Actually, a quick trip to Facebook made me think of something else. The place is flooded with ME TOO postings from women who have been sexually harassed at some point in their lives. This basically includes every woman out there. So it made me think of all the times I was sexually harassed when I was young. It's such a vulnerable age to be in your twenties and out in the world for the first time. Away from the protective clutches of your family.

I really was afraid almost all the time. I was not a happy person and this picture at age 23 probably says that.

I was also fairly good looking, and this made me even more of a target than most. I married my first boyfriend at the age of 20. It took some cajoling because he was 7yrs older than me and knew what he was doing and if given his druthers probably wouldn't have gotten married. But I was persistent. I wanted to be married to be safe again. And it did make me safe, when I was with him. It did nothing for me when I was out by myself, walking down the street. Then I would get catcalls from strange men of varying ages. Some so bold they'd come right up and try to talk to me. It terrified me.
In 5yrs time the marriage was over, I was divorced and really on my own for the first time in my life. There was a man where I worked, head of the photography department who wanted me to call him Mr. Darling. He'd sidle up to me and lean in real close and mutter innuendos at me. I had no idea how to handle it. Months went by. Finally I backed off, raised my voice and said "Will you PLEASE leave me alone!" I was shaking when I said it and my voice cracked, but I finally got the message across to him.
I was single for 6 years before I was married again, to my current husband. During that time there were countless incidents of sexual harassment both on and off the job (I was a graphic designer). Eventually I became a mother, focused on that, and I aged out of it. I became invisible (like my LJ icon). Invisibility has its benefits.

I'm getting old old Spiegel catalogs off of eBay and cutting them up to make mail art postcards.

It's been well over a year since I've updated my LiveJournal. So sad. This was once such a vibrant community. I'm getting really sick of Facebook too. Social Media in general. Well, I guess LJ is social media but it's in a different realm from Facebook. There's more reflection. And there doesn't seem to be the constant bombardment of current events as there is on FB. I'm so sick of seeing Trump's ugly face everywhere I look. Maybe I can hide out here for awhile and avoid it.

I may have a commission to do another coastline painting, this of the Magothy River on the Chesapeake. Not sure if we're in agreement on the price.

I'm having a really rough time this week, being bombarded with crap in the world...beginning with Trump and his evil minions. I've fled Facebook trying to escape. I'm reading the NY Times weekend arts section and what do I find, but an article on Ted Cruz --it's everywhere--even the Arts section. It's making me very depressed. Also I cut back one of my meds trying to conserve because I was having problems getting a refill and I think it's now bottoming out. Very bad times.

I'm taking a break from Facebook because it's way too depressing and political over there. I can't take it anymore. The world and America in particular is way too depressing for me. Stop the world I want to get off.



Last week we were at a cabin on Indian Lake, NY and it was heavenly. I'm having re-entry problems this week coming back. It's hard going from Heaven to Hell. Well, it's not actually Hell here, though the heat resembles it. But Donald Trump's face sure looks like Satan.

the swelling is gradually getting smaller and the pain is virtually gone. I

I was billed $19.73 this month via my MasterCard by Live Journal and I have no idea what it's for. I have a permanent account. Does anyone know how I contact someone at LJ to find out what this is?

Almost a week ago we returned from a week spent in Cuba with the Oberlin Alumni Association. I wish I'd been feeling more hale and hearty for it but I came down with a cold early on which has now settled in my chest since returning home. Ugh. Still the trip was great. We saw many things, people and places. Drank ample mojitos and ate generous portions of Cuban food.

This was our farewell dinner at the San Cristobal Paladar.


This is where Papa Hemmingway slept in Cuba-- the very bed. Imagine.


This was outside a house of Santeria, and one of my favorite pictures from the trip. Scary!!


This was from inside a house of Santeria. Many shrines and devotional objects.

I hope the U.S. can finally lift the embargo we've had against Cuba and start doing business with the government and the people of Cuba. It's about time. It's really silliness not to.

There's nothing more depressing than Google-ing an old boyfriend and finding out all the NEA grants he's gotten, Fullbrights, solo museum exhibitions, books published, and blah de fucking blah blah blah. Why did I do that? I knew it was going to be like this. I knew it. And bad blood aside (let it be known that I dumped HIM)..his work is some of the least deserving I've ever seen. I knew this when I went out with him. It used to infuriate me. We had no real chance of succeeding as a couple because I didn't respect his work and he didn't respect mine. So it was a great thing when I got out. Soon after I met Jon and he was a world apart and the rest is history.

But still, it gets to me. The injustice of the art world. How mediocrity just keeps getting rewarded. And the more it's rewarded then the more it gets rewarded like a compounding of bank interest. More begets MORE. And conversely less begets less.

This is where I would start my pity party but I'm not going to do it. This time I'm not stooping to that level. I just wish I could let go of the resentment.

Matthew 19:24
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

I'm reading The Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert and really, it seems that from time immemorial it has been true of the human condition that the wealthy keep getting wealthier off the backs of the poor. There was a thriving textile industry in India in the 1400s-1600s. The weavers set their price and merchants paid it. Then the European merchants came in and figured out a way to cut out the textile merchants in India, and even set the prices that weavers could ask for their cloths and thus got the cloth for far less than they would have otherwise paid.

How did they do this? The author calls it War Capitalism, through means of violence of course. Eventually they set up factories in England and France (the two primary wagers of War Capitalism) to weave the cloth and forbade textiles from India from entering their countries, even though the Indian cloth was far superior to the English or French versions. They then employed all manner of espionage to steal the methods of technology the Indians used so they could duplicate their products.

Of course the whole production of cotton back in the eighteenth century was predicated on slavery. It's an interesting read. But it makes me think of today, and how wealthy merchants continue to use "slave" labor, and child labor in countries like China and India to make their wares for the least amount of money. Anything other than this would be deemed "bad business.

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Turkey red calico print circa 1827