early celebration

Tonight Michael is taking me to Les Faux Bourgeois tonight to celebrate early because he'll likely work late on my birthday. Yum. I'm starving. And Les Faux is so good you have to have a reservation.

the crane

When I was maybe 6 or 7, and my sister was 9 or 10, we were penpals with 2 sisters who lived in Japan. Sadako and Sadiko Imura (I can't believe I remember that), I think were their names. I don't remember where they lived or how the penpal thing was even set up. Sisters being penpals with sisters. I remember getting letters on that special kind of Japanese stationary that had little cute cartoons and they wrote their english letters in a funny uniform way.

Once they sent a picture of them standing under a blooming cherry blossom tree, 2 sisters with straight dark hair with bangs. With knee high socks and skirts and matching sweaters, 2 sisters that wrote us letters about their life in Japan. One day, my sister got a paper origami crane. I remember the day when I was snooping in my sisters room and I found it on a shelf and unfolded it. I knew I would be in trouble and in a quiet panic, figured out how to fold it back into it's crane-ness.

I never forgot how to fold a crane after that.

After the terrible earthquake and tsunami, I find myself thinking about Sadako and Sakiko. Are they still in Japan and what became of them. I'll be 40 next week. They'd be all grown up too.. although some part of me thinks of them as children that existed only in letters on playful stationary and faded photographs. I went looking on Facebook and left a message when I found a Sadako Imura living in Hong Kong. I wonder if I'll find them and if I could send a letter back, with a tiny yellow paper crane.

Tony and two coffees

Tony and two coffees, originally uploaded by jilly71.

thinking about Japan

a tiny universe of music, originally uploaded by jilly71.

I am a cartoon

cotton belt

cotton belt, originally uploaded by jilly71.

Port Arthur, Texas

spontaneous

Last night I got an envelope in the mail informing me of an interesting seminar, the 2011 National Conference on Hair Pulling and Skin Picking Disorders. Sound fascinating doesn't it? Probably not to too many. But being someone who has survived the isolation, anguish and adolescent horror of baldness as a result of a hair pulling disorder- it's exciting.

Even more so that it's happening in San Francisco and especially since I'm going to reward myself for living with Trichotillomania for 29 of my 40 years.I paid my registration, booked myself 3 nights in the super fabulous Good Hotel nearby (seriously check out that hotel link.. it's the coolest place: a free photo booth in the lobby, the entire hotel is furnished with recycled materials..). I have my plane ticket and even my BART pass for round trip travel to the airport.

For having spent nearly the last 29 years in almost closeted isolation of why I don't have any hair and not really knowing anyone else like me, I'm pretty excited to spend 3 days in seminars with people who acre about this topic as much as I do.

I'll be attending a mix of personal growth and research seminars:

SHHHH it’s a Secret Merrill Black, L.C.S.W./ Reiki Master
Secrecy can give power. Revealing the secret can be even more powerful. In this experiential workshop we will begin to peel away the layers of shame and the power of keeping the trich/skin picking a secret. Sharing the secret can help reduce the shame associated with it as well as help build your self-confidence and comfort level around having trich/skin picking.

Neurobiology of Trichotillomania and Related Disorders:
Implications for treatment
Sam Chamberlain MD, Jon Grant MD
With focus on ‘brain-based’ approaches towards understanding BFRBs, Dr. Chamberlain will highlight brain circuits thought to be involved in these conditions and how these have been explored using cognitive tests, brain scanning, drug studies, and animal models. Dr. Grant will describe how these findings have led to improved models of these conditions and new treatment directions, focusing on impulse control, mood, and addiction pathways.

Energy Psychology for Trichotillomania and other Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors: Part 1 of 2  Joan Kaylor, MSEd, LPC, NCC
Learn how to use emotional freedom technique (EFT) and Tapas Acupressure Technique (TAT)® for BFRBs. Session One will explain what these methods are. Participants will be invited to learn EFT specific to their pulling triggers. Please, no parents. This workshop is ONLY for adults struggling with trich or picking.

Energy Psychology for Trichotillomania and other Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors: Part 2 of 2 Joan Kaylor, MSEd, LPC< NCC
In session two, participants will be invited to learn and experience Tapas Acupressure Technique ® as a strategy for healing from BFRBs. Please, no parents. This workshop is ONLY for adults struggling with trich or picking.

Animal Models Joseph Garner, PhD
This session provides an overview of current animal models, emphasizing how human and animal work is integrated and complementary. Recent findings based on this work in the areas of diet and neurotransmitters as well as other developments and progress will be discussed.

Attending to the whole person: A Comprehensive Approach
Part 1 of 2 Renae Reinardy, Psy.D., LP This workshop provides a comprehensive approach to learning how to identify and balance mind, body and spirit in a way that facilitates personal growth and gains better control over BFRBs. Participants will work on developing their own “users guide” by learning strategies to develop their own self-balancing plan.
 
Attending to the whole person: A comprehensive approach
Part 2 of 2 Renae Reinardy, Psy.D., LP
The second part of this workshop delves deeper into the balance of mind, body and spirit and the effect this balance may play in recovery from BFRBs. Participants will work further on developing their own “users guide” by learning strategies to develop their own self-balancing plan.

 TLC’s 20th Anniversary Dinner

Join us for a delicious meal and celebration of TLC’s history – and future.
Help us blow out the candles on a birthday cake by the hotel’s award-winning pastry chef!

Translating Research into Improved Treatment: Q and A
Chaired by Jon Grant, MD, JD, MPH
Panel members: Sam Chamberlain, MD, Nancy Keuthen, PhD, Joseph Garner, PhD
Gain an understanding of how research has led to new treatment options, ask questions about the importance of research and recent discoveries, and gain insight into where the future of BFRB research may lead. 

Faces of Success: Closing Session
Moderated by Christina Pearson
Success and recovery are our goal.. .But what does that mean? Hear inspiring stories of real success and learn how to recognize success and recovery in your own struggle with these behaviors. This is the final event of the weekend, wrapping each of your own experiences into one package. Return home feeling motivated and prepared to continue working on recovery.

Fun huh? and if that's not enough.. Christina Pearson will be hosting and leading some of the seminars.. by far one of the most inspiring individuals I have ever met. She started this whole kit and kaboodle and has recovered from life long trich.

I'm pretty excited. It's going to be an amazing weekend and it all cost less than a 7 hr tattoo.

The town that died in 1964

downtown Port Arthur, Texas, originally uploaded by jilly71.

There's a little town way down near the Gulf of Mexico, in Texas. It's Port Arthur. A town famous for not much else than being the birthplace of Janis Joplin and it's because of that that I have been there twice in my life. Otherwise, I can't imagine what would take a person to travel 4000km to a small, worn out, dried up and nearly abandoned oil town on the crest of the Gulf.

So, that pretty much sums up this town. But, it's got a seed of mystery to it. It was once a thriving hub in the  center of the largest oil refinery network in the world. It boomed from nearby black gold. It thrived with parades, cafes, restaurants, music halls and bars. The American dreamt small town ideal. Apple pie and baseball, baby.

Did the nearby Beaumont pick up the boom? Did one too many hurricanes slam into main street and knock down too many buildings or did the smell of rotten eggs from the nearby oil refineries just get to be too much? Today main street Port Arthur is as dismal as it can get. It's entirely shuttered and boarded up- save for a weird karaoke bar and a museum of the Gulf Coast. (The same stuffed alligator is on display that was there 10 years ago).

The town's tallest building, the beautiful Sabine Hotel, with all it's windows open to breathe in the hurricane winds, stands obsolete and majestic on the corner of "The Past" and "No hope for the Future". Across the street, a brownstone with overhanging canopy is boarded up as well. Walking west down main street, we found the haunting reminders of what was once a business.. the carefully laid tiles of a cafe's entrance now exposed to the elements- the building long gone.I can't find a stitch of info on The Three Sisters. I'm dying to know what happened.

It was a cold day in Port Arthur, when I went back because I was in nearby Houston. The sun shone brightly and lit up the golden tones of the sandstone bricks. I was alone, walked the streets and imagined the hub of activity that happened so long ago. I found the boarded up Furniture store, The Hampton's. .Ironic, a name so synonymous with wealth, so haggard and absurd.. "Ham..", it's 50's font sign hanging by a thread. I found the old Greyhound Station; once taking teenagers with their carefully pressed clothes tucked into hard backed suitcases that didn't roll on wheels to adventures maybe in nearby New Orleans?

The station lay in ruins, the blue and white sign with the running Greyhound logo faded from the bright Texas sun and too much rain; moss growing inside.. I turned around when I heard the jazz horn and found the only other living person in Port Arthur.. he said he didn't live there.. he just came to play his horn. He looked at me like it was weird to see anyone else in Port Arthur, and it was. It was a sad town. The music stopped along time ago, but you could still hear the whistling from the memories blow across the barren, wall less rooms.

You can see the rest of my photos here..

absent is another word for Facebook

I'm driving to work today and I'm thinking.. I never post on my blog anymore...I used to really like to post on my blog..why don't I anymore, what's changed?

I'll tell you what's changed. I post everyday on Facebook and then I'm social media'd out. I'll try and change that and come round here more often.

Sorry all you non- Facebook addicts.