Interview with Jon Armstrong
New Interview: Jon Armstong
Good Advice
“My nose hurts. Inside. It feels kind of like a paper cut.”
“My advice – stop filing papers in there.”
Mumps, the Good Kind
Holy Cow. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. It felt great.
Blurb wrote over here about a site he’s been helping with, The Daily Mumps. Now, I don’t know if it’s because I have kids and frequently find them doing things/saying things/looking strange and find myself trying not to laugh or if it’s really as funny as I think it is, but I believe it’s genius.
Ask Leahpeah 'Questions' Edition
I’ve accumulated some questions from readers in my inbox and now, armed with a small Dr. Pepper and Feist playing in the headphones, I will attempt to answer them in a way that is readable.
Do you ever “miss” the other personalities? Or, because they are all a part of you now, do you not long for them? I was thinking that in many ways Claire had been your best friend – someone to always bounce ideas off of and such – do you miss having that?
Before I became integrated, it was a heavy topic of conversation, the ‘what happens to everyone if we become just one’ question. And some of my personalities had a great fear of getting left behind and one in particular thought that if we did integrate, we would be defenseless against ‘all the bad guys.’ It takes a lot of faith in your therapist to make that leap because you don’t have any real idea of what it feels like to live life as a ‘mono mind.’ Post-integration, I realized that there is no way to explain what it feels like to be a whole person just like it’s not possible to explain what it feels like to be split to someone that is not.
Since the day I was integrated, I’ve had to get to know myself all over again. Some things you know instantly, like you suddenly feel like you have the power of 10 people and you can’t believe other people walk around like that every day. Other things are not so sudden but you’ve been doing them for so long, it takes a little time to figure out. Do I really like to eat yogurt every single day for lunch? Nope. Do I need to wear only slippers or can I invest in a pair of tennis shoes? Tennis shoes might be nice. Do I like having piercings in my nose/ears/navel? Maybe. And you kind of go through things that you think you know, to figure out what you really know.
So, to answer your question, it isn’t possible to miss Claire of any other personalities that I had because all parts are here and accounted for. I still talk to myself. I just don’t answer myself anymore. (Ha.) But I have had to work on the balance of characteristics and the things I mentioned above are all real things I had to figure out for myself. And if I go too far one way, like take out all my piercings in an effort to display to my family that I am now ‘healed’, it might feel too conservative for me when I stop and think about it and I might miss certain playful aspects that I used to have and then decide to go ahead and pierce my nose again. (Really. I might.)
Now that you are integrated, are you just fine? Do you still struggle? Do you worry about becoming un-integrated? Is that even possible?
In a Galaxy Far, Far Away
A long, long time ago, in a different lifetime, I had four tiny kids all age 7 and under. I lived in Germany and was married to my first husband who was in the Air Force. I had violent mood swings but mostly I was trying to be a good Mormon wife and mother and make Jesus happy with me and make everyone else in the world think I was sane. I pretended. A lot.
I met and became friends with a wonderful person who became one of the reasons I didn’t end up ripping all my hairs out one by one and running along the rooftops naked. Well, I probably wouldn’t have raised many eyebrows with that anyway since they do it all the time, but in any case, I often teetered on the edge of reality and it was very nice to have this friend in my life who mistakenly thought I was good friend material. Hey. I wasn’t going to correct her.
We hung out together when our husbands would be gone TDY or when her husband, who was an MP, was working odd shifts. I believe she had tinfoil on the windows of the bedroom so he could sleep during the day. This is something I still think about. Tin foil. She also taught me how to make cheese sauce with no cheese. And this, my friends, is one of the main reasons I loved her and continued to wish we had kept in contact over the years. I woman that makes cheese sauce with no cheese because money is tight but you can’t taste the difference?? Do you hear me?? These kinds of friends are invaluable.
I tried to look her up every so often. I thought I remembered she went to Texas or something and on a late night after David Letterman, with sleep avoiding me, and running low on cheese, I would attempt to find her through top secret channels on the internet that promise to find your long-lost-loved ones just to find out they really wanted $29.99 to complete the deal. If I had the $29.99, I would just buy the cheese. Hello?!
And then a few weeks ago, she emailed me. She found my site because someone that linked to her blog had a link to my blog right underneath. You can read about this life-altering discovery in this post.
I missed you, Les.
Customer Service
Hellothankyouforcallingsprintmynameislisaanditismyplea
suretoserveryouwhatcanidoforyoutoday.
(I can’t believe how hard my life sucks)
Uh…hi?
(I’m glad I’m not you but yea my phone is here)
How can I help you today?
(I SOOOO don’t want to help you)
I got my new phones and I’d like to unlock them please. Do I just need to hit the ‘un-loc–
(I’m a pretty intelligent person is my phone on yet?)
Ok? First thing I need to tell you is don’t touch any of the keys except for the ones I tell you, ok?
(All ya’all people out there that call me? You are idiots)
Ok.
(Huh?)
Ma’am – when I tell you the code to enter, please only enter those numbers and/or keys. Do NOT touch anything else or we will have to start all over with this process or worst case scenario, make you go into an Sprint store and have the phone reset. But only some of the Sprint stores can do it for you so you might have to drive quite a ways to find the right one, ok?
(If I wasn’t here to tell you what to do, you’d get all tangled up in the toilet paper when you took your morning pee and they’d have to send in a rescue crew)
Ok.
(I’m beginning to not like you) (more…)
Does the Site Look Odd?
That is because we are changing things around.
Thanks for your patience.
xo
EDIT: i think we are calling it a night. if you see any wierdness, let me know.
Simi Valley Wind
The wind has been hollering and whining at us for days. According to this site, the wind is about 17 mph coming from the North with gusts of 23 mph.
In my opinion, we have somehow chosen to live along the path that leads to a fiery hell and the wind can’t wait to get in there. The winds slow down just enough so that you forget and then they suddenly yell at you again and move everything around outside and threaten to tip over your car until you pee your pants at which point they slow down, you eventually get busy playing Boggle again and then the whole thing starts over.
Where I grew up in Utah, we had a few windstorms but they were so much weaker. Here is the comparison:
The Mormon winds = Tabernacle Choir = Spirit of God = bad Jell-O products and people smiling too much. Slightly annoying but besides poking them, you let it go for the most part.
Simi Winds = The preacher in Footloose giving a speech to young Kevin Bacon = Bunny in Donnie Darko = Fiery Depths of Hell. Scary shit. If you haven’t hid already, it’s now too late.
Ask Leahpeah
Hi Leahpeah,
I just got done reading your book. Thank you so much for sharing your life with me and everyone in the entire world. There are lots of people like me that are so happy to have someone talk about it. I’m going to take it into my next group meeting and share it with everyone. I looked through the art therapy paintings you have on your website and wondered why you didn’t include those in the book? And I wondered if you ever did any paintings or drawings about getting integrated. I mean, about the actually ‘getting integrated’ part. Because I’m thinking about doing it. And I’m not so scared about it anymore.
Silent Night Owl
Dear Silent Night Owl,
Thank you so much for reading and thank you for letting me know that you liked it. It means a lot to me.
I did do a painting about the actual integration process.
You might recognize the description of the rivulets going together into one large area from reading about it in the book. At some point in the near future I’m going to put descriptions with all the art therapy paintings so they make more sense.
I wanted a way to put the paintings in the book but it was just too expensive. Maybe if the book gets picked up by a publisher they can figure out a way to include them but in the meantime, I hope this will do.
Best of everything to you,
leahpeah
Art Therapy Flickr Group
Dear Internet,
I just created an Art Therapy group at Flickr. Want to join? Please say yes. I would like to see your art.
Sincerely,
leahpeah
My Spam Karma Works
If you have left a comment and it got eaten, I’m sorry. I got an email from Spam Karma tonight with over 1000 comments, the majority being actual spam, but there were some nice ones in there that have been in outer darkness for up to a month. I’m sorry about that and please let me know if you comment and it never shows up. I’ll go hunting.
The Together Painting
When I was in Seattle visiting my sister Rhoda, I finally took a photo of a painting that I had left unfinished at her home, which she had worked on and finished after I left. Which is fitting, because the painting was about new growth and finishing things. If she had not finished it, it would have been a most ironic painting.
I started it before I was integrated and then I left her home in such a hurry that I didn’t have time to finish it. I couldn’t wait to get back to Southern California and my kids. Rhoda always joked about being my 8th personality. And in a way, she was right. I had seven in my head but we have always been so close and I would never have survived my life if it weren’t for her. I can never thank her enough. She always tells me how strong I am but she was the one that was strong enough for both of us for years and years.
I think she did a lovely job finishing the painting. And she proclaims to have so little creativity…..
On the Phone
“Mommy, her house is on Bank Street. And since you always get lost and blame it on me and say I didn’t say it right, I’m going to spell it out for you. Ready? B as in Boy, A as in Apple, N as in ……. Gnome, and K as in …………….Cool but like the really cool people spell it.”
Morning Interchange
“You keep touching my butt. That is like 4 times this morning.”
“Well, I like your butt. It’s so….nice and big and round.”
“Here’s a hint. Don’t tell your wife her butt is big and round.”
“What about the ‘nice’? I said ‘nice’, too!”
“But that is not what I hear. I hear BIG.”
“Hey, I like big butts and I can not lie.”
“I’m physically ill now. I’m gagging.”
“No. You’re laughing.”
Dear Lil_Monster2790
I would have written you an email and I tried to leave a comment but I don’t have a Xanga site and don’t want one. I wasn’t sure how else to get a hold of you.
I don’t mind when people show my work on their sites. I sometimes have schools that use some of my pieces for a class and the students all write me for permission to use my work and of course I let them. But they all give me credit by using my name and by posting the work directly to their sites or printing it instead of pulling directly from my bandwidth, which I believe everyone knows is not staying under it’s allotment.
So, until you post the images to your Xanga site and put the credit on there, I’ve changed the image to this one.
At first, I thought you were taking credit for the work yourself but after a closer read, I’m not quite sure, so I changed the little message on the image from this:
Best of luck with everything.
San Diego Blog Thing Part I & II
We had a pretty good turn out at both the lunch and the night social meeting. Here is the entire photo set. Thanks again to Mingle for sponsoring our event. If you live in San Diego and aren’t on the list, send in your info so you can get invited to the next event. Full meeting notes from Joe soon at SDB.
EDIT: The List is here at San Diego Bloggers.
Catch-up
I had a birthday. I’m now on the far side of 30 if you round up by fives which makes me practically 40 and everyone knows that means I’m almost 50 and having a midlife crisis very soon but only if I live to be 100 and if I happen to kick the bucket at age 80 then I might already be too late to have one. Crap.
I took Alex to Leavenworth, Washington for the weekend. We met my sister and her daughter up there and had an all girls weekend. We stayed in the Bridal Suite at the Enzian. The room had a jacuzzi and a mirror on the ceiling above the bed. We did all kinds of girl things the entire time and it was mui mui fun. My favorite parts: the Alpen Horn player in his lederhosen, Dave, owner of the Mozart Cafe who talked to us at length about his chef and the quality of soup and how being surprised with your meal is not a good thing, the beautiful snowy mountains, Alex, Rhoda and Elle and Rhoda’s family and Jens playing guitar. Did I mention it was beautiful? And, Alex again.
True
“When they make the movie of our lives, they will never get that part right. They couldn’t. It was too great.”
Panorama Driving
I posted a whole bunch of panorama photos that I took over the past few weeks. All of them but one was taken while Joe was driving and I was able to shoot through the windows in the van. I love doing it. It’s like a puzzle. Here is one of my favorites taken while going around the bend right before Hurricane, Utah:
EDIT: I’ve had a few requests to see the original size of the panoramas. There is really no way to do that because some are 20MB. But I did add one at 7000 px wide. Just go to the ‘all sizes’ on this one and view it in the original size.
Alison Gate aka Olivia Rex
My niece, Alison, is super talented and it is only a matter of time before her music hits all the ends of the earth. She is currently number 6 on the top ten song list at Real Music Fan. She was featured, first in the line-up, on the weekly radio program, which you can listen to here in the episode entitled ‘A Gay New Year.‘ Her song starts right after the guy stops talking about a penis and large amounts of pot. If you can make it through that part, you’ll get to hear The Problem Song. It’s worth it. She has some pretty cool photos, too.
Ask Leahpeah
Hi Leah,
I’m half-way through your book right now – it’s a great read! Thank you for sharing your story.
I was just looking through your flickr photo albums – very fun to see pictures of you as a kid. I wonder, though, why you don’t have pictures of yourself as a teen? I’d be so curious what you looked like during 16 – 18, the part of the book I’m reading.
Kristen in Colorado
Dear Kristen,
Thank you! I did post some pictures of me as a teen on my blog but neglected to add them to the Flickr site. I have added them now and also a few more including me with some friends, my wedding invitation for my first marriage and one with my son, Devon when I’m 18.
Thanks for reading the book!
xo,
lpc
Interview with Heather Champ Powazek
New interview up: Heather Champ Powazek
Heather is one of my heroes because she dares to talk about being depressed in public and because she is a killer photographer. Some of her photos make me want to cry, they are so beautiful or true. Her MO is four cameras attached or slung across her body at all times. Because Heather is Canadian, she put bonus letter ‘U’s all over in her interview. I left them there because Canada is a real country with a real language too, eh?
Nikki and Laura May
Two of my nieces at Wire Pass with their mom, my sister, Natalie, taken by Rick, their dad. Utah can be so lovely. And the girls are the cutest evah.
Want Some Magnets?
Went way, waaaaaaaay over my server bandwidth last month. If anyone wants to donate to help cover costs, it would be much appreciated. Donate here. Anyone that donates $30 and wants a set of 10 magnets, donate here and email me your shipping address. I’ll even make them special for you.
