What Else?

I talked Joe's ear off yesterday about makeup. The basic female condition of makeup and botox and carting around huge suitcases full of clothes and hair dryers and straighteners and creams and scales. I don't like it. I almost fear it. Maybe I do fear it.  Nobody Panic podcast did an episode on how to get a wax. I have never managed my pubic hair apart from trying to maneuver a razor to clean up the crease of my upper leg. I feel unsophisticated in this. But I've been satisfied with my sex life so far. I haven't minded wearing little board shorts as swimsuit bottoms. And I've grilled each man who's seen me in the buff, at knife point, as to whether he thinks it's okay. So far I've gotten the all-clear. (Although, I tend to only hook up with men who are nice, possibly in part because I don't want to hear the true answer to this question.)  Stevie, NP podcast host, says that waxing is painful and expensive and she feels unfeminist for doing it, but if

This has been on my mind. I went home to Colorado for my friend, Jessica's wedding. I grew up with Jess as part of the camping group, a group of around seven families that would go pop-up camping together every summer. We've gotten to the stage in life when some of the parents in the camping group have started to die. Glen Hoit died last year of pancreatic cancer. His wife, Terry, is one of the matriarchs in the group, maybe the matriarch. She's tough and brassy and, more intimidating than that, she's funny. Glen's death and absence is felt deeply by everyone, but especially by Terry of course. She had to have someone sell Glen's truck when he died. She re-did the entire inside of her living room. She's an honest person and hasn't hid her feelings of grief. (Although anything she says usually has a laugh or a joke hot on its heels.)  The camping group, like my parents, doesn't really believe in divorce. Only one couple of the seven got a divorce, an

I am driving myself from Los Angeles to Fort Collins -- ALONE. It's been fine so far. Whenever I feel fine, though, I have this ironclad optimistic sense that I will feel fine forever, and when I have another one of my spirals it takes me completely by surprise. This morning, in a hotel room in Beaver, Utah, I was reflecting on how it's going to be important for me to keep doing the things I do in crisis mode to make me feel better. Keep getting enough sleep. Keep stretching and exercising. Keep free writing or blogging. Keep working on my projects everyday to keep me grounded and distracted in something outside myself. The work to stay well is kind of a drag, even when it's nice. But yeah... I'm going to go back into the dark places a lot. So I can't just assume I'm free and clear and drop all the things that seem to help.  The other night, like I talked about in my last post, was a bad spiral. At one point, I was crying and lying in bed with Joe. I had felt a

I feel terrible today. I hit a crying jag last night. I didn't know it was coming. I felt like my whole life had been pointless. Like I really made a bollix of everything. Of everything! (Bollix because I've been reading a lot of Roddy Doyle books.) I had to get to a research study at UCLA at 8am this morning. So between waking up early and staying up late crying, I feel horrible today. Like shit.  The research study was for PTSD. It was one of the ones that pays alright. $245 all in. All you have to do is tell them about your traumatic history, your symptoms and then come in for a lab visit. They took some blood and some pee. They gave my arm a sonagram while using a cuff to contract my blood vessels. (The study is about what stress over time does to your veins.) Then they followed my eyes while I looked at different faces with different expressions. They definitely didn't hire actors or photographers to get those. I didn't believe the people's emotions for a secon

Yesterday, I walked in the evening over to the Alamo Drafthouse. On the way, a group of men were causing a commotion on the sidewalk. I crossed the road in the middle of the block in order to avoid them.  Two or three men were yelling at another, who was sitting on a low wall attached to the fence around the park. They were middle-aged, 30s-40s, maybe homeless or if not just in the position where you take care of your business out on the street. The sitting man was not shouting back, just sitting there. One of the aggressors grabbed a bottle of Jameson and started to walk back over to the sitting man. One of the guys in the group, part of things but on the periphery, took the bottle out of the man's hand without saying a word. The man returned the bottle a bag some steps away from the conflict.  The man gave up the bottle without protest. It was like he was considering taking things to the next level. The level where someone gets beamed with a 750 ml glass bottle. The kind of thing

I was in the B-studios at SMC, hastily reshooting a beauty assignment. Tal, one of my classmates with clear skin and striking bone structure, had agreed to be my model.  "How are your assignments going for Steve's class?" she asked me.  I was shooting her for my digital Lighting for People class, but we were in the Photo 2 Film Photography class together.  "Oh, I'm actually dropping it." I told her. "I'll go tonight because I'm here, but my schedule's too busy, and I figure I can re-enroll later."  But somehow I didn't drop the class. The lecture that night was amazing, and I realized it was the stuff I was learning in Steve's class that I was thinking about throughout the week.  Last night, I finished my Photo 2 class. I dropped the other class instead (even though lighting/shooting people/portraits is exactly inline with my interests). But Steve Moulton, our Photo 2 professor, was blowing my mind. Here's some of the stuff