Gina Harris's Blog, page 142

Band Review: Samantha Scarlette

Samantha Scarlette is a rock singer and songwriter based in New York.
There is a strong Gothic element to her look, and those concepts are also frequently present in her lyrics, but with a surprising lack of feeling.
I have done my listening primarily through Scarlette's Youtube channel, so it is probably more glaring via videos than simply listening. Regardless, whether the song is about corruption, light breaking into eternal darkness, or the impossibility of winning over one's demons, the primary emotion always seems to be an enjoyment of having the camera on her and satisfaction in her cuteness. No matter what changes to hair color, costume, and setting occur, the emotion never does. Even in the spoken intro to "Page Six", with a monologue about choosing loneliness after deciding she is unlovable, the intonation is almost Valley Girl-like.
From some of her tweets, it is clear she has real pain in her life, at least partially due to a bad father - something I sympathize with - but it feels like the pain has never achieved any real depth, so it comes off as petulance. Narcissism may have provided some shielding.
Scarlette occasionally reminds me of Courtney Love, but Love's dysfunction is deeper and more interesting. It's disappointing. She has a pretty large following though, so it must work for some people.
http://samanthascarlette.com/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/violent-delights-violent-ends/id931590814
https://www.youtube.com/c/samanthascarlette
https://twitter.com/SammiScarlette

Words without pictures

There is a short comic that I have been meaning to draw for a while. I have made some attempts, but I hate the way I draw. (That old problem.) Also, my comics tend to be pretty wordy too. Maybe it's just better to write it out, and let it be short because the pictures are missing.
Currently there are two main pressures in my life.
One is the job. I have no job. I am looking for a job. There are bills. There is a mortgage. There is a lot of "We went another direction." It scares me.
The other is my mother. Her dementia is growing worse. It sped up after holding steady for three years. It hurts, and it scares me.
Both are exhausting problems, where it is impossible to do enough. They are also opposite problems.
Unemployed I can be here and help her. Unemployed I may not be able to keep her in the house.
They pull in such different directions it seems inevitable that I will break. That has its allure.
If I could truly split, I could do so much more. I could finish the pilot while meditating with Mom. I could query local jobs and literary agents simultaneously. I could cook Mom a good brain-building meal while pruning the backyard.
Except it wouldn't go like that.
Even assuming a non-fatal split were possible, the end result would not be two fully-functioning mes, but two half-mes. Hopping around one-legged, trying to do things one-handed, without depth perception or both brain hemispheres, probably leaking drips of my inside over everything as I went.
Actually, that does sound about right.

Muted

I think somewhere within me I have a country song that starts "Tired of being tired, sick of being sick." Any sense of how the song would go beyond that is depressing and awkwardly rhymed, which I guess is why I assume it would be country.
When I wrote about the cellulitis flare-up I mentioned that a cold had settled in. I was irritated to be sick on Sunday again, because I had just missed church for my leg. Maybe I could have done it the week before. I mean, I was in some pain and on orders to lay low, but at least that is definitely something that is not contagious. Still, it seemed prudent to get a sub that first week, I did, and then the next week I was sicker, but differently, and stayed sicker. One of the things nursery parents compliment me on is my consistency, and I just missed my third week in a row.
The cold kept getting worse. At first it was just a bad cough and tiredness, but there was progress. After a few days of being unproductive, the cough turned productive. Okay, we are on our way out. Fewer coughing fits - though some still strong enough to pull muscles - is progress. In the meantime, I keep resting. Fine, I get it.
Losing my voice has made me think that maybe I did not, in fact, get it.
Here is a fun fact about laryngitis: you can have it up to two weeks before you need to see a doctor about it.
This does not appear to be anything worse than a bad cold. I had one once that lasted for a month. It picked up a nasty secondary infection, but even when antibiotics cleaned up those symptoms, the cold thrived for the entire month. I don't have a fever, there's no chest pain or difficulty breathing, I just can't get rid of this stupid cough or talk.
I don't even have to look for deeper meaning in it. I know that walking around with the shard of glass in my foot for three weeks did a number on my immune system, or I wouldn't have had the cellulitis flare-up. The antibiotics for that could have knocked out some other things. A nasty cold settling in makes perfect sense without needing to send a message.
Except it has been terribly obvious how much my family depends on me and expects me to be able to answer them, regardless of how hard answering is. I have still had to explain many things to my mother, and then fill in my sisters, even though it was a three-day weekend, and everyone was home. It's not that they don't care that I am sick, but they are used to me being able to do it. I am competent and patient and good at stuff, but if I try and do it all it will kill me. That won't be good for anyone.
So I think there are some lessons in this phase of illness too, and I need to figure them out. It's not even about letting other people do things for me now, but it is going to have to be about telling people what they have to do. It will have to go beyond doing things myself because they are easier. I have to sort that out.
I want my voice back.

Therapeutic lying

In the current phase of my mother's dementia, the biggest problem is that she doesn't believe that she lives here.
This is apparently normal, and the question that she has been asking "When are we going home?" is very common. Telling her that we live here gets her very upset, because then we're confusing her.
What a lot of people do is say "Tomorrow", because that at least has the person expecting to stay the night, and it can calm the person down. They call it therapeutic lying.
I am not ready to do that. Lying bothers me, but if I thought it would work I could get around that. However, no matter how many things don't stick, there are always some that do. I feel positive that if we told her we were going home tomorrow, the next day she would remember that, and then it would really be a problem.
The worst part is that she's obsessing over it. She's not always asking about going home, but when she's not she's going through all the clothes and things here that she wants to take with her, things she forgot she had. She does believe we used to live here, but that there's some other place now. If this was an occasional thing, we could deflect, but she is thinking about it all the time.
I know what she really wants is to go back to a place where everything makes sense and is familiar; a place that she feels connected to now instead of in the past. It is not something we can give her.
I have some hopes that this is temporary. A few months ago she was doing it with me, where she thought I was visiting from Italy. She was very impressed with how well I spoke English and how well I knew my way around. It hurt that she could have misplaced all of our years together, but at least she was glad to have me around. She didn't keep wondering how soon I would leave.
So maybe once we get the family room repaired, and things are back to normal there, maybe things will start to look familiar again. I can see how the trips to the laundromat make thing seem unsettled. Maybe it's because the yard is so overgrown, and if we get that fixed, then it will seem like home again.
Or that might be something we never get back.

Band Review: Lifetime

I'm reviewing Lifetime because they were recommended by Dave Hause. He is right and they are a good band.
However, listening to them on Spotify, in addition to two of their regular studio albums (Hello Bastards and Jersey's Best Dancers), there is also the two-disc compilation album, Somewhere in the Swamps of Jersey, and it is too much.
It goes on for almost two and a half house, and it sounds whiny. Given the band's background and the times of their beginning activity, that was a legitimate musical influence, but overkill is a real issue with it. It was completely enervating. I may be making too big a deal of it, but the compilation does a lot to undo the good that was done by the other albums.
If you like punk, you should check out Lifetime. I think "Young, Loud, and Scotty" is a good entry point. Singer Ari Katz has a new LP of his own, and check that out. I just recommend skipping the compilation. I feel very strongly about that.
https://www.facebook.com/lifetimenj/
http://merchnow.com/catalogs/lifetime

Band Review: Iron Mountain

Iron Mountain is a post rock/ folk metal band from Limerick, Ireland.
While they list influences including Jazz and Psychedelia, their long instrumental tracks remind me in many ways of Ambient. The flute and Uilleann pipes lend a touch of nature, while the song structures themselves ignore many musical conventions.
This is not always the case. On "Powow" especially there are moments when the rock is more prominent, as well as during some passages on "Opium". Overall, however, the music seems to fit better as soundtrack, into the background, working on the emotions at the edge of your conscious mind before affecting the forefront.
It is still completely reasonable to check out the video for "Enthralldom", and watch it consciously.
http://ironmountainband.com/
https://www.facebook.com/IronMountain.band/?fref=ts
https://twitter.com/IronMountainlk

Plagued

The Plague, by Albert Camus, ended up on the long reading list because a friend had mentioned it once, explaining that there were victims and carriers and healers, if I recall. It felt like it could be relevant. Once I started reading it, I didn't find that at all, until the end.
It is Tarrou speaking to Rieux:
"All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it's up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences. That may sound simple to the point of childishness; I can't judge if it's simple, but I know it's true... If, by making that statement, I, too, become a carrier of the plague-germ, at least I don't do it willfully. I try, in short, to be an innocent murder. You see, I've got no great ambitions.
I grant we should add a third category: that of the true healers. But it's a fact that one doesn't come across many of them, and anyhow it must be a hard vocation. That's why I decided to take, in every predicament, the victim's side, so as to reduce the damage done. Among them I can at least try to discover how one attains to the third category; in other words, to peace."
Tarrou was swinging his leg, tapping the terrace lightly with his heal, as he concluded. After a short silence the doctor raised himself a little in his chair and asked if Tarrou had an idea of the path to follow for attaining peace.
"Yes," he replied. "The path of sympathy."
There are a few paragraphs beyond that, where we learn that for Tarrou the plague goes beyond the literal plague that is devastating their town to include all of the bad that humans do to each other, but it is still a very small part of the novel, and yet a critical part of it. It makes sense that Tarrou becomes the key organizer of the efforts against the plague, and also that he gives his life for his efforts.
What strikes me most about it now is the humility in his philosophy, which for him is only realism. It would be wonderful to be only a healer, but we can do great harm without intent. I had a moment of thoughtlessness a few weeks ago that still makes me cringe.
You could argue that recognizing yourself as a carrier, and then trying to mitigate that, is the key. It is important, but Tarrou's identification with the victims - his sympathy - is a good path because it keeps his compassion and sense of humanity alive.
I'm going to tie it with something else I read back in January that touched me, from Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell:
"There are stages in the contemplation and endurance of great sorrow, which endow men with the same earnestness and clearness of thought that in some of old took the form of Prophecy. To those who have large capability of loving and suffering, united with great power of firm endurance, there comes a time in their woe, when they are lifted out of the contemplation of their individual case into a searching inquiry into the nature of their calamity, and the remedy (if remedy there be) which may prevent its recurrence to others as well as to themselves.
Hence the beautiful, noble efforts which are from time to time brought to light, as being continuously made by those who have once hung on the cross of agony, in order that others may not suffer as they have done; one of the grandest ends which sorrow can accomplish; the sufferer wrestling with God's messenger until a blessing is left behind, not for one alone but for generations.
With the things that have been happening to me and my family, I can't help but see them as part of a bigger picture. An individual solution for me would be great, and I would love it, but there would still be the bigger story out there, and I am connected to it.
If I forget that connection, then I too am carrying the plague.

Advance Directives

If yesterday's post has you wondering why I am so tired, unemployment stress is part of it, but the dementia stress is a lot worse. I don't want to get into that now, because I am still hoping that this current phase - which has a lot of disassociation going on - is temporary. Maybe a new medication will improve things, or getting the home repairs over with and restoring that sense of normalcy. Between the leak and the leg growth and me losing my job, there has been a lot of stress.
That may be denial, but for now I am holding on to it. However, it made filling out the Advance Directive forms - which have been laying around for a few months - more important. Her sense of connection to us and the house may waver, but my mother's sense of herself is still strong, and she can make decisions. That may be temporary.
One pleasant surprise was the ease of the process. They break it down into a few scenarios that are clear and concise. This is what cardiac arrest is; would you want CPR? These are the options if you can't eat normally. We were able to get through it quickly without any concerns about understanding, and I am grateful for that.
A less pleasant surprise was how much my mother is already against any of the efforts. You can choose a trial tube-feeding period; it doesn't have to be long-term or none. I did not previously know about her horror of having things stuck down her throat, but that really influenced her decision-making on artificial respiration.
The harder part is thinking that we could already be at the point where death would be better. We kind of were already there. Seeing how hard things sometimes get now, and knowing that odds are they will only get worse until they end completely, has made us have to think about it, but we are not ready to lose her.
I know people who have lost their mothers, both recently and a long time ago, and suddenly and with extended warning. Any time I send my mind to what would be better or worse it just goes blank; there is no good way to lose your mother. We do not like this situation, but we remain unprepared for it to end. I guess it was a surprise learning how ready she was.
And, it doesn't quite mean that either, because these situations all start with something catastrophic happening, that hasn't happened yet, and may not ever happen, but that we are not ready to wrap our minds around yet.
I am still glad that we did it. I am glad that they have been her choices to make, and we could make them when we could think clearly, instead of in the moment of crisis. It is ultimately a relief, though not an unmitigated one.
So I am going to put a useful link at the end, but for my own thoughts I can only go back to Emily Dickinson:
"Parting is all we know of heaven, And all we need of hell."
http://www.caringinfo.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm

I make myself sick, again

This last incident actually reminds me of two other incidents, though in some ways I have done better than in the past.
Being unemployed (and uninsured) has definitely been part of the problem. I suppose I should have gotten insurance through the health exchange by now, but there is this limbo to being unemployed. If you get a job soon there could be insurance again; maybe you just need to hold on a little bit longer. I have been keeping up-to-date on all of my medications, but I have been putting off doctor visits, until I couldn't.
I guess it's about five weeks ago now, but I stepped on something. It hurt and I saw a small hole in my foot, so there was no question that I had stepped on something, but I couldn't see anything protruding or under the skin.
As a diabetic, I need to be careful with my feet. It's really more that if neuropathy sets in I might do something to my foot and not know, and that's not what was happening here, but it's still a sensitive area. I soaked my foot in warm water and Epsom salts, and then I kept doing that.
Sometimes the soaking made my foot felt a lot better, but then it would hurt again. I still couldn't find proof that anything was in there, but I couldn't quite be sure there wasn't anything in there either. If there was, I kept hoping the next soak would draw it out. This is a sound strategy, but not implemented over three weeks, which is what I did. I did think about going to the doctor, but I was worried I would have to be referred to someone else, and the bills would pile up. Then I got sick.
It started in with flu symptoms (aches and chills) on a Wednesday night. I was reading about the Influenza of 1918, and considered that it was psychosomatic, but I was still reading some of the history leading up to it, without really having gotten into symptoms yet. Thursday I pretty much alternated between sleeping and resting, then Thursday night it started to settle into my leg.
Okay, I have had this happen before, but almost always in my right leg, where the rebar had cut me. This time was on the left; the same side as the injured foot. It was no longer possible to avoid the doctor.
I did debate going to Urgent Care. My last cellulitis outbreak was actually before my current doctor, and it would be so much closer and possibly cheaper. However, I trust my doctor, and that tipped the scales. I wanted to be with her.
We got right to the point, and she agreed that the foot was connected and moved me to another room with a large magnifying glass for checking it out. She couldn't quite get it either, so she called in a colleague. This was necessary, but is a second bill. Still, he was able to do what needed to be done.
Now, if what you have is a small splinter, soaking your foot might work, but my failure to get it out made perfect sense when I saw the jagged, 1/2 cm piece of glass he pulled out of my foot. Epsom salts were never going to move that; it required a professional with heavy magnification digging around while I tried really hard not to struggle and make things harder. (I did eventually have to stamp the other foot near the end.)
The cellulitis itself calls for antibiotics, and it is not unusual to start with an internal dose, which had previously been a shot. This time they sent me down to the infusion lab in the cancer center. That is another bill.
Those things are important, and I have a lot of financial aid forms to fill out now, but the overwhelming impression from all of it is how much the answer was to keep still. There was Thursday's rest, but also a lot of waiting on Friday. I was instructed to lie back and take a power nap after the glass was out as they wrote up orders and arranged the infusion. At the infusion clinic there was a wait for the medicine to come, and then be prepared, but I was in a comfortable chair and they brought me a drink and crackers. Then there were the orders to lay low, and to stay out of the sun while I was on the antibiotics.
I was too tired to fight these instructions anyway, but that just reminded me how necessary they were. Now that is much better but a cold has settled in, probably because my immune system did get so low. Okay, take it easy. Do something, and then rest.
That can't go on forever, but there are times when it is necessary.
Related posts:
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/11/mentally-poor.html
http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2011/05/i-make-myself-sick-literally.html

Band Review: Rakunk

There is a really abrupt feeling to the start of "Trillionaire", like the song was started in progress.
That may be part of an overall band philosophy of sink or swim. There is no genre listed, nor any comment on their music on pertinent web pages. (I'll call it rock with a subtle funk influence, though the name had me expecting more punk.) They admit the names of who plays which instruments and that they are from Chicago, and that's it.
What stands out to me most is the sound of metal. I don't mean metal as a genre, but it feels like there are steel strings instead of nylon, and maybe some steel in the percussion. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it gives the music a sharpness and a resonance. Listen to the bridge on "Wicked Bible" for an example.
"Writing With A Knife" and "Banged Up" also stood out among the tracks. Overall a pretty solid offering from Rakunk.
http://www.rakunk.com/
https://www.facebook.com/rakunkmusic
https://soundcloud.com/rakunk
https://twitter.com/rakunk