old Long Ridge Rd. This was made into a Christmas card (And that is all I have of it).

Then I was on a roll. I have misplaced a number of sketch books which I did while working in West Virginia and down in the south end at St Luke's Chapel.
This is what I have from West Virginia done on site while analyzing flue gases from a coke (coal) processing plant.



A friend asked me to do a number of houses, some were okay, some not so okay.
His first house in Houston, The Valverde House:

A Historic House in Houston called the Commonwealth house:

His Home in Stamford

This one was passed around and I got work out of it...a lot of work.
The funny thing is as I became busy painting and joined the Stamford Art Association, I found out other painters simply disliked what i did, I did not make a record of many of those and sold most of them.
I started doing some work at an eclectic "collectibles" shop and when it was slow, I would paint. The atmosphere and feel of the shop inspired me and I produced some of my best work.
I am putting to much but I will post the ones I liked on the next installment.
They include scenes from Colorado (where my parents lived) and Virginia (where I would go an vacation with my older friend)

Then it was gone. i knew it. Everything i did looked like a child's work and even struggling against it, did not help. I tried various motivational things including doing a painting to give as a gift to a pretty girl, but 2 attempts produced this:


At this point I gave up and stopped painting because to produce this garbage took me 2 weeks and i was uninsired.

Painting again

For what ever reason, i seem to have gotten my "painting" back. This one I can blame on SoundBounder and a picture that I pickup on his blog site. It is used with permission.



Just so you know, I was having serious eye focusing issues with this painting. Why I do not know, maybe i wanted to be on that boat.
I also intend on doing a "show and tell", so all of you can see what I had lost and why i think i have it back!

Style

Not what we wear!
Some days the words flow out of my heart,
Other days, it feels stilted and disconnected.
Free form is better when it comes form the heart.
Prose is a rambling mess,
full of sharp edges that have not been shaved.
Piercing no one, but my heart.

learning

This is inspired by a post by Sweet Mango!

Though the fire and confusion,
in the bed of disaster,
there is learning.
Sometimes we have no clue,
but it is there.
In the "belly of the whale" is our salvation.
In the darkest part of the night, the dawn is coming.
The end is not nigh, but only a new beginning.

Drifting

Drifting, not falling.
Flaoting neither up nor down.
The world has been a crazy place,
but i do not seem to be in it.
Trouble for my friends and companions.
It does not seem to touch...me.

This is all I have today.

Stupid

I was recently told that I should not call any one stupid, misinformed, slow etc, but not stupid.
Maybe I am smarter than others, but it does not make them stupid. I thought about it awhile and realized that I usually make that statement when people who seem (i guess that is the operative word) to be with out a mental handicap have something explained to them clearly (in their own language, i can do that in 3) several times and either do not get it or can not grasp the concept. It usually has something to do with either their own health or the health of people who are using something they are operating (most often it seems to be swimming pools as of late).
I seem to get exasperated maybe a bit too easily, anyone have ideas?

suffering

I have to do a double post today, Something has been running in my head for several days and it has to come out.
In this world, there is suffering.
This is one of the starting points for Buddhism (if I am correct) and not so different than some Christian teachings.
I have become acquainted with suffering personally. It is not something i would have chosen, but now it is here, it really is not so bad (Today). Even tho i have my bouts, i am more at peace with it than you might think. I am learning. I figure that is what is all about. Not being bad or good or being punished or rewarded, it is about learning.
I have friends who are going through terrible things, an awful divorce that is rewarding a drug user and crippling him, but he does have something to learn. I hope he does.
His mother who is in great anguish that this has happen and people who are lying are getting rewarded (this is not her perception, it is the truth).
A friend who is going against some of her own standards in order to survive in a world which seems to have pitted everything against her.
My mom who just had her closest childhood friend and relative die.
The list could go on, but there is suffering!
How we cope is the lesson.

perception it's all about the eyes

I've said i have a vision problem. A number of times and in great detail.
Today I went to the doctors office to find that my appointment is July 24, not June.
I got the first 2 letter right!
I have notice a number of similar errors recently. Some proficiency testing (certification test where I am suppose to get the correct value so we can continue testing something).
I had to do the tests because July 1 was the deadline and the ones I finished the end of May just came back. There were 4 errors, each i could trace back to a vision issue.
I have been saying something about it to my boss and coworker, but it kind of goes over their heads. I saw a 4 as a 9, a 5 as an 8 (twice) and a 9 as a 4. The result is i get wrong answers.
The interestingthing is that i am encouraged, because I can now tell the difference. that is improvement amd that was the end of May!
The doctor appointment? Well I set that up in the computer in March, what do I expect?

Aversion or selective memory

I have been uptight lately.
My post prove it to me.
My up and down moods prove it to me.
My irritation proved it to me.

Why?

I see the Neurologist/neurosurgeon who started this all tomorrow and we see what he says.

The double vision thing was only suppose to last a few days.
I was only going to be in the hospital a week at most with another 3 or 4 weeks in out patient therapy after that.

Things did not work out that way, I had to be different.

I am nervous.

I do NOT know what he will say or what he thinks.
I am fairly certain he thinks I would be working full time now.
He does not like me using the cane.
We will see, tomorrow.

No, I won't go there

That is correct, I will not. Coming up from the doldrums, fighting all the way, one thing that keeps popping up is that I have gone through something very major, but i am on the upward swing.
Waiting for my co-worker to bring me samples at 1 this afternoon (beach samples mind you, who is going to beach in this weather?) I was waiting, I received a call and it was my friend, Jenny. Her oldest daughter was up from North Carolina for her son's graduation from high school and youngest daughter's graduation from 5th grade. I had asked to meet her oldest and this was her asking to stop by my house. She did not have to do this, she did it anyway. They did not stay, but it was awesome that they did stop. Jenny has made decisions that allow her to survive, i may not like them, but I understand them. It is not her fault I only wish the best for this lady who has a caring heart.
To the people who can not figure me out, to bad. I have gone through something major and survived. that in itself it very awesome.
Is my life great? No, i do have to fight daily just to be at a normal level.
Is it easy? Not a chance in hell.
Am i out of my down? Yes, right now I am, tomorrow maybe not.
This is still a roller coaster.

Happy "I am not a Father's Day"

I thought a bit about this post.
In this area, I have no bitterness, no remorse, I am not a father. I do not have any children.
My own father past away a number of years ago and so there is no reason for me to celebrate this day as it stands.
I would not have been good with children, I know this and I know I would have passed along my genes which are just plain too intelligent, too athletic and too mediocre for it to do a child any good. In some ways I might make a good grand parent cause I also can not say no easily. All the kids in the neighborhood figured that out quickly.
That does not make a good parent.
I am serious when I say this, I figure things out too easily and my current "adventure" really proves it to me. Somewhere I realize that one of the reason I get so exhausted is that I am putting out tremendous energy everyday to do my "job" and apparently it is work very few people can do and i am doing it with seriously distorted vision.
So course being too "smart" also makes for poor relationships in many ways, sometimes the emotions are neglected and then become way too "needy". That does not help anything.
So today for my choice, not to pass along my disasters to any offspring, I celebrate 'not a father, Father's day"?

Painting

For water color enthusiasts, there are basic "techniques" used in water color that are simply not found any where else: Wet brush on wet paper, wet brush on dry paper, dry brush on dry paper, and dry brush on wet paper. I felt up to it and this picture has all of those basics. I started and finished in about 3 hours, allowing the paper to dry when I used the wet paper method. I will show the process another time when I upload from my camera.

The picture from Chesapeake bay at low tide:


The painting:

The cycle

Therapist use general concepts of what we all may go through when we are confront by different issues. This actually works (just like when psychics come across with the same concepts, IE we choose out parents) because there is some truth to the human experience, everything we go through emotionally, has some similarities.
In one sense it gives us a label of where we are in a particular journey.
Mine was fairly easy, its called "Loss.
In my case, it is the loss of my health and most of the things I have been able to do and enjoy.
There are of course steps or processes we all go through to come to the other side. Sometimes we get stuck in one. that is what I thought I was doing, but actually, the way it looks, it looks like I am doing fairly well.
Example, until recently, I would not have thought to go out to Stamford's blog and grog meet-up, now I can not wait.
Now may be the therapist was just making me feel better, but the location on the cycle she place me at, put me 3/4 of the way through. That helped.
In her book, i was placed at reorganization. Fatigue and negativity are part of it. Rocking back and forth between looking forward to things and being depressed are part of it. Feeling like it will never end is part of it.
Feeling hopeless, trapped and caged at times also works, but the point is that I am close, not far. This is all a good thing!
So did a session help? Yep!
will I have more? Yep!
Th-that's all folks!

The roller Coaster

Or shall we say the way life is. This is not going to be long, i do not want to go into details. Just to say that things are more difficult emotionally for me to handle and it seems my support system is embroiled in too many serious problems of their own. yes that mean I see the therapist that helped me once before a long time ago, tomorrow!

Back to the city

Yesterday was one of the hardest workouts I have had. Of course it was for my eyes and it was at SUNY school of optometry. New exercises that really worked my eyes and at the end, the glasses did not work for maybe 10 minutes. I feel asleep on the train back easily. The strain in the eyes and the muscles were worth it and I expect good things soon. I probably will start on the home exercises tonight and sleep well.
I wanted to post about a friend, but can not do it yet, too emotional in too many ways, but my heart goes out to her because of what she must do to provide for herself and her children.
My other friend came back from a 2 week vaction and we will catch up hopefully, tomorrow, she looked fabulous.

Movies

totally off the subject for a post, David my somewhat disabled person who lives with me, goes to the library to rent all his movies, for free. they have a very good selection, some good, some awful and every so often a great one. David pulled 3 out of his hat this last week.
The first one was "Just Shoot Me", and it kept me laughing the whole time. The short of it is a hit man who is ordered by the big boss to go to AA because he drinks to much. It really kept me going. Language is an issue for children, but adults should not have an issue.
The next was called "Once". It was a movie about a on the street singer/songwriter who meets up with a female keyboardist/pianist. Do not think sappy here, it was fairly much about this one singer/songwriter putting together a very good music CD. It is based on an Irish singer, who plays himself. Language is again the only issue here.
The final winner is "Gran Torino". Of course it is an aged Clint Eastwood movie and is also very good.
All of these are powerful, well written and not just good, but great... at least to me.

History and descriptions and hats

It was time to give a complete description of what I am dealing with, partially so I can make a comparison in the future and partially to answer some questions posed on other sited.
First the tumor they took out was only 2 cm, only 2 cm high, but it blocked the entire 4 ventricle of my brain and was significantly outside of it meaning it was maybe 6 cm wide. It was pressing against my brain stem for a long while before it was discovered. We figured it was outside of the 4 ventricle for at least 3 years before it was discovered, that is why it caused those terrible twisty head aches in no longer have. None of the optic nerves were involved, but the pressure was on the brain stem regulating all of it. No "grey" matter was damaged and my crazy memory remains intact.
My current state: when I first wake up, I can see singly for as much as 3 feet before everything spits. Nothing is blurry, I see 2 completely clear and crisp images. My test is a computer screen, which is about a foot wide and initially at this time there can be as much as 4 inches of over lap. It varies, today thee was may be 1 inch of over lap. As I wake up and have my coffee the image of the screens gradually split so there are 3 to 4 inches between the 2 images.
When i initially put on the prism glasses, everything comes together at that 10 foot distance, but maybe doubles close up. The prisms take away some of the clarity.
If i take off the glasses there is a 10 to 12 inch difference between the 2 images.
Over the course of the day it gets so that images at 30 or 40 feet are split even with the glasses.
One thing the brain tries to do is blind an eye so it will see only one image, it has not happened and even more fun, if i walk without the glasses, i can focus with one eye or the other to get where i am going with almost no effort, but the left eye does dominate.
The glasses themselves create certain distortions so it makes it difficult to walk without losing my balance. If i close either eye looking thought the glasses there is a quarter moon size "Blur" on the nose bridge size of the glasses. If i have both eyes open and look quickly to one side or another, the images double. If i turn my head quickly or someone passes close in front of me, the image "swims" for a moment before it coalesces into one image, this is dizzying and why i still use a cane to walk.
There are many times unusual feelings in the back of my head, that actually feel good, but are hard to describe, i call them "a thousand knots being untied".
There are other times there are dull aches and those are unpleasant.
That is my current state of being and why i am so drained after a few hours of using my eyes at work.

The other question posed was more along the line of how many hats have I (or do i) wear?
That is actually a fun question cause sometimes it is good for me to recount.
I decided i liked chemistry in my second year of high school, but had my first "chemistry set" when i was 8.
I worked in a clinical lab first in 1974 at a free clinic in the poor area of Houston. I enjoyed it greatly and was a volunteer.
I work at J. Paul Getty's research lab in Houston in 1975, where i got my first exposure to both the oil industry and environmental work. That is where i had my first taste of working with bacteria (iron bacteria).
So having said that, i was considered an analytical chemist, which meant i could work fairly much in any area i wanted and i did.
The fun part of working at the Stamford Health Department Lab is we got into everything. Environment, clinical.
I was sent to a course run by the CT Agricultural Station where I had a formal introduction to entomology (lots of fun looking at bugs), but i would never call my self an expert there.
Then i became DEA trained and certified as a Forensic chemist and have testified in cases.
At the same time this was happening, I was volunteering at a shelter (okay, i was one of 7 who helped get it started) and ended up working with the chronically mentally ill. The state of Ct accepted me as a mental health worker and that was beyond interesting (and fun).
Also (and you wonder why i never married, well no, i was trying to recover from a great loss at that time) i started working with a close friend who was doing "shows" at different clubs and i got to set up special effects with fog, lasers and lights (now that was a real trip)!
The last thing, beyond belief, is that later, after we did not do shows anymore, I became a night manager at a restaurant and bar for maybe 5 years (that was at best interesting, but except for the people contact, very boring).
The thing i love to do, gardening, making wine (come on, i am a chemist after all) and paint. If those are hats, so be it, i tend to be okay to good at them.
So as Porky Pig said, Well, that's all folks!
Not bad for 54 years of age.

The prison

I awoke in a sweat.
barely able to breathe.
The walls, which were bars were closing in on me.
There was no escape, I was trapped.
Trapped with pain and misery and hurt,
with no where to go and no way to get there.
I thought that I had made this prison in recent memory, but i was wrong.
Its history stretched back to a time i could barely remember.
It trapped my hear ,suffocating it,
creating a great frenzy trying to escape from a cage, a prison of its own device.
Made to protect itself from hurt,
it became the source of hurt and pain.
I looked to where my arms had been and there were wings!
And I flew and soared far away.
And the cage, the prison, was left broken on the ground.

There is at least one person in my life who has been a source of continued encouragement in my life and especially during this adventure.
I have known this person for some 25 years and when I met her, I felt that I had always known her.
When we first met, this presented a great deal of confusion in me, because she was married and had one child and I liked her husband. She now has 3 children and the same very good man as a husband. We have stayed fast friends with no danger of anything else, despite my own confusion. It is who I am.
The people at the work place did not understand and would say mean things behind her back and I would laugh at their stupidity and shallowness to their face.
At times I would be angry with them, but our friendship remained strong.
Of course, i was still confused and asked for understanding on how 2 people could be so close and not a "couple". One day after she rescued me form severe despair with a visit in the hospital , a "solution" came to me and whether it be correct or not, it brought peace to my heart and put and end to my confusion; she was simply the other "half" of my soul. Not a soul mate, because we were closer in inexplicable ways than that., but actually the other part of me and in this case she was there to keep me on my path for this life.
Where it be theologically sound or not, it brought me peace and she remains forever someone who will be close.

Perceptions and music

There is an edge in my heart,
It flashes heat and rage at times.
It sees with a clarity I never knew before.
It now sees oppression and hypocrisy,
that is closer than I ever dreamed.
We do not know how good we have it.
We do not know how close we are to losing it all.

I will not speak any more about this save that the right side of my brain is real active.
It is feeling and seeing a lot.

Today I will talk about music, because growing up I really did not like music.
Even as a teen, the only "group" I could deal with was Simon and Garfunkel and that was it.
Everything else was painful or useless.
I knew some music and even today, I have vague ideas of what and who are in groups I like, but I listen to the music and know precious little about the musicians.
What do i like now?
EVERYTHING!
In my massive CD and record (vinyl) collection, I think I have more than 13,000 songs and just like my massive book collection (where I have read everything), I have listened to it all and kept the ones I liked only.
The music spans from classical to Rap and everything in between. I have a mp3 of Edison's first recording, "Mary had a little Lamb" and some very old 38's of vaudeville music.
I have LP recording releases and remixes of some of the latest music.
It depends what mood I am in to what i listen to, but mostly as I recover I listen to a short list of uplifting piano music from Michael Gettle and George Winston, fisherfolk (unabashedly christian), Nicholas Gunn and Alice Gomez (Native American Flute and drum) predominately. They are what seems to keep me alive. It is not that I do not like trance or Jazz or Peter Gabriel anymore, but those are not what is fighting the edge in my heart at this time. And I need all the means at my disposal to fight that edge or it will take over and it will not be good.
I follow Adam's World to keep up with some of the music that is current and keep in touch with my friend Scott who is still making music after a lot of years.

Courage

I woke this morning to the thoughts of the many courageous people i have known in my life.
My own dad, who was ridiculed as a "foreigner" and therefore stupid as he struggled in working for a life in Texas (The reality is that he was brilliant, in math and could speak at least 9 languages fluently).
He also jumped into deep waters when I was washed off a jetty in Galveston, I could have drowned, but not with him there.
My girl fried and soul match, Penny, who I met up here, who ended up dying of leukemia after the match for her bone marrow did not take.
My best friend, Al, we paled around together for a long time. He knew it was his time (he was 83) and got his doctors permission to on vacation with me. We went to our favorite place in Virginia, ate his favorite foods , he became sick and was dead 3 days later, much to my dismay, but it is exactly how he wanted to go.
To Mary, who was in the final stages of AIDS and still showed so much life and vitality, until the end. She showed me you did not have to be well to have life, even in death,
To Sergio, a co-worker and AIDS counselor, who though was dying of complications of that disease, came to work, tho in great pain and tried to help as much as he could until he died.
Always home and uncool and his daughters difficult fight against that autoimmune disease that she has.
There are many others who blog, with whom i have seen their courage, it is passed on.
To my friend Jenny, who is showing more courage and sacrifice as a single parent, doing what she must to provide for her children.
During these chronicles of my long and some time difficult journey, if i have shown any courage, it is because i stand on the shoulders of giants that i have known in my life.

A semblance of sanity returns!

As I chronicle this long and difficult recovery i have been on, i have noted many ups and downs. The downs are usually a prelude to new learning, the ups certainly feel good and are necessary for balance. This is what life is, just a bit more compact and intense. If my right side was fully in charge I would be trying to figure out if it really did have something to do with the moon phases or at least its closeness, but the left side is beginning to predominate and this is good. Songs occur more easily and the beauty that is all around me is more meaningful. I also do not hide my very real feeling about things.
Situations have not changed, I just do not hide from myself, I can tell those who i care about, i do and those that are in my way where they need to step off.
It is the hiding that there is danger and when you do not hide other things become apparent.
The positive of something good coming is also real again.
Tough times will come and go. The lesson goes on.
All of you who read this are on this ride with me.

Post full moon

If I read right, there are a lot of usually encouraging people going through difficult times at this time. I am no exception, i can not blame it on strawberries, but there is enough irrationality going on that i have been thinking of contacting a therapist i saw in the past.
At work, i was exhausted and could have left by 12, but hung in till 1:30. Our printer was acting strange and that could have been the thunderstorm we had last night.
I think my friend, Jenny was a bit off as well, but she has so many things going on in her life, I am usually surprised that she does as well as she does.
Me? I felt down.
This struggle has been going on too long and it is sapping my energy.
I may have lots of strength and will, but even that wanes at times.
I do know there will always be hills and valleys, that is life.
just feel that I have been in the valley long enough.
I do remember my own posts and i do believe things are turning, but they are taking time and that is wearing me down.
The "Adventure" continues...

Stability is a realative thing

I spent a productive weekend engaging in my side job, computer work. Nothing really big, hooking up a new home network and computer with fax etc. Then getting ready to answer a serious virus infection call. I have exhausted. This used to be my fun stuff, most times I would not take any thing for the work because, but all of this was tough. It strained my eyes (with the glasses) and gave me a case of have trouble standing on my feet. It was not what I wanted to do, but I had 2 people plead and beg for me to help. I am a sucker.
What I wanted to do was attempt a walk to my friends house (the one who does the massage) and talk with her, I did not have the energy.
I have been feeling the weight of responsibility, I am still significantly disabled with my eyes, but there is no one else.
There is a portion of discomfort with all of this because I do not think I can do this.
I simply do not feel well enough, then there was work today.
We had situations which might have been full moon aftermath items, except they were very real and significantly important. Some one needed a quicker test for a tick to see if it was infected, usually this is like not super serious because the 4 week curse of antibiotics is effective for up to 3 months after a tick bite that transmits Lyme. This was different, the person was on special treatment which did not allow him to take antibiotics at all. He has a 2 week window. That was important.
Our office support person's sister died, which I do not think I can grasp the enormity of and left just me an the other lab tech.
A person with a well has seriously unusual things going on that maybe caused my a neighbor back washing his pool water. That was odd and serious.
Finally we had a submission of 4 different insects in one persons rented apartment. The good news is that none were serious, the bad, I can not figure out why they were in a second story apartment.
I had to address the issue of rain with the environmental inspectors because they do not have back up if the one in charge is away. That is important for both the beaches and the shellfish waters.
I walked home, swaying a bit still and took my nap. feeling better, but there has been something still not quite right that I can not put my finger on. Thee is a bit of an edge, a bit of longing and maybe some more hope that something really good is going to happen.
Time will show it.
Sitting down and blogging brings me a bit of peace, strange and that brings a bit of stability, even stranger.

Hope

I have what is called an extremely analytical mind, one of the reasons I work as an analytical chemist. All through school, the teachers, etc..., tested me and I had high marks for abstract reasoning. What this means is that I am good at solving puzzles, figuring things out, solving problems, they told me my IQ was in the 160's, whatever that means.
All that problem solving ability really does not mean a whole lot when the pieces are missing are the picture is not clear. The right side of the brain, where i am told all this comes from, is left going Huh?
Losing absolutely all of it helped revive a starving part of the brain, the place where painting and compassion and love, come in.
I am left with a strange by-product. hope. Unquenchable, undeniable, unreasonable hope. It completely flies in the face of all reason and where i should feel despair, i feel that things will resolve themselves.
I have several close friends going through terrible things and every thing looks black and dark to them and i keep seeing an end that is positive, I feel it!
Sometimes they can not stand to be around me, because what i say or feel makes no sense, it flies completely in the face of all the facts.
Everyone expects that some fantastic miracle will happen and i will suddenly see correctly. They are very disappointed every day that i do not, but me, ah, me.
I see improvement, nit necessarily daily, but from 3 months ago and i know it will be over and each day i do not see correctly physically, gives me a new chance to see things without seeing.
That my friends is the hope that is in me.
and then comes Paul, not my favorite character, "Not by sight...."

Scary

I woke up this morning and after putting on my glasses. saw this!

Scary!

I have discovered that all tough i do not engage nasty people anymore, i do tend to absorb their anger or nastiness. This is something i need to curb and protect myself from. It kills the right side of my brain.
I got in a nasty, short lived cat fight, with a blogger named "e!" on a site i happen to like "extraordinary me". It was on of all things PC vs Mac and rather stupid and pointless. I hope Dawn enjoys her new Mac.

Then I had a dream about "always home and uncool", except it was a good dream, he was featured in life magazine!

I have been exceptionally happy with spell check because my typing skills are really bad, but occasionally one gets by me anyway. This is the sight issue and it is a bit scary.
More of an issue is that as i type some times i type a word that begins with the same letters as the word that i want, but does not make any sense at all in the sentence. The example is :
"I went to the because." When what i wanted to say was "i went to the beach." Scary!

One thing I forgot. so this is an addendum.
At work today a lady called requesting VOC testing (VOC, volatile organic chemicals and we do not have the equipment to do such testing.
I was reminded tho that the WPCA has the equipment that they bought ($100,000 instrument) fro the waste to energy project. The reason I was reminded is that again, I had a question from one of the lab people about how to do something. It would not be to bad, except that they work more hours a week (37.5 or 40) and therefore make more money than I. Go figure.

Changes

Well we seem to be past the initial full moon craziness, but more is to come, but what about me? I think I have goon a bit loco also.
Fist, I want to change the name of our street to Rose Hill Street in honor of all the roses in most of the houses in our small street. Here are my contributions

.
Then of course there is the house for sale across the street, which I think is quiet nice and with this neighborhood would be ideal with a family with a couple of preteen kids.

The I finished my long project. The 30 x 20 water color on watercolor board. I did cheat once, but will let people guess first.
I love watercolor board because the transparent paint does not "soak" into the board the way it does on paper (even hot press). It presents lots of challenges and because of my love of detail, lots of work. Of course changing things was absolutely needed because my vision keeps improving. Take a look and see some of the glaring perception errors I had when I started the project. With board, i get to use some of my favorite "strange" brush stokes with wild abandon, the case in point is that all the grass is done using reverse strokes. Combination of wet and dry brushes and wet and dry base are some of the more interesting things i like to work with. Much harder to do on any kind of paper.
I realize that my "style" is NOT typical watercolor, but it is mine, no white paper and very detail.


I think sometimes a full moon is not so bad.

The full moon cometh...

After that brief encounter yesterday, I found many more last night and today.
Some where delightful, some mystifying, and others where unbelievable.
I come home to find that my neighbors have put their house up for sale and a sales rep is there with someone interested and I happen to know the rep.
I am all for home sales and really would like this to go through for what they are asking, so i talked it up a bit when the rep approached me. I think this is the same house the newly renamed "Strictly Stamford' was talking about (of course now I am wondering if this person is stalking me).
A few minutes of talking to another neighbor, i go inside and get a phone call identifying themselves as one of the people who are selling the house.
Caller: "Don't talk with any one about our house, I don't trust nobody".
I tell them I was talking up the neighborhood and their house and got.
Caller: "Well thank you, but don't talk to anyone, I don't trust anyone."
Strange!
Come home today and our near out of work mentally disabled person (NOT David) who we host here is playing a RUSH CD on his computer and asks if it is too loud. Courteous and nice and I don't mind his music, but he almost never asks if he is playing his music too loud.
At work, another phone call, this time very strange.
Caller lists a bunch of credentials and whose who about themselves before telling me they are seeing really big rats over at the redoing of the Mill River Park.
I do not do anything about this, but tell them the person I will transfer them to before giving them the number. Something in my polite demeanor set them off and they began yelling that they did not want to be transferred and a tirade so loud that I had to hold the phone away from my ear. When things quieted a bit I went back to ask if I could transfer them to someone who could help them, but they hung up. i was not angry, but neither was I willing to be abused trying to help someone. Strange.
The ticks came in and i helped people as much as i could and had many thank you's back. that was nice.
Waters came in until 1 Pm so i was busy till 1:30. I left exhausted.
Some full moon effect!

Many things...

Many things going on, but we will look at one i thought i was going to post on my environmental site, but it was more my response than an actual environmental issue.
Caller: I want to get my water tested."
Me: okay, are you having any problems? (I always ask this because we are limited in what we can do.)
Caller: There is an unknown cancer cluster here where I live and I want to test for carcinogens.
Me: Unknown?
Caller: Yes, very few people know about it.

I finished the conversation by referring her to the State DEP, that kind of testing is way out of our league, but now I was curious.
The reason is because our lab is the center for all significant illnesses for our town, so anything that goes on, we know about.
There is also very good info online at the state health department website.
All cancers are reported and documented, all tumors are tracked (i guess mine is in there also).
The only thing that stood out in Stamford was lung cancer due to cigarette smoking.
I pretty much knew that.
There was never any major industry in the part of town where there are wells, mostly farm and cattle.
I do worry about arsenic because it was used for a long time on apple orchards and probably will start my study some time in September when we get out machine.
I know there is radon, but I will never be able to follow that because of the US EPA's own confusion on the subject.
But the lung cancer in the area is really linked very well to smoking.
I understand the fears of cancer, i faced them.
I understand the fear of the "unknown", i faced that also, but there is more going on here.
It is the fear that people really do want to hide things from you. Things that will kill you.
That everyone who's job it is to try to protect your well being are really just sneaky jerks looking to watch you die. That I have a lot of trouble with.
There are people trying to pull strings and make money off of us, to sell us things that will hurt us, but that is not the people in this business. It is not. There are some lazy slobs, there always are, but most people in this line of work are in it, not because of the money, but because they can do some good. We are not about to hide things like that.

It is 7 days to a full moon, that might explain some of it.