Sunday, January 28, 2007

"Something you said"


Here is the latest of the paintings for the show in March. I won't be posting it to my art website until the show has begun, because I want to leave some things as a surprise. I'll continue to post the paintings here, though, since most of you who read this aren't in the Pittsburgh area. Enjoy the sneek previews! ;-)

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Ha!

About a week ago, we ordered Chinese food and I got the following fortune, which of course made me laugh out loud. :-)

I remembered it today when my doctor told me that they found two clots in my left arm area. This means that I will have to administer shots to my tummy twice daily for potentially 6 months to thin my blood out. Argh. Come on, body, fix yourself already.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

A little less sleepy

Finally, my body has begun to readjust to being without so many steroids in my body. I'm still on them (25/20 alternating days), but at least it's not quite as much as it was before. I still have the puffy bloated face from them as well as hair in places it shouldn't be and no hair where it should be. For instance, I have this little mustache. It's similar to what the boys in junior high used to leave on their face for a year before finally being convinced to shave it off. It's just on the sides of my upper lip, and not noticeable all the times, but for one who has never had to worry about facial hair--it's noticeable. Between that and the ungroomed brows that I was sporting, I was hairier than Ralph.

Some good stuff, though, is that the less sleepy state has finally allowed me to get back in front of the canvas almost daily, even if only for an hour or two. This is really important, because 1) it gets me off the couch and out of bed and 2) I've got just a little over a month until my first show of paintings. I lost the past month and a half from all that weakness, so now I'm trying to play a little catch up and fix the things that I did with my shakey, tired hands. Hopefully, I'll post the next piece here within the week.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

A quickie

Today is Ralph's mom's 60th birthday. To celebrate it, Ralph's father offered to fly us both out to meet up with them in Berlin for a few days. Obviously, my current situation is not ready for traveling, so I had to stay here. Ralph and I both still thought it a good idea to send him along, so on Tuesday, he left for Germany for a week. I wanted to send birthday wishes along anyway and I thought it would be nice if I could do a little portrait of Ralph for her. Something quick and small. Between the fatigue, physical weakness, and the shaky hands (caused by some of the medications) it was tough to do. In the end, I finished it just in time and Ralph's parents seem have really enjoyed it. Here's a shot of it.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

It's been a while, I know.

I haven't posted for almost a month--and what a month it's been. I think that the month of December was probably THE weakest that I have been physically and mentally. So many days passed without me even doing much more than sleeping, eating, walking (on the treadmill), sleeping, eating and sleeping again. I would sit sometimes after eating breakfast, for instance. Just sit with my eyes closed and catch my breath or just to let my food digest, and before I know it, an hour has passed. I feel like I've lost hours and thus days that way this past year.

Both my physical and mental states have gotten better over the past couple of weeks though. The mental stuff was mostly because progress seemed to be coming too slowly or seemingly not at all. There was one day, for instance, when I squatted down to pull out some tupperware from a lower cabinet. I got the tupperware out, but then I couldn't get up. I pushed on the floor with my free hand. I pulled from the countertop. I threw the tupperware onto the counter top and tried with both hands to push up from the floor. Nothing. I had to call Ralph in from the other room to lift me up from the floor. Talk about a seriously depressing situation. So, yeah. That was probably the lowest point. I haven't tried to squat down again (still a little afraid of getting stuck down there), but my strength has improved enough that I don't feel quite so feeble.