Et in Arcadia ego

For some odd reason I’m feeling decidedly unapologetic about nearly everything lately.  I seem to be walking around with a chip upon my shoulder, daring providence to touch it. Maybe it’s just the unauthorized med change but lately I feel the sort of fearlessness that I used to feel in youth. I had an inkling [...]

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Odd Auditory Hallucination

I had an unusual auditory hallucination today.  I thought I heard my mother, several states away, calling my name. It took me aback because I had been doing so well with keeping touch with reality, or at least my little version of it.  I’m beginning to wonder just what percentage of life is “real” [...]

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Narrowly Escaping the Blues

I did this portrait of Clifford Brown a little while ago.  I never get tired of painting with a palette knife- no brushes to wash!  I’m in a jazz/ blues sort of mood with the changing of the guard from summer to fall. I want to be in love.  I associate the fall with long [...]

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School’s Open

I’m so glad to be in school once again. Structure is comforting.  Though now I’m a little worried over a digital photography class I have taken. I was hoping it would be a breeze, but it turns out to be more work and far more reading than I can comfortably do.  My only consolation [...]

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Manic Monday

I’ve had great luck on the social networking site for people with schizophrenia, bipolar, schizoaffective and related mental illnesses.  My online “special friend” is a 28-year old schizophrenic Dutch girl.  We converse at about 2:00 each day, which is for her 8:00.  It’s fun and interesting.  She really likes me and I her, so I [...]

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School’s Out

Here’s a scene I painted of a visual snapshot from last year’s county fair. A guy, a girl, cotton candy, an old truck in the background. It’s like Norman Rockwell-the way life ought to be but isn’t.
 Last days of classes this week.  I feel such a keen sense of relief that I’m not sure if [...]

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Bring Me the Summer of My Youth

I’m ready for summer. I need the heat- I’ve become so tired of the cold and dampness.  I want to see sunflowers again- those big ones that seem so life-affirming. I am doing more writing -creative writing- and am going to start sending things out soon, once I’m finished with five of my short stories.  [...]

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I Feel Like Having a Drink

I can’t though.  Sadly, drinking, with the meds I’m on, is now a part of my past.  I do occasionally see some loner like myself walking home after closing time if I’m up and wandering around the great metropolis of Frederick in the wee hours. (Hell, I’m crazy-who would mug me?)  Yeah, Klonopin and Geodon [...]

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Psych Ward

 I haven’t talked much about my hospital stay earlier last year except in some oblique references to some changes in my medications and just saying I was “institutionalized” for a stint. During my stay from April until June I not only got to go to the psych ward during my psychotic episode, but also be treated for a [...]

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Upstate

 There are certain inalienable elements of our ego that go right to our core; things that must be acknowledged and defined oftentimes by dint of severe effort.  The book Upstate for me is just that; the kind of integral feature of one’s sense of self that without it you would cease to be defined at all.  I’ve been captivated [...]

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