Somehow it is 2026

 You have found a time capsule. 

It’s been some 10 years since I posted to this blog, enough that I don’t remember the entires or their content. In seeking to download the content I unpublished and then republished the posts. I am sure there were some that I had decided not to publish but I don’t remember what ones they were. So I am going to go through and see if I can curate this in a reasonable amount of time. I really don’t know if I still feel how I did about things in these posts. I like to think I continue to grow and change in a positive direction. 

I am now an artist and have had work in a number of Maryland Federations of Art exhibitions. And I work there once a week. I worked at Wild Birds Unlimited for 3 years before taking time off to gut my master bathroom and redo it due to water damage.  I homeschooled my oldest for 2 years and they got into college! My youngest is still in high school. 

To keep up with me at this point please see Fanfare_themed_art on Instagram or Facebook  

Thanks for visiting!

Profile of a Hero: Carl Sagan

DYK? The military & wildlife conservation

WTDW: Consciousness

Baby-head-smell

We Think We're In Charge

Priming Occupying the right brain & cake vs. fruit

Book Review: The Gift of Fear

Favorites: Radiolab

Dear husband and children, I am writing to apologize for being me. I really messed up today. I abandoned you. I slept. Til 4:30 and only got up because we needed to go go fill a prescription at Target. Thing is, after dad came in to tell me it was late, around 2:30, I fell back to sleep. I had nightmares after that. All my anxiety came back and I was so depressed that I couldn't get out of bed in my dream. I was scared. Just yesterday's in traveled to China for work and now I was supposed to go back. I couldn't even lift my body. I was so ashamed and terrified.my mom was there, and I was in my childhood home,but I couldn't function. My parents were mystified and helpless. I flewovr the imaginary pond behind the house and saw where it joined with the newly finished imaginary catchment retaining pond that I hated. Mi landed where one flowed into the other. The big beeches I loved were still there on the hill but there was water where I used to lie. The basin at the overflow was full of tree branches and dead animals that had bee washed away in the flood. I poked a dead otter with a stick. It bobbed u dear the water and resurfaced. Back in my room, I rolled over and was furious at the kids for something they did but my voice caught in,y throat and could hardly be heard. That was why I couldn't call for help.

Anxiety, waiting for Willow

The hairs on the back of my neck and upper arms stands up. I try not to clench my jaw because of my crowns. My chest feels like it does right before you burp, just as you are about to have heartburn. My hands reflexively go to my face, my eyes. I push the skin of my left orbit up onto it's browbone. I push the left eyelid to its outside corner. I feel the cool tingling of hairs standing up on the outside-bottom of my thighs. My toes lift, stiff off the ground and press into the tops of my chuck taylors. I press my head into my right palm so that the ball of the hand fits into the stop above my nose. My cool right thumb gently touches my right cheek. My right elbow sits into and against my stomach. I feel hungry. I take my hand away and bring it back with the nail beds against my upper lip with the knuckle bending under my nose. My son is asleep. This is supposed to be relaxing time, but I am picking up my daughter, a new stressor. It rains. Sit my body down in the leather comfy chair. The cushions give. My back eases into slick softness. A piece with an arabic wavering scale ends; Reggae music begins. A woman in a red fleece pullover talks to the comfortably dressed guy obviously studying something at the table they share. I can hear their voices. It is one of those rare instances when you can hear the cadence of your own language without understanding the words, like it might sound to a nonspeaker. A beeper is quieted. There is a low murmer from the mall hallway outside. A man in a deep olive denim coat hunches over the table in front of me, his back to me. The pregnant woman with the beautiful pink and sparkly silver scarf contrasting perfectly with her aqua top seems to be staring at me but she must just be looking out the window. My stomach begins to ease into my body that is settled in the chair. Why the delay? Anxiety. My ever present company, except when it's not. I could burst into tear at any moment if I only thought the necessary cue. My stomach hungers for the peace it seems everyone else has. Don't they see that it could all fall apart at any second? Scarf lady has a Coach bag. I wonder if it's real. Good for her, drinking water with her hot drink. She must be due any day now. It's so optimistic of her, having a baby I mean. There's a man outside with one of those podlike newer strollers that would have given me stroller envy back in the stroller days. Hard to believe I'm actually out of my stroller years now. Wow. That's significant. I'm actually an "experienced" mom now. Who'd believe that? It's been a six year trial by fire. I've been heated, hammered, forged, bent, flash cooled, reheated, shaped, sharpened in some places, dulled in others. I do not feel like the same. woman I was six years and 70 lbs ago. Olive military jacket guy has left. An 80sesque ballad rains from the speakers. I notice my reflection in the edge of the open doors. My head looks too small for my body. I don't seem tht way to myself. I am always shocked to see what I actually look like. My personal self image is about 30 lbs lighter. Scarf lady has left. Pod stroller guy is making up a bottle. Mantis guy is tricked-out with his own little stainless bottle warmer nd everything. Baby is hungry. Funny how now I smile at that. With my first each cry was like a lightning bolt up my spine, and nursing was so complicated. I was convinced mness baby could not have a bottle until after four weeks and I remember honesty believing it was possible tht I might not live tht long. Now they play an 80s high school anthem. Somehow that was 22 years ago, and it happened with each moment dripping by just as they do now. The constant monarch of time bothers me. I had classic Peter Pan syndrome. I did not want to grow up. Even as a teen I was aware of being that age and becoming what I had thought of as a child as grow ups who still went to school. Now my peers look like the grown ups did when I was a kid. Real grown ups, not young adults or hipsters. Real, actual middle age. That makes my Dad old now somehow. He seems. Wry much the same though, a little stiffer, a little grayer maybe, but not OLD. He says he has no intion of dying. Good. Me either. It occurs to me that the David Bowie they are playing is not "normal" anymore, it's "retro," like the Beatles were in the 80s, well maybe the Stones, anyway 20yrs old. Finally, an older style bluesy song I don't know. What a relief. My right ankle is starting to ache from sitting "criss-cross applesauce" as they call it now. A big guy maybe 15 yrs my senior is setting up his laptop. Computer girl and study guy are packing up to leave. I am going to have to leave in a few minutes too. And back to the 80s music. A lot of women walk around voluntarily in heels. What is with that? I suppose they were less unbearable when I wasn't overweight. Pod stroller baby's mother has red curly hair. Really curly. Cool. Didn't see that coming. Racist. Do I regret having children? I regret how I handled my body. I wish I could have never experienced all the mental anguish I have, the very real suffering. But I like my kids and I think they're going to be good additions to the species. In truth, I envy them sometimes. Not always though. They will never know the predictability my childhood had, the absolute security. So, on the whole, no, not for their sake. Of course with hindsit the are things I would have done differently, or I like to think I would do differently now. But you do the best you can with what you have at the time. Big breath in, slowly out. This topic is stressing me. As is the impending end of my free time. After all this writing I am slightly less close to tears than when I entered. Pooh, red pullover woman has the cutest hello kitty denim tote bag! Curly mom is laughing at and playing with her baby. That's good. I think I did that with my first. I hope I did. I sometimes feel a little estranged from her vs from my son, but I don't know ifits the age or the difficulty I had with nursing her or what. Probably a little of both. Ok so now I have to get the kids, get home, make dinner, and get them to bed before imam safe again. Who doesn't feel safe taking care of her own kids? But I don't. It stresses me out. They whine and argue with me. They need things. They want things. Dave was so right. And good for him to know himself that well, really. That was also a long time ago. So what happens when you start to have more past than future? Do you get more deliberate? I should. I would like to. I think.

The light at the end is just for doing more work.

Happy Presidents' Day. This morning I saw the light at the end of the long tunnel of infancy and toddler motherhood: my children played safely in the house without direct supervision for longer than I'm willing to admit here. When my son wanted orange juice, my daughter poured him some in a sippy cup! I was floored. Of course she should've asked first and she left the juice bottle out on the table, but still! I did not sleep well last night after blogging and so was not feeling at all well this morning. I was on the couch, fleeing my husband's snoring, and awoke to him and the kids coming downstairs around 8:00AM. He made some egg whites for my son and I helped my daughter with the toast she was working on. I decided to go upstairs and wash up. My thick, stumpy legs feel particularly heavy as I go up the stairs...."This is because you're so fat," the Critic taunts. The bed is nicely made and I am thankful to my husband. I should not disturb it. But the sunshine is streaming in through the window onto the bed and that's even better than using my lightbox, which I am supposed to be using and have not. I am in my nightgown and uncomfortably cold. My body crawls into the bed and sets my eyeballs toward the sun even as waves of disappointment flood over me and shame wells I liquid form from my eyes. There is yelling, scolding in my head. What are you, we, doing?! You know this is a terrible idea! The sunshine is so pleasant and warm and sparkly and encouraging on my face. The cool flannel sheets quickly warm. I am in trouble now. I can hear the kids downstairs and they are OK. I yell down that I'm going to be a bit because I am getting some sunlight in my eyes. They shout back, "Okaaaaay!". Eventually they squabble and I call them upstairs. They pile on the bed with me and we snuggle a bit. Then they get off and my daughter turns on NPR for me without my asking, thinking she is helping. They both go play in their rooms. Now I am in real trouble. I am tired, I don't feel super-well, there is a lovely sunbeam in my face, I can see the trees outside, friendly NPR firends talk to me from somewhere I can't reach, and the kids are playing nicely in their rooms. No doubt, there will be hell to pay in the form of utterly destroyed bedrooms in return for this respite, but I simply do summon enough will to resist it all. It is noon before I am pulled from comfort by hunger and shame. There is little point in berating myself. There is nothing new to say. I appraise the horror of my kids' bedrooms and give them the hard time I deserve. I hate myself. I don't want to, I want to be excused for some reason from being such a terrible role model and housekeeper, but it's just so past that. My kids walk on precious knit blankets in their shoes as they grope for how exactly do clean up. They don't see them. It is so utterly normal for them to have stuff on the floor that it doesn't bother them. They see no reason to clean up since it always looks this way anyway. I want to crawl into a hole. My parents would be so ashamed of me. I feel powerless against the overwhelm. My mom was so right and I was so angry at her and hurt that she thought I was lazy. Now I see that she was right and I'm passing it on to my kids. I should not have children. Clearly. I don't want to do what is needed to care for myself or them. And so often I don't. What is wrong with me that I am revealing this failure to anyone? I think I've gone past helping people and into a series of whiny pity party posts. I need to do better here too. Stream of consciousness is not fun to read when it's all a big downer. I will try to do better.

Trying to figure out habits...pity party

I've not written in a few days because I've been trying to rest, like that actually helps things. I wasn't able to sleep until like 4AM last Saturday and I've been trying to recove ever since. For the first time,at my psychiatrist appointment yesterday, it was apparent that right now I'm not having a medication issue, I just need to do what I ought to do and I keep choosing not to do it. Am I using my lightbox? No. Have I been getting to the gym? Not really, 2x in 2 or 3 weeks. Am I eating healthily? Chic-fil-A might say yes, but we all know the answer is no. So she wants to know, the most damning question of all, "What can I do to help you right now?" she had several helpful suggestions on how I might work exercise into my life even if it isn't spin class at the gym and I had an answer for everything. Can't walk because I couldn't not bring my elderly dog who doesn't get walked enough as it is, and he can't walk fast enough to raise my heart rate. I guess I could use a video but I feel really existent to it. Exercise to me used to = run ing, but now that it can't,it = spin class at the gym. Why don't I go to the 9:15AM class? Because it is in the morning and I hate working out in the morning, but the real reason is that I can't bear the idea of being active that "early"... I know, it's not early to the rest of the world. I think I've just gotten so sedentary that I don't want to do anything but lie around and not function. You know what my Saturday mornings are like. Well, I couldn't make myself do anything during my me time on Monday and Tuesday either except lie fetal in my car listening to NPR or comforting new age "relaxation" music. It was pathetic, but not in a deserving-of-pathos kind of way. Then today, I had my son home with me and we lazed on my bed reading books, tickling, playing, and watching videos through which I snoozed. I have a ton of housework that needs doing and I did not touch it at all. My husband has been doing things as they get to the extreme point of needing to be done. What is my problem? I Amos ashamed of this behave but feel powerless to stop myself, which is rediculous. I hear my husband in my head admonishing me not to write another whiny blog entry. I'm not trying to whine so much as to figure out this behavior. NPR's Fresh Air interviewed an author this week writing about habits, how they work and how to break them. For every habit, apparently, there is a cue, a routine, and a reward. And you have to be very careful, for the reward may not be what it seems. For example, the author had a habit of going to the cafeteria every day around 3 or so and getting a cookie. Turns out he did not have a sugar craving, rather, he craved socialization. He would chat with the other faculty while he ate his cookie. So he was able to give up the cookie thing completely an now just goes to the cafetia each day, grabs a cup of water and chats with folks for a bit. He's lost 12lbs as a result. So what is my deal with all this sleeping? I know part of the problem is going to bed too late, which I am trying to circumvent by blogging early tonight. Habit: wanting to rest in the car and avoid the effort necessary to function Cue: being in the car by myself Reward: respite from being conscious (hating myself, listening to my inner critic, being seen by and having to interact with others, feeling obligated to do work that overwhelms me, being overstimulated by children, experiencing my house which convicts me of my laziness, failing) The problem is that when I do it I feel even more ashamed of myself, which makes me not want to stop the behavior once it's begun because I will have to deal with that and everything else. But the draw of unconsciousness or the reduced stimulation of shutting everything else out but NPR is just so irresistible. Same thing with Saturday mornings: Habit: staying in bed on Saturdays until guilt makes me get up at 3PM or so. Without the guilt, I would probably elect not to get up at all, such is my desire to avoid my life. And don't get me wrong, I love my kids to death, I do, but it is such a life to not be responsible for them or to be whined at or to continue to. Other them inadequately and feel terrible about it... Cue: Saturday morning Reward: see above + my husband brings me donuts and chai, the enabler! Habit: letting my husband step up and be the grown up. If I wait long enough he will do it. Cue: not sure Reward: getting to retreat into passivity, to be infantilized This all seems so straight forward to me. Why would anyone want to participate in life if one didn't have to? Seriously, what is it with these people who wake up spontaneously and just start doing stuff? I can't fathom it. But i guess if you do that long enough you wouldn't hate yourself so much that you want to avoid consciousness just to avoid confronting who you've become. Damn i hate those people. Right now i feel like i hate everyone who is happy and successful. I can see the obvious answers to this: it can be fun, it can be gratifying, enjoying the sun, one's children/spouse/pet/self... My problem could just be that I don't enjoy much of anything. My kids make me laugh. I do enjoy them, but it's somehow not enough to overtake the ovstimulation, responsibility, exhaustion, and exertion required to do stuff. That's despicable, right there, Jul. Really. Oh why am I allowed to be this terrible?! Now I have to get them from childcare and return home where my poor husband has probably come home from work and made dinner because I hauled our butts out he to the mall so I could write this pity party no one is going to want to read. Nice.

Where is Julie?

Sorry to be skimping on the blog lately. I've been working hard on my illustration project and apparently don't have enough oomph to do both consistently. I'll work on that. The key to getting into the illustration seemed to be hanging a good carrot. A friend had asked me to watch the TV series Jericho because it sounded like something I'd like and she had no one to talk to about it and it was driving her crazy. SO, I decided I was only allowed to watch it if I was or had just finished working on my project. Success! Problem is I'm burning through it too fast. What will I use to replace it when I'm done? Suggestions?

Happy 4th!

Was maybe 25yds from VP tonight for his speech + orchestra + fireworks in downtown Scranton, PA. Fun! My dad lived just 2 blocks or so from his house growing up (& Casey's). Excellent fireworks, music, & speech.

US Election 2012

Romance

Godammit, she thought as she punched the button of her iPhone in disgust. Why do they always have to be like that? "He was so handsome as his steely grey-blue eyes gazed down at her, he hardly seemed real." That's because he's not real. And neither was his pouty, mouse-like but also voluptuously gorgeous and tempting assistant that he knew he should stay away from but just couldn't, due to his burning loins. She rolled her eyes in disgust. Some day I'm going to write one of these where the people are butt-ugly, she smirked. Or at least ordinary. "Or frumped-out nobodies like you," the familiar voice she'd learned in therapy to call "The Critic," said. I have no business wishing to be the target of a romance novel, she answered, thinking of her reasonable, safe marriage to the good man who was her husband. Then the familiar feelings of longing and guilt descended.

Dear Potential Employer,

Ah, I see you've found my blog.  I started this back in 2011 while exploring writing and blogging as a way to encourage folks suffering from anxiety and depression, particularly post-partum depression (PPD), to seek treatment and not give up... among other topics of interest to me. 

Cutting to the chase:

Am I capable of GS 12–14 level work? Absolutely. Please contact my references. 

Can I catch up on changes that occurred during my diversion? Of course. I have always been a good learner.  No worries there. 

How will I adjust to the added pressures, the responsibility?  Will I crack?  No employee can promise this. But what I can say is that I have been through a crucible of sorts that I believe has made me stronger, deeper, and wiser.  I am not ashamed.  I believe I have been improved by the experiences of motherhood and its fallout, not weakened. 

I can assure any new employer that I have taken none of my experiences of anxiety or depression lying down. I have been actively treated by an excellent physician, Dr. Milena Hruby Smith, MD, PhD for the past eight years. I have also been involved in as many years of individual and group therapy.  I have learned a great deal and  stocked my mental toolbox so that it now fairly bristles with coping tools. This can only be an asset. 

So contact my references. Interview me. Hire me!  I am honest, smart, creative, detail-oriented, and hard-working. 

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/why-i-hired-an-executive-with-a-mental-illness/

Let me be this person for you.