When I first came back to the Netherlands, I was very homesick for Northern California, specifically for Sonoma and the Sonoma Valley. I also missed the wine country and the beautiful wild coast and the redwood forests and the gentle hills below which the cows grazed. I really felt at home in Sonoma and [...]

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On Wednesday, the computer went terminal again and, despite all my efforts, I couldn’t get it to work again. I tried everything at least twice, but it just wouldn’t recover itself. So I shut it off and kissed it goodbye. Yesterday we got a new computer and we are so happy with it. It [...]

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Yesterday our computer started dying. It had actually already started to a few months ago by starting up veeeeeeery slooooowly when we turned it on. It was as if it had to come from some far away dark and deep place and it barely made it every time. It moved like a slow steam engine. [...]

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Yesterday, I took another dive into my closet and took out a big bag of old clothes that I knew had been there all along, but that I had sort of forgotten about. I didn’t remember what was in it and to my great surprise, I found seven summer dresses and a skirt in various [...]

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Jesker has two pillows to sleep on, one in the bedroom beside the bed and one in the living room behind Eduard’s chair. The one in the living room has just been replaced by a new, luxurious soft pillow. Jesker likes it very much. The problem is, that when he is off doing other dog [...]

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My psychiatrist reappeared from his two week absence and answered my emails comprehensively. It turns out that, when I say manic ideas and he says fixated ideas, we are actually talking about the same thing. So that is good to know. The story goes like this:
I live a relatively isolated existence, meaning I am on [...]

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After spending some days doing all sorts of household chores that I had neglected to do during my depression and mental instability, I decided to take a day off. It was a gloomy day and the sun didn’t really want to shine. I did some chores that absolutely need to get done (laundry, dishes) and [...]

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For today and the momentary mood I find myself in, two poems, both by Elinor Wylie :
PROPHECY
I shall lie hidden in a hut In the middle of an alder wood,With the back door blind and bolted shut, And the front door locked for good.
I shall lie folded like a [...]

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The new medication that I am on, Topamax, is sometimes called Dopamax, or Stupamax. By people who use it, of course, I don’t think the medical profession uses those terms. I found out yesterday evening why they sometimes call Topamax by those names. My memory kept playing tricks on me. It was as if I [...]

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I have lost 18 kilos now and a lot of my clothes are to big for me. I think that this is a very nice problem to have. So yesterday, I dove into my closet to find some pants that would fit me. After a bit of a search, I found two pairs of stretch [...]

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