Last Vacation/Next Vacation

I’m gonna try doing some blog posts on suggested topics I found somewhere. The first suggestion was to write about my last vacation…

So here is the thing; I’m somewhat agoraphobic, although I do leave the house, but I haven’t exactly gone on a vacation in years. The last time I flew somewhere was almost four years ago now, when I went to visit my friends in Tacoma Washington. I believe it was my fifth time there, but the first time in over a decade, which was also the first time I went as a person with a hardcore nicotine smoking/vaping habit, and I nearly flipped out on the plane due to the extreme anxiety going all the way across the country, plus several hours in airports without being able to smoke. I was crawling out of my skin. Luckily it’s been just about three years since I quit nicotine, and so a long plane trip would be easier now, yet I’d still only be able to go places where I could be sure to get weed, since I need that as my medicine and don’t do well without it. In fact, when I went to Tacoma 4 years ago, I wasn’t able to get weed until my third day, and by that time, my mind was going a million miles an hour. As soon as I smoked it, I felt my whole body and mind calm down again. I did have a ton of fun out in Tacoma, particularly because my friends out there are some of my most favorite people.

It’s probably been about three years since I went up to Maine to the ocean for a few days with my family. Instead, the past few years, rather than going to Maine, I’ve visited my parents once a month, who live up near Maine in a beach town, and that’s basically been my vacation, although they don’t live on the water and I don’t go down to the beach much on my own. When my parents first moved here, I’d go to restaurants on the water with them, like The Portside, where people I know like Nomadik Soulkore and Dis N Dat Band play, and a kid who graduated with my sister owns the place, but I haven’t been there or out to dinner at all since before the Pandemic. I went up to my parents’ for the 4th of July Weekend and we didn’t do much, but I got to sit outside for a bit and ate some good food, and I got my parents into the show Timeless on Hulu which was something I wanted to re-watch myself. It was canceled after the second season, but was a brilliant show…one that I couldn’t stop watching when I first saw it.

I didn’t take many exciting photos since we didn’t go anywhere or anything, but it was still nice to get away, and I’ll be going up to York, Maine for the first time in a few years at the end of the month with my boyfriend for the day.

I was watching Stop Making Sense in the bedroom
Go Red Sox!

So, yeah, not exactly an exciting post of crazy adventures, but nice to have some time away. My cat has been driving me mad, so it was nice to have a couple days without her constant screaming/crying.

Tomorrow is another day though and I really hope this week goes as planned.

Here is some music. Tyler the Creator has a new album…

Here’s one song from it. The album is great but it took me several listens before I was ready to take it in…He’s like that though. It’s because he’s so unique.

Creativity Is For My Health

The days have been a challenge and I can only hope that means better times are on their way. I haven’t been my best self lately.

I went to the doctor on Thursday to get an EKG and some blood tests. There doesn’t seem to be any huge concerns other than my sugar being a little high, but they want me to come back soon and do a stress test in a couple months.

I stopped on the way home to mail about 40 press kits and drove by Spy Pond where the sun was sparkling on the water. I’m still struggling to get out. I really should have driven around or went for a walk to take pictures, but I’m struggling with agoraphobia and institutionalization after being kept indoors almost two of the last three years.

I took some photos when I was out, and when I got home, I found that the free editing program I’ve been using was no longer working on my phone. Technically the app went down in 2018, but it still worked on my phone until the other day. I asked for suggestions of good free photo editing apps and was told to try Snapseed and PicsArt, so I gave them a go.

These were the photos I took…

Jymi Cliche in a johnny

I thought that one was kind of cool with the grunge effect. It would make a cool book cover for a psych ward book.

That same day, my parents went to the beach and my mom sent me a picture of her wrapped in the towel I gave her for Mother’s Day from my Wicked Cliche Store.

I did some work on the Wicked Cliche Creative Friends page that features art by a very diverse group of artist from around the world who I call friends.

Please check that out.

I got a gift in the mail from my friend who makes soap. She’s listed last on the Creative Friends page under WickedSoftOrganics. This is the Trans flag one.

I listened to my favorite Nas album, God’s Son on vinyl.

and I cooked this delicious meal….

I cheated and got pre-made sour cream and chive mashed potatoes, but I made the chicken which had salt, pepper, and fresh thyme on it, and was cooked in a sauce made from honey, pineapple juice, Dijon mustard, garlic, and cornstarch, plus pineapple chunks and cashews. It was delicious and easy. I’ll do it again for sure.

Here’s an inspiring song from the God’s Son album by Nas…

Happy Juneteenth, if you can really say that. It seems more like it was made a holiday to shut people up while actual actions to fix systematic racism are not being taken.

Peace

New Painting, Business Cards, Twitter, Duolingo, Parents’ 45th Anniversary, & Doing What I Can…

It’s been a busy few days. There’s been some stress over the possibility of Out Of the Blue Gallery losing our space at The Armory, and so I’ve been posting about it and yesterday I wrote letters to the mayor and the art council in Somerville to urge them to take a look at the new gallery and the time and effort put into it. I also mentioned how OOTB has helped me as a disabled person who otherwise had no access to the art world, and how far I’ve come in the last few years because of the gallery.

Here is the link to the gallery to learn more…

https://outoftheblueartgallery.com/

Today was my parents’ 45th wedding anniversary. They also have the same birthday…

I’ve been trying to set things up for when I put out my next book, including making a new LinkedIn and Twitter account. You can find all of my links here…

https://linktr.ee/wickedcliche

I also made new business cards with my web site on them

I was gonna use this image, but it would have been too small…

I didn’t get out for a walk to take photos as I hoped, but here is a photo of my cute cat…

and a photo of the chair with the canvas that I’ve been staring at for weeks, trying to figure out what to do with it…

Of course, as usual, I forgot to take a picture of the old painting before I painted over it. It was basically just the background. I added the hand and arm today, as well as a few minor editions to the background.

I’m calling it “Holding Onto My World”

I also recently decided to try the free app Duolingo to learn Spanish in memory of my good friend Randy who I recently lost to suicide, and he was big into taking online classes for all kinds of stuff, including many languages.

I’ve been practicing the keyboard, eating healthy, put some of my records that I wanna show Koda into chronological order, I met with my mental health worker yesterday and played the Igor album by Tyler the Creator for her on the record player because it’s one of her favorite albums and it’s one of the many albums that sounds a lot better on vinyl. She wanted to know what the difference was between vinyl and just listening to an mp3, so I wanted to show her, and now she wants a record player of course, haha.

Last but not least, I got some much needed sleep today and wasn’t even too grumpy.

I’m grateful for my day… Here’s a random video from the early days of Youtube that is still the first video to pop up on my YouTube page because I need to edit it, but it’s cool…