More…

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I have been off from my various jobs as a standardized patient* for about two weeks and have very sparse work for the next couple of months. I am in heaven. I love my job a but I love creating art MORE.

I think it is an obsession. After all, I come by it wisely. Both my parents had obsessive compulsive disorder and my father had bipolar disorder on top of that. I inherited both. As one of my professors in graduate school told me, “What a great combination for getting shit done!” Yes, it is!

So with time off, I have been maniacally, happily, obsessively creating MORE art! My mantra, “I need to make MORE art, so I can sell MORE art, so I can buy MORE supplies to make MORE art, so I can sell MORE art, so I can buy MORE supplies so I can make MORE art to…….” Get the picture?

My Dad was just as obsessive every year during shrimp season about catching shrimp with his little shrimp boat. His mantra was, “I need to catch MORE shrimp, to sell MORE shrimp, to buy MORE gasoline to catch MORE shrimp to…..” Like father, like daughter.

I am mostly working on stained glass objects and wacky clocks. As my skill level rises so does my sense of imagination of what I can create. I easily tire of the things I have made and abandon old ideas and products (some quite successful and others just plain “butt ugly”, and move on to other brilliant ideas and designs. As least I think they are brilliant at the time. I may seem like a factory and that I am, but I rarely make the same things. One idea spawns another and I am off and running to make MORE.

Each day, I give birth to several new pieces of art and am the happiest when I am doing just that. Just like you can never have enough shoes, you can never create too much art. There is always MORE.

*A Standardized Patient (SP) is a person carefully recruited and trained to take on the characteristics of a real patient thereby affording the student an opportunity to learn and to be evaluated on learned skills in a simulated clinical environment.

It’s my birthday…..

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According to sunsigns.org this is what it means to be me.

December 27 Zodiac Sign Is Capricorn

“IF YOU ARE BORN ON DECEMBER 27, as a Capricorn born today, you are a first class go-getter. You are bold and determined to have it all. Tireless and passionate, you spend many long hours pounding the way for the next achievement. You’re truly exceptional and those who love you, see this in you and are delighted.”

Maybe this explains why I can’t sleep and got up (YES, got up) at 12:30 after 5 hours of deep sleep to work on art clocks and stained glass projects. I’m all about, “What can I make or create next”.

December 27th is a special birthday in my extended family as many relatives were also born on this day. I have two uncles, one aunt, one niece and two cousins who also have birthdays today. Makes me feel even more special but more than likely just means a lot of people had Spring Fever.

As I reflect on being 67 today, I cannot believe the glorious life I have lived thus far. I have loved or learned from every stage in my life. Bumps in the road, rivers to cross, paths to unfollow. I look forward to the next 32 years (I’ve decided to live to be 98) and wonder what I will experience next. I have reinvented myself several times, usually every 25 years. Who knows, at 75 I may pursue that second Master’s Degree or a PhD or maybe just go live on an island somewhere.

The future is a blank slate and I can’t wait to paint it.

Long live Capricorns

DeeDee

Looking forward, never straight….

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Another year has passed and the next one is dawning. A lot of people look back and reflect on the past year and what they would have done differently or rather what they would have done that they didn’t do. Not me. I don’t look back and live in the present. Just roll that shit over from one year to the next. One thing you can be certain of is more time. If you miss a deadline, it was not meant to be met.

Regret about the past and worry about the future is a big and total waste of time. You can’t change it or predict what will come. With everyone in the US in a tizzy over the election, I just think to myself, “It is over, people”. You can’t change it nor predict what will happen. Don’t waste your present precious time on it….. at all.

In four days, I will be 67. My December 27th birthday has always been a joy to me. What more festive week could you ask for to have a birthday than the week between Christmas and New Year’s? Everyone is festive, some off from work, giving gifts, receiving them and partying until they puke. Heaven, that’s what it is.

Rather than thinking of what I didn’t do last year, I like to think of all the things I am going to do next year. Here are a few I can think of:

• I will visit my grandson, daughter and daughter-in-law in Seattle 3 times … at least.
• My grandson will turn 6, My daughter will turn 43 and my daughter-in-law will turn 42
• I will be married for 39 years in June to the most wonderful man.
• That man will turn 69 and I will turn 68 in December.
• We will celebrate with a huge party on December 17.
• I will meet my 3 BFF’s from high school somewhere exotic and exciting.
• I will be healthy and fit.
• I will continue creating art out of anything I can.
• I will keep studying flute.
• I will continue expanding my mind with knowledge and inspiration.
• I will be funny and make you laugh …. no seriously  ….snorts and belly laughs .
• I will be right back here a year from now writing about 2018

What about you? Tell me of your wishes, hopes, and dreams. They will come true, you know, all you have to do is breathe deeply and believe.

Happy New Year all. I wish you a year of happiness and freedom from suffering.

Namaste, DeeDee

Social Media Sucks…

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About 12 years ago on my way to my teaching job at Franklin High School in Los Angeles, I was listening to NPR. They were talking about a new social media site named “FaceBook”. I was sort of excited about this because all my students could talk about was “MySpace”and I felt there needed to be competition. I told them that day that a new social media site was just now being born. They poo-pooed the idea and said that “No way will FaceBook replace MySpace”. Welcome to 2016 where people literally live on FB posting from the moment they wake up to when they retire for the evening. It is way too much information that I want to have about anyone I know and it depresses me to know I have friends who have no other life outside of FaceBook.

Facebook is a narcissistic playground. When did anyone start caring about what people had for dinner? I honestly don’t want to hear about your mundane day. People post about how pissed they are that someone cut in front of them on the freeway or that they had woken up with a cold. I call FaceBook, MeBook. After all it is all about you. Guess what, no one really cares. And that whole birthday thing. Really? It’s not like anyone really cares that it is your birthday. Facebook just reminds you and you feel obligated to type “Happy Birthday”. It is meaningless and is just a kneejerk reaction to a prompt. How about sending a card?

When FaceBook started in 2004 it was really fun. People posted about important things happening in their lives. Now, it is just reposts of memes, posters and those stupid tests that hack your account. I’m done with it. It is dumbing down America and I prefer to educate myself from legitimate sources.

FaceBook is a Social Media Site that I want no part of. if you love narcissism, then I say go on with your big bad self and post every minute detail of your day.

I am the wuss in 100 degree heat…..

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I adore my Texas relatives and friends but I just can’t take the summer sizzling heat of southeast Texas outside of Houston where I now reside. There is a Texas practice of having outdoor parties in the summer heat while there is a large air conditioned house only steps away. It seems to be somewhat of a tradition but I find it very uncomfortable.

Most Texans would never even consider sitting inside in the air conditioning as anyone who does so is considered a wuss. They sit outside having conversations above the loud drone of numerous industrial fans that have the ability to send you in flight or blow the hair off your head. To me it is just blowing around the same hot air.

Even the small children aren’t crazy about the heat. Parents shuffle them outside to a kiddie swimming pool with the temperature of warm bath water. They begrudgingly go outside only to sneak back into the air conditioned kids playroom. The door to the outside is constantly opening and closing and I’m thinking a revolving door would be perfect.

I am the wuss because I refuse to go out in the oven-like atmosphere to boil and sizzle in the oppressive heat. I would rather be inside, cool, crisp and comfy.

Occasionally they  will wander inside to the air conditioning to use the restroom or gather a drink. Each and every one of them upon entering, remark how good the cool air feels and how incredibly hot it is outdoors.

When they finish their business inside,they head back outdoors to all the festivities sans me, where their exposed skin turns into shimmering, shiny sweat within seconds.

They wouldn’t have it any other way and I long to be part of the group conversation and visitation as I peek through the windows. Yep, the wuss.

I guess I lived in Southern California for too long because I don’t understand the logic of this tradition. As for me, my outdoor parties are in December and will never be in the summer unless they are inside. Remember, I am the wuss.

Makes sense to me but my Texas friends and relatives wonder if I am from another planet. Yep, the planet of cool.

The end never comes …

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We have been taught we are just a collection of cells and that we die when our bodies wear out. But, a long list of scientific experiments suggests our belief in death is based on a false premise, that the world exists independent of us. Not true.

Here are five reasons that we will live on, even after death of our bodies.

Reason One. For one thing, we are not objects. Our bodies are special beings. According to biocentrism, there is nothing that could exist without consciousness. Space and time aren’t objects. They are tools to sort out our minds and piece it all together. Death doesn’t exist in a timeless world. Our minds transcend space and time.

Reason Two. Conservation of energy is a fundamental axiom of science. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can’t be created or destroyed. It can only change forms. This energy doesn’t go away at death. It doesn’t just dissipate into the environment. It has no reality independent of us. We create our own sphere of reality – we carry space and time around with us. There really is no absolute self-existing matrix in which energy just dissipates.

Reason Three. Although we generally reject parallel universes as fiction, there’s more than a morsel of scientific truth to this genre. There are an infinite number of universes (including our universe), which together comprise all of physical reality. Everything that can possibly happen occurs in some universe. Death doesn’t exist in any real sense in these scenarios. All possible universes exist simultaneously, regardless of what happens in any of them.

Reason Four. We will live on through our children, friends, and all who we touched during our life, not only as part of them, but through the histories we make with every action we take. There are whole areas of history that we determine during our lives. When we interact with someone, we make more and more reality. When we are gone, our presence will continue like a ghost puppeteer in the universes of all those we know.

Reason Five. It’s not an accident that we happen to have the fortune of being alive. While we will eventually exit this reality, we, as the observer, will forever continue on. Our consciousness will always be in the present — balanced between the infinite past and the indefinite future — moving intermittently between realities along the edge of time, having new adventures and meeting new (and rejoining old) friends.

Condensed from, “Biocentrism” (BenBella Books) lays out Lanza’s theory of everything.

Do You Believe In Magic?

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When I began studying for my undergraduate degree in Psychology, I took an elective course in Anthropology. The course was titled “Magic, VooDoo and Witchcraft”. It was an eye opener for sure and I loved every minute of the class. So intriguing and mysterious. The ONE thing that I took away from the class was what my professor said one evening. She asked the question, “Does magic exist”? Her answer, “Of course it does, if you believe in it.”. Magic is for real. Never stop believing.

The Girl from LA in a Dream

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The weather was glorious. Brilliant blue-sky with enormous billowing white Texas clouds decorating the deep blue canvas like giant puffs of misshapen cotton balls. The temperature was a comfortable 72 degrees and anticipation was in the air. It was the day of the annual family reunion. I couldn’t wait to share this splendiferous day with family and friends.

The reunion was being held at my parent’s old craftsman style house on 3 acres in a small Texas town just north east of big city Houston. I was visiting from Los Angeles, where I lived, and was busy helping Mom get ready for the arrival of more than 100 relatives on her side of the family. The reunion had been going on since my maternal grandfather and grandmother died more than forty years ago. It was her dying wish that we would all get together even after she had passed.

My father was outside on his tractor as usual and we had no idea what he was doing…as usual. He seemed to be attempting to enlarge the small pond in the front yard near the road. We never questioned what he did. He always had a master plan, even if we did not have a clue what it was.

People had begun to arrive and were milling around the yard greeting each other with hugs and kisses, as is the tradition in the south. They too were watching my father and curious what he was up to now.

He had dug a huge trench on the other side of the house from the pond as well as around the pond to enlarge it to twice its side. Puzzling for sure but we never questioned him on his “projects”, as I said above. He finished his digging and then constructed a huge makeshift pavilion attached to the back of the house. Mom got busy adding table and chairs, setting up areas for people to sit and designated tables for the potluck dishes everyone was bringing.

Suddenly we hear the sound of rushing water and look towards the front of the property. Water is gushing towards the enlarged pond and the trench on the other side, which now has become a raging river. Mom and I are stunned and stare wide-eyed with our mouths open. Turns out he had ordered 100,000 thousand gallons of water to be delivered. But….. He figured wrong.

The water began to surround the house and reunion area. The land disappeared and the house and pavilion began to float with all of us aboard. Over 100 people. Surprisingly, no one was alarmed and, in fact, decided my father was brilliant for creating this festive floating island, which was now surrounded by lush verdant grassy hills!

I wandered around greeting familiar faces and saw a dear cousin that I had not seen in a very long time. Not only had she surprised me by being there herself but had also brought my daughter, Kate, from Washington. What a lovely surprise!

In the meantime, my imaginative father had created a little side room off of the main pavilion that had a helium-filled flotation device as its floor. Upon activating the helium flow, it would rise up like a hot air balloon and float in the sky while tied by a tether to the main pavilion. Kate and I entered the room, activated the helium flow, and floated up into the sky amidst the luxurious, puffy, white cotton balls of clouds.

After we enjoyed the view from our loft, we turned to look back into our little flying room and noticed there were mementos from my life displayed on shelves attached to the walls. I began to cry when I recognized objects and drawings from my mother and daughter. I was so touched. Who had done this? I can only guess it was my father and mother.

We walked to the windows again and as if on cue, my daughter and I put our arms in front of us and dove out the windows. We were flying high above the water and looking down on all the relatives. They didn’t even know we were up there!

We danced and floated in the air slowly descending to land softly and gracefully on the floating paradise my father had built. People greeted us and said to go inside the pavilion area because a famous filmmaker was going to premiere his latest film. We ran inside and took a seat. The film was 3 hours long but it felt like minutes because it was so intriguing and mesmerizing. The Title was “The Girl from LA” and it turned out to be all about me.

I couldn’t believe it. I had always felt like a misfit, not quite belonging and surely not understood. And here was my parent’s gift to me. My true authentic self presented to family and relatives in such a way that they would come to fully understand my wonderfulness.

I am the paintbrush

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I only wear black. Occasionally I’ll throw in a muted color but I still have on mostly black. If I want a splash of unexpected color, it will be in my lime green, pink, or red shoes. I wear no jewelry; no rings, bracelets, earrings, necklaces or watch. As an artist, it just gets in the way. I do, however, have a tiny gold earring in the top part of my ear, which is not the usual spot.

My wearing of all black puzzles some people. They say, “But you are an artist, don’t you like color?” My response, “I LOVE color but I am the paintbrush that paints my world with magnificent brilliant color all around me. You should see my house. Every room is a different color.

You might think this choice is boring but I assure you that just because someone wears all black does not mean they are not style conscious. It inspires me to be more creative with my choices to put together a unique outfit. My “colors” in black are textures. Silk, linen, gauze, corduroy and cotton. I only wear natural fibers, however I probably have some leggings with a hint of spandex. Gotta smooth those curves. I have one black with white polka dots blouse but that is as radical as I get. I don’t like patterned fabric unless of course it is black on black. Plus, black is classic and it goes with everything, making pairing options basically limitless. I am at my most comfortable and confident when wearing a sleek, black outfit.

Now let’s clear up a big myth. Most people think that black is the absence of color. NO. White is the absence of color. Black is the absorption of all color and the absence of light. Black hides, while white brings to light. What black covers, white uncovers. We all use black at various times to hide from the world around us in one way or another. Some of us use it to hide our weight; others among us use it to hide our feelings, our fears or our insecurities. But I just happen to like it. In color psychology, black means power and control. Okay, I’ll take that. But, seriously, I just really, really like it.

Psychology goes on to say that “black implies self-control and discipline, independence and a strong will, and giving an impression of authority and power. Black absorbs negative energy. It is useful to carry something black with you to protect you from harm and negativity when traveling or when going about your usual daily activities outside your home. People who like black may be conventional, conservative and serious, or they may think of themselves as being sophisticated or very dignified. The color black is often seen as a color of sophistication, as in ‘the little black dress’, or ‘the black tie event’. Affluent and success orientated women often choose black as it can give an impression of elegance, sophistication and confidence. Wearing all black is more than just a sartorial choice. There’s a very certain kind of person to whom an entirely black wardrobe appeals, and they tend to be driven, honest, self-empowering and unapologetic about it all. Black is the end, but the end always implies a new beginning. When the light appears, black becomes white, the color of new beginnings.

Now, in case you are wondering, I adore colorful, striped, dotted, plaids and patterned clothes on all those around me. In fact everything around me. Remember, I am the paintbrush.

My niece sent me this article written by Brianna Wiest from thoughtcatalog.com that just about sums it up about me:

Eleven Reasons Why Women Who Wear All Black Are Never To Be Messed With

1. Women who wear all black lead very colorful lives.They tend to be driven and hardworking and balance out all the chaos in their sartorial choices.

2. According to a study, they’re perceived as more attractive, successful and confident. People who wear black are powerful – plain and simple, and they tend to command respect, too.

3. They have a “walk softly, carry a large stick” mentality. They’re unassuming. They do not need your approval, but they will make sure you recognize what they do and what kind of impact they have on others.

4. They value self-empowerment above all else.They are not the kind of people you want to complain to, their response will just be an example of how you could take back control of your life.

5. They care more about being themselves than buying into trends. They see every aspect of their lives as a potential avenue of self-expression, and they are never ones to just “follow the crowd” on anything.

6. They’re straightforward. If you ask for their opinion, you are going to get it – not an altered idea of what they think you want to hear.

7. They’re straightforward. If you ask for their opinion, you are going to get it – not an altered idea of what they think you want to hear.

8. They are a terrifying combination of elegant and intimidating. If there is anything scarier than a graceful woman who is in equal parts a raging, unstoppable badass, I’ll believe it when I see it.

9. They are not afraid to edit their lives.Friends, jobs, relationships, outfits – if something isn’t working, they believe life is too short to hold onto anything mediocre.

10. They don’t care if you don’t like them.They do not act with the intention of winning over your praise, they’d rather be true to themselves.

11. They care more about what they do than what they look like. It’s because they care so much about what they do that they always want to look sleek and put-together, but also that they don’t want to waste their energy on things that they don’t value much.

And that’s why I only wear black.

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The Human Factor

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My daughter and I were in Graduate School together at California State University Northridge in late 2005. We were both working on Master’s Degrees. Hers in Psychology, mine in Education. Her focus was Human Factors while mine was technology. At the time she chose this major I had not the slightest clue what “human factors” was. She explained that it is an area of psychology that deals with man’s interaction with machines. Interesting!

She went on to explain that no matter what advances in technology we have made, these technologies still have to be able to interface with human beings. They are only as good as the people who are designing and operating them. The organic with the inorganic. Analog versus digital. Even more interesting!

This last Monday after learning of a dear, sweet cousin’s stroke which left her paralyzed on one side, I remembered this discussion with my daughter way back then. It made me think of just how fragile we are and that even with all this advanced technology, we simply aren’t able to repair certain bodily injuries, most especially, damage to the brain. The computers can inform us of the damage that occurred and lead the way to rehabilitation but it is still up to the human being to heal themselves. Technology shows us the way but we still have to walk the path on our own.

My cousin is strong willed, healthy and determined. I feel confident she will jump this hurdle with the same vigor and enthusiasm that she has always embraced her life. She is already an inspiration to us all with the progress she has made in her recovery in only four days following her stroke.

In everything we encounter, experience or learn, there is always the human factor. Even though I love technology with a passion, I never get the same satisfaction that I get from another human’s touch.

I salute you, sweet cousin, Joni, for reminding me that in this crazy world of machines, we are but fragile beings and for reminding me that we should live every day as if it were our last.

I just visited with her this morning and that crooked smile I witnessed on Monday has almost returned to it’s original heartwarming upturned glory!