Classy

I started a new photography class. It is only a five week class and already I wish it were longer. The theme is documentary photography which fascinates and terrifies me. I think the fascination is obvious but the fear? We have been assigned to do our own documentary project for over the next five weeks and the instructor prefers (strongly) that it involves people. I wracked my brain for a non-boring project that I thought could fly but have run into my essential shyness. To do this project I have to ask strangers to take their picture and follow them around for a month. Feeling literally shaky I sent an e-mail to the founder of the dance studio my son and I dance with but she hasn't responded. I imagine she is too busy or hasn't seen the note. I need to make some headway on this by Saturday so I now need to come up with an alternative plan. I can't tell you how stressed this is making me feel which is silly and pointless. I know this will be good for me in the long run but I want to hurry back to my pictures of empty buildings, trees and birds.



The pictures I've posted are from our first in-class assignment which was to take a series of pictures in the art center. The specifics were to take 6 pictures, of a wider perspective, a detailed perspective and a person. I even succeeded in getting a person to agree to my photographing him but my near shots came out blurred (I'm still getting used to this 50 mm lens). I do like my one intentionally blurred photo however.

Advice

I'm in the mood for a grand gesture. Should I shave my head to raise funds for pediatric cancer research? Would I be silly, grandiose, vain, or something else to go ahead with it? Would I be chicken-sh-t not to do it now that I've thought of it? What would I look like without hair?
At least I know my hair grows fast. I'd only be a grotesque fashion statement for a couple of weeks. Then I'd be fashionably punk.

I'm always a bit hesitant to post about things I've made. It is a fundamental shyness, I guess. I fear that I will be judged as childish, untalented, foolish or vain. I've been playing around with mail art for a bit. It is fun to create my own postcards or envelopes and stick them in the mail to some semi-random stranger.
Since I cannot draw, I fool around mostly with collage, cutting and pasting interesting papers and colors until it feels done. My favorites are the ones where I add funky magazine words and phrases at random until I like the result. The one above, I did for a swap with the theme Spring. The colors are louder and, I think, more feminine, than I am prone to use but suited the topic. I am playing around with colors I don't normally like such as pink and orange in combinations that clash. I used bits of paint chip samples for most of the flowers here.
So I made myself post this as an exercise for me to get over this irrational fear of being judged. Besides it is how I'm spending some of my free time nowadays and I have to post something!
I have a cold today and am cranky. What this has to do with this post I don't know but I don't feel particularly spring-like right now. It is a gray and gloomy day as well. Sigh.

Swine!

It was hard to find a picture to coordinate with a post about Swine Flu. This does the trick pretty well though, doesn't it? Swine flu is here in my neighborhood. The latest news says two University of Chicago employees have it. The U of C is just down the block and my husband works there. So there you have it. I've told him to wash his hands a lot.
I'm not personally all that scared. I know I'd live if I caught the flu but the last time I had a "real" flu, not just a nasty cold or GI bug, I was pretty sick for around two weeks and debilitated for around a month. I had to take two weeks off work which I never do (other than for vacation). Plus I had a headache that had me wondering if I could get a prescription for tylenol with codeine (and I cannot stand the side effects of codeine). I actually caught that flu while visiting family in Seattle. My younger son was the plague carrier and he spread it to me and my parents. Us "old folks" were actually pretty laid up. I had to fly home running a fever and with shaking chills. I'm sure my neighbors on the plane were just thrilled. My husband and older son didn't catch it. I wish I had their immune system.
Since I'm a doctor I wonder if I should be working but it seems silly to cancel since I don't see people with "physical" illnesses. My decision is to just go ahead with good handwashing. I might buy a thing of hand sanitizer (which in principle I think is unnecessary) just to be cautious.
In a perverse sort of way, I find all the Swine Flu news fascinating. When I was in high school I wanted to be an Epidemiologist and in college I nearly majored in Medical Microbiology. I once wrote a paper on Brucellosis (a cattle disease that used to infect non-pasteurized milk). I've also taken a lot of virology and bacteriology classes. So this is pretty exciting news to follow from a scientific angle. Not that I'm happy about loss of life and so forth but it is fascinating to read the news. I make a point of avoiding TV news.
I worry that if we have massive closures of schools and businesses will it affect our already pained economy. I wonder what I will do if my kids' schools shut down? Obviously stay home and try to entertain them I guess. Fortunately you can only get one kind of virus over a computer so there will always be games for them to play. I hope that there will be no more deaths, although they seem inevitable.But this too will pass. Anyone old enough to remember the Swine Flu scare back in the 70's? Much ado about nothing, wasn't it?
Well, I've just added one more post to the undoubtedly huge number of blog posts about the swine flu. But it was on my mind. And at least it got me writing again!
Stay well!!!!
Sarala.

Wannabee

A year ago today, I posted about whether blogging makes one a better writer. I'm still not sure although I am surprised to see me still posting. It has helped me get over some of my essential shyness about my writing although I am still inhibited about trying to publish. The one commenter on that old post--I was still a rather lonely blogger--said to write for myself and to record my life. The message she sent to me was essentially, "chill," something I say to my kids all the time. So I chilled and here I am still posting.
In a way this post is not about writing, however. A long time ago, I admitted in this public/private forum that I have a wish to be a writer. I still don't tell this to many people I know "in the flesh." I think I keep it private because it seems so trite; doesn't everyone have this dream to one degree or another? I wrote my first short story at the ripe old age of 5. It was about a nosy vitamin and had illustrations. I think, like many people, I fear that I lack the talent, perseverance and stamina to actually produce a literary work worth reading.
This post is actually, now that I get to it, about art. I am not a wannabee artist. I love art but if I ever had any dreams of making art in a serious way, they probably died when I skipped kindergarten, the year one learns how to cut and color. I was good at math and science and learned very young that one couldn't be both left and right brained at the same time. Or so I was taught. I also had an absolute need in the deepest psychological sense to find a career that would earn me a stable living. I suppose my mother's drift from one dead-end sales job to unemployment and back again influenced me in that department.
There wasn't much art in my life through high school, college (I was pre-med after all), medical and graduate school, internship, residency, fellowship and early career doctor and parent. On many days I was too burnt out to read a novel much less do anything personally creative. I managed to sneak in one or two right brained efforts over the years--a major in French literature, study abroad, a dance class or two and a brief spell of piano lessons. I also learned that I have my own personal kind of learning disability, an inability to "see" things well in three dimensions. Especially if you have to mentally rotate them. Gross anatomy was a struggle and the world should be grateful I'm not a neurosurgeon. I also discovered that I do not see binocularly through a microscope. This never hindered me much but I was quite surprised when I learned that other people used both eyes.
I'm not a wannabee artist. I want to play with art. I am a sucker for books that purport to make one more creative. The first one I ever bought was probably "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain." Sadly, I never did. And I still cannot draw. I'm not being modest either. Fortunately for me, or unfortunately if you count the cost, in the craft-happy 21st century there are no end of books to indulge my habit. Books about knitting, crochet, sewing, and lately the paper arts. Great colorful books to drool over, look at the pictures, pornography of the artistically incompetent or (as the books would say) artistically undiscovered.
All of a sudden the kids are older and more independent. The career is largely under control. Amazingly I have a little bit of free time. I read more, write more, take photos and the occasional art class. The last class I took was this summer. It was a five week course entitled "Altered Books" but the material veered all over the map of making things with and out of paper. Five sessions to learn how to tear, fold, paint and glue paper! Alas, the teacher has moved to another state, summer is over and I haven't found another class that suits my needs, schedule and, more importantly, my kids' schedules. So it's back to the books.
The latest is entitled "Kaleidoscope" and, of course, is intended to "Spark Your Creativity." What is amazing is that I actually did one of the projects. It is entitled "Mail Art to the Self." Maybe the postcard with the words "No child left behind" caught my eye. After all that law is one of my pet peeves. Or maybe the mail part was appealing. Whatever. I did a project from start to finish and have begun the follow up project. I had great fun too!
This post is getting long so I will end as I have begun, with a scanned photo of the results. Please don't laugh at my efforts. I noticed that some of the background shows through more on the scans so I altered things a little further since scanning.

Rejection Sensitive--Part 1

I know I'm not the only one. I know you are out there too. I've seen your blogs. This theme comes to mind because I am thinking of the New Year and, inevitably, resolutions. I have no intention of making New Year's resolutions. This is almost like a jinx--if you make them no good will come of it. But there are things I want to accomplish next year. I wrote some of them down for my first Thursday Thirteen. Some were lifetime goals or dreams but one I want to do this year. I want to submit a piece of my writing for publication.
Hence the rejection sensitive theme. I am petrified of submitting something. I am afraid of the rejection letter. I am afraid of the laughter I will not hear but can imagine of the person reading my submission. I am afraid that I will never write again after one or two letters or simply being ignored. I am afraid I am a narcissistic idiot for thinking anyone would want to read what I wrote.
I have had many successes in life, but I tend to remember the rejections, large and small, so much better. I remember the patients who seemed to feel they could find a better doctor elsewhere, the friends who stopped calling, the award I didn't win in high school.
One reason I started this blog was to deal with the anxiety of having my writing in the public domain. I am reaching the sixth month point for this blog and people have been very kind and supportive. Of course, this is easy to write off, just as it is easy to write off compliments from family members--you just say this because you have to/feel sorry for me/want a compliment back. I do get hung up on whether anyone reads, why I got no comments on post X, Y, or Z, or as I posted a few weeks ago, whether anyone is laughing at my attempts at poetry. My confidence in my photographs has grown, which is nice. Thanks, guys.
But this time I have made up my mind. I have one piece of short, non-fiction writing I think I can submit somewhere. I have to work out one or two logistical details first and re-read and revise but I have promised myself I will face my demons. At least if no one accepts my story, I can post it here.

A ticket to my destination. . . .

I always wanted to start a travel essay that way. That song sticks in my head when I travel. Thank you, Simon and Garfunkel.
Today I am somewhere over a state between Illinois and California. Since I cannot see the ground and have no navigation information handy, I have no clue where we are, Nebraska, Nevada, Texas? I guess it really doesn’t matter anyway, so long as I am on the right plane. My computer says it is 6:47 PM so I have been in the air for 1-1/2 hours and have around 2-1/2 to go until my arrival in San Diego.
I departed uneventfully unless you count wasting time getting ready and then having to rush. I didn’t realize until in the taxi on the way to the airport that I neglected to pack any bathroom supplies, e.g. toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo, headache medication and so on. Good thing I’m a doctor. If I have a migraine emergency, I can write my own prescription. I did accidentally bring a prescription pad that was in my laptop bag that I didn’t have time to clean out, which may come in handy.
I did remember the essentials—computer, camera, and more books than I can possibly read while at a conference. I also brought my latest magazine reading—Pychotherapy Networker and ADDitude. Somehow given the procrastinating and forgetting I mentioned above, reading a magazine about ADHD is fitting.
This trip may turn out to be more of an adventure than I had wanted. I had planned/hoped to stay with my aunt in the San Diego area but for reasons I do not understand, have not been able to reach her. I kept trying until literally minutes before my flight so I don’t have a hotel reserved. I doubt I’ll be sleeping in a doorway somewhere (this sort of happened to me in college when I launched an impulsive road trip), because if all else fails, I’ll check into a really mundane airport hotel or a really expensive luxury hotel. When I was in college that time, I couldn’t afford either.
Pardon me we’re having turbulence. The seat belt light just came on. This doesn’t bug me unless it makes me spill a drink or the lurching is enough to make me queasy, but it does make me think of my past clinical work with people who are afraid of flying. Fortunately for me, despite a mother and grandparents who feared air travel, I consider plane crash stories to be interesting reading. I read Alive (about the soccer team that crashed in the Andes and was forced to eat their dead to survive) when only a teenager and look forward to reading the recent revisiting of the gruesome topic (see ad below).
Speaking of irrational or rational fears, I learned at the airport that today there was an Orange Alert. I forget exactly what that means, except that like a yellow light it must be between green and red. I have no clue what the trigger for this alert is (if it has even been announced by our secretive government) and can’t Google it as I am in the air. Cynic that I am, I wonder if it has anything to do with it being two weeks before a crucial election. Or maybe it is like the buildings in Chicago that currently have orange lights on their tops in honor of Halloween. It is to get us into the holiday mood.
Trick or treat! Signing out from 20,000 feet or thereabouts.

Storm Warning!!

Friday we had a gathering of family and friends at our house. This was proceeding as such things do, i.e. the food was running a bit late, when we heard sirens. My first reaction was to check my watch. Air raid sirens seem to go off at round number times. But the time was 6:34, not a round number in my book. Was I mistaking a lot of fire engines at once for an air raid siren? I looked outside but could see no suspicious activity.
Well for those of you who don't keep track Friday was the Jewish New Year. So the next thought to cross my mind and that of one of my guests was that there could of been some sort of terrorist action. Attacks on Jews have come on major holidays before.
Fortunately for my paranoid side, a more experienced mid-westerner observed that it was likely to be a tornado warning. Like all good geeks, I turned on the TV and the computer simultaneously and surfed both. And tornados it was.
In 23 years in Chicago, I have never heard a tornado siren; I also had no idea that there was such a thing. As a west coast kid in the 60's and 70's we had bomb drills (basically get under the desk and kiss your ass goodbye) and earthquake drills. In LA we even got out of school on smog alert days. But no tornados.
My first inkling that Chicago was closer to Kansas than LA was when I discovered that many of my anxious patients are afraid of tornados. In LA anxious people lost sleep about earthquakes. If a truck rattled the chandelier, they would look for a doorway to stand in. I always thought earthquakes were sort of exciting. Of course I never had a freeway fall on me. A number of years ago, my grandparents were forced to relocate after a big earthquake fatally damaged their apartment building. But that's the worst that anyone in my family ever experienced. This never stops people from being phobic. I sometimes think if Southern California fell into the ocean, the world's cultural IQ would rise but I couldn't condone the loss of life.
But I digress. What I didn't realize was that the two youngest children at my party would be so scared. Here I am jumping up and down and saying let's go outside and look and they all wanted to hide in the basement. Logical statements such as "The house is 120 years old and still standing. I doubt the risk is too high," and "Major cities tend to prevent tornado occurrence; it's something to do with the big buildings," did not help. Maybe it was unempathic of me to grab my camera and take some pictures.
To make a long blog short, they called off the alert less than 10 minutes after the sirens. The storm blew out over Lake Michigan and the excitement too blew over.
To my untutored eye it did look like tornado weather though. It reminded me of watching the Wizard of Oz as a kid. It starts out in black and white in Kansas, but Oz is in technicolor. In contrast, our many colored world went black and white for a few minutes. Eerie.
But no storm and no terrorists. Amen.