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~ Because demented people need love, too.

The Perks of Being an Artist

Tag Archives: Nick Page

Someone Really Likes My Book

03 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by emilypageart in book, dementia, Fractured Memories, humor, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Alzheimer's, art about dementia, artist Emily Page, author Emily Page, book about dementia, cats, dementia, dementia book, Emily Page Art, FLD, Fractured Memories, frontotemporal dementia, FTD, Nick Page, silly cats

And by “someone,” I mean “the cat,” and by “likes my book,” I mean “likes to sleep on my it.” Dizzy has decided that my boxes of books make an excellent chaise lounge. Therefore, he gives my book a 5-star rating. There’s no higher praise than his approval:

books as chaise lounge

*************************************************************************************

Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

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Blame It On My Youth

09 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by emilypageart in death, dementia, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, music, singing, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Blame It On My Youth, gratitude, jazz, music, Nick Page, Red Hot Smoothies, regrets, singing

I was going through old files on my computer, and stumbled across this. I had forgotten all about it. It’s one of only a couple recordings my dad and I made together (Dad on sax, me on vocals). I don’t know why we waited until after he had been diagnosed with dementia to sit down and record some music together. We had performed together with his band, The Red Hot Smoothies, a couple times, but we never took it seriously. I guess we always figured there’d be time for that in the future. Plus, as much as I do love it, I’m kind of shy when it comes to singing in front of people. And I looked up to my dad and I think I was always just a little bit afraid that my talent wouldn’t be quite good enough to merit performing with him. That was all me, not him. I know he would have been thrilled if I’d asked earlier. Regrets, y’all. Anyway, blame it on my youth. (be patient, it takes a couple seconds to start)

***********************************************************************

Thanks so much for reading my ridiculous thoughts! If you’d like to see my ridiculous thoughts translated into art, visit my website, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Know a caregiver, or someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone with dementia, or someone who knows someone who knows someone else who’s a caregiver? Or heck, do you know a person? Well, you should tell them about my book, Fractured Memories: Because Demented People Need Love, Too. Part memoir and part coffee table art book, I recount my family’s heartbreaking and hilarious journey through my father’s dementia. Available to purchase here (this is my favorite way if you live in the U.S.), here or here if you’d rather get the eBook than a print copy, and here (especially if you want a hard cover copy).

book-cover-1

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A Story About Publishing a Story

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

Posted by emilypageart in book, dementia, Fractured Memories, Uncategorized, writing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

author Emily Page, Blurb, Blurb.com, book, book campaign, BookFuel, BookFuel.com, Emily Page Art, Fractured Memories, Nick Page, publish my book, publishing mistakes, Publishizer, Publishizer.com, Raleigh artist, Raleigh author, self publish, self-publishing

This is a story about writing and publishing a story. The first thing you should know is that it miiiiight have been a mistake to self-publish, but then again, it might not. I will say that I regret a couple things, and in hopes that I can save other authors some heartache, I’m going to share the mistakes I’ve made (so far, because let’s be honest, I’m going to make more of them).

Thing one that I regret: I opted to run a crowdfunding campaign through Publishizer instead of through Indiegogo or Kickstarter. I went into it not realizing that Publishizer would take a way bigger cut of the money I raised than those other sites do. I also thought that they would be hooking me up with legitimate publishers. Not the case. They just pitch your idea mostly to vanity publishers, who don’t really need to be pitched. Vanity publishers just want to get paid to publish your book. So not really helpful there, and certainly not worth an extra 20% of the money I raised. There were a couple of actual publishers that approached me, and perhaps I should have considered them more, but I’d heard some horror stories of authors making no money because of poorly managed book launches. And I’d done so well with pre-orders, I decided it was worth my time and effort to promote my own work and not rely on someone else. We’ll see how that works out soon.

Thing two that I regret: the publisher I chose. After speaking to several, I went with BookFuel. Bad idea. Right from the start things started to go wrong. They wouldn’t lay out the book the way I had envisioned. Every step took infinitely longer than it should have. I’d complete a step and send it off to my account manager, then wait a few weeks. I’d finally reach out to check on the status and each and every time it would have magically “just come back” from whatever department it had been in. What a coincidence. Every. Single. Time. And the kicker was that, when I received my sample copies (which were both really low quality), they had changed the formatting from the approved manuscript and eliminated the strike-throughs I’d included. So sentences that should have read something like, “He had raised me not to cry, though I was a giant ball of weepiness considerably less skilled at suppressing my tears,” now read, “He had raised me not to cry, though I was a giant ball of weepiness considerably less skilled at suppressing my tears.” When I alerted them to it, they wanted to charge me to fix it. And the blasted thing is still available on Amazon, even though I’ve asked them to take it down.

So yeah, not happy with BookFuel. I’m still in the process of negotiating with them to terminate our agreement, and hopefully that will be resolved soon. But it’s been an expensive lesson.

All of that being said, I found another company to print my book, and so far am pretty happy with them. With Blurb, I’ve had total control over the layout, the print quality is higher, and it costs me less per book when I buy in bulk. The only down side is that the print-on-demand books (i.e., through Amazon), are more expensive than they would have been through BookFuel so I earn less money when people purchase that way.

So now, without further ado, I’m pleased to announce that the book is finally available for purchase!! There are several ways you can buy:

  1. You can buy the paperback directly from me here. This is my most favoritestest way, because I make the most money on each book and you’ll save a few dollars.
  2. You can buy the hardcover and paperback versions on Amazon here. If you want a hardcover, this is currently your only option. Please note that the first version with the formatting errors is likely still going to show, so to get the right one, you’ll be looking for the one that offers the hardcover for $39.95 and the softcover for $29.95.
  3. You can buy the eBook here and here.

Once you’ve had a chance to read it, and if you liked it, pleeeeeease consider leaving a review on Amazon or GoodReads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34408526-fractured-memories?from_search=true)or your own blog/social media. And then tell everyone you know!

book-cover-1

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Extended Mondays With Muddy…Sort Of

11 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by emilypageart in death, family, gratitude, kindness, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Beatrice Page, Mondays with Muddy, Nick Page, veteran, Vietnam, Vietnam War, welcome home

Every year on the anniversary of my dad returning home from serving in the Vietnam war, my grandmother would call him to welcome him home. His best friend, who had grown up with my dad, was killed in the war, so I think my grandmother, Muddy, felt keenly aware of just how grateful she should be that her son survived. It was such a wonderful way to tell my dad every year how much she loved him and to acknowledge how blessed and lucky they were to have their family still intact. When Muddy passed away, I took over calling my dad every year on that anniversary to say how grateful I was that he had made it home those many years ago.

This is the first anniversary that my dad is no longer here to welcome home. I was not expecting it to upset me so badly, but I think knowing today was coming was part of why I’ve had so many nightmares over the last week. So today, I’ve been examining why it’s affecting me so hard, and I’ve concluded that there are two primary reasons.

1) It was something sweet and silly and loving and unique to my family; a good memory and a reminder of just how lucky we are; a reason to be grateful.

2) It was a way for me to still feel a connection to my grandmother, who I had loved dearly. I got to take up her mantle to make sure her son knew how loved he was by his mother and by the rest of his family.

And so part of what I’m grieving for today is the loss of of something special my dad and I shared (and of which I have real, concrete memories), but part is also that now I have one less way that I’m tethered to my grandmother. It’s like losing another piece of her, which compounds the sadness I feel about not being able to welcome my dad home today.

If, by chance, there is a heaven up there, I hope that Muddy takes a moment to welcome her son home today, and I hope they both know how much I miss them and how grateful I am to have had them in my life.

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Two Urgent Thoughts

26 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by emilypageart in art, death, dementia, Fractured Memories, humor, kindness, Uncategorized, writing

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Emily Page Art, FLD, Fractured Memories, frontal lobe dementia, frontotemporal dementia, FTD, Nick Page, publish my book, Publishizer

First, I urgently need you to know that on Sunday, I saw a bumble bee poop and then wipe its butt with its back legs. I felt horrible that I didn’t have any teeny tiny toity paper to offer it. That has to be so humiliating to have to wipe up with your own legs, or really, anyone else’s legs, either. That’s just awkward.

Second, I urgently need you to know that there are only 5 days left in my book campaign. So if you’ve been thinking, “Oh, I want to order but I have plenty of time and there’s a new cat video I need to watch on youtube,” now is the time to pause the video and watch a cute platypus video instead. And then go here to read my book proposal and pre-order yourself a copy for as little as $7. And then post a link to your own social media pages for anyone else who might be interested. And then have a tall glass of bourbon and resume cat video watching and try to forget what I told you about that bumble bee smearing poop all over its legs.

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Late Night Begging

07 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by emilypageart in art, culture, death, dementia, family, Fractured Memories, gratitude, humor, karma, kindness, painting, Uncategorized, writing

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Alzheimer's, attracting a publisher, begging, book, dementia, Emily Page, Emily Page Art, FLD, Fractured Memories, frontal lobe dementia, frontotemporal dementia, FTD, help me publish, Nick Page, Publishizer, writing

I know, I’m getting annoying. I can’t help it. It’s, like, genetic or something. But just in case someone is on wordpress late tonight, I thought I’d go ahead and post again in the hopes they’ll see this and help out.

It’s only been 2 days, and we’re already halfway there, thanks to all my amazing friends, family, and readers. You guys are awesome, fantastic, stupendous, and crazygreat! That’s right, crazygreat, which is, like, 50% more greatness than just great. Wow. I know, right?

For anyone who doesn’t know what on earth I’m talking about yet here’s a primer:

Hi everyone, I’m freaking out and am about to do some serious begging. Now that my dad has died and our journey through dementia is complete, I’ve decided it’s time to take the plunge and write the book. I’m in the process of compiling and adding to the writing and paintings I’ve done about my family’s experiences with dementia. I’ve launched a campaign on Publishizer.com to try to get enough pre-orders for my book to attract the attention of publishers. But I NEED HELP SPREADING THE WORD! I’ve got until April 30ths to get at least 250 pre-orders. For only $7, you can get an e-copy of the book once it’s finished, and there are rewards for higher donations and purchases, much like gofundme.com or indiegogo.com. I really want to attract the attention of a publisher ASAP so that I can justify taking off a little time from work to write while everything is still fresh. You can read the book proposal and place your order here: https://publishizer.com/fractured-memories/

So do a girl a favor and tell everyone you know, and then pop over to place your order. And then pass me the bourbon because I’m about to have a heart attack. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you!

begging

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The Memorial Slide Show

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by emilypageart in death, dementia, music, singing, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Emily Page, memorial celebration, memorial service, music, Nick Page, singing, slide show

As part of the memorial celebration (video here), I also put together a slide show. The voice at the beginning is my dad’s from the radio show he did on WTJU for a little over 10 years. The first song is from Dad’s CD featuring him on saxophone and Greg Nossaman on piano. The second and third songs are me. I really wanted to sing for my dad’s farewell event, but knew that I wouldn’t be able to get through it during the service, so I figured I’d record it in advance and just add it to the slide show. The song “Smile” just reminds me of him, and the song “What a Wonderful World” was what he and I danced to at my wedding. Enjoy:

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The Eulogy

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by emilypageart in death, dementia, family, gratitude, kindness, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

be a star, dad, death, dementia, Emily Page, eulogy, father, frontal lobe dementia, frontotemporal dementia, memorial celebration, memorial service, Nick Page, stars, what my father taught me

Here is the eulogy I wrote for my father’s memorial celebration:

“A reading from the Book of Nick:

A guy who works in an aquarium gets summoned by his boss who is looking very worried. She says to him, “I’ve just been by the dolphin tank, and they’re feeling very amorous. They’re doing all sorts of things to each other. And the trouble is that in less than an hour, we’ve got three busloads of second-graders coming. We can’t have them watching those naughty dolphins. Now, there’s only one thing that acts as an anti-aphrodisiac for dolphins, and that’s the meat of baby seagulls. So I want you to go down to the seashore, catch yourself some baby seagulls, and hurry back. But be careful, a lion escaped from the zoo this morning, and though he was heavily sedated, he still just might be dangerous.” So the guy takes a shortcut through the forest to the seashore. He gets some baby seagulls and he’s walking back through the forest when he sees the lion and it is lying across the path directly in front of him. It’s too late to run away, and the feline does seem very placid, so, summoning up his courage, he steps across the lion. Nothing happens and, with much relief, the guy begins to resume his journey, when all of a sudden, a policeman steps out of the forest and grabs the guy and says to him, “You’re under arrest.” The guy can’t believe it and asks the officer what the charge is. The policeman says, “Transporting young gulls across a sedate lion for immoral porpoises.”

As pieces of my dad have slipped away over the last few years, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on what we’ve been losing and what I’ve been missing. Here are just a few: I miss dancing with my dad – at my senior prom, at my wedding, around the dinner table with the music turned up so loud the cats went running. I’m going to miss his easy laugh when we played the game where we tried to get the worst songs stuck in each other’s head, or when we could only speak in song titles or lyrics. I miss hiking in the woods with him, talking about everything that worried me or thrilled me, and how he took me so seriously, even when I was just a kid. I miss walking the train tracks with him, and laughing at Miss Piggy. I miss hearing him snoring down the hall, and late night sessions in high school laughing at televangelists when neither of us could sleep. I miss throwing rocks and playing pooh sticks and dad-the human-jungle-gym. I miss flattening pennies on the railroad track, or leaving pennies, head side up, in random places for strangers to find and saying, “This is going to make someone VERY happy!” I miss the handwriting that looked like he should have been a doctor. I miss the way he embraced my friends, assuming that if I loved them, he loved them. I miss imitating Beyond the Fringe and Jonathan and Darlene records with him. I miss our easy shorthand. I miss the way he looked at me when I sang. I miss how he’d rough house and snuggle with the kitties. I miss his Christmas newsletter. I miss his radio show. I miss watching him play at First Night Virginia and other gigs. I miss hearing him practicing to Jamie Abersold records in the background while I read. I even miss him farting and saying someone must have stepped on a frog.

I loved his firm belief in equal rights for everyone – women, men, black, white, gay, straight. I love that he taught me to stand up for what I believe in and to find a way to make a living doing what I love. He taught me to seek my own truth and not just accept what I’m told. He taught me that it’s okay to be a star, but to never forget that there are millions of other stars out there waiting for someone to recognize them for what they are – to treat people as if they, too, are important, special, and full of light. He taught me that life is a process and no decision is final, that we constantly choose and get to change course and reshape our lives. He taught me to clap on the 2 and the 4, and to relish the ridiculous. He taught me to say I love you early and often, and mean it.

Be a star

Ann Michaels wrote, “The dead are everywhere but the ground.” She’s right. My dad is in that distant train whistle. He’s in every lucky penny you find. He’s in your favorite jazz riff or dirty joke.

In the last 15 to 20 years, my dad wasn’t what you would call a religious man, but he was definitely spiritual. He looked for meaning in life, and I think he found it. The meaning in all of this, in all of you, is friendship, love. He was generous and loyal to a fault, and loved each of his friends deeply. And you’ve returned that love 10 fold. The cards and phone calls and gifts that you sent when he was diagnosed, when he had his final radio show, and when he was admitted into the dementia unit, the rides you offered to town when he had to stop driving, the visits to him in the dementia unit, all of it, was staggeringly kind. The staff at Our Lady of Peace was, frankly, amazed at the outpouring of love they saw from his friends and family on a daily basis. I think it helped them see who he had been before the disease. And when I would start to forget who my father had been and lose him in who he had become as a result of the dementia, those cards and such would remind me of why I still loved him so fiercely –  why I still LOVE him so fiercely.

So on his behalf, thank you for wholeheartedly returning his love.”

UPDATE: Darling readers, tomorrow or the next day, I’m hoping to be able to post video footage of the service so that anyone who had wanted to attend but couldn’t will be able to share in the beautiful day.

 

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Radio Tribute Show

19 Friday Feb 2016

Posted by emilypageart in culture, death, music, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Nick @ Nine, Nick Page, radio, radio tribute show, WTJU

The awesome folks at WTJU, the radio station where my dad had a jazz show called “Nick @ Nine” for over 10 years, have offered to do a couple tribute shows for him. Since I’ll be in town for the memorial on Sunday, they’ve invited me to join them for a show honoring him. So tune in Sunday, 2/21/16 from 10am-12pm on 91.1FM in Charlottesville, or streaming live at www.wtju.net. The show will also be archived for a week or two (go to the Archives page and look for the Jazzmania show hosted by Sandy Snyder), so if you can’t catch it live, you’ve got a little extra time. My understanding is that another show honoring him will happen from 9am-12pm on March 1st, too. I won’t be able to be part of that one, but the guys doing it have great musical taste, so I know it’ll be a great show. And Sandy Snyder did a tribute show on the 11th, which you can still catch for another couple days in the archive at Archives. Look for the show called Wild Women and Friends.

This radio station relies heavily on public support, so if you’re so inclined, please consider donating in memory of my dad.

Dad n Em doing the show

This picture was taken in 2011. It was the last radio show my dad and I did together. The next day, we moved him into the dementia care facility.

DSC_0023

But we had one hell of a dance party before we left.

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The Obituary

10 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by emilypageart in death, dementia, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

dementia, Nick Page, obituary

Dad's obit pic

Nicholas Allen Page died February 5, 2016  at Our Lady of Peace after living with frontotemporal dementia for several years. Nick enjoyed reminding people that he had a Nick name. When asked how he was (in the early stages of the disease), he’d reply, “Not bad for a demented guy.”  Typical of his humor. He loved people, cats, music, trains, cars, and walking.

Born in Indianapolis on Oct 30 1942 to Dr. Irvine Heinly and Beatrice Allen Page, the family moved to Cleveland  when he was two. The family spent summers on Cape Cod in Hyannis Port, where his brother learned to sail and Nick was ballast. He loved to go to the rail yard and greet the engineers who would let him ride in the cabs, classic of his lifelong love (obsession) of trains. Ultimately he achieved his dream of building his home along the railroad track, in Faber, VA, with the assistance of an architect with the last name Train.

He graduated from Wake Forest University, then served in the army in Vietnam. Upon return he became a stockbroker in Cleveland, then went to Chicago Theological Seminary for his MDiv, where he met the woman who became his lifelong best friend and wife, Arlene. The couple moved to Berkeley CA, where Arlene  got her MDiv at Pacific School of Religion and Nick got a certificate in Alcohol and Drug Abuse studies. He worked in several programs in the Bay Area. Their daughter Emily was born there, and immediately captured her daddy’s heart. Eventually the presence of earthquakes, droughts and fires, and the lack of seasons and lightning bugs led them to move east, finding Charlottesville the perfect place. Little did he know he was returning to ancestral territory.

At age 40, Nick decided he wanted to do what he really wanted to do, and he became a professional jazz musician, playing saxophones and clarinet. His band The Red Hot Smoothies provided music for many happy occasions around the Charlottesville area. His quick wit and love of performance made him the perfect band leader.

For ten years he was a DJ on WTJU, sharing music he loved with his listeners on “Nick at Nine” – “Monday morning jazz to make you feel good.” He also cohosted a monthly “New Month, New Music” show with fellow DJs. His warm personality radiated through the airwaves as he shared his love of music, both good and intentionally bad.

His concern with social justice led him to work for integration at Wake Forest and to protest the war upon his return from Vietnam. He also got a VW bus and grew a beard and long hair. His wife was just grateful he didn’t wear his combat boots to the wedding.

Nick relished the absurd, and loved a good dirty joke or a bad pun. One of his favorite games to play with his daughter was the musical ear worm: who can put the worst song in who’s head. He loved to dance around the kitchen with his cats and daughter, and run to the window to wave at the trains. (Yes, many dinner guests were persuaded to do so too.) But most of all he loved time spent with friends. Even as his disease took much of his ability to communicate full sentences, he could sing the lyrics to most songs with his visitors, and readily gave hugs and kisses.

In his declining years, he was blessed with visits by friends from across the country. Clearly the close friendships he had forged all his life have meant as much to his friends as they did to him. He made people know they are special.

Nick is survived by his wife Arlene Page, his daughter Emily Page and her husband Sebastian Page; his brother Christopher Page and his wife Carole; sister-in-law Laurel Wilson; and nieces, nephews, and cousins. Nick’s family would like to thank his caregivers from The Christopher Center and Hospice of the Piedmont, Dr. Carol Manning, and the staff at Bodo’s who all worked to make his final years enjoyable.

Memorial celebration will be arranged and announced soon.

Contributions may be made to Hospice of the Piedmont (www.hopva.org), WTJU (www.wtju.net), your local school music program, or the charity of your choice.

Here’s a link to the obituary that was posted in The Daily Progress today: Nick Page’s Obituary

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Emily Page

Emily Page

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