July 6, 2022

Hi everybody. Welcome to my blog where I talk about the present. Now, I might stroll down memory lane and talk about a recent past in this blog.

A friend of mine went into surgery today, and I spoke to him yesterday about it. It was a pretty major surgery and he was a bit nervous. Having gone through some heavy surgery, I advised him to think of the surgery as like a race or a match or a game you’re gonna win. Visualization is a strong tool. I used to do that before a track race. For example, I would imagine myself winning. I would imagine the times I’d have to run in every lap. I’d imagine it over and over before the race. It works. So in other words, you treat surgery almost the same. You just imagine the outcome as being real good. That you’ve won. Cast away any negative thoughts. All this and some humor and sarcasm go a long way.

Now I’ll explain to you what I mean about humor and sarcasm. They are strong tools to get you through some heavy stuff. For example, when I was having surgery, I heard a familiar voice say, “I’m taking the kid and I’m going to Texas. You’re welcome to come along.” Well, after strongly objecting to what I heard, I thought to myself, sure, I’ll be in the lobby right away. You’ll recognize me. I’ll be the guy dragging himself across the floor. Oh yeah, and it’ll be easy to recognize me. I’ll be the guy with the eyepatch and the surgically implanted trac in my throat. I’ll be dragging a machine that breathes for me. I’ll also have surgically implanted pic line next to my collar bone that takes a multitude of medicines. And then there’s a classic IV on a stand with wheels I’ll be dragging. I’ll also have a feeding tube with pink paste for the morning and brown paste for dinner. Don’t worry about any restroom stuff, cause I’ll have a catheter in me and some big diapers that are quite impressive. There’s also some boots I’ll be wearing. They inflate deeply with air to stop me from getting any blood clots in my leg. They put them on me because I did develop a blood clot. The doctors headed it off at the pass, slicing me open and catching the blood clot before it went to my lungs. So I’ll have a pretty impressive scar from my belly button all the way up to my ribs. Oh yeah, and there’ll be all kinds of wires all over me to monitor brain function, heart function, circulation, blood/oxygen, all that fun stuff. Oh, and one last thing, I can’t fly because of the pressure, so we’ll have to rent an ambulance and a crew. About a week should do it because we’ll have to drive slow. Other than that, I’m good to go. It should be an interesting trip.

Anyway, a little sarcasm goes a long way. I mean, you gotta laugh at all this. Otherwise it’s too damn depressing. I’m sure my friend will do just fine. Imaging a good outcome always does wonders. Always think positive.

That’s it for this week. Love and miss you guys!

B. Nice

June 22, 2022

Oh Man! I’m glad Father’s Day is come and gone. Every time Father’s Day comes around, I do celebrate the awesomeness of my father, but it also reminds me that I’m not your traditional dad, much as I’d like to be. I wish I could have taken my kid out for a run, go surfing, go wind surfing, scuba diving, skiing. You know, all the stuff I used to do. I wish I could have taken the kid to Australia where I lived, to Paris where I lived. Oh well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I guess I could always show the kid how to be a doorstop.

You know, my mom did her best to try and keep me in the loop and be a traditional dad. She would get me to fly a kite with my kid, go fishing with my kid, try to teach my kid how to ride a bike. But, try and do all that stuff when you’re like me in a wheelchair. It’s kind of brutal, frustrating and quite frankly depressing. But my mom meant well.

You learn early on to have tools to defend yourself against depression. My tools of choice were humor and sarcasm. I remember the first time I used these tools. It was pretty funny. I was in the operating room, it was pretty heavy, and the surgeon said, do you mind if we take off a little hair. I said, don’t you have to shave my whole head. He said, no, that was back then. Now we just take a little hair off. I started laughing because I told my cousin they were gonna have to shave my whole head, so he shaved off all his hair for solidarity purpose. The guy was completely bald. I had all my hair, except for a 3 inch bare spot. When I got out of surgery, I said, I didn’t know Andrew Aggasi was here! I said, you look a lot like my cousin. It was pretty funny.

One other thing you should do if you’re going into surgery, anything serious: I carried a photo of my self and my kid and before they put me under, I showed the surgeon the photo and I said to him, “You can’t leave this kid without a dad.” And the guy said, “Don’t worry, I’ll give this photo back to you when you recover. I’ll include a copy of the photo. It’s hanging on my wall.

That’s it for this week. Above is an example of photos I’ve been taking. I just take pictures around my house.

Talk to you next week. Love, B. Nice

June 8, 2022

Solidarity. Grace. Peace. Hi everybody. We’re behind you guys.

Welcome to the blog where I talk about the present.

I wanted to wish you all a happy fathers day because I didn’t want to miss it. I might miss you next week. I’m gonna dedicate this blog to ME, because I’m a father. I miss my kid because I don’t see her that often. But I think about her all the time. My friend here who’s typing this also had a great dad. I had a great dad. He was very cool. A great dad and a great artist. He was truly an artist’s artist. All of my values as an artist I got from him.

You should check out his website: donnice.com

You know, a good painting has a soul. So whenever I miss my dad, I look at one of his paintings. I mean, the guy put a lot of work into each painting he did. He wasn’t like some artists that just crank out the work to pay the bills. I mean, my dad really thought about each brush stroke. It was cool to watch.

On another note, it’s been quite. I’ve been getting on the track with my walker. It’s tough. It’s hard hard work. But it’s worth it. It’s paying off. Whenthey said all this recovery would take a long time, I didn’t think you could count in decades. If I got my injury when I was 70, it would have been game-over. You just gotta keep at it. Don’t give up. I mean, there are times, I haven’t really thought about giving up, but it has crossed my mind. It’s tough work. So, I have private therapy I do, and I have my other therapy I do. So I have therapy three days a week. The rest of the days I spend on photography. You gotta keep your hands active.

Hey, I want to share with you guys I learned a while ago, and it pertains to being an artist. Now, I may be going off on a tangent here, but I thought I’d give you a word of advice. Whether you’re a water colorist, or photographer, or whatever, you always gotta keep your overhead low. I mean, I just have my cameras and lenses, and my hands in my pocket when I got on the plane. Everything else was rented. You never know what’s around the corner, and you don’t want to get stuck with a huge bill to pay, like a studio or equipment. Basically, keep your overhead low. Be ready to ride out the rough times, because if you’re freelance, you’re definitely going to have some rough times.

That’s about it for this week. Love and miss you guys.

Love, B. Nice

June 1, 2022

Hi everybody. I forgot to say Happy Memorial Day. Above is a photo I did in Santa Barbara before I got injured. Anyway, Happy belated Memorial Day.

So, check this out. Remember a few blogs ago I said something like, “Someone’s gonna get hurt if they don’t increase the wage for home healthcare.” Well, someone did get hurt. And guess who it was? … Me!

You see, my health aide fell asleep in the back of my car. He fell asleep because he’s overworked. He has to take three jobs just to make ends meet. As a result I got a fractured ankle because my chair wasn’t locked in and my wheelchair belt wasn’t on. I ended up under the dashboard, and fractured my ankle. Now, I’m not blaming the agency that my health aide worked for, nor am I blaming my health aide. The guy was just tired. I mean, he has to work three jobs just to make ends meet. Now, the state did increase the wage for home healthcare aides, but by only a small amount. Enough just to knock any candidates out of potential state benefits. Crazy. It’s almost an insult. It really makes me mad because people like the patient (me) suffer. What's it gonna take? The death of a few people before they take on home healthcare? Check out this article that a regional paper did. It’s only regional, but maybe someone national will pick it up and run with it. There needs to be an investigative reporter from either the New York Times or 60 minutes. We have to put fire under the ass of these politicians. If you’re a politician, I would take this issue and run with it. It kind of pisses me off.

I’ll include a photo of the article. It was in the May 23 issue of the Journal News.

On another note: I’ve been speaking with our town mayor. She’s going to build housing for people like my home healthcare aides and other workers. Pretty cool. Who would think I’d be an activist.

On another, other note. I got on the track for the first time since 1986. It was weird. I got on the track and just wanted to take off running. I made it 20 yards. Pretty cool. But man, was I tired.

That’s it for this week. Love and miss you all. This is B. Nice signing off.

B. Nice

May 26, 2022

Oh man! My track buddies and I used to go to stripper bars. That was in the 70’s. Now I go to gardens with family friends. I guess that’s called growing up. The gardens I went to are pretty cool. They’re called Stonecrop in Cold Spring, NY. Netflix did a documentary on them. I just thought of something. What about strippers in gardens? That would be controversial. My friend here said that’s probably been done, and it probably has. Shock value always sells. Right?

I’ve been switching up my therapists. It’s always good to do that it seems. You never want to get comfortable with one therapist. You gotta push it or you don’t make progress. For example, I’m going to get on the track with one of my therapists and a walker. It’s hard to believe that in the 70’s I ran close to a 4 minute mile. Now I can barely make 20 yards on a walker. Amazing. But at least I can make 20 yards. Right? The other cool thing was I worked with a health aide I haven’t seen in like 6 years. She said I’m doing remarkably well.. That’s always encouraging. It makes me happy because I work hard every day and have been for 10 years. Remember, never give up.

I’m probably gonna cut it short because I can’t remember what I was gonna talk about. Speaking of forgetting, the one bonus of having a brain injury is every movie is new - even if you’ve seen it before. One thing I did want to tell you guys is that my dad’s storage facility is gonna be included in a big art tour starting July 22. The tour is going to include galleries, studios, storage facilities, etc. If you’re an artist, it will be inspiring to see. Check out my dad’s website: donnice.com for more information.

Love and miss you guys. Don’t forget to check out my website about the past. In the beginning is a spread about how I see now. You always gotta do what you love and I love photography.

This is B. NIce signing off. Love, B. Nice