Living Life

   Christmas.  Gifts are bought and all but two are wrapped.  The decorations I bought in Port Orford last January are up on my Magnolia out front.  I decorated my biggest tree in the house too.  I'm trying to make December and January less forbidding.  They're so gray and depressing.  The decorations on the Magnolia especially, buoy my spirits.  I probably need some kind of roasting decorations for the summer magnolia.  

  It's going on 4 now, but it feels like 11 AM.  I slept in fits and starts, finally arising at 11 AM.  I read the electronic copy of the Washington Post or the NY Times usually to wake myself and start the day.  There was never a time when I awoke looking forward to the day.  The newspapers remind me I'm part of the world and my mitchagas is not stopping me. I'm grateful for the newspapers and the phone in general. I read the Philadelphia Inquirer at breakfast.  Luckily, I like to read.

  I have Diverticulitis, which for me means I often spend hours in the bathroom, reading..  Diverticulitis is very common in older folks.  It limits where and when I go places.  Still, I have my phone, with FB and books on it, in addition to the newspapers and Solitaire.  Generally, the disease isn't a big deal until and unless it is.  Then it can kill.  My Lupus is in remission, my diabetes is still okay, treated by diet, and I'm 75.  I wish everyone had such an easy life.

  I meditate in the shower.  I found I actually do it in there.  Most places in the house, a cat jumps on my lap.  If that cat is Ellie, I am inundated with her explosion of fur at every pet.  I get distracted.  I'm about to go down, clean out my shower, and get to use it since my husband has been downstairs in residence.  I haven't kicked him out, but I miss my own shower.

#Diverticulitis  #CopingWithDiverticulitis #LupusInRemission #Waking #ChristmasDecorations  #DecoratingForHolidays #NewspapersOnline  #PhiladelphiaInquirer  #LivingInTheBathroom  #TheGoodLife  

Oh no, I Still Have Covid!

 OMG, I still have Covid!  It's been ten days, I thought I was fine.  The dentist's office asked me to test before I came for my cleaning.  They were right.  What a drag.  I don't mind staying home, but I miss my granddaughters.  I'll miss my oldest's choir program.  I hate that.  I won't get to play with the baby.  I was hoping I could go visit her and her older sister.  I wanted to see her walking.  

 The housework goes on anyway.  The wash continues to build.  The trash has to be dumped, the animals fed, the dishes done.  Harry is still not steady with a cane.  He can't handle the big trash cans.  He cooks for himself, which is helpful.  He'd cook for me, but I don't usually eat what he likes.  I'm hungry now and he's in the kitchen.  I have to wait until he's out.

 

 He's done and I need to add him to the Art groups on FB so he'll be seen, so perhaps he'll sell.  I don't have the energy or will to approach galleries.  My work doesn't fit and sadly, it doesn't sell well, if it sells at all, which it usually doesn't.  Galleries are businesses.  If bread didn't sell, groceries wouldn't carry it.  
Same idea.  When I was younger, I couldn't handle the phony gallery talk or the hits to my ego, if I brought up my work.  The last gallery I visited disliked my friend Fred's work and he's an incredible painter.  

 This piece is part of my vampire series.  They are all Benevolent Vampires and Monsters.  They're me and you.  Our intention is good and we do not want to hurt anyone, but occasionally our tempers flare.  A part of us is always a vampire or monster.  If you aren't aware of it, I'm sorry.  You have work to do.

#fantasyart #funnyFineArt #naughtybynature #naughtyWomen #StrongFemale #FemalebyFemale#vampirePainting #vampireseries #VampireLove #OriginalPainting #JayneeLevyPolis #YoungBeautifulVampire #FriendlyVampire #SweetVampire #contemporaryart #ContemporaryTheme #painterlyportrait #femaleartist #affordableArt #affiordableArtwork
#JayneeLevyPolis #YoungBeautifulVampire #FriendlyVampire #SweetVampire #contemporaryart #ContemporaryTheme #painterlyportrait #femaleartist #affordableArt #affiordableArtwork #fantasyart #funnyFineArt #naughtybynature #naughtyWomen #StrongFemale #FemalebyFemale

#DealingWithCovid #TheMonsterInsideUs #OurDarkSide #AcceptingOurDarkSide #BecomingaComplexPerson #LovingOneself #BeingAWholePerson  #TheMonstersWhoActNormal  #NormalIsntGood #BeYourself #AcceptYourself #DealingWithArtGalleries #OpinionsOfGalleries #MaintainingQuarantine  #Housework  #BeingOverwhelmed

The Monsters

    Even the monsters around us have some saving grace.  Everyone has issues, most people have craziness.  If you happen to hit one of their panic buttons, it's best to run, but if you can't, you're stuck hearing or witnessing the worst that person can generate.  Sure there is something wrong with them, but there is something wrong with every human being you will ever meet.  You just don't see it in most.  We learn, sooner or later, to act however normal looks to us.  If we can't appear normal, it may seem we don't care, but look closely, we care a lot!  We are the murderers, the druggies, the depressed person staying at home, the weird boss or most obnoxious person you ever met.  Nobody wants to be that person. 

   If we're lucky, we get counselling.  If we hit the jackpot, we get at least five years of therapy with the same good therapist.  That is almost unheard of and it's a shame.  Psychologists and Social Workers graduated from college and graduate school in the 1970s and 80's by the dozen and were shunted into low-paying caretaker jobs.  Even when insurance was forced to treat emotional problems the same way as physical ones, the jobs were bad.  A PhD could give a psych worker a start, but not more.

  When we moved down to Delaware from Philadelphia, we were entranced by the trees, the cleaner air, the space!  We thought we moved to Mayberry.  That was before one of the neighbors in the development decided what we should and could do.  That became about nine years of feuding and eventually went to attorneys.  I had never seen people go to such great lengths and I could not be sure if it was anti-Semitism,  lack of self-worth, assumption we were middle class and therefore elite?  I occasionally see those people, always with hate on their faces, or smarmy laughter.  

  On the outside, those folks are "normal".  People easily "pass".  So, instead of seeking help, they live their entire lives holding grudges and blaming other people for whatever they feel inside them.  Delaware is more conforming than Philadelphia.  Of course.  Philly is a big city, and the residents are more tolerant of difference.  It depends.  My Philly neighbor, who I loved, couldn't understand why I would want a tree on my lawn.  

  Now, in Delaware, I have a big Magnolia and lots of other trees.  I love them.  I love our house, my garden in the back, and living here.  Our kids worry because they aren't close by.  Our daughter, a nurse, saved my husband's life this year when his rehab wasn't going to send him to the hospital.  He needed blood and surgery.  I can't see staying here as we advance to the old old.  I plan to flee to our daughter's.  I'm under no fantasy that I can live alone.  Nevertheless, every tree, those I planted and those here long before the houses, brings me joyful energy.  Because of that set of horrible people, I was forced to confront my own acting out  and fear.  I'm sorry I upset them, regardless of their own feeling of being completely innocent. Nobody is innocent in an out of control feud.  I wish them sanity and more.  I'm not blessing them; they're dangerous.  I'm just hoping they, and everybody LIKE them, begins to look inward and realizes color, education, and religion don't make us DIFFERENT.  We all want to connect.  It's in our nature.  Prejudice can be unlearned.

#Prejudice  #Anti-Semitism  #DelawareVPhiladelphia  #Psychcologicahelp  #GettingHelp  #MovingFromPhilly  #GettingCounseling  #Psychologists  #WorkingThroughRage  #WorkingThroughActingOut  #ActingOut  #ConformingWhileCrazy  #BeingCrazy  #GettingOldandWiser  #MonsterPeople  #LookingInside  #BeingIntrospective