The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.

...or the river.

A little over the week ago, I drove out to Sauvie Island. I hadn't been there in over a year, which is a shame because it's pretty much my favorite place in all of Portland.

A bunch of my coworkers had planned to meet up at the pumpkin patch with their families and do the corn maze and all that happy crappy.  By the time I got there, I was frazzled and anti-social. I couldn't get a hold of my friend, and the light was fading, so I bought a park pass and drove out to the beach to work on my wheelchair project.  My partners in crime:

• Reg - my Nikkormat FTn (loaded with b&w film)
• Frank - my Nikkormat FT (loaded with color film)

The wheelchair has been slowly deteriorating over the years, which I've allowed to happen, and now it only goes backwards and the right wheel locks up more often than not.  It was quite a trip lugging it up the stairs and down the sand dune, but I think it was worth the effort. Looking back, I wish I'd tried some different angles, but oh well. Sauvie Island isn't going anywhere.

Stop squeeming.

"Have a great Fourth and I'll see you on Sunday for the barbecue."

Oh, yeah. He's a dead man.

I'm  sitting in the office, wearing a robe, fingerless gloves and a beehive  hat, and watching "Return of the Living Dead," Svengoolie-style. 

I miss Chicago.

Summer was gone when the heat died down, and Autumn reached for her golden crown

Sunday - Sauvie Island (iPhone, digital camera)

Friday - Pioneer cemetery (Nikkormat FT)

Sugar Maples (Nikkormat FT, again)

Ghosts

“Time takes it all. Whether you want it to or not, time takes it all. Time bares it away, and in the end there is only darkness. Sometimes we find others in that darkness, and sometimes we lose them there again.”

 Went to a Winterhawks game about a week ago; my first of the season. Portland beat Seattle 3-2 and it was awesome.

TK-16 has no patience when it comes to hockey.

JP missed the big fight because he was off buying cotton candy. Yummy...

There's been a lot going on lately, but I don't have the energy to write about it. A friend of mine died several years ago and it's his birthday on Friday.  I think it's bothering me more this year because I'm stressed out about a lot of things right now and I guess it's easier to focus all of my anger and sadness onto that one specific thing.

I've just felt really lost and alone for a long time now, and I need it to stop. This morning I have contacted several therapists who deal mainly with ADHD and PTSD. Medication helps, but I'm not going to make any progress without the tools I need to function "normally."  It's scary, but I'm trying to be hopeful about it.  Hope is not familiar territory for me, and I feel uneasy. Haha.

Better than Christmas

I splurged and had three rolls of film developed today.  Two from Frank (Nikkormat FT) and one from Flash (Minolta srT202). I have no idea which or how many of my cameras have film in them anymore, so I've been trying to play around with them and see how much film wasting I have to do...

From the Minolta:

From the Nikkormat:

I want to take my Nikkormat out behind the middle school and get it pregnant.

“Sometimes being surrounded by everyone is the loneliest, because you realize you have no one to turn to.”

I've had self-esteem issues my whole life, but I don't think I've ever felt as worthless and insignificant as I have over the last  week and a half.  With the exception of one day, my vacation was horrible. I tried to get together with friends and was completely ignored. Then there was the Warrior Dash. It was kind of a big deal to me. I'd been talking about it for months, and some of the girls at work started talking about coming out with their kids and making a little party of it. That made me happy because I don't  really get to hang out with or talk to my coworkers outside of work, and I was looking forward to hanging out. 

In the end, no one came. (Except for one of the girls, but we never knew for sure she was coming and with no phone reception at Horning's Hideout, we didn't get her messages until we were on our way home.)  J is the only one who even called to talk to me that morning.  So I ran my first race feeling like shit. My heart wasn't in it, and I was so fed up and irritated, I wanted to forget the whole thing. It was hard. Really hard. I still don't know where I got the strength to finish. I wanted to quit a thousand times, but something kept me going, and I dragged myself up and over every obstacle, despite the pain. And though I was out there with a co-worker and former co-worker, there was no one waiting for me on the other side of the finish line. I thought I would feel something at the end of my first race, but I didn't. I just felt empty. I watched people hug and kiss and celebrate and I felt about as worthless as the mud I'd just crawled through. 

But I got my medal and I drank my free beer and I went home knowing that I'd put my mind to something and I'd seen it through from start to finish. I may not have done my best, but I did it.  I don't often have the opportunity to feel good about myself, but somewhere deep down, I knew I should be proud. When I limped into work the next night, I got hugs and congratulations and people were proud of me. That meant a lot to me. I know that it's hard to make plans when you have kids and responsibilities (and Horning's is so far away), but I still felt like I hadn't been important enough to make the effort. 

I don't speak up when I'm hurt or upset -I never have- so how can I still be upset that no one came out to support me? I guess I'm just an asshole. There were so many times last week that I picked up the phone and tried to call someone, but I couldn't do it. I can't find the nerve to say, "I'm upset and I need to talk." I guess I don't want to chance reaching out and being brushed off or just flat out ignored. 

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear."

Mud, sweat and beer.