Sad and Beautiful World

The Next Big Thing

First off, let me say thank you to those who commented on my last post, and I’m sorry that I did not respond by e-mail to each of you. The comments were helpful…of course the doctor did not bother to mention that asthma could have triggers and not show up with normal running around activity. Still, I don’t think asthma is what she has, but if she gets sick like that again I will be taking her to a specialist. The reason I still don’t think it is asthma is because when she had pneumonia in December, the doctor gave her this breathing treatment with drugs in it after thinking it was asthma, and no difference was made. All that happened was my daughter got all hyped up and wigged out from it, and I got mad because it was not made clear to me that she was being given drugs. I won’t rule it out, however, thanks to your comments.

I’ve been adjusting to my new busier schedule of babysitting now three days a week, and extra hours being added pretty much every week. The extra money is really helping take the edge off, just as I had hoped. Even though I am tired, I very much enjoy having somewhere to go a few days a week to get out of the house. It is helping me budget my time better and enjoy my time at home more.

Last weekend I was hired by the lovely Liana to take photos at her gorgeous daughter’s baptism ceremony. I was a nervous wreck inside, but strutted around like I knew what I was doing. I got so worked up about it afterwards that I was convinced the photos sucked and I’d have to give her the money back, but after taking some deep breaths and creating a slide show of the best images I edited, I realized they were pretty good. I showed them to the mom I baby-sit for and my husband to get a general reaction and felt a lot better. The best is that Liana and her husband Mason are pleased, and she boosted my ego ten-fold with the comments she made! I went out this past Saturday to take some more photos because I never got the baby in her full-gowned glory…she was being held during the ceremony and then she fell asleep before the reception and didn’t wake up until after I left. Damn, but that kid is gorgeous. I think it is probably impossible to take a bad photo of her!

Biggest compliment of all was that she wants to recommend me to others, and someone through her who wants family photos in April just contacted me! I’m on my way, so now I have to get off my ass and set up the Typepad site that is just for commissioned photography (Cecily has been bugging me, and she’s right). Question for you all out there: should I list pricing or not? Most people seem not to do it, and as a consumer it always bothers me. I don’t want to have to contact someone only to find out they are nowhere near my price range, you know? But there must be some reason for not listing pricing that I’m not thinking about. I’m guessing it is because one’s prices are outrageously high, which mine are not (yet. Heh). So I’d like to hear your opinion on the matter.

In other photography-related things, I’ve been feeling much more of a struggle with my 365 this second year, but I’m pushing on. I think it is a combination of things making me feel frustrated: I’m busier, for one thing; I am putting far more pressure on myself to come up with something “amazing”; doing this every day, it is impossible to always be “amazing” and this leaves me feeling depressed about it. I think I am also reacting to what we in recovery call “self-centered fear.” I am getting my work seen more and it is well past time to take things to the next level. That means submitting my art to galleries, online publications, and applying for grants. Why does this terrify me? How crazy do I sound when I say that becoming successful with it scares me just as much as failing at it? ☺

Nothing changes if nothing changes. And nothing scares an alcoholic/addict more than change, good or bad. But it is time for things to change, and time for me to stop dragging my feet. One little submission at a time, I think I can do this. My mother gave me an application for a statewide competition and the deadline is March 1st. I’m selecting my work for it and will mail my CD and application tomorrow. Then I will worry about what comes next.

In Sickness and in, well, more sickness.

My daughter returned to school today, finally, after being home sick from
Friday the 8th until Wednesday the 13th, at which point she went to see her doctor (in my defense, she was sort of sick Friday so I let her stay home because, you know, it was Friday. She went to her father’s for the weekend, which always wipes her out even though I informed him to take it easy because she was getting sick. Monday, she was much worse). She had a fever of 100.5 every day (I don’t know about the weekend) and a horrendous cough.

This is a kid who never used to get sick and even when she did hardly ever missed school. Each year gets worse. She had bronchitis in September and the bacterial pneumonia in December, remember? So they gave her another chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia (she didn’t have it) and then gave her a 5-day course of antibiotics anyway. Which worked.

Her school had a half-day the 14th and no school the 15th or yesterday, the 18th, so today is the first day she’s at school for 11 days. I hope she makes it through the day!

I’m very frustrated with how sick she’s been getting, though. When she had pneumonia, the doctor we saw (who wasn’t her doctor), kept babbling about asthma. Apparently this is the hot ticket item these days? It pissed me off, because I think I would have noticed if my kid had trouble breathing. She’s athletic and vibrant and never gets out of breath playing sports. Where was this asthma diagnosis coming from? Apparently, the nurse practitioner that saw my kid last week (my father took her because I was at my babysitting gig), tried to pin the asthma on her as well. What, do they get handed an order from the AMA: first person to submit 20 cases of asthma gets a new laptop? Seriously, I’m asking. What is the deal?

I’m looking into taking her to a new doctor. There is a relatively new trend for doctors to specialize in adolescent medicine. My mother suggested this and I think it is a good idea—have a doctor who is treating my daughter as an entire being, and who will actually see her when we have appointments and not have us passed on to somebody else in the practice (well, that’s what I’m hoping for anyway).

In the meantime, I’m giving her vitamins (as usual) and extra vitamin C in tablets, oranges, and kiwis. I think I’m going to have to get her in bed a bit earlier a few times a week, too. What kind of worries me is that it seems as if everyone is getting sick more often, and in worse ways, than usual this year. I know in my household there is always at least one of us who aren’t feeling 100%. I could be imagining this, though…I mean, this is how those conspiracy theories get started isn’t it? Heh.

And You're to Blame

Happy Valentine's Day! :-)

*Couldn't resist the title...damn song is stuck in my head ever since I thought of the idea for this photo.

Body and Soul

The other night my daughter told me she hates her thighs and thinks they are fat.

You have all seen photos of my kid, right? Many of you have seen her in person. She doesn’t have an extra ounce of fat anywhere on her body. She thinks they are “fat” because when she sits down, they spread out. I explained to her that the muscles are relaxed in that position, that is all. I talked about how when we stare at any one thing for too long, it can start to look strange to us. She said everyone else is pretty. Ugh.

What is a mother to do? How do we keep our daughters from going through this kind of agony? Will this sort of self-flagellation ever end? Is it inherently human or is it a product of years and years of media flashing false images of ideal bodies?? I do find it hard to imagine that a woman living in a society where the sole purpose of existence is survival would have the time to be concerned with issues of vanity.

It is heartbreaking. Then yesterday a good friend wrote a blog post about her own body issues…she wrote in gut-wrenching details about how she felt seeing her body. She’s gained weight in the past year since getting married, but to me she is still a long way away from fat. She is extremely beautiful and intelligent and knows very well that her thoughts and feelings about her body are unhealthy, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling them. She has had thoughts of suicide over this—it’s no laughing matter. She’s struggled with an eating disorder in the past and I’m worried she’s heading for it again. She possibly suffers from what we know as Body Dysmorphic Disorder, something that affects about 2% of the population (US).

A photo editor at a magazine recently contacted me. She had seen my photos on Flickr and wants to possibly use them with an upcoming article on body image and the rise of women on community photo sites doing self-portraits. It isn’t yet a guarantee (and I’m trying really, really hard not to get too excited about it), but the idea of it struck me. She talked about the current backlash against altered images in the media…have we all seen the infamous Faith Hill cover (Redbook) photo showing all the changes made?

Talking with the editor, I wanted to have hope. She works for a magazine that focuses on the body, one that I would have expected to focus on those “perfect” bodies that don’t actually exist. I began to feel a little bit optimistic. I thought about the Dove campaign for “real beauty” and while it isn’t all the way there as far as I’m concerned, it is a big step—multi-racial, curvaceous women and the Self-Esteem Fund seems like a cool idea. Still all beautiful and none particularly big women, but we’re getting there, perhaps.

Most of my self-portraits involve Photoshop, of course, and while none of it involves changing the shape of my nose or the cut of my stomach, I still take care to pose in certain ways and I do smooth out my skin. I guess I’m still “getting there” as well, and maybe this is the impetus to be more daring, more brave. Getting naked is not bravery, to me. Showing what I really look like? That would be brave. Because despite it all—despite loving my daughter and not wanting her to ever hate her body like she is learning to do, I am not exactly living a good example. I’m so much better than I’ve ever been as far as accepting myself and loving myself, body and soul, but the doubts and self-hating voices still arise. I still have days when I don’t want to see myself in the mirror.

And none of us should ever feel that way.