Mexico Series on Hold

"Victoria at Parent's Sink", Redding, CT, 9/11. Juliana Beasley.

 I want to thank all the wonderful people in my life who got me through the last couple of weeks; in particular, the last week. Without your support, things would have been much rougher. As most of my family, close friends, Van Vorst dog run comrades, acquainances, and Facebook friends know, my dear Moishe died this past week. I also managed to somehow apply for a grant at the same time; again, without the help of friends like Benj (my dear cousin who has just came into my life and miraculously, at the right time), Drew, Victoria, Jeffrey, Jacques, Amy and John this would have been impossible. I realized how fortunate I am to have such wonderful, caring, interesting, smart and unique people in have in my life.

Now, life goes on. I am spending the weekend out in Connecticut with Victoria at her parents home. It's nice and slow here. I get the chance to step back from my life in Jersey City. It's nice to see Victoria's family. It's hard not see Moishe taking in the country air and sniffing around the ivy and shrubs but I am blessed to have little Howie here who adorns me with an excess of affection and kisses upon the moment I wake.

I took these photos last night of Victoria and the kitchen at her parents place with my new camera apps. I feel the need to be creative even if it means picking up my Android phone and taking crappy low res photos. It's one way that I can move out of myself and connect with the outside world and incorporate it into something visual, something that I can share with others.

I couldn't decide whether I like the tighter shot of the kitchen counter or the wider so, I have posted both.

"Kitchen Counter in Redding 1", Redding, CT, 9/11. Juliana Beasley.

"Victoria in Kitchen #1", Redding, CT, 9/11. Juliana Beasley.

"Kitchen Counter in Redding 2", Redding, CT, 9/11. Juliana Beasley.

Off to the Party

I met the woman in pink and her friend on the day of her wedding. A couple of weeks later, I was back in the Rockaway's and this time,  with my cousin, Benj who was visiting me from Toronto. They told me they were off to a party.

It's funny I have so much to say and yet, I feel like I don't know where to begin. Oh, yes, I know where to start. I will say this... it's good to have family and friends. Especially, when you need them.
,
To Moishe:

Every day that is left and that we spend together, I have promised you something that will make you understand how much I love you.

"Off to The Party", Rockaways, NYC, Sumer 2011. Juliana Beasley

Big Heart

As I begin to write this piece, I lack a desire to labor over words and sentences that might not only look precise and meaningful, but that tell the entire story behind the photograph. My mind can not hold steady or remain focused long enough to create the kind of colorful descriptions and anecdotes, I often try to tell when I present a photograph. I am unsettled. My dear Moishe, my lovely dog is very sick.

"Frontal X-Ray of Moishe's Heart", Jersey City, NJ. April, 2011. Juliana Beasley

For those of you who have read my blog or have in the past, you are familiar with my dear companion, Moishe, a little white Bichon Frise/ Terrier mix that I adopted from the NYC ASPCA back in 1998. He was 3 years old and needed a home and I was 30, had just lost my mother without warning. I needed unconditional love and some laughter and I needed to take care of myself by taking care of another.

Moishe was diagnosed years ago with heart disease, as well as lung disease. Now, his condition has progressed. Days are spent monitoring his behavior, his demeanor, his eating, his sleeping, and now the short walks that end midway down the block. The last days, he has not had the enthusiasm he normally has when I pull out his harness and shake the dogs tags to his typical delight, a signal which he knows means that he is going outside. I am only giving you a rough sketch. The sort of sketch a clinician might write in a patient's records and yet, I see it also includes the pain that is watching a loved one die when you foolishly believed they were going to live forever.

Moishe's has a big heart. It is growing larger and larger. Literally and figuratively. This muscle is expanding so much that now, it presses up against his trachea and makes his breathing labored and renders him exhausted after little activity.

He still has bushes and grasses to sniff and treats to be devoured. And he has the warmth of our mutual love and the abundance of years of our coexistence in three different apartments in two different states.

I have lovely stories to tell about Moishe. And heroic ones too. We lived a whole life that we shared exclusively with one another.

My Dear Moishe Without Photographs For Now

Dear Friends,

The last two weeks has been a blur of depression and pain. My dear dog, Moishe ingested a dirty tampon (dogs do this regularly). The cotton part was digested, however the string stayed in his stomach and intestine.

After, realizing that he was in serious pain, circling endlessly as if he was trying to run from himself, I took him to my local vet. A sonogram was done during the day and shortly, after I got a phone call urging me to pick him up and take him to the emergency room at NY Vets for immediate attention.

I will tell more of this when I have more time available. I would like to thank all the people on Facebook who sent me thoughtful messages during this time.

The gastroabdominal surgeon managed to remove the string from his pained tummy. I was told that this is not an uncommon incidence. So, I forwarn all women with dogs, you might save your toilet from getting clogged, but keeping a garbage basket filled with used tampons is far more dangerous. I suggest a container that shuts tightly. This is very serious.

The good news is Moishe at 14 or 15 years old is a fighter and survived a 50/50% chance of living from the abdominal surgery. He is getting stronger with every day, although I must say he is just not himself. It's been really hard on him and on all those dear to him.

I have much to do and a trip to prepare. I hope to post soon!

Yours,
Juliana

Never Too Late for Good Trash!

My dear, on the edge, born to be Heidi Fleiss is in the news again!




Part Jewish class A entrepreneur, part trashy gal who liked to hook up with older men. She made a mess of her professional career as the "Hollywood Madame" (please, check out this film and the amazing "Aileen Wournos: The Selling of a Serial Killer" with the ever ego-centric and friendly fun loving, filmmaker Nick Broomfield).

In 1997, when Heidi was arrested for her prostitution ring. She had the hottest bitches in Hollywood or what some might say are... the big names spent big money to roll in the sheets with there choice of lust.

If you were around in 1997...this is no big news for you.

When word came out about her upscale business, she exposed a book of names of celebrities using her services. This was exciting news; enough so, that the famous John's could be seen running down the street holding onto their belt buckles in a tragic act of saving their faces from the National Enquirer.

The Big News:

She's finally tying the not with the king of whorehouses, Dennis Hof, owner of Nevada's Moonlite Bunny Ranch.

How would I have gotten this info being that my life as you all know is stuck in my own head and rests in this first floor apartment in Jersey City. Well, there are certain people who infiltrate this sanctum I call home that I share with famous dog friends, Moishe and Howard.

"Moishe", 2009. Photographed by Jazmin Francis

"Howard", 2009, photographed by Jazmin Francis.

This informer friend of mine would not want to admit it she has some connection to the Bunny Ranch that believe it or not might actually look good on her resume...might even cause a chuckle.

Sad but true...Heidi was living in a trailer stuffed with parrots (not stuffed as in taxidermied parrots).

Simply, in her own words: Heidi said of the wedding to be,

"I'm proud to say that I'm clean and sober, and I'm finally ready to make a commitment to one man - and that's Dennis. It's going to be my first and only wedding, so it's going to be fabulous."

Frankly, and let's be real about this Dennis is a unattractive pig skinned like man who likes to takes on one bunny at the Ranch as his whore of the moment, until a new piece of ass shows up and he tosses the former one to the side.

And Heidi, well she looked like a cartoon exaggeration of Carly Simon with horse teeth surrounded by tattooed lip liner.

I suppose this is just another Hollywood business arrangement.

Fact, is I was always enthralled with Heidi's business spirit and how she brought down the boys club with her...but, of course, as with all witch hunts...who always takes the real brunt. For her it was was 37 months in prison for tax evasion and without saying pandering. What ever happened to Charlie Sheen and Texas billionaire businessman Robert T. Crow who admitted to using her service. And all the others under speculation.

I also am probably one of 12 or so people on Facebook whom belong to the Heidi Fleiss Fan Club. Why do I love her...

1) She a super hot Jewish girl.
2) She had the balls to take on Hollywood and create a lucrative business.
3) She represents the Elia Kazan character from "Baby Doll" ,a dichotomy and a perverse twist.

The young actress was at once innocent, fragile, naive and yet, a hard hitting powerful woman.

O.k., there are some holes in these facts...I'm not foolish to believe that she has suffered terribly and is not the epitome of emotional stability. And perhaps, I am guilty, just as so many men with the boring fantasy of finding the good/bad girl in the bale of hay. But, something about this Lolita icon still fascinates me. An underhanded "manipulapath" with the face of an angel.

Heidi is ready to open a new brothel outside the Las Vegas limits...and it's full of studs for female customers...The Stud Ranch. Check out her website: Heidi Fleiss.

Farewell Dr. Sonner

X-Ray from abdominal view of my dog Moishe's, heart.

X-Ray View of Moishe's Heart from lateral Position.
Notice light white areas showing possible first signs of Mitral Valve Disease.

January 14, 2009 @ 7:16 PM

Dear Dr. Sonner:

I decided not to come and see you anymore. I can't afford to see you because I no longer have enough money to pay for health insurance with Oxford. Therefore, I can’t pay out of pocket for once a month visits with you. We had spoken about this on several occasions. Despite, my fears of economic destitution, you have not been willing to change your policy, allowing me to come less frequently. In the past, I worked with doctors whom only expected me make visits 4 times a year, in order to check the status of my condition or fiddle with my medications. I would see the psychiatrist more often should my depression become less manageable.

Presently, I would self-diagnose my condition as a clinical depression with the occasional massive mood shifts towards mania. I am certainly not in remission, and definitely, beyond the state of my usual Dysthymia.

I have not called you or in your case, e-mailed you, about my emotional upheaval because I learned from the past that it was absolutely pointless. I have become accustomed to sitting in your waiting room many times over the last couple of years, in a depressive state, but made a clear decision before entering your office that I would not share this information with you. There were times that I feigned happiness in your presence when I could do nothing more than lay on my sofa and cry for days.

After three years plus, you never changed my medications in order to find a way to ease me from my emotional pain. The best you did was up my Lamictal or increase my Nardil by 15 mg. This is the same recipe of medications, plus the others, that Dr. Silverstein had prescribed me when I left his care years ago. What was the point of telling you how I felt or filling out those redundant Xerox sheets with my improvement or my decline, when I knew I would walk out the door with the same ol’ prescriptions? In other words, my old feelings of helplessness increased and I started to believe once again that no doctor could help me, let alone you. Perhaps, I am drug resistant.

I don't believe in my heart that everything has been exhausted...I need to work with a sensitive and creative physician. Someone who can work in tandem with my therapist.

There were days, I walked into your office, considering how quickly, I could get out of your office with the prescriptions in hand. I would put a smile on my face, bite down on anger, pick up the recipes and get out the door as quickly as I could. Perhaps, to you, my depression/anxiety or as you had yourself diagnosed me, on my first intake, “Bi-Polar 2 Disorder” seemed under control. In fact, I was exhausted and resigned to feigning my emotions in your presence.

I have never had to talk with any doctor through e-mails, nor has my therapist. Natasha whom also agrees that it is bizarre and unprofessional you did not want to communicate with her on the phone. It's frankly impersonal and on a fundamental level, I don't feel like you care about me. As you know I have a long history of terrible neglect. Yes, it would have been reaffirming if you could have simply picked up the phone over the last months when I did not make any appointments.

I created a lie and told you I was leaving the country for France and never mentioned a word about picking up my prescriptions prior to this fantasy trip. Instead of hearing directly from you, I began to find messages on my voice mail from one of your revolving intern secretaries. Maybe at least, a detached e-mail from you, would have made me feel like my presence and my health mattered.

I am now in a daily struggle and yet, I refuse to come back to you. This is not a personal problem with you, but completely professional. I have decided to see one of Dr. Silverstein’s colleagues who has made himself available when I need him. Again, as you know, I no longer have insurance, and having a doctor available when I need him or expects only quarterly visits is a relief to my financial worries.

Juliana