Wednesday, April 27, 2011

David Hockney



The dark mood is lifting. This morning the world seems bright and open, ready for me to make a mark on it. And that is in a nutshell how I see the world, a place to make your mark in. I'm not going to be someone who leaves no footprints. But I know, thinking of lost art, thinking of how works of mine have already been damaged while I'm still living - that my trade, making pictures, works with fragile material. Paintings and drawings that I stored in the barn behind my house have already been ruined by fluctuating temperature and moisture. I've ripped work, I've cut work, work has developed holes in it or cracks. I'm so passionate about what I'm doing that I forget about past works, I don't care about past works. With me its always what is happening in the present or the future.

I saw a wonderful documentary about David Hockney and he was always taking about the now, the magical, "infinite" (that's his word) now. He's over 70, and for the first time, he allowed a filmmaker to film him while he was painting a landscape. It was marvelous virtuoso painting, directly from his eye to the brush, he sort of drew the scene without hesitation in oil, without much backtracking, only addition, and no erasures. The painting that starts this blog was in the documentary, and at the time he was kicking out a painting a day.

He said at one point that he has been privileged, and immediately I thought about all his wealth and fame, but his conversation was not going in that direction. "I've been privileged" he said, "because I get immense pleasure from my eyes. Its been that way my whole life". Another painter offered up an opinion why Hockney has despite his fame remained human and approachable. He said in essence that what matters the most to the man is making art, first and foremost, and that keeps him pure at heart. I know that when you draw, it matters not if it is from your imagination or a scene in front of you, but when you are creating you are immersed deeply in "the now". Hockney draws, and draws, and draws, he is addicted I think to it. He says that painters paint until they drop dead, and I know that this is the way for me. Even should I be confined in my last years to a nursing home, I will draw with crayons or colored pencils. I've been confined to the hospital and there I drew with colored pencils - rather nice drawings because I was crazy and the ideas came to me with all the gusto and vibration that a cracked mind can summon. They weren't ordinary drawings. I'm afraid that insanity for me makes me create darling things - primitive of course, but darling. The only sort of retirement I can envision is a shift from oil to a paper medium. Paper was my first true love and makes the least amount of mess - important to the institution that you are locked up in. Yes, I know how to live fully and richly while locked up, with any degree of dehumanization, and any curtailing of freedom, one of the legacies of the experience my mental illness has given me.

Tomorrow I'm going to paint a sky. I've had a Sunday painter ask me, after seeing one of my sky with all the subtle transitions of blue, how do you do that so smoothly? And I told her the secret was to use your fingertips to blend the paints. Fingertips blend more smoothly than brushes. I was once using my fingers in an art school, then wiping them clean with turpenoid, and the instructor had a fit. "That's poisonous, both the paint and the turpenoid. You don't want your skin to touch them. Put on plastic gloves, we provide plastic gloves." But I noticed that you lose control when you wear plastic gloves, so no plastic gloves for me, although I wash now the paint off my fingers with dish soap and hot water. I don't paint skies everyday, so I'm not worried about the little exposure I get to toxins. At least I don't get paint in my mouth. They say on the internet that the dirtiest fruit in terms of pesticides are strawberries, because their skin is so thin, it absorbs the most pesticides. If there is only one fruit you should eat that is organic it is strawberries. But I'm afraid that they are either unavailable in organic form at the grocery store or else they are past ripe and in poor shape, so I eat dirty fruit. Usually I don't even wash them. Oh, I'm such a dirty, foolish, lazy girl. I'm having strawberries and bran cereal tonight for dinner. David Hockney smoked continuously through-out his documentary, so I know probably what he will die of. He said that the bible only promises you 70 years, so anything he gets after will be a bonus. He said that he had only maybe 5 or 10 years left, there's no knowing, and then he went on to create one of the largest paintings in history. "That painting is all about David" said another painter, "its his King Lear moment. He's on a hilltop and he's exposing himself to all of us." What he meant, is that Hockney wished to show his talent, making what no other artist could, a lifetime of learning and practicing and experimentation, and then with this painting, he howled at the elements, and controlled what no other man could control. The painting, of a landscape, had 50 separate panels in it, that is what made it so large.

I'm afraid that my imagination has taken a dark turn for my large scale painting of Adoration of the Magi. In the sky, there will be evil angels raping the good angels. My husband brought on this new thought, he said that on the day that Christ was born evil took a terrible blow. So I thought, won't the minor devils be angry and take out their revenge on the good angel's of heaven? Leave it to me to put violence into Adoration of the Magi. Peace, serenity, adoration, love, on the ground near the manger where Christ was born, and a free for all battle in the sky. I'll be subtle about the rape.......... its a creative challenge to make rape subtle. In fact I may have to change the title of the painting to make it clear exactly what is going on. Or is it better to not tell? I guess I was a little hopeful that a good version of Adoration of the Magi could be put on display at my church, but if I stray too much from convention, no church display. Church is like the library, they want nothing too challenging for the public, most everything light and sweet. Right now in our Church parlor is a painting done by a member, so that's why I had my hope, but that painting is of a landscape in the autumn when the leaves have turned orange and red. I guess a crucifixion would have a place in the church, at least most churches, but not mine. We don't have one crucifixion anywhere that I've seen. And as a matter of fact, there aren't too many crosses either to remind one of the crucifixion.

Put on perfume this morning, and had a moment when I remembered why I started wearing perfume in the first place. One, it was to label me different from the homeless people that smelled bad. I was aware that I have a lot in common with the homeless, both of us being mentally ill usually, and I was doing what I could to distance myself from my brother's and sister's in humanity. And two, it was so difficult taking a shower that I wore perfume out of desperation, hoping it would mask any sweat smell.

Dirty, lazy, smelly, careless, risky and disabled. David Hockney said that he was NOT a decent person, and I wondered what secrets he hid from the documentary film maker. What he paints is the most decent of subjects, landscape after landscape. They would hang his landscape in my church parlor. I would say that I am a decent person, somehow I live my life contrary to Hockney, I've got very few pricks on my conscience, but what I paint is, I'm afraid, usually not decent.

Monday, April 18, 2011

The Crumb Effect

Last night I had a dream where I went off medication. In my dream, I did so to loose weight. This morning I contemplated going off medication for a different reason. I would like to switch my medication to the less effective anti-psychotic Risperdal, only a couple of milligrams, what I was on when I created some of my favorite, early drawings. I simply cannot draw today like I could when I was on Risperdal. I would like to be on Risperdal so that in this creative frame of mind, I could design the plan for my large scale Adoration of the Magi.

Yesterday I went to church and again had more visions of details of this painting. Not much, just some ways that clothing would be designed. You have three kings and a woman saint, all high royalty and all wearing clothing that is over the top,- fun, fun, fun.

I would go off Geodone and Seroquil, go on a minimal dose of Risperdal, do the drawing, and then go back on the Geodone and Seroquil.

I'm afraid that once I lesson my medication I won't want to increase it again, and do the execution of the painting while on Risperdal too.

Trouble with Risperdal is that eventually I was hospitalized while on it. I remember a lot of energy, a lot of boughts of paranoia, and then crushing suicidal feelings around Christmas time that drove me into the hospital. But I lived on that minuscule dose of Risperdal for over a year. And while on it, I had the energy to run.

Of course I've not discussed any of this yet with my husband, not my therapist, nor my medication provider.

It would certainly add one more twist to the video documentary of the making of Adoration of the Magi.

To put everything on the line, to live only for, the making of one painting.

My minister said that at a certain age, around the end of the teen years, the youngsters want their life to have meaning. They want so desperately for their life to have meaning, that they see things in terms of life and death. Existence is so pregnant, so ripe, so immediate for them, that they ask the same question to the minister in different ways; what is the meaning of my life? No other age cares so much. I suppose since they ask this question of my minister, they want to know God and how God fits into their life, - I think they ask because they are feeling especially close or alienated from God.

When I was on Risperdal, making my drawings, I felt so alive. For instance, I have never had so many memories of walking in the sunshine as when I was on that drug or on no drugs at all. Of course now I walk in the sunshine. But the memories don't form. Bliss isn't present. Or at least it is a milder form. I believe psychosis is partially a spiritual state. Maybe it is all spiritual. That's why it is in psychosis that the demons come to visit. And they give you a taste of hell and damnation and lies. Psychosis lies, demons lie. I don't have to take drugs to derange my mental state and experience a high of creativity, all I have to do is change the medication I'm on and use something that doesn't work so good. On Risperdal, I'm closer to schizophrenia in its natural form. I'm closer to me in my natural form.

The Crumb Effect is my theory of what happens to a schizophrenic when they realize the horror of their disabled state, especially, when they compare themselves to others who do not suffer from a mental illness. The Crumb Effect is crushing self hatred that leads to self annihilation, suicide.

Robert Crumb is a successful comic book illustrator. My favorite art critic, Robert Hughes, in a documentary about Crumb calls him the end of the 20th's Century answer to Hieronymus Bosch. Hughes says that the beginning of the 20th Century simply didn't have anyone like Crumb or Bosch. Sex, depravity, the id and the unconscious mind revealed, society dissected, all this is to be found in Robert Crumb's LSD inspired comics. Of course there was Salvador Dali in the beginning of the 20th Century, but Hughes doesn't mention him - even Dali the surrealist doesn't dig as deep as Crumb. Or so the documentary would have us believe.

In the first ten minutes of the documentary "Crumb" Robert Crumb mentions his older brother Charles. Charles is the reason Robert started doing comics in the first place. Charles was the one in the family of five children who was obsessed with reading and making comics, and he organized his siblings into a comic book making factory. Robert and Charles would have a drawing exercise where Charles would start the comic panel with one character, and Robert would have to finish it off with another character. Robert felt very much like he was always following in Charles footsteps.

Robert became a very famous comic book maker, and Charles? Charles became a schizophrenic. The documentary camera goes into the house where Robert grew up and we meet Charles who now lives alone with his mother, indeed, Charles never left home after high school.

It is an odd home that Charles lives in. The shades are drawn and towels stuff the borders of the windows. Much furniture in the home is covered with sheets and blankets. I noticed that Charles's bed is a naked mattress with a blanket and without sheets. Piled against one wall in his bedroom is a mountain of books that Charles reads and re-reads. The home is neat and without clutter, but on the floor, in hallways or the middle of the living room, are bowls with food and water for the cats.

I first saw the documentary when it was playing in theaters in 1994. I had never before seen a schizophrenic on film who was so honest, so forthright, and such a nice man - someone who could laugh at himself. I had seen propaganda put out by mental health agencies where recovered schizophrenics flouted their achievements, but never before had I seen a schizophrenic admit, like Charles, that they took a shower about once every six weeks, that they had lost teeth and preferred to go toothless and not put in the artificial plate, and that they didn't work, couldn't work, and didn't much leave the house. Charles achieved everyday pretty much nothing. I had never seen a schizophrenic be so candid for the cameras. Charles was smart, took his medication because he felt crazy without it, and yet didn't seem doped up. But he obviously lived the most marginal of existences.

Robert Crumb claimed that Charles had never had sex. Robert showed us the early comic books that he worked on with Charles and how Charles's mental deterioration could be seen in his artwork. Charles drawings become increasingly bizarre in high school. For instance, all his characters develop wrinkles or twists to their forms, the text begins to take over the cartoon captions leaving little room for drawing, and finally, in a mere mockery of the written word, there are pages and pages of scribble that from afar look like handwriting but up close were mere lines on the page.

Robert Crumb is filmed while he does the duties that are the consequences of his fame. He has art shows, journalist interviews, and a photo session with scantily clad models, who all have their butts slapped, groped, and judged by Robert. Robert isn't sexually faithful to his wife and she isn't faithful to him. Robert claims that the only woman he loves is his eleven year old daughter Sophie. Even their relationship doesn't seem quite right, because when Robert kisses Sophie's cheek she wipes off the kiss with a look of disgust on her face.

Robert says that if he doesn't draw he gets suicidal, and then he thinks a moment, and admits that even while he draws he sometimes feels suicidal. Charles had tried to commit suicide when he was younger; he drank furniture polish.

The end of the film has some brief words of commentary, where are the characters now? Robert has exchanged a suitcase full of original sketches for a home in France and has moved there from California. And Charles? Charles one year after he was filmed committed suicide. When I learned this, I calculated that that was probably the time for the documentary to be assembled, edited, and released to the public. And I felt certain that if Charles had not been filmed he would still be alive. Robert gave away Charles's secrets, innocently, because Charles fascinated Robert. And Charles gave away his own secrets, the secret life of a person sick with schizophrenia, because while the camera was rolling, he was in a safe place, in his own home, with his brother, a person it was easy to be candid with. I don't think Charles realized that he was also being candid with the rest of America. And I think Charles saw the film, was horrified at being so outed, and killed himself. At one point Charles admits to Robert that he feels secretly in competition with Robert. Well, clearly Charles lost the competition. In suicide there is a strong feeling of self hatred. Did the documentary make Charles feel self loathing? I think so.

I'm giving my therapist a copy of "Crumb" tomorrow to watch. My therapist thinks that there is no way I can link, on what little I know about Charles's circumstance, the film to his death. But I do believe if that documentary hadn't been made Charles would still be alive.

Nobody talks in recovery or therapy about the shame felt by the schizophrenic. Almost I get the feeling that people with degrees in psychology think we are too sick to comprehend our plight. Is there for the very sick a dumbing down, or turning a blind eye to social cues and ways? I know I've read studies about the shame felt of the unemployed, in these bleak economic times, and how this leads to depression. Well, unemployment is but one facet of the syndrome of having a major mental disfigurement. Again and again in "Crumb" we look at Charles's deviation from the norm. If Charles watched the documentary, at that point we have the "Crumb Effect" - it is a schizophrenic seeing themselves compared to normal, it is a schizophrenic seeing themselves portrayed without anything hidden, without any place to hide.

I don't want to make a documentary on the creation of one big painting, The Adoration of the Magi, and then kill myself because I hate the truths that are revealed by the film.

There are many differences between me and Charles Crumb. The first is that I'm productive and do art every day. Charles had stopped making art. The second is that I'm in a marriage, and Charles was alone. And the third is that I've already gone public with a website and a blog. I'm used to confessing.

But I don't laugh at myself the way that Charles laughed at himself in the film.

And I think when Charles actually saw the film, he stopped laughing at himself. I think the film made him want to cry.

Charles couldn't handle the pressure of being exposed. Can I?

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Two Different Kinds of Love


Cherry Blossom lost a baby tooth today and I found her chewing on it. The red blood pulp was still in the tooth. I will save it in a little glass bottle with a stopper. Yesterday I took away from Cherry the toilet plunger (tasty I suppose), a penny, and the corner of a rug that she had flipped over. The day before Cherry chewed on the first book from my husband's library. I was waiting for her to discover the library.

Cherry got neutered last Friday. My husband and I showed her two very different types of love.

The day before the surgery I called the Vet and went over the instructions. What was most important was that Cherry not have food over-night or the morning of the surgery. If a dog eats anything they could vomit and while anesthetized choke on their vomit. So the evening before I instructed my husband to search the ground of our apartment for anything that could be eaten. Mom had visited that day and given her a cookie bone - could we be certain all fragments of the cookie bone had been swallowed? For a while there Cherry was simply walking around with the bone hanging out of her mouth like a cigar. I checked under the bed and removed a marrow bone that had not had all of its marrow taken out. None of her toys were leaking stuffing. After I woke on the morning of the surgery I kept Cherry in her crate, thinking, "as long as she is confined she can't get to anything and swallow it."

However, I found out later that my husband had reacted quite differently to the dangers of Cherry's surgery. The morning of the surgery she had gotten him up at 4am to pee, and he decided, since it could perhaps be his last morning with Cherry, to spend some quality time with her. So by 4:30 am they were walking down a deserted Main Street here in town. Of course there is nothing a puppy loves more than a walk, with all the out-door scents and the physical freedom. We live with houses close by on a semi-busy street and have no back yard, so it is not an option to let Cherry off a leash. My husband thought that this might be his last few hours with Cherry, so he was going to really enjoy her and try to give her the best time of her life.

So I was cautious, a planner, protective, and no fun. My husband was whimsical, impulsive, and lived more of an emotional life. Upon reflection, I think that what my husband did was foolish, because Cherry could have eaten something outside (for instance, cat or dog poop....... and my last puppy would eat dirt) but at least everything turned out well.

I have been bothered by something that seems like hypomania. Two days ago, while I painted, I kept on having conversations with myself. I had all these ideas to do a video and put it on YouTube. I interviewed people in my head. I said (so I thought) funny and provocative things. I had so much energy, but I had paranoia too, which made it difficult to leave the apartment. I was simply afraid of the world outside. And that evening I simply told my husband I felt crazy. I must have said I feel crazy five times. He put on a nature video, with documentaries of animals, very PG, no sex or violence, and the "I feel crazy" claim (with no symptoms except weird energy) sort of diminished.

Last Sunday, the day before I painted and felt crazy, was a beautiful day so my husband and I decided to walk to church. On the walk I was trying to explain to him why the Hieronymus Bosch painting of Adoration of the Magi was so new and different for its time. This is the painting that starts this blog. Take a look and you will notice Joseph scratching his head, two Kings ignoring the babe and having a conversation, two shepherds also pretty much ignoring everything and having their own conversation in the background. And in the far, far landscape, buildings that might be sized right for the 20th century, but that were never seen in the 15th century. Is that the Eiffel Tower I see? But during the walk to church I kept loosing track of my thoughts and falling silent. Twice my husband had to prompt me and tell me what I had been saying, and once I was still lost so my husband repeated conversation from much earlier, to try to help me find the thread of my logic. I said to him "I don't feel bad but my head is not working right" and he agreed.

While in church I still had Bosch's painting on my mind and I thought, "What if I do my own version of Adoration of the Magi? It is a theme that has been repeated though-out history, each artist with their own twist, what would my twist be?" And then suddenly my head was filled with a composition of characters, each with different body postures, and I saw their different clothing as well. It is rather easy because you know that you have the basics of Mary and the baby, Joseph, and three kings all in the setting of a manger. What I saw in my head I know has never been done before, and I was very excited. To make the vision as real as possible I would want to work from photographs, and pose people as my models acting out the gestures that are in my head. Here I met with a stumbling block, because I know so few people and I am shy, it would be hard to ask them to let me photograph them. Also this painting would be large, at least 36 inches square. My limit in scale is around 20x24 inches.

I usually don't get full blown pictures in my head of compositions. And then there was the excitement of spring, warm weather, and a muse, (or hypomania) saying, "Do it, do it, do it!" There would be the fun of drawing different animals in the manger, and then a sky exploding with angels. Yes, I'm afraid the painting would be the largest I've ever attempted, but maybe, if I took it in small steps I could do it. The first step is Easter. I assume I will be visiting my father, and I could take a photograph of him and my husband together and use that to settle the image of two of the three kings. My husband and father would be a great picture because their body types are so different, and contrast is a good thing. Then the next step would be a lunch in May. May is the month when my step-daughter and her boyfriend are scheduled to visit us for lunch, she's about the right age to be Mary and her boyfriend could be Joseph.

I recently got an email from a friend that made me laugh. He said I could print it;

Your plan?......You mean like "I'm going to keep writing til I finish my Vampire book".....or "I'm gonna write a book about living with a schizoaffective person.".........or "I'm going to knit a blanket.".......or, etc,etc,etc........Ha,ha you are funny sometimes........I think a lot of your stress comes from wanting to be accepted by people, and probably people you don't even like anyway.......LOL.......just find a close group of people you like, and just go with it......I can only name about 5 or so people who I would even want to hang around.....and when you pray pray like this.........

Dear God, I know I spend most of
my time painting little creatures
giving blowjobs, and monsters fucking. And
the occasional lady or man getting their
head blown off. And oh yeah, naked animals
with their genitalia hanging all over the place,
but I'm a good hearted woman, I really am. Ok, so
can I have like 100,000$ to go shopping.......

and it shall be yours....ha,ha,ha

suck blood!,

Fangs!


He once gave me the honorary title of Karen Von Drac, since he said that I was a descendant from the highest of all bloodlines, Dracula's, and that is the way I now sign my emails to him.

I then pointed out to him that I do finish paintings, which is why I keep returning to painting. I think the plan I had mentioned to him was to paint for five years, keep the paintings, and then try to get into a NYC art gallery.

If Adoration of the Magi is the biggest boldest painting I've ever attempted, wouldn't it be cool to do a video documentary of me painting it? All I've got is a plan in my head, nothing yet, not even a sketch on paper. I could show the whole progression of the painting, from start to finish, on video.

The only problem with this is the "Crumb Effect". That is a theory I have about mass media and schizophrenia. I'm too tired to explain it now. But I'll make the "Crumb Effect" the topic of my next post.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Bullet



This drawing is 20x24 inches large, the exact measurement of the canvass. This is the way to read the drawing. There is a tree on the left and its branch extends out over the top of the painting. Coiled around the trunk of the tree and its branch are two thing; a garland of flowers and leaves and a black piece of rope. The black rope is just a line, but it ends up forming the sides of the swing and suspending the cat in mid air. A piece of the flower garland hangs down off the branch on the right of the drawing.

On the swing is a model wearing a Balenciaga suit. On her head is a black hat made out of long feathers. Her feet on the swing are bare. On the ground is another model wearing a Balenciaga evening gown with black gloves on her hands and a gold necklace around her neck. A bullet has just entered her forehead and exited in a red mess through the back of her head.

All the cats will be shades of grey and black. The hat is black, as is the cape on the evening gown. All the space between the cats and the models looks empty, however, I will fill it with shades of blue and perhaps shades of pink and orange at the horizon line. I really don't want any empty space in this picture, I want it to be as dense as the garlands of flowers, so brushwork, auras, and glazing and scrubbing of paint will all be happening, I mean to make this painting as busy as possible with as much texture and color as possible. The only spot where the color red will be used is to signify the blood coming out of the model's head. This isn't a steadfast rule, because I may get tempted to use a shade of red (pink, purple) on some of the flowers. However, the painting might be more powerful if there were only one place where red is used.

I won't begin work on this painting for a little while. I have another painting that is dry and ready to have some rolling hills of green put in.

Its just warm enough to work without the propane heat on. But if I'm suffering I'll put the heat on. Wearing wool sweaters and layers of shirts. Cherry Blossom is sometimes loath to be cooped up in the bedroom, the only place where there is heat. But baby has to adjust. Today when I finished the drawing "Bullet" I did it while in bed. Took pity on Cherry and went for a walk with her in the rain before the drawing was done - exercise didn't seem to lesson my concentration when I got back and this surprised me. I had an umbrella, but Cherry got wet. Didn't seem to faze her. Its been raining for hours, and I may take Cherry for a second walk this evening, my husband has to work very late tonight.

I've still got my table easel on the kitchen table and this table is a mess with all of the stacks of my visual reference books used during the planning or execution of three different paintings. Oh, and there's a Bible, CD's, brushes, potted violets that are half dead and a large tin full of paints and a box for a new camera with camera instructions too. My husband doesn't complain about the mess, bless his good nature. But I'll be glad to be back in the art room and put a table cloth, candles, and cut flowers on the kitchen table, making it lovely as usual. I'm back in the art room probably by this weekend. Have to clean that place too. We've got too many books. And I've got an electric blue coat that I don't know whether to put in my closet or donate it to the Salvation Army. Am I too old to wear electric blue fur? My gut says yes. My mother gave me a box of glass crystal and silver candle sticks. These heirlooms are designated to go on a shelf that has yet to be built, so for lack of space they got put on my art room sofa - where the electric blue coat lies as well. Maybe this weekend I'll have my husband build that shelf.

Just bought in a second hand book store a small book on Hieronymus Bosch and a large book on Magritte. I don't have much in common with Magritte, but it was published by Taschen which is my favorite book publisher and it was in mint condition. Bosch will definitely be used for inspiration. And on second thought, maybe Magritte will inspire.

Yesterday very sick, but managed to work on the drawing never-the-less. I'm having suicidal thoughts and it occurred to me that "Bullet" was planned while I was feeling perfectly well, and yet, it has a fantasy of violence that mirrors my own when I am sick. I see my art coming from a disturbed mind, even when that mind is serene or merry, the themes in my art are sick. I showed an earlier version of "Bullet" to my mother and my best friend while they were over for lunch and they said, "Take it away, take it away!" They couldn't bear to look at it. My best friend really, really likes cats, she likes cats better than most people, so what I had done to a cat upset her. I said to her "at least the rope isn't around its neck, what's so bad about rope under its armpits?". It's ironic because I'm trying to make "Bullet" as beautiful a work as I can. All those carefully drawn blooms and leaves. Stylish ladies.

Last night my husband said there were white circles around my eyes, like a raccoon in reverse. And he said that my aura was about as gray as he's ever seen it. He was rubbing my feet, and we were talking about the book Walden (hate it so far, I'll explain once I've read a little more, but when he said in the beginning that he has learned nothing from older people, and that there is nothing at all to learn from the experience of your elders - that really pissed me off, since my favorite people are the wise little old ladies from church) so you've got foot rubbing, intellectual conversation, and I'm thinking about cutting my wrists. My husband said, "if you really want to be punished and hurt I'll spank your bottom really good" but I wasn't even tempted. Instead I got in the car and drove to McDonalds and got a large chocolate milk shake. Right before they made my milk shake they had made a mint milk shake for someone else, but the ice cream got contaminated in my milk shake so I had a chocolate mint milk shake and it was really, really good.

No suicidal thoughts today, it seems I have my feet back under me.