Thirty Year Old Art Work

I had a closet leak, and some of this art I had to photograph before losing it due to mold. I was fortunate to not have the entire apartment flood like one new acquaintance down the street from all the rain we had. It was interesting to look at this thirty year old artwork. These projects are from high school and early college in the 1980s. Yes I am that old.

In college, I had life drawing as a freshman. I started college when I was only 17, so often was the youngest in the class. It could be intimidating to draw all the naked people. We drew both men and women too. One lady was more modest and wore a bathing suit. Some of the drawings were timed like the life-drawing water-color below. We got 15 or 20 minutes for that one.

This is an etching I did, in early college too. We had to etch these drawings into zinc plates and then use acid to make the grooves before printing them with a roller printing press. I think my Aspie brain had a little bit of difficulty with reversing things properly. That was a challenge for me in printing.  I had a fascination with Victorian times and houses even then. There are several prints in different colors of this house.

This was an ink drawing in high school. I had a model for the drawing. It probably was from inside my parent's last house, but I showed the cat, the windows and the chair as accurately as I remember. Sometimes I think about doing ink drawing again, it's been a long time. Back then I did acquire pen nibs, I seem unable to find the matches of. I read that Charles Schultz bought out pen nibs of one entire company before they went out of business. Good pen nibs aren't always easy to find.

This was an early college design project, making letters out of objects.

This is a high school drawing, I think this may be a self portrait from back then and I had long hair, though you can see some of the thickening of the legs. This was done with regular pens around age 14 or 15.

This is probably one of the earliest artworks. This is a water color from when I was a freshman in high school. I remember drawing and painting this one oddly, I think I made up the scene out of my mind. Today I need pictures to draw from or a still-life. 

Post-script art work. I forgot to add this one in. It's either from late high school or freshman year of college, just a one-off, I made for myself and in a sketchbook. You can see the emotion in this one. You probably can guess who I had just dealt with.

A Recent Art Work: Charcoal

 

The paper is a little bit wrinkly. We had a rain storm while I was transporting some art, long story......

"A Million Candles Burning For the Help That Never Came"

For those into Leonard Cohen, they know he was singing about God.

He sings "A million candles burning for the help that never came."

This song sums up some of my recent spiritual ponderings. It's hard, to be in a deconversion process. It upends your whole world. You get scared of even trying to figure out who is safe to tell and who is not. I guess the cat is out of the bag now.  I have recently lost several online friends for leaving the traditional Christian camp. Some good and true friends have stuck by me.

 I have spoken of seeking after a more loving God then the one I was presented with in fundamentalist Christianity. I will remember the positive and good teachings of Jesus, but my spiritual picture has definitely changed.  My view of God and religion has as well. The false promises and more came to a head. Some may ask "What happened to your faith in God?" I realized this world is not what they presented it as being to me. Reality became too apparent. The idea of direct intervention failed when my dreams of at least a little bit of justice faded. The veil was ripped off, and I prayed for justice or at least a little bit of comfort instead of the wicked always "winning" and those prayers were never answered. I have to deal with life as it is, not losing my head in magical thinking. I cannot hold to a God who is more like my abusers.  I am still a theist unlike the author of that article, but many of their points stand out to me.

I can't accept hell and other traditional Christian teachings. I may be able to find some areas of commonality with liberal Christians, but I also now consider a return back to Unitarian Universalism too. I miss in some ways who I was even back then. I spent over 12-13 years in that church as a young adult, at least there was one was free to question and seek. There was some interaction instead of just edicts from on high. My self esteem needs recovery. While I definitely was messed up from all the abuse and health problems and still in the narcissistic fog during my UU years, spiritually I was happier. I wasn't locked down in a box of fear and perpetual gloom that the spiritual abuser took advantage of.

Spiritually I can't live under the gloom of condemnation, and the ignoring of reality. I have to go where the love and compassion are. That's not in fundamentalist/evangelical Christianity for me anymore. It's time for freedom and whatever happiness I can find.

Scapegoats Will Have Guilt Projected on Them Too

I had a new revelation recently, concerning the relationship with my cousins. As you all know, I am now no contact with the entire family. Part of the reason I am writing this too is to remind myself that contact with the cousins is not good for me either and why. I felt a lot of loss that Queen Spider got to them too.

I was talking to another ACON blogger when it hit me. They projected guilt on me constantly. When I would contact them, they often were too busy or dismissive as well. These are not people I bothered all the time, I would write them on email or Facebook PM, at most three times a year, and more often only once or twice a year.  I live 250 miles away, these are not people I am calling crying about my problems, or to change a lightbulb or for asking any favors.

With one cousin, I realized how why and how he made me uncomfortable. When I talked to him, I noticed always how everything remained "my fault", everyone else even of the most worse offenses I pointed out, was always blameless while I was always at fault. I supposedly was a bad person for making them feel bad. He would admit that my mother treated me badly, but that's the furthest any relative went. However he followed my mother's bidding in the way, that if I made people feel "bad" or "guilty" that was to be projected back on me.

He wrote me these things:

"However I think your feelings make people uncomfortable sometimes - and they might invalidate you to maintain their own "reality" (with a small r.)"

and

"I know I've felt guilty in the past for not getting back to you. And feeling guilty is unpleasant, and it's human nature to go into a place of avoidance (i.e. I don't want to contact [my name here--Fivehundredpoundpeep] because I feel bad about not getting back to her, and I don't want to feel bad, so I'll just put it out of my mind.....}

That's a cycle I've tried to become mindful of in myself, and face head on (at least sometimes)"
I have felt "bad" over the no contact with the cousins, but then I see why I had to do it. There was no rescuing these relationships either. I tried. Even within these relationships, I was always at fault. He even managed to project his own feelings of guilt on me like they were "my fault". I made people feel "guilty" and gave them "negative feelings". For what? Just existing? Writing them once in a blue moon? He projected his guilt on to me. I made some crack back, at least he felt feelings of guilt unlike sociopaths in the family, but then I should have told him DEAL WITH YOUR GUILT, DON'T PROJECT IT ON ME! Maybe you have something to feel guilty about! Even with the line about my feelings making people uncomfortable, he basically is being honest about the family choice to invalidate me, lest I be an affront to their reality!

Lipedema My Chronic Progressive Fat Disease

Brooke Pearce who has Lipedema shares the challenges about the disease. My Lipedema came on with puberty, and then worsened in my late 20s, but many women with Lipedema will get it, after a pregnancy or even as late as menopause.  The water jet liposuction is very expensive and most insurances do not cover it. I'm in bed today from my Lipedema. If I go out even for a little bit too many days in a row, it's like I get slammed physically. Tomorrow I have to spend in bed too because I went out for a couple hours this morning. As I get older, some of my worries have grown. My bed is seeing too much of me.

When she says "My legs are so heavy", I relate. When she cries about always having this disease, I relate, I have had my own emotional reactions. The struggles with pain, are real. The more you do, the more you hurt.

 In my case, I was going to write about how the judgment after all these years has taken a toll on me It doesn't help for the very few I get a chance to tell, they always suddenly say, "Wow you never know what someone is facing", which tells me what they were thinking in their heads before about me! Well at least it was an opportunity for education I guess. Probably all of us in severe stages wonder what our lives could have been without this disorder too.

I worry for her too. I get tired of being told "to be positive", "to be strong" too. I hope she will be okay.  I am going to write her on her Youtube and tell her, "Yeah it does suck, if you need someone to come talk to, come write me". I definitely have dealt with enough "assholes who have something to say". I live in a polite reticient Midwestern town at least where no one gets in my face,but people judge women with lipedema HARSHLY. That needs to stop. Her sadness is shared by many women with Lipedema. This disease is hard enough on it's own. The stigma needs to stop!

Peep Writes on Lipedema

Unrest

People with fibromyalgia have been ignored for decades and now it's just as bad if not worse for people with ME or chronic fatigue syndrome. I am not diagnosed with fibromyalgia officially though with some doctors they consider it as automatically overlapped with high stage Lipedema. Fatigue complaints are all over my medical charts, and I live at least half my life in bed if not more, but many people have even worse fatigue where they can't get out of bed, and can barely move. Epstein Barr and all sorts of health issues are out there. Sadly one mistake too many doctors make it is to assume mental illness or depression instead of looking at physiological issues. I am glad these film-makers are getting the message out there.

Fat People Flipping You Off

This is just too weird

Is this what size activism has come to? I can cuss like a sailor and have done the middle finger salute when needed, usually that pops up when another crazy driver has attempted to crush us on the road. Since leaving repressive religion, and an idea of a God taking down a score like a demented Santa Claus every time I cuss or say a word  like "shit", I've let a few colorful words of my own fly.

This kind of stuff makes fat people look bad. Look the fat bigots piss me off too, there's a few I have had fantasies wishing I had punched them out. My desire to stay out of court and county jail, kept my fists down more then a few times. I wish I had made an art project out of those giant red joke underwear Queen Spider sent me just to take the piss and to fight back. I may have a pair of them stashed away in my stuff somewhere. Fat people do have a lot to be angry about. We are treated like crap, and the fatter you are the more of a second class citizen you become.

A lot of the people giving the finger aren't that fat, well by my extreme outliner standards, so should I for my 200lbs over them, put up a double-middle finger salute?  This makes fat activists look silly. It also plays into the societal belief that fat people are "REBELLIOUS" and fat because they won't do what is right and supposedly become slender people from "EATING RIGHT". I know middle fingers are supposed to be "edgy" but honestly I am bored. Even one word that begins with "F" got so overused in movies and shows, that it's fire power got greatly diminished, the same goes for it's related sign language.

Please size activists do better then this. 

Update on this one; I got too priggish sometimes from the Christian brainwashing. Some of the fat bigots do need flicked off! LOL

Calorie Counts on Menus

Calorie Counts on Menus

I've been noticing this more around. Too many things have too many calories. Does it impact your choices? There's no way I'd want to eat some 500 calorie donut. Give me some meat at least that will last. Get some bang for your buck. I question calories, since they never changed my weight either way but figure it's better to avoid 1500 calories at one meal. I knew how a "healthy" sandwich at Panera would outdistance a BigMac. Some of the foods will trick you like that.

Lucretia My Reflection

Welcome to Heaven

LOL this cartoon sums up a lot of my thinking about religion lately. I do like that Naked Pastor guy a lot. In IFB/fundamentalist Christianity barely anyone got in. I think beyond heaven now in possibilities of a would-be afterlife, but in extreme forms of religion like Christian fundamentalism, heaven becomes a "special club" for the very few to obtain. I once had a preacher say only 5 percent of this room [his congregation] will make it. I always felt like that square peg trying to fit into the round hole.

Why finding friends is difficult for people with Aspergers

LOL one sentence sums this up: "What am I supposed to talk to people about?" Online I am fine, there are enough obscure interests, Aspies and others I can talk about all sorts of subjects with. In real life, it's closed down city, and unless I have grandchildren or vacations overseas to brag about forget it! Yes Aspies can face bigger barriers socially. I wish I could find friends locally like I have online, people I can be open to and talk to. I relate to this guy big time. It is good he still tries and has not given up.

Outside of my one busy book club friend, there's simply no one to talk to outside my husband in any "real way". I remain frozen in this "nice" acquaintance stage with many. It's all nice, "how's the weather?" and junk like that. I don't mind a lot of "light" interactions, some of those are enjoyable for what they are. We can't be besties with the whole world, but inside one wonders can they get "close" to people anymore? I certainly don't want to open myself up and get my ass burned like I did in some bad friendships as I detailed on this blog. However having everything remain at the flat line polite level for years and years, is sad. It makes a person feel lonely.

Socially I have grown far less confident and my social anxiety has worsened. I feel like I have to "hide" my true personality everywhere I go. Everything I talk about seems to offend people so I just went silent.  Worrying about how you appear makes you too self-focused but then what if you try to "let loose" or allow a sincere interest in other people to lead the way and it still doesn't work? Some would say vulnerability is a requirement for a real friendship to develop but if you can't find people who think like you or have any of same interests off line in the real world, it's far harder.

 I don't need gobs of people surrounding me as I have my husband, but I am wondering why is it so hard to talk to people here and why does everything remain frozen locally at the Minnesota Nice level?  I don't live in Minnesota but sometimes I feel like I do.  The culture here is weird. It occurred to me I haven't even heard anyone yell while I was in public in 11 years. It's smiles and freezing. I don't want screaming people and fist fights but is so repressed and double-faced. At least in New York or something someone may give it to you straight or offer an opinion.

It's strange, some people who even directly blow me off--like someone, they'll come up to me to be nice in public, but then I think about how I tried to call them a couple times, and then had to give up. I'd rather they be nice then mean, but it is confusing. This was someone I formerly talked on the phone with at times and visited on occasion. It makes no sense. I run into her at a book club and she acts like we are still friends. I even sit across the room and decide to leave her alone but she approaches me. I am confused.  I don't understand these type of people and there seems to be a lot of them. You can't depend on them to be there. She never answers her phone, or returns calls. It would have hurt less to have been left alone.

 This one woman who I thought I was forming a friendship with, but then it faltered after I told her I was housebound in the summer, came up to me in art class a couple weeks ago,  right in the middle of the class, and started asking me all these questions. I had thoughts of asking the teacher to throw her out but the atmosphere is informal enough people will come and watch people paint and do projects. She was another one where I called and wanted to talk--she gave me her phone number asking me to call and then vanished. I was polite but I felt wary because she had already given me a complete freeze-out. I said a few things but turned away on purpose.  It was strange, she had already blown me off. She told me, "Oh people love your art work!" Is this some kind of narcissistic supply thing? If you don't like me enough to call me back, why come up and start blathering on about life? Oh she joined in on the travelogue speeches too.

Trump and Playground Insults

Is it still reality actor time? Is the senility and dementia growing? That two aren't mutually exclusive, it could be both. Have any of you read the latest with Putin? And WHY is this guy still in office? He's unfit.

The Latest Painting

I had to crop some of the bottom off because I signed the painting. Also got a little reflection off the corner of the tree when photographing, but I liked how this painting turned out.

A Love/Hate Relationship With One's Town

                                         picture by me

I went to this cultural event with my husband where they ran a program where people write about their towns both good and bad. I don't know if they understand what they are getting into in this place. This is an affluent town, where the divide between the haves and have-nots is immense. One paper asked "What do you think of your town?" We were supposed to fill these out.  We also were supposed to write questions to ask things about our town.

I asked the lady in charge, "Do you want us to be honest"? She said, "Yes, write whatever you want." I wrote "This place has great scenery, beautiful nature, but is socially disconnected and less friendly then any other small town, I have ever lived in. There are great cultural things here like this great art center, and a wonderful library, but the economic divides here are so immense they have created great disconnection". I wrote about our library being a wonderful library on one paper, and went in more detail wanting to stress some of the good too.

I also wrote, "Why is this place so conservative?" Republican politics rule our town with an iron fist probably due to it being so affluent.  There's a few liberals especially since other human beings are out there protesting with us, but we often discuss the influence of these negative Republican politics around here. We then discussed the historical reasons behind the predominant conservatism. Smaller towns are more conservative in general at least in our region of the country.

 I also wrote, "Why are there no young people here? Gen X seems nonexistent and millennials are leaving." Two older ladies were there, and said, they were concerned about young people leaving too, due to the lack of jobs. One man in his 50s piped up and said, "They were bored with smaller town life." Some people brought up the racial and economic divides between the wealthy side of town and the poorer more African American side of town--a point I was eluding to more generally. One of the older ladies, said, she agreed with me about the social disconnection, and unlike other small towns, this place operated socially like bigger cities and it was nothing like Cheers where everyone knows your name. People move a lot in and out for a big corporation that dominates our town.

The group then discussed why the reasons for the social disconnection. The idea was offered was that this is a far more transient place, and people moved a lot. The impact of our heavy tourist here [they come for the beautiful scenery] also was seen as something that impacts a community negatively when it comes to cohesion and so much of the community catering to their needs over local needs. One lady said, "This town changes and becomes almost a different place when the tourists leave." I nodded my head and agreed.

I have a hate/love relationship with the place I live. I know on this blog I talked about moving away. It still gets brought up at times, but I decided to focus on the bloom where you are planted approach, that helped a lot. I am even now figuring out where to find more of a niche. I have involved myself in more community events as health has allowed, this has ranged from a public transit meeting to a cultural meeting like this.  My protesting is a "community" event of sorts too that allowed me to meet a few nice people. I figure if you are living in a place, try and change it for the better.

I do enjoy many activities here. I don't sneeze at having a great art center, library, medical resources and charity that was non-existent in my old town.  The wealth of this area, probably has brought me these resources too.  However, I have wondered why it seems so hard to get to know people here. Sure there are friendly people here, there's one church I go to a book club and charity dinner at and know a few friends, but this is one odd place.

Sometimes the social class chasms get to me, on the other side of the river, there's plenty of people even poorer then me, but what would they think if they were sitting at at various social events, listening to several people all at once talk about their international vacations. This was not at this particular event but one lady was talking about exploring shops, and some were expensive, I thought she was talking about our downtown, but she was talking about Rome. The whole room then burst forward with their tales of going to Greece, India and Germany. I made a joke, I would visit some of those places if I won the Lotto but my comment wasn't heard among the endless travelogues. I don't fit in a lot of places, but these endless class divisions do affect me. One question bounces around in my brain, why are they always bragging so much to each other? How come they never talk about anything real? It's always achievements and showing off.

It really is older here, most places I went most women were 15-20 years older then me and I am already "older" myself. It helped to learn, I wasn't imagining this. Gen X didn't make this level of wealth, or are far fewer in number. Millennials definitely are struggling even worse. I found this discussion interesting in that others were noticing many things I had. My husband said, that knowing the "voter" turn out, being so low, that there is definitely some people who do not support the dominant conservatism and Republicanism. I suppose a small town can be a micro-cosm of America.

The economic and racial divides that are so predominant here are growing in America. The out of touch conservatism among the affluent, definitely is playing a role nationally. Some are charitable of course, but their world is so completely different. My town is a picture of this. I read where Republicans considered a 450,000 dollar a year income to be "middle-class", well maybe on the spectrum with big buck 1 percent people on one end, but it shows how out of touch many are.

Socially what people focus on in different classes is quite different. I have felt like a fish out of water, because achievement and status is so important to the upper middle class here. I have my family baggage affecting things and admit it. I don't relate to them. I want to talk about other things. Some of them like my art, but I feel nervous around them. It feels like everything I talk about is "wrong" and Aspergers only makes it harder.

Technically I and my husband could lay claim to an alternative form of the "creative class" since he is a published author though we are very low income, but I notice even my brain seems to just work different. I don't want to hate on the rich, but sometimes when trying to talk to them, there seems to be an immense wall between me and them.  I also look at the poorer side of our town,  the few poor on this side of town, and their troubles and oppressions with growing alarm. So many are struggling just to survive, and that seems to be getting worse. What do these other folks really learn as they travel the world?

Poor and Sick in America

Poor and Sick in America

Cancer as a young millennial? That's got to be the worse! Chemo is insanely priced.

I learned the other day my insurance company and many others, are trying to switch people over to cheaper synthetic insulin, with my hormonal problems, my doctor immediately agreed with filling out over-ride papers to keep getting the regular. I told him if that fails, I have paperwork already for a program to get medicine from the company. I am doing this as early as possible, without insurance, I can't buy my insulin, it costs almost as much as my rent. Oh that's not my most expensive drug, the most expensive lung drug costs 30% more then my monthly rent and hits 5 figures. Chemo can be tens of thousands of dollars, even for one dose.

Going on 1950s insulin from Wal-mart, is Plan C, but I doubt it will come to that. That insulin doesn't work the same by the way.

This poor woman with cancer, I can't even imagine the bills. Cancer is so expensive, even if you are fully insured that is one that can crush you to the wall. I know so many young people who have died of cancer too. The treatments don't seem to work. Imagine being so sick and financial concerns are crushing you. I have lived this before and detailed my own experiences with no diagnosis, no insurance and using the emergency room as my doctor for when ever I was acutely in danger of dying. This poor woman fears death, and her money problems and having to sit on a floor at a low-cost clinic sounds depressing.

When you are poor, you don't go to the ER unless you are dying. It could mean a 500 dollar bill in my earlier days and yes they'd come after you in collections. All those asthma attacks I had while uninsured, were scary. One reason we stayed living in a town that is so socially weird, is there is a FREE CLINIC, and a giant big one, that my husband uses.  They build a new center costing in the millions. In our old small town, there was this country doctor who would go to one little room in a church, and all the poor people had to line up outside, in the cold snow or rain, sometimes for hours. I was insured by then and on Social Security so avoided this, but I had my days navigating the Chicago free clinic system.

Republicans hate things like free clinics, and insurance for the poor. I agree with her about Republicans who are trying to make her life harder and mine and many others. I heard they are trying to push Trump care again. I still don't get all these Christians who love Trump and just want everyone to go and die whose disabled or chronically ill.

 It's like they will never let up in trying to destroy everyone's life. I had my days going without medicine, and treatment that remain with me. I almost didn't out live it. Medical bills have been a part of my life for a long time.  Even with insurance they can pile up. Payments are made on many of mine.  Financial decisions do affect some of my own medical choices, though at least now I am stable. Many people in this country however are suffering like this woman, and it is a horror. It is not right, and we have people in charge who want to increase their suffering.