Sunset over San Francisco #2
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.

Actually, this photo is a couple of weeks old, but it's still luverly, I think.

My "friend" the migraine was trying to pay me a visit again this afternoon. The heavieness and sort of dull pain never totally left from last weekend, but today it was getting more prominent. I finally gave in and took a couple of pills to try to beat it back.

I was going to take it easy this evening--meaning no walk and going very easy on the leg and arm toning exercises. But lately I find myself compelled to take my shoreline walk. I crave that walk. My head felt all right enough and I actually had energy, so off I went.

Walking the Alameda shoreline never gets boring. It seems like there's always something different: Either something new has blossomed, or the character of the Bay changes with the tides or there are new kites on the Bay or some new guys have joined the daily pick-up soccer games. And lately, I've found a wonderful family to check in on: Mama and Papa Duck and their five ducklings! So irresistably adorable! (I have taken some pics and will upload when I get a chance.)

This evening, I really enjoyed those four miles. I just needed to be out there. The sunset was promising to be beautiful, there was just the slightest breeze and the mixed scents of wild grasses and flowers and the Bay air felt absolutely soul-cleansing. I inhaled as deeply as I could, not wanting to miss out on a single lungful of that wonderful evening air.

I'm already looking forward to tomorrow's walk.

A few minutes ago, the receptionist at my office came back here to say there was
something BIG going on out on Hegenberger Rd. We went to the window to see the
CHP had blocked off the intersections between I-880 and our building.

"Are they chasing a suspect? With all those CHPs (Look! More are coming by!)
they must be. We should lock the door!"

"Yeah, and here we are standing at the window, just the perfect spot to have a
bullet put in our heads!" (You might have guessed that this was my rather
cynical observation.)

"Oooh, wow! MORE CHP are coming by..."

"Oh wait! I heard Laura Bush is in town today. Visiting some school in Hayward."

Just then more motorcycle cops and a platoon of SUVs whiz by.

"Must be Laura."

We found it funny--in that ironic sort of way--how if our office was in San
Francisco and we saw all those patrol cars, we'd say, "Oh, it must be someone
important." But here in Oakland, along Hegenberger Road, we lock the
door.

In some cases, "going parental" is quite a lot like "going postal."

Take this evening, frinstance. I'm here trying to type an email to a friend when the furkids suddenly remember that they hate each other and must fight. I tell them to stop. More fighting. I clap loudly and yell at them to stop. More fighting. They nearly knock over my glass of water on the table. I had had enough: I scooped up one cat in each arm, marched them into the bathroom, put them in the tub together and closed the shower doors.

"You two can spend the next five minutes figuring out how NOT to kill each other!" I told them. "And if you do end up killing each other anyway, well, I'll miss you."

And with that, I set about doing some litter box maintenance and other stuff close by for about five minutes before paroling them. Ah, parenthood!

And we're back on Poop Watch with He Who ATE THE DAMN STRING. He didn't go yesterday and it doesn't look like he has today. At any rate, I have yet to see the string pass, so I'm back in Fretful Mother mode. But, then, it's not like his appetite has suffered, and he feels well enough to play and fight with Billie. I won't rest, though, until I see that string!

I am pleased to report that Simon pooped just before we went to bed last night. And I'm even more proud that I resisted the urge to shove the scoop under his tooshie to collect them before he could bury them. I was afraid if I did that he'd never use the litter box again! Anyway, I'm just glad there's no blockage (so far).

To those of you who might have stumbled upon this post while having a meal, I'm sorry...but I wasn't the one who ATE THE DAMN STRING. So it's Simon's fault!

I'm still battling with that damn migraine. I tried to do too much today. I bagged the photography class, but foolishly took my bed linens and pillows to the laundromat, which totally wiped me out. Still, it's nice to have clean linens and fresh pillows. I'll sleep well on them tonight, provided I have the energy to actually make up my bed. Now I need to find the energy and focus to finish my chapter for the computer class.

And I put my order in for Tiger! It looks sweet and I can't wait to get my hands on it! What's also sweet is the student discount! I still need to upgrade Photoshop and get an external hard drive for photos and music, but those will have to wait.

For now, I need to pop the pillows in the dryer for one more round (of course those crappy laundromat dryers don't actually DRY anything). And I need to hit the showers before supper and homework. Weekends really need to be four days long so we can get stuff done!

Well, it wasn't looking promising for a while, but I've survived the first month of my 40's. Equally amazing is the fact that I have not wrapped my hands around anyone's throat and squeezed their last breath out of them (tempted as I have been lately). There's still a lot of stuff I'm sorting out. Some of it is going OK and some of it has been very painful. But I've made it this far and that's a Good Thing. Isn't it?

I've been amazingly sick this weekend. I felt a nasty headache coming on Thursday afternoon and when I was in the parking lot of the local grocery store, a full-on migraine took over my entire body. I wasn't even sure I could make the rest of the drive home, I was so sick. The last two days it's felt like I've had a ND +3 filter over my eyes, everything had that grey-ish cast to it. Today I was finally able to move around a bit without becoming totally nauseated. I made a trip to Trader Joe's...never a good idea to try to deal with the Saturday afternoon crowds when you have no patience to begin with and you feel like utter crap. But I got through it, though I was completely exhausted when I got home and ended up taking a 2-hour nap. I'm not sure if I'll go to the photography class in the morning; will have to see if I'm feeling a lot better, otherwise I'll bag it this week.

Oh yeah...school. I'm pulling a solid A in the computer class, even if it is driving me batty. I can't read through one chapter in the text book where the authors don't pimp Microsoft. And the lab class is all MS Office. Ugh! As for photography, I'm not sure how I'm going to proceed. The grades on my assignments are all over the place. I got a C- (edit: I looked at the print again and see that I actually got a C on it, so it's not quite as bad as I thought) on a photo that was supposed to be shot and processed for artistic achievement rather than technical, but his criticisms of the photo are technical. He keeps saying it's not sharp (I fixed the "flat" complaint by printing with a higher contrast filter and switching from the Ilford Pearl paper to the Kodak Pro Glossy). I had to explain to him that the foreground is supposed to be fuzzy. It's a DOF study as well as an architecture study. He finally got it, but I'm not sure I'll resubmit the new print because I think he's made up his mind that the shot sucks. My classmates all seem to love the shot, as do other photography friends (and I do too, so THERE!). But I'm considering petitioning to have this be a pass/no-pass rather than a graded class because I'll be damned if I'll have my GPA tank even more over yet another subjectively-graded class (should have learned that lesson with the drawing class last term...DUH!).

And, just to add spice to my life, I'm on POOP WATCH with Simon. Yesterday, he grabbed a piece of string and I let him play with it because he is really good about not eating things like string and twist-ties (he much prefers tease games and fetch with them). He was chewing away at the string, which he usually does, so I didn't think much of it. Until a couple minutes later when I looked over and discovered that HE ATE THE DAMN STRING! He seems to be OK so far, but I'm worried about blockage (it's not a big piece of string...but it doesn't have to be). I gave him a big blob of Petromalt last night, his appetite is normal and he hasn't horked up any food. But I keep encouraging him to use his litter box and watching him expectantly whenever he approaches it. He already rues the day I ever read "The New Natural Cat" because that's when I started obsessing over the amount and size of his poops. The thing with that book is, the author is so specific about how many poops are normal (and the length they should be) that I freaked out and phoned the vet when they weren't 1 long one and 2 or 3 short. Actually, after reading that book, I phoned the vet's office a lot because my cats weren't like the cats in her book and I was afraid of being rumbled as The Worst Kitty-Mom EVER and having the SPCA remove my furbabies because of my incompetence. The nice vet tech said my furkid was fine and please stop phoning every other day. So I've calmed down a lot...But right now, Simon is looking at me like there's no frickin' way he's going near that litterbox until after I'm in bed and sound asleep.

And right now that whole "in bed and sound asleep" thing sounds like a good idea. That migraine is still lingering and I have no energy. But I will hear Simon when he starts scratching in the box and I'll be out of bed and down the hall like I was shot out of a cannon so I can get a gander at his output! For such is the life of a fretful mother.

Nyaaaaaahhhh!
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.

This may be my most favourite photograph I've ever taken. I believe Simon was around 14 weeks old when this moment was captured. It just sums him up so perfectly!

I made some prints of this in my photography class last week and keep one at my desk at the office. No matter how badly my day is going, I just cannot feel bad when I look at this image.

Calla Lilies
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.

(fifty points to anyone who can tell me the name of the movie that line comes from)

This photo was taken on my tour of Mission San Juan Bautista. I cannot resist an opportunity to shoot (or paint) Callas. I remember I had to battle on-again-off-again breezes and the sun that would duck in and out of the clouds to get a clear, steady image.

It probably won't go down as my best photo, but if nothing else it'll make a great reference image for some paintings!

I had a somewhat disconcerting start to my day. At the end of last week, I decided that I had to start to distance myself emotionally from someone I'm quite fond of. It just seems to me that he doesn't have room, nor seems willing to make room, for li'l ole me in his life. OK, sure it hurts because, like I said, I've grown quite fond. So after a good 30 hours of working to make my peace with the situation, he decides to make an appearance in my dream this morning. He hasn't bothered to guest star in my dreams in AGES, but today, after I had put up my hands and accepted the fact that this friendship was too lonely and I needed to get on with it...there he is in this restaurant I'm at with some other friends. Suddenly a dessert shows up that I DID NOT order and the waitress is making me eat it (as in shoving it in my mouth). Much as I love confections, I'm protesting that I did not order it and demanding to know where it came from. She points to him and hands me a bunch of roses with a note (his handwriting) that professes his profound affection for me. Well, crap!

For once, I'm grateful for the alarm going off and interrupting my dream.

This reappearing angst makes me get up with a low-grade tension headache, but I had photography class and wanted to get there early and see if I could develop my roll of film before the instructor gave his lecture.

I got to the school around 8:15 but the instructor wasn't there yet (class starts at 9:00 a.m. but he usually doesn't start the lecture until 9:10). I can't grumble too much because he comes from about 90 miles away (one way!) and usually gets to the school quite early. But he turned up a few minutes later so I got right to work. I was determined to get that roll of film developed and in the drying cabinet before the lecture started, even if I had to bend time to do it! In that, I was successful. However, when I went to collect the film after the lecture, there was schmootz all over it. I think now I know what happened: I thought I had torn more of the end of the roll off than I did. In fact, I really didn't tear the end off at all, just pulled the spool off and the schmootz was the adhesive from the tape at the end of the roll. Oh well, most of it washed off and I was able to complete my assigned prints and get them turned in. I am going to want to re-shoot the portraits, I'm sure. But for now, they were Just Good Enough.

After class was a stop at Trader Joe's for the week's groceries. The lines were non-existant when I got inside and thought, "this won't be so bad!" WRONG!!! By the time I had filled my little hand basket, the lines were several people deep, most of them with shopping carts filled to overflowing. Gah! So, as a reward for my patience, I treated myself to a Java Chip Frappucino.

Back home, I caught up on a couple of emails that I owed people and did some of my homework. Then I decided I needed to walk off some of the angst from that rather jarring dream this morning. After that Java Chip Frappucino and a big glass of water, I thought I'd be sufficiently fueled for the 3 mile route I had in mind.

About .50 miles into the walk, I realized that the Frappucino was wearing off. Fast. At .75 miles the limbs were rubbery. But I soooooooo did not want to turn back, so I decided that I'd carry on as planned, but when I got to the 1/2 way point, I'd go into Safeway and grab some water and a banana or something. I was feeling pretty rocky by then, but I grabbed a PowerBar and a Vitamin Water (and 2 packets of gummy bears...menstrual craving and tomorrow's Monday and school work all that). I started eating the PowerBar as soon as I got out the door and by the time I walked the block or so back to the shoreline, I felt so much better. I sat and looked at the water and finished the PowerBar and drank some of the Vitamin Water and was able to nearly jog the 1.5 miles back home.

So, now I'm showered, the furkids are fed (and so is Georges, the Betta fish) and as I type Simon is in his post-supper-food-coma snoring away over my shoulder. After I hit POST here, it's on to more homework, some household chores and supper. That walk wore me out good, so I should sleep well tonight. Unless a certain someone decides to invade my peace again.

One important thing about me and my life is that, like the Phoenix, I somehow always manage to rise from the ashes. Which is a good thing--except the "going up in flames" part kinda stings.

The recurring theme of my life is "starting over." When I was a child, my mom and I moved all the time, so I was always the new kid in school. Having no siblings, and being terrifyingly shy, these were always traumatic transitions for me and it seemed that just when I finally made some new friends, we'd move again. (Between Kindergarten and High School graduation, I went to thirteen different schools. For Grades 5 and 6 I changed schools FOUR times between Arizona, California and Oregon.)

When I look back on Friday, 5 April, 1991, I'm not sure now that I look at it as a date of "starting over" as much as a date of just starting. It was the day that my life ended. I felt the first flames flicker about me during the day as I was having intense pain in my wisdom teeth and decided it was time to have them out. I tried at least a half-dozen times to phone my mom to see what her schedule would be so I could schedule the surgery for a time when she could drive me home. Every single time I picked up the phone to call her, I was interrupted. Later that afternoon, when I was trying to drive home through Southeast Portland, a freight train was blocking the streets so I had to drive back into Downtown Portland and take a different bridge to get home. I felt at the time that forces were keeping me away from home, but couldn't understand exactly what was going on.

I got home and noticed that the curtains were drawn (I had moved back home about 8 months prior to help mother out with expenses and such). My mother needed daylight, so the fact that the curtains were closed was very odd. I parked my car in the garage, listened to the last lines of REM's "Losing My Religion" and went inside the house. The radio was on (we turned it on for the dogs whenever we left the house). I saw a bunch of cash and mother's bank card on the kitchen counter and some notes with my mom's handwriting on the kitchen table. I picked up the first note; it was addressed to me.

"I'm sorry to ruin your weekend, but I can't go on..."

At this point, I only remember bits and pieces of the note. In fact, there were two notes to me and the snippets may be bits from both. "I'm in the room in the back of the garage. DO NOT GO IN THERE!" and something like, "don't go through it alone, find someone special..." or something like that. Really, that's all I can remember.

I still hadn't really connected the dots, or maybe I didn't believe the picture that was forming. Disregarding my mother's instruction, I went to the room at the back of the garage.

I'll skip the gorey detail and go straight to the coroner's report: "A self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head."

For twenty-six years and fifteen days, my identity was so intertwined with my mother's that no one (not even mom and I) knew where one of us ended and the other began. Some time between 10:24 a.m. (the time stamped on the ATM receipt when she drew out cash that morning) and early that afternoon, we found out where one of us ended and the other began.

No, wait.

When I found my mother, I felt her little .22 under her legs. My first thought was, "I'm coming with you, mom!" But in that same second my instinct took over and I knew at that moment that it wasn't MY time to leave (nor was this going to ever be the way I leave this world). It wasn't so much that I chose life; I think life chose me.

THAT'S where mom ended and I began.

The intervening 14 years have seen more new beginnings: A move from Portland to San Francisco, job changes, new relationships, etc. But over the last six months, I've really felt the flames turn up. As my 40th birthday approached, I saw myself reduced to ashes once more.

So much of my life is just not working right now. I have no bitter complaints about my job, except for the fact that I am so ill-suited for customer service work (and those cracks have been very evident, lately). And just about all of my relationships have come under question because I'm feeling like I've made some false assumptions and misjudgments and I've just felt very confused. My art has become a disaster and it's taking every bit of strength I've got to just get through my two classes this term.

The last 8-12 weeks have been very very difficult. Everything good I've tried to do seemed to have the opposite effect: I'd reach out to people but end up alone (and lonely). I'd go out to do a photo shoot only to have my equipment let down, and I'd somehow find a way to screw up my technical calculations for composition and lighting. Oh yeah, and I very foolishly fell for someone and thought this time I might "game the system" because I fell for him for all the right reasons (none of my attraction was--is--superficial): I got clobbered Big Time on that one. I withdrew into myself at work and school, was a road-raging bitch in between, and at night, cried alone.

In the last day or so, though, I've started to feel the stirrings of life again. I'm starting to feel some of my strength and (inner) fire coming back. I think a big first step forward was an experiment I tried last weekend: Self Portraiture. One of my photography class assignments is to do a portrait, but I'm uncomfortable asking anyone to take their photo right now. I did some test shots with my digital (in b/w mode), and for the first time in over a decade have some photos of me that don't make me recoil in horror. I'm not sure if it's that I'm feeling more comfortable in my own skin, or that I'm (re)gaining confidence in my photographic skills. Or both. Whichever it is, I'm going to try to ride the momentum and once again be a spirit-in-motion.

Fourteen years ago life chose me. It's about time for me to choose life.

That is all.

Kite Surfers, Alameda Beach 19 March, 2005
Originally uploaded by Planet Vicster.

I was taking one of my walks along the shoreline in Alameda when I saw this scene. The late afternoon sunlight made the colours even more saturated. It would have been cool with just the poofy clouds in the blue sky with the grassy foreground, but having the scene dotted with the colourful kite surfers gives it much more life (I think).

Of course, whenever I start to seriously consider leaving the Bay Area, I'm confronted with scenes like this and think, "I could never leave THIS!"