Category: Uncategorized

What bothers me about the push towards total electricity is politicians overlook so much. 

We have to mine stuff for batteries. How do we do that without horrible pollution and poison water? At the moment, we’re poising pristine small islands and countries to get the stuff we need for batteries. Just because we aren’t living with the damage we’re causing doesn’t mean there’s no damage. Just because the damage isn’t happening in the US doesn’t mean it’s okay to damage other places. If you want an idea of how much damage mining does, take a look at West Virginia. Read about the Buffalo Creek disaster. Read about blowing off mountain tops to mine coal. Look at Pennsylvania where you own the surface of land but not what’s underneath. Why is that a problem? Because the coal companies mine under your house, and you are SOL if the mine caves in and what’s left of your house is a mile below the surface. There’s quite a bit of case law on subsidence and every time the courts sided with the coal companies. 

Batteries don’t live forever. What do we do with the dead batteries? 

Electricity doesn’t grow on trees. How are we going to generate all this extra electricity? We’ve got an electric grid that can’t handle electric use now. 

Exchange gas appliances for electric. What are we going to do with all the dead appliances? Why should I spend money to replace perfectly good appliances? I had the 21-year-old a/c units replaced only because the ones we had were close to dead. I have a perfectly good gas dryer and perfectly good gas stove. I’ll replace them when they die but not before. 

It takes 30-40 minutes to fully charge an electric car at a charging station. And what am I supposed to do for that 30-40 minutes? Worse, what am I supposed to do while I wait for the people ahead of me to charge their cars? 

This business about saving gas money is false. Electricity isn’t free.

 Plug the car in at home? Great. Wait 10-12 hours for the car to charge. Yes, you can buy home charging stations. That’s not an option for me. We’d have to run a special electric line 10 miles from Las Cruces to Dona Ana. That’s a major expense because the electric company charges by the foot for the line and the installation. The electricity still isn’t free. 

Electric vehicles don’t have much of a rang unless the car is a sub-compact. NM has a whole lot of middle of nowhere and very few charging stations. While I’ve always looked for great gas mileage and am content to drive a small car, I also need something practical. Brady has to ride in a crate and that crate won’t fit in the Mini. It barely fits in the Elantra. When I have to use a walker, I have to drag it with me when I go somewhere. Getting the walker in and out of the trunk of the Elantra is a fight. I never thought I’d buy something the size of the Santa Fe, but I need a vehicle that size. The electric Santa Fe – which cost $10K more than what I paid for my Santa Fe  – has a range of 30 miles. My 2021 Santa Fe has the same gas mileage as my 2016 Elantra. Plus, we only buy a new car when the car we have is dead. The Camry lived for 17 years and had 280k+ miles on it when it became too expensive and impractical to fix.  We don’t sell the old car when we get a new one. We send the old car to the junk yard. 

Why are we letting oil companies frack the crap out of the Permian Basin if we’re pushing to go total electric? Why are we letting oil companies put in more and more wells in the Permian Basin if we’re pushing to go total electric? If we care about climate change, why are we letting oil companies release way more methane than allowed? More to the point, why are we letting them release any methane? 

I’ve lived in a total electric house. It’s unbelievably expensive. In Lockport, we had one bill for gas and electric and our total electric house had zoned heating – a thermostat for each room. Even with solar panels on the house, it was too expensive to have a warm house. How expensive? I’ve never had an electric bill here that was as high as what we paid in Lockport and I’m living in a house twice the size of what we had in Lockport.  When we put in a ceramic log burning gas stove, our bill dropped $150. And the stove had only been in for about half of the billing cycle. We installed it in February – the coldest month of the winter. The high temp is about 10 degrees and there’s a 60 mph wind blowing across a frozen Lake Erie. The lake typically has 200 square miles of ice in the winter. Instead of a cold house, the gas stove let me have a warm house. Electricity is only cheap if you don’t use any. And where did that electricity come from? A brand new coal fired generating station that’s now obsolete and offline.

Cold weather drains batteries at an incredibly fast rate. Anyone who has ever done outdoor photography in the winter knows that. And it doesn’t have to get all that cold before the batteries drain at warp speed. Rapid draining starts at about 35F. Those electric vehicles are close to useless in the north east for about 6 months out of the year. 

My issue isn’t with electricity. My issue is with not thinking through what’s needed and how we get what’s needed and what we do with the dead batteries. 

A better approach would be to push for hybrid vehicles. Less gas used, but no need to wonder where the nearest charging station is or to be stuck with a travel range of 30 miles. A better approach is to push for solar electricity. Make it so solar panels are affordable. We did get a price for solar panels on our house, but it was horribly expensive, more than $20K. Solar panel companies regularly go out of business and then you’re stuck with a system that can’t be fixed if it breaks. And they do break. Been there, done that. Refuse to issue any more drilling permits and permanently revoke every drilling permit for any oil company that releases more than the allowable amount of methane.

I don’t feel like doing anything and had to push myself to do some photography. Being outside and concentrating on flowers helped, but not enough. I’m going to have to take an extra antidepressant today. My doctor knows I do this when necessary.

I think these would make interesting whole cloth designs.

Jim broke up the iris clump last fall and now we’ve got little clumps flowering.

Each of the claret cup cactus bloom at a different time.

Close up of claret cup flowers.

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

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

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

Fifty years ago today, the US Supreme Court said my uterus was my business. I no longer needed to worry about an accidental pregnancy. This past June, the US Supreme Court hijacked my uterus and said my uterus is the government’s (read fundamentalist Christians’) business. Men who hate women – specifically the governors of Texas and Florida inter alia – have hijacked my uterus. My uterus no longer belongs to me the way my kidneys belong to me. My uterus belongs to the government. I can keep my kidneys, though.

Now, we can relearn what to do with a coat hanger. Now, we can relearn on which kitchen table we can take back our uteruses. If I break my leg, I have medical privacy. My uterus has no medical privacy. Now, we can keep a list of states where abortion is legal along with a price list for abortions. When I had to worry about an unwanted pregnancy, the price of an abortion was $180.00. Now, the cost is about 8 times that not including travel expenses, lodging and meals.

Life begins at conception in that the product of conception is living tissue which may or may not become a human being. Human life begins at birth. Women who have a miscarriage are denied medical care because doctors are terrified of being charged with performing an illegal abortion. A doctor has been vilified for performing an abortion on a 10-year-old child.  

The part that galls me the most, is the voice that has been silenced is the voice of the unwanted child. Although I’ve submitted letters to the editors of newspapers telling what it’s like to be the unwanted, hated and abused child, not one newspaper will print my letter.

My uterus doesn’t belong to me. The abuse that happened to me growing up doesn’t belong to me. My life doesn’t belong to me.

No human should have to grow up being hated, unwanted and abused. But let’s not talk about that. Besides, all those women who don’t want to be pregnant will change their minds once the baby is born. Yeah, right. My mother sure didn’t change her mind and welcome me once I was born.

Shhhhh…..that’s a secret and we must never talk about it.

I sent to the editor of the local paper today. The republicans successfully sued to make voter registration available via a website the republicans operate. Being a criminal defense attorney, I work hard at hiding my address because having a client show up on my doorstep could be disastrous. Several years ago, a client tried to burn down my house. I checked the website, and my name, street address, party affiliation, and the last time I voted is available to anyone with access to the internet. I thought hard about whether it would be worth the risk to have the letter published. Today, I decided silence was too high a price to pay to avoid a potential risk.

This is the letter I sent.

“No one bothers to ask unwanted children about abortion. Ours are the only voices not heard when the topic is abortion. We need to be heard, and you need to listen.

My mother wasn’t married when she had me. That was a big deal in 1952, especially in the rural area we lived. I was never around kids until I went to kindergarten so I had no idea I was supposed to have a father. Out of the urge to avoid the embarrassment of sending me to kindergarten without a father, she and her husband married a month before my 4th birthday. I remember my grandmother taking me by the plum tree and saying: Your mother and father are getting married today. 

What followed was violent hell until I got married. My mother was a violent, drunken narcissist. Her husband was a violent drunk. I was hit, pulled around by my hair, beaten with a belt, yanked off a chair by my mother’s husband when he grabbed my hair, screamed at and told I was worthless. I knew full well that my mother and her husband hated me. I used to think that if I had been born a boy, they would have liked me. I’d come home from a sleep over and my mother would tell me, “It was so peaceful while you were gone.” I’d hear my mother’s husband tell my brother not to be like me because one like that in the family is enough. Once, he was arguing with my mother and told her, “Now I know why Debby is the way she is.” 

My mother and her husband had a cottage at Rushford Lake. My mother would take my siblings to the lake during the week. When I asked to go to the lake with them, my mother refused to take me. I had to stay home and babysit her husband. I’d spend most of the day going through cookbooks to find a recipe for dinner. Then, when the dinner was ready, I’d wait for my mother’s husband to come home.  He was always late because he had been sitting in a bar. He’d tell me he had already eaten and then go to bed. I was stuck with the dinner I had made. When I asked my mother to take me with her and my three siblings to the lake, she refused.

When I got married, the complex PTSD – although the diagnosis didn’t exist at that time – was so bad I couldn’t think about growing up without crying. 50 years later, I still have flashbacks. They aren’t debilitating, but recently for the first time I had an emotional reaction to a flashback. I saw the horror of what I went through. 

I put myself through college and earned two degrees, biology and journalism. I put myself through law school. I ran my own solo law practice. I moved 2000 miles across the country by myself. I’m the only one of the four kids who never had an abortion, got divorced or used illegal drugs. Obviously, I’m every mother’s worst nightmare. 

My father, who I never met until I was 35, is a drunken selfish jerk. I was 34 when I went to get a copy of my birth certificate and was told by a clerk in the vital statistics office that I was adopted. I felt as if someone slammed me against a brick wall. I remember thinking that even my feet hurt. Until that moment, I didn’t know my mother’s husband had adopted me.

After the revelation at the vital statistics office, I walked two blocks to the library and went through a couple rolls of microfilm to find a birth announcement and discovered my father’s name. I spent the rest of the day thinking I was handling the news well. I woke up the next morning and the shock hit me. This is real, and it’s not going to go away.  It took 5 months and a lot of determination, but I found my father. It took a year and a half for him to decide I was too much reality for him and he shoved me out of his life. I’ve no idea if he’s still living although I’ve never been able to find a death notice for him. 

When I talked to my mother about being adopted, I asked her why she didn’t have an abortion. She was quiet and wouldn’t look at me. I asked her if she tried to have an abortion. She said it was illegal. Later, when my sisters were young adults, our diehard Catholic mother told them that if they get pregnant before they get married they should have an abortion. 

My grandmother was horrified that I knew I was adopted and who my father was. She blamed the clerk at vital statistics for telling me I was adopted. Once my mother discovered that I knew I was adopted, I was shoved out of the family. I was never told that my youngest sister was sick or that she had died. I only knew my mother died because I subscribe to Legacy.com. I had to crash her funeral. 

I’m glad I’m alive, but being aborted is 1000 times better than the hell I went through. 

Every one of those right-to-life fanatics should be forced to raise all the unwanted children they just created.”

I hate mother’s day. My mother was a violent, narcissistic drunk who had four children she didn’t want and made real sure we knew she didn’t want us. By the time I was 10, I had myself and three siblings to raise.  She also hated me.  Why would anyone want to honor such a woman?

I don’t have children. That’s by choice. My choice. Not the choice of vile people who demanded I have kids. Not the choice of the jerk who tried to shame me into having children and asked what would have happened if my mother felt the way I feel.  Thinking I could shut him up, I told him she did feel that way. He told me I had a bad example. That was the closest I’ve ever come to hitting someone. I figured I could break his nose before he hit back. 

Another jerk asked me if I “had been blessed” while he patted my abdomen. I felt like breaking his arm. Unfortunately, I was in a courtroom where bone breaking wasn’t an option. What made that jerk think it was okay to touch my abdomen? My body. I decide who touches it. 

Other jerks told me I’d feel different after I had a child. Really? Then why didn’t my mother feel different after she had each unwanted child? And what if I didn’t feel differently? 

My grandmother tried to bribe me with a pink baby sweater telling me I could have the sweater if only I had a baby. That was the same pink baby sweater she had made for my cousin’s baby but my grandmother didn’t think the sweater was nice enough, so she kept the sweater. 

I had often wanted to tell jerks who wanted me to have kids that I couldn’t possibly have children. If I did, I’d be depriving ignorant jerks like you from being able to make ignorant comments like the one the you just made. But I was too polite. 

I’m hiding at home this weekend. I don’t want to be told to have a happy mother’s day. Apparently people think possession of a uterus means one is required to have children. I don’t want to explain not having children. I don’t want to and should not have to justify my choices. 

Per the NIH, prior to the pandemic, 26% of the population of the United States had a diagnosed mental illness. During the pandemic, the estimate was 50% of the population had a mental illness. 

Suddenly, people have this idea that they know about mental illness simply because they experienced depression and anxiety. They wear their depression and anxiety as if it were a merit badge. 

I have this to say to them: You don’t know anything about mental illness. 

Has your health insurer limited the amount of mental health care you can receive? Has your health insurer made the cost of an emergency room visit for a mental health crisis double the cost of an emergency room visit for a physical health crisis. Has your health insurer told you that you need prior authorization in order to go to the emergency room when you have a mental health crisis?  Have you panicked after learning Medicare won’t pay anything until you spend $1500.00 out of pocket. And after the out-of-pocket limit has been reached, Medicare has strict limits on what Medicare pays for mental health treatment. 

Have you spent days when you couldn’t stop crying and your meds weren’t working? Have you experienced an all-consuming, heavy, black depression? Have you had to go to work every day while you spent three months adjusting to your new meds which are working a whole lot better than your old meds? Have you planned out how, when and where you will kill yourself? Have you had a doctor say you show no sign of depression after you disclosed you want to kill yourself and you brought someone with you to the appointment because you might need someone to stop you from buying a box of bullets on the way home? Have you ever had to ask someone to hide your guns so you couldn’t shoot yourself in the heart?

Has your supervisor, insisted you go back into the closet and never again mention you have a mental illness? Has your supervisor told you that you’re crazy? Has your supervisor dared to tell you that he doesn’t like the medication you are on? Has your supervisor demanded you see a psychiatrist as a condition of your employment? Have you discovered upper management is having private meetings about how your mental health is effecting your employment without ever talking to you? And you accurately determined upper management was looking for a reason to fire you?

Has a psychiatrist ignored your concerns about the side effects of a medication and told you that you’re on a good medication? Has a psychiatrist told you, after you say that the dose of an antidepressant is working well, ignored you and doubled the dose of your medication? Have you tried to tell a psychiatrist that you haven’t slept in two months and the psychiatrist refused to listen to you? 

Has anyone literally backed away from you after you disclose you have a mental illness? 

Have you had to listen to well-educated professionals say that mentally ill people don’t come to court because they don’t know better? Or say that all the normal people should be let out of jail? Or say that the withdrawal hell that happens after coming off an antidepressant that isn’t working is just the depression coming back? Have you been laughed at by a room full of well-educated professionals after saying that lying on the floor while trying to make the walls stop moving and then dragging yourself to the restroom because you had to throw up isn’t depression?

Have you been told to just snap out of it? Or that your problems are all in your head?

Have you had two psychiatrists and four psychologists fail to diagnose bipolar disorder forcing you to live in mental health hell for 40 years? Have you had three school psychologists decide you were more trouble than you were worth and refuse to treat you?

Have you ever felt the need to tell someone you aren’t violent? Or that you aren’t broken? Or that while your brain works differently from theirs you are still normal?

All of that happened to me. 

Until it happens to you, you don’t know anything about mental illness. 

I’ve survived a difficult week. April 1 would have been my late sister’s 59^th birthday. She died when she was 34. My violent, drunken, narcissistic mother threatened my siblings with being removed from the will if they told me my sister was ill or that she died. A friend called to ask how I was doing, and discovered I had no idea my sister had died. It was the only time in my life I’ve heard keening. It’s a blood freezing sound and it came out of me. I have two miserable days a year, April 1 and June 24 – the anniversary of her death. 

After crying through my neurobiology class, I decided to skip my genetics class and make jewelry instead. The next day, I had a neuropathy flare up. Making art makes the pain disappear; I made more necklaces.

The necklace is in my store here: https://www.debthumanart.com/product-page/dalmatian-necklace

In my store here: https://www.debthumanart.com/product-page/21-jasper-necklace

In my store here: https://www.debthumanart.com/product-page/20-slice-of-agate-necklace

Garnet necklace is in my store here: https://www.debthumanart.com/product-page/24-garnet-necklace

Angelite necklace is here: https://www.debthumanart.com/product-page/21-angelite-and-rhodochrosite-necklace

I’ve been working on knitted tube socks. With hand knit socks, the heel is the first place to wear out. With tube socks, my heel is never in the exact place twice and the tube socks last longer than traditional socks with heels. 

Funky tube socks are here: http://debthumanart.com/product-page/funky-tube-socks-4

Funky socks are here: https://www.debthumanart.com/product-page/funky-tube-socks-3

These are found here: https://www.debthumanart.com/product-page/funky-tube-socks

These funky socks are found here: http://debthumanart.com/product-page/funky-tube-socks-3

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: http://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 Wix does something odd with their DIY sites. Only 6 items will show on my home page. If you want to see more items, look at the top left of the screen and click on “shop.”

Mental illness and a pandemic is a rough combination. I thought I was going to have to be hospitalized Friday. It was bad enough I had Jim call the HMO and the hospital. I watched a cooking show by one of my favorite chefs Saturday and my mood brightened…..then slowly sank. It’s hard to explain what happened. I started crying on Friday and could not stop. I added an extra mood stabilizer and doubled my antidepressant. My doctor knows I do this. The problem is finding a dose high enough to keep me stable yet low enough that I don’t turn into a zombie. This is common with psych meds. I still couldn’t stop crying. I don’t do well with customer service under the best of conditions and for some reason, the HMO won’t ever give me an accurate answer. They only give Jim an accurate answer. So Jim spent quality time on the phone with me telling him what to ask. 

To get to the only psych ward in the county, I’d have to go to the ER. If I have severe abdominal pain and I go to the ER, the copay is $250. If I have severe mental illness and go to the ER, the copay is $500. Plus there’s a $350 deductible that has to be paid. $850, and all that gets me is an expensive quick eval. But wait! I don’t get that until I have prior authorization from the HMO. Translated: make sure I know at least a month in advance if I’m going to be suicidal. Per the HMO, the hospital starts the prior authorization. If the HMO denies authorization, I’m stuck paying several thousand dollars out of pocket. I’m not suicidal, thank you God so I likely wouldn’t be admitted. We’re having a little covid crisis here. And a lack of vaccine. Plus, I’ve heard horror stories from my clients about treatment that’s clearly illegal and in some cases, a first degree felony (18 years in prison) when they’ve been hospitalized. Spouses have been denied any access to their loved one. Clients who have been severely overmedicated. Psychiatrist who, upon being told the med my client was taking wasn’t working, told my client she wouldn’t be let out of the hospital until she was med compliant. Ain’t no way anyone is going to let an attorney onto the psych ward. So I decided to save $850 and not go to the hospital. 

There’s a dedicated mental hospital in town, but ….you’ll love this… you can’t get admitted unless you have a mental illness and a chemical addiction or a mental illness and you’re a drunk. Plus what I know about that hospital is enough to convince me never to go there. For anything. A psychiatrist there, who hadn’t seen my client in years, wrote a deliberately inaccurate report designed to ensure my client couldn’t get into a psych ward anywhere in the state. You get to learn a whole lot about mental health mistreatment when you’re a criminal defense attorney and work for the public defender department. 

We have a psych triage center in town – adjacent to the jail – that was completed in 2013. It still hasn’t opened. Dust bunnies are treated there. The county manager, who no one should ever trust, is doing a sweetheart deal with a provider in Arizona. Someday, maybe, the contract will be approved. Then it will take time to hire staff. Or ship staff in from Arizona. What’s a sweetheart deal without kickbacks? 

There’s a decent psych ward in a teaching hospital in El Paso. That would be the same El Paso with the 10 refrigerator trucks acting as temporary morgues. I could go there, but I’d need prior authorization and an act of God to get the HMO to pay because if I go out of town for any medical care, I need prior authorization. If I went to the hospital in El Paso, I could have a foot long tube shoved down my throat to help me breath while I wait for covid to kill me. 

And so I’m researching ketamine therapy. There are a couple clinics in town, but I don’t know if they take my insurance. No, I don’t want to have to pay $15K+ for ketamine therapy. I looked at ECT (formerly electric shock treatment) and rejected that idea. It’s rare that it does any good for anyone; the side effects are horrendous and often permanent. I looked at transcranial magnetic stimulation. It may work for depression and chronic pain (no idea why it would work for both), but it’s a horrible choice for someone who is bipolar. As in it makes the bipolar disorder worse. Ketamine looks like it would be an effective choice for me. I can’t do anything until Monday, and I have my zoom session with my psychologist on Monday. Jim wants me to ask my psychologist about ketamine before I do anything. I’d buy ketamine on the street, but I don’t know where to get it and there’s no telling what you’re getting when you buy drugs on the street. 

I could get better medical care in a halfway decent Third World country.

I began the week with food poisoning. One day, there was the most interesting light outside. Ordinarily, I’d walk to the back of the yard and photograph the mountains. I got as far as the patio. 

I wanted more photos, but I didn’t have the energy to walk around. So I shot through the bathroom window. 

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

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

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

Precisely how stupid do you think I am? 

When the narcissistic sociopath mocked a reporter who has a disability, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath ripped children from parents’ arms, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath locked terrified children in cages and forced them to sleep on a concrete floor, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath bragged about being a sex offender, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath told lie after lie after lie, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath told people covid was fake news, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath told people to stop getting tested so the spread of covid would be slowed, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath told people to drink bleach and hand sanitizer, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath played golf while more than 300,000 people died, you said nothing. 

When the United States has approximately 25% of the covid cases in the world, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath appointed a woman who insisted on making rape on college campuses harder to prosecute as secretary of education, you said nothing. 

When the press secretary for the narcissistic sociopath stood in front of a room full of reporters and denied the Holocaust, you said nothing. 

When the narcissistic sociopath proceeded to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, you said nothing. 

Now you want me to believe you are outraged by the narcissistic sociopath inciting a riot? Your outrage comes only after you were confronted by a deranged, crazed, armed mob storming the Capitol Building. The building in which you work. When your personal safety was in jeopardy. 

I’m not stupid enough to believe you. 

You are covered with the same stink that has covered the narcissistic sociopath for the last four years. 

I am suffering from a severe lack of ambition. I need to clean the bathroom, vacuum the rugs, read my physiology textbook, and get around to cooking something. I need to do meal planning and eat a balanced diet. I need to work on the novel. I need to make quilt basting spray. I need to quilt the suicide quilt now that I’ve figured out how I want to quilt it. I need to make the isolation quilt now that I’ve got a firm design worked out. I need to get back to exercising. I need to unload the dishwasher. I need to put ingredients in the bread machine and make bread before Jim does something horrible like buying bread at the grocery store. I need to select fabric designs and have Spoonflower proof them so I can sell my designs. I need to take my vitamins.

I’m not doing a damn thing. 

Almost not a damn thing. I did a load of laundry this morning and sprayed mold killer in the shower. Now, I need to put clean sheets on the bed. I’m not doing that, either. 

I don’t know how to get myself out of this funk. I’d love to go back to the gym, but it’s too dangerous because the county I live in is a hotspot. My severely decreased endurance is scaring me. Many days, I go outside and take photos. It doesn’t help. I’m making some progress on the insomnia. Even getting 6 hours sleep a night doesn’t help. I was getting 4 hours sleep. 

The broken tooth has limited my food choices. I still have lots of food options and I don’t feel like making any one of those options. Yesterday, I soaked some dried cherries in water and intend, someday, to use the cherries in cookies. I should probably take my anti-anxiety med, but that requires I walk into the kitchen where the meds are kept. I don’t feel like doing that.

I have always had problems concentrating, but it’s worse now. I know a good part of that is lack of sleep. That doesn’t comfort me. I’ve had extreme anxiety for so long that extreme anxiety feels normal. 

Bleah. 

Manipulated grass photo. Eventually, I’ll find the ambition to pick out designs to have proofed. Once proofed, I can sell the designs on Spoonflower. My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a creosote bush seedpod.

Tunas. Those red things are prickly pear seed pods. They’re edible. People eat them, turn them into jam, or turn them into wine.

Just to prove I really can take the stick out of my butt…..

Normally, I try hard to get accurate colors. This time, something interesting happened while editing this shot. The flower really is this shade of yellow. The background, in real life, is desert brown. I like what happened here.

I frequently take shots of patterns. Can you figure out what this is a shot of? Hint: it’s not wood.

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

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

Maybe I’ve got this figured out. It’s too soon to know for sure. I’ve battled insomnia for five months. Sleeping pills don’t work. Melatonin doesn’t work. Relaxation music doesn’t work. Music that’s supposed to trigger brain waves to promote deep sleep doesn’t work. 

I’ve always had an inordinate amount of anxiety. Lots of reasons for that, and none I want to discuss. It’s okay; I discuss those reasons with my psychologist. For the past five months, I’ve battled extreme anxiety. Relaxation music doesn’t work. Klonopin helps, but I’d need to have an increased dose to defeat the anxiety. I’m not going to ask my doctor to increase the dose. I’ve been on the lowest dose since August 2007. I take it when I need it and don’t bother when I don’t need it. Having been through the hell of psych med withdrawal a number of times, I’m not about to risk addiction to deal with a temporary problem.

I’m out of ideas. 

I’m done fighting insomnia. 

I’m done fighting extreme anxiety. 

We live is terrifying times. There’s a virus that has caused a pandemic. There’s no vaccine. There’s no cure. Scientists are discovering the virus attacks far more than the lungs. It attacks other organs and causes irreversible damage. 

That’s terrifying.

In the United States, we have a narcissistic sociopath running the country. He’s lied, dismantled environmental protections, pissed off leaders of other countries, treated the Queen of England horribly, mocks disabilities, mocks veterans, mocks the parents who have buried sons or daughters killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, decimated the economy, and encouraged people to drink bleach. 

That’s terrifying. 

In the United States, we have a presidential election in November. The narcissistic sociopath has threatened to send the military to “protect” polling places, dismantled the postal service in an effort to thwart absentee balloting, and claims if he loses the election (please God let him lose), it will be the fault of the post office. 

That’s terrifying. 

Being terrified when in the midst of terrifying events is healthy. Being anxious and sleepless in the midst of terrifying events is evidence of mental health. Only a psychotic person wouldn’t be terrified by what’s happening in the world and in the United States. 

I’m terrified. I’m worried. I’m afraid the narcissistic sociopath will get re-elected and my country will be destroyed. That’s evidence of mental health. I don’t care if the military, the police and Putin stand between me and the voting booth. I’m voting in this election. 

I once offered a friend the following advice: Your feelings are your feelings. They aren’t good or bad. They are just there. The appropriate response to anyone who says you should or should not feel a certain way is to tell the person to fuck off. 

I’m done fighting. I accept that I have extreme anxiety and that anxiety is reasonable. I accept that I have insomnia and that insomnia is reasonable. I finally figured out that I cannot battle my feelings. They’re my feelings. I’m entitled to have them. I get to decide how to respond to things that are out of my control. 

I have this to say to extreme anxiety and insomnia: fuck off. 

I’ll let you know if this works.  

Chapter 1

Bang. 

The pain is gone. The hurt is gone. The struggle is gone. All gone. All quiet. All without feelings, fear, or loneliness. Gone. But not missed. 

“Why would she do something like this?”

I did this because I didn’t want to live in pain any more. 

“Too bad she couldn’t find a way to exorcise her demons.”

I didn’t have psychic demons. I had physical pain. I had days when death would be a relief. 

“I never thought she would kill herself. She seemed so happy.”

I don’t understand why everyone is surprised. All of you knew I was in pain. All of you knew the pain was permanent. 

“I thought she believed in God.”

I did and I do. That didn’t make my body or my perception of who I was hurt less. 

“Why didn’t she reach out?”

Would you have done anything if I had? It was so rational deciding how to kill myself. Pills aren’t a good approach. Too easy for the body to decide to puke up the poison. Hanging. Nope, I don’t want to hang around dangling and waiting to die. Drowning like Virginia Woolf. No. My sadistic, hateful, drunken stepfather frequently threatened to hold my head underwater until the bubbles stopped coming up. I didn’t want to kill myself in the house. Too messy and the house can’t be sold until all the blood and tissue are cleaned up. I wonder who does that kind of cleaning. I didn’t want to kill myself outside. What if I wasn’t found within a few days? I didn’t want animals to eat me. Silly, isn’t it. Worrying about animals eating the body that doesn’t contain me any more. 

“How did she die?”

I killed myself during my appointment with a neurologist. I kept asking neurologists questions, and they kept refusing to answer me. Instead, they smiled, told me to take designer drugs that did not work, and hurried out of the room.

“Women don’t shoot themselves.” 

Except when they do. I held the pistol an inch to the left of my sternum and shot myself in the heart. I wanted to be dead when I killed myself.  No having doctors trying to put Humptyette Dumpty back together again. No being on life support. If I’m going to kill myself, I want to be dead when I’m done. 

“If only I had known; I could have saved her.”

No, you couldn’t. Only God or I could have saved me and neither of us wanted to do that. 

“Did anyone know she was depressed?”

What a stupid question. Of course I hid my depression. I didn’t want to be taken to a hospital where I’d be heavily medicated for as long as my HMO would pay. Maybe three days. Then I’d be dumped out and sent home to await a bill for the co-pay. I’d still be in pain. I’d still want to die. 

“I wonder what she thought just before she died.”

I stood on the edge of life and looked down into death. Death looked inviting. 

“I wonder if it hurts to shoot yourself.”

Not really. I felt something hot, then nothing. 

“I wonder if you’re still in pain after you kill yourself.”

No. The pain is gone. It’s peaceful here; the kind of comforting peace that reaches my soul. Being dead isn’t bad. Had I known I’d be at peace, I’d have killed myself long ago. 

“Nice photo montage of her life.”

Who picked out these photos? Me dressed up for the Renaissance Faire. Me as a little kid. My first Christmas and I was four months old. Everyone in that photo looks like they are at a funeral. I guess that’s an appropriate photo for my funeral. 

“Nice flowers.”

There’s only one, unimaginative arrangement of red roses. Just red roses. I prefer white roses. It’s a big arrangement so I suppose it was expensive. There should be more flowers.

“The Lord is my shepherd….”

Christ. Why do people recite that psalm at funerals? The psalm isn’t about death, it’s about life and faith in God. 

“What I remember most about…..”

Wait, what? You never talked with me. You never spent any time with me. You never knew me so what’s to remember?

“She had such passion for her work.”

While I was alive, you told people I was too emotional and that I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. Bet you thought no one would tell me about your hypocrisy. 

“So many people loved her.”

Where was your love for me when I was alive? You never asked how I was doing. You never wanted to have lunch with me. You never talked to me unless you wanted something from me. 

“She gave so much of herself.”

I gave and gave and gave until the empathy well was dry and the compassion well only slightly moist.  No one gave back. 

“It’s so hard to say goodby to her.”

You never said hello to me while I was alive. Why bother saying goodby when I’m dead? 

“God full of mercy who dwells above, give rest on the wings of the divine presence in the exalted spheres of the holy and pure who shine as the resplendence of the firmament of the soul…”

I love that prayer.  Soul. The never beginning and never ending part of me. 

“May the all-merciful one shelter her with the cover of his wings forever and bind her soul in the bond of life. The Lord is her heritage; may she rest in her resting place in peace and let us say amen.”

I was hoping that’s what happens when you are dead – being sheltered by God’s wing. I’m here alone, although I don’t feel lonely. I do feel protected. None of you can ever hurt me again. 

“Yitgadal v yitkadash..”

How odd to hear people recite Kaddish. I feel like I should have my kippah and tallit. Except I have no head or shoulders. 

Chapter 2

The Middle – because I can’t bear it to be the end of you. Because I keep writing to you even though you aren’t there. Because you left behind a hole filled with my grief. 

You shot yourself. I don’t understand. You have family who love you.You have friends. You have work you love. 

And you shot yourself. 

I don’t get it. I’m the one who is supposed to be dead. I’m the one who has been suicidal six times. So often there was pain, and not even a marginal form of happiness existed for me. Except I’m alive. And you’re dead. How did that happen? 

I used to believe that God alone was in charge of death or birth. I don’t know if I can believe that any more. How could God let you kill yourself?

This isn’t real. There’s some mistake. You’re really alive and just hiding from all of us. If you’re dead, there’s nothing left of you. Did I miss a clue about your unhappiness? I’m sorry. Come back. Please. I promise I’ll do better. Please come back. 

I think about you being all alone and in pain, pain you never let anyone see; and I’m sad. I ask why you killed yourself, but you don’t answer me.I think about you being cremated and all of you being nothing but ashes. As if you had never been alive.

Did you think you couldn’t talk about the pain? Did you think you were weak or had a character defect? Is that why you said nothing? Were you embarrassed by your vulnerability? Did you think I couldn’t understand? Or did you know I would understand but you wanted to die so you said nothing?

One time, you told me about all the people you had to take care of, but who took care of you?  You needed someone to take care of you. Except I never said that to you. Is that why you killed yourself? Because I never told you how much I cared? I would have taken care of you if you had let me. I would have taken care of you and you wouldn’t be dead. 

I wonder what you thought before you pulled the trigger. I imagine you looked at your gun, said “Fuck it,” and squeezed the trigger. 

Bang.

I don’t want you to leave. You’ve already left. I want to help you. You’re not here to be helped. I want to tell you that I cared, that you were important to me. Except I didn’t. Now, you’re dead. 

Bang.

I want you to live in my imagination. Because you’ve lived in my imagination ever since I met you. That’s not you; that’s you who I would like you to be. Did I do something wrong? Did I not listen well enough when morsels of pain dropped into your words? We lived in different worlds. I never entered your world, and never invited you to enter my world. I’m sorry. I wish we had explored each other. 

Bang.

I’m sorry. Please come back. I promise to do better this time.  I promise to revel in real you rather than imaginary you. I promise to love real you rather than love imaginary you. I’ll listen to you. I’ll rejoice in the differences between you and me. I’ll compromise. I’ll walk in your world sometimes. Even if it terrifies me. You’re worth my effort. I’m sorry I never told you that.

Bang.      

Chapter 3

Still the middle because I still can’t bear it to be the end of you. I didn’t know I’d mourn you a year later on your Yahrzeit. I didn’t know I’d still hurt a year later. I didn’t know how much suicide hurts. Please come back. I promise to do better. I try and try to understand why you killed yourself. I have no understanding. I want the world to make sense, but the world isn’t cooperating. I want to love you, but you’re gone. I still ask why you killed yourself, but you still don’t answer me. You’re gone. Just ashes. There’s nothing left of you. I light a candle. I say Kaddish. I still hurt. I still mourn. 

A year ago on this date, someone I knew and cared for committed suicide by shooting himself. Above, is the quilt I made to help heal my grief. It’s called Beneath The Wings Of The Devine. I quilted an eagle wing on top of the arc of his life.

I’ve written a short story about his death, which is what is at the beginning of this post. I’ve written healing passages that won’t ever be shared because they are too personal.

I still grieve.

I’m linking with Nina Marie http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com. Lots of talent and eye candy on her blog.

My Spoonflower store is here https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman. Twenty-nine of my designs are for sale. I’ll be adding more designs in a few weeks.

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

To all who celebrate, Happy Easter.

To my Jewish friends Happy Passover.

The sciatic pain was supposed to last only 6 weeks. I’m on week 7. Once again, I tried going to classes. I lasted one day and I had more bones shifted out of place than the previous week. There are only 2 weeks left in the semester and I’ve missed 4 weeks. There’s no point in taking the final exam. I’m not going for another degree so the grade doesn’t matter and I am done for the semester. I loved my plant physiology class and we had gotten to the part I consider fascinating when the sciatic pain started. I wanted to take another class from this teacher, but he’s teaching weed science next semester. I just can’t manage to get excited about weed science. 

Although I’m not happy about this, I am using my walker more often. I got a walker with a seat and a basket. I can sit when I need/want to and I can use the seat to transport something from one place to another. And the wheels are bigger than the ones on my original walker. Bigger wheels mean fewer death traps when I’m outside. 

Following the cognitive deficits last fall when I was in withdrawal from Cymbalta, I lost my sewing skills. The first time I sewed, I couldn’t remember how to thread the machine, attach the free motion quilt foot, and where the button to lower the feed dogs was located. Fortunately, the manual was close by. I’m trying to find my sewing skills again. To achieve that, I’m working on quilted pillow covers. I started with a fence rail pattern. Next, I graduated to a churn dash pattern. That pattern is one of my favorite traditional quilt blocks. The photos suck, but you can get an idea of what the pieced part looks like. I need to cut batting and backing for the blocks, quilt it, and proceed to turn it into a pillow cover. For the fence rail block, the first two fabrics I picked up went well together. For the churn dash pattern, I had to do a whole lot of looking through my fabric stash. I have no idea what the next block will be. I think once I’ve made quilt blocks, my sewing skills will return. 

My cutting mat was 25 years old, littered with cut marks, and just not working right any more. Armed with a 60% off coupon, we went to Joann’s and bought me a new, self healing mat. The rotary cutters are behaving more like they should behave. I needed to have Jim with me because I can’t wrestle with a cutting mat while pushing a walkr. 

I’ve been working on the novel. I vacillate between liking what I wrote and hating every word. I suspect that’s common among novelists. Having the semester end two weeks early gives me more time to work on the novel, the pillow covers, and eventually clay. It’s really nice out, but it doesn’t warm up enough to work with wet clay until the afternoon. Plus, this time of the year we get WIND. A couple weeks ago, we had 50 mph wind and the San Agustin pass featured wind clocked at 105 mph. Wet hands, cold clay, not quite warm enough and WIND is not my idea of a great combination. That’s the joy of being a multi media artist. When one art toy isn’t working, I can go to another art toy. 

I’m linking with Nina Marie. Stop by and see what other artists are doing. http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

Looking for one of a kind art? Please stop by my store, Deb Thuman Art. www.debthumanart. com.

         I’m taking animal physiology this semester. I’ve reached a stage of life where learning is purely for enjoyment. I’m not working towards a degree. I’m not going to be going to grad school. I don’t need a PhD.

         One of my undergraduate degrees is in biology (the other in journalism) and most of my work was with plants or microbiology. I graduated 37 years ago and there have been a couple advances since then. There are a few more women biology professors. They are addressed as Dr. rather than Mrs. In my class, the professor is a woman, there are 7 female students and 17 male students. This is an improvement. When I worked towards my biology degree, I don’t recall an upper division class with more than 5 female students.

         Something else has changed. Working towards my degree, I fought against the notion of evolution. I could not and still cannot comprehend a big bang accidently leading to a single cell and then accidently morphing up the phylogeny tree to eventually create a human with not only an opposable thumb, but also the capacity to think, create, and have a sense of right and wrong. Life is far too organized and far too complicated to be nothing more than an accident. This belief caused much consternation between myself and my professors.

         I did, and still do, believe in natural selection. With natural selection, you don’t end up with something you didn’t have before; but the population of what you had before is now a bit different. Consider the tomato and tobacco mosaic   virus. There is a natural resistance to TMV, but it’s not a complete resistance. In the lab, tomatoes are grown and TMV is introduced. This kills almost all of the plants which had no resistance. Then, the temperature is raised and TMV is introduced again. This time, almost all of the plants with only one resistant gene died and the plants with two resistant genes lived. You still have tomatoes, but more of the tomatoes are resistant to TMV than before “naturally” selecting for the resistant varieties.

         Physiology includes change over time. As the environment of a given animal changes – hotter or cooler ambient temperature, more or less participation, change in the abundance of preferred food – those animals in the population that have the genetic ability to adapt will live and reproduce. Those without that genetic ability die off. There’s no accident here – merely cause, effect and natural selection. The complexity and amazing organization of life remains.

         And that’s what I learned in my animal physiology class.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here.   Stop by and see what other artists have been doing. If you’re looking for one of a kind jewelry or other art, please stop by my store, Deb Thuman Art  here.