I think I might be starting to understand

I’ve been doing ketamine macrodosing through Mindbloom for a bit more than a year now and I have made progress. I’ve been able to radically lower the dose of my mood stabilizer and my antidepressant. I now have little to no brain fog and words don’t get lost in my brain as often.

Mindbloom breaks major things down into 6-lesson pathways. The one I’m working with now is rewiring habits. I’m making odd progress with this one. At first, some major trauma from my childhood was coming up. I found myself having insights some of which are disturbing. Like how I thought the crap that was done to me was normal. I’m seriously pissed off about that. Then again, the isolation I endured ensured I would not know what normal family life was like. Maybe there’s no normal, but constantly being screamed at, hit, told I’m no good, told I’m selfish and worthless and being held out as an example of everything that is evil is definitely not normal. I think what’s happening is I’m feeling the feelings that went with the events but I’m not getting all the feelings at once. I doubt I could handle that much emotion all at once. That’s why I stuffed everything in the first place. And so I’m progressing in bits and pieces. Some days, I find myself eating less than usual which is good. I badly need to lose a significant amount of weight or health issues I have will rapidly become worse.

This past week, I’ve gotten some clarity. I realized I’m dealing with past trauma from my childhood and major present trauma caused by the antisemitism I’ve been facing. These are separate traumas and need to be processed separately.

I finally found a therapist who takes my insurance and had my first appointment this past Tuesday. Knowing I needed immediate help, I bought Brady (my service dog in training) with me. Turns out, the therapist brings her dog to work with her. Brady did well in the waiting room. She insisted on sitting under my chair. This is an advanced placement for service dogs and it seems to be where Brady feels most secure. During the therapy session, I sat on the sofa and had Brady sit on the floor at my feet. At one point during the session, Brady became agitated. She wanted to help me. I asked if it would be all right for Brady to sit on the sofa. It was. Brady immediately stepped over my lap and leaned against my chest. It’s our version of deep pressure therapy and it’s works well. That immediately calmed Brady down. She will be coming with me to my therapy sessions from now on and I’ll be having her sit on the sofa next to me.

Getting Some Art Made

I survived critique on Thursday.

This is a mindless landscape I painted so I could have a mental health break from all the emotional paintings I did this semester. This one was fun. It’s not great art, but it was something I needed to give my brain a rest.

I thought this was going to be a fun little painting. I had taken several shots of a smiley moon and did a focus merge. That should have given me one very detailed smiley moon. Something went awry, and I got this wild photo with moons all over the place. I thought it might be fun to paint. Not wanting to use up all my black ink, I put the photo into a negative and printed out something intriguing. I thought it would be a nice abstract design. Then I decided I wanted to work with just one color of paint – Da Vinci Soulshine – plus black and white. And that’s how I got all the colors. I am not thrilled with this painting, but it set off a series of ideas in my head. This will be a series next semester.

The original weird focus merge is below.

Finally a decent photo of the painting about the events of October 7, 2023 as reported in The NY Times (a notoriously anti-Israel newspaper).

I survived facing down terrorists on Monday. Classes are done for the spring semester and I get a three month break before I need to worry about my personal safety again. I didn’t realize how much a hate crime, pro-hamas terrorists on campus, and feeling alone had affected me until I realized I have been six 5 times in 5 months. The last time I was sick this often was when I was in kindergarten. I had never been around kids until I started school and there were no vaccines against childhood diseases back then. I had both kinds of measles, mumps, and chickenpox all while I was in kindergarten. Since the first week of December, I’ve had covid (and I’m fully vaccinated and boosted), bronchitis, a UTI, an infected hair follicle, and the flu. I haven’t had bronchitis in about 15 years. I haven’t had the flu in about 20 years (I get a flu shot every year). I haven’t had a UTI in at least 5 years. I’ve never had an infected hair follicle. After finally finding a therapist who would take my insurance, I started therapy this past Tuesday.

I bought an embroidery machine, bought some additional embroidery patterns, and dyed some tee shirts.

A bit off center, but I’m learning. This is the small version of the Star of David. I’d like to try the large version – maybe on a tote bag. But I like how the dye came out on the tee shirt.

Now that I’m 71-year-old walker pushing bad ass who doesn’t back down from terrorists, perhaps I need an appropriately bad ass tattoo. I’m not a tattoo kind of person. Tattoos to me are like wallpaper. If I paint a room and get tired of the color after a few years, I go to the store, buy more paint, and repaint the room. Easy. Wallpaper is another matter. Putting wallpaper up is a PITA and taking wallpaper off the wall is a PITA times a factor of 10. Tattoos are like wallpaper and I get bored too easily. So, no tattoos for me. But I have having major emotional fallout and I went in search of an appropriately bad ass type tattoo. I didn’t find anything remotely bad ass. I did find a tattoo that said: Have The Courage To Live, anyone can die. I thought the last part was superfluous, so I embroidered Have the COURAGE to LIVE onto a tee shirt I had dyed.

I took the third tee shirt I had dyed and added Laurel Burch designed. The shirt looks much better now that I’ve removed the thread lines and washed the shirt. Laurel Burch designs are fun….especially considering I’ve a penchant for variegated threads. Makes for stripes in odd places, but cute nonetheless.

At the moment I’ve got three dye buckets going. Three tee shirts and enough cotton fabric for four large dog bandanas. I intend to embroider on all the tee shirts and bandanas.

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

My on-line store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Terrorism

Today is Yom HaShoah, Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day. The day I remember those who were murdered and those who fought and died so I could have a homeland. I honored the day by confronting terrorists.

There was an encampment at the university. This was billed as free speech. The First Amendment is not now and never was absolute. You can’t yet fire in a crowded theater. But you can call for the genocide of Jews and the obliteration of Israel, my homeland. That’s perfectly acceptable.

I went to take photos to send to the FBI. Depending on how much walking I need to do, and I needed to do a lot, I have to use a walker. The terrorists called the police. And that’s the extent of the details I can talk about because of the possibility of criminal charges. I had hoped the officer would accept my passport as my ID. My passport has my post office box address rather than my home address. Unfortunately, he asked for my license which has my home address. Never have I been so glad to be living next door to the sheriff. I’ve sent her an email explaining the situation and saying there might be a problem if the terrorists get my home address. That’s not supposed to happen, but life doesn’t always go according to the script. I’ve told Jim to call 911 immediately if he sees anyone he doesn’t recognize around the house. I’ve got security cameras on the front, back and side of the house.

When my great-great-grandparents along with my 10-month-old great-grandmother left Europe, they came disguised as German Lutherans. They were Polish Jews. My grandmother, who thought she was a German Lutheran, was taught never to do anything that would make people think she was Jewish. I was always horrified by that.

Today, to my shame, I hid. I wore nothing, said nothing, and did nothing to make the terrorists think I’m Jewish. Because I hid, I’m home scared rather than in the hospital wondering what my insurance will cover.

Am Yisrael Chai! The people of Israel live.

I bought an embroidery machine

It’s a Babylock Meridian 2 – a stand alone embroidery machine. I have a Pfaff Quilt Expression 4.2 sewing machine which I love, so there’s no need for me to have a combination sewing and embroidery machine.

I had my first lesson yesterday. We made a gnome appliqué and attached it to a tea towel.

I had died a length of linen a gorgeous shade of green. And then discovered there isn’t enough fabric to make a pair of slacks. I’m not sure if I’m going to make shorts or a blouse out of the fabric. At the moment, I’m working on a pair of slacks made from a print of eyes. Lots and lots of eyes. Here’s looking at you, kid. .

The iris are blooming. It’s a short iris season here in the desert.

We had a smiley moon the other night. It was setting so I had to take photos fast. I was having problems with the exposure. Fortunately, I was shooting in RAW and was able to retrieve the images.

Next, I decided to take all of the shots and do a focus merge. Usually, the images line up. This was not usually.

I want to use this as the starting point for an abstract painting. I needed to print the photo, but I didn’t want to use all that black ink. So I made a negative and I’ll use that to guide my painting.

Lots of new designs in my Spoonflower shop. Squiggles collection: https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/834692-squiggles-by-deb_thuman

Panels collection: https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/735824-panel-by-deb_thuman

Hearts collection: https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/800489-hearts-by-deb_thuman

Log Cabin Variations collection: https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/735809-log-cabin-variations-by-deb_thuman

Irish Chain Variations collection: https://www.spoonflower.com/collections/719273-irish-chain-variations-by-deb_thuman

My online store, Deb Thuman Art, http://www.DebThumanArt.com

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

עם ישראל חי

The people of Israel Live.

Iran has attacked Israel.

I’m dreading going to the New Mexico State University campus because of the antisemitism the support for terrorists, and the hate criminal in my painting class. There are no Jewish organizations on campus. Jewish on Campus and ADL are only interested in headlines, and there are no headlines for helping a handful of Jews at a university. I have never felt so alone or so afraid for my safety. I have never felt so afraid for Israel.

I dread going to class on Tuesday. I dread the crap I’m likely to get from the hate criminal. I dread knowing I’m responsible for my own safety because the campus police, who are very good at hunting down minors in possession of alcohol or marijuana, don’t investigate hate crimes. I dread having to deal with an administration that allows and tacitly approves of antisemitism and welcomes pro-hamas demonstrations. That’s why I’m always armed when I’m on campus.

I am sad that no one at my temple will give me any support. Even the rabbi is silent.

I am alone.

I am pissed off.

I am armed.

No one said it to my face.

No, grandma. They said it to my face.

Thirty years of my life is an elaborate, crude lie. The lie wasn’t for my benefit. It was for my mother’s benefit. I was born on the wrong side of the blanket. A bastard. That’s what New York State called me until 1993 when people like me were finally referred to as non-marital children.

My grandmother told everyone that my mother was indeed married but she wasn’t getting along with her husband so they weren’t living together. And you expected people to believe that? No one believed it. No one said it to her face.

They said it to my face.

When I found out the truth, my grandmother blamed the clerk at vital statistics and said he had no business telling me I was adopted. Really? Then how the hell would I ever have gotten a copy of my birth certificate? It wasn’t in Buffalo where it belonged. I was asked if I ever had a birth certificate and was it green. It was. Then my birth certificate is in Albany. What’s it doing there? You’re adopted. I felt as if someone smashed me into a brick wall. Every part of the front of me hurt. I remember thinking that even my toes hurt.

When I talked to The Drunk about being adopted, he said he knew he wasn’t my real father. I tried to tell him he was indeed my real father. He argued with me and insisted he wasn’t my real father. I wasn’t his real daughter. That’s why he gave my siblings an allowance but didn’t give me one until I begged for an allowance. That’s why cousins on The Drunk’s side of that family that I had grown up with wouldn’t invite me to their weddings although my siblings – his real children – were invited. I wasn’t real. That’s why a dress The Drunk’s sister had made for me as a confirmation gift was several sizes too big. I wasn’t real. I was too small. I was so much smaller than my cousin who was the same age although The Drunk’s sister insisted my cousin and I were the same size.

At an uncle’s funeral, one ill-mannered person walked up, announced she was Peggy (never did figure out who she was and where she fit into the over abundant Thumans), and asked if I were Donna’s daughter. By that time, I knew that question wasn’t driven by curiosity. That question really meant was I the bastard. At a funeral. I got asked that a funeral. It was the second funeral in two days and I wasn’t thinking all that fast. I said yes. She walked away. What I wish I had said was I’m someone who is incredibly glad I’m not related to you.

One day, a deputy followed me out of the courthouse and asked if I lived on North Forest Road. That wasn’t curiosity, either. He was asking if I was the bastard.

Another deputy wasn’t as smooth. He said he looked at the list, knew the defendant was represented by a Thuman, but he didn’t know which one. “That would be me.” Ha, ha. Got you. You didn’t get to find out an ugly truth.

Jim was golfing with the son of our bowling partners one day. Is Deb Donna’s daughter? Yes. I thought so. I knew she had a couple kids before she got married. That happened because the jerk’s mother couldn’t get the answer she was looking for when she asked if my father got married late in life.

I moved two time zones away to a place where there were no Thumans. There was no one who knew I was an embarrassing secret. It was a relief. For a while. Then I discovered there was a Thumann in Germany who was a nazi war criminal. The British hunted him down, tried him and hanged him. He’s from the same part of Germany the Thumans in The Drunk’s family are from. He’s distantly related to them. Fortunately, he’s not my relative. The Drunk was stationed in Germany during the occupation. He bragged about using a cow for target practice and for driving a jeep down “Jew Alley” to knock over all the tables and watch the Jews scatter. The Drunk and the nazi war criminal would have been great friends had they known each other.

And so I go through life signing a fake name, the name of a nazi war criminal, to the bottom of checks.

No one called my grandmother a liar. They called me one.

Depressed

That’s how I feel and it’s getting worse by the minute. I have two bad days a year: April 1 and June 24. April 1 was my youngest sister’s birthday. June 24 was the anniversary of her death. Melanoma killed her. She was 35.

I’ve been plagued by memories – none of them happy. My mother went into labor on a Sunday morning. When we got home from church, The Drunk told us we had a sister. My brother, a few months shy of 5, burst into tears. “You promised me a brother!” Way to go Drunk!

When I was 11 and Tina, my youngest sister, was 13 months old, she played with oven cleaner. My mother watcher her do it. After cleaning my sister off, she put the oven cleaner soaked sneakers back on my sister. My sister spent the next four hours crying. My mother spent the next four hours yelling, literally, at my sister telling her to stop crying. Eventually, Tina’s diaper needed changing. That’s when my mother noticed Tina had second and third degree chemical burns from the waist down. Off they went to the emergency room. Because they were Caucasian and had enough income to afford health insurance, no one at the hospital bothered to call child protective services.

Many years ago, the Olympic event featuring skiers doing tricks and turns was called hot dogging. Tina and her friends went skiing. It was a miserable day with freezing rain. Tina said the weather was so bad she did the last run with her eyes closed. When she got to the bottom of the hill, her friends asked her where she learned to do all that hot dogging. Tina responded that she didn’t know how to ski. That may sound like resilience, but it wasn’t. It was the legacy of child abuse. You didn’t ask for help in my house. You figured out how to do it yourself or face the wrath of two drunks.

When my sister had her first period. She didn’t tell anyone. She knew there was always an assortment of feminine hygiene products under the bathroom sink, so she grabbed a pad, pinned it in her pants, and went to school. That wasn’t resilience either. When I had my first period, I didn’t want to say anything to my mother because I was sure she would bitch at me. The next morning, there was more blood in my panties and I was stuck telling my mother. To my shock, she didn’t bitch at me.

The last week, I’ve had a cascade of miserable memories. Tina died in 1997. A friend saw the death notice and called to ask how I was. That’s when my friend discovered I had no idea my sister died. I didn’t even know she was ill. After I hung up the phone, I heard keening for the first time. It’s the most blood curdling sound you can imagine, and it came out of me.

My mother had decreed I wasn’t to know Tina was sick or that she had died. To tell me meant getting cut out of the will. My surviving sister, hereinafter The Fruitcake, told me the reason no one told me Tina was sick was because I’m a horrible person. I never asked my mother and The Drunk for money, I put myself through college, I put myself through law school, I’ve only been married once, and I’ve never had an abortion. Clearly I’m every mother’s worst nightmare.

The universe gave me revenge. My mother spent the last years of her life in a nursing home and there was nothing left for my greedy siblings to inherit. Even so, they refused to tell me our mother had died. I only knew because I got a notice from Legacy.com. I had to crash the funeral. My remaining siblings were shocked to see me.

All these years later, I still can’t get past April 1 without major depression. I’ll do something special for me tomorrow. I might take Brady and go on an adventure. I’m considering going to Mesilla (where Billy The Kid hung out) and doing some photography. I’d like to have lunch someplace, but I’m not sure where I want to go. I’d suggest going to Albuquerque, but there’s nothing much I want to do there and the Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta is in two weeks. I don’t feel like making two major trips that close together.

Listening to Roger Daltry sing Behind Blue Eyes isn’t helping although it does explain how I feel. Sort of.

I hate my mother. I don’t apologize for that. She was a violent, drunken narcissist who had four kids she didn’t want and made very sure we knew she never wanted us.

Please make it stop hurting.

No one can make it stop hurting.

This is how it felt from my fourth birthday in 1956 until the day I got married in 1972. It never stopped hurting. It was never happy.

Where I come from. I think.

I’m reading Seamstresses of Auschwitz. It’s about women who stayed alive in Auschwitz by sewing garments for Nazi wives. This is a factual account; I can’t bring myself to read Holocaust fiction. I hold the accounts written by survivors to be sacred. The only exception was a fiction story a classmate wrote for a writing class I took. It was an incredible story and the classmate is an incredible writer. As we talked about the story in class, another classmate asked if Elie Wiesel’s Night was fiction. It’s his account of his time in Auschwitz.

Reading about the Holocaust makes me want to know more about where my family came from. According to citizenship papers, which I found in the basement of the Erie County Courthouse, my maternal grandmother’s maternal grandparents were from East Prussia. More digging and I learned they were from Dittersdorf, East Prussia. I’ve never been able to find Dittersdorf on a map. The name translates to small village. Although the family story was they were Lutherans and came from Germany and spoke Hoch Duetsch, the reality is far different. They spoke Yiddish. And who spoke Yiddish in East Prussia in 1888? Not German Lutherans. My grandmother and her siblings were taught to respect all religions but never do anything to make people think they were Jewish. My grandmother was horrified when she found out I ate a bagel in public. Years later, when I had a Jewish psychologist and explained I was brought up Catholic, he asked me who taught me to be Jewish. I certainly didn’t learn it from my mother. Must have picked up Jewish from my grandmother. She cleaned the house on Friday. No other day of the week would do. Cleaning could only be done on Friday. A Jewish custom is to clean on Friday so the house would be clean for Shabbat. We always had candles on the table for holiday dinners. Two candles and the candles were always lit. I now have the candlesticks my grandmother used for holidays. Jim’s family, who came from a region of Poland more or less near where my family came from, almost never had candles. When they did have candles, they weren’t lit. A Jewish custom is to have two candles on the table for Shabbat and other Jewish holidays.

My grandmother is one of six children. In birth order, Sydney, Benjamin, Esther, Harold, Alfreda, Naomi. My grandmother once said their names made them sound as if they were Jewish. My grandmother told me about how her grandmother had a huge wedding certificate hanging on the wall because that’s the way they did it in the old country. A Jewish marriage ceremony contains a ketuba, a marriage contract. Many are incredibly beautiful and are hung on the wall. My grandmother was English only so she had no idea if the marriage certificate was in German or Hebrew. My grandmother said it was okay for her mother to speak German because she was born in Germany. The family story was her mother was two when she arrived in New York. No, she was 10 months old when she arrived. Either way, where would she have learned to speak? Certainly not in Germany. Her siblings, all born in the United States, spoke German – or what my grandmother was told was German. They were speaking Yiddish. This was so the kids – my grandmother’s generation – wouldn’t know what the grown ups were talking about.

Oddly, when my grandmother’s maternal grandparents came to Buffalo, NY, they didn’t settle in the vast German neighborhood on the East Side. They settled in the Central Park neighborhood in North Buffalo. So many mysteries. So few clues. So many questions to which there aren’t any answers.

Who am I? A Jewish remnant of a family so terrified they hid their Jewishness from their children? A Jew who got it all wrong about the family history? I don’t know the answer.

Happy Birthday Brady

Brady, the world’s cutest labradoodle, will be celebrating her third birthday on Tuesday.

Brady is learning to be my service dog, and we had a service dog group session yesterday. To celebrate her birthday, I made 20 hand-dyed dog bandanas. The humans for the four other dogs in the service dog group picked out bandanas for their dogs.

Rather than doing tie dye with string, I used binder clips to make a resist.

We’re having a critique in my painting class on Tuesday. I thought I was done with three self-portraits, but I saw a fourth in my head and it demanded to be painted.

The word on the yellow painting is the Hebrew word for life.

The words on the green painting are the Hebrew for “I am,” and “I will be.”

I still have no voice on campus, but I will not be silent.

Is Éireannach mé

Today is Hibernian Heritage Day, popularly known as St. Patrick’s Day. Jews don’t have saints, so I celebrate Hibernian Heritage Day. There are a couple thousand Jews in Ireland none of whom are related to me.

I used to think St. Patrick’s Day was a great day if you were Irish, and just an excuse to get drunk if you weren’t. I grew up thinking I was German Catholic. Then, one day, knowing I’d learn The Truth if I got a copy of my birth certificate, I went to City Hall in Buffalo, NY and asked for a copy of my birth certificate. They could’t find it. Finally, I was asked if I ever had a birth certificate. Yes, and I lost it. I was asked if it was green. Yes. I was told my birth certificate was in Albany. Why would it be there if I was born in Buffalo? “You’re adopted.”

I felt as if someone had slammed me into a brick wall. I remember thinking that even my toes hurt. When I was able to move again, I walked the three blocks to the library, asked for microfilm of the Buffalo News from August and September 1952 and began searching. Eventually, I saw that a baby girl was born to Mr. & Mrs. Donald G. Harmon and lived at my grandmother’s address. My father wasn’t the drunk who terrorized me. My father was Donald Harmon whose middle name was Lee rather than anything starting with G. My mother made it up as she went along.

It took five months, but I found my father in Houston, Texas. He was Scott-Irish which explained why so many people asked me if I were Irish.

After I learned my father’s heritage, I celebrated my first St. Patrick’s Day as a Hibernian. It was wonderful. I was right. St. Patrick’s Day is a wonderful day if you are Irish. I ate corned beef and cabbage and washed it down with a plastic cup filled with Guinness.

Eventually, I worked on a family history and discovered my maternal grandmother’s family weren’t German Lutherans. (My mother had married a Catholic so I ended up Catholic for a while.) They were from Dittersdorf, East Prussia. On his citizenship papers, her grandfather renounced loyalty to the king of Prussia. My grandmother told mer her grandmother spoke Hoch Duetsch. She would tell me what her grandmother would say and announce it was Hoch Duetsch. Five semesters of German in college taught me that what my grandmother said was absolutely not Hoch Duetsch. Eventually, I discovered it was Yiddish. Who spoke Yiddish in East Prussia in 1888? Not German Lutherans. I am a Polish Jew on my mother’s side. I am a Jew by both heritage and choice. For several years, I had a Jewish psychologist. He asked me who taught me to be Jewish and I asked him what he was talking about. Turns out, my grandmother, who insisted she was Lutheran, taught me how to be Jewish.

Celebrating Hibernian Heritage Day in southern New Mexico is difficult. No one serves corned beef and cabbage although I probably could find some bar that serves green beer if that sort of thing appealed to me. There’s no parade. Mercifully, there are no green bagels. Sadly, there are no decent bagels. I may make Irish scones later today. I have no Guinness or Harp so no beer today.

Is Éireannach mé. It means I’m Irish.

30

When I was in college majoring in journalism, -30- meant the end of the article, story, commercial. That’s not exactly what the 30 at the top of this post means. February 14, 1994, I was admitted to practice law in New York State. I had graduated from law school in May 1993, took the bar exam July 1993, got the results the day before Thanksgiving, and finally got admitted to practice more than two months later.

What has happened in the last 30 years? I ran my own law practice and practiced law not knowing what I was doing. I did it anyway. I got admitted to practice in Federal District Court in 1996. In 1997, I appeared before the Supreme Court of the United States and was admitted to practice. I figured if any of my cases went up to the Supreme Court, I wanted to go with them. Later that year, I did my first felony trial and won. It was one of the cases that came out of The Trooper and Indian War where the governor declared a tax war on the Native American tribes. I moved 2000 miles across the country in 1999 to work for the New Mexico Public Defender Department and retired 16 years later. During the last 30 years, I’ve done more than 120 trials, handled at least a dozen appeals. Argued before the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division twice. Argued before the New Mexico Supreme Court three times. I’ve represented kids and adults; misdemeanors and felonies; custody and visitation. Twice, I had cases that had the potential to be death penalty cases. On February 14, 2024, I surprised myself when I said I had been a pretty good criminal defense attorney. Past tense. Except I’m not ready to quit.

I have a Spoonflower shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman and I’ve got collections for Judiac, Irish Chain variations, Log Cabin variations, Panels and Whole Cloth. The panels and whole cloth are single yards of fabric with the design in the middle of the piece of fabric. Great for when you want something quilted but don’t want to make a pieced quilt. There’s also designs for yardage. Spoonflower will make linens and pillows using my designs.

Those are some of the panels/whole cloth designs. I used Text Mask along with a manipulated photo – these were done using a winter scene – and chose dingbats rather than a traditional font. Some of those dingbats are fascinating.

My store, Deb Thuman Art is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

I’m linking with Nina Marie here: https://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com

I’m linking with Finished Or Not Friday here: https://alyciaquilts.blogspot.com

It’s Worse Than I Thought

We had snow this morning. Once every year or so, we get snow here. I’m in southern New Mexico about 30 miles north of the Mexican border. Snow doesn’t last long; it’s usually gone by about 10:00 AM.

I woke up at 7:00, looked outside, put on shoes, a jacket, hat, left my pajamas on, and went outside to photograph the landscape. I took 111 shots, deleted 2, and edited 49. I dislike all of them. I doubt they are all bad, but none look exciting to me. I wish this malaise were gone. Normally, I find photography exciting and I find photographing snow in the desert to be particularly exciting and challenging. Snow does weird things to white balance and exposure. Snow requires a whole lot of editing to look natural and properly exposed.

Snow on red yucca seed pods.

We don’t get icicles here but sometimes there are ice drops on the ends of twigs, leaves and cactus spines.

Claret cup cactus.

What caused this malaise? The horrors of war in Israel? Maybe although I’m less emotional now than I was in October. Depression? I don’t think so. I’m well medicated and the ketamine sessions are helping me be more stable than I’ve been in a very long time. I feel as if I were running through Jello.

A requirement of my painting class is to submit work to the Juried Student Art Snow at NMSU. My art is so far out there and so different from anything that is taught, that my work is never accepted. Maybe it’s the thought of yet another rejection that’s contributing to this malaise. Maybe the snow on the yucca seed pods above is good enough. Maybe someday, I’ll figure out what really matters is do I consider my work good enough. Judges tend to be blind and judges for school art shows tend to reject anything that isn’t taught at the university.

I’ve been working on fabric designs including panels for my Spoonflower shop. 

You can find my shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman

Looking for a Post-Valentine’s Day gift for your sweetie? My online store, Deb Thuman Art, contains one of a kind jewelry and bandanas for your furry sweetie. My store is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com

Banging My Head On My Desk

Our TV is 15 years old and starting to circle the drain. So, we went to Best Buy to buy a new TV. I wear hearing aids and was told that having a sound bar would help me to hear clear dialog. I didn’t understand how that was possible until the sales clerk demonstrated a sound bar. And so we bought a sound bar, TV, qualified for free delivery, and set a delivery day for this past Wednesday. The sound bar and TV arrived.

Tinker guarding the box containing the TV.

Everything was fine until we unpacked the sound bar and TV. The sound bar wouldn’t attach to the TV because the screws were too far apart. Jim called customer service and, after a lengthy hold, had to argue with a customer service rep. He took the sound bar back to Best Buy, and again had to argue that the sound bar couldn’t be attached to the TV we bought. We got a refund.

Jim then proceeded to hook up the TV. After getting everything attached, we tried to turn on the TV. It wouldn’t turn on. Jim did some online trouble shooting and tried every suggestion he could find. None worked. The TV was defective. It went back to Best Buy and we got a refund.

Jim then proceeded to hook up the TV we’ve been using for 15 years. The fun started when I had to put in a password for: Roku, Hulu, Prime, Discovery +, Paramount +, and Peacock. 

Eventually, we will go back to Best Buy and try again to buy a TV and sound bar.

A few weeks back, Craftsy had a major sale and I could buy $50 DVDs for $5. I bought 17 DVDs. I watched one about making bras. That DVD alone was worth what I paid for all the DVDs. Lots of little tricks – like using stay tape on the top of the cups and sewing stay stitching on the bottom of the cup. I learned that for those of us who are convinced only hydraulic lifts will keep our breasts from sagging, the solution is simple: double power net in the band. I learned how to adjust the cups to move the straps closer together. In short – all my fitting problems could be solved with a few simple techniques.

I’m not finding myself in a mood to sew. I have fabric to make a pair of leggings. I have fabric to make two fancy bras. I have two quilts to quilt. I need to make a few pairs of pants and dye them winter type colors because I’m almost out of pants. Yet I don’t feel like sewing.

I’ve been having pain in my hip when I walk. Finally, I’ve been forcing myself to do exercises designed to relieve the pain. The exercises work well, it’s just getting to do the exercises that I have problems with.

Jim and I are participating in a research study wherein we get paid plus we get an Alexa we can keep. If Alexa is the state of AI, then we’ve nothing to worry about. It took a few days to figure out all the things Alexa can’t do. The contraption plugs in and there are no batteries. That means if I want to take it from room to room, I have to unplug, schlep, replug. No thanks. I’ll stick with my iPod. Plus, telling Alexa to play Tom Rush gets me one Tom Rush song followed by other artists. My iPod plays what I want it to play. Alexa has a camera, and I’ve covered the lens. One frustrating thing is Alexa won’t sync with my MacBook Pro, iPad or iPhone unless I use the cloud. I refuse to use the cloud. You don’t own the cloud, so the feds don’t need your permission or a warrant to go through whatever you have stored. Anything, including the cloud, can be hacked. Good luck explaining to the Feds that the child pornography tucked between your photos didn’t come from you; it came from a hacker.

We had a storm blow in last week. This is what the impending storm looked like.

About the only thing peripheral neuropathy is good for is causing me enough pain that I wake up early and can go outside and photograph the sunrise.

If I am not for myself, who will be?

I thought I had gotten past the fear, anxiety, stress and depression. I was wrong. Tomorrow, I have my first painting class of the semester. It is likely the hate criminal will be in my class. Today, I’m depressed, pissed off, scared, anxious. I’m still going to class. If I am not for myself, who will be?

I’ve complained to the Office of Institutional Equity about the hate crime. I was told to get counseling and was threatened to be fired from a job I don’t have. I’ve filed a report with the campus police and was told to put the campus police telephone number into my cell phone contacts. An adjunct professor who was paid $3000 per class per semester and with no benefits had the guts to stand up for me and tell the truth. The university has refused to rehire her – despite the art department being underfunded and understaffed – and replaced with a grad student who earns more and receives health insurance benefits. The university will never admit what they did and protestations about her being unemployed having nothing to do with her telling the truth are not credible.

A friend suggested I take this semester off. I can’t. If I don’t stand up to this hatred, discrimination, and apathy, nothing will change. I never intended to lead this parade, but no one else is leading, so it’s up to me. Hillel asked, if I am not for myself, who will be? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?

I have a series of self portraits and one major piece to work on this semester. All have Jewish themes and are in direct response to the war in Israel and efforts to silence me. I will continue to make Jewish-themed art. I will continue to inform the FBI Counter Terrorism Division of pro-hamas activities on campus. I will continue to fight back against anti-Semitism. I refuse to be silenced. I’ve never run from a fight in my life, and I’m not about to run from this fight.

Never again is now. Am Yisrael Chai – the people of Israel live.

It Won’t Last

Even The NY Times, a notoriously anti-Israel paper, has to admit every so often, that hamas is horrible, they are terrorists and what happened in Israel is horrendous. Still, the paper cranks out endless articles about damage – personal and property – in Gaza and blames Israel. That’s like saying Ukraine is at fault for being invaded by Russia.

After 9/11, the United States blew up two countries, Iraq and Afghanistan. We were given excuses. Rescue Christian missionaries. Find weapons of mass destruction. Make money for Halliburton. But no one blamed the United States for retaliating against a vicious terrorist attack. The United States sent an elite team into Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden. But all of that is okay. If you believe what the United States has done is permissible and righteous, you can’t criticize Israel for retaliating against a terrorist attack orchestrated by a deranged man who says his purpose is to wipe out Israel and kill Jews.

We’re having a semester break right now. I don’t have to worry about what the hate criminal will do next. I don’t have to wonder if I’m safe on campus. Actually, I never have to wonder that. I’m not safe on campus. I don’t have to worry about surviving a physical attack long enough for the police to arrive. I don’t have to check my pockets to make sure I have my pepper gel and stun gun before getting into the car to drive to school because we’re having a semester break. This more or less calm won’t last. It will disappear the instant I park on campus when. the spring semester starts.

During this uneasy time out, I’m battling bone-crushing depression. I have to force myself to brush my teeth. I have to force myself to take a shower. I have to force myself to put on clean underwear. Every few days, I have to take a double dose of my antidepressant in order to function for a couple days. I can’t keep taking a double dose because after two, or at best three, days, I become a zombie. I have jewelry photographed, but I haven’t found the energy to list the jewelry in my on-line store http://www.DebThumanArt.com. I have two bras half made, but I don’t have the energy to finish them. At least I’m not suicidal, which is the happiest thing I can say.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to paint in the spring semester. Frida Kahlo said she wasn’t a surrealist; she painted her own reality. I’ll be painting my own reality. It won’t be pretty art. My art never is.

This is the sketch for a series of self portraits I want to paint. I have no mouth because no one in academic administration hears me. I’m alone. There is no chapter of Hillel. There is no chapter of Chabad. The Anti-Defamation League is spread so thin, they don’t have the resources to help me. I’m alone, scared, armed and voiceless. I have to decide if I want to keep the painting flat like the sketch, or if I want to give some dimension to the face and shoulders. I’ve been considering making the sketch into a quilt, but I’m so far behind on sewing, I am worried I’d never get it finished.

Am Yisrael Chai

The People of Israel Live