Desertrose

Wow, is that your video John? It's fantastic! Very creative! Love the eyes especially. How did you achieve that effect on the eyes? Geez, a lot HAS changed since I've been absent from this site. I'm so excited to see a whole section devoted to video!

Hey that is so cool! So you can actually do that AFTER you've shot the image. I didn't know you could! Wow, and here I am fiddling endlessly with aperture and shutter speeds to get that same depth of focus.

Confucious say "Don't snoop into daughters diary, or you will end up with mushrooms on your face". And that is all I have to say.

She's 20. Old enough to know better! They ARE easier to get these days because theres simply so many more drugs OUT there. The pushers? Look in the schoolyards. KIDS are dealing drugs. And what's the penalty? A slap on the wrist.

It was Buddah...hash, whatever. Something nasty mixed in with it probably. Anyway, how bizarre life is. Seems that one of my daughters is into dabbling with all kinds of drugs I've just discovered. Kinda coincidental that I should revise some of my own experiences only to find that one of my own is going down that path. Nothing new for HER but we'd thought she'd grown up a little and grown some common sense. She's read this...but of course..."it will never happen to ME".

There was a time in my life when the thought of leaving my own house filled me with terror. In even darker times I even began believing that an evil force had taken possession of my mind. If there is a precipice between sanity and insanity I was balanced on the very edge of it and peered briefly down into “madness”. It all began when I was around fifteen and began dabbling with drugs. Nothing too heavy, a little bit of pot here and there, alcohol, and pain pills. I had been suffering terrible migraines too, so was put on all kinds of anti migraine medications which possibly could have contributed to the depression I found myself in. I was looking for a way to numb myself from all that was going on around me in my life, and mostly, what was inside of me. One night while at a friends place, I smoked some marijuana that affected me physically in a way that it had never done before. The effect hit me instantly like a tonne of bricks. My vision became extremely disturbed, I was unable to focus properly -things were jumping instead of remaining still, and instead of a "happy" buzz it turned into one of the most frightening experiences of my life. My friend, unaware of what was happening to me, as a joke leaped out from behind a wall to scare me, and this was when I felt it.... felt myself slip from that precipice. A physical splitting of my mind occurred in that instant. It's the only way I can describe it. I became two people in that moment. Along with that split came the physical sensations.... You know the feeling when you lose your stomach in fright or those “butterfly” like sensations you get on a roller coaster ride? Well imagine it never ending. Losing your stomach but that feeling just keeps going and going….rising and rising and intensifying all the while. My heart began palpitating as though it would explode in my chest - I could hear the blood pounding in my ears. I was hyperventilating, pains were shooting through my chest, I felt dizzy, out of breath, my hands were as cold as ice and I felt as though I was going to die at any second! Two voices were speaking to me inside my mind. I could hear them as clearly as though they were people in the room talking to me. One was saying…. "Just calm down....take deep breaths...it's going to be ok, just calm down!" The other was screaming with spiteful glee…. "You're going to die...your heart can't beat this fast without exploding...Any minute it's going to stop beating and you're going to die!" It sounded like true evil speaking to me. I felt truly as though I had lost my mind. The voices fought inside me, screaming at me, as my friends (who were terrified of their parents finding out that we'd been smoking pot) rushed me from the house down to a neighbours where eventually an ambulance was called. In the hospital I was treated with great distain by the nursing staff. Nobody explained to me what had happened. They gave me a little white pill and hooked me up to a heart monitor, (which scared the crap out of me because I kept waiting for the blips to STOP ), and left me alone. I never did understand what had caused such a violent physical reaction, nor what had occurred inside my mind that night. I never EVER smoked Marijuana again. The results however, from that experience I believe affected me for many years to follow, and maybe even still to this day. I began experiencing panic attacks shortly after this experience. At first it was just the occasional burst of palpitations, which although quite disturbing and uncomfortable, were nothing like what I experienced one day whilst standing at a train platform. Completely out of the blue,with no warning, no feelings of impending anxiety, not even any conscious unsettling thoughts and all of a sudden I was back to feeling EXACTLY as I had done that night. It utterly terrified me and what was worse was that it happened whilst I was out in a public place! I hid in the toilet on the platform for some time... I don't remember how I got home. From that day on I became afraid of going outside in public and eventually, for a period of time, couldn't. I became a prisoner in my own skin ,completely trapped by the physical sensations that my body would throw at me. So infinitely tuned into every single sensation, every heart beat, every breath, and always with a deep sense of dread that IT would happen again. IT- that could paralyze me with fear...more than fear - terror! It controlled my every waking thought, and even, eventually, IT sabotaged the safety I thought I could find in sleep....waking me at night, breathless, as once again my heart raced out of control. I began having nightmares. Vividly REAL and disturbing dreams of death and dying.... Of dead children standing on the Amityville horror house front porch beckoning to me, telling me they would "see me soon". I even had an out of body experience during this time where I floated up to the ceiling only to lose control even OUT of my physical self, in a frenzied swirl of rainbow colours that eventually crashed into my “body” on the bed, triggering yet another nocturnal panic attack. Every day was a struggle, but night time was always the worst. I had moved out of home at that point and my boyfriend (Richard) worked nightshift. To be alone at night filled me with even more anxiety. All I longed for was to just feel "normal"...just for a few minutes even! To not feel the clutching fingers of anxiety squeezing in the pit of my stomach. It exhausted me mentally and emotionally to try and control my breathing... to "breathe OUT" those feelings of anxiety. But how could I when the fear bubbled inside me, ever present, and I was always on guard anticipating that IT would strike again, out of the blue. Always....out of the blue...when I least expected it. For no REASON. No thoughts, not conscious ones anyway. These panic attacks were sly...always lying in wait to strike at any given moment. "Attack", really is the right word, because I felt as though I was in a battlefield...at war with my own mind, and it was constant....every waking moment I lived in fear. When the first thoughts of spiritual possession began to intrude...thinking that something out of my own control had taken over my body, I knew instinctively that I was in a dangerous place mentally. I was SO close at that point in time, to completely slipping over the edge. My first waking thoughts were of how I was going to get through the day, and how I just wanted to give up and not have to face those hours ahead. I had gone to counselors, even a psychiatrist...my own doctor had prescribed medication to control the palpitations, but none of it worked. I spent many hours on the phone to lifeline counselors during the worst of the attacks...too ashamed to speak to my family, my boyfriend, or my friends of exactly how I was feeling. I didn't want any of them to know the true madness of my thoughts. There came a defining moment when I just KNEW I had to do something. I had a choice. Either to beat this, or have THIS be the reality of my life. I couldn't go out, or if I did I had to make sure that I knew where the hospitals were or doctors..."just in case". That voice, the one that screamed at me that first night was always there telling me that I was going to die. I decided that the only person that could help me WAS me. Logically, intelligently, I knew what was happening. The “fright, fight flight syndrome”...my body’s reactions, the physical sensations were ones that I read about, and understood. It was all about fear…..Fear OF fear. Time and time again I read that these attacks were self limiting, that even if one were to pass out from hyperventilating that the body would correct the situation. That the body has it's own safety valve....that people do NOT die from panic attacks! My heart was fine, God knows I'd had it checked that many times! All I had to do was get through them....grit my teeth and deal with all the horrible sensations. I began to do that....and each time I told myself "Well....now that was pretty bad, BUT, hey I'm alive! I had to do that many MANY times... I began to force myself to go out, to face situations where I would be alone and in public. It was frightening, but I kept telling myself that if I didn't do this my world would just keep shrinking smaller and smaller and I didn't want my life to BE like that! I don't even know how long it took – years really, but eventually, slowly, each panic attack became less and less terrifying. Unpleasant, and always physically uncomfortable, but there seemed to be less fear involved each time. The attacks themselves became less frequent. It got to the point where I was able to get through them without the panic, in fact with the aid of some tricks I head learned, I was almost able to stop, or at least minimize the length of the palpitations. I took my life back. I told that voice to shut the f*ck up! I still have the occasional bouts of palpitations but I am so used to them that I could be sitting in front of you and you might never know. (Unless it's a bad one and I have to bend over and let all the blood rush to my head. Don't know why that "clicks" my heart back into rhythm but it does.) There have been periods in my life where I've had all kinds of physical sensations that stem from anxiety. A tense jaw, nerves twitching, ectopic heart beats, headaches, strange buzzing sensations under my skin, geographic tongue....weird stuff. On more than one occasion I have found myself worn out and exhausted thinking "I hate being in my own skin!" But....it's just how it is. Who I am...part of what makes me ME, and whatever else pops up I know I can deal with it. I have come from a place where the confines of my mind have been a terrifying place to be in. From a place of being agoraphobic, scared to even walk out of my front door… to the person I am today who frequently travels to the most remote places in Australia where there ARE no hospitals or doctors or people at the other end of the telephone that can console me and tell me "You're going to be ok" *I* tell me I am going to be ok! I sometimes wonder if I'd never smoked marijuana and had that experience...would this have still happened?

Goodness, me be euphomistic? Never ! I hope Santa brings you your drums! Soon we'll have enough between us to fill that mud hut!

No, it's Christmas. I have to be "nice" or else all I'll get is a lump of coal.

I could say something but it would end up naughty. Have you got any of your didge playing recorded by any chance? I'd love to hear.

lol, no worries Typo. John...I've tried the straw trick...and choked. Anyway, my excuse is that women are "forbidden" from playing the didgeridoo. But I LOVE how the instrument sounds.

No. I never get stoned. I'm dead against it to be honest. Long story

You can play the didj? Serious? Actually I tell I lie. I DO know of one tabla player here who does lessons. Only thing is he is the ex husband of my belly dance teacher and I'm not sure I should ask HER for his number. Just an awkward situation kinda. Something I might think more seriously about in the new year though.

This is something I've been saying I want to learn how to do for ages! I am clueless though and don't own any drums yet. Because I am learning belly dancing I want to learn how to play the arabic type drums and rythms but as yet have been unable to find a teacher here in Perth. There are plenty of African drumming teachers but no arabic. I could just sit and listen to that kind of drumming - any drumming really with no other music at all. Love it! I once went to this weird hippy type thing on a moonlit night on top of a hill in a mud hut where all these drummers got together and played. It was AMAZING....So hypnotic. The energy was incredible. There's something very "magic like" about drumming like that. Good luck with your continued learning. You'll have to let us hear you playing one of these days

Well, I was reading somewhere that said songwriters should not try to bring TOO much dynamic to their melodies as in key range because most average listeners won't be able to sing along with it and most "great" songs (as in hits) do not swing wildly from lower to upper keys. Generally speaking. I thought that was interesting. I guess for me listening to people sing is that they sound "comfortable" in their range so choosing the right key for YOUR voice is very important. You needn't be ullulating all over the place and doing all these fancy vocal acrobatics either to make your vocal performance sound good. I think sounding authentic and as though you are really enjoying singing it is more important.

Thanks Steve I save all these bits of writing I do so who knows....maybe one day perhaps just for the kids I'll put them into a book-ish form.

That had me laughing out loud first thing in the morning. Actually there was one time I wondered myself....... I had taken the kids into the toilets on the train station and this security guard woman...Large-ish lady she was, walked in and unlocked the staff toilets. I was washing my hands and gathering up my shopping bags getting ready to leave when I noticed my daughter staring at the cubicle this "woman" had walked into. There was a gap under the partitions see.....so we could see her feet and her feet were pointing TOWARDS the toilet bowl and she was doing this strange rocking thing on the balls of her feet. A really "masculine" kind of rocking thing. Who knows WHAT she was doing really but we wondered.....

I went into the city today...took the kids to Macdonalds for lunch. It was really busy, dead on the lunch hour rush so we ended up sitting at the seats that line the windows overlooking the busy shoppers walkway. As I went to take a bite out of my burger I looked out at the view of a homeless man lying on the bench outside, asleep. He was slumped on his side, one arm outstretched with a grubby dangling hand almost touching the ground. His fly was unzipped revealing filthy boxer shorts, his pants and jacket dusty and stained, head roughly shaven and yet he sported a huge bushy beard that buried half his face. "Is he even alive?" asked my seventeen year old, after we watched the motionless figure for a few minutes. "His belly's moving" said my eleven year old. "How do people GET homeless?" she asked As I ate I thought about how to answer this. "Well, the majority of people who are homeless often have some kind of mental illness" I said "Sometimes it's drugs that lands them up on the streets, or alcohol abuse, or sometimes just terribly tragic events that they can't cope with...." It was all too hard to try and explain, because I don't really know. I can only guess, and imagine... "You must never forget that once upon a time that man was someones gorgeous baby boy" I told them "Someone once cared about him." We sat there for a while finishing up our meals watching as dozens of passers by stared at the homeless man as they hurried on back to their workplaces, or homes.... Once a couple of young kids, about six or seven years old, waiting for their parents in the Macdonald queue that had now drifted out the doors, began a game of "lets see how close we can get to the scary man!" They laughed as they stepped closer and closer to the sleeping figure, daring him to open his eyes. The man stayed silent and still, oblivious to their game. About this time, I had an unpleasant vision, as I sometimes do, of the man shifting in his sleep, and falling OFF the bench. I hoped we would be gone if and when this happened. I also began to have the urge to "do something" for this man. The indignity of such an intimate thing as ones sleep, ones dreams (or nightmares?) being under the scrutiny of so many strangers as they walked past and stared openly... It just felt so wrong. I thought about ordering a meal and leaving it next to him on the bench. Save him perhaps from salvaging someones leftovers from the bin... His outstretched hand, now ON the ground begged for a ten dollar note. Ahh...but....yeah, I know where it would go. Two security guards walked past and paid the sleeping figure not so much as a glance. A couple sat on the next bench and ate their lunch......a group of teenage boys, all sporting the same ridiculous "I just got out of bed and forgot to brush my hair" look, sat near the man and smirked to each other. So many people walked past and probably didn't spare a thought. "Once upon a time that was somebody's gorgeous baby boy" I kept thinking. And then....it happened. Just as it was in my vision.... except I closed my eyes at the last moment! The man began a slow motion roll....he rolled his shoulders to the left....his belly followed, and he rolled and.......... I heard the smack as his forehead hit the concrete. I heard it. The kids were making dismayed sounds next to me and when I dared to open my eyes again I saw the blood trickling down his face. His arms moved slowly above his head, trying to find the source of the pain, but as though he was underwater, the effort was just too great. He collapsed back into the escape of his fog and stayed where he had fallen in a puddle of rain. People continued to walk around him...past him. Continued to give him a distasteful glance. Nobody moved to help him. Reading my mind my teenage daughter said. "No mum! He might be dangerous." "I'm not strong enough anyway"....I said. but my eyes scanned the passers by, looking for a face that might be feeling what I was feeling. One that might want to help... I saw none. "You know....he's not that much older than your father...." Five minutes went by and the man stayed where he had fallen. "We have a mobile phone? We could call an ambulance" said my younger daughter. I have done this before....Should I ? Should I ? With such a crappy health service.....long waiting times at the emergency room? This was just a graze really....Not a lot of blood, like the other man. I could go and get a security person from the train station next door ...perhaps? And just as I was deciding what the best thing to do would be, suddenly the man awoke from his stupour. We held our breath as he slowly raised himself from the wet ground. I got a good look at him for the first time. Yeah, probably in his late forties? He looked a bit like an old bikie with that shaved head. His eyes, glazed and dazed.... I wondered at the things those eyes had seen? His lips dry and cracked from the cold.... I wondered what stories those lips could tell...? His hands, grey with dirt, fingers stained with nicotine.... Who had those hands held? Finally, standing on swaying legs for a few moments he fixed his eyes on a woman standing a little way up the path. We watched him walk over to her, ask for a smoke, and she reluctantly handed over the one she had just lit. The homeless man disappeared into the crowd, leaving behind an empty bottle of wine , a forgotten cigarette secreted away underneath the bench... and my echoing thought.... ""Once upon a time that was somebody's gorgeous baby boy"

It was the darndest thing....... I went into a public toilet in a shopping complex the other day, lots of cubicles...nice and clean... ONE door had been painted a pretty shade of purple in complete contrast to the others, and in big white letters - not graffiti - properly painted commercially on the outer side of the door, it said... "You are or you aren't." Somebody else quickly stepped in front of me and went INTO that cubicle and it got me wondering....."were they or weren't they?" Perplexing really. What COULD it mean? I hate mysteries like that.

I know exactly what you mean John and I have tried to "just write!" but they always end up FEELING contrived and I'm not satisfied at all by the whole experience. I find that "people watching" can be a good way to become inspired if you yourself have no emotions churning and burning to get out ( and sometimes we don't....and that's fine!) Because I don't drive I get to do a lot of people watching on public transport....buses trains etc You would not BELIEVE some of the people I have met.... from strippers to con artist gamblers, drug addicts, kids who have run away from home because their dad beats the crap out of them everytime he gets drunk.....and a lot of nice little old ladies with PLENTY of stories to share Why not give it a go? Do something different? Connecting with other people and THEIR lives (or just observing and imagining) can sometimes end up with YOU feeling some kind of strong emotion inside. After all........if we keep doing the same thing we'll inevitably end up with the SAME result. At least.....that's what Dr Phil says........lolol!

I don't know if I could be so clever to eloquently capture all that in three and a half minutes The thing I find the MOST funny about it all now was the way that creepy guy who worked in the adult shop spoke to me on the telephone. Like I would get my kicks just because it had it WRITTEN on it....lol! Just too weird. Thanks for the read and for commenting!

Ha! There you go ...I WAS thinking from the female perspective. Should it be perhaps..... a one note intro and BANG....straight into the chorus........a long silence for, oh, eight hours and then THE CHORUS? Who needs all those verses anyway?

Naughty naughty Steve! Ok so I have NEVER written a song like that! Wouldn't it be nice though? I was trying to come up with some kind of sketchy idea of how to explain to a novice songwriter about how a song should.......flow? I guess I got a bit ...carried away!

I’ll tell you my analogy for a good song A song is like a really good attentive, interesting lover! It MUST have the initial attraction – which happens in the first 20 seconds or so, (maybe even less), of the song, so obviously that includes the intro….. and very importantly the opening lyrical lines! Imagine a bad pick up line- turns a person RIGHT off from the word go . Weak opening lines in my opinion are things like “I woke up this morning........”. (Just one loose example anyway.) I suppose it depends what follows co's it COULD get interesting, but if "and I was feeling blue........ I was so down because I was missin' you!" comes next then it's probably just like a bad pick up line. Think of how the opening lines in books draw you in. There must be SOME sort of interest in that first couple of sentences that makes you WANT to read on! Then it MUST have gentle foreplay which is how the first verse is set up musically and how the lyric progresses over the course of the first- and second, (if there is one), verse. It can’t repeat itself lyrically - no repeating unnecessary words or imagery – the interest has to grow with each line, and the melody should grow, or at least fluctuate a little with it. It's like the man who kneads your boobs like they are scone dough. It's annoying after a while. It's like someone telling a story - badly....you don't want to be standing there with your eyes glazed over thinking "Will you get to the POINT already!" You want to feel "drawn in" by it.....engaged....attentive... hungry for more! Anticipating So there it builds – perhaps into a prechorus - you can feel the music is "heading somewhere"……. musically, melodically and lyrically, all of it in unison, building, building building.... until finally it bursts into the chorus which is the payoff you've been waiting for! A precipice! That moment when it all makes sense! That chorus MUST make sense of all that has come before. It can't be weak or else the listener will be disappointed! (Is that all?) they might say. "I went through all of that anticipation for..........THAT? "I climbed that mountain and now all I am is out of breath?" You don't want that. It HAS to be worth the wait and must make you WANT to wait for it to happen again! So there you've reached the FIRST climax. The chorus! The title and MEANING of the song! I strongly believe in the title/hook being in the chorus of the song...or at LEAST somewhere in the song and preferably repeated! If you DON'T have it anywhere in the song at ALL its kinda like picking up a book titled "The day my penis fell off in the cabbage patch." only to find that there are NO penises or cabbages mentioned at all! A bit of a disappointment really....misleading. I always feel ripped off if the title of the song is not the FOCUS of the song. Depending on the song, after this first climax/chorus the flow could ebb back down into another "gentler" place.....a resting place....but not nodding off place! Back to the vibe of the first verse but subtly different... A recognition of the earlier "phase"..... Familiarity but not monotonously repetitive. Variations to the melody.....a continuation and EXPANSION of the theme of the song lyrically AND musically. THIS is the place where things can go awry. You don't want to repeat yourself here and waffle on without bringing MORE meaning and more dimension to the whole core idea of the song. You can so easily lose your lover..../.....audience here! The thing is at this point they instinctively know what lies ahead.....and if you've made the FIRST build - foreplay exciting/interesting enough then they SHOULD want to do it all over again. OR....after the first chorus things could pick up a bit.....Be faster paced.... Heightened. Not frantic! Still with room to build but just a little more intensified. Then of course ultimately the chorus AGAIN. Wonderful! Better than the first because you now know where you are.....kinda what to expect and you relish the familiarity which you enjoyed so much the first time! But where from here? A resting phase? A lead break? A bridge? Something "different". Something that makes you catch your breath and think "Oh...where are we going now?" To go back to the vibe of the first verse might be too repetitive? This is where I ALWAYS get stuck. I suck at bridges AND lead breaks. But I think it's what's needed? A brief but interesting respite. Something that diverts the attention, but doesn't mislead you ....it must still tie in with the rest of the song. Not necessarily build....perhaps reinforce in a different way lyrically and give the ear something to pique it's interest? And then - ultimately this must lead/build........back to the chorus.......building back up.....and this is where everything can get carried away and just let loose! Repeating that climax and making it the ULTIMATE climax. The abandoning! The ultimate resolution. The conclusion. And then someone says... "I feel like cheese on toast....don't you?"

Well, it's the same version I have always used and never had a problem with before. I tell ya....even these kinds of things bewilder my other half who is NOT technically spastic like me. He reckons I somehow bewitch computers and make them do STRANGE things!

I think in those suffering from mental illness the percentage of creative people would probably be similar to those who DON'T have any form of mental illness. Not knowing the statistics on these things though I'm just guessing. BUT, I do think overall that people who have the driven need to express themselves artistically/creatively are generally more....."sensitive"? and perhaps therefore more "likely" to say suffer from depression? I too write more when I am feeling the extremes of either happiness or sadness, but true depression yields no motivation to do ANYTHING. Interesting about children who are, perhaps the word is "misunderstood"? My kids went to school with this little girl once who all the teachers, and some parents dreaded being around. Her tantrums and behaviour were to be seen to be believed. She had been diagnosed with ADHD. Put a piece of paper in front of her though and she was the most AMAZING artist at seven years old! Incredible! I once saw the paintings (on the walls) in a mental institution that infathomably came from this "non functioning" (in societies eyes) human being, that completely blew me away! We just don't understand how the brain works and society in general has no room for those that fall outside of the brackets of "the norm". Especially in schools. Our current methods of teaching in MOST schools certainly don't cater for those individuals who are likely (if nurtured in the right environment) to be the next generation of incredibly talented and creative people. Coincidentally I was told by my sons teacher yesterday that SHE thinks he needs to be tested for ADHD. What a crock! She said he "can't sit still in assembly and figets". Um...I can't either! Those school assemblies bore me stupid! He is a boy and boys ARE different... I think schools in general are geared up for teaching girls moreso than boys. Society is more geared up for people who's behaviours fit nicely in the category of "normal" too, but that's not to underestimate the capacity for these people to contribute in a wonderfully creative way. Maybe that's what the article was trying to get across?