There finally no denying it: After being hit this week with one of the most debilitating head and chest colds I've ever had it is clear there is something wrong with my immune system. I flew to Boston for my annual trip and caught some bug probably from the little boy two seats over from me on the flight in. This is not the first time it happens. In fact, I usually get sick following flights. That didn't on the recent cruise is a miracle. What could be causing this?
My sister - who is usually right about these things - says it sounds like Lymme's disease to her. My partner is convinced it's because I don't get enough exercise. That's true and can certainly account for the soreness and stiffness I have whenever I move. Some people think it's because I don't drink enough water, I am overweight, or I work too hard. There could be any number of reason but none, except Lymme's, is an explanation for the systemic pain (and I'm pretty sure the Mayo doctors ruled that out).
This problem is never so evident as when I am sick. The colds are getting worse. They leveled me yesterday I could barely see straight. The coughing in incredible...I literally coughed all night. Today the symptoms are ebbing, but I'm still disoriented and deaf and that it effecting my mood.
I guess that's why I write about this here. Each time I get sick I can instantaneously revert back to the son of a bitch I used to be when I was using. I'm grouchy and crabby and argumentative. I'm intolerant and I'm nasty. I make everyone close to me feel awkward and they walk on those eggshells again around me. The cold, the weakness, the deafness, the lack of sleep all add up to a formula for disaster. And my relationships are greatly effected.
I'm lucky that my relationships are as strong as they are because my mother and other members of the family would have thrown me away long ago. But it doesn't mean I ought to abuse them the way I do when I get sick. I feel so fragile, helpless, vulnerable when I'm sick, and these are uncomfortable feelings to have. I need to learn how to gently express the need to be sick by myself and to not antagonize anyone simply because I'm having a bad few days.
In the meantime I have to do something about the growing debilitating condition I find myself in when I'm sick. I'm going to revisit Mayo's test results. I'm going to get a COPD inhaler, try to eat better and exercise through the pain. Something's got to change, and it's me.
All the best, Roger W.
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Washington DC...
The photo headlining this week's post was taken at about 4am. I remember I had difficulty sleeping that night and thought, in the middle of the insomnia, that I'd go out a make photos (a la Kertesz) of Washington at night. Of course, I came no where near the beauty that Kertesz was able to conjure out of the late night streets of Paris he photographed in the late 1800s, but I did come away with a few portfolio grade photographs that are memorable. I think this is one.
It was 1985 and I was really at the height of my photographic prowess. I had been making photographs since 1981 as a freelancer who managed to scrape by on a few assignments here and there and sell some stock photos. I was also a taxi driver and a bartender through most of it all because I couldn't live on just my photo revenues. If it weren't for my wife at the time, I never would have been able to photograph and would have had to find "real" work.
My photographs always seemed rather pedestrian at first...nothing remarkable and no discernable style or focus. So, absent a real signature appearance, I labeled myself a documentary photographer and did the best I could. It wasn't until 1985 that I began to wrangle the technical aspects of photography - film-based technology now eclipsed by the digital era - to my liking. This photograph is remarkable for its clarity and precision...taken on 35mm film (Kodachrome, although this is the black and white version) at a very slow shutter speed to get the blurry flag and sharpest image of the dome. I actually sold the rights to this once although I can't remember to whom.
It is also all the more remarkable because just as I was reaching the peak of my technical proficiency and making a decent wage at the craft, I quit. It was the year I decided to join the National Enquirer photo staff and I left actual photographing behind that year to become a editor. This is something I would not choose to do today. But...I had my reasons.
Earlier that year I lost my uncle Ray to a car accident and I was very sad about his death. I admired him and, although he was drunk much of the time, I thought he was a skilled welder and hard worker. Besides, he always had a farm and I loved being near his animals when I was a kid. His death made me very sad for a long time.
So too was I mourning the loss of my best friend at the time...Homer Page. He died in September of that year. He was my mentor, my friend and the most important man in my life at the time. He was the one who encouraged my photography (was an immensely important photographer of the 1940-50s) and made me believe I could be whoever I wanted to be. His loss was so great I still miss him to this day.
There was ample reason to abandon photography during the depression I was suffering in the Winter of 1985. It was also the kind of thing I would do then under the influence of alcohol and drugs...not being able to make a clear decision about my future. In a few years I would be diagnosed with BiPolar I, and it is a characteristic of that disease that people make incredibly bad choices under stress. As I said, I wouldn't make the decision to quit photographing today, but, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.
So, this photograph above means a lot more than just a picture of the Capitol dome. It's an icon of what I was capable of doing with an art form and a symbol of how terrible my decision-making was at the time. Today, it's all better because, while I'm not sure I could make the same quality image again today, I am clean and sober and making many better decisions than I used to.
All the best, Roger W.
It was 1985 and I was really at the height of my photographic prowess. I had been making photographs since 1981 as a freelancer who managed to scrape by on a few assignments here and there and sell some stock photos. I was also a taxi driver and a bartender through most of it all because I couldn't live on just my photo revenues. If it weren't for my wife at the time, I never would have been able to photograph and would have had to find "real" work.
My photographs always seemed rather pedestrian at first...nothing remarkable and no discernable style or focus. So, absent a real signature appearance, I labeled myself a documentary photographer and did the best I could. It wasn't until 1985 that I began to wrangle the technical aspects of photography - film-based technology now eclipsed by the digital era - to my liking. This photograph is remarkable for its clarity and precision...taken on 35mm film (Kodachrome, although this is the black and white version) at a very slow shutter speed to get the blurry flag and sharpest image of the dome. I actually sold the rights to this once although I can't remember to whom.
It is also all the more remarkable because just as I was reaching the peak of my technical proficiency and making a decent wage at the craft, I quit. It was the year I decided to join the National Enquirer photo staff and I left actual photographing behind that year to become a editor. This is something I would not choose to do today. But...I had my reasons.
Earlier that year I lost my uncle Ray to a car accident and I was very sad about his death. I admired him and, although he was drunk much of the time, I thought he was a skilled welder and hard worker. Besides, he always had a farm and I loved being near his animals when I was a kid. His death made me very sad for a long time.
So too was I mourning the loss of my best friend at the time...Homer Page. He died in September of that year. He was my mentor, my friend and the most important man in my life at the time. He was the one who encouraged my photography (was an immensely important photographer of the 1940-50s) and made me believe I could be whoever I wanted to be. His loss was so great I still miss him to this day.
There was ample reason to abandon photography during the depression I was suffering in the Winter of 1985. It was also the kind of thing I would do then under the influence of alcohol and drugs...not being able to make a clear decision about my future. In a few years I would be diagnosed with BiPolar I, and it is a characteristic of that disease that people make incredibly bad choices under stress. As I said, I wouldn't make the decision to quit photographing today, but, at the time, it seemed like the right thing to do.
So, this photograph above means a lot more than just a picture of the Capitol dome. It's an icon of what I was capable of doing with an art form and a symbol of how terrible my decision-making was at the time. Today, it's all better because, while I'm not sure I could make the same quality image again today, I am clean and sober and making many better decisions than I used to.
All the best, Roger W.
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