Filed under: Art, Augmented Reality, Bipolar, Blade Runner, Comics, Health, Humor, movies, Science Fiction, Writing stuff, YouTube
You know, this whole thing made a lot more sense at 3:43 this morning.
To quote from a favorite character*: “Let me ‘splain. [pause] No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”
I recently gave an example of the . . . creative froth, let’s call it . . . that I always live with. I think particularly when I am in the middle of a creative endeavor this stuff is a lot closer to the surface, as I am now with working out all the characters, setting, plot, et cetera for the prequel to Communion of Dreams. It’s like the barrier between the conscious and subconscious parts of my brain becomes . . . thinner. Connections become easier.
Here’s an example of what I mean:
A number of my friends are or were cops. Last week I was amused by the video going around which was a fan-made movie of an oddball webcomic called “Axe Cop.” Here it is:
Bizarre, eh? Most of my friends thought so. I thought it was hilarious.
Anyway, at about 3:42 this morning I woke up from a dream. Just *Boom* – wide awake. It’s the damned Prednisone (I’m taking another course of it for ongoing efforts with my rib/lung pain) – a common side effect, and one which seems to be hitting me harder this time around than previously.
I had been dreaming. About an “accidental cop.” Someone who had been a cop previously, but then had moved on. The situation developed that he was drafted back into being a cop. Think Rick Deckard being convinced to resume detective work in Blade Runner.
Well, upon waking, in just a few short moments, I developed a whole backstory to the dream, ideas on characters, plot for future development, et cetera. I toyed for a moment with the idea of pitching it as a screenplay, perhaps TV pilot.
Madness, of course. And I realized that when I woke up more completely. But thinking it through, I came to the conclusion that what happened was something of this kind of progression:
- Cop.
- Ex-cop.
- Axe Cop.
- Accidental Cop.
I blame the Prednisone. And a strong manic swing.
Jim Downey
*Inigo, of course, whom I have discussed previously in relation to my own history.
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Health, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
Yesterday, we had an Open House for our neighborhood.
* * * * * * *
It’s a curious thing. The novel has now been available online for four years. You’d think that it would be dropping off a bit in terms of popularity. But using the same criteria I’ve used in the past, total downloads of the book this last year have jumped by almost 50%.
Yeah, it had been very consistent in the first three years, averaging a bit over 6,400 downloads. But for 2010 the total downloads were 9,631. We’re now over 29,000 total copies of the book downloaded altogether.
Huh.
* * * * * * *
I hate “spring cleaning”. It seems like an artifact of a different age, perhaps going back to when coal was used as a fuel source for most homes, and following the winter everything needed to be cleaned thoroughly to get rid of the coal dust.
But I like having a clean home. I’m not a neat freak, but doing an in-depth cleaning always feels good. That’s one of the reasons why I like having an Open House on January 1 – it gives impetus to go through everything you might usually let slide, putting things away or getting rid of them, getting into the nooks and crannies you might otherwise ignore.
* * * * * * *
Got a note from WordPress this morning, a summation of the last year’s blogging. Here’s a bit:
The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 16,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.
In 2010, you wrote 204 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1007 posts. You uploaded 23 pictures, taking up a total of 12mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.
Your busiest day of the year was April 18th with 156 views. The most popular post that day was #2, so I’ll try harder.
Curiously, last year the BBTI blog beat this one for total visits for the first time. But then, BBTI itself had a Monster year.
* * * * * * *
Yesterday, we had an Open House for our neighborhood.
It was a relaxed gathering, not as large as some recent years. But quite enjoyable.
After, as I was cleaning up the dishes, I had a chance to think about where I was, what was on the horizon. Little stuff, bills to pay this week, conservation work to be done. But bigger things, too. Communion of Dreams to be published by Trapdoor Press sometime in the next couple of months. Hopefully some progress on finding a publisher for Her Final Year. Getting going on My Father’s Gun.
And I’ve started thinking again about the prequel to Communion of Dreams. What I had written previously needs to be scrapped completely, though the basic idea I had is still there. I’m feeling . . . strong enough . . . to again consider creating a work of fiction.
It’s an interesting place to be. 2010 wasn’t bad, really, though it had some rough patches. But I really feel like I am on the verge of something with 2011. I suppose we’ll see.
Jim Downey
There are over 150 posts here on my blog with the tag “Alzheimer’s.” That’s tens of thousands of words I have written about caring for Martha Sr and related issues. My co-author and I put together tens of thousands more into a book which we’re now trying to get published. And yet this short movie managed to convey what it is like to care for someone with a profound disability (which isn’t Alzheimer’s) and how that has an impact on everyone in the family:
Toby yearns for a life like any other eight-year-old kid. But his mentally disabled father is a constant reminder that life for Toby, will never be normal.
‘Water’ is a film about a young boy’s struggle to accept his fears, his mentally disabled father and his possible future duty.
It is an incredibly touching film, expertly done. Take the fifteen minutes or so and watch it. Though the description given doesn’t say so, I think you will find your life enriched and your day brightened in ways you will find surprising.
Jim Downey
Via MeFi.
Sometimes hard work is more satisfying than other times:
That’s what I just did. It’s my form of getting even with the damned wood that just about killed me a year ago. Took two hours to split it all, using a maul and a star wedge. That’s not quite 5′ tall, about 10′ wide. And yeah, I hurt, and will probably hurt more later once I cool down.
But damn, that felt good.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Bipolar, Health, Predictions, Publishing, Science Fiction
Consider this something of a companion piece to yesterday’s entry.
For some time now I have been increasingly aware of a shift, a change in the wind. From this:
But the good news is that once I realize how deeply I am into this cycle, it usually means that I don’t have a whole lot further down to go. Typically, just a matter of weeks.
Of course, hitting bottom was followed by a prolonged illness this time – a month’s worth of serious pneumonia, and then two months of uneven recovery (which I am still struggling with, though the trend is up.) Even for me, this is unusual.
But it perhaps signifies something else: a larger pattern at work.
I have been intensely ill at several junctures of my life – oh, nothing life-threatening, just really, *really* sick. And those instances tend to come at the culmination of a closing chapter in my life, following a long period of intense work. Usually, once I start to emerge back towards health, it marks a sea change. Like now.
The long years of being a care provider, followed by intensely working on the care giving book, are over. What was by necessity a period of intense introspection and even hermitage has played itself out. The stage is set for me to move on, to turn my energy and my attention outwards again.
What do I mean?
I’m not entirely sure yet. Certainly, with Communion of Dreams to be published, there will be the need for publicity. If we can also get Her Final Year into print, that will compound things, demand more of me.
And here’s the thing – this doesn’t bother me. Oh, I am still an introvert by nature, but I now feel ready to once again take on the role of a public figure.
It’s a bit like re-inventing myself. Not changing my nature, but choosing to emphasize another aspect of myself. And there is power in that.
Jim Downey
Well, not as big a haul as three years ago, but this is respectable:
That’s a three-gallon basket, brimming full. I’d guesstimate about 350 – 400 Habaneros.
I think I know that I’m doing today.
Added, 5:00 PM: Over 600 habs at final count. Chopped and cooked down. Everything run through the Foley, now the first dozen half-pints are processing in a water bath. I’ll probably get another 8 – 10 jars after these are done. Stuff is great, consistency of a thick pea soup – pureed habs, about 3.75 per ounce – and good lord, is it HOT.
Quick recipe for future reference: 600 habs, chopped in food processor. About 10 ounces of chopped garlic. One very large yellow onion. 20 ounces real apple cider vinegar. One cup sugar. About 4 tablespoons of Kosher salt. 16 ounces of homemade tomato sauce. Simmer for 2 hours, process.
Jim Downey
(Oh, an aside: I think that the Prednisone is helping. Now I just have to resist the urge to try and make up for all the stuff I *haven’t* been doing for the last three months…)
Got a nice note from an old friend, chiding me for my comment in my post yesterday. (It wasn’t from the author of the comment I was responding to.) My friend thought I should be more open-minded about how to deal with the ongoing pain I am experiencing, and should reconsider alternative medical treatment. I thought I would post my response, and save myself from having to explain the same thing to others:
My comment reflects how much of a hard-nosed skeptic I have become in the last 15 – 20 years. At the very least, homeopathy or acupuncture needs the willing suspension of disbelief from the patient to have any chance of working, and I’m just not capable of working up to that. The realities of life have just been too hard-edged for me to put faith in prayer or magical thinking.
It’s not that I am bitter, or brittle. In fact, I am remarkably optimistic and hopeful, given all I have lived through and all I have seen. But I am much less willing to invest my energy into any enterprise which doesn’t seem to be well grounded in proven reality. I look for tangible ways to manifest my hopes, and to do what I can to help others.
Communion of Dreams is one such effort – entertainment, perhaps a little dreaming to inspire, maybe with some ideas to provoke thought. Caring for Martha Sr was another, and from that sprang a book which I hope will be able to aid many others in very real and tangible ways.So I appreciate your thoughts, and your motivation, in writing. But though I may be in pain, I prefer to proceed on my own path. It is one I understand.
Jim Downey
* I don’t really need to explain, do I?
In the movie Shakespeare in Love the Philip Henslowe character has a line which is invoked several times to explain how incredibly bad situations always turn out for the best when it comes to theatrical performance: “It’s a mystery.”
I’m hoping I have something similar happen to my current situation.
Because that’s basically the word I got from my doctor this morning, about my ongoing chest/lung pain: it’s a mystery.
The CAT scan I had last week didn’t really turn up anything. Oh, I have a small spot of calcification in one lobe of my lungs where the pneumonia had settled, but that’s not really sufficient to account for the pain and shortness of breath I’ve had. But there’s nothing else indicated from that scan.
Good long discussion and examination (who gets more than a quick 5 minute consult these days?) by my doctor didn’t really point up anything else. She’s having some blood work done, just to be thorough, but the area where I have been experiencing pain doesn’t really make sense for anything like liver function or heart problems (both of which looked normal on the CAT scan, anyway). About the only thing that makes sense is just ongoing soft-tissue damage, which is being slow to heal. I’m going on another course of Prednisone, which should help with that if it is the problem. But even that doesn’t really make sense, because it has gotten worse in recent weeks, rather than just slowly improving.
So. Treat symptoms. Try the Prednisone. Get on with life. Hope for the best and see how everything works out.
It’s a mystery.
Jim Downey
As I sipped my first cup of coffee, Alwyn (my dog) came up and sat down next to me, tail wagging vigorously on the carpet.
I had just let him in a few moments previously. “What is it, bud? You want to go back outside?”
He bolted for the door.
I followed, let him out into the yard.
* * * * * * *
I walked into the bedroom, still damp around the edges from my shower.
The window was open, and there was a stiff breeze coming through. Temps outside were only about 54 degrees, so it was quite crisp.
But the first thing I did, in spite of the cold, was not to put on some clothes. Instead, I checked my phone to see if there had been a call while I was in the shower.
* * * * * * *
My friend’s email was to the point: if something happened, and the publisher with whom I am negotiating for publication of Communion of Dreams went out of business, I needed to have it clear that all my rights under the contract would automatically revert to me.
I thought that was a given, since if one party in the contract no longer existed, then the contract be would null and void. But I’m not an attorney. I included a note about the matter in my email to the publisher.
* * * * * * *
Alwyn ran off to the side of the yard, looking up. In the thin morning light, I could see a raccoon, caught in a tree.
Alwyn ran back and forth, looking up. The raccoon climbed higher.
Thing was, the tree he was in was on the other side of the fence. Alwyn couldn’t touch him if he came down and sauntered off.
But the raccoon didn’t know that.
* * * * * * *
I’m still waiting.
I’m still waiting for a phone call, or an email, from my doctor’s office, with some information about the results of the CAT scan I had on Friday.
I hate waiting.
I particularly hate waiting when I feel worse day by day. The right side of my chest hurts more. I now get a bit short of breath just standing or doing *anything*. I’ve started to experience moments of light-headedness.
I’m hoping that I’m on the other side of the fence, able to just walk away from the threat.
But I fear the dog below.
Jim Downey
Update: I have an appointment to see my doc tomorrow morning, 9:15. CAT scan is “basically normal”. So now I wonder what we do.
So, in spite of the fears of some of my friends, I made it to Chicago and back.
Er, what’s that? Fears?
As I’ve mentioned recently, I’ve had some ongoing issues related to the pneumonia that had me so sick through all of August. Well, this past Tuesday I saw my doc, who poked and prodded, listened and queried. Then she told me she wanted me to get a CAT scan, since it would show more of what was going on than did the normal X-Ray I’d had the beginning of September. It was possible I had some leftover pneumonia, or a pocket of pleurisy, or possibly even a partial collapsed lung. I told her I would have to schedule the scan for Friday, since I was going to be gone the next two days.
“Where to?”
“Quick trip to Chicago.”
“Business or pleasure?”
“Pleasure.”
“Well, enjoy it.”
Note – she did not tell me not to go. She did not tell me to change my plans because I was gonna die if I did such an insanely dangerous thing as drive to Chicago. She told me to enjoy the trip. Because I have been fighting whatever it is that I have going on for two months, and it is unlikely that just driving anywhere would be any worse for me than anything else I’ve done.
* * * * * * *
What pleasure so tempted me in Chicago?
Art. And an old friend.
Norma Rubovits, who studied under the same bookbinding mentor that I did (but 20 years earlier), was having a show of her bindings and her incredible marbled papers at the Newberry Library.
I first heard from Norma almost 20 years ago, when I was starting to make a name for myself with my own paper marbling. She dropped me a note, said that she heard I was making marbled paper vignettes. She said she wanted to buy some of my marbling – would I send her a selection, along with an invoice. At first I didn’t have a clue who this woman was, and I didn’t know whether to take her seriously. But after a few inquiries, I had some idea – and I sent her some of my work.
It was the start of a solid friendship. As I got to know her, I also came to understand what an incredible artist she was, working in both bookbinding and marbled paper. On one of my first trips to visit her, I got to see some of her work. She could do things in fine binding that I can still only dream of. And her marbled papers made me almost embarrassed to call myself a marbler.
See for yourself:
(More images of Norma’s show here.)
What that shows are twin marbled vignettes – two small, highly concentrated marbled ‘paintings’ called ebru. This sort of work was a specialty of Norma’s. That example is particularly fine because the two pieces had to be done quickly before the pigment would start to break down on the surface of the marbling tank – you can see this already starting to happen if you look closely at the lower image, where the center part is starting to develop small imperfections as the color bubble and concentrates. Altogether, she just had a matter of several minutes to place the multiple layers of pigment, then manipulate it into the form she wanted, then to transfer that to the paper. When I was really ‘in the zone’ while marbling, I could manage this feat with one image but I never even tried to do a pair like that.
* * * * * * *
We met Norma at the entrance to the Newberry. She graciously introduced us to her companion, a woman who serves as her care-giving assistant. Norma’s still getting around fine, and is as sharp mentally as anyone. But she is 92, and her balance isn’t what it used to be.
She escorted us into the exhibit, fussed to make sure we found the magnifying glasses you need to appreciate her most detailed work, and then had a seat to the side, popping up to point out specific works and tell us each one’s history. That we knew about the binding techniques involved, and most of the people in her stories, just added richness and encouraged her to go into greater detail than she would with the general public.
After, it was a nice long and relaxing lunch at Russian Tea Time – her favorite place to take company. Be sure to have the borscht.
* * * * * * *
My doc looked at me: “Where to?”
“Quick trip to Chicago.”
“Business or pleasure?”
“Pleasure.”
“Well, enjoy it.”
“Thanks. Art exhibit of the work of an old friend. She’s 92 – and while she’s still doing quite well, you never know.”
My doctor nodded, and handed me the Rx for more painkillers, which I knew I would need to get me through the trip, at least overnight so I could maybe sleep.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 