AMBASSADOR (am bas′ə dər, -dôr′) noun

Ambassadors of goodwill are activists, celebrities, artists, environmentalists;

Ambassador-at-large is one accredited to no particular country;

Ambassador extraordinary has a special diplomatic mission;

Unofficial ambassador is one with all;

& unofficial am I!

Monday, May 30, 2011

time for a word change from woody to metally





A fellow reader responds with a question to my Dr. Shake It blog post this week.

                    
I think some words from a fellow genius would be appropriate on this topic before we explore this intriguing phenomenon so I invited my friend LEO to further explain his thoughts.

"The penis does not obey the order of its master, who tries to erect or shrink it at will. Instead, the penis erects freely while its master is asleep. The penis must be said to have its own mind, by any stretch of the imagination."
Leonardo da Vinci

Dear Ms. Big Boobs,

I am SO glad you get rid of the idiot before you even begin, so to speak! Honesty: do you think your boobs (and I am being serious here) attract LOTS of "bad" men? I mean, more than a flat chested woman? My big boobed friends seem to get a lot of side glances, if not straight on - glance - at - chest/breast etc. Just wondering. It's like first you have to fight off the perverts, which can take a long while since there are so many out there, and there's a pervert in every man if you ask me, until finally you get to the a man who has qualities that show beyond his testerone lurkings..

Dear I'm So Glad,  (so as to protect their identity)
1st  Let's start with an anatomically correct drawing of a penis, sited above. Though personally I have never seen one with that type of bend, I don't know why... I always thought they were straight!

2nd  It has been my opinion for some time that my breast surgeon doctor slipped MAGNETS into my porn sized breast implants without my consent. 

3rd  I believe men have 2 little brains down there that are the size of a marble but it is not glass, it is some type of metal. The metal marbles get transferred during the insertion and conception process into what they call “their balls”. It’s something that scientifically usually happens to only baby boys. How else could we justify this behavior my men once they are grown?

4th  For this I propose a name change to what has been called a WOODY  for years. I think a METALLY would be more appropriate for the lifting action of their penis.

5th  I accept full responsibility for my GEMILLI’s (my twins as they are called here) bad behavior at times. Ever since their debut at the 2010 Spoleto's Festival of the Two Words, then their real live TV interviews (notice I stated plural), "they have taken on a life of their own" quotes Mama Francesca.

When asked by the local TV camera men and the local village people, "Mama Francesca, where did these come from? Where have you hid them for the past 3 years?" Calmly and frankly Mama Francesca responded "it was their 18th birthday and I dressed them for their coming out into society party, something like a Débutante ball".

Well the news hit the street in Spoleto and the air is filled with the buzz of olives and boobs.

6th  It's not men’s fault at all. The piece of metal in their pants is so heavy that when they try to lift it they get a METALLY. ALL their blood flow stops going to the small brain in their head on their shoulders and remains below the waist over loading their METALLY.

7th  Also when asked by men here in the village, “what is your bra size? What number are you?” I have trained my twins to respond with the upmost surprise to such an insulting question and in a manner fitting of a Débutante, not stooping down to their level. So they respond, “I don’t know but for surely a porn sized number!” That usually leaves with their jaw dropped open...

8th  In conclusion how can I Mama Francesca judge these poor men with metal marbles in their balls, when my own twins (and I am at times ashamed), behave so badly? 


9th  So NO it is not Men's fault. Further medical studies are needed to identify the type of metal in these marbles. Some of the leading national experts believe it they could be LEAD METAL which is a TOXIC METAl leading to insanity. So let's not start with the "name calling" "Dear I'm So Glad" and let's wait for more solid research!


Kisses bella! 
By the way, the media men and movie cameras are arriving in less than 3 weeks for this grand annual event!

maury's deal on patio furniture and sol lewitt's sanctuary

Steve & I loading my new patio furniture
on the roof of his taxi car


Chocolate colored, 4 piece set outdoor patio furniture made from treated iron, weaved poly-rattan material and sand-colored polyester cushions. 
A "festa" addition to my outdoor courtyard garden. When I sat out there for the first time and heard the little birds... I thought... Sol Lewitt sat here too listening to the prior generations of these birds. Google Sol and you will see he is the father of conceptualism and he painted his commanded career art here, in the apartment underneath mine.
It like have a special sanctuary to art's past where ideas arrived and where completed. All this insight and wisdom because I bought an outdoor patio set to throw cocktails party with!



Saturday, May 28, 2011

francesca’s little merry go round of life... the world of friends as I see it

Dr. Shake It, my Darling.

I am a unique SAGE cutting my own path. People who are closest me to me usually love me deeply & keep me for life even with all my flaws. So when you say, Francesca, I can be a good friend it’s all relative, your definition or mine

CYBER HAREM:
are woman being kept in a man's internet dream world &  does not qualify for a true friendship.

LIFERS:
are my inner circle of friends.  They are invited into my heart, my space, my world & my mind.  With these friends we exchange honesty, secrets, vulnerability, simple sheer pleasures, emotional intimacy, genuine unconditional love & mutual acceptance of our flaws.

FLIGHT WEIGHTERS:
are friends that take part in my life usually they are near to me & we do things together. Some of them develop into Lifers. Of course often these friendships can be carried through my lifetime but some fall by the waist side & linger for years. Pure honestly & mutual acceptance of our flaws has not been established or secured yet. It’s a garden that takes time to see where they grow.

FROOT CAMP:
is a place where these are people who are allowed to enter become a Lifer. Usually at some time a conflict has arose & we both demonstrated the ability to resolve with it with some level of dignity & mutual self-respect.

FWANNA BEES:
are my followers in the world at large who have the opportunity to meet me. I open my life to about all that I meet, without reservation & without inhibition. They find me crazy & refreshing in one swoop. They are often afraid to walk this line of being eccentric but like being near me. Living their life close to enough to me allows them to my droppings of excitement & passion for life.

FRAPARAZZI:
are my paparazzi. They merely find me intriguing in some way that they want to follow my life’s adventure and tribulations from their lazy boy chair with the foot pad raised.

VAMPIRINI:
are successful at NID or Negative IV drips'. They are people who suck the life out of others. After 2 separate hospital stays of 17 days & 4 months of tri weekly blood draws for Coumadin resistance, I have no tolerance for vampirini.

FRANDS WITH BENEFITS:
are friends where we find a mutually beneficial foundation, whether its art sponsorship or travel or creative projects, we develop our dreams. 

FEUNUCHS:
are my counter position to a man's cyber harem, they are my eunuchs but with all of nature equipment in tact from nature with the intent of me being their exclusive focus... all applicants to date have been a little too young for my current values... or missing some quality i am looking for but thats open to change... no applications accepted yet... 


FRISTRACTORS:
are people who distract me from my life's purpose. They usually get reduced to my FRAPARAZZI list.


remember it's my blog.... and I get to talk about what I want...

So Dr. Shake It, what's it gonna be...?




Friday, May 27, 2011

DECO DIVARTISTA Tamara Lempicka "queen of modern" an art deco diva artista


I've been there,
I've done this,
I say it's...
a don't miss exhibition!







The new art exhibitions season at Complesso 
Monumentale del Vittoriano
in Rome opens with the exhibition
''Tamara de Lempicka. La regina del moderno”
Address: Via San Pietro in Carcere (Rome)
Hours: MON-THU: 9.30-19.30 FRI-SAT: 9.30-23.30 SUN: 9.30-20.30
Tel: 063225380
Dates of this event
10/03/2011 - 03/07/2011

Saturday, May 21, 2011

tattoos, CPTSD & disorder of extreme stress not other wise specified

first tattoo NAM MYO HO RENGE KYO on my wrist



2nd tattoo my Edwards heart ring and a destroyed heart self image




tiger in Tibetan -I needed to be reminded I am a tiger and I will recover

I believe it was around Mother's day 2007 when the last woven fibers in my emotional being became unraveled...

I had mentally disturbing images that would not let me be in touch with my feelings and felt out of touch with reality. I had always hated tattoos and was often mad at my oldest daughter for getting them. 

It was a moment in my life where the art needed to come out but could not be released. So the image in my head for what I wanted to express started being designed.

I finally decided I was ready. The over whelming desire to cut myself to try to feel some sense of being grounded was over whelming and I knew why thoughts were not sane, not rational, but overwhelming like it was a must in my life.

I talked with my oldest daughter and she agreed to go with me for my first tattoo. I believe getting a tattoo could release these foreign emotions in a minimally acceptable damaging way.

The first planned tattoo Idea went well. Oddly enough the pain felt good. I was in charge of the pain the needles gave me instead of the vampire at the heart hospital coming in morning noon and night to do blood draws, and IV.

My veins had become hardened and some closed, scarred or collapse from being poked into. Then there would be the re-poking... when the needle got caught in the scar tissue and a new re-poke would be needed.

This first round went well and held me at bay for a while... It felt soothing, secure, a strong sense of being grounded and knowing for a moment I was level.

It didn't take much time before the float would start again... then again a second tattooing phase was started but very calculated. Knowing that this still was not very mentally sable of myself... I designed in my head the image that I thought I could live with. I tweaked it and adjusted it and sat with it till I felt I could live with it. 

Round two was burned into my art at a stronger, larger intensity. Again, the pain felt good and I even felt more decisive that this was the thing to do.

The last phase came in late October 2007 before I fled the USA. I finalized what I thought would be the strongest message but artist value would be retained. I sought out my Tibetan friend to translate both of my daughters names into his native tongue. Then I asked for heart and tiger to be translated.

The second phase of my bleeding heart tattoo with my Edwards heart ring and my favorite paint brush where completed with my two daughters names, heart for love and health and tiger symbol for me to focus on finding my strength.

As the wounds were new and still bleeding, I ran off to KINKOS to photocopy my newest art. I blew them up in color and added then to the MY MODIGLIANI, LAUTREC & VAN GOGH BLUES exhibition.

I tattoos were fresh, the art exhibition was ready, all my hired partners were in place and I fled the USA.

My art opening was to be November 2, 2007. On October 30, 2007 I left the USA to find a hiding place for a while. Three and a half years later, I am still here, Spoleto ITALY..



war wounds of C-PTSD and night terrors


When night terrors arrive a C-PTSD sufferer will relive
the violence while sleeping. They use their body, legs 
and arms swinging & scratching to fight off the perpetrator.
I fought all night to save the 13 Columbine victims from
the 2 perpetrators. They all lived in my night terror
but when I woke up, my face was swollen, scratched
 and bruised. The bags under my eyes from no sleep.

In the very last night terror of this 18 month period, I
in the dream managed to save the life of my girlfriend's killed daughter but this last time I had to give my life
up to have her escape. This story is dedicated to:
Anglea Fite.

Late in October 2007 I visited my then stock brokerage firm to wrap up loose ends before running to Italy to take cover. 

I felt the need to talk with the office manager about what had been happening with body memory flashbacks and telling their stories of arriving on violent new deaths,my office manager opened up and shared her daughter's finally 24 hours of life. Her daughter was Angela Fite

I arrived in Italy October 31, 2007 and little did I know what was going to be the next six months of my life. The finally dream was of Angela. In my dream she lived. I forced her out the door and I turned and gave my life in order to slow him down from getting her. I told her to run, run go, let him have me.

As I lodged my body between the door stopping  him, I turned and the axe was coming down on me. I woke up swinging my arms and screaming and was confused. This was April 1, 2008 but it took 2 months later when back in Colorado and driving up to the office, that this dream re-appeared in my eyes. I sat paralyzed in my car remembering who I had saved this night in my dreams.

It took till October 2008 before I could write her mother, my friend and tell her. Before then I was too afraid to do so. So this is just 1 example of the information arriving October 2007 and it haunted me continuously for 1 year till I saved her.

My night terror for Angela was the final and worst of this 18 month living HELL. Finally my mind felt light and clean enough to be freed of any responsibility for these events I had nothing to do with.

----- Original Message ------ 
Received: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:31:27 PM MDT
From: JoyceB3955@aol.com
To: francescaod@usa.net
Subject: Re: a columbine survivor...I have a few questions 
Dear Francesca:
This is Joyce from Gift From Within.  I sent your email to Dr. Ochberg and he responded  using our Q&A format. What I mean by that statement is that at times we receive very thoughtful questions that other people have asked even though the event and wording are different. Frank believes the issues you raise are well stated and would be useful to other people who visit our website.  see

After reading his answers perhaps you will allow me to publish this on our Q&A page and we can take out together references which will give you anonymity, and us protection  i.e. like not referring to Unum a specific insurance company in a public format. Let me know which references you think we should hide.  Warm regards, Joyce

Dear Joyce,
Ms. O. writes a compelling email, describing several profound traumatic events, including direct exposure to an infamous high school massacre (while caring for many elementary school children) and, approximately six years later, open heart surgery, and insurance company problems.  Ms. O does not give details of other life traumas, but says there were many, that the pain is still powerful and debilitating, and that relocation to a beautiful part of Italy and the presence of an excellent therapist is helpful, but not enough.  Dissociation (an altered state of consciousness that serves as a defense against overwhelming anxiety) once seemed to lessen the pain of searing memory.  Meditation helps to a limited extent.  There are good days.  But bad days are so bad that, on those days, life seems not worth living. Ms. O does not ask for remedy, but rather for an honest prognosis. "What can I expect long term?," she asks of us.

First, thank you Ms. O for writing and for the obvious inspiration and care you have given others.  You are an artist and you have guided young people.  Artists often distill human experience, seeing and feeling the essence of reality, suffering when others suffer.  Having an eye for beauty may not balance the experience of traumatic and tragic loss.  Finding grace and meaning in nature may not erase the memory of senseless harm to an innocent adolescent.  But your artistic ability is worth emphasizing.  Several of my patients with complex PTSD are artists or writers or reporters.  They do see into the heart of things. That talent is a blessing and a curse.  Try to remember the fact that it is a gift; try to use that gift; try to identify with others who used such gifts to enlighten the rest of us. CBT - cognitive behavioral therapy- works in a simple way.  When the bad days and the bad feelings are too much with us, we learn to think about the talent we have and to respect it. We may not be able to use it during a period of fear, grief or depression.  But we need to know it is there and it will be there to be used when the crisis passes.

This is different from trying to be numb or from longing for respite from memory.  This is saying to oneself, "I am an artist.  I am more sensitive.  Sensitivity is painful, but useful.  Others have this condition and I respect them for it."

The fact that your insurance company (and other bureaucracies) are oblivious to your condition and appear to care more about their bottom line than your legal right to just compensation is familiar to me -and to others with complex PTSD.  Jonathan Shay, in his profound book, "Achilles in Vietnam," notes that since ancient times, the traumatically injured have suffered more from injustice that from horrifying wounds.  Whether the source of betrayal is King Agamemnon's greed or an insensitive insurance adjustor, we are profoundly affected by the loss of honor, justice and humanity.  My team, writing the diagnosis PTSD, had no language to capture this philosophical symptom -a loss of a sense of meaning.  But anyone who works with complex PTSD knows to look for that ancient wound, to give voice to it, and in so doing, to guide a person toward recovery of dignity and worth.

Your relocation from America to Italy speaks to this wound.  It is not unusual to seek a different home when home has harbored trauma and injustice.

And now to the question at hand.  Can this complex injury in a sensitive person be tolerated?  Can the long term prognosis include substantial recovery?  

I believe it can.  I have seen it happen in cases that included the murder of ones children and the destruction of ones platoon due to incompetence of leadership.  It never happens easily.  Some denial of reality is often part of the path to tolerance.  Shakespeare's line in Lear was not unreal: "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport."  But reality is as beautiful as it is ugly and meaningless.  The capacity to experience that beauty comes through deliberate acts of seeing and knowing.  You cannot avoid seeing the tragic, whether it is the past, present or future.  But you can learn to see the sources of hope and love.  That does come back and it does prevail, despite cruelty and incompetence and indifference, which are the sources of complex PTSD.

Recovery is never absolute.  We do not reach a life that is free of sadness.  But the sharp pain of traumatic memory does reduce in amplitude and surprise.  You may need to work with a specialist who uses the counting method or EMDR or some form of re-exposure, if that has not yet been part of your therapy.  You may need to work with someone who uses CBT as I suggest above, tailoring this CBT to your unique set of skills and losses.  A good therapist is always wise and supportive, but a specialist may be needed to help deal with debilitating aspects of complex PTSD.  With time and distance, new sources of fulfillment and meaning should emerge.  One can't escape the past without a present and future that holds promise.  

There is every reason to believe that you will find those sources of fulfillment, and can say to yourself:

"I may never forget, but I need not constantly remember."  Shakespeare didn't write that line.  I did.  And I based it on many, many life stories.

My very best to you, Ms. O.

Dear Joyce,
Subject:
a columbine survivor...I have a few questions 
Date:
02:28 PM MDT, 03/16/08
From:
"Francesca Owens" <francescaod@usa.net>
To:
<JoyceB3955@aol.com>

I googled Columbine PTSD to see if I could find any one else suffering from PTSD. I found your and Dr. Frank Ochberg's Q & A. My name is Francesca Owens and former Littleton, Colorado resident. Currently I am living in Umbria Italy because I can't handle the USA any more.
April 19th, 1999 three parents, 2 elementary school teachers and 60 6th graders went on a field trip. We walked from Leawood Elementary school through Columbine High School grounds to the Columbine Public Library. We were the first responders after the event. The high school students fled the school running to the closest open building, us.
The librarians, three parents and two teachers were the beginning of the command post. The police showed up with military, firefighters and then media. We supported the police the whole day until they allowed us parents to leave at about 6:00 p.m. One of the mothers and I with our kids walked on the school grounds that day after the event not being current on the news as we only saw from within our windows what was going on. It wasn't till we got home that we saw the full story on the news ands that there were bombs in the field we walked across after the event.
I am suffering from severe complex ptsd and can barely handle it any more. I have a wonderful therapist here. I am currently out on disability with a private policy from Unum insurance company. They do not believe me and contact with them is just an extension of abuse for me, though maybe I am not in reality.
I have a life long list of trauma and was a high profile functioning person in society till I had open heart surgery a 1 1/2 ago at 44 yoa. New trauma in ICU came back 9 months later in horrible flashbacks.
I know therapy is a must. I have done some PTSD. I do some meditation. I am an artist, and ex stock broker now. I search the Internet endlessly looking for that magic pill for fix this all.
When the pain starts, I want out. Good days are good and some can be great. Though bad days are horrible and horrible days are on the edge of not wanting to live. If this is my furture, flashbacks and ghostly memories of all I have seem or experienced, I can not say I am going to make it long term.
Logically I want to understand why the pain is sooooo bad and will it ever go away?
I was disassociate for most of my life but the trauma in ICU brought the fear and feeling together for the first time in my life. Ever since them I can not stuff the pain. I lived with PTSD most of my life but know I can't seem to shake it. I want some one to be real honest with me. If my severity is at an 7 to 8 out of 10, with 10 being the worst, what can I expect long term?
Thanks, Francesca