I've joined deviantArt.  Will take photos of most of my work and upload it.  Why not?  Be nice if others see it.  Have already learned something.  If it's going to photograph decently will have to make my darks darker and my lights lighter.  Wimpy in life, wimpy in art.  Make a statement!
     Severe and damaging storms yesterday.  Lots of damage in Logan Ipswich area.  While walking the dogs watched the back of the storm  march away to the east.  Don't think I would've wanted to watch the front bearing down on me.  Even the back of it was huge, terrifying and beautiful.  Stark clenched clouds slow exploding into cerulean blue.  In the distance wet clay slabs of grey rain pressed upon the land.  On the way home we were helped along by the wind being sucked into the storm.  Isolated groups of clouds joined forces, became one huge front.
     When I got home, after feeding everyone, looked at the radar.  Scary.  Angry red splotches like sores scratching across the map.  All to the east of us.  After dark we got a downpour, 14mm in 15 minutes.  Very pleased as we needed the rain but we didn't need damage.  Lost power for an hour.  Read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler by candlelight with a glass of red.
      Overcome by gratitude while watching that storm.  Beauty, incredible wondrous incandescent beauty surround us  if we only open our eyes.  Standing beneath overarching wattle trees watching a dozen monarch butterflies flitting between the branches.  Don't know what attracted them but what a sight it made with fluttering leaves and fluttering butterflies with roiling white clouds overhead.  Didn't loiter long.  Thunder coming from the west as well as the east.  Don't mind walking in the rain, do mind getting caught in hail.
     Dice-ing yesterday and again today.  Repotted mature adenium plants.  Amazed at what was hidden beneath the soil - huge hard yellow white, can't even call them roots, more like storage tanks with filigree roots sprouting off the sides.  Had no idea.  Repotted the remaining 14 baby adeniums.  The table is groaning under the weight of baby adeniums.  Have given away dozens.  Overloaded friends and acquaintances with adeniums.  Worse than giving away kittens. 
     Dice had me on the yoga mat during the hottest part of the day.  Cleansing sweat I guess.   But as I hadn't eaten I wasn't attempting a headstand on a full stomach.  Eased back a bit on a few poses.  Very sore lower back and pelvis.  Don't know why.  Better today.
     Carry a small sketchbook in my purse.  Used it to draw Natalia.  Her upside-down-head-under-paw pose and mature-cat-dignified-nap pose.  Caught her too, at least in the upright pose.  Not just any cat sleeping but Natalia sleeping.  The other sketch, as most of her face is hidden under her leg, isn't as clearly her.  Pleased with them.  Fun to do too.  Only 5 minutes or so. 
      Conversely haven't touched the pastel drawing on the easel.  Like the bird, like the horse...well the horse is okay, not perfect, otherwise stuck.  Have these elements that don't work but don't know what to do instead.  So keep retouching horse and bird and leaving the rest.  Waiting for inspiration to bite. 
      Have a egg yolk painted gesso primed canvas waiting.  No tooth.  Need to make a mark and see what it looks, feels like.  That will determine, in part, to what can be painted on.  If it doesn't 'take' the medium, will have to keep it simple and sketchlike.  If it does, what fun!
    

Mental Housekeeping

Overcast.  A soft day.  Later it will be hot, sticky and uncomfortable but this early (7am) it's still a balmy tropical morning. 
     There's something wonderful about being alone for awhile.  Moving to my own rhythm, listening with an undistracted ear, moving through space without the gravitational pull of another person.  I love it.  I need it.  Not forever.  I want him home but the novelty is luxurious. 
     So what to do with this day?  Not eat is one thing.  I've learned to love cooking.  What I cook I eat.  Will be nice just to have liquids today.  Plant the Black Bean tree in the yard where the summer heat and drought killed a small tree I'd planted a few years ago (put a dripper on it too late).  Repot some other plants.  Take Balthazar out for a pick.  No work for him, just pick.  Work on my painting?  Read a book.  Do yoga.  Have another coffee. 
     Decided after my little scare of a few days ago that it was time to reassess what I was feeding my mind.  Every day, through various email subscriptions, I was reading about the horror in the world; the cruelty, the mindlessness, the greed and because that was my steady diet I was, in a way, perpetuating it.  There's the voyeuristic quality involved too - why people slow down at a car accident - which had me reading crap I shouldn't have.  I know how susceptible I am.  I know once the image is there I can never be rid of it.  Animals Australia sent me a membership kit with flyers depicting, with graphic photos, the barbaric treatment in factory farms.  Glanced at it, saw what it was and threw it away. 
     When I was 12 or so I saw an image of a starving kitten, dirty and abandoned on the street.  The image was from some animal welfare group.  I cried and cried and cried - and am tearing up now thinking of that long dead kitten.  I can't take it.  The wall is breached.  The filter faulty. 
      So yesterday I unsubscribed from those groups.  I kept Greenpeace, Animals Australia, IFAW and a couple of others but the worst ones (as far as my oversensitivity goes) are gone.  I then subscribed to planet affirmation and good news stories. 
     I do believe we hide our Godlights under the delusion of matter.  Our corporeal form comes, we think, with a license to behave like barbarians.  Because we can affect matter, I suppose.  It's more accessible than our Godlight or at least more easily perceived.   We shove matter and it moves.  Suddenly we have the illusion of power.  The power of life and death, the power to cause pain, the power to accrue 'stuff'.  But it's an illusion.  But such an illusion!   Yet the illusion is maintained with lies.  I know the cruelty in the world is also an illusion - but it's one I can do without.  Call me a coward.  It's true.  I am a coward.  This small corner of the world I can protect - to a point.  So I do.  I love what is mine to love and  for the rest of it, drape the world in imaginary skeins of kindness. 

.
   A few days ago I noticed, when walking the dogs, a particular feeling in my groin, an irritation, as though a pubic hair had worked its way inside me and was digging in.  Didn't think too much about it until having a wee upon my return and noticing frank blood.  Haven't had a period for 15 years so this was abnormal.  Did nothing, said nothing, thought alot.
    Richard left the following day for an errand in town.  I was ready.  The irritation was now accompanied by a feeling of 'fullness'.  Can't describe it any better than that.  It was as though I'd put on a few pounds 'there'.  Once he'd left I got the hand mirror and the standing lamp with the flexicord.  Put the lamp on the floor, got the mirror, dropped my drawers and had a good look.
     The problem was, of course, I'm not familiar with that terrain.  What was I looking for?  There was no errant pubic hair.  There was nothing that I could see save for a slight bluish darkness at the furthest reaches.  Was that supposed to be there?  Or was it the visible manifestation of something far more sinister?  None the wiser, I pulled my pants up and got the yoga mat out.
     The mind is a wonderful thing.  My mind, when frightened, is a wild  banshee howling incoherently in the wind.  Even yoga was difficult.  Kept forgetting where I was in the sequence because of fear.  Fear of cancer.  All that sex, all those partners.  It was bound to catch up with me.  All those years of smoking.  All those times I wasn't nice, thought bad thoughts, did bad things, I was going to pay for my sins now.  My mind had got the bit in its teeth and was off.  Every lurid horrible detail; doctors, hospitals, needles, fear fear fear.  In downward dog I thought about putting my feet in stirrups while some entity in a lab coat tut tutted at the most intimate and vulnerable part of my body. 
     I started to cry. 
     So I stopped it.  Lay back on those reins and pulled my mind up short.  This has to stop.  I have always believed that you create what you fear. If I was going to fear this, by god, I was going to make it true. 
     In a kind of breathless panic which masqueraded as meditation I tried to fill my body with light.  Between Half Moon pose and Trikonasama I created a whirling ball of white light and pushed it into my pelvis.  Throw everything at it, positive think it right into oblivion, crush that mother with the weight of nonbelief. 
     But that was just fear with makeup on.
     When I finally sat to meditate, when I finally pulled the over-caffeinated hamster off the wheel and breathed, the words, 'Stay Calm, It's All Right' came into my mind.  I seized them like the rope thrown to a drowning man.  And hung on.  And breathed.  And made them my mantra.  After a while, I was calm. 
     I made my mind up about a couple of things.  My health was/is my responsibility.  No doctors.  The revulsion, total revulsion of my being, against doctors and their offices, would cause more harm than any illness.  Doctors are best avoided if  possible.  The next thing was, I can change this, whatever it is.  I'm made of energy, energy is malleable.  This creation, while loved and accepted, (yes, my thinking changed that much!) had to go, had to be recycled elsewhere.  So every time I sat down for a pee, I visualized peeing this thing away.  Not with hatred but with love.  I'm not ready to go yet.  I'm never ready for a long drawn out illness.  I will die peacefully in my sleep when my responsibilities are met.  Right now, Richard needs me, the animals need me, and I need me. 
     Today, no funny feeling, no blood, no fear but alot of gratitude.  And love.  It came to teach. 

14 March.  Copied from journal.  

Lionel still missing - forever more I suspect.  He would've returned if he was able - or alive.  Miss him.  Grieve for him.  Or would if I knew.  Went through this before when he went missing.  But he returned after a day.  Nothing I can do.  I loved him, tried to give him the best life, best opportunities, health and strength to best fit him for life in the wild.  Unfortunately because of his attachment to me he kept himself aloof from other galahs, except in 'warning call' emergency when he would launch himself in flight and beat retreat with the others.  He would've done that no matter where he was so what happened?  Why can't he come home?

Matisse - a changed cat.  Haven't had to clean up a spray or puddle of urine for 3 days now.  He's sitting beside the notebook as I write.  The prozac doesn't make him dopey or sluggish, it just takes that edge off his OCD.  When I clean the kitty boxes and there are 3, sometimes 4 wet spots, I am overjoyed - well, maybe not overjoyed - but happy.  Means it's okay.

He looks me in the eye again - not for long but at least he can (he's quietly purring, has shifted position so his head is very near mine).  BTW, he weighs 7kg or 15.4 lbs.  Also, have changed my mind about CRF - too fat and glossy.

Don't know if I'm repeating myself but - since Cornelius flew out the opening during the remains of Cyclone Oswald when the screen blew in, Tony has stopped speaking.  He makes budgie noises but no longer says Pretty Bird, The Regurgitator, Tony, etc.  I miss his little tinny tiny voice.

Have been working on a pastel drawing inspired in part by a photo in Baroque Horse magazine.  Was beavering away at it then got stuck.  Ground to a halt actually.  I think I ran out of puff because I was copying.  Tried to view it strictly as an exercise - maybe I became unstuck because of having trouble duplicating it.  At any rate, looking at it, and looking at it and finally,while on the yoga mat and seeing it from an oblique angle, I saw what I could do so it's on again.  I like it but don't love it - yet.  I live in hope.

Waiting for Lee (the farrier).  Have rugged the horses because the biting flies are so bad.  Spray their legs with insect repellant once daily to give them some relief.  Have never seen them this bad.  Something to do with the rain coming so late in the season?

Speaking of which - the ants feel we'll get much more rain.  Until the earth moving equipment, which came to repair the flood damaged road, flattened them, the ants were building tall spires, towers and fat levees.  There's a cyclone in the far north which they expect to follow the path of Sandy and head east then south well away from us.  The ants suspect otherwise.

March 11.  copied from journal.

No Lionel.

Did our big Tadpole Rescue again today.  R didn't want to drive the truck across the causeway so parked at David's.  We've learned a little from previous rescues so loaded up with two buckets,  a large sieve and a metal scoop.  We were just in time too.  Two tiny depressions of muddy water choked with choking tadpoles.  Tried to get them all.  May have missed some but not through lack of trying or looking.  Some too may have been mauled/crushed by the sieve/scoop but we did our best.

It's muddy smelly work because finally have to dig in with hands to feel for squirmy bodies but the pay off is the release.  Our dam is full of clear, tannin-dark water.  It's a living ecosystem with resident ducks, grebes and purple swamp hens,.  It also has at least one turtle!  Releasing the two buckets of tadpoles into what must seem like heaven is the big payoff for me.  The muddy water entering the clear water is like a brown mushroom cloud of muck.  In this turbid maelstrom tadpoles, tiny wriggling shadows, lurch to the surface and then disappear back into the cloud.  But if you stay and watch, the cloud dilutes, and the tadpoles emerge.  They swim out to clear water and waves of them can be seen darting to the surface, pink mouths agape (yes, actually saw pink mouths agape).

Said to Richard, if we've done nothing else today we've saved dozens and dozen of lives (even hundreds?) Note:  saw a few remaining tadpoles that afternoon when walking dogs.  Went back after dark with torches and buckets and got them all.

Rode Balthazar in the arena.  He was a little antsy - after all he hasn't been ridden for 3 months, but quite good all in all.  Put a rug on him to protect him from the biting flies.  They're driving him 'round the twist.  Sprayed him twice before riding.  It helped but didn't stop them.  At least it's cool enough now that he can wear a rug comfortably.  

March 10.  copied from handwritten journal.  

No Lionel.

Possibility Matisse has CRF (chronic renal failure).  Have finally had to take notice of what I've been trying to ignore - large puddles of urine (either in the box or out).  This morning watched him return to the water bowl 3 times for big drinks.  I can no longer pretend.  Will call tomorrow and book him in for blood and urine tests.  Not sure where yet.  The disadvantage of having been a vet nurse is knowing what goes on behind the closed door.  Can't decide either whether I should go to Laidley or UQ.  Gatton Vet is out of the question after how the staff were treated by the new owner.  Think I'll go to Laidley.

He's not underweight, far from it, nor is he dehydrated.  The polydipsia cannot be ignored however.  At the same time they can check for FLUTI, althought that seems the less likely of the two possible scenarios.

One thing is for certain, tomorrow will not be fun.

What I originally wanted to write about was the unique voice of English writers.  Reading The Wah Wah Diaries, Richard E. Grant's account of the making of his autobiographicly based film Wah Wah.  It'a voice that I, anglophile that I am, find endlessly appealing,.  "She...clucks welcome noises of enthusiasm when I suggest spooling forth the the synopsis between mouthfuls of Caesar salad."  Or  "...trying to hide the fact from all my panic stations that red alert might be a mere pudding away."  Or  "A vast pile emerged {of script notes] that looked ominously like a tax return in the middle of a nervous breakdown" and finally, " 'But you haven't even written it up properly yet,' said my wife, only just managing to suppress a healthy snort."

They have this easy breezy self-deprecating humour entirely unique to them.  Is it inherited by the process of osmosis in that land of cold and fog, from PD. Wodehouse?  Is that warmth a natural antidote and protection from the appalling weather?  Stephen Fry has it too - although I know he cites PDW as one of , if not his, favourite author.

American humour seems so baseball bat blunt in comparison.  To be honest I read very little humour so I am making that judgement on the basis of TV sit-cms.  US versus British.  No comparison.  Well, there are different styles - but I'm done with this now.  My mind is too full of Lionel and Matisse and the grieving - for if Matisse has renal failure it's a long slow demise with that horrific decision to be made at the end.  I know I'm okay.  At this point in time, all is well and it is worse than useless fo scare myself with bogeyman from the future - but I am only beginning to try and rein in my thoughts - and they are bucking like mad.

March 8. The following is copied from my handwritten journal.  Haven't blogged for awhile.  Used to write all the time when keeping a journal.  Now it is an effort  and I always write with the feeling of someone looking over my shoulder.  Sure, anyone with any kind of ego wants their work seen, and I'm no exception, yet that 'writing for an audience' is a sure way to still my voice.  Why?  Because, despite best efforts and intentions, I can't quite be true.  I don't write about extremely personal things, like my marriage, for despite all great writers being unafraid of brutal honesty, there is another person involved. 

Perhaps my reticence is a holdover from blogging.  I never used to be shy about things but age and experience have brought caution and a degree of empathy.

Saw a short on the ABC yesterday which decided me to try journalling again (it's not like I've a ton of 'followers' who will be disappointed by my silence.  I've one following the Balthazar blog who, as far as I can tell, has absolutely no interest in horses).  At any rate, the short was on Bob Ellis, writer, speechwriter, essayist.  He writes with a fountain pen in a notebook half this size on a pillow which is propped upon an old school desk from his old school.  What great work, he asked, has been written on a word processor?  I suppose there must be some but perhaps he has a point.  Perhaps there is a connection between the writing hand, the eye and the brain which allows for 'great work' to be created.  The advantage of the computer is I can type very fast so that, on a run, I can almost get a stream of consciousness cascade.  But is that a good thing?  Just because I can immortalize my thoughts doesn't mean they are worth the trouble.  Writing by hand, OTOH (see?  there are some advantageous holdovers from the use of digital media) gives thought a breathing space where an interesting notion can be followed up or followed on with further investigation.

And it's slower.  I'm beginning to think that's a good thing.

When I attended the Julie Grieg workshop I found I had trouble concentrating n one thing for 3 hours in the morning and another 2 1/2 in the afternoon (we quit half an hur early).  Even writing this I just had a quick computer break to look at some drawings by a pastel artist.  I'm not over-caffeinated nor am I afflicted with Alzheimers yet have noticed a discernible drop in my ability to stick with one thing for any length of time.  Too much information.  We, I, am able to get information on any and all subjects through the net.  And while I'm looking up exactly who played that supporting actor role in some 1954 B movie western I can check my mail, check out a French phrase, look at the radar, see what new work has come up on Pinterest and play Mah Jong!  No wonder I have the attention span of a water flea.  There is always some bright shiny fact kernal just a mouse click away.

The internet is grand.  My computer is a joy to have an use but I think there is something to be said for the slow and deliberate use of pen and paper.  My journal was my best friend and companion when I had none and now..(personal stuff) ..the re-introduction of Friend Journal into my daily life is timely and good.

On a more prosaic note, just to record it, we've started Matisse on Prozac.  Yes, I drug my kitty.  I've written quite a bit about his neurotic, needy and unhappy self on the blog.  The crunch came with cleaning up to 4 sprays a day.  I love him but something had to be done.  Nothing helped.  Endless love and reassurance, while gladly accepted with purrs and nose rubs, made no difference.

Yesterday was his second day.  As expected he was mightily displeased to have the drop of transdermal gel rubbed inside his ear.  He acts as though we've morphed into cat abusers but I noticed (we shut him in the laundry to eat otherwise he'll eat everyone else's food as well as his own) it didn't take long for him to finish dinner. He's sleeping now.  There were 3 piddles in the boxes and no new sprays (that I could find).  He didn't join me on the yoga mat this morning to pace between it and the rest of the house.  I hope it works.  No side effects save for a calmer cat.

Journals and Blogs and Stuff

There is something quite delicious seeing that my other blog, on Balthazar, had two followers...until I check out the 2nd follower and see it is a sales gimmick masquerading as a delectable young Indian woman.  The other follower still has me mystified.  Perhaps Cordillon hopes I will mirror his compliment and follow his blog on, was it the city of Manchester?  But I'm not that desperate.  Yet.

In the meantime I have made a decision.  It may last as long as the takeaway Thai Richard has dashed into town to get, nevertheless here it is.  I have resurrected my journaling habits of the past 30 years and have decided to keep a written journal.  Yes, that's right.  That soon to be lost skill of hand writing journal entries.  The reasons are twofold.  One, I am a bit muzzled by the fact that writing a blog, despite it's obvious advantages, is public.  My ego cannot be erased that easily nor my sense of propriety.  Knowing that there is the possibility, no matter how remote, of having an audience, I hedge my bets while writing.  I don't write as freely nor as intimately as I always did while keeping a handwritten for-my-eyes-only journal.  The other reason is less easily explained.  I think there are distinct advantages to writing by hand.  Noticed the smell of ink as I wrote today.  I missed that.  Also suspect there is something to the hand, eye, brain connection which is lacking when typing at warp speed on the keyboard (am a fast typist which makes for near instanteous translation of thought to monitor - but is that always a good thing?  I'm not James Joyce with a stream of consciousness facility). 

So I will continue this blog but it will be more a record of day to day events rather than a reflection upon those events.

So today:  Lionel is still missing, this is the third day.  I fear the worst yet hope for the best.  Won't dwell on it any more for there is no advantage to it.  I love him and miss him and pray he's okay.

We are going to take Matisse to the vet for blood and urinalysis.  He's drinking heaps, peeing large amounts - sometimes in the box, often on the floor, so suspect the beginning of CRF (chronic renal failure).  He is not dehydrated, is in excellent condition (perhaps too fat) but his coat is glossy and sleek so hopefully it isn't that but I must know.  He's been on the Prozac for 4 days now - with some diminuation of the spraying (from 4 events to 2) but no extinction as yet.

Am working on a pastel painting taken from two pages of the Baroque Horse magazine.  Hate that I'm copying yet view it as a learning exercise.  Then again, it is already morphing into something quite different than the magazine pictures.  Which is a huge relief.  Huge.

Am going to invest in a digital photo frame (12 inches) so that photos I take can be uploaded and viewed at my leisure.  A brilliant idea I think.  It will be portable, clear and accessible - if I can master the techno-stuff.  Please please please.

So today, no yoga, some painting,  reading and finishing Richard E. Grant's The Wah Wah Diaries (now I understand what a 2nd Director does!) and writing it all up in here.