ruzz

somewhere near madden, ab the dust began settling sometime early...

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 18:55:00 -0700

somewhere near madden, ab

the dust began settling sometime early in the week. the chaos and utter shock wore thin and things started to look more like a life. then today i went into town and had lunch with dougie and watched everyone doing their stuff. living their city lives. i watched the pretty waitresses with their push up bras and low buttoned shirts and a rolling moan started somewhere in me.

it built and built as each mile marker passed on the highway back to home. i got home and with a full headache and went for a nap. I woke up tangled and taught.

things on the whole are good here. my folks have been very accommodating and opened their home freely to me.

but i’m fuelled by beauty. i’m energized and pulled towards tomorrow and tomorrows tomorrow by all the twirling hair and crooking smiles on pretty girls everywhere. this town is full of farmer’s wives and the elderly.

it’s a strange complaint to lodge. that there isn’t enough pretty women out here to keep me breathing and fighting but that’s how it feels just now. like i had my legs swept out from under me and i woke up alone and out of the reach of beauty.

i’ve gone driving and shooting, and documented parts of my parents lives and tried to fill the days with books and thinking. i’ve slept and stretched and read and watched out the window. i’ve passed the days in peace and comfort.

but coming home tonight i realize i’m not ready for peace and comfort. i want fire. i want flurries of life and fighting sheets and the world to expand a tiny bit each day.

i’m afraid i may wither rather than heal. may shrink until i’m so small i just disappear.

on the plus side this tells me i’ve got some fight left in me. i’ve got some lust for life left in me. some passions. some desires. and now i just need to quell them or fill them in sideways ways till i can make my way back into the heart of the city, full as harvest fields with girls and music, and streets and friends and life.

today’s planned writing is on hold. I was going to work on...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:44:56 -0700

today’s planned writing is on hold. I was going to work on the bit i’ve thought out for story time saturday but woke with crippling spasms. spent a good deal of time laying on the hardwood and now i’m moving around again i’m going to go out into the prairie and shoot a while.

instead of writing.

my friend/ex-friend, model/ex-model read the post yesterday and we talked some more. I don’t...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:53:51 -0700

my friend/ex-friend, model/ex-model read the post yesterday and we talked some more. I don’t know if it helped but i did offer her a chance to share her feelings here by way of emailing me a post i would post unedited if she wanted.

i realize that it wasn’t entirely fair because i’m not her, or a model, or relying on my physical appearance for my living. i’d love to hear her side of things.

it doesn’t change my belief that the only way we will ever get to a more fully mature interaction with the miracle of the body is by dragging this shit out and talking about it, writing about it, and keeping at pushing the barriers anywhere and everywhere.

at some point most all of us become parents, or uncles, or aunts or big sisters and how we treat the body is how they learn to treat the body.

i probably only care because i’ve been frustrated by years of being around people more naturally beautiful than i who somehow like themselves less than i do. it seems tragic in some way to me when a person at their height of physical perfection still hates their body, or some part of it.

if we could swap bodies a week most girls would go back to their bodies feeling pretty darn good about themselves. haha.

anyways. maybe she will, maybe she won’t. but lets hope she does.

jackie (2010)

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:31:30 -0700

jackie (2010)

it’s time to finally get the tv up so i can watch the wire instead of sitting watching the...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:25:21 -0700

it’s time to finally get the tv up so i can watch the wire instead of sitting watching the bachelor with my folks.

the bachelor.

i’ve been meaning to update you on the stretch marks are...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:17:00 -0700

i’ve been meaning to update you on the stretch marks are beautiful post. it’s been a bit nuts around here though.

the model i wrote it about found it and she said fuck you, don’t ever speak to me again.

even though i explained my position.

she said she felt attacked, and that we obviously aren’t real friends.

even though i apologized and pointed out i said several times it was not meant to be negative to her.

she said she never signed a model release so never use her pictures again.

which i will ignore. but remember once again people ain’t no good and only care about their own bullshit not the artwork.

she unfriended me on facebook.

even though i said she’s incredibly beautiful, and has gifts to offer the world despite the changing state of her skin.

she more or less hates me now.

and that’s kinda sad.

on the car i have borrowed (it's metallic orange)

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:45:43 -0700

mom: that sure is an ugly colour on that car.
me: i don't mind it, and jeff liked it.
mom: well, it's pretty ugly.
dad: it's not a canadian colour that's for sure.

come at me bro (or nuclear medicinist).

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 14:41:28 -0700

come at me bro (or nuclear medicinist).

dad: what lights do you want left on (as he climbs the stairs to go to bed)

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 22:23:47 -0700

dad: what lights do you want left on (as he climbs the stairs to go to bed)
me: none. g'nite.
dad: why is he sitting down in the dark on his computer (to my mom).
mom: if that's what he want's to do, let him.
dad: i just don't see... [trails off]

haha.

nuclear medicine that needle is full of some sort of radioactive...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:10:02 -0700

nuclear medicine

that needle is full of some sort of radioactive goo. i didn’t ask a lot of questions about it. took her 4 pokes making 3 holes to get that shit into my body.

the bone scan was a gruelling experience of being stretched out with my arms above my head and staying dead still for 25 mins. pretty damn sore today but if that scan tells the doctor something about what’s causing all the pain then i’d do it all day long.

i hate being a patient. shuttled through door after door. clothes off. clothes on. name. health care number. don’t eat this. drink that. take this pill. it’s all so dehumanizing.

i feel like a block of meat right now.

on the plus side she let me shoot the injection and i’m getting lots of different pictures from this experience. stuff i’d never have found or shot any other way.

still. i don’t see why she couldn’t have let me shoot from the scan bed :P

a couple blocks from my new digs. i guess a total change of...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 20:45:09 -0700

a couple blocks from my new digs.

i guess a total change of scenery must be good for the eye in time.

sometimes it comes that you’ve got to stop and take an...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:19:56 -0700

sometimes it comes that you’ve got to stop and take an honest look at where you are and what you’re doing and accept the truth of what you see. that time came for me last week on day two of the worst muscle spasm i can remember having.

I lay in bed, more or less unable to move, and considered my life in detail. I considered the bounty and the ugliest of ugly parts. I considered my fears. my coping mechanisms. my decades old habits. I considered whether i was in the best position under a wall of pain, debt, crisis, and upheaval to start back out into the world anew.

i thought about the life i want to live. One as a documentary photographer and how far away it was from where i am. how i’ve come so set in my life that, despite living a pretty good life, i’d never break the gravitational pull of all the things that held me where i was and by logic never reach the place i wish to be.

there were two options on the table at the time. To find another place to live and take up a day job outside the house (not doing computer work) or go stay with jude in PEI a few months, then bump over to montreal a few more. then figure out my life based on what i’d learnt about myself during that.

one choice was to just re-set up the same situation and eventually the same problems, the other was to cut every rope and jettison my life.

pain brought about the third option and a few startling moments of clarity about my life. racked by a muscle spasm in my back that felt like a hot knife stabbing through my shoulder just to breath and looking down the barrel of moving, getting settled, finding work, and then some how keeping work the next time this flares up made me realize (again) that i keep denying the state of my body and it’s relationship to carrying me through to where i want to go.

the thought exercise of PEI (though tempting) helped me get an angle on the idea of letting everything fall away and starting over. it gave me context for my own strength despite my legion of fears. because i was very close to going. I looked up plane tickets. I started to figure out what i would tell my family.

that line in my head once crossed opened up a third option that was resoundingly reinforced by the state of my body. sleepless. pain-filled. coming unravelled.

without really thinking out the consequences of it i got dressed and caught the next bus up to my doctor. my doctor who i’ve avoided for 3 years because of my self medication with opiates. my doctor who i knew would call me an idiot and might flag me an addict preventing proper pain relief for the rest of my life. my doctor who sewed on falling off parts. pronounced my teen girlfriend (later wife) pregnant when we were kids. my doctor who helped me through high blood pressure induced panic attacks and all the shit that comes with it.

90 mins to get across town on the bus. 90 mins to get into see him and the only thing in my head was “just tell him everything and tell him you need help”.

no other thought was allowed to enter. if i’d thought for a minute the first thing he’d do was take away my pain killers, given my level of pain, i’d have turned back. i didn’t though.

i sat there on the medical bed and waited for him. waited and waited. my heart racing and my body spasming and my mind on lockdown.

he came in and i explained that i’d got myself to a point where the OTC codeine wasn’t helping at all, and to take more would put me too closed to killing my liver, and to stop was impossible. and the pain.. oh the fucking pain.

he called me a fuck up and followed it up with that he didn’t think i was so big of a fuck up to risk killing myself.

he said no more codeine and gave me some synthetic opiate—which i quit 2 days later—and gave me lorazepam for the muscle spasms and probably because i was coming undone. scheduled a battery of tests for my back and to see what damage 3 1/2 years of playing home chemist might have done. then he put me on disability and said no more work till this is fixed.

i left and called my mom asking her to come in and talk about what just happened. when she got there i explained everything and asked if i could come home for a few months to heal. she and my father graciously offered to do whatever they could do to help.

so with that settled, i tried to pack but really couldn’t. I caught a lucky break in that my shoulders unlocked the friday afternoon, 24 hours, before i had to move. I packed like crazy and an army friends and family showed up saturday to help move most my belongings into storage. doug hovered around me most the day getting between me and anything i might be inclined to hurt myself lifting and led the charge while i clued in and out thanks to the lorazepam.

since last saturday i’ve been trying to acclimatize to living with my parents. it’s been a tough transition to go from completely alone all the time and completely independent to being here. it’s been tough on them too in different ways. I felt so trapped by monday i thought i would lose my mind. i needed to be alone. I needed to have quiet. i wanted to go back to my apartment and just lay on my shitty broke down couch by myself.

that passed and this week has been one set of tests after another. blood. ultrasounds. X-rays and tomorrow a bone scan. i’ve been so worn out from everything i’ve slept or sat around doing nothing most of the time.

oh, and i also kicked my opiate habit in the process. the withdrawals even mitigated by lorazepam were very very unpleasant but i’m 9 days without opiates. the longest i’ve wen’t since september of 2007. everything hurts. nothing stays in my stomach. my sinuses drain all day long and sometimes i just don’t even know what world i’m living in or what parts of what changes are making what feelings. everything is changed and the loss of opiates just got thrown in there on the pile.

my mental sharpness, for good or bad, is coming back. some people who’ve been riding on my drug addled mind like day-trippers are going to find there’s a bit more edge than they are used to. i wonder if i will get back to my old mind somewhere in all this. maybe when i’m off the lorazepam..

i don’t miss the opiates. i don’t miss worrying every day if i fucked up the mix and killed my liver. i don’t miss the semi-confused state all the time. i don’t miss having a monkey on my back making all my decisions and preventing me from getting the medical care i need.

i feel so fucking utterly grateful that for 3 hours i had clarity enough to throw it all away and just let whatever happened happen. that i found a way to sidestep the addicted part of my mind long enough to get a bit of help before it realized it was about to lose it’s dose.

i feel immense gratitude for my friends and family who helped me through the last week when i just couldn’t have on my own steam made it through all that. the support i’ve had allowed me to let go of control long enough to make real change in my life.

much of that change is very painful right now. i’m no longer in the city i fell in love with last summer. I’m a 50 minute drive from those beautiful paved streets full of kooks and interesting humans. i’m entirely removed from most of my possessions. I sleep in a new bed, rest on a new couch, eat different food. i’m around someone from when i wake up to when i go to bed rather than being alone all day. almost no part of my life resembles what it looked like a week ago so maybe i’m not so afraid of change after all.

the prairie winter surrounds me as i rest between pokes and prods from doctors.

my mom keeps walking by while i write this asking if i’m having fun. my dad is asleep upstairs and i have to keep kicking their dog off my bed. i’ve been sent running from the room when they put shows like the bachelor, or revenge on the tv and it’s a bit of mental gymnastics trying to keep things the way father wants things kept.

but i just keep telling myself i will do whatever i have to do to get healthy again. to get back to a point where i can make those things i want my life to be actually be my life. i’ll accept any loss. i’ll sit through any procedure. i’ll wait, and watch and fold up whatever part doesn’t fit till i fit for whatever amount of time i need to till i’m back on my own two healthy feet stalking little old ladies and their blue haired wigs.

i alternate between that thought and gratitude. thankful for parents who’d take in their grown son when he’s made such an utter mess of his life. thankful for having this window of time to be with them that i will always have with me after they’ve gone (many years from now i hope). thankful for all the friends and family who’ve looked after me and helped me and waited for me to get to the point to handle these things by my own choosing rather than trying to force me.

thankful i get a second chance when i probably don’t deserve one. lots of people don’t get a second chance. they end up on the street. or caught in the cogs of our severely broken social system.

and there’s much work to be done once i’m more up to it. I’m going to start a site like i had for bowness for this town i’m living in. I’m going to research and plan documentary projects. get my portfolio in order. find grant money. I’m going to learn how other documentary photographers have managed to make a living and hopefully when i get launched out of here i will be in good health with a full plan for how to make that transition, or a body that can handle work while i transition. but nothing, not opiates, or walls of pain, or fear, or weakness is going to stop me from getting there one day. count on that.

a very generous person who loves this site more than the living breathing street stepped up in all this and offered no strings attached cash help (he calls it patronage for an artist) and that kept me going before the move and then yesterday let me renew my license, on the very day my ex-wife left for Australia and allowed me to use her car for a month. so i’ll only be trapped by need of gas and energy now.

the street now, with this car, if i have gas, and energy, is only 5 mins farther away than it was when i lived in bowness and had to take that festering mobile shitpile called the #1 bus into the core.

it’s in these small bits of magic that arrive out of nowhere when you most need them that i am reminded sometimes when you try to control your life with an iron hand you close doors that might lead you places you want to be. that when you allow fear, or weakness to decide the important things in your life you exclude the breadth and depth of life which comes rushing in to fill every gap, even the ones you can’t imagine will need filling or fathom how they’d ever get filled.

i spent my whole life trusting myself only. trusting 100% in my ability to handle whatever came by myself. then my body broke down and i couldn’t trust myself any more and what i’ve learnt is if i can’t make it on my own and i surrender some control, and don’t just rely on myself there are other ways. ways prior to now that were beyond my imagination.

dear internet love of mine. i promise promise promise to write you a sprawling, heart wrenching tale...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:46:00 -0700

dear internet love of mine. i promise promise promise to write you a sprawling, heart wrenching tale of the past couple weeks which have upended my entire life… tomorrow.

i swear.

love ruzz.

big update coming if i ever get a pain free and things to do free moment at the same time.

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 16:09:56 -0700

big update coming if i ever get a pain free and things to do free moment at the same time.

therealaarondunn: I was in a car accident week before last and...

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:35:24 -0700

therealaarondunn:

I was in a car accident week before last and have to come up w/ the insurance deductible. There was only a few thousand dollars damage to the car, but w/ my previous injuries… I’m kinda fucked up right now. But life goes on and I owe money I don’t have.

There comes a time when we must beg, borrow or steal.

I’ve gone w/ beg.

I’m selling these linocut prints:

SX-70 (6.5 x 8.5 inches) Edition of 30 / 16 available = $25 shipped anywhere

Impossible (6.5 x 8.5 inches) Edition of 50 / 23 available = $20 shipped anywhere

Contact me: aaron at therealAARONDUNN dot com

If you can help out, awesome… if you can’t, now worries. I still love ya.

elledark: Banksy on Advertising“People are taking the piss out...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:38:34 -0700

elledark:

Banksy on Advertising

“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are “The Advertisers” and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.

Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.”

~ Banksy

just a quick update. i’m still kicking. still looking for...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:53:00 -0700

just a quick update. i’m still kicking. still looking for a new place. still trying to work everything out but for now things are holding together as best they can.

there’s a lot of questions right now and the only way forward might be to put some of them aside and focus on what can be dealt with.

i don’t know.

i’m saying that a lot lately.

i was downtown today for some shitty business but i brought my cameras and held up my mom at every...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:37:24 -0700

i was downtown today for some shitty business but i brought my cameras and held up my mom at every corner taking pictures. my heart was filling.

then we got a flat and had to hold up three hours waiting so i dragged her into the mall where all manner of kooky people were doing all manner of kook. my heart was full.

it felt beyond great to be back out on the street after such a hard week. the light was amazing and i felt alive again.

blessed.

continued..

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:12:58 -0700

heyrrrabbit:

ruzzdotorg:

people have often suggested i go on anti depressants. my sister did and a few years later shes moved into a huge house. has new cars. and is living in the adult world as a regular person. she managed to normalize her moods and keep going in the same direction long enough to get credit and get acceptance into the mainstream. it can be done and i’m proud of her hard work and that she hasnt given up even when its been hard. but that for me doesnt seem like a life i could live. if you gave me all the security in the world i’d just give up and lose interest in life. the painful parts are the parts that shape me. for good or bad. i know ive complained a lot lately and i know it doesnt need to be like this for me but i need to be all in my life. i need to live by my heart and mind and see what comes of it because thats what its about to me. the experience not the end goals. not the comfort.

Gotta say, I’m on pills to help control my mood swings (bipolar, here) and I smoke weed. You know what this has done for me? It has kept me alive, and it has made me able to actually get up and experience things to enjoy instead of laying in bed all day. So yeah.

I hope you and others out there don’t mistake what i meant. I believe medication can be very helpful for some people and that in everyone’s lives they need to figure that out based on their level of functioning. i don’t think anyone is wrong to take them if they help.

that said, our situations are much different. I get out of bed (before 6am most days). I do the things i like to do—which all my websites should show quite well. i’ve never that i recall ever seriously felt suicidal despite some very long depressions (greater than a year). and I do live and stay active. but over long timelines i’m unable to keep the even keel demanded of you by the mainstream world. I’ve never held a job longer than two years and that was a miracle.

i’m not bi-polar, and i’ve largely got my depression under control now (in the last couple years by quitting drinking, exercise, water, etc). i’m just not socialized well enough to do the same thing every day unless it’s exactly the thing i want to do and even then sometimes i’m not able to keep moving in the same direction because i do feel things intensely and can get off target easily.

so.. if it works for you. please keep doing it. do whatever keeps you living and closer to life.

kieferspringer: This is why I would refuse any medication to...

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:38:00 -0700

kieferspringer:

This is why I would refuse any medication to help with depression. It’s hard to comprehend that this is reality for him.

I’m not entirely too sure on how to react to such a video.

people have often suggested i go on anti depressants. my sister did and a few years later shes moved into a huge house. has new cars. and is living in the adult world as a regular person. she managed to normalize her moods and keep going in the same direction long enough to get credit and get acceptance into the mainstream. it can be done and i’m proud of her hard work and that she hasnt given up even when its been hard. but that for me doesnt seem like a life i could live. if you gave me all the security in the world i’d just give up and lose interest in life. the painful parts are the parts that shape me. for good or bad. i know ive complained a lot lately and i know it doesnt need to be like this for me but i need to be all in my life. i need to live by my heart and mind and see what comes of it because thats what its about to me. the experience not the end goals. not the comfort.