my photos on a band's site

Well, it's not just a band-- it's a friend from high school and from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a friend of ours from SAIC. They live in New York City now, and they have a band called Partners in Stars. Last summer, they performed at Reggie's in Chicago, and I took pictures. Now the pictures are on their site! Go take a look!

Hill

I took this picture in early spring at the Chicago Botanic Gardens a couple of years ago. Maybe I'm posting it now because I'm sick of the dark and the cold and I want to see tender, green, growing things shooting out of the mud...

Courtney Love - Letter to God live

I've been feeling this way a lot lately. I was listening to this song on repeat over and over again in my car last month. It got to start feeling like my anthem.
This video doesn't fall under this site's copyright pertaining to original material.

The '90s

   T and I have a friend who is very much a child of the '80s. I decided it was my duty to make him a '90s mix. It's missing some staples such as "No Rain" by Blind Melon, but otherwise I think it's pretty good:

B's (Mostly) '90s Mix

Alive-- Pearl Jam
Ascemen-- Heavens to Betsy
Eau d'Bedroom Dancing-- Le Tigre
Everyday is a Winding Road-- Sheryl Crow
Flying Dutchman-- Tori Amos
Good Morning, Captain-- Slint
I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone-- Sleater-Kinney
Not a Pretty Girl-- Ani Difranco
Olga's Birthday-- Rose Polenzani
Ooh La La-- The Faces (this song is actually from 1973 but it was on the Rushmore soundtrack in 1998. Since the '90s were so much about retro, I think this is fitting, but, to be honest, I assumed they were a '90s band until I looked them up on allmusic.com. I don't know why I assumed that, considering "Oh, Yoko" is on the soundtrack...)
Over the Edge-- Hole
Pennyroyal Tea-- Nirvana
Polyester Bride-- Liz Phair
Blue Skies (Radio Edit)-- BT Featuring Tori Amos
Shining Road-- Cranes
That Was My Veil-- PJ Harvey
There's More to Life Than This-- Bjork
Wargasm-- L7
Zero-- Smashing Pumpkins
100%-- Sonic Youth

In the spirit of '90s nostalgia, here's the video to "Heart-Shaped Box" by Nirvana. Obviously, this video doesn't fall under this site's copyright pertaining to original material. Anyway, it's one of my all-time favorite music videos, and in his biography of Kurt Cobain, Heavier Than Heaven, Charles R. Cross was right to call the video great art. Enjoy!  

A Request

If you're reading this, let me know! You can let me know either in our interactions in the "real world," (this includes non-blog related emails and facebook messages... hmm, facebook is the real world now? Scary, when did that happen?), by becoming a follower, subscribing, and/or leaving comments. Thanks!

Thirty Years

Someone posted on facebook this link of Yoko Ono sharing a lovely memory of her and John Lennon having tea late one night with their three cats. One of them, Charo, John was particularly fond of and he would affectionately pet this cat and tell her, "You have a funny face!"

This anecdote struck me because when my parents' cat George was first born on our back porch (I say "our" because it was when I still lived with them) I thought he had a funny face and I started calling him "Funny Face George." I still call him that. I think it sounds like a nickname someone in the Mafia would have.

I could say a lot of things about John Lennon. The Beatles were the first rock band I ever really got into-- and this was when Hammer, Paula Abdul, and the New Kids On the Block reigned supreme on the radio waves. John Lennon was certainly my first teen idol (along with Madonna, and then later followed by Courtney Love, Tori Amos, Ani Difranco, and Kathleen Hanna). When I was 21 and living in New York City, my devotion to Lennon was clear-- I visited Strawberry Fields many times, probably more than was healthy. (Strawberry Fields is a patch of Central Park with tiles on the ground that spell "IMAGINE" surrounded by a circle of tiles, in memory of Lennon... people leave candles and pictures and other offerings there-- I once left a sunflower, which you can buy from street vendors in New York.) I insisted on being there on his birthday and the anniversary of his death... which was ten years ago, so he would've turned 60 and it would've been 20 years since his assassination. I liked to take pictures of the fans and some of the odd types who hung out there. When I turned the work in as my end-of-semester project for one of my classes, my teacher didn't understand, and maybe it was my fault for not making it clear: the project wasn't about John Lennon, it was about the fans, this cult(ure) of people who gather around for his birthday and the anniversary of his death.

When my brother told a friend I was getting married, the friend said, "She's getting married? I thought she was married to John Lennon the way nuns are married to Jesus!"

So that's part of my personal history regarding John Lennon... I mean, I could write a book. But, John Lennon, wherever you are, I think you know that the world is praying for you more than usual tonight.

Sick

I'm back at work... and, in a way, at life... after a looong weekend of flu/fever delirious bed-riddenness. And I think I've seen God.

I truly did have some fever delirious cosmic shaman experiences while I was laid up. Okay, well, maybe only one or two. But I have been having dreams so vivid I could paint them, or reconstruct them and photograph them. Have you seen the movie "Duets?" With Gwyneth Paltrow? You know the guy in that movie who's having a mid-life crisis? Not the Huey Lewis guy; I'm talking about the guy who killed a habitat for sea turtles to put in a water slide park and went off to get a pack of cigarettes and never came home. Remember that guy? Well, that guy was in my dream... only he just looked like that guy, he wasn't really that guy. He was really Robert Plant. And, as Robert Plant, he wasn't only the lead singer of Led Zeppelin. He was also in Fleetwood Mac. And he was wearing a park ranger hat. He didn't really do anything, but his eyes were a really clear hazel with a hint of green.

Then I had another dream that someone threw me in a hole and was about to suffocate me with a plastic bag, but decided not to. Then I woke up.

I guess the main Divine Experience I had while sick though was I realized in a very visceral way that, despite it all, despite my worrying and unhealthy habits and nagging pessimism, I think life is really beautiful and I want to live. I usually live pretty deep inside my head, but I came out for a few minutes because for some reason during my fever delirium I thought I was dying and I felt my being coming out of its hiding spot and fully inhabiting my whole body, down to the tips of my toes and almost making my eyes bulge with itself, extending out of my pores and shining like gold and I prayed to God to let me live, and I told Him I was so sorry I was always being so negative and taking my life for granted, but, dammit, I want to fucking live. 

And, somehow,  this whole experience made me feel that I really need to go to the zoo. I was convinced that if I really were dying, or if I had a day to live or something like that, I would spend that day at the zoo.

I asked T if we could go to the zoo.  He said no way. He said it's smelly and the animals are never doing anything and it's depressing to watch them in fake mock-ups of what someone thinks resembles their natural habitat. Then I asked him if I had a day to live and that's what I wanted to do, would he do it then? He said, "Of course, yeah, I'd do it if you had one more day and that's what you wanted." "Pretend it's my last day," I told him. It was obvious an explanation was required on my part.

So I tried to tell him about my epiphany that life is precious... sacred, even... and that every day I just took it for granted that I was alive and there were all these really little things... like watching a flight of geese take off, or being in the suburbs and looking south through layers of bare black tree limbs to the city-lit pink sky... that make me go, "Wow, I'm lucky to be alive to see this!" Where my explanation got goofy was how all this had to do with going to the zoo. I couldn't really explain the whole thing without laughing, anyway, because I was so self-conscious of its cheesiness, so T thought I wasn't serious... well, anyway we came to a compromise. (Ah, that magical word in a marriage :D) He really likes fish, and the aquarium we used to have just kind of self-destructed, and T found out on-line that they have free days at the Shedd Aquarium, so after the New Year we're going to go there.

Another, more minor epiphany I had that was more like a notion than an epiphany-- and I'm sure countless teenagers getting high their very first time to "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" have thought of this before me-- is that the difference between being sane and being insane is that sane people are all tuned in to the same radio station, whereas insane people are each tuned in to different radio stations. Usually, everyone is pretty much tuned in to separate stations from each other, but every once in awhile some of the people who aren't listening to the sane people's radio station will start tuning in to a radio station that another insane person is listening to, and as that station gets more listeners a kind of revolution of thought will occur, like in the Italian Renaissance or during the 1960s.

"Someone told me it's all happening at the zoo... I do believe it, I do believe it's true..." --Simon and Garfunkel

"I've never seen light, but I sure have seen God" --Tori Amos

"I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations"
"I can't stand my own mind" 
                                              --Allen Ginsberg

"I Know You're Right, But..."

That's basically all you can say to your doctor when he tells you you should quit smoking. Especially if he's treating you for an upper respiratory infection.

How did it come to this?

When I started smoking at the age of fifteen in 1994, I never imagined that at the age of thirty-one I'd be living with my husband across the street from where I bought my first pack of cigarettes, have a Masters degree that was the culmination of many late-night nicotine fueled projects and papers, and that I'd be hacking my lungs out at a doctor's office with the doctor asking, "Do you have any desire to quit?" I told him I've tried to quit a bunch of times. It's true; I have tried at least 20 times to quit in my sixteen years as a smoker. One time I managed to be smoke-free for 5 months... and I really thought that time was the time. I mean, I got through feeling nauseous around second-hand smoke and people who smell like smoke, I was over it and I really thought I was a non-smoker but then one night I couldn't get to sleep and I had gotten an incomplete in one of my classes during my second-to-last semester in grad school, so I was doing work to make that up; the last semester and finishing both my visual and written theses loomed just ahead, and I was really stressed out, so I went out and got a pack of cigarettes at a 24 Hour Deli. Poof! Months of hard work down the drain, back to zero. That deli isn't 24 Hour anymore. I wish it hadn't been when I went to buy those cigarettes!

If I had known all that when I was fifteen, I would've put my box of Marlboro Lights 100s (I still remember!) down on the sidewalk and run away from it, screaming, in the opposite direction.

Pony, Iowa, 2005

This piece was part of my MFA thesis. It was taken in Amana, Iowa, where my grandpa and my great aunt grew up. I'm actually related to the guy who started the Amana refrigeration and appliance company! In this photograph, my great-grandma's house can be seen through the window of a neighbor's house.

Insomnia

I have really bad insomnia. So does my Great Aunt E. She says she just lies in bed all night when she can't sleep, but I can't do that. I watch bad TV (I'm talking Montel Williams' Living Well Healthmaster bad), go on the internet, and depending on how heavily I'm smoking cigarettes at the time I may chain smoke, just for something to do, but I know that only makes things worse. I think I'm going to light one now.

I marvel at and envy people who have a regular sleep pattern, especially if they go to bed at night and wake up in the morning. Since I work in the late afternoon and evening, my job is such that I can sleep all day, basically, and then go to work, but if you're not used to being awake during the day unless you have to be at work, getting things done and keeping appointments is a bitch.

Don't even mention sleeping pills. Been there, done that. I tried Lunesta, and  it didn't work. At first Ambien worked really well, but then it stopped working. Also, when it was still working, I wouldn't remember things that had happened or that I'd done or said about twenty minutes before I conked out. This is not an unusual side effect. I remember once I took it on a long flight, and I bought and ate a sandwich before I fell asleep and I barely remembered eating it and only remembered paying for it when I looked in my wallet and saw I had a $10 bill in there when I had boarded the plane with $20 in my wallet. That creeped me out, that I couldn't remember paying for something.

Staring at a TV or a computer monitor isn't great for insomnia, either. A lot of people say reading helps them get to sleep, but for me it just makes me sleep-y, but then when I turn off the light on my nightstand and actually try to go to sleep I'm wide awake again. My sister, my brother-in-law, my nephews and their dog are going to be arriving at my parents' house today at noon, and I really want to be there to greet them, but it may mean pulling an all-nighter. If I pull an all-nighter and stay up all day, I'll be sure of getting a good-- well, better-- night's sleep tomorrow night, which would be great because it's the night before Thanksgiving. I just hate going to work on no sleep, and I have work tomorrow night.

"Although I'm so tired, I'll have another cigarette..."--The Beatles

Silver

how would you describe happiness?
is it like a candle in the dark

or the sun in a blue sky
gold ribbons
gold sweat
weaving through the trees and my hair
making all of life a brilliant tapestry

the candle is nervous
the candle has a bad attitude
always fretting over being blown out
by the wind that sighs gusts of alienation and brown leaves
dirty wet walls with profane graffiti separate us from each other

two realities
one world
black or blue

sometimes I see glimpses of light
outlining the shadows with silver

almost Thanksgiving...

I'm glad I walked to work today. It was 61 degrees out. It was probably the last warm-ish day we'll see in awhile. I'm also glad I decided to come in early, for two reasons: 1) it started pouring immediately after I got here, and 2) the daytime secretary had left early so my boss said I could sign myself in when I got here, so I got an extra half hour in and it isn't much but I can use the extra money. T (my husband) is going to pick me up on his way home from work and we're going to do some grocery shopping. I generally hate grocery shopping, but it has to be done. If I'm out of body wash or shaving cream or shampoo, though, I like shopping for that stuff.

T and I spent the whole weekend in bed. No, nothing that exciting-- I mean sleeping. But we did get Ethiopian food with K and I to celebrate I's birthday Saturday. I'd never had Ethiopian food before. It has the same kind of savory quality as South Asian food, but you eat it by dipping this kind of spongy bread into it. It was good.

My sister L, her husband C, their four sons whose first names all start with J, and their dog Daisy are all coming over for Thanksgiving from Michigan. They're getting here on Wednesday. L and I are going to indulge in retail therapy the late afternoon of Black Friday. She says she wants to hit up a book store, a clothing store's clearance racks, and that she wants to buy me something nice. Well, I can't argue with that! I think I might want her to get me nice lavender scented perfume because lavender is soothing.

I have to admit, this time of year stresses me out. I worry about whether people will like the gifts I give them, or whether I'm giving them something I got them last year, etc. But then I tell myself these gifts are for people I love and who love me, it's not some kind of bizarre contest to see who gets people the best gifts. Then I move on to worrying about something else. I'm a really big worrier.

work

I'm at work. I work at my church's office. I work nights. My dream is to teach photography at Lake Forest College, which is very nearby and not as intimidating as the schools I went to as a student: The Rhode Island School of Design, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Parsons The New School for Design, Columbia College Chicago. (I have a BFA from SAIC and an MFA from Columbia). Anyway, Lake Forest College has a basic darkroom techniques class I would like to someday teach. Most schools nowadays, if you're gonna teach photography, you have to be a wiz at Photoshop, so if I taught somewhere else that required that knowledge I'd probably have to take a couple digital imaging classes at Oakton (a nearby community college) because I get all confused about the layers and layer masks and everything like that. But my husband and I are pretty comfortable with the way things are now, so I'm not very motivated to change anything. Also, even though I know it's not some impressive career, I like working at the church. I've known my boss ever since I went to my church's Catholic grade school, through being both a teenager and an adult leader in the church's youth group which she runs, I got married at this church, and this church has just been such an important part of my life for decades and it feels like a safe place, it feels like family, and I feel good when I help someone arrange a wedding and I'm glad I can be there for them when they have to arrange a funeral. So, when all's said and done, I think I'm exactly where I need to be at this point in my life.

"There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be" -- The Beatles