Scanning Spree

I went on a scanning spree yesterday. I was awake, but too antsy to do anything truly productive or requiring real attention, so I sat at my computer and scanned in old negatives. The pictures were taken circa 1989–1990 with my brother’s old Nikon rangefinder camera.

I also scanned in some pictures I took in 1996 of my nieces and nephew with my Pentax K-1000. It’s amazing how much the colors suck. The colors are better, or at the very least more interesting (saturated and weird), with the Nikon, while the Pentax just gives too much blue and green (too much cyan and not enough magenta). Yuck. The people looked sick and drained until I color-corrected them (and they still don’t look great).

Carpe Loebem

“Just as the world has decided it can get along without classical literature, we are in a position to read nearly all of it.”

Read the article in the Telegraph, then Laudator Temporis Acti’s commentary on it.

When a tree falls in the forest…

This week (and most of the last) has been all about struggling to stay awake, so no profound profundities from me. I’m not sure why I can’t stay awake for more than about six hours at a time, but it could be due to either avoidance or thyroid issues. If it continues for much longer, I guess I’ll have to put more things on eBay and make an appointment to see my doctor, but I am hoping that it’s just a mood thing and will go away on its own. We shall see.

Some Personal Observations on Lithium

Lithium kills the chaos, irons out your mind. All the crazy wrinkles and dark crevices are leveled out. Compulsions die, including the persistent voice in your head that has constantly, since age 12, told you how worthless you are and how the world would be a better place without you. (In fact, you are no longer the sole citizen of the universe.) Lithium lets you sleep again. Lithium lets you live again.

Lithium poisons your body, destroys your liver, makes you incontinent. Lithium makes you thirsty ALL THE TIME. Lithium makes you sick. Lithium makes you well. Lithium makes you forget. Lithium makes you remember (how sick you were before). Lithium kills you. Lithium gives you your life back. Lithium keeps you from killing yourself.

Logic returns with lithium. Passion goes on hiatus. Lithium is a rebirth, yet also the death of your old self. Lithium is the villain. Lithium is the savior.

Between Dreaming and Waking

And then there are the “is this real?” moments. What is real? Is this real? It doesn’t feel real. It’s almost like an out-of-body experience. I guess you might call it an out-of-mind experience. Is this really my life? Is this really me? Is this my apartment? Am I really back in Baton Rouge or did my mind just retreat there for a sense of safety? When do I wake up? What will be there when I do? Who will I be? Am I going crazy? Am I emerging back into sanity?

A Day in the Bipolar Life

A Day in the Life

Originally uploaded by thisisyourbrainonlithium.

Click on the image to see the exposition. I’m feeling too icky to make a real post today (still being Thursday for me).

Why I Like to Cook (or Getting Well Again)

Cooking is one of those things that people either love or hate to do. I personally avoided learning how to do it as a teenager, because had I been able to, I would have been put into service cooking for anywhere between five and eight people. It was bad enough that I had to wash all those dishes (by hand, of course—large Catholic families can’t afford dishwashers). And my parents’ extremely practical cooking methods attracted none of my interest—I now refer to most of what my mother cooks as “rice and grease,” with lots of meat thrown in for good measure.

At 19, the first husband taught me how to cook red beans and rice. At 20, the Indian roommate tried to teach me how to chop vegetables without sounding like I was chopping wood. He also demonstrated some nice, simple vegetarian Indian dishes. But when I came to live alone, I finally did what every normal kid away at college does—I called home to find out how mom does it.

In 1996, I lived by myself in the best apartment I ever had, with a handset cord on my phone that reached from the living room to the tiny kitchen, and I learned how to cook potato sauce picant, vegetable étouffé, and rice pudding. A few years later, I got an over-the-phone lesson in making chicken gumbo for the second husband. Between all those phone calls, I learned a lot from my various cookbooks as well; they’re particularly helpful with the vegetarian dishes.

Cooking is a feast for the senses. Like anything that involves the senses, it’s something that simply can’t be enjoyed (or, often, done) when one is depressed, so my return to cooking is also a celebration of wellness. As odd as that seems, it is emblematic of all the things that people who are well most of the time take for granted. Cooking is a chore, right? Not when simply getting out of bed every day is a major accomplishment. When you are accustomed to eating out of cans and boxes and plastic wrap, cooking is a joy, a festival of food. Chopping vetgetables becomes meditation. Stirring is magic in action. Watching the pot is fascinating. And eating becomes a footnote to the entire marvelous experiment.

Collage à la Fred

Recently discovered through Flickr, the artist Mary Bogdan has inspired me to go back to my crafty pursuits, which I had lately deserted in favor of obsessive reading. (My being back on the correct dosage of lithium is also playing no small role in this return to mindless less thought intensive activity.)

I find her stuff nifty, especially the pieces that use old pages of text, but like (post?)modern poetry, I have much difficulty discerning art from not-art (cf. poetry vs. not-poetry). I would like to hang her stuff on the wall, but doesn’t that usually indicate not-art?

The lovely piece featured right here is my own imitation/creation. It is a collage composed of newspaper, old book pages, copper tape, gesso, and a very dirty, old, and brittle paper label from the bottom of a very large wooden desk that I bought at Goodwill for $50 which has finally found a home in my new study. I would love to put my book pages on nice pretty Himalayan paper, but well, I can’t even afford typing paper at the moment. Besides, I think the newspaper falls in line with my “texture of life” obsession. I would have used my (so far imaginary conceptual) own handmade recycled paper, but my paper-frame has yet to be built.

Can anyone give me some tips on postmodern art appreciation? Is this just a philosophical mind-block that I’ll never get over? And don’t give me some smart-ass generally unhelpful response like “hers is art, yours is not.” I really don’t get it.

Comme ci, comme ça

Spring cleaning has taken over. Yesterday, I turned the dining room into a study. It had a table, two chairs, a salvaged sewing machine, and many boxes in it; now it has two desks, a different two chairs, a salvaged rug, and only three boxes. And much less cat fur and dirt.

During the past week I have been doing precious little reading and even less thinking. The focus had been on doing, which is somewhat refreshing, even though the reason for it is not exactly honorable.

I am reading—well, rereading—Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (I have only the British edition since the Great Book Purge). This plus the housecleaning (and my burgeoning interest in cooking) can only mean one thing: retreat from reality.

The funny thing is, I can’t remember the last time I have felt so well. Note that I say “well,” not “good,” not “great,” but “well” as in (mentally) healthy. The only real source of stress in my life right now is what I am running away from: my finances are such that eBay is my only hope of paying the bills, and I don’t really have very much left to sell.