Where Was I?

Here are some pictures that should have been included in my write up of our New York trip, specifically our food tour:


Dave, eating spumoni, at L&B Spumoni Gardens, where we went for pizza.

The slice I brought back to the hotel room.

We've been back for awhile now, obviously. I've been going through my usual early September nervous breakdown, which usually takes some time. It takes so much time that I've only been able to fit in a few studio visits with Grace, to work on some old pieces, trying to get them to a state of completion or near completion. Here are some photos:

Moving through with this one.

And my triple-headed nightmare of a sculpture, the crazy/darkness/haunted one, but with some humor to it (I hope).


Our week has kind of sucked. Dave's shoulder, which has a long-standing nerve injury, has been giving him problems since before we went to New York. And then this week, my own left shoulder froze up, necessitating a trip to urgent care to have it checked out. (And then a trip to an orthopedist later this week to have it further checked out.) The battery on our new car went kaput. And then--why not?--our cat lost a fight with a skunk. We cleaned him up the best we could but he still stinks, so now our little casita smells like skunk. (I put out bowls of vinegar, which is supposed to help with the smell and which may help somewhat, but mostly make the place smell like vinegared skunk.) What else? The hunt for a new therapist is underway. (Grace helped me out with a rec, so I called and am waiting to hear back.)

There must be something in the air, because my friend from school (who, unlike me, has been diligent and disciplined about studying for the upcoming board exams and who got a job almost immediately out of school) texted me yesterday, saying that she never thought she'd hate it this much. And this is the honeymoon period.

Another friend from school (who graduated the term before me) texted to let me know that she had passed the exam. (She's having trouble finding a job, unfortunately, and I don't wonder if it's racially motivated, as every nurse I've talked to who is having trouble finding a job is a minority. Sigh.)

The news has been overwhelmingly triggering for me, too--the rapist being pushed to the supreme court to strip away women's reproductive rights, the insane idiot in the white house and his horrific family and stable of enablers--so I have had to turn off as much as I can from the internet. I've been watching episode after episode of kids' shows on Amazon, avoiding all news and social commentary and social media. I just can't. I can't bear witness to what is being done to our country, the rapists and misogynists being held up as the best and brightest, all the swamps being drained straight into the supreme court, and the highest offices in the land. The voting rights of my people being stripped away so that the white ruling class can remain in power. The hateful idiocy of the people who support all this, who foolishly vote against their own self-interests. The destruction of Mother Earth for profit, always to line some white man's pocket. I just can't look anymore. This is an awful time.

At the end of the day, I have to grasp at small things to be grateful for, David, my friends, my brother, my small, safe home, the ability to find and pay for a therapist. 

My goal these days is to put one foot in front of the other and just keep going.