Winter Tree with Yellow Leaves

Well it isn't winter quite yet but here is a wintery tree from Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, near Bluebell Wood. 

The yellow leaves under the tree- which was a big part of why I chose this tree- were cleared while I was painting them.

Is this a trend?

32F/0c, I was warm though.

8x10 oil

Here are some other assorted pictures from the garden today.

Windy Waves

I am off work today and tomorrow and am getting some painting in since it isn't raining.

Today I went over to Jamaica bay Wildlife Refuge again.

I'm back to a more standard palette, but I kept it small because of time and wind.

It was very windy which was unpleasant, but it made good waves on the water so that's what I painted.

The wind took 15 degrees off the temperature!

8x10 oil, 1 hour (because of the wind and also quick-changing light, I wanted more time with this one but ...conditions...) It is very much a mental workout to do this kind of painting.

December, Finally!

Oh my god we made it to December!

What a stupid year.

I was on the overnite on the hotline last night, which was a good way to enter into this last month of stupid 2025. It's my last overnight for this year, I did 2 ON shifts in November.  I volunteered for this past shift, earlier in the month they had no one booked so I took it.  I did end up having a shift partner from the new class though, it was their first overnight. But no more ONs for me in 2025!

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In other very sad news, two boathouse people have passed away.

Hector died on Saturday, and last night while I was on the train to the hotline I learned David also passed away. Hector's passing wasn't a surprise; he has been declining since the spring. David is a surprise though and it will be weird with him not around running the desk.

Here is David's obituary in the NY Times. (Gift Article)

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Also, my class egg tempera show hangs on JANUARY 17 for the opening on Tues Jan 20th!

This sucks!

It's too early!

What the heck!!

I have been working on a Filippo Lippi master copy since October, it is a very difficult painting and I thought I'd have at least through February.

Now I have to finish SOON and I feel really stressed and rushed.  

I still have so much work to do on it.

Anyhow, I am glad it is finally December.

The bad funk I was in for Thanksgiving lifted the day after; I knew it would.

It is on pause for a minute.

Now I just have to get through Christmas and New Years.

I hope this month goes quickly with no more deaths (if you are reading this you are definitely NOT ALLOWED to die) and no more anything except good things. Or neutral.  I'll also take neutral.

In the Macys Parade, Again

I was in the 99th Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Parade today.

It was my second Macy's parade... in 2023 I was on the Uncle Dan balloon.

This year I was a clown, and I like being a clown more than being on a balloon.

I was in the Corn-y-copia clown group, and we were right at the front of the parade.  

(We were CORNSTARS)

We also opened The Today Show!

Debbie Gibson and Al Roker were there too. (pics below)

I like being a clown because it's really fun to interact with the crowd.

We threw confetti and people held out their hands for passing contact and high fives.

There is something very human and very magical about this; it was amazing.

Especially in NYC and all that means. It is all of humanity coming together in a moment of connection and contact in joy.

I was with 2 boathouse friends and my friend/coworker Franca.  Being in the parade has been on her life bucket list for many, many years, and she hasn't been able to get in.  I got her in this year and it was so nice to be able to make that possible for someone who has been wishing for it for so long.

It's a good feeling.

The parade and feeling the fun and joy of it is a stark contrast to how I am feeling internally, which is a bit odd. It's really weird to feel such opposite feelings at the same time.

After the parade I went home.

Daya is not coming home and I have no plans.

Aside from the parade I have no thanksgiving.

Here are some fun pictures from this morning.

Our call time was 5:15am.

Franca got a hotel room and I stayed with her.

I was on the hotline last night and got to the hotel at almost midnight.

30+ years living in NYC and it was my first time staying at a hotel in the city!

Downtown Boathouse Crew!

On the shuttle bus uptown

Beach 122nd

Here is a 1 hour painting done at Far Rockaway, Beach 122nd.

I used Alex Foltz's palette which is very good.

He uses burnt umber instead of black.

This is an excellent palette for light packing.

8 x 10 oil

Not sure which pic is better, the one in sunlight or the one in shadow...

The beach was cool and overcast when I started and was warm and clear when I ended.

So it's a good thing the painting only took an hour, because everything was completely different at the end.

I'm all for morning tea but....

 ....This is a bit much.

Dizzy & Sprite

Cathy lost both Dizzy and Sprite last month.

They were very special cats and it has been a hard loss for her, so I painted their portraits.

Dizzy was my cat for 6 weeks, then I gave her back to Cathy because it didn't work.

That was the right choice, Dizzy was always meant to be with Cathy.

Both paintings are 5x7 oil.

I am the Queen of Dumb Anxiety

There are 44 more days in 2025 to get through.

It's time to formalize my morning and evening routines.

While I have always had stuff to do to start the day, and also end it (like everyone else in the world), it can be somewhat fluid which is ok.

But when I really need extra stability, it's time to make and print my routine checklists.

And follow them exactly.

Every day.

I did this for an entire year in 2006- that was a bad year.

I was not ok for any of it but the stable formal structure of beginning and ending the day helped tremendously. It acts like a brace to get through the days.

This isn't something that needs to go on forever, but it's good to get really formal about it in hard times.

I don't like to have to think or remember stuff, and also I'm lazy so I have to make everything as simple as possible, and doing prep work makes everything a lot easier to handle. Especially because I get overwhelmed very easily, everything will fall out of my brain, and I will just shut down.

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Kayak season is over.

My body started to feel it.

If I don't get enough HARD physical exercise, and if I eat worse than usual for a couple of days, I really feel it. 

I need to be careful and keep in good physical shape.

Hard physical exercise (low impact, I care about my joints) is absolutely necessary to help regulate my nervous system, which is so fried and fragile even with all the self-care I take.

So now that I can't go on the water all the time, it's time to resume Crossrope and also get back to the pool. Crossrope, no prob, I started up again last week, I do my workouts at home. Easy.

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The pool........ well, I am the Queen of Dumb Anxiety.

I go to a pool in my neighborhood; it is a 20 minute walk.

I have had my membership for many years.

Over the last couple of years, I have only gone sporadically, which gives me anxiety and guilt because I'm paying $51 for it every month. (I thought that was a lot until I heard how much other people were paying for their pools, so I feel a lot better, it's cheap.) I hate wasting money on things I never use.

But also I love the pool and I need to swim so I just left it.

My pool is a Jewish pool, and sometime last year, maybe late 2023 they got really scared with all the news stuff and implemented a new door authentication system.  It is a bluetooth app on the phone.

Back when it was finally ready, I set it up and wasn't going, so I never used it.

And the longer time went on, the more anxious I got about being able to get into the building.

And it turned into a growing mental wall of anxiety about going.

Which is really stupid but there it is.

So this past Friday I decided I need to get past this.

I went over to the pool when I knew everyone would be there, during regular daytime hours.

I tried the app.

IT DID NOT WORK.

Someone with a keycard let me in, and I enlisted the help of the extremely nice IT guy.

The stuff he did to fix my app also did not work, and he said they have been having problems.

We ended up having to completely re-install and re-authenticate my app and now it works.

This morning I went to the pool before work, all ready to use the app and the doors were wide open.

I didn't even need it.

..... but at least I know it works, if I go at night, or use the back door, I'll definitely need it.

I guess they don't worry as much in the daytime?

Anyhow my current goal is to get in the pool at least twice a week, which I can reasonably do.

I'll switch that out with my Crossrope workouts and that will keep me in good physical shape.

Which helps ENORMOUSLY when I'm not ok internally.

It's an extremely strange feeling to feel awful emotionally but feel amazing physically.

Very strange.

20

Daya is 20 years old today.

And she doesn't want to celebrate or even see me because she's in a bad headspace (again), so with the support of her therapist (???) she is going to stay stuck in her own head and do whatever the fuck she wants to do alone and yes I am very upset but then she tells me I'm making it all about me.

I would be fine with it- happy- if she was going out with friends and made time for me another day.

That would be different.

That would be good.

That is not the situation.

I really cannot anymore.

If she was not in a bad mental health space she would want to do something.

She has always liked to do something for her birthday.

20 is an important one.

Everything is too much.

It's one thing after another after another this year.

I'm so tired of being expected to just not have feelings and being dismissed and invalidated when I do.

A daughter's 20th birthday is an important day, and not just for her.

Absolutely everything with family is a big hole of nothing.

I have never been able to get past it, not for lack of trying.

Daya has not learned that 1) other peoples' feelings also matter and 2) when you feel like shit and Something Important happens it's good to show up for it and let some good moments in and maybe get out of your head for a little while. And 3) when you shut people out, it takes something important away from them.

But as always, when she's miserable she inflicts it on everyone around her.

She seems to think no one should be affected by her, and that whatever she is feeling should be what everyone else should experience and just accept.

It's like that INCREDIBLE dance she did last Spring that she hated so she tried to tell me to not even go.

It was honestly one of the most astounding things I have ever seen, but her negativity ruled all and in her eyes no one should be able to find joy in her performance because she didn't like it and that's all that mattered.

I'm sure she'll share my upset text responses with her therapist (I am very glad she is in therapy) but what the fuck ever, I don't care.

While I completely understand the urge to isolate, and I do it too, it's something that you have to be careful with.

I do wish someone she'll actually listen to would tell her to get out of her own head for a little while, that it's good for her and essential for her relationships and connections. And that participating in relationships is extremely important, sometimes even when you don't feel like it.

It's nice to know that, once again, if I have feelings I'm being selfish and making everything all about me. There is no care, no grace, no reciprocation, no acknowledgement.

Well, if I'm selfish so be it but yes I'm very upset and that's how I feel.

I would very much like to mark the important occasion of my daughter's 20th birthday.

She is taking that away from me.

It's irreplaceable.

If it's not valid, and I'm just selfish, what the fuck ever.

*******

I have a.... friend?? Acquaintance?? whose daughter is turning 16 in December. They are having a nice sweet 16 party, complete with a custom-fitted dress, dance lessons, I don't even know what else and it blows my mind. It is such an alien thing to me that people do that.

What is that like?

I cannot comprehend it.

Cannot wrap my head around it.

Is that normal? If so, some people really won life's lottery.

How do some people have absolutely everything and they have no idea they have everything?

Disappearing Boats

Today I painted the last boats and buoys that came off the dock.

I was at the boathouse early... Martin showed up after I had started painting and asked if opening the door would mess up my painting.

(no)

However, the boats and buoys I was painting were removed from the dock while I was painting them, so that was interesting and also hilarious. This is what makes plein air fun and interesting.......

This painting took about an hour and a half, 8x10 oil

How did Martin Know?

This is exactly what I need, all of it.

It will be a quiet day, a bunch of my boathouse friends are camping this weekend.

I was also invited and would have gone but Daya turns 20 on Sunday so I declined.

But...... more on that on Sunday.

.... i should have gone camping....

I need to get through this weekend.

The rest of this year.

47 days left.

Moment by moment.

No More Gallons??

I go through a gallon of solvent every three years or so.

The gallon I have been working through is from November 2022.

(I wrote it on the jug....)

There are only a few inches of solvent left at the bottom, i'm running out and need more so off to Blick I went. Three years ago a gallon was about $52.

I was wondering how much the price has gone up since then.

Unfortunately I never really found out because due to some stupid new VOC law, SELLING AND SHIPPING OF GALLON-SIZED GAMSOL IS NO LONGER LEGAL IN NY STATE.

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK.

I assure and guarantee you, my artist Gamsol is NOT the cause of environmental pollutants!

Certainly not a mere gallon container of it!

How about we start with all the nasty industrial waste and construction??

And airplanes and cars?

And plastic everything?

And fast fashion?
No, that's all fine, but I am no longer legally allowed to buy Gamsol in a gallon.

I CAN buy HALF the amount for $50 now though.

So this law makes my materials cost more expensive because I cannot buy in bulk which is a bit of a discount.

YES I need a gallon, I always have a lot of solvent settling after each use, which gets to be quite a lot because I'm out plein airing all the time.  I usually have 2 jugs of solvent settling for re-use, plus my gallon jug of clean solvent for when I really just need a refill. 

It takes over a week for it to get nice and clean again. 

The longer it sits the better.

I did try and order online thru Blick, they have it on sale for $60 (down from $80) but they won't ship it to me.

I AM SO TIRED OF LIFE GETTING STUPIDER 

AND MORE DIFFICULT IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY.

My solvent jars drying out between use, studio and plein air:

More Adventures in Weird Limited Palettes

There are 49 more days in this year and I have to figure out how to get through it day by day, moment by moment. Doing all the right things still is never enough.

I guess one way to do it is by playing around with weird limited palettes.

What I really wish is that I could just wake up in January and skip the rest of this year.

Reference is from The Long Dark (again) but I forgot/can't tell what region it's from.

9x12 oil

Vasari Naples Yellow PY 41-- nothing else compares!
Quinacridone Red PV 19
Viridian PG 18
Titanium PW 6

I guess we'll see what happens.....

 I hope things don't get worse.........

Time Change Cats

Phew, I am feeling so much better today!

And it's so nice outside!

I have egg tempera class in a little while, I'm doing a master copy which is twisting my head around. That's ok and normal, it's good learning.

I haven't posted cat pictures for a little while so here they are...

A Major Thing

There is something major I have learned from being on the hotline, from callers talking about their own issues, something I wish I knew years ago. I didn't even learn about it during any of my 9+ years in therapy or the spot therapy sessions I had after those 9+ years. It sure would have been helpful and I only connected and realized.... yesterday. Yeah. I'm THAT slow. But this stuff is intense and confusing and it takes a LOT of work and self-awareness to piece it together.

This isn't something I talk to anyone about.

Probably most people I know would be shocked to know this about me, but it's none of their business and I don't need this to be how I present myself. I don't want to be like that. So, I deal with it privately.

CPTSD, or complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) is a type of trauma that results from prolonged exposure to situations like childhood neglect, emotional abuse, or chaotic environments.

My childhood was all three of those things.

Being a parent myself really highlighted it.

When I entered into early adulthood, I didn't even know I was traumatized. 

It didn't even occur to me, because I thought it was just depression.

And when you are a child, it's all just normalized.

Especially when all the adults around you completely dismiss your feelings.

Even when they know you are engaging in self-harm and have suicidal ideations.

Shut up and grow up.

Back in my early 20s, I was looking for help, desperately. 

I did see therapists, and even after talking to me in-depth no one ever mentioned the word trauma. 

And I saw three or 4 therapists during and right after college.  Only one of them was any good and they didn't even know to mention it. But I didn't have the money to continue.

I did mention it to my stepmother and father, and they told me to grow up, I had nothing to be upset about, get plastic surgery, and they made fun of me for seeing a shrink.

My mother got angry with me and wanted to make sure I wasn't saying anything bad about her in therapy, that's all she cared about.

And then of course I married a predator, that's what happens when someone is traumatized from childhood and has absolutely no sense of self or any self-worth.  Being abandoned while pregnant and the intense cruelty of how he treated me during that time, and the domestic violence death-threats danger was intensely traumatic. So, it's trauma on top of trauma.

There is something called CPTSD Mélange.

It's basically a trauma flashback.

I have been having them for as long as I can remember. 

I always just thought it was a depressive episode, but it's different- it feels different than depression.  

It is the body and nervous system reliving the trauma in a very intense way.

It can take several days to run its course.

I don't get panic attacks, but it's perhaps like the trauma version of an anxiety attack... except it isn't anxiety either. It's a very intense emotional pain that also has a sick feeling to it, and physical reactions too. 

Just like how it felt to be in a very traumatic experience.

The body remembers, the nervous system remembers.

And when it's triggered, it's very, very bad.

I went into CPTSD mélange on Thursday evening, and yesterday it was very bad.  

It's still pretty bad today.

And for the first time in my life, I actually know what it is.

Yes I know what triggered it, but it still took me by surprise.

While this episode is awful, as they always are, it's amazing to actually know what it is.

The only way to get through it is by practicing good self-care, being nice to myself, hot baths, and trying to sleep it off as much as I possibly can.

The huge- and I mean !!HUGE!! advantage I have in dealing with CPTSD and trauma is that I have good self-esteem and self-care. It was something I had to learn. That doesn't mean I don't have insecurities, I sure do, but I am friends with myself and my inner dialogue is always positive and friendly. I am never mean to myself. And I don't take this out on other people. I'm not the lash-out type; I shut down and withdraw.

I am also realizing that a lot of how I have my home environment set up- especially in this last calendar year when Daya has been living in the dorms- is set up to regulate my nervous system as best as I can.

I guess I have done it instinctively, but I'm realizing that I need to constantly regulate my nervous system and be able to recover from or prevent being dysregulated.

So, I need to figure out how to deal with what is triggering it because this is awful and I can't keep going through it. There are things I maybe need to stay away from. I need to take a big step back.

It's wrecking my trauma-nervous system. It's all me; no one is doing anything wrong and my life structures- home, health, job etc are all fine.

Being dysregulated is also not the same as the flashbacks, but it's still unpleasant.

I have done so much inner work through the years, it never ends, and it's discouraging to know the trauma effects never really go away... all I can do is manage it and deal with it when it happens.