Chapter 91 - February 26, 2013

February 26?! Man, time goes by so fast when you're having fun. I'm being a little sarcastic. I'm gonna dedicate this week's blog to my sister and her kids. Man, they really help me out through the rough stuff. It's fun to see them. They bring light to the situation I'm in.

Hi everybody, another week goes by. It's been a pretty full week. You know, I'm doing this blog because I've had a pretty full life. When it was time to possibly check out, I wasn't so freaked out. I'm doing this blog to basically help someone. There might be some people that this will help. I've gone through a lot of stuff and it might help them. Just the other day, a girl, a young girl emailed me and asked for some advice. I was happy to help out as much as I could. I'm not a doctor or in the medical field, but I gave her some advice of things I went through. Pretty cool. It made me realize it's good to meet people that have gone through something similar.

The other cool thing that happened this week was I got a Stair Chair. It's basically a chair that will bring me up the stairs to the 2nd floor where my bedroom is. I no longer have to camp out in the living room. I've been sleeping in the living room for about 2 years now.

Other than that, those two things, I've just been doing therapy sunrise to sunset. I woke up today, my dad said to me, he said, "What's the word for today?" I looked at him and said, "I'm going back to bed." Just kidding. Although I really felt like it because today I really feel like hell. You know, you've got to work through it even though you feel like shit. You've got to work through it. Remember, it's all about attitude. I'd like to benchmark where I am because it's good to look back to where I was. These benchmarks are basically for the future. You know, right now, my head is really tight, and my throat is really tight. I feel like I'm wearing a motorcycle helmet. My hands are numb. My feet are numb. It's difficult to talk. Still can't walk. I'm going to water therapy where I can walk in the pool. I'm also learning how to go up some stairs. I'm getting ready for my trip. I've been practicing driving too. Just kidding. So basically, everything is pretty much status quo. Enough of the Traumatic Brain Injury stuff. Let's tell a few stories. You know, it's always good to remember the past so you can forget about the present. Here's a few stories, some things I went through in my life.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to name this blog. It's going to be called, "Painting, Supervised Cooking, Squirrels, and The Greatest Bar on Earth." 

Every day I paint with my father. I do a watercolor of a heart for my daughter, a star and a circle. It's actually fun and good therapy. And then I do some cooking with my mother. I love cooking. I can't actually cook, but I watch her and tell her what to do. You know, like a real chef, like, "Put that over there, right now!" It's fun to tell your mother what to do. The whole time the painting and cooking is going on, I look at the squirrels on the bird feeder spin around and around trying to get at the birdseed. Very entertaining.

The greatest bar was a bar I used to go to all the time. That was the name of the bar, "The Greatest Bar On Earth." It was at the top of the World Trade Center, right next to a restaurant called "Windows on the World." It was a great bar. What a view. I remember standing at the windows thinking, man, I'm glad they didn't actually knock these things down in '93. It would have been a disaster. Little did I know what was to come! Actually, I used to go up there all the time with my ex wife. The bar is kind of symbolic I guess. It was fun while it lasted, until it all came crashing down, like my marriage. My friend said, "Very dramatic." Remember, I'm just a big girl crying at butterflies and kittens.

I'm going to make a fashion photographer's confession. Remember, I was a fashion photographer. I had one client I used to work for all the time. Well, I shot a job for them in Australia, and I did what we call, "Extra long clip test." The lab basically checks five frames before they process the film. It all looked good to me so I said, "Write N on everything, normal." Well, the guy in front of me ran everything plus 2. (That means 2 stops.) Well, if you've ever taken an N and turned it sideways it looks like a 2. So they basically ran my film like his. 2 stops over. In other words, they really fucked up my film. It all came back very light. I mean real light. That was the whole job. I talked to the art director after he freaked out, I said, "Listen, we got 5 good frames, and they ran the whole job on those 5 frames." And to top it off, of all the images, the client liked the high key images and used them for advertising. I got lucky on that one. So you see, out of a bad situation, good can come. You just have to look a little harder.

Here's another random story. I once had a summer job. I had to rent out boats. Well, a bunch of girl scouts showed up at my boat rental and they wanted to take out a few boats. They must have been like, I don't know, 14 or so. Anyway, I got them some boats and sent them on their way. The day went on and you know, I basically forgot they were out there on the lake. I forgot until I heard some distant screams. I heard all the girl scouts screaming and rowing back to the boat shed as fast as they could. They got to the boat dock and jumped out of the boat like a cat in water. They all started jumping up and down, shaking their hands, they were freaking out.  I thought, what the hell's going on. Well, I guess they found Ivan, the guy that drowned earlier. One of the girls put her oar in the water to row and it hit the body. Needless to say, they were freaked out. The police were thankful they found him though. People used to die like flies where I was working. It wasn't my fault. I just rented the boats. A lot of people would drink and swim off the boats. The lake was very dangerous. It was spring fed with cold water. And the days would get very hot. Oh, yeah, this one time, I sent 2 guys and a girl out. I remember because I had to throw in some extra life jackets. Well, a guy came back with the girl. One guy was missing. The couple, they were in shock. They kind of sat on a log. They just sat there. I said, "What's wrong?" The woman said to me, "My husband, he's dead." Apparently, there was a love triangle going on. The two guys got in a fight. One guy clocked the other guy over the head with an oar and he sank straight to the bottom. Nice job. The police came and took the couple away. 

Let's lighten it up. I have some great assistant stories. I could do a whole chapter on photo assistants, but I'll just tell you a couple. Well, one time, I had an assistant. He was a little homophobic. Anyway, all the guys in the crew had to share a room while we were waiting for a connecting flight. We were in Mexico. It was an editorial job. Not much money. Anyway, we had to all share a room. I said to the photo assistant, "Just share a bed with the hair dresser." He said, "No way man. The hair dresser likes guys." I said, "What do you think, he's going to assault you or something?" The photo assistant would have nothing to do with it, so to prove a point, he slept on the coffee table. Have you ever seen someone try and sleep on a coffee table. Very entertaining. Anyway, the photo assistant has changed his ways, but I thought it was amusing at the time.


Another photo assistant I had didn't like the room he was assigned to. This was in Mexico, by the way. He didn't like his room so what did he do? He talked to the production manager and got himself a house just down the street. Judd Law, the actor, had just been there. So they were cleaning up the house. I didn't know about all this. I went for a walk down the beach with the client and I look over to see my assistant on the sun deck with a bottle of chilled wine listening to music.  My client said, How come I'm not staying in a place like that? The stories go on and on. I've got so many more but I won't go into it.

Anyway, enough of the random stories. I'm going to sign off. My friend here will once again put my link in for my next project and she will include some cartoons I did. They're from the past. I used to keep my journals in cartoon form. I hope you enjoy them. This is B. Nice signing off. Love you guys. Talk to you next week. 

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