…and then that morning i woke up and i wasn't sick any more- the pain had stopped, my skin was turning back to its pinkish self and an uncontrollable urge to not sleep came over me. It was as if the cure to all my problems was insomnia and I welcomed it back into my life as it was comforting. I was sick for 5 months- asleep for all that time only venturing outside working in a state of zombie like drowning since the looming fear of unpaid bills and accumulating debt was a horrible 5am alarm clock buzzer that never seemed to go off.

Outside its 3am and the birds are calling. I remember such nights when I would be running around town this late taking in the wonders of the street lamps as they warmed my heart in the awkward void all around me thinking of those who sleep so quietly in their beds.

Though now I am restless due to an unfortunate series of events that occurred in my day that wont be wiped out until I have hung them on my tree.

I missed out when I was sick. I missed the major headlines when I was crying in pain, turning yellow and fighting to stay afloat.

It seems that everyone had a great time at my expense when I was ill. When I wasn't there they all had their fun- they said I was faking, they said I was a slut, they said I was stupid, they said I was annoying, they said I had addition habits, they tore apart my art, they took every chance to critique who I was and all the time I was in my bed quietly sleeping confident in the trust that I had that they wouldn't do me in like a group of 5 year olds playing in a sandbox.

They sold me out and those who took pity on me told me so and my answer was "It's not surprising" because I know better. I have seen women greater than me done in by less said comments- the answer to the big problem to why people have nothing better to do in the world then to dump on you is because they really don't care in their sorry self absorbed universe.

Everyday it's a never ending ball of chaos for me. I am harassed daily over my msn by perverts. It frustrates me to the point of tears- that horrible feeling that I am seen as nothing more than a horrible object to the random people who search me out over the internet only to corner me in conversation with rude and lurid comments when my guard is down. I burst into tears when girls comment to me that I should try flirting with my bosses to get further along the line, I cry when women tell me I should move back home because I am living on my own and not saving money, I cry when co-workers try to tell me how to live my life as if its going to get fixed if I marry some stupid rich guy and spit out kids and I cry when people mock my cock-eyed optimism I portray in light of the worlds tragic horror-show nightmares.

I guess when I was out for 5 months it was everyone around me who was sick. Yet I try not to let it bother me too much since I know each morning when I wake up from my horrible nightmares in a panic fit I reassure myself in saying over and over and over "Thank god oh thank god I am me and not those bunch of horrible stupid people" because I would kill myself in a minute if I woke up and saw that the dream was really AnnK and I was one of them. I actually believe the only reason they don't wake up with the sudden urge to annihilate themselves is because they are so caught up in themselves and their self absorption they don't know the sort of ugliness they protrude.

THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK cause AnnK knows it all- knows it better then you play it cause your just a silly human after all and yes you are going to die one of these days- so why can't you get over yourself for a moment? Throw me some compassion for a moment or don't throw me shit at all- I am on your side and always was… I just wish I could say the same about you for me.

On a lighter note I got my most terrific jacket with the embroidered English cross and unicorn power inlay that is an amazingly huge bowl of awesome sauce! Its super warm, covers my bumb (for tobogganing purposes) and makes me look like top quality euro-trash. I love this jacket so much I want its babies. I can zip myself up like a sausage!

Everything is eerie and wrong when I go for my mid morning walks. Dare I blame the daylight savings time on this one or is it global warming or is it just the fact it's been since January I have really been outside walking on my own. It's one of those. I am sure of it.

I walked out to the park and threw my body into an unfamiliar metal bench that sits by the pond- this isn't my regular bench and for reasons that are confusing I sit in this new bench and watch two men in suits eat lunch out of shopping bags. I am having a difficult time since one looks like my brother and I am pondering if I should wave or say something. I stay silent and I realize everyone walking around reminds me of someone somewhere I have met once before… no paranoia only a dull sick feeling as if I am standing on a very tall building when I look past faces flickering street light repetition of those lingering from the past. The feeling is so intense it hurts, your body rejecting everything soaking in around you from the sick molding air to the pointless burning sun.

I contemplate admitting my confusion, this endless vertigo that is the current state of my waked hours, my frustration growing towards every dead end personality and brick wall hand trying to beat you off your way. I hung it all on a tree and came home when the sun was still shining and fell asleep on the couch…

"The problem with advice like that is it's coming from a man like HIM," Gail howls at me pulling the hood to her fur-lined parka. She's leaning over the bridge as we break off sticks and toss them into the water running below us. It wouldn't be that lousy of a place if it wasn't for the sharpie graffiti etched in the woodwork cursing a world of pubesant pointlessness.

"That's what I mean. He acts as if I am totally won over with his character that I can't see what kind of total scum he really is," I say running my fingers over the word F-YOU. "I wonder if he realizes I am onto it."

"Onto what?" Gail Asks. I look at Gail's face nested in the opening of the parka and watch her lips spell out each word as she surveys the obscenities written under our hands.

"That I can see how phony he is," I say. "He tells me on Monday I should be strong, I should be a woman, I should be all what I can be despite what is around me… by Thursday all is forgotten and he's making excuses, telling me lies. He yells at me when I confront him with the proof of his true nature and wickedness like a coward. He usually gets upset and will give me the silent treatment for as long as he can resist whatever it is that draws him to me… a light that is unattainable to a moth wearing a dusty suit."

Gail's eyes slant and now she's smiling and leans closer to me, whispering, pointing to a line of graffiti. I look down, notice it, slant my eyes and laugh.

On days when the spinning is minor and the pain is limited I set up the office and paint. I am on basic supplies- all my brushes are chewed, the paint bottles hunch together in a cardboard tray lids half on and oozing with brilliance. I lined the writing desk with cardboard and slop paint as I source and read and read and read the history and essays that scholar's pen and students argue as I block out the sun with a towel in the window. It is spring- its life and death and rebirth and I paint as I wonder when will I get better.

Spring

Every year with the arrival of spring the arts come out from their winter sleep in search of kitchen scraps. IN later years the ants have been larger which made me assume they were Carpenter ants chewing away at the frame of the house that I rent. This year the ants are smaller and thief like stealing every last crumb right down to what the cat won't finish in her bowl. The arrival of these new pesky houseguests is unwelcomed such as a drunken school chum looking for a couch to crash on after a stint downtown at the local bars. Each day I am there trying to stay one step ahead of my new house enemies- sweeping them up, cleaning the floor, picking up the tiniest of crumb as it falls to the floor despite the cats pleas for my regular sloppiness.

I am starting to feel better as well. My health is improving with the turning good weather and my desire to paint is met and matched by the wonders I can think up in my head. Spending long periods of time shut-up and starting out of windows only to be released into a melting world of warmth is to what I feel criminals get like when they finally end those 5 years in a cell- beating the street with wild eyes, desperate for a connection, starved for social interaction… how much money do you have in your pocket and how fast can we spend it on something cheap?

I have desires to plan and scheme to get moving…

I had a rude awaking on Saturday when my doctor's office called announcing that I had failed my last medical test. Yeah. I guess 'failing' is not the best word to use when describing a medical test since it raises too many questions to what I failed leaving those who check my blog to wonder "what the hell is wrong with this girl now?"

The details of the test are as follows dumbed down for a public blog post:

The found a few 'abnormal' cells in me. There is a good chance that these 'abnormal' cells are something not good. In three months I have to go back in and get re-tested to see if the cells continue to 'mutate'. If they have 'mutated' then I will have to go in for what they have described as a routine procedure to remove the mutations. Catching 'bad cells' early, as they tell me, is a good thing as it saves me from major cancer or other complications later on in what they expect in my so-called 'long and fruitful' life.

Currently I am at a loss at what I am to do in my regular day-to-day life. I am thinking what am I to do about all my charity and volunteer work I have currently put on hold because of the complications I have suffered from the mono. I don't know what to expect in my daily work life. Since Justin moved out last week I spend hours at home alone in a very echoy apartment looking at my cat and wondering how cruel it is to leave someone like me guessing what it is I have to do for the next three months as I wait for what happens next. It is like the first shoe has dropped and I am lying on the floor waiting for the other to maybe or maybe not drop.

I don't like to talk about it. I really don't like talking about how I feel sick or anything remotely connected to 'how I feel' since I deal that way. It's bullshit when I go out on work assignments and I see people who ask me questions regarding my health and it's getting to the point where I figure if I make charming note-cards on pink floral paper that explains where I have been and what I am going thru now it will save me from sounding like a broken record. Please, when you see me, don't talk to me about it. I hate it. Ask me questions about my art, my family or my work- just don't ask me "how are you feeling?"

With the option of taking 2.5 mega-pixels with my new Nokia cell phone I now have the opportunity to take photos at anytime, anywhere as I see fit without lugging my Fuji around with me. The only issue is remembering to connect the cell to the data cable every now and then so there’s room on the internal memory. I can buy flashcards up to 2Gigs of space for all my mp3’s though money is tight right now and that’s why I got the data cable. It was a solid investment of $50 which Dad joined in on since we both signed up for the same phone in exchange for me uploading all of his junk to his.

thing near as cool as something out of the pages of a science-fiction novel. If I ever wanted to take good quality photos I would use my digital camera- not the phone yet there leaves a special charm for plain and simple BAD PICTURES. Its camp to own a large collection of different styles of cameras since not everyone takes the same image as the other and the question is not how to beat the technology but to understand how it works to use that to your advantage.

The next thing to learn is how to get the new Word to work with blogger so I may try my hands at a few new tricks with the design to lay out better pieces of information. It's a nice thing if i can get it to work, its okay if I can't (though it will drive me nuts).

Where else then your own blog is a perfect place to post up the camera-phone shots? Though the acessability is getting there its more of a temp. frustration having to crack the solution to problems within a windows platform. What can I say- I like it when stuff works (so why didn't I buy a Mac again? Hummmm...)

I'll give it a few days... see what happens....

So I guess I should explain some of these photo's so you all get them. Well, that first one up there is my friend Kathy whom I stitch with along with her sister Pat. The both of them have a real fresh look on needle-work rekindeling a love for an old hobby fave of mine. For the past few weeks, every now and then, I go up with Kathy and we have an arts day at Pat's place (see archived blog entries). I have a splendid time and I love seeing everyone's designs progress into the finished product. Kathy wants to get a whole collection done and is turning her Blue Cottage On the Hill into a museum of sorts... I wonder if Kathy knows the amusing fact that she's living in the old Taylor's house... she probably does :)

The next one on the right- me with the kooky looking guy is my buddy Harvey. We both sit as directors for Milton Concert Presentations- the providers of classical music and other orchestrated musical acts as an alternative to sitting around the house on a dull evening. Though I am a director I don't feel as proud as I should be since I have been quite sick and all of my volunteer activites has been squashed and I could be doing so more to assist everyone. Health First! They say... dunno- being helpless is a downer. Though MCP really kicks butt- without it Milton would be missing out on a whole culture genre and everyone who goes to the concerts seem really into the music. Sometimes its good to go and to watch the people because Milton doesn't have a concert hall or anything like that. We have to rent out St Pauls and have people sit in the pues once a month to enjoy the music. That's dedication. That's like standing on your chair the entire time the music is playing because "if you had any idea how good this was you'd be on your feet too, buddy."

The last shot must be one of the last times I bumped into Lyndon and Tessie in the Cafe... I won't write about that here. If you know, you know. Though there are many other places the three of us can have coffee I kinda did like my cafe because it was in walking distance for myself. The other ones are too far out of my directions and in the cold and sick is another factor compleatley. Lyndon and Tessie are straight up down cat's.

More photos as I see fit... maybe i'll start aiming this thing at the snow and record the mess outside of my door.

I am counting down the days, I am making my lists, and I am calling up the loose ends. Soon I will be independent. Soon I will be living on my own. I am looking forwards to my new independence because it means new goals, new beginnings and a new outlook on work, life and beyond.

WALK WITH ME

It snowed on Monday leaving a cold sheet of ice on the roads and sidewalks. On Tuesday, (my day off) I decided to get my boots on and go for a walk around the Mill Pond and get some photos with my old Fuji camera. I am still using the small (yet powerful) point and shoot as I am waiting for my new camera to be delivered in my sweet open hands. Once I get this kind of photographic power, I will post up some of the most stunning photos you have ever seen and my old photography teacher, Mrs. Frank, will be proud.
Since I was wearing my huge boots, the ones that are at least a good 3 inches off the ground, I didn’t feel like tromping across the front pathways by Mill Pond. Instead, I wanted an easier walk through the Rotary Park entrance though I feel that was a bigger mistake.
Behind the Mill Pond by the park entrance there is a chicken slaughterhouse. It has always been there since I can recollect only in the past few years I have seen this monstrosity grow to take over the back of Rotary Park. I have only two complaints about the slaughterhouse:
1- The smell
2- The strange looks I get from the men who work there.
The looks are enough to intimidate anyone from coming through the back entrance since they are alien and hold a blank expression of nothing- working long hours in the stench of dead poultry in the heart of a small community. This is why I bet there were no children with mothers in the park. Behold a winter palace that goes unused and gets abused by those who move in when the eyes are not looking.
It was a deserted landscape and after a half hour, the weather started to take its toll on the tiny battery in my camera and in my MP3 player. I headed home to clean up my place and get to work in my office.

Painting notes:
Painted over another old painting- horribly desperate for canvas. I am taking what I originally wanted to do with this canvas and worked out the perspective exact so I don’t make any mistakes. It is a slower process but if I take my time with each large piece I create, I am bound to receive excellent results.

Personal notes:
Everyone is asking, everyone is talking, paranoia going up, I can feel their eyes out there burning holes into my shadow as I leave a room. I am a spy, I can see it all from the dangers to the filth behind the razzle-dazzle of the Main Street strip. If you could ask me I adore it, I will prevail, I cannot fail.