Month: March 2023

Posted in Beads, Peripheral neuropathy, Photography

Painkiller

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’m having a peripheral neuropathy flareup and the only reliable painkiller is to make art. I’ve been making lots of art.

One of the claret cup cactus clumps is blooming. We have several clumps, and each one blooms at a different time. The clump that is blooming now always blooms first and always has the most blooms.

Because the vertigo is under control, I can do more night time shooting. I prefer to shoot a less than full moon because I think smiley moons are intriguing.

I’ve been making jewelry and I’m s….l…..o….w….l….y getting the pieces put into my online store, Deb Thuman Art. The problem is it’s hard to tell if the entire necklace is in the photo online. I have to put an item in my store, write up copy, and then check the store to see if the entire necklace shows in the photos. So far, I have to reshoot one necklace.

Deep blue tiger eye, creamy pearls and Swarovski crystals. Swarovski is no longer making crystal beads. I do have a stash of Swarovski crystals, but once they are gone, I can’t get any more.

Agate and quartz. What the gem looks like depends on what flies out of the volcano, where it lands, and how fast or slow the lava cools.

I couldn’t resist buying these iridescent glass leaves.

These three necklaces are in my on-line store, Deb Thuman Art http://www.DebThumanArt.com

I don’t often make jewelry for myself. I gathered all my favorite gems – smokey quartz, malachite, rhodochrosite, pearls among others and made a necklace for myself.

I have a Spoonflower store here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

Put Your Foot Down 183 here: https://fortheloveofgeese.com/put-your-foot-down-183/

An Accidental Finish here: https://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com/2023/03/an-accidental-finish-and-finished-or.html

Posted in bipolar disorder, Child abuse, Depression, Mental Illness

Ketamine

Posted on by debthumanblog

I’ve finished five ketamine treatments and have one to go. My original goal was to be able to decrease the dose of my psych meds. I was trying to find a dosage that was high enough to be effective and low enough that I didn’t turn into a zombie.

Ketamine is supposed to cause the brain to form new neural connections. And it does. After I had a ketamine infusion in 2021, my brain felt full and illuminated by a golden white light. Suddenly, the debilitating depression was gone. I was hoping at home ketamine would be as helpful.

I’m using ketamine from Mindbloom https://www.mindbloom.com/?utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=PM_Search_Branded_Exact_12.2021&utm_device=c&utm_content=634257646790&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2v-gBhC1ARIsAOQdKY3DwvUHrMYjpVEMOfzeIRw_Vp33LvOZiZEw9mBxC2bj0EcZkQ7l1nIaAvhDEALw_wcB, an on-line treatment for depression. Instead of the Magical Mystery Tour with hallucinations, I was merely relaxed during the ketamine session. My brain would daydream. And progress was made without hallucinations.

I’ve been able to decrease the dosage of lamictal and wellbutrin. I have less brain fog. I still lose words and thoughts, but not as often as before ketamine.

There have been some interesting effects I hadn’t expected. Sixteen years of child abuse followed by 18 years of being treated like crap left me with complex PTSD. While I don’t remember the last time I had a repeating nightmare, I still had flashbacks. The flashbacks were no longer debilitating, but they were unwanted and irritating. After struggling with flashbacks for more than 50 years, the flashbacks are gone. The memories are now powerless. I feel stable. Freedom from complex PTSD was unexpected, and wonderful.

I find I’m eating less. My misery with food has a history. The earliest memories are about my grandmother making me toast and a soft boiled egg for breakfast and my mother making pancakes on a weekend. The pancake memory features me sitting in a high chair. A month before my 4th birthday, my mother married, and my life became confusing hell in which I tried to stay quiet and small enough that I wouldn’t get hit. I was never successful. My mother didn’t eat breakfast, so she refused to feed me, or my siblings, breakfast. I remember sitting in school being so hungry and waiting for lunch. Food became a symbol of love. As I tried so hard to get my mother and her husband to love me, all I had of love was food. And fear of fat. So I ate. Or I didn’t eat. Am I “cured” of emotional eating? I don’t know. I just know I’m not eating as much.

My sixth and final dose of ketamine will be sometime this coming week. I haven’t yet scheduled the session. I have options. I can do nothing and watch my emotional responses. I can go to the next step, going deeper, and have another six sessions. I haven’t yet made a decision although I’m leaning towards going deeper. I don’t want to lose the healing momentum.

Posted in Abstract Art, Photography

Hibernian Heritage Day

Posted on by debthumanblog

is dlíodóir atá ionam

Literally, it is a lawyer that is in me and would be the response to a question about what I do for a living. I believe language is a reflection of a culture. Gaelic is the language of a story teller.

Used to be, I thought St. Patrick’s Day was a great day if one was Irish and an excuse to get drunk if one was not. Then, when I was 34, I discovered I’m Scot-Irish. I was right; St. Patrick’s Day is a great day if one is Irish. The first St. Patrick’s Day I spent knowing I’m Irish was special. I celebrated who I am and who I always was. A friend and I ate at McGinty’s in Buffalo, NY. I had corned beef and cabbage. Once a year is about how often I can eat corned beef and cabbage. It’s not haute cuisine. I washed it down with Guinness. If I ever get to Ireland, the first thing I want to do is walk into a bar and order Guinness. I want to know if Guinness in the US tastes the same as Guinness in Ireland.

After surviving Moot Court in my second year of law school, Jim, Subrata – my moot court partner, and I celebrated at Sean Patrick’s. I should have figured out I wasn’t in an Irish restaurant when I read the house special in the menu: spaghetti. Still, I asked the waitress if they had Guinness. “No. What is that?” It should be a felony to try to pass your establishment off as Irish and not serve Guinness.

Last year, for the first time, I managed to make edible Irish soda bread. The other recipes I had tried were dense and salty. No, I don’t remember the recipe I used last year.

This is spring break, so Jim and I have the painting studio mostly to ourselves. I’ve finished up a self-portrait as viewed from the inside and I think I’ve finished a social commentary painting.

This is the self-portrait as viewed from the inside.

Social commentary.

It’s spring in the desert and the claret cup cactus is blooming.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

Posted in Abstract Art, Garden

Spring And Stuff

Posted on by debthumanblog

Today, we spring forward. Bleah! I detest daylight savings time. Just when it’s starting to be light out when I have to get up, the time changes and I’m back to getting up in the dark. When it’s light out, my brain tells me it’s time to get up. When it’s dark out, my brain is convinced it’s the middle of the night. As for permanent daylight savings time….it’s like ripping off a bandage. Put it in place so people can see for themselves what a dumb idea it is – especially when their kids have to wait for the school bus in the dark – and then permanently get rid of it.

Spring in the desert is a little different from spring in the north east. No crocus. No tulips. No iris.

I’m not sure what this is, but it’s growing in the back yard.

Claret cup cactus buds. They should be open in about a week. There are several clumps of claret cup cacti in the yard, and each clump blooms at a different time.

I’ve been working on fabric designs.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

Posted in International Women's Day

A Woman’s Place Is

Posted on by debthumanblog

Anywhere she wants to be.

Today is International Women’s Day. When I entered the workforce in 1970, pregnancy was mandatory, women needed higher grades to get into college, and help wanted was divided into: Help Wanted Female; Help Wanted Male.

Many years, many fights, many lawsuits later, we still have a wage gap, pregnancy is once again mandatory, and we have a generation of women who have no clue how long and how hard we had to fight so they could have more opportunities.

When I was in college majoring in biology, there were two women professors in the biology department. One allowed students to address her as Mrs. Wilson. She had the same doctoral degree the men had. They were Dr. She was Mrs. A chemistry teacher, male, after refusing to answer my question, told me I was incapable of learning. The next chemistry teacher, also male refused to answer questions women asked….until the day I had enough and we had a battle in the middle of class. No one won. In a physics class, I was confused about something or other. One of the male students told the professor: Come on, answer the girl’s question. The professor ignored him, too.

When I entered law school at a notoriously liberal law school in 1990, mine was the first class to be half female. It only took 101 years to achieve that.

When I started practicing in 1994, I was stuck in the Women’s Area Of Law. That would be family court dealing with abuse, neglect, custody, and all the crap that two people can hurl at each other. I knew I had to get out of family law the day I decided the best way to handle custody disputes was to throw each parent off the roof of the courthouse. Whichever one bounced the highest got the kids. The sick part wasn’t my idea. The sick part is the parents would have agreed. The other half of Women’s Area Of Law was sex crimes – especially sex crimes against children. I managed not to get stuck in sex crimes.

It’s been a long fight, and a long fight remains.

No matter your age or experience, pick up the torch and carry it. What lifts one of us lifts us all.

Posted in Abstract Art, Judiasm, Photography

There Used To Be Magic

Posted on by debthumanblog

Mine is the last generation that will see magic in the night sky. Ancient people looked up at the sky, and saw stars arranged into constellations. Legends were created for these constellations. Escaping slaves followed the drinking gourd which pointed to the north star as they traveled along the underground railroad. The moon was made of green cheese. People counted, and some still do, time by the phases of the moon. There was a Man In The Moon. The night sky was filled with magic.

In July 1969, the magic died. The instant Neil Armstrong’s boot touched the surface of the moon, we exchanged magic for knowledge. We lost more than we gained.

I took Brady out to pee, and looked up. There was a smiling moon and a bright venus. I tried to put magic back into the night sky by making the moon out of green cheese.

Life. This one surprised me. Although it was not my conscious intention, there’s a Hebrew letter here. It’s called “shin” and the letter makes the sh sound. It’s also the first letter of one of our most important prayers and the letter that adorns a mezuzzah.

Gestation.

This is the first in a series of three paintings about life. When I was little, I tried hard to remember where I was before I was born. I couldn’t access the memory but I knew I existed before I was born. I eventually came to understand the concept of a soul. The soul exists long before conception and long after death.

Life.

Death.

I need to clean up the edges on this one.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/

My store is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman