BATTLESHIPS
5.31.07
(For my brother, Felicito - the lad, the sailor, the musician, the journalist - who is going out to sea. Come home safely)

When will you carry me home? Like the wounded star in the movie
When will you carry me home? Take it back to the start when you knew me
Cause' when you talk to me that way, I'll be a million miles away
I guess it's just another day... in love

We're battleships, driftin' in an alley river
Takin' hits, sinking it's now or never
Overboard, drownin' in a sea of love and hate but it's too late
Battleship down

When will you figure it out? That you're not always right little darlin'
When will you figure it out? That it's not worth the fight little darlin'
Cause' when you can't think what to say, you go and throw it all away
I guess it's just another day ... in love

We're battleships, driftin' in an alley river
Takin' hits, sinking it's now or never
Overboard, drownin' in a sea of love and hate but it's too late
Battleship down

But you're too smart and I'm too dumb
With no heart in the middle...

Oh...

We're battleships, driftin' in an alley river
Takin' hits, sinking it's now or never
Overboard, falling into the ocean
Ship to shore, drownin' in a sea of love and hate but it's too late
Battleship down.

Pylons by J.Presant (2007)
Lyrics to Battleships by Travis from The Boy With No Name (2007)

BACK HOME
5.29.07

Hello, dear friends, I'm back. I needed to take a bit of a break from my tedius routines which had me in a rather vicious cycle of getting stuck and prickly and fuzzy and spiky. Before my diagnosis, I didn't know what any of that was about, or how to deal with it. Now I know it means that I need a service check for the distance I've traveled. I needed to refill my windshield fluid, I needed to check the tire pressure. Change the oil, align my wheels, that kind of thing. So I took some time to clear my head and get some perspective. I spent time by myself with myself, wandering around in costume interacting with other mortals, catching up with friends and revealing secrets to strangers. It was quite funny -- haha and peculiar -- to see the various reactions, open mouths, poker faces, wide eyes. You? Really?! You seem so... NoRmAl?

If only you knew the places I've been...

PRICKLY
5.15.07

Today I feel prickly. Exhausted. Grumpy. Moody. Irritated.

I am, quite frankly, very tired of the tedious routines and responsibilites that make up my life. I am tired of thinking about what to cook for dinner and going to birthday parties having meaningless conversations and the science fair and the stupid luau party fundraiser. I am tired of being strong and positive and smiling and saying good morning and staying focused and talking about schools and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

BLAH.

I want to wear a shirt that says "F off. I'm in one of those moods (again)." I want to leave post-its on the Hummers parked on campus that say, "What a wasteful, environmentally toxic piece of fat crap you are."

I want to visit blogs that are happy and oblivous and la-la that say here's-what-I-did-with-so-and-so-at-such-and-such and post an anyonymous comment that says: "Who gives a flying squirrel's ass what you do. Get a REAL life and stop taking up space."

I don't want an explanation for my "mood." I don't care if this is because I am bipolar. I don't care if it's PMS. I really really really don't care. WhatEVER.

I am taking my mouthful of pills that does god knows what in my brain and am going to sleep.

MY KARMA, THE CHAMELEON
5.7.07

Meet Chamaeleo pardalis, a chameleon species found in the forests of Madagascar. Chameleons can produce a wide range of colors and patterns on their skin, but they do this primarily to express mood, not to blend in with different environments (from: http://www.howstuffworks.com/animal-camouflage2.htm)

My son is doing his kindergarten science project on animal camouflage and so we started looking for pictures of camouflaged animals, and low and behold: the chameleon. And I learned something new. I had always assumed that these magical creatures changed colors to disguise and protect themselves from predators. I had no idea that a chamelon's emotions triggered the change. How cool is that?

Maybe chameleons have bipolar disorder. I would like to express my mood with color, please.

I think the world would be a rather interesting (dare i say better) place if, like chameleons, we humans changed colors in response to our true mood. Perhaps we would be more understanding of one another. Perhaps we would be more connected by our common emotions, rather than divided by our feelings. Perhaps we wouldn't need those masks. We could just show our true colors, and not have to think about whether it was okay or normal. And perhaps, it would be easier to support each other. Perhaps loving and acceptance would be easier.

Maybe, if we were like chameleons, I could understand what was behind my husband's quiet mood. He couldn't get away with saying, "Nothing." If I could just see his mood, I wouldn't have to say, "I don't believe you." I could just say, "Your'e looking a little blue."

Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon
You come and go, you come and go
Loving would be easy if your colours were like my dream
Red, gold and green
Red, gold and green

PEANUT BUTTER MOOD
5.2.07

I have been sitting here for the last hour trying to figure out how best to describe my mood. I've decided that it's kind of like peanut butter. Now, I rather like peanut butter, and it would be nice to be feeling creamy or crunchy like Skippy or Peter Pan or Jiffy (or whatever it's called), but the mood I'm in is nothing like the images these brands evoke. I feel heavy and trapped and stuck and it is difficult to think clearly. Today is the kind of day when my brain won't get going, when my body is slow moving, my energy low and my perspective on the smearing side. I want to tell people to stop smiling, to STFU, and to put a post-it on my door that says: Out of Order.

I'm not sure what to do except, well, just accept that I'm stuck in this peanut butter. Part of me knows that I will manage to get through, but as I sit here in my office, staring at the screen, watching the time pass and the students cycle by, the other part of me wonders how I'll manage the next 12 hours. And how long this mood will last. It could be worse, I suppose. I'm not contemplating jumping off the building's roof, or sending out an email to the whole department about how to change the world.

When I dropped off my son, O, at school today, it was raining and the sky was grey. He looked up at me with his big, 5-year old, brown eyes and said, "Mommy. I just really don't want to be here today. I don't do very well when it rains." I looked at him straight in the eyes and said, "Yeah, me too." I gave him a big squeeze and reassured him that I would be back soon, but my god, did I want to scoop him up and just run. I wanted us to get away from our peanut butter routines and realities.

Sometimes when I feel like this, I think of the Little Engine That Could, and I push on. Since my diagnosis, I have learned to cope by lowering my expectations whenever days like this come along. Sometimes I try to figure out the trigger; other times, I just say, whatever. I tell myself that it's okay not to answer every email, to do 2 things instead of 3, or maybe just one, or maybe none. I tell myself, it's okay. I will always have days like this, and they shall pass. And then, I tell myself, everyone feels this way every now and then. Everyone must have days when they feel like peanut butter: It's both normal and it's bipolar.

I think I will go home early and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch today, just like my son is having. If you can't beat it, eat it.

MY FRIEND, JEN, AT A CLOSE DISTANCE*
5.1.07

I'm continuing my series of featuring those in my life who have been, and continue to be, tremendously supportive in helping me to recover and find myself again.

I am absolutely blown away by the work of my dear and beautiful friend, Jen. She's a New York artist and as you can see from her paintings above, incredibly talented. Like scary brilliant in how she depicts and interprets the world talented, and I'm not just saying that because she's one of my closest friends. Seriously, I could stare at her paintings forever.

Jen and I went to college together, I was her RA, actually, and we became good friends. Then we both ended up in New York together, and we grew even closer. Jen has been there through all my trials and tribulations, the pursuit and celebration of all my degrees, my up and down moods, my wedding, the birth of my son, and the postpartum depression that followed. At my sister's wedding in Venice, while pregnant with my son, I ended up in a 15th century hospital with some strange chest infection that was never diagnosed. I left a hysterical, laughing, crying message with Jen. Then my cell phone died in the middle of my message. She called every hospital in Venice until she found me.

When she had her first solo show in L.A. (also amazing), I went to her opening. It had been only a few months since I had been released from the hospital for my psychotic episode, and so everyone was nervous, including me. I wondered whether Jen would see me differently, her mentally ill, bipolar friend. Nope. We just talked the way we always did. She listened, I listened. She talked to me about her work, the men in her life. I told her how tough marriage and mothering was, and how we had five therapists. We laughed. A lot. We shopped. A lot.

Whenever I'm with Jen, I feel like a single girl again.

Thank you, Jen, for your unconditional love and friendship. I just know you will be famous one day, and I will be so proud to know you.

*Artist’s Statement
Presant draws us into dreamlike interiors which are highly evocative, richly painted and dramatically illuminated. The scale, staging of the figures and multiple layers of reality simulate the cinematic experience. Each interior space becomes a physical manifestation of the character’s psyche. Conscious and unconscious desire, memory and projection unfold pictorially. Through the merging of both real and fictitious elements, the artist also investigates the conflation between our media filled lives, and our lived reality. By depicting the subject through the female perspective, Presant represents the female nude as a figure of empowerment, not the object of the male gaze.

The artist mimics the process of reconstructing memory in the development of the composition for the painting. Objects and figures, part real, part imaginary are combined to feel fragmented and pieced together. Once a composition is finalized, at times, using digital technology, Presant meticulously paints the image in oil, adding a new level of coherence and reinterpretation achieved through the hand-made process. The treatment of light unifies the painted surface and plays an important role in the psychological content of the artist’s work. Light and shadow both reveal and conceal. The human form of both subject and viewer defines how each perceives and experiences reality.

Jen is featured in this month's issue of American Art Collector.
Her work can be found on: http://www.lindawarrengallery.com/artists/presant/index.shtml