Tag: mental-health

Oh-Hello there keyboard

On By thevideoslabLeave a comment

Oh hi…hello there Mac Airbook keyboard, it’s been a long time since we hung out. Feels like months since you and I typey typed out my thoughts into letters onto a screen, just because I needed to write or just because I wanted to write – for fun. To clear my brain. To offload all the things that I am doing. I have missed this.

And I might not have anything important or critical to say whatsoever and I feel out of practice. Right now though I have about 40 minutes till I need to be somewhere so here we go.

I am at Deluxe Bakery eating a slice of pumpkin pie and a turkey shaped cookie for breakfast. To drink I am sipping down a delicious decaf cortado (no additional cream or sugar please and thank you).

It’s Saturday Nov. 8th, 2025 and about 11:50 AM. I was at work this morning trying to catch up on my hours. I took Thursday off this week because 1) I was feeling super run down and a bit ill 2) I had a friend coming through town and I wanted to rest up and see if I could feel better before they arrived.

I rested all day and didn’t work at my day job, the one that pays the bills. But in that rest time I had the time and restful space to catch up with some folks via text and email. The end result is that I scheduled 4 new interviews for the Iowa Prairie Podcast Project. This is a testament to how creative and proactive we would all be were we not “working” for a living. 

My friend is 28 years old. And my kids and this kid’s siblings all used to play together back in like…2007. It was such a lovely catch up with someone whom I have known since he was 6 years old. Also odd how you can be good friends with people who are your children’s age. Kiah, my visitor, has also been the one who created OST’s for most of my movies thus far and many more short videos. When he was here he informed me that the alarm tone or ring tone on his phone was a segment from one of the title tracks for one of my movies (that he composed). So nice to be reminded that we worked together on a movie that made a difference in land conservation. 

I felt better on Friday and worked from about 7 AM until 6 PM. Then off to the record store to buy this beauty:

I last owned this album probably in 1985, just before giving away all my records, because you know…no one was EVER going to listen to vinyl again. It’s now the 7th record in my newly building collection. I fell asleep while listening to it on the second play through but snapped a pic of my record player in the darkness because I like how it looked.

Oh gosh what else…hmmm….I have been working so incredibly hard on the Iowa Prairie Documentary Project. It’s got ahold of me all day, everyday. It’s really all I think about. Daydream about. I am constantly sending myself notes and messages to not lose track of an imagined sequence or new idea of a visual. This movie is happening so differently than any of the others. It’s really become my Hail Mary pass regarding the state of the world we live in…as seen through the lens of the state of Iowa. I can tell you it’s a sobering thing to realize that one can tell the story of how it’s all gone much too far without leaving home. All the worst stories are right here…and that’s really strange. It keeps me up at night but not in an awful way. More like a…how can I creatively convey these ideas that I have been pondering since the 6th grade, sort of way. Because that is literally when I first began really seeing our separation from and depletion of, the natural world. I started journalling about the topic when in study hall or detention hall. 

Today in about 30 minutes I will be picking up some used large diaphragm condenser microphones, some really old school ones…in hopes that I can record some warmer tones for the movie soundtrack. I will be recording the first segment of the movie, the first three minutes’ soundtrack which will be played live by a cellist. I’ll probably be recording on three mics at the same time. I have heard him play it through once already and it nearly made me cry, and def gave me goosebumps. 

There’s just so much going on that I can barely keep up. And yes, I do think of quitting. Quitting it all and just going back to simplicity. But the story needs telling and there aren’t enough people listening so far. I might not be able to pierce that particular veil either. But I feel compelled to try. 

I hope this weekend to finally give the project a proper website, FB page and IG account. Far fetched…maybe 1 out of 3?

(typed in a sort of hurry, please forgive typos and errors)

Concussions and Premieres

On By thevideoslabLeave a comment

The brain does so many things. It works so well that our experiences of sound, light, balance, thought, motor skills and feelings are seamless. That’s by design. It’s astonishing how much we take for granted.

I learned this the hard way on June 23rd, 2024 when a car hit my stopped car. They were going about 25 mph. Simply put, my car stopped their car because I kept my foot on the brake of mine when I saw them speeding towards me without slowing down. It bent the frame of my car, airbags deployed…and I swear that I felt my brain smack into the back of my cranium right after my skull whipped backwards into the headrest of the driver’s seat.

Over the last month I have learned what it’s like:

  1. to not be able to walk in a straight line.
  2. to not be able to keep my balance.
  3. to have headaches nearly every hour of the day.
  4. to have my left eye no longer tracking correctly with my right eye.
  5. to have my mind not know how to set the volume on sound, so it was all too loud.
  6. to become afraid of sunlight and pretty much all projected light because it hurts to view.
  7. to live like a vampire in the dark for a full week, only going out at night when the sun was down.
  8. to forget conversations right after they happened and who I even spoke with.
  9. to wonder if all these symptoms will become a part of my life moving forward as my new norm.

I also learned about cutting edge treatments for severe concussions. Within a week of my accident I learned about a clinic near my home in Iowa City. It’s a humble practice. They don’t brag about what they do. But wow, what they do is amazing. And getting access to treatment right after a concussion is definitely the way to go about it. I am so lucky that I live near the facility and that I knew about it. No one locally told me about it. Not the Emergency docs after my two visits. It was a friend on the East Coast who had heard about “Dr. Fitz”. Syntonic Light Therapy…holy shit. I literally walked in wincing in pain, off balance, blocking out light and sounds, a mess…and after my first SLT treatment I experienced immediate relief. The thing is that they didn’t tell me a thing. Not one. There was no planting of ideas. They literally were like “we’re going to stick you in this room now and show you some light…hang out for a bit til we return”. The point being, they didn’t set me up with preconceived ideas of how to feel after the treatment. They only asked afterwards. And when I walked out and had my balance and the sun wasn’t like a laser into my brain pain centers…I was amazed.

That isn’t to say that this was without frustrations, plenty of setbacks and fears of not getting better. That first treatment lasted for about 3 hours til the symptoms returned. My brain needed time to heal. My accident was on June 23 and I only was cleared to drive late last week. I have had moments of feeling like I was totally fine…for a few hours. Thinking I was done. Then crushing headaches and memory loss and 3 hour naps and fatigue for whole days. It’s not a linear healing track. It’s not like a broken bone. Concussion healing is absolutely nonsensical and not predictable. Again and again I would be tricked by feeling good for a few hours, only to be thrown back under the wheels again.

I am writing today because I have felt good for 3 days in a row…a first in the whole month. I am still taking everything slowly but it’s amazing to feel this normal again. I still can’t work full time. I don’t have that kind of energy yet. Oh…I lost a steady job I had landed, unfortunately. Too much time missed due to the concussion. Luckily I do have some sweet part time work irons in the fire that I hope work out. I will be easing back into the working world slowly for sure.

I have been very lucky to have my son to drive me places and support from both of my kids and friendly check in calls from friends and family around the world. Good stuff.

I think (I hope) that I am getting back to real recovery now. I will even remember that I posted this blog writing lol!


Meanwhile…The Last Shark premiered online on youtube. In 12 days this movie has received 21,000 views. With a marketing budget of zero. Not too shabby. It also screened on TV in South Africa to the tune of 158K viewers. Again…well done to everyone who made this happen.

And below is a hint of the European Premiere to come!