This is Important

Thoughts On The Conference

So I just spent three days at a conference out at Smith College that was titled "Combat Stress: Understanding the Challenges, Preparing for the Return". It was amazing - they covered just about every area that you could think of. Instead of running down the whole thing I thought that maybe I would just give you some highlights. Before I do that though I want to talk about the book "Final Salute" that I read during the conference. The book is by a reporter who turned a bunch of newspaper articles into this story with the subject being mostly Major Steve Beck. Really though the subject is what Major Beck does which is notify the families of the men and women who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is an amazing book but incredibly sad and when I say sad I mean I had to stop reading the book in public because I was close to sobbing every time I picked it up. Why would I want to put myself through that? Because this is an important part of what is going on and everyone should see how it is handled. If you've seen any of those pictures that have gone around the Internet of the coffin being loaded off of a commercial jet while people look through the windows or the picture of the woman laying next to her husbands casket so she can spend one more night with him - those are from this book.
Read it - please.

Here are my highlights:

* They spent a ton of time on self care and secondary trauma. This is especially important to the therapists and social workers who are going to be working directly one and one with veterans (from any war). You can't help them if you are mired down in their stuff and can't process it properly.

*Jonathan Shay was one of the keynote speakers and he was fabulous. He has written two groundbreaking books: Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming. He was hysterically funny and spoke to us about his work in a way that we could all understand. I highly recommend his books an going to see him speak if you are interested in this subject matter.

* A World War II vet who is a Pearl Harbor survivor gently reminded us that 2,350 men were killed on December 7th 1941. He wasn't downplaying the number of deaths in Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf War, Afghanistan or Iraq - as I said he was just gently reminding us that Iraq isn't the whole war that have caused suffering.

* Tons and tons of speakers that have published and are completely accessible if you need to follow up with them. One of them is the head of the social work school at the University of Georgia - I'm going to look at that school for a possible transfer my second year.

* The best part of this whole conference is that it wasn't political. Everyone was there with the same goal - which was treating veterans. At one point someone tried to get political but was quickly shut down and I was glad. This was not the place to talk about who you were going to vote for, what you thought of the war or whether you thought the war was illegal or legal. There was a higher purpose - and pretty much everyone stuck to it.

* The conference was free if you are active military so we got to hear a lot from them and from their perspective. It was fascinating.

* Lt. Col Carl Castro. He was the first speaker. He was funny, down to earth and brutally honest about the military's shortcomings. He is in the military obviously and is working within the system to help make changes. It was a great way to start off the conference.

OK that's it for now - more on regular life later. I'm off to watch the rest of the race.

Off Again

Hey everyone - I'm headed out for a few days to this conference out in Western MA and I'm not bringing my laptop (gasp!!).

I'll be back later in the weekend - have a good one!

** Oh and for those of you paying attention that time stamp is correct. Ugghhh!**

Oh My....

When did tennis start to look like this?? I hope to GOD that my tv has the channel that shows Wimbledon.

And Release Deep Breath......

So I delivered the commission this morning and guess what? HE LIKED IT! I think he actually more than liked it. It looked really good on the wall in the room that he is putting it in. I'm going to let him live with it over the next few days and then go over there Monday morning and sign them and paint the top/bottom edges. I'm sooo relieved! Here is a picture of them. They are leaning on the mantel which is not of course where they will be. The ceilings are HUGE so they will be hanging above the mantel.



I don't know enough about iPhoto yet to make the picture look fabulous. Suffice it to say they look great in the room.

New NIN!

Yeah I know I said I was going to bed but this is so worth staying up for! Watch Josh the drummer - I'm not even sure he's human and the bass player from Beck is fucking fantastic. Trent's right, this could be the best line up yet. (Yes I know the video's go over into the other column, but I don't CARE!!)

1,000,000



Letting You

Stormy Weather

We had some unbelievable thunder storms today. One minute the sky was all sunny and blue and the next minute the wind was blowing and it was looking like it was 8pm. It rained and hailed really really hard for about 20 minutes and then stopped got sunny and then started up again a few hours later. It was really pretty cool. I love bad weather - it kind of reminds you that you aren't really in charge. I also start to think about people who don't have anywhere to go in a storm like that - that makes me a bit sad.

So I am working on this commission and like a fool I told him I could deliver it tomorrow. I just needed to put a deadline on it or it wouldn't get done. So I brought it to my art teacher for critique and well - let's just say neither of us was really happy with it. So I came home and have been reworking it. I think I'm going to pack it in for the night and go to bed. That was I can get up really early and make use of the morning light. Right now the only light I have is artificial and color is never right in that light.

I'm really stressed about this commission. I'm am completely grateful for the opportunity and of course can use the cash but the pressure of creating something along the lines of "can you do something like this?" is too much. Blah!

Anyway, I'm off to bed (wicked early). Have a good night everyone.

**Oh yeah - Maine was freaking amazing and I've spent the last three days wondering why I ever moved out of that state.

Tuesday Fun

Hi guys
I'm going away to Maine for the next few days and wanted to update before I went. Let's see where should I begin?

Let's start with the most important thing shall we. JUNIOR WON THE RACE ON SUNDAY! Yes it was a fuel mileage win - but I don't care it was a WIN. He hasn't won since May of 2006 but now that he's on a decent team and has great equiptment (Thank you Mr. Hendrix!) he's having a great season. He's third in the points and I'm predicting he'll finish either 1st or 2nd before the chase. Someone needs to get that punk Kyle Bush out of the top 13.

As I mentioned I've been reading like a madwoman - I just finished another fabulous book. It's called He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not by Trish Ryan. It was recommended to me by EX in this post. Since she wrote such a great review I'm not going to repeat it. Safe to say this book gave me a lot to think about...ALOT.

I'm so happy to be going to Maine. I lived there for 8 years and miss it all the time. I don't doubt that at some point I'll move back there - I just love it. I stay in Kittery in the house I used to live it and it's fun...lots of fun.

Tom Petty was just in town and I didn't get to see him...it's ok really I've seen him live about 10 times but still. The reviews were fabulous and I wouldn't expect anything less.
'
OK enough with the niceties:

I live in a 30 unit building things have been really good here lately. We have a new plow person for the winter - the last remaining "problem" people moved out at the beginning of the month - I have a new parking spot which isn't next to the dumpster and doesn't suck and no one has been parking in it but me (that's a total switch). But I just had a smallishly disturbing thing happen. There is a young woman who lives down the hall from me - I think she's around my age (40). I like her but she's a bit of a know it all. She's a good "building friend" you know what I mean? So instead of asking the post office to stop my mail for the next three days I asked her to pick it up. That's not the problem. She lives in one of the biggest units - it has two bedrooms and a huge living room. Our condo docs state that you can only have as many cats as you have bedrooms and absolutely no dogs. Well this woman has cats - like four of them. Frankly, I don't care because it gives me an excuse to not go into her place. The problem is you can smell them from the hallway when the door is closed. I had noticed it before but had kind of chalked it up to it being a bad day for her or something. But today when I knocked on her door and she opened it I was almost KNOCKED DOWN by the smell of cat. And then I see not only two or three adult cats but SEVEN kittens - yes I said SEVEN. Now they are cute but they are smelly little cats. I don't see how she doesn't smell it. To top it off her house seems to be that kind of dirty that's not messy but dirty. Floor needs to be swept and mopped dirty. Do you know what I mean? She has to smell like that all day?

Oh I know what else - to top it off she has allergies.
NO SHIT. I have severe asthma and allergies. I'm highly allergic to most animals but mostly cats and horses. I don't ever put myself in a situation where I would come into contact with either. My poor nieces who own a horse know that if I'm coming over and they've been at the barn they have to change clothes and probably shower. It's a pain in the ass but it's better than a trip to the hospital - for me. So when this woman tell me that her allergies and asthma are killing her excuse me if I don't have a ton of sympathy. I mean where is the common sense? I know people get attached to their pets but if you are allergic to something why would you get it as a pet to begin with?

Ok I was going to post about my ideas regarding testing people before they are allowed to have children - but I'm going to let that slide. I will however show you this - which disturbs me greatly. I am all about cute things on babies - I really am. I buy things for my friends Kim's baby Lucy all the time and they are cutie cutie things but there is something about this that feels wrong. I'd be happy to hear other opinons.

Classic

I'm in heaven - I didn't even know this song had a video. I absolutely LOVED these guys and think that they were one of the most underrated bands of the 80's. This song brings back great memories - sadly the hair does not!!

Books and Commission Update

In addition to having time to catch up on my movie watching I've also had plenty of time to read. I love to read and miss it dearly when I'm school. I'm sure in grad school reading is going to take on a whole new meaning. So anyway - I'm reading tons. About 15 minutes ago I finished a book which will probably be in my top five books forever. The book is called "Lottery" and it's by Patricia Wood. There is no description that I could give here that would do it justice. The book is about Perry L. Crandall who has an IQ score of 76 (he reminds us often that 75 is considered "retarded" and he is NOT retarded). Perry wins the Washington State lottery which is worth 12 million. Its a fabulous story that is at times really heartbreaking and at other times will make you laugh completely out loud. I absolutely loved loved loved this book. Go and read it - yes I mean now! Go Go Go!!

I met with my commission person today. It went much better than expected. Commissions are tough, but it's my opinion that they are tougher for an abstract artist. When you have people point at something you've done and they say "Can you do that but in blue"? You aren't sure if you should be happy they asked or insulted because they think your work is the kind that just can be reproduced that easily. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt and I like to believe that they don't always know that they are being insulting.

So take all of the pressure that comes with a commission and then add in the fact that the person that is asking you do something is someone you've known for a long time. I had actually put off doing this - he had hinted around that he wanted me to do something but I never took the bait. I made him ask me directly. Basically what happened was he saw something he liked, bid on it on eBay and didn't win. So he sent me the link and wanted to know if I could do something similar with some color changes and also canvas size changes.

My answer was "well, I can try"

And that's what I'm doing. I brought two of the three panels up to him today for him to see. They are both very different on purpose so that he could make decisions on color. He seemed happy, but that's the other thing about doing something for someone you know. No matter how many times you tell them that it's not going to hurt your feelings if they don't like it, I'm not sure if they believe it. The fact is, abstract art isn't for everyone and giving someone and "idea" of what you want isn't always successful. I understand why people try to be nice - but the last thing I want is something hanging on their walls that they don't like or that they feel like they have to hang because I did it.

That being said - I trust this person. I think he'd speak up, I hope he would anyway. We'll see. I'm going to take some pictures later and post them you guys can give me your comments.