Krishanna

Much has happened since I last checked in with you. Or it at least seems that way.

    I am preparing for another show opening next month.

          Sort of.

    I've had another birthday.

    I took a 7-day jaunt to California to see my mother and my sister for the aforementioned event.

         See yesterday's post.

    I've had my locks cut and coiffed and colored, California style. I've got an Electra thing going on.

        See yesterday's post.

    Our last ferret died, an hour before my flight touched down the day I arrived home.

        She was over 7 years old and had cancer. Still tough.Still sucks.

I often don't blog about the mundane day to day crap in my life because I am certain if it bores me, it will surely bore the shit out of you. However, as a friend points out, many people enjoy reading themundane, everyday events of some else's life because it can remind themthey are not alone and what I consider to be mundane and boring may
indeed entertain, inspire and invigorate someone else.

Take today, for instance. I got up, got ready to go to the gallery.Waited for the sCARE van to collect me and carry me to the gallery. Onthe van, I was duly grunted at by the driver as I handed over my ticket and eyed carefully as I dug around in my bag for my MP3 playerso I could listen to my daily dose of KATG.

Once at the gallery, I fired up my laptop, turned on lights, got mydaily fix of Diet Coke and checked e-mail, fixed a few blurps on thegallery blog and website, researched blog stores and eCommerce throughblogging (John Unger's got a terrific eCommerce Guide over on his Typepad Hacks site. It's chockfull of eCommerce information that is useful for anyone who blogs.) I did some online marketing and promotion for the gallery siteand blog . I am now writing the post you are now reading and once done with that I will peruse Popscribe and the KATG Forums or maybe read my feeds for the remaining 30 or so minutes until closing and then wait for sCARE to again collect me and carry me back home.

Once home, we might go out and grab a bite or I might toss someleftovers in  microwave and call it dinner before I settle in for anevening of TV and stitching or maybe a little artmaking on the offchance I feel inspired.

My life is so exciting and glamorous. Can you stand it?

Actually there is probably some truth to the whole what's boring to me might not be boring to someone else. I keep up
with many of my favorite blogs daily because I care about what is happening to their owners, boring or not. We all have our off periods. It's the loyal friends and readers who get through with you that are so endearing.

myself in a fit of geekiness.

I am afterall, despite outward appearances, rather anti-social and reclusive with a healthy pinch of misanthrope
thrown in for a pinch of spice.

We often believe one of the biggest challenges to creating is time. Often I still hear that voice in my head say, "There's no time for THAT because you must do THIS". Even more often, I still listen to it and do what it says thus losing another inspired moment to create. I convince myself there is not time for all the things in my life that are important, that the email won't wait, that the answering machine can't pick up my phone calls, that I don't have enough time. Oddly enough though, of all the things in life we may not have, time is not one of them. We always have time. In fact, it's all we really have but we convince ourselves that we have too little of it to do what we love, to create, to inspire, to live.

For many years, I held my writing close and hid both my interest and my art from others. I was certain I didn't have the time to be "good enough" and even if I had the time to devote to it, no one would enjoy what I created. I complained of having no time, yet spent what time I did have doing things I really didn't want to be doing with people I didn't really want to be with. I remained so weighed down and stressed about relatively unimportant events, creating rarely entered my mind. The voice, the pull, the calling was almost always drowned out by the din of day-to-day life. When it came to making time for creativity, whether it was writing or making art, that stuff that was fun, imaginative, healing, life-affirming, nourishing and mood- lifting, I was usually hard pressed to make the time and justified my choices with a myriad of excuses. Sometimes, I wonder if I would forgotten the call completely had I not been injured and forced to change my life.

When I see the world outside myself, outside the little artistic microcosm I have created for myself, time is a synonym for money and it's use is measured by profitability. People often spend years in school getting degrees and diplomas, not to learn but just so they can make more money. The world sees art, our work the same way. If it makes money, it's considered time well spent. If it fails to make money, it is wasted time. Many define themselves by what they do to pay the bills when what we do rarely has anything to do with who we are until we are listening to calling in our hearts, the hugging on the heart, or in the work that has little to do with money.

My concept of time has evolved and changed over the last few years as a result having a spinal cord injury and being forced to change my life. I've learned that whatever time it takes to create, is never, can never be a waste. When we arrive at our work with the intention and knowledge of creating something that only we can make, something that reflects who we are and what we have experienced, then we are participating in creative activity that is worthy and deserving of whatever time it takes.

Making time for our writing, our art, our creative time, regardless of our medium, is often like making time for meditation or prayer. For some it is meditation and prayer. Creating is a holistic act that involves all parts of us as well as the known and the unknown, the seen and unseen. Creating can be healing as we build something whole out of the pieces of our lives, seeing how each piece matters, understanding where they fit, and seeing them more clearly. Making time for creativity can be a break from the confusion of the surface to the stillness of the center.

We don't need to have our art installed in museums or galleries or posses the praise of critics and the world to be successful artists. It's not imperative that we earn a living from our art, that we are published or even that the famous own one of our works to be successful artists. To be successful artists, to live creatively, we need only to breathe deeply, taste the colors of the mountains and the sky, to know the wind, feel the bark of an old oak, the smell of a storm, the sound of swamp grass bent in the breeze. To be successful artists, we need only live with our eyes wide open, to take in every detail, rub life all over and jump when we reach the edge of a plateau. To be a successful artist is to notice gorgeous moment, bear witness to the small miracles and messy mishaps, to feel freely and collect these events, shaping them into forms and images and words others can share.

Living creatively is being productive and alive with every moment instead of whining about not having the time. Our creativity isn't about waiting for others to define who we are, but defining ourselves, claiming our own lives and creating for ourselves, for love, not money. Being an artist is about becoming familiar with creativity's mojo and how it works: we hear a voice, feel a pull and begin the work.

We create, often not knowing where it will lead us. Clues arrive and then they don't and still we continue until one day the piece, the article, the novel is complete and we know it is ours alone. So we bow our heads or lift our faces to the sky and give thanks. This is what it is to be a successful artist, a creative spirit.

Towns and cities are stuffed full sculptors, painters, composers and writers who wait tables, check groceries, answer phones, and drive taxicabs to pay the bills. Very few of us are paid much for our creative work and passions, so it gets squeezed into the in-between hours. Our books get written in between loads of loads of laundry, soccer practices and homework. Our short stories are written in waiting rooms, parking lots and at bus stops. We paint in our studios through the night and work in our darkrooms in the wee hours of the morning. It's hard to think of ourselves as artists under these circumstances, but we are. It is our creative work that carries us to life, feeds our spirits, nourishes our souls and sees us through the darkness. We often feel alone but we are not alone. There are literally hundreds upon thousands of us trading stolen moments and sleep for the serenity of creating.

There are many things we may not have in life, but time is not one of them. It is really the only thing we do have. We have this lifetime to produce a catalog of art, a collection of  articles, a book- a body of work that says, "This is how I see the world around me". Indeed, our art, our creativity, is worthy of whatever time it takes.

See, about a month ago I challenged my  good, friend  and fellow artist, Morgaine, to make art everyday and then I promptly got sick so I am behind. She however, has been quite prolific and I urge you to go check out her terrific art!

But I got back in the saddle and have been working as close to everyday as I can. These are the first 8 in a new series called Small Works. These are original cabinet cards of altered with painted, stamps and embellishments, accented by fun and whimsical words. They've been a lot of fun to do. As usual, click on the images for a larger version.

What do you think?

WTF?!

Whatever

See more here.

On Thursday my throat was scratchy from post-nasal drip and my nose was running like a faucet with a worn out rubber gasket. I had a cough. I felt crappy. I was hopefully optimistic that my usual medicinal herbal teas and homemade turkey soup and mass quantities of Vitamin C would frighten the cooties away.

On Friday, crappy had given way to shitty. The scratchy throat was gone but the nose was still running, switching sides every few hours and clogged ears to double the fun. The cough was still hanging in there and faint wheeze began to accompany the ensemble somewhere during the late afternoon and early evening. I followed up dinner with a dose of Guaifenesin and more tea. By 7 PM Friday night, the nose had clogged and I was searching the every junk drawer, nook and hidey-hole for wayward inhalers to stop the incessant wheeze that had settled in my trachea and was threatening to cut off what was left of my shallow air supply. I spent the night half-sitting up in bed, waking every few hours to cough or pee, often both with a chaser of more medicine and hits off the inhalers.

By 6 AM Saturday morning, I had retreated to my trusty recliner, that bit of upholstered magic that eases pain and most things that ail me. I had given up on the teas, the vitamins, and the medicine. It wasn't helping. The only thing that seemed to work were the inhalers. It hurt to cough- everywhere. By 9 AM, Manthing's sister called to let us know they were going to his Dad's house to clean it while he is away on a vacation. It was my idea and I did feel well-enough so off we went.

At several intervals during the morning, Manthing asked me if we needed to make a trip to the local Doc-in-the-Box. I was wheezing full-time now and using the inhaler more often than I should. Still, I couldn't make up my mind. I hoped I could get through it without being all inconvenient and burden-like. I continued cleaning the family room and decided to holler a silent "Uncle", when my chest tightened and hurt while finishing up with the vacuum. I laid down on the floor to rest. If could just rest awhile, I'd be able to continue and do my share. Manthing looked at me skeptically and asked, "Doc-in-the-Box?" to which I responded, "I can wait".

By this time I could not hide my labored breathing and the wheeze was probably audible in the next county, not mention the deep, bellowing, hacking cough that made me sound like a emphysemic elephant seal. He disappeared for a minute and when he returned he looked down at me and delivered his edict.

"Okay. Let's go. We did this your way. Now we're going to do this my way. We are going to go get rid of this shit".
"Why is it when I say stuff like that to you when you're sick, you me blow me off"?, I asked with all the feigned indignation I could muster as we got into the truck.
"I don't blow you off. You worry enough without my adding to it. Besides, my way is better".
"OH. Sorry. I must not be getting enough oxygen. I forgot THAT," I said not unsarcastically.
"I'm glad to see the lack of oxygen hasn't cut off your ability to be a smartass".
I merely stuck my tongue out at him in response.

If you want to get in to see an urgent care doctor quickly, just go in winded from the trip from your vehicle parked in the disabled parking less than 200 feet away and ask them how soon you will be seen because you have chest tightness and pain and cannot breathe.

The receptionist looked at me critically and told me she'd get a nurse to evaluate. The nurse took one look at me and led me to an empty exam room. The receptionist followed and checked me in while a medical assistant checked my temperature and blood pressure. Next she asked me for my height and weight and the following series of questions:

"Are you still menstruating, sweetie"?
"Yes."
"What was the date of your last period"?
"Uhmmmmm (wheezewheeze)...the middle of last month; the 15th?(cough;wheeze;wheeze)"
"Was it normal"? she asked helpfully.
"As normal as it gets at my age (wheezewheezewheeze).
She found this very amusing and laughing she patted my shoulder.

The doctor whisked in breathlessly, looking rather concerned and asked me why I was there.
"Uh. I have a cold and cannot breathe. (wheezewheezewheeze) The inhalers are not working". Without answering, she placed her stethoscope on my chest and asked me when it started, calling me "hon". As I attempted to answer her, she predictably asked me to be quiet so she could hear my lungs, "I need you to be quiet so I can hear, sugar". Once she was done and had ordered the nebulizer for the breathing treatment, she asked me what I was trying to tell her when she was listening to my lungs. I looked at her blankly, trying to grasp what it was I was saying only moments before and I couldn't remember. "Uhhhhmm, I can't remember," I offered helpfully.

In all honesty, it was all I could do to breathe and keep track of the activity going on around me. Between the doctor, the nurse, the medical assistant and the receptionist, I was having a hard determining who was doing what and why. I know I must have been in distress because none of this nonsense was even remotely annoying to me at the time.

10 minutes later with a plastic nozzle stuck in my piehole and the nebulizer's hum to meditate to, I was leaning back against the wall in a chair, enjoying the ability to breathe nearly effortlessly and amusing myself with the chorus of a song about crack addiction called "Devil's Johnson" by a now defunct local L.A. band called Ethyl Meatplow. The chorus went something like: "Smokin' on the devil's johnson, smokin' on the devil's johnson, smokin' on the devil's johnson and he's gonna suck you dry..." Okay so it's a bit odd and uh..colorful... but this shouldn't surprise you coming from me. Besides, I was about 4 years sober and was a fan, saw them live, etc etc. Anyway, I heard a light knock on the door jam and in walked a worried-looking Manthing.

"I thought you were going to come back to the waiting room".
I shook my head as I pulled the nozzle away from my mouth for a second. "Evidently they felt that the waiting room was not where I needed to be. Did you get worried"?
"Kind of but not really". Master of understatement and machismo is my Manthing.
"Well now we know the best way to get immediate attention at the Doc-In-The Box. I wasn't expecting them to shoo me into an exam room so quickly".
"Me, either".

Being the electronics and techno-wonk that he is, Manthing proceeded to investigate the nebulizer to figure out how it worked. I followed his eyes travel along the hose to the nozzle in my mouth and medication dispenser back down to the machine itself where the sterile water and liquid albueterol rested.

"Ah. I see. It's basically an air compressor that pushes air into that thing", he pointed to the nozzle in my mouth and the small, green plastic vaporizer in my hand.
I nodded and took the nozzle out of my mouth and said "Yeah. The stuff in the pink plastic vials is sterile water and the stuff in the bottle is liquid albuterol... you know the stuff in my inhaler".
It was Manthing's turn to nod. "Put that back in your mouth and keep breathing. Don't waste the medicine".
"Yes, mein furor", I said dryly, rolling my eyes for which I received a raised eyebrow and Manthing's nearly trademarked hairy eyeball.

A few minutes later the nebulizer nozzle gurgled, sputtered and ran out of vapor. The doctor came in and listened to my lungs and told me she wanted me to hang out for a few minutes.
"I feel like could sleep for 100 years", I said to Manthing. He reached over from the footstool he was sitting on and squeezed my knee in reply.

So there we sat listening to the footfalls beyond the drawn curtain trying to determine which ones would signal an entrance. When the doctor re-entered she wanted to see my inhalers and had my orders. A prednisone shot in the butt, scripts for a new inhaler, a course of prednisone in tablet form and rest.

Yay, me. Not so much.

Off to the drug store we went, where I picked up not only the two new medicines but the 3 waiting for me to bring them home which made me feel like a full-fledged geezer. Manthing made sure I was properly ensconced (trapped) in bed with water, medicines, remote control and cough drops before going back to his father's to finish helping his sisters and nieces clean house. I fell asleep watching The Big Country (1958; Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Charleton Heston, Chuck Connors & Burl Ives) on TCM. When I woke a few hours later, the movie was ending, I was breathing much easier and I was hungry. When you have to choose between eating and breathing, oxygen trumphs food.

So we ordered pizza when Manthing got home and it was good.

Now today I am wondering:

Why did the medical assistant ask me if I was still having my period? Did I somehow look, I don't know, TWENTY years older than I am? At 43 the length and intensity of my "Auntie's" visits are a bit unpredictable but by no means gone. Dammit.

Why do they all call you "sweetie" or "sugar" or "hon"?

Why the hell do they ask you questions and then tell you to shut up, rather than give the opportunity to answer? If they can do it on ER, it can be done at Doc-In-The-Box. Right?

How pathetic is it that it takes cooties and an asthma attack to update this blog properly?