My Self-portrait was a mini-novel or at least a blog post

You all know I do a 365days self-portrait thing over on Flickr. I'm about a hundred days till the end of my third year of taking a photo of myself, every day. Haven't missed a day yet. Anyway...

I was feeling semi-creative today, somewhat inspired by the "Costumes" theme in the weekly Fro Knows Photo weekend assignments. Obviously I'm not going to submit this photo, because it's terrible! I should have taken more time with it or something, I don't know. In fact, as I type this, I already know of a way I could have done it better. Lotta good that does me NOW, but let's move on.

This is a copy/paste of what I wrote in the "description" part of the photo.


I've been living with chronic pain for almost ten years. At least, I think its been almost ten years. I can't remember what it was like to not be in pain somehow. For three years, it was mostly knee pain- well, it was knee pain that hurt the most and muted the other pain.

But, I wake up every day and I lay in bed for a moment. I start at my feet and I flex my muscles- little by little. Feet, calves, thighs, hips... all the way up. It hurts every damn morning, but it hurts in varying degrees. Sometimes, it barely registers, so I get out of bed rather quickly. Some days it hurts so bad that it takes me ten minutes to go from laying in bed to standing on my feet. If you don't think that's a long time, just sit there, time yourself, for ten minutes. Some days the pain is so bad that I have to hold onto things to walk out of my room. The bed, the wall, the dresser, the door frame.

So, every day, with this chronic pain, I have to decide what my day will be like. Will I let the pain win? Will I take pain meds in the daytime to get through it? Will I be sad and desolate (the face in my hand- you can't really see it, but I was trying to be sad) or will I plaster on a smile and have a good day, no matter how much I hurt?

I usually opt for the smile. Some of my 365 photos were "faked" on really bad days. I have a fake smile or my smile is convincing, but you can see it in my eyes. I can fool you- most of you are strangers and don't actually know me. But there are a few out there who can tell. Even with the smile, they know I feel awful.

I try not to let it get me down, but some days are hard. Today was one of those days. I set my alarm for an hour early so I could try and photograph the meteor shower. But, I had a hard time falling asleep and then I had a hard time staying asleep. I ended up sleeping through that alarm and waking up twenty minutes later than I normally would. It was a five minute climb out of bed day.

I took some pain meds and a muscle relaxer when I got downstairs. I was in a crappy mood, too. Just bleh. Everything annoyed me- and I mean everything. The way my clothes felt on my skin, the way my dogs were excited to see me, the comments on Facebook, everything. I took a very short and not-at-all-good nap and felt slightly better. But things still irritated me. The disabled guy was acting mildly jerkish and I snapped at him (granted, he was being a jerk, but he didn't need me snapping at him).

So, I plastered on my smile, put on my boots and took my camera out. I took a bunch of photos along the river and ended up taking a bit of a hike at one point (I ended up sweaty and got mud on my boots). And I got some decent photos.

Most days, I choose that smile. And if I'm in such a bad way that nothing else works, I do a little photographic therapy. I still feel terrible. My resting pain level is about a seven on that one to ten scale. When I go to stand up, my legs are so sore and stiff that I can't start walking right away. And my hip, I can't even describe THAT pain. Its definitely a ten.

But, I'm in a good mood. I got out and took photos and people like them. I read some articles on Cracked that made me laugh. And as I type this, I'm an hour away from taking my next dose of pain meds.

Choose your mask well. And do a better job at Photoshop than I did. :)


My pain meds aren't living up to their name or their titles (I've referred to them on Facebook as "Sir Vicodin" and "Lord Cyclobenzaprine"). I still feel awful and moving around is just terrible. And my damn hip, I sure wish I knew what was causing that to hurt so much. I'm just relieved to know it isn't arthritis and I won't end up needing a hip replacement. Here's the photo from today- Day 251 of my third 365days project:



Anyway, I did get a whole bunch of good photos today. And, here are a few... if you're on my Facebook, then you're seeing these shots again. Sorry. I drove around to various parks so I could safely park my truck and get out to walk around. When I was almost home, I drove by a dry creek bed that I've always been meaning to stop at and photograph. So, I turned around, parked in a business parking lot (they were closed, it was Sunday) and proceeded to hike over to the creek bed- which was muddy, not dry- and take several photos. I ended up with mud on my boots (as they are intended to get on them) and sweaty from the walking and climbing over and around the creek bed. I really miss hiking. Now, if you click on any of these photos, it'll take you to my Flickr and you can look at any of the photos from today (or, well, ever... since that's where my photos are).

I took a walk today

After last week's zombification after taking a midday pill, I went back to taking just two pills- one in the morning, one in the evening. Today (a week later), I took another midday pill. It didn't send me into the walking-dead mode that it did last week, but I could feel it. I wouldn't drive at this point, taking that midday pill. But I did go for a walk.

I have this great idea for a photo. It probably isn't even all that original, but to do it, I have to drive over to the place to do the photo. And one thing led to another and my truck was blocked in the driveway. To hell with it, I figured, might as well try the midday pill again.

Then, for some unknown reason, I put my boots on and decided to go for a walk. I took my camera, of course, but I didn't take a lot of photos. Overall, the walk was okay. It was uphill most of the way. And there was hardly any clear concrete. The city uses a snowblower on the public sidewalks and the neighbors between here didn't go down to the concrete after the last snowfall. But it wasn't bad. My feet hurt most of the time, of course. I got to see a goshawk attacking some smaller birds- I assume they were starlings because they were noisy and all moved in unison till the goshawk came around. I couldn't get any photos of the goshawk because he was just that fast. By the time I had my camera out and turned on, he was done terrorizing them. (and of course, I didn't want to carry my camera in my hand as I walked because if I fell down, I wouldn't want to damage the camera or myself in an attempt at not damaging the camera).

I paced myself and took short steps. Quite a difference from the long-striding, fast-pace walking I did not so long ago. Back when I could slam out four miles in about an hour and ten minutes then do a half hour of yoga. *heavy sigh* The good old days.

I made it home unscathed and a little chilly. The wind was at my back on the way out and it was blowing in my face on the way back. But I was glad for that because then I didn't get overheated. Of course, that would have been difficult what with the 15° Fahrenheit temperature (not including whatever the wind chill was at the time).

About two hours later, I ended up taking a Vicodin (just one) because I felt my muscles tightening up. But still, not bad. Also, the midday Gabapentin did cause a little tiredness, but not the falling-over-tiredness I had last week.

So, here we are, about seven hours later and I'm stiff. I feel like I just pulled a sled over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house. Interestingly enough, I did walk halfway to my parents' house... and it was over the hill. I didn't get anywhere close to the river though.

But I digress. Here are the photos I took today. Enjoy.

This was about halfway up the hill. I live down the hill and about a block to the right. You can't see my house anymore. The Goshawk Incident happened across the street, in those twiggy bushes on the right side of the photo.



This one is almost to the top- almost because at the top you can't really see the hill at all. There's a tree in the distance between the two trees closer to where I was standing... that's where the first photo was taken.



At the top, I was greeted with the sight of not only flat ground, but the city was piling snow up in the parking lot of the park. I'm in a couple of snowplow-centric groups on Flickr, so I take photos of snowplows and other snow removal equipment when I see it. I don't get the appeal of it, but I guess people don't get the appeal of what I take photos of either, so who am I to judge? Anyway, I took some photos of the front-loader that was piling up the snow. A couple of city plow trucks came and went while I was walking (to dump snow) and one of them apparently recognized me from the other times I snapped photos, because he waved at me as he drove by while I was going downhill.



Today would have been a great day to get the photo I have the idea for because it was snowing.



And this is my Day 363 of 365 (yup, I'm almost done with my first year). From where I'm standing, the plow activity was happening to the left of the photo and far behind me (yay for a zoom). I put my sunglasses up on my head to show my eyes because I've been curtly informed that hiding my eyes behind sunglasses is strictly forbidden!




I took this on the way back down the hill (one of two, actually). Those leaves have hung on through several snowstorms and some crazy high wind conditions. Hang on a little while longer, guys, Spring's a-comin'!



Oh, there's my house. I'm almost home. My feet were killing me almost the entire time. The snow on either side of the sidewalk was varying heights from knee to mid-torso. The drifts were crazy in that last big storm. Today was nothing, a mere dusting. But it looked pretty as it fell.



I hope to do this three times a week. I have my two-year follow-up with my knee surgeon in about a month's time. It would be nice to have something to show for all his work. It was the surgery (we assume) that triggered the fibromyalgia flareup that was too huge to ignore. So I should thank him for that because had I not gotten my knee replaced, I might still be undiagnosed and suffering. And if I do this three times a week, at my next fibro follow-up, I'll have a significant amount of weight loss to show for it.

Also, if I can keep this up and increase (eventually) to every day... this summer at the ren faire will be, literally, a walk in the park.