Fortitude and stubborness.

It seems that I am bound to sit here all night writing posts. I am doomed to post writing, so it is very important that I point you to the post below this one which you really should read before this one here.

First for a new paragraph of Six sentences go here:

Hanging up Laundry.

Accolades will be received with the kindest of feelings and be hugged to my body for warmth. But that is not the post I am talking about, that one is down below. Once you’ve read that one, you can come back here.

I have actually gone to sleep for awhile but I am up and about again, after I started to drift off to sleep behind the computer. I had enough sense to safe this little bit of text in spite of my sleepiness.

I just read all of your comments that I received on my other post. You people don’t mess around, do you, you tell it straight like it is and that’s the way I like to hear it. So keep those comments coming to that one and this one as well, of course, but I got super feedback on the other one. You are all so righteously indignant for me and I need that after getting a bit of a brainwash here. Getting a bullshit story! It’s good to have friends like you who set me straight. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I need to hear the straight story, people.

I made some art last night, but now I have to find it as I forgot which folder I put it in. Hold on…there it is, at the top of the page, but I have lost the original image. They were stacked vegetable and fruit boxes. You’ll have to take my word for it, then. Scout’s honor.

The husband is still laying in bed having hopeful dreams, no doubt, that last night was all bit of a nightmare. Well, it was a bit of a nightmare, but that doesn’t make it less true. We’ll see what he is planning to do about his date today, as he didn’t want to discuss it last night, being very weary and having had too much wine too drink. I bet he’ll get up all cheerful an happy and pretend that nothing is basically wrong, except that Irene had a conniption fit that lasted 6 hours. But then she does have tendency to be mentally unstable, you know! A good night’s sleep will cure that. and some pills taken at the right time. Right!

I said tohim last night, “You two are a real right pair, you know, you don’t care what happens to someone else as long as you can be together.” Eduard says that basically it is my choice to react the way I do and that with time I’ll get over it. I think I will go and take my medicines now before I get overexcited again.

Okay, done that.My psychiatrist did increase my mood stabilizer yesterday and we’ll see if it has any effect, I should be able to tell fairly quickly in both the ups and downs, but that does not make me a mad woman who can’t reason and know when something is not right and goes against my better nature.! For God’s sake, I have been lied to.

Here is a portrait of me using lomography. I have to look the meaning of that word up.

Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, “happy accidents,” and alternative film processing are often considered part of the “Lomographic Technique.” Users are encouraged to take a lighthearted approach to their photography, and use these techniques to document everyday life, as the Lomo LC-A’s small size, simple controls, and ability to shoot in low light encourages candid photography, photo reportage, and photo vérité.

Well, you grow a little wiser every day, another word added to my vocabulary, although I think Lisa Sarsfield used it recently too on her photo page, which I have lost the link too.

I am so ready to get properly dressed now and to take on any battle I need to take on, although I know I’ve got all morning. I feel so damn righteous and he will make me feel like a child that always wants to get her way. Because he has been so good to me all these years. Talk about laying on the guilt!

Ciao, I must go powder my nose and put on my warpaint.

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Appel 1 Images number 8.

Sweet Beverley of Eleanor’s Blog saw it fit to reward me with the Intellectually Stimulating Blog Award of which I am very proud and for which I am very thankful. This proves my point that you can be a teacher for anyone out there and that everybody has a message to share. I have added the award to my other awards on the side of my blog and it is becoming quite a collection. Now I have to think off who to pass the award to myself, but I will have to mull that one over in my mind for a bit, although some people do come to mind right away. Although I think they may have already gotten it, so I have to come up with someone new. That’s why I need to think about this for a bit. Thank you, Beverley!

Some time last night I fell asleep on the sofa while Eduard was still at work. I vaguely heard him come home and the next thing I knew it was 1 am and I was still laying on the sofa but this time under the yellow blanket that Eduard had placed over me. I got up to take my medicines and to make myself a cup of decaf Senseo and smoke a cigarette. Then I laid back down, pulled the yellow blanket over me and slept until 7 am this morning. Wasn’t that nice? Maybe I am caught up on my sleep now and maybe I am back on a normal schedule now. At least, what counts as normal for me.

Yesterday was such an odd day, I felt half asleep for most of the day and I felt like I wasn’t really in the proper frame of mind to do anything of importance. Looking back, I can hardly remember how I got through the day. I had a feeling of jet lag mostly, which isn’t so strange when you consider I had been up two nights in a row. Or most of those nights anyway.

The good thing about getting a near normal night’s sleep is that I dream a lot too and I have to tell you that I dream about my son constantly. Whatever dream I am having, Brion is in it in some capacity. He either has the starring role or is just present in it. He is always there in the peripheries, if not in the middle of things. It makes my dreams extra special, even when they are very confusing and frustrating and sometimes even scary. Sometimes my dreams are just great big adventures and Brion tags along, watching what I do.

Last night we were on some Southern Pacific Islands, staying with people who lived very primitively and they caught their fish by diving off their canoes. There were two tribes whose only difference was in the way they worshiped the God who lived in the clams that grew on the side of the boats. Their interpretation was different, but they could tell each other apart from miles away. When they met each other, they all dove into the water to check each other’s clams.

They never had warfare, they just avoided each other as much as possible and they avoided contact with all strangers, yet we managed to communicate with them somehow. There was a witch doctor who could make people’s bones move inside their bodies and for good luck he wore dice in his ears that were very primitively carved. The children dove in the water as if they had always lived in it and they swam quickly and easily and the water was very clear. They pulled themselves up out off the water and into the boats quite easily.

Now, what can the significance of this dream be? Brion and I were there as observers and we were not considered any sort of a threat to these people. They acted as if we belonged there, or as if Brion belonged there and I was his much esteemed visitor. Brion has been dead for three years and if he is reincarnated as a villager in the South Pacific, he is too young to be diving off boats. Isn’t he? I will never know. The only clues I will ever have about Brion’s whereabouts are my dreams about him. And I hope that I will have many, many more. I do know one thing, they often seem to have to do with primitive people, as if Brion is gone from today’s modern world, and knowing Brion’s nature, that is not such a strange thing.

I got a rather upsetting phone call yesterday. A gentleman called from the bank where we thought we were getting our personal loan and told me that the loan had been disapproved. I was stunned, because we had signed all the paperwork and I thought the deal was done, but he said that they decided not to go through with it for reasons that I now can’t remember, because I was so upset when he told me it wasn’t going through. So, we are now back to square one. We are now going to make an appointment with Eduard’s personal bank and see if we can arrange something with them. This other bank specializes in giving short term loans and was not our regular bank, but we thought it would be easier to get a loan there. It sort of ruined the afternoon for me, when I thought the solution was already at hand and I don’t understand the reason why we were turned down. They sure gave us a lot of false hope.

Eduard is going to contact his bank today and make an appointment and we will see what happens. They must see for themselves how advantageous a personal loan is to us and to them. We cut our costs and they get our business. Let’s all hope for a good outcome, or let’s all hope for me to get a decently paid job quickly. It was rather upsetting and I was very uncomfortable for the rest of the day and I realized how much something like that could bother me and upset me and how dependent I am on things turning out okay and that I don’t handle adverse events very well at all. I am too fragile when it comes to things like this. At the same time, the next day I am ready to do battle again and I will try and win the cause all over again. So, I do have some rebound, if not immediately.

My daughter called yesterday to tell me that she will be coming to Europe with her boyfriend for the winter holidays. I have been keeping silent about the boyfriend, because I don’t want to jinx things, but he sounds like a keeper and so far, so good. They have known each other for 5 months now and that seems like a long enough time to get to know each other really well. They had a lot of chance to spend quality time together this summer when my grandson was staying in Germany with his paternal grandparents and that really cemented the relationship. I don’t want to say too much about it yet, because it is all so new and in its developing stages and I don’t want to put any pressure on anybody to get really serious. 5 Months sounds like a long time, but in terms of relationships it isn’t, of course, it is just a beginning. But I must say, that I am looking forward to the holidays now very much and I hope, sure as heck, that I am not in one of my famous dips then as I have been known to be at t
hat time of the year. I must be cheerful, I must be able to be smiling and be upbeat. See, I’m not putting any pressure on myself at all!

The laundry I had drying outside, got soaked wet from the rain that we had overnight. I hung it all up to dry in the bathroom and I have another load waiting in the washing machine. Then I will be ironing again. And I must still vacuum. The vacuum cleaner is now making desperate noises from its place in the closet, it wants to be let out badly, but I am finding it very difficult to let it out. Well, it is not letting it out that is hard, it is turning it on and moving it around the apartment that is the hard part. Its the noise that is going to bother me, that and the fact that I am always bumping it into the furniture and that I scare the cats with it and that they all go into hiding. I find it all very frustrating and I don’t do frustrating very well right now at all. I think I need to double up on my Oxazepam and then vacuum, maybe that would work. If only there were a frustration pill one could take. Well, I suppose that is what Oxazepam really is, an anti anxiety pill.

That’s one of my warning signs that things aren’t going so well with me; the level of my anxiety changes. Normally I am a very mellow laid back person. What you would call a typical Californian, dude. But then that time of year comes and my anxiety levels go up and I tend to freak out over little things that would not have bothered me before. I feel many frustrations then also. I become an anxious, frustrated woman. I become short tempered and short fused and less kind than I really am. I can’t blame the circumstances, the change lies completely with me. It is my own reaction to things that changes. The world stays the same, I change. I try not to take that out on poor Eduard, that’s why the Oxazepam is so important. I might otherwise turn into a real bitch and become unbearable to live with. I would often be unkind and short tempered and blame him for whatever wasn’t going right and that just isn’t right at all. You can’t do that to another person. So, it is better for me and the world around me if I take the pills and mellow out. All of our nerves are helped by it.

Eduard has been taking Sarotex for several moths now. They are the anti depressants that are supposed to help him stop smoking. He hasn’t stopped yet, but he has cut way back and I think that he is just about ready to quit completely. It has been interesting to see a non depressive person take anti depressants. At first I didn’t notice any changes in him, but lately I notice that he is a lot more mellow. Don’t get me wrong, he is always a cheerful character, but he did have the tendency to have a short fuse when it came to watching the news and listening to dumb politicians and reading the paper without becoming very upset. He seems to do a lot less of that now. He is a lot calmer and much more even tempered, so I jokingly said to him that he should stay on the medication, even if he did not stop smoking. I was only half joking. I asked him if he noticed any differences and he did say that things at work seemed a lot easier to deal with. That he felt very much less frustrated with other people and was able to walk away from a frustrating situation more easily. So, maybe…

Well, in the meantime it is well past the time to walk the very patient dog. So, I must go and do that now. I am amazed by his bladder control in the morning and then when I take him out, he very sparingly pees on each bush, so it isn’t as if he goes with a great deal of relief. The cats are impatient for their food, however, and let me know that by staring at me intently.

So, have a great day, everybody, Here’s to me having a normal day after a normal night’s sleep and here’s to all of you having a normal day also. Ciao…

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Oranges Mandalas 1, 2 and 3

Well, I am suitably in the right mood to write something halfway sensible down now. It is rather late and I have been reading other people’s blogs and trying to leave witty comments and become inspired by their muses. Speaking of muses, Neda had an interesting post about them here.

I got up rather late this morning, it was six am, can you believe it? I slept from nine pm until that time this morning and I only got up once in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I just don’t know what is wrong with me. As a result, I am running behind in everything, even in the amounts of coffee I have had to drink, so I am quickly trying to catch up by fixing myself lots of cups of Senseo, which I was going to save and drink only for special occasions, like that first cup in the morning, but which I am now drinking more often than not, because I am hooked on the taste of it. Besides, I drink it because I’m worth it. I don’t know how many of you will agree with this statement, but I am completely convinced of it.

I think there are times in my life when I am self indulgent in the little things. I don’t need great big expensive things that cost huge amounts of money, but I like little treats like a good perfume to wear or a good cheese to snack on or a good cup of coffee. It’s these little things that make the day seem special and worth while. I like it especially when Eduard is the person who indulges me with them. When he is the person who comes home with the treats. It makes me feel loved and appreciated, although I never feel that I have to do anything special to deserve them. I get them for just being me and nothing more than that. Sort of for being the spoiled queen around here and Eduard is my well armored knight who goes out in the world to slay dragons and brings back trophies. I do like the way that works. Eduard would be my Saxon knight and I would be his lady in the ancient moated castle.

I suppose we may have been these people in a former life and I would like to think that Eduard and I knew each other in that capacity in the middle ages. Both of us in warm cloaks riding our trusty steeds across the moors on foggy winter mornings. Making love in an apple orchard surrounded by curious cows and buzzing bees on a summer’s day in June. Oh no, that really did happen. I am confusing my lives and my memories. I do like to think that I have always known Eduard and that I am always going to know him. All the way into eternity. He is my complementary soul.

I had an odd dream last night. I dreamed that I was with Brion and that we were staying at a big motel and that David showed up there looking for me. In my dream, I didn’t want to see him and I wanted to hide from him, so Brion and I walked to the inner part of the motel, which was like a labyrinth, until we came to a large room in which we could see all the constellations on the high ceiling. There we hid behind the furniture while David searched for us, but didn’t find us. Brion was very young and healthy and powerful and not scared of anything. I felt very safe with him. David traveled in a large car with his ex wife, whom he is living with now. He told her many lies about me and wanted to prove to her that I was as crazy as he had told her I was, but then couldn’t. He had told her the lies to cover up his own craziness, so she would stay with him and never leave him, which is what he wanted all along. I was just a pawn in that game. In my dream, I felt a real fear for him and absolutely did not want him to find me. That is the unconscious speaking, of course. It is probably close to the truth. I wonder about the constellations and if they represented the heavens where Brion is now. So much symbolism and I have to pay attention to it.

I like dreaming about Brion. I always feel very close to him when I do, as if he is very real to me and I can touch him and feel what that is like. I can feel his skin and the solidness of it. And see his beauty and he was a beautiful man. I am glad he goes on living inside of me.

Yesterday, I took two long naps on the sofa, In the morning I started watching An American Haunting, which was supposed to be a pretty scary movie, but I fell asleep after the first ten minutes and I didn’t wake up until after it was well finished and a completely different movie was playing. In the evening, after Eduard went to work, I fell asleep again and didn’t wake up until it was time to go to bed. So I just take my medicines and get the Melba Toast and a glass of milk and off I go to the bedroom, where I barely have time to eat the toast and drink the milk before I am sound asleep again. I seem to do a lot of sleeping, which must come with hibernation. I am not that physically active, yet I am feeling tired and sleepy all the time and I want to cuddle up all over the place.

On Friday, when it is my birthday, I have an appointment with the temp agency about the job/training program and I do want to be extra perky then. I wish I was more of a talker and I could sell myself better and I think I will bring the test results of my original tests that I did for the CWI. They say a lot about my abilities. I will have to dress nicely and look like a dynamic sort of person in spite of my age. Some well applied make up will help and some nice jewelry will also help a bit. Luckily, my hair has grown out a bit and I no longer look like a middle aged version of Sinnead O’Connor.

I can’t believe I am turning 53, but it doesn’t seem like such an awfully old age. It does sound very mature and it makes me feel like I have finally arrived at that age when I will be taken seriously. In my mind, I am still in my thirties and I suppose I will always stay there. I figure I have thirty good years left in me at least, and that is a long time to be alive and do all sorts of things yet. Life isn’t nearly over yet. God only knows what it holds in store for me yet, what is around the corner and what challenges I face still. As long as I get to have Eduard by my side, I am willing to face up to a lot.

Mostly I hope for sort of a dull roar with the occasional burst of excitement. It doesn’t have to be anything earth shattering. I think this blogging world is quite exciting and making the mandalas is and winning the poetry contest is (see below). Getting a job will add a lot of fun to the equation, not to speak of the financial reward. I certainly enjoy making these new virtual friends. It is just as good as making real life friends, if not better.

Well, I suppose I better get the day started now by cleaning up the kitchen and dragging out the vacuum cleaner. There are some drifts of dog hair again and the sofa needs to be vacuumed. Oh joy! My Oxazepam makes me feel so good, that I almost don’t want to interrupt my good mood with doing those mundane things. Well, I look at it this way, as long as by Friday the apartment i
s clean, then all will be well with the world. I will have done my duty.

Have a terrific day, people. Hope you get sunshine where you need it and rain where you need that. Ciao…

P.S. I had claimed in an earlier post that Eduard is 57. He is not, he is 56 and three and a half years older than I am. When we were dating as teenagers, this was not really a problem, as Eduard was a bit of a late bloomer, but he was an incredibly sweet young man who never took advantage of the fact that he was older than I was. We were both very much of the romantic kind and liked classical music and long walks in the woods and summer afternoons in the fields. We drank rosé and had philosophical discussions. As far as I was capable of having those with my young mind anyway. At the time, we were too young to appreciate each other’s uniqueness, but it is much better now that we have lived a lot and bring all of that experience to the relationship.

We have developed separate from each other, but have both developed a healthy dose of deadly humor and just the right amount of cynicism. We both turned out to be good people and Eduard was just as I had left him, a very decent and sweet human being, albeit a little disappointed with life. Hopefully he has gotten over that by now, as I have.

P.P.S. I have discovered another blog. It is called Wife in the North and you can find it here. She is quite funny and very English.

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Old Pisa Door Mandalas 1, 2 and 3

With the generous help of Rima, I was able to transform my blog into something more personal. I picked the Minima template from Blogger and then added a picture of a mandala to the header. Rima explained to me how to do this. So you see how even a person as inexperienced as I can do such a thing. Once you’ve done it, you think, “Well, that wasn’t so difficult! I should have done that months ago!” Of course, months ago I didn’t know Rima. She is always the first one to come up with good suggestions and the person to help you out with something that you are trying to do. So, three cheers for Rima.

I weighed myself this morning and I weigh 92.4 kilos, in spite of the fact that I had a peanut butter sandwich, which made me feel very full and uncomfortable, but was worth every bite. Sometimes you just have to have something as finger licking good as that, when you are just drooling at the idea of it. And I know that I am not allergic to peanuts, but I do have a very weepy and itchy ear and I then have to assume that this is still the effect of the corn in the little potato salads that I eat every day. I refuse to take out the corn, because it tastes so good and there is so little of it and I don’t have the self discipline. I am very self indulgent. As a matter of fact, I wish I had one of those little potato salads now and I would eat it right away.

I got a new prescription for the Oxazepam from my psychiatrist and he has no problem with me using it for now at all, which I think is very generous of him and which also shows that he trusts me when it comes to my medications. He does know that I ask for something only when I need it, be it something extra like this or an increase in a dosage of something. He never gives me a hard time about it and it always works out well.

This in contrast to my friend Lucien who often gets nil on her requests, but there must be a good reason for that and I don’t know what that is, of course, and I have to be careful what I say about my medications to her lest she starts comparing too much. Every time she gets turned down for something, I only hear her side of the story and although I have a lot of sympathy for her, I don’t know all the reasons behind it, of course, and I do have to be careful how I react to it. I know her husband doesn’t believe in medication to cure what ails her and that is a real shame, because it means that she does not have his support in this area, when medications are so important in fighting a chemical imbalance and can do so much good. He thinks it is all junk and the less she takes, the better. It seems to me that he needs to be educated a little bit better. It’s like saying to a diabetic that he ought not to take insulin. Or to a migraine sufferer that he should not take pain pills.

The Topamax, which is the medication I take as a mood stabilizer, was originally developed as an anti epileptic and for people who suffered from extreme migraines. It works in the temporal lobes on the sides of your head. It was discovered that this medication also worked as a mood stabilizer and I can tell you that for me it has worked beautifully. When I started taking it in February, it got me out of my depression very nicely and since I have been taking it, I have felt better than I had in many years. It is sort of a miracle drug for me. I take it along with two kinds of anti depressives and an anti psychotic medication. All these drugs together make me feel ‘normal’ most of the time. Nobody can tell that I take this much medication, as I function normally just like anybody else and I am not in the least impaired, except for some of my short term memory.

I seem to suffer from S.A.D. in other words, I get depressed in the winter time, about half of the year as a matter of fact. When the light changes toward the fall, I change too, although there were years when my depressions never really lifted and I stayed chronically depressed throughout the year. Not since I am on the Topamax however. It lifted me out of it completely. Now I notice a sort of gloominess settling over me. I am not depressed, but I feel less motivated and excited to do things and I want to hibernate. I also noticed that I was getting a bit short tempered, and I don’t want to be, as it is projecting my own feelings onto other people and that is not fair to them. I have to always keep track of my moods, so things don’t suddenly take me by surprise when they have been brewing for days and weeks already. Sometimes you don’t notice the subtle changes, but they all start to add up to something bigger and before you know it, you have a problem on your hands.

Luckily, I live with a very even tempered man, he is very predictable and basically always in the same mood, which is mostly cheerful. You always know ahead of time what Eduard will be like when he gets up in the morning and what he will be like when he comes home from work. There is no moping and moodiness. He is emotionally very healthy, while at the same time having all of his little quirks that make him so endearing to me. His reactions to my shifts in moods are always very rational and we discuss them in a very rational manner. We don’t let them turn into emotional dramas. We take them as facts of life and deal with them accordingly. We discuss how we will handle them and what the best course of action will be. Firstly we always look at what can be done with the medication, then we look at how we can arrange our lives to accommodate the mood. It means that Eduard lowers his expectations of me temporarily and gives me a little bit of space to be less functioning in. He takes over some of the things that I find harder to do and doesn’t plan any emotionally strenuous activities. Most importantly, he lets me be me, imperfect as that is.

We had to learn all of these things, of course. We did a lot of reading and thinking about it and we talked a lot about how we understood the problem to be. There were a couple of books that really helped us, the most important one being Against Depression by Peter D. Kramer. That was a very helpful and insightful book into how a depression works in your mind and what it does and doesn’t do. I think it helps to be intelligent and to be willing to learn as much as you can about the affliction. Sticking your head in the sand never helps, especially not for the people who are the fellow sufferers. Ignorance is a very dangerous thing. It perpetuates myths.

Well, sometimes I have to discuss these things for the obvious reason that I need to reach out and touch as many people as I can, because I know there are many people out there who one way or the other come in touch with depression, either because they have it themselves, or because a loved one has it or a friend of the family. I recommend reading the right books as a source of information and going to support groups, although they can be a bit off putting with everyo
ne sitting around looking very gloomy if there is not the proper person running the group. Educating yourself is the best thing you can do and being very proactive and assertive about getting the best care and the best medications. Don’t be a passive patient.

Yesterday was such a lazy day. All morning I sat behind the computer. When Eduard left in the morning, I was sitting behind the computer and when he came home at noon time, I was still sitting there. He just grinned at me for being so addicted. I got up quickly and cleaned up the kitchen and then made cigarettes, but the little machine wouldn’t work right and Eduard had to go out and get a new one at the tobacco store. Then my friend Lucien called and we had a conversation about moods and frustrating husbands and uncooperative psychiatrists and I tried to be very understanding and I feel her frustration. I would hate to be in her position and feel that my back was against the wall in what I was trying to attain.

The afternoon went by very pleasantly with Eduard and me taking turns behind the computer and me saying that maybe we need to get wireless and an extra lap top. We would never be able to get a divorce, because we would fight about the computer. It belongs to us equally, although I act very proprietary towards it. I always act like it belongs more to me than to him. Eduard has his own computer at work, but of course he doesn’t get to do all sorts of fun things on it.

After dinner, when Eduard had gone to work again, I fell asleep on the sofa and slept for two hours and when I woke up, I turned the computer on again, even though I was so sleepy and I could hardly keep my eyes open. I checked for emails and comments and there were some, but I was actually not in any shape to react to them coherently. So, I did the smart thing and took my medications and went to bed. I took Melba toast and a tall glass of cold milk with me and had a little party while I was almost falling asleep. I am reading Mythology for Dummies and it really is for dummies, which includes me when I go to bed at night and my brain has just about stopped functioning. For someone who is a voracious reader, I am certainly not reading a lot right now. The computer takes up so much of my time and when I do read during the day, I fall asleep over my book. I have to start the Unicorn by Iris Murdoch and see if it will really grab my attention like her books usually do. I can’t become an illiterate at this stage of my life.

When I am in the GP’s office, I read the women’s magazines that he has there and I think they are so bad, because they make it out as if everything in life is just all wonderful and cozy and compartmentalized into happy little blocks of life in which everybody lives happily ever after if they just decorate their table right and wear the right kind of summery clothing. They are full of feel good stories and uplifting articles and good looking families. Mostly blond and blue eyed. They very rarely discuss anything gritty or disagreeable and if they do, it is in a very saccharine way, with always a happy ending for all.

Okay, That’s enough of my rambling now. I must make some more coffee and have another cup of Senseo. There are no animals around yet, everybody is still asleep. Sometimes I hear Eduard snore and make funny noises in his sleep. He must be dreaming.

Have a wonderful day, even when you are B.A.D. or S.A.D. Ciao…

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The Queen and Politics.

Well, here I am sitting with my nose plugged up again. For someone who is not supposed to have any allergies any more, it sure happens on a regular basis, which makes me doubt the allergy test. Or maybe I had something to eat that I am allergic to, because yesterday my head was itching quite a bit too. Oh yes, I know, there was corn in the little containers of potato salad and I did not pick it out of it. I just ate it. I like to live dangerously!

Yesterday turned out to be a very lazy day, because Eduard was gone all day. In the morning he had a work meeting with his volunteer operators and the rest of the day he spent with his friend Lieve and they rode their motorcycles together and visited a motorcycle parts swap meet in Belgium. They have decided to be buddies and maybe I should worry about this, but I am not, because I have to trust Eduard and I trust Lieve and I think they’ll both behave like the responsible adults they are. Besides that, Lieve is such a cool woman, she wears her tough looking motorcycle gear, yet she is gracious and feminine underneath it all. She is almost single handily restoring the roof on her 17th century barn. The roof is quite steep and it is no easy job, but she just makes up her mind and does it. I like those kinds of women and I think she is good for Eduard to hang out with. She is a real tough, yet gentle broad.

They came and had dinner here in the evening and watched that movie called The world’s fastest Indian, which is about motorcycles, of course and we drank Rooibos tea, because, of course, she had to ride her motorcycle home still. We showed her our pictures of California and our early courting days and Eduard showed her his book of photographs of all the motorcycles he has owned. Our cat Nouri likes her a lot and went to sit on her lap, which she doesn’t do very quickly with strangers. So, we had a nice relaxing evening and as a result, we went to bed rather late and I was out cold in no time at all once I was under the covers. I love feeling so exhausted when I go to bed. You know, when you are bone weary and you hardly feel like getting undressed, but just want to lie down and close your eyes.

I spent the day taking a nap on the sofa, which was very nice and I needed it and I did some laundry, which I hung to dry in the bathroom, because I didn’t know what the weather was going to do. It looked like rain, but then it never did. I hung out behind the computer quite a bit, because I have so many blogs to read now and so many comments to leave behind and then to go back and see if anyone had reacted on the comments yet. Very compulsive, and I have what Neda calls, B.A.D. Blogging Addicted Disorder. For the symptoms look here. I understand there is no cure for it and it is a life long affliction. I also do a lot of blurfing, which is surfing for blogs and which is Rima’s term.

I also did my share of Paint Shopping and made some new mandalas, which I am mildly happy with and some of them I may post here today. Some turn out better than others, it just depends on your subject and the colors of it and the happy circumstances of the combination of effects, which sometimes you have control over and sometimes not. But I did say that I would also post the lesser turned out ones and so I will. A few mandalas a day keep the doctor away. That would be doctor Freud, as doctor Jung broke with him early on in the relationship and a good thing that he did too. I see that it is very important to use the lamps and the sunlight as effects while making the mandalas, as they give them depth and shadows.

I am sitting here yawning, which is kind of unusual as I am usually quite perky in the morning. Every time I yawn, I am afraid that my jaw is going to get stuck open, as this happened to me one day and I had to go to the emergency room and have it put back together again. I had dislocated my jaw yawning. Sometimes it feels like that is going to happen again and I very quickly close my mouth. There is a way to yawn properly to prevent it from slipping out, but sometimes I forget and I just yawn spontaneously. I think that a lot of people at that time thought that I had really been hit by my ex, because they couldn’t believe that someone could dislocate their jaw by yawning. Not that my ex went around hitting me!

Eduard is up now, having his breakfast and Jesker is waiting patiently for his little piece of it. Eduard is used to going to bed later and manages to be perkier this morning than I am. He is already engrossed in a novel and can read with his whole mind present and accounted for. I am sitting here having one cup of coffee after another trying to wake up properly. I wonder if I accidentally made decaf instead of regular coffee. I will have to make a new pot to make sure. And then have another cup of Senseo, extra strong dark roast, that ought to do the trick!

I have been taking the Oxazepam three times a day and I find that it helps me get through the day quite nicely without feeling the stress that I had been feeling lately. When it works, I feel so relaxed and everything is so much easier to do. I really do feel that a weight drops of my shoulders. I had only just realized that I was carrying a weight there and I am sure that it is the weight of the coming fall and winter that is laying there. The weight of finding everything just a bit harder to do. The weight of postponing things and of not being motivated and of wanting to sit and not do anything substantial. The Oxazepam makes me feel lighter and makes it easier to do things. I take one first thing in the morning and it takes about half an hour for it to start working and I really notice the difference when it does. I usually end up taking Oxazepam in the wintertime and then go off it again in the springtime when my mood lifts again. I never have any problems stopping it, I don’t seem to get addicted to it like some people do.

Eduard left to go to work, but then came back in again to get his rain gear, because it is raining outside. We still had the shades down so hadn’t noticed that it was raining. Now the dog will have to wait for his walk a bit. Luckily he has a very strong bladder and he doesn’t like to go out in the rain. If it takes too long, though, I’ll have to take him with an umbrella and he’ll just have to get wet and get that good stinky dog smell until he dries again. He does like to be rubbed with a big towel and we both enjoy doing that and getting him as dry as possible.

So, the Oxazepam is working properly now and so is the coffee. I am perky and awake now. It took awhile but I got there in the end. I had the strangest dreams last night. I dreamed about the queen and that I was visiting her and that we were good friends and I helped her arrange her tea service for some guests that she was expecting. Then suddenly I discovered that I was a lesbian and it turned out I had a girlfriend who took me to a western American town that had a saloon where gay couples hung out and drank whisky while their children played in the dusty street. Homosexuals went to a clinic on the top of a hill and learned how to have safe sex. There were doctors there who assisted in the whole process and it was very graphic. Well, I do have an imagination, don’t I? I would have liked to have stayed with
the queen a bit longer, but I dream about the queen regularly and she is always a good friend of mine. I wonder if the queen ever dreams about her loyal subjects? I am always joking that I will clean the apartment really well in case the queen comes by to drink tea with us. It sort of motivates me when I don’t feel like doing anything. She’ll have to bring her own tea cakes, because we don’t have any of those at all.

Those are two high ranking people I dream about regularly, the queen and the pope. Both symbolically important people with just the right amount of authority. I suppose I secretly would wish to stand in their shoes, as they say here. Or be their confidant and whisper radical suggestions in their ears, which they would then take very seriously and follow up on. Maybe I have Machiavellian tendencies. Or maybe I would be like Rasputin at the Russian court. I never considered forming my own political party as I have never been quite sure what I would exactly stand for, that knowledge has become more clear to me as I have become older and more European again. But I think I would love to be an influential person somewhere at the top. A person who would get consulted on important issues and who would then say,”Well, let me sleep on that one night and I will give you my decision.” This would force me to read many newspapers as I still believe in the power of the press and the independence of Dutch newspapers.

Dream on, Irene. Voting is the closest I will ever come to that dream and that is not half bad after not having been able to for twenty two years. I do take it very seriously and stay up on election night and watch the results come in. With electronic voting that is done quickly and the results are known before midnight. It is very exciting to watch your political party gain seats in the government. It is as good as watching an exciting football match. I cheer too.

The queen is an enigma. She can never speak her mind and has to keep away from anything political, when you would like so very much to hear where she stands on issues. She has to remain silent and be an impartial player. She helps form the government, but we will never know her personal preferences. I would love it if she would one day make a speech and just clearly state what is on her mind when it comes to the state of the country. She supposedly does this in the State of the Union address, but it is written for her by the prime minister, although she can refuse to say things if she disagrees. We just don’t know.

Well, before you all get bored with this post, I better end it now. I could go and ramble on for a long time yet now that I am so clearly awake. I will write more in another post when I post some of the mandalas of the blue flower I made.

Have a great day, everybody. I know my family tree very well and I absolutely have no blue blood anywhere. Ciao…

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Old Pisa Door 3 with Pattern.

First things first, before I forget, I have added another blog to my list of favorite blogs. Yes, there is no end to the fun I have discovering these. Actually, this one discovered me first and I have gone to visit her. Her name is Laurie and she has a blog called Three Dog Blog that you can visit here. She writes about her dogs and all sorts of things and you know I am a sucker for a good dog story, loving my own dog so much. So, I think for now that is enough new blogs to get acquainted with, unless you people run into something really interesting. I do love blogs with a good story, beside all the ones with good art I visit.

I do think, by the way, that it is that time of the year again, Outside it is starting to feel like Autumn and inside of me it is starting to feel like Autumn too. The light outside is different, even though it is only just now September. The sunlight is more oblique and hesitant and the air already is starting to feel crisp and brittle. You can tell that the trees are getting ready to change the color of their leaves soon. In the afternoon, you can still go outside without a jacket, but when I walk the dog in the morning I bundle up, because it is just a bit cold out there.

Things in nature are starting to slow down, getting ready for hibernation, and I notice that I am starting to move into the same mode. I am slowing down also and I am getting ready to hibernate a bit myself. I am like a clam wanting to close its shell. Or like a bear wanting to go into its cave, more likely. My thought is, that all over the world, people who live in temperate zones are going to have a tendency to do this. They feel winter approaching and want to hibernate inside by the warm stove, hidden from the elements and the short days inside cozy well lit rooms.

I usually mentally slow down in the winter time. If I am going to get my famous depressions, Autumn is the time when they start. There is nothing I can do about them, but bear in mind that this is true about me and kind of hunker down and wait for the worst of it to pass. I have started to use the Bright Light Energy Lamp in the morning already, because I am up so early and it is so dark in the apartment. I bathe in the white light of it while I sit here behind the computer. I really recommend it to people who get gloomy when the weather changes in the fall.

I have noticed that this past week I am not my normal cheerful self. That doesn’t mean that I am suddenly feeling all oppressed and down. It just means that some of my get-up-and-go is gone. I am not as lively as I have been. Given the choice, I would rather not do something than do it. I would rather not go for a walk or go into town or visit with my sister. I would rather just sit here and while away the hours behind the computer, which is a nice low energy activity. I would rather not clean house and not iron the clothes and not do the dishes, and remember, I said that I would know that I would be in trouble if I started to not like doing these things.

So, I have to make it a point to keep doing the things that I don’t enjoy doing so much now. Busyness therapy is the best therapy for when you want to just hang out on the sofa and stare at your navel or contemplate the walls, while you drink numerous cups of Senseo and smoke many cigarettes. It would help if there was someone here with a big stick to motivate me into action. Or someone who would give me pep talks like a coach would to his team that is behind in scoring. Instead I have to perform those functions myself and trust that I will do a good enough job at it.

Now, last year in September, I was definitely depressed. I remember how difficult it was to do something as simple as take a shower. I just was unable to do it. And how hard it was to get dressed properly. You mean I can’t wear these clothes that I have been wearing for two weeks now with these comfortable old socks with holes in them? And don’t even talk about my hair! You mean I have hair that needs to be washed and combed and cut? How will I ever manage that? The apartment was a mess and so was I. Eduard tried to manage things but all during the winter, things kept falling apart more and more, while I sat on the sofa like an inanimate object and watched life pass me by.

So, I hope I am spared that misery this winter, even though I already notice a shift in my mood. And here I was hoping to be a little hypo manic before Autumn really started. I really thought I would end the summer with a final blast. Being hypo manic is such a lovely experience, I very gladly would have put up with the extra energy it requires to get through the day. It was wonderful when it happened earlier this summer and I was such a religious fanatic and going into town three times a week to pray at the chapel. I look back at it as a wonderful time, because it was great to be in town all those times, surrounded by people and tourists and being in the chapel with all those hundreds of candles burning and other people fervently praying like I was.

I was really hoping to have an experience like that again before winter time. Which reminds me of my friend Lucien, who has been suffering from low moods lately, out of which she comes with some regularity, only to sink back into them again after some time. She had asked to be included in the light therapy program that they have at the local hospital here, but she did not get permission from her psychiatrist. Apparently there was a contraindication, because there is the danger that the light therapy will make her manic, as she also suffer from a bipolar disorder. I said to her, “God, if I knew my lamp was going to make me hypo manic, I would sit in front of it all day!” Apparently, she wanted to go out and buy her own lamp. but her husband told her that if she did, she could move out and go to live in an apartment on her own. End of discussion.

She is always a little jealous of me, because I very casually mention that I get a good doses of sleep medication, when she has to fight to get hers and now I am also taking the Oxazepam during the day and she couldn’t believe that my psychiatrist agreed on letting me have that. The thing is that we have the same psychiatrist, but for whatever cause, we do not get treated the same way and I am sure that he has his reasons for that. I usually get the medication I ask for if I need it and she doesn’t, so there must be a reason for that, although it is a well known fact that I do not abuse my medication and stop taking tranquilizers as soon as I don’t need them anymore and I don’t know the role that these medications play in Lucien’s life. Maybe she relies on them too much. I’ll have to have a discussion about that with her. We have the same bipolar disorder, so she probably assumes that we should always be taking the same medications.

Anyway, having a mood disorder is no sinecure. Sometimes I makes it hard to plan your life, especially if you have long term goals in mind. You don’t know in what frame of mind you will be three or six months from now. How much energy you will have and how much interest you will be able to take in a project. It is probably best for me to not make any drastic changes in the wintertime, but having said that, I am in the process of arr
anging that job/training thing now and I do want to be able to see that through. I have gone too far in the process to drop out of that. That would really be a shame. I’ll see it through somehow. It is imperative that I get a job,a as I need the money, not because I am bored, because I am finding that there are lots of things in my life to fill my days.

First I have my birthday coming up next week and I am still looking forward to it. Eduard says that he has gotten me a present that I am really not expecting and I am totally clueless. He said it is nearly the size of a breadbox. That’s the only clue he would give me after I asked him about that. My sister has ordered me an article of clothing and it should arrive any day now, She keeps asking me if it has arrived yet, but I have to tell her no, it hasn’t. We just hope it gets here before my birthday. Erica is always generous with her birthday presents for me, usually I get some very nice perfume from her, but I think this year I am not getting any perfume and I will have to make do with the almost empty bottles that I have left. I use them sparingly, making them last as long as I can.

Since today is Saturday, Eduard doesn’t have to work all day long, nor does he have to work this evening, which is a real treat. It is always nice to have him home and it does motivate me to get things done around here. It seems that his presence goads me into action. It must mean that I want to show him that I am a good housewife after all and not to despair. I will do the ironing today, that is a promise I making publicly now, so I won’t be able to get out of it, or did I claim that earlier this week too? I know I am all caught up on the laundry and that is a good sign still.

No matter what happens, I will walk the dog, although I have been known to try to get out of his 5 pm walk. I bat my eyelashes at Eduard and ask him please to do it for me instead and sometimes that works. Eduard is such a good guy. The dog doesn’t mind who takes him, as long as he gets to roam around on the field a bit. When the boys aren’t playing football there, we can set him loose and he can have a wander about. He walks along the fence and pees on all the weeds there and marks his territory, because he thinks it is his field.

Well, it is time to make a cup of very good Senseo and read some other people’s blogs, before I have to feed the cats and walk the dog. I do have quite a selection of blogs to read now in the morning, I don’t have all of them listed on my blog roll yet. Some of them I am still trying to make up my mind about.

Have a wonderful day, people. Hope the weather is wonderful and the day treats you right. Ciao…

P.S. Okay you guys, I am adding one more blog. It is called The American Lady and you can find her here.

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Philosophizing.

After having gone to bed at the very late hour of ten o’clock last night, I woke up this morning at 5:30, which was agreeable because I needed to catch up on some sleep. You are all thinking, “What is she talking about, 5:30 am isn’t late!” But when you know me better, you know that for me that is late in the morning. As a result, I am running behind on my schedule and now I have already fed the cats and walked the dog. I was sitting here earlier, reading blogs, when I realized that I had forgotten to make cigarettes last night, so I had to stop everything and do that first of all. I can’t sit here reading blogs, drinking Senseo, without having something to smoke. God forbid!

Before you do anything else this morning, go to Neda at Papiers Collés and look at her handsome collage. I think the one today is especially attractive. I keep going back to look at it. Her work is so delicate and tender and yet so strong and present. These are handmade collages, they are not digitally made and they are available at Maraya Galleries here. Just a plug for someone whom I think is a great artist and who deserves the recognition.

I am still plowing my way through the ‘how to do Paint Shop Pro 8’ book. Sometimes I don’t understand something and I have to ask Eduard for help. He usually figures it out for me. I can’t believe how thick headed I can be sometimes. I’ll be reading the instructions, and looking at the screen, and have no idea what they are talking about. Eduard tries a few things and presto! He’s got it the way they meant it to be. Then he can explain it to me in easy terms so that I promptly forget it and have to look it up again. I think owning the book is no added luxury. I’ll have to buy one if I am to also download Paint Shop permanently.

I am learning all these things to do and questioning how and why I am going to apply them all. Some of them are obvious, some of them I don’t see myself doing yet. I am sure it is all part of a big master plan that I don’t comprehend yet. I suppose it will all dawn on me one day, when I am actually brave enough to sit down and try to design something from scratch. I see that I need to put in lots of practice hours and that whatever I have done so far is nothing compared with what can be done. I am not looking for approval, I am just being very realistic here.

This morning I weighed 92.4 kilos and I seem to remember weighing this before some time ago. So from this point forward I only want to be losing weight. Yesterday I ate raisin crackers and cheese and Melba toast. I ate the Melba toast when I went to bed and fell asleep while eating it. Then I woke up and chewed it some more, thinking, “Mmmhhh, this tastes very good,” and promptly fell asleep again. I probably have crumbs in the bed now.

The Hero With A Thousand Faces is turning out to be a not so impelling book. It is good to fall asleep with, but I don’t hold with some of his theories. I think they are grasped from too high a place, as they say here in the Netherlands. The book was written 60 years ago and he relies a lot on the psychology of that day and age to explain the primal myths and I wonder about the wisdom of that. He relies very much on romantic Freudian and Jungian interpretations and I think there is a lot of idylic philosophic thought in it that doesn’t seem so much to rely on what I would call common sense. He does get carried away a little.

I think the most obvious interpretation is probably the correct one and I don’t think it is always necessary to look so hard for all the other reasons why ideas and stories were created and why they evolved the way they did. But then again, I see things very black and white, I am a literal interpreter and I don’t care much for poetic interpretation and philosophic deliberation. I try to see things as they are and don’t go in for long discussions about how they could also be had I been given another set of circumstances or conditions or information that could not have been available to me at the time of the creation of the myth.

Anyway, don’t let me get bogged down in a long argument about that, lest I should turn it into a philosophic discussion after all. I am not schooled in it, even though I did try to read Plato once, but unsuccessfully. I should probably read ‘Philosophy for Dummies’ first. I did read ‘Religion for Dummies’ after I read the new Dutch translation of the Bible, but I find all the patriarchs hard to keep apart and who begot who. I tried to read the Koran, thinking it was going to be a story like the Bible, but it wasn’t and I gave up on it. I understand that I need to read Karen Armstrong, an ex nun who writes about Christianity, Judaism and the Islam, who is very well known the world over as an authority on the modern religions. I know they have her books in the library as she is on one of my lists of books to read.

Some day I also want to read all the novels of Iris Murdoch. They have a lot of them in the library warehouse. I just have to make it a point to do that one day, most likely in the winter time when the days are brief and I can get a lot of reading in. But then again, there is so much reading I have left to do, because I am so curious about so many things and I always have too little time. If I had the money, I would constantly be ordering books at Bol.com. I would decorate the whole apartment with bookcases and I would never get done reading. But then I think about all the good films on the film channels and I do want to see them too, so you can see how there is too little time for everything.

Eduard is sleeping late this morning. He probably worked late last night and most likely didn’t get home until after midnight. I never hear him come home and the dog doesn’t bark, of course, when he gets home. I do like Eduard’s schedule of him being home in the afternoon. It seems that we can spend some quality time together then, although lately I have been captivated by other things and I have not been paying him the proper amount of attention and I have to make it a point to do that. I know that Eduard and I never tire of each other’s company. I am always happy to see him and I am always glad when he comes home.

Eduard and I have a good marriage. I can easily say that because I feel comfortably married. There isn’t any drama and I like that very much. I used to be in relationships with drama in them and drama is so exhausting and so unnecessary. It is something you accept if you have not had the correct illustration from your parents, but when you grow up properly and start to fit into your skin and your mind starts feeling contented, you realize that there are a whole lot of things you can do without and drama is one of them.

Eduard is a very calm and gentle down to earth person. He never looks for a fight and absolutely hates an argument and will be the first one to make up if we have a disagreement. I don’t like being angry at him and if I ever am, I get over it very quickly and immediately love him as much as I did before. There is no festering resentment. My love doesn’t become smaller. As a matter of fact, the longer I am married to him, the more I love him. Sometimes I am still in love with him now. Then I think he is an exciting man and I love to be with him. But more than anything, he is my best friend and I trust him with my very heart and soul. I was very honored when he asked me to marry him, because he had never asked anyone to marry him before, so I felt very privileged. I knew it was a big step for him and I never knew that being married could be such an excellent thing. I highly recommend it to anyone now.

I hadn’t seen many joyous marriages when I was a
kid. It seemed that most people were just unhappy being together and that they all resented each other’s company and the space each other took up. There were always disagreements and deadly silences. There seemed to be no cheer and spontaneity. Nobody impulsively kissed and embraced each other. There was always this undercurrent of animosity and annoyance. My grandparents acted as if they never heard of the term physical affection. My father sometimes needed a hug and a kiss and infrequently received them. My aunts and uncles were brittle and unyielding with each other. Physical closeness was frowned upon and scorned. Even now I forget to be physically affectionate. Eduard has to remind me to be so. I can be as brittle and unyielding as the rest of my family. So Dutch reformed and puritanical in my body language. While I really have no hang ups about the human body and its functions at all.

Well, the things you pick up when you are a child. I didn’t come from an unrestrained, emotionally happy family. We weren’t a large happy gathering of people. I mean we and all of our relatives. When we all got together, there was a lot of irritation and friction. Not for us the noise and the laughter that other families had when they got together. Circumstances and conditions like that really leave their mark on you as a child. Eduard came from a much more happy, noisy and relaxed family. They were not afraid to be a little boisterous. As a result, Eduard is much more extraverted then I am and a much more sociable person. He knows how to have a excellent time at a party and how to interact in a large group of people. I am more aloof and singular. I observe and ponder the meaning of it all.

Well, now Eduard is up and about and I am going to stop pondering and pounding on the keyboard. I am sure that he wants a nice cup of coffee also, so I will make him one. The dog is looking at him longingly as he makes his breakfast. The cats are darting around his feet.

Have a wonderful day, people. Ciao…

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Weighing In.

Today I weigh 92.6 kilos and yesterday I had three pieces of Maasdammer cheese and 6 raisin crackers and they made me feel very full, so it isn’t as though I starved myself. I took a tall glass of milk to bed with me, but I fell asleep before I could drink it and it is still sitting on my night stand now. I’ll give it to the cats this morning, as it is the kind of milk that doesn’t spoil.

I woke up at 3 am this morning and I was wide awake immediately. I went to bed at 9 pm last night and fell asleep quickly, so apparently I have had enough sleep, because I am bright eyed and bushy tailed. I always imagine me being a raccoon when I say that, as I have no idea where the saying comes from.

I have visited my favorite blogs, but I have not left any comments yet. I will do that later when I have had some more coffee and after I have thought about everything that I have read and seen. Sue made a beautiful mandala which you can see here, and Neda showed some of her older artwork which you can see here. Rima posted some of my images of the Old Pisa Door here, which I am very grateful for. I do feel very privileged to get so many of them on the this website, not really being an artist yet, but trying very hard to be a bit artistic.

I have started to read The Hero With A Thousand Faces, but of course I fell asleep after about three pages, so I am going to have to read it during the daytime if I am going to finish it anytime this coming month. Joseph Campbell uses the psychology of Freud and Jung to compare primitive mythology with the dream conditions of modern man. He also joins together a lot of the old myths and shows how they all give the same answer to the riddle of life and how all the lead players from folklore and legend act out the same story. It is a book about the mythology of heroes of the eternal struggle of man in search of his identity.

It was written in 1949 and some of the psychological interpretations are going to be a bit outdated, but still it should make for an interesting read and I will keep the more modern psychology in mind while I read it. I think Freud especially is a bit dated with his various complexes , but Jung is still very applicable as I have found out recently. Freud has all the boys in love with their mothers and hating their fathers. They all have potential Oedipus complexes.

I am actually waiting for the other book about Carl Jung to arrive in the mail. I ordered it last week and I should get here any day now. I am looking forward to reading it and will do so with a notebook and pen by my side. I have really taken to Jung, especially since Debi also had us all take the Jungian personality type test, which was a bit of a coincidence and perfect timing.

I have added another blog to my list of favorites. It is called Petite Anglaise and you can find her here too. It’s about the life of a young single English mom living in France and apparently it is a very popular blog. I came in just as she is going on a two week vacation, but I have read some of her older posts and her ‘about me’ information and she seems like a really interesting person. Through Rima, I have also found the blog of Alfonso Brezmes who makes collages and does photography. He writes in Spanish with the English translation underneath. His prose is poetic and so is his work. I actually think he uses Babelfish for his English translations, which makes for interesting reading. He is also on a break, but you may want to visit him to get a taste of his work. You can go there here. I am still trying out some other blogs and if I find them interesting enough, I will add them to my list of favorite blogs.

Yesterday, I downloaded Adobe Photoshop CS3 for a free 30 day trial. It took a while to download, but once it did, it seemed like a interesting program to use. It is similar to Paint Shop Pro, so it wasn’t completely unfamiliar and I didn’t feel completely out in left field. I am planning on fooling around with it today, but I think that I am not going to familiarize myself too much with it, because I looked up on line how much it actually costs and it is more than a 1,000 Euros. Ouch, that hurts. That is quite a difference compared to the 80 Euros that Paint Shop Pro costs. I checked the library, but they don’t have a copy of Photoshop, nor does any other library around here. That means I’ll stick to Paint Shop Pro 8 and Eduard took the time yesterday to pick up a manual from the library with a CD on how to use it. So, guess what I’ll be doing today, after I have vacuumed the apartment?

Eduard says that I should have gone to art school and I have to agree with that. When I was a child, I was always drawing and I was always creating something. Everybody was aware of the fact that I was a creative child and it really is a shame that I was not allowed to develop this further. I don’t know why I wasn’t. It wasn’t even considered as a possibility. I don’t think I or my parents even imagined it. I think my parents had small imaginations when it came to thinking up futures for their daughters. We were basically raised to grow up and get married and buy a washing machine and have babies. In that order.

When my younger sister rebelled and went on to get her degree in education, that was considered a very big deal and something quite out of the ordinary. I still don’t quite know how she managed that. I know she put up a long hard fight. I believed in my mother’s dream for me and thought I was going to live happily ever after then. Well, guess what? I didn’t and by the time I fought myself free, it was too late and too impossible to go to art school or become anything else that I might have dreamed of. I sure as hell hope I get a next life after this one!

I am not complaining about my life now. I’ve come a long way, as they say. I have fought myself free of almost chronic depressions and I have married someone who is the right husband for me. I know that I have a chance now to live happily ever after. The only obstacles in my way are my age and my inexperience. I have to do a bit of a catch up race. Learn a lot of things very quickly. But I am not pessimistically inclined and if I get a job that is only mildly interesting, I know that I’ll do enough interesting things in my spare time to compensate for that. I have found a lot of my happiness within and I don’t need to look for it elsewhere so very much. I amuse myself and keep myself busy well enough. A job will not be the ultimate fulfillment for me, it will just be a means to an end, a financial end.

It will be interesting to see what comes out of the on the job training possibility. I would like to do something in accounting, as I am a very accurate worker and that might just be something for me to do. I also like producing text and translating into English. I am not a very fast typist, but I do keep up some speed and I know that I am not among the worst. I took typing lessons in high school and absolutely hated them. I got my diploma, but don’t ask me how. It was all a bit of stunt work. I didn’t have to type much in my job then, because we had a typing pool with women who did nothing but type all day long. I worked before there were computers, back in the old days. I remember the computer was just introduced and one computer had to have a whole little building for itself. We had to hand write information on special forms, that was then added into the computer by special typists. How archaic that seems now.

I was glad that I was able to overcome my initial fear of computers. I used to be afraid to push one single button for fear that all would be lost forever. I used to get total panic attacks when I was confronted with a keyboard and an empty screen. Once I knew what I was doing, I became hooked very quickly, but I am still learning things now and there is so much that I don’t know yet, because I haven’t tried it yet. At least I am not helpless and I usually do figure things out. Like that time when the old computer was dying and I kept it running for a few more days. I do get very impatient when I see Eduard struggle with something and I want to reach and grab the keyboard and the mouse from him and do it myself instead. That’s a very bad habit I have and I mustn’t give into it.

Eduard and I are both very stubborn people, which is good in that we don’t give up quickly and usually try to fix a problem until it is done. But it can also be a hindrance when we both think we are right and one of us has to give. In that case I am the meanest one and I win, which is silly, of course, because Eduard is such a gentle person and there is no need for me to be so assertive and pushy. Diplomacy and tact are better tools to use. Sometimes I forget that and I sound just like my mother and I hate that. I know that I can have the upper hand verbally, but if Eduard really wants to, he can cut me back down to size in a hurry, he just doesn’t do it enough.

But being stubborn isn’t always a bad thing to be. It does help you solve problems and you don’t call it quits easily. Of course, there are things in life that you should call quits before you spend too much energy and time on them. Those things have already gotten past their due dates and I am mostly talking about relationships with other people. You can be stubborn and hang in there with a really dysfunctional relationship with someone else, forgetting all the while that you should say, “Enough is enough,” and walk away from it. Stubborn people can be overly loyal. They don’t know when to get out. They always think they can fix the problem. You can spend years trying to fix a problem until you are plain worn out and crazy from it and afterwards you blame yourself for not having fixed the relationship.

Well, anyway, I am running out of words again and feel that the well is almost running dry and that whatever is there needs to be saved for another day. Hopefully it will be replenished today by my interesting experiences with Paint Shop. It is a good thing that I am up so early. That gives me lots of time to fill the day with fiddling around with the program and getting the apartment cleaned up as well.

Have a great day, people. Hope the sun shines, because here it is raining again as usual. Ciao…

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Digital art with a small a.

Man, digital art sure is addicting, although I hesitate to call it art in my case and I’ll call it digital manipulation or something like that. Man digitally messing around with photographs sure is addicting! I try to get some house work done around here, but all day long I wanted to sit down behind the computer and try things out with Paint Shop Pro. I forced myself to do some other things as well, because I did not want this digitally messing around to be an addiction, but I did end up spending more than a normal amount of time behind the computer and loving every minute of it.

I am beginning to figure out Paint Shop Pro and yesterday I even learned how to cut and paste from one photograph to another. Now I have to learn to do this free hand and I am sure there is some sort of a grid to get the pieces the right size, so I will have to figure that out today. I will post whatever efforts I have made here, even if I think they are not yet what I would like them to be. That way you can all be part of the process of me figuring things out and I am not going to be embarrassed about the not so good stuff. I am just going to honestly place a piece here every day. Whatever I think is best for that particular day.

———————

Jung said: “Personality is the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of high courage…”

It is said that Jung wrote with logic and common sense and with passion and compassion and after having read the Primer, I have a tendency to agree with that. I finished it yesterday afternoon after a long sit at the dining table. I decided to sit and read there, so there really would be no danger of me falling asleep and I could take notes while I read the book. I find that taking notes helps me understand what I read better and it works better than highlighting it with a pen. Besides, I have learned all about highlighting in another life and that wasn’t very successful, was it? Better stick to note taking, that makes my mind work twice, once in reading and once in writing. Double imprinting, sort of. I think I literally have gray matter in my head, you know, squishy and wet and soft, it is like a sponge, and you can wring it out but it has almost stopped absorbing, ha ha.

I read about dreams and how they are the clearest expression of the unconscious mind, so it is important to pay attention to your dreams and to try to decipher them as much as possible. Apparently we dream in symbols and symbols are an outward manifestation of the archetypes. Jung found that the same archetypes were expressed in myths of primitive races all over the world and also in religion and art, both modern and primitive. A symbol is an attempt to represent an archetype, but the result is always imperfect and man’s history is a record of his search for better symbols.

So, I dream in symbols and this symbolic language I need to interpret, but it will not be the obvious explanation, because the symbolism comes from the unconscious and that requires a little bit of digging. I ordered another book on Jung on line and it should get here in a few days, so maybe that will give me some clarification on this.

I also read about his psychological types and how we more or less fit into one of the eight combinations of attitudes and functions. In other words, someone can be an extroverted thinker or an introverted feeling person. Every personality has these attitudes and functions, but they are there in different proportions and at different levels of consciousness and unconsciousness.

So, I may be an extroverted thinker consciously, but be an introverted feeling person
unconsciously. I will be these things in different degrees, one will be more developed that the other, because the unconscious is always underdeveloped.

I haven’t quite decided which type of person I am. I think a lot of it depends on how well things are going with me. When things are going well, I am extroverted, when I am depressed, I am introverted. Maybe I am an extroverted thinker consciously and an introverted feeling person unconsciously. Maybe I am some of both, but more one than the other at different times. I think I am mostly extroverted, but I am not sure, because I do like my “alone time” and I don’t need that many people around me to be happy. Maybe I am an introverted thinker, I’ll have to check and see what Jung said about them. It isn’t in my notes. Then unconsciously I am an extroverted feeling person, I think. How is that for a combination? How would you like your sandwich Ma’am, would you like that extroverted with mayo and feeling?

Jung also said: “The best marriages are achieved between fully individuated persons in which all the attitudes and functions of both their personalities are developed.”

I don’t know how Eduard and I made our marriage work at the beginning when I so very clearly was not individuated. As a matter of fact, I was a mess. He must have seen something in me, some possibility of what I could be like when I was not in a mess. I think there must have been enough “sane” moments then for him to figure that out. Well, I was a normal person at times. It wasn’t as if I was completely around the bend, It wasn’t as bad as that! Still, to be individuated is quite a chore. You really have to know what you are doing or you have to have had some great guidance along the way in the years of your formation. I think some people come by it earlier than others. Some people are late bloomers, maybe that is what is meant by that.

Well, Jung is making a difference in my life. He certainly got me thinking along some new lines. It is very refreshing to apply his thoughts and theories to my life and it is not too difficult at this stage, all it requires is some diligent reading and note taking and committing some of it to memory. That may be a little tough in my case, I have been known to forget crucial bits of information. I am sure that when I get into it deeper, I will find out that maybe it is not all that simple, but I am going to keep it as bare boned as I can. I don’t want to complicate it too much with all sorts of new theories and explanations. Better stick as close to the original source as I can.

I found a book by Joseph Campbell in the library and Eduard is getting it for me today. It is called The Hero With a Thousand Faces and I think it is a book that made him famous. I will finish The Power Of Myth before I start this one, but it is slow going because I fall asleep so quickly at night. I don’t even drink my milk. I think I will read The Power Of Myth by the dining table today. That straight hard chair keeps me awake and gives me a sore butt. I should find a little cushion, but I can’t make it too comfortable! No nodding off!

——————–

I find that by reading and doing digital art and cleaning house and taking care of the anim
als, there are not enough hours in the day to do all the things I want to do, and I don’t even have a job yet. Yesterday I had to vacuum and I reluctantly did that, although I knew it was very necessary and it looked good when I was done. The poor dog does need to go for his walks, I can’t neglect him and I do need to keep some semblance of structure in my life. Things do have to happen at a certain time or I am in trouble. I need to eat on time and go to bed at a reasonable hour and spend time talking with Eduard when he is home, although I neglected him a bit yesterday too. He came home, but I was barely aware of it and kissed him absentmindedly.

I wonder what he thinks when he sees me so preoccupied with something so completely new and how I barely have time to speak to him and have my eyes glazed over when I do? He doesn’t complain on the first day and I don’t think he will even complain on the second and third day, so I will have to be my own disciplinarian and make sure my eyes aren’t glazed over too often. He very enthusiastically tells me things and I say, “Yes, really?”, and then ask him to repeat himself because I didn’t hear a word he said.

Eduard is always very tolerant of me. He never gets the least bit irritated when I have discovered something new and it takes up all of my time. When we first had the computer, and I was still depressed, I spent hours Googling things and Eduard didn’t complain about that at all. I discovered all these really neat animation sites and sat and watched animated films all day long one summer and Eduard didn’t seem to mind one bit. He is like an indulgent father with his impatient child sometimes. I have to make sure that I am not the impatient child too often. I have a tendency to self indulge and become obsessed about things and I always have to watch myself and make sure I don’t overdo things and make enough time to stay in my normal mode also. That means walking away from things even when I want to keep going.

Anyway, we have this very simple digital camera that takes very simple digital photographs and we tried to install it yesterday, but it didn’t work. The computer says that it can’t find the camera after we have installed it and we tried it twice. I think that maybe we should get another simple little digital camera until we can afford to buy a really good one like this one here, which is very costly, but it takes wonderful photographs, which you can find out for yourself when you go to Debi’s blog here. Of course, we don’t need such an expensive camera, but I am being a real modern consumer here in that I only want the very best. Yes, and we need to win the lottery very quickly and make all of our wishes come true in the shortest amount of time. Actually, that is why I need a job very badly, to save some money and do things like this.

I have an appointment tomorrow morning with social services to talk about the results of the profile test that I recently took and I am real curious about the outcome of that. A lot rests on this, because they may not offer me a free training, but suggest I go and do volunteer work instead and that just won’t do at all. If I am going to put in all of the effort, I do want to get paid for it, I am not in it for the charity. Not at this point anyway. We need the charity ourselves now. They can’t force me to do anything, luckily, because I don’t get any unemployment benefits, so the choice lies with me. If you do get benefits, they can make you take on anything, so I am glad that I am not in that position.

Today I am seeing my GP about the results of my allergy test and I am also curious about what that will say, as I have been especially allergic lately. I walk around with a plugged up nose and a sore throat constantly and my head and ear have been itching quite a bit. Then he has to give me a form to go and have my thyroid tested at the hospital lab. It has been a month now since I have been on my new dose of thyroid medication and the new levels should be able to be measured now. I really feel good, so I think all is well with that. I think maybe this dose of medication is better for me, because I feel a lot more mellow and calm than I did before and as I said before, your thyroid functioning does play a large role in your mental health. When my thyroid was very hyperactive, and I needed the surgery badly, I was a very neurotic person and I thought I was losing my mind. I lost a lot of weight and had a constant tremor and my resting heartbeat was 120 per minute. Boy, that can really screw you up.

I also need to talk to him about my eyes. I do really well now behind the computer with my regular glasses on, I don’t need my reading glasses at all anymore, but I still have my eyes bother me sometimes when I watch TV. They start to hurt and water and I can’t figure out why sometimes they do quickly and why sometimes they don’t until much later. Sometimes I think, that when I think about it, they start to water, but then I think that is all in my imagination too and I need to stop thinking about it. See how your mind gets screwed around that?

Eduard is sitting here eating his breakfast and Jesker is protecting it from the cats. He knows that he will get the last little bit of it. That dog knows exactly which side his bread is buttered on, ha ha. In this case there is cheese on it also.

I need to get the show on the road, so I will stop here and continue in a little while, see you then…

Well, it had stopped raining when I took Jesker for his walk, so that was good, and then I thought what I would take pictures off if I had a camera like Eleanor’s Mum does when she walks around the neighborhood. We live in a very modern neighborhood and there aren’t any cute little cottages with cute gardens to take pictures off. There are lots of very modern looking houses which I like architecturally, but may not make for very interesting pictures. I would really have to go into town and take pictures there. The downtown area is pretty and there are lots of interesting buildings. That may be especially fun for you American readers. A bit of history and all that.

I really need to be able to justify buying a good digital camera and I am trying to think of stuff I would take good photographs off. It would have to be the town and the countryside. Eduard and I would have to make lots of long walks around here and get on the motorcycle again and make trips to interesting places. We haven’t done that for awhile because of the weather and pretty soon it is going to be too cold to do that. I bet none of you have ever been on the back of a motorcycle when it was freezing and snowing out. I don’t recommend it to anyone. You need to be pretty foolhardy to do it and wear lots of layers of clothing.

Eduard said last night that he is getting me something for my birthday which I am not expecting and now I am really curious, because I thought I had already gotten my birthday present and that was the Senseo Coffee Machine. So, I am completely in the dark as to what it can be, but I am all for surprises, so I can’t wait.

Well, darn it, now I am all done writing, I have nothing left to write about. I have to save some for another day, after all. I can’t send you in rapture all at once, I have to do it in little bits and pieces. I am going to visit my fellow bloggers, then I am going to clean up the kitchen and then I am going to play with Picnik and Paint Shop again. Oh, I can’t wait, I am going to cut and paste, oh how wondrous an
d miraculous!

Have a great day, people. Ciao…

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Opening Sentence.

Today’s opening sentence is:

“It was quite impressive when God intervened in his life.”

I thought this in Dutch, so I had to translate this, but apparently I was dreaming in Dutch, which surprises me, having been so busy writing and reading in English these past days. I don’t remember the dream, I never do when I remember the sentence. I wish I could remember the dream and the sentence, it would make it so much more interesting. It was definitely about a man, but not somebody I knew, I know that much. I am dreaming about apparent strangers and I don’t know what they are doing in my dreams. Very frustrating!

I like it so much when new people leave comments on my posts. It is like getting to know a whole new set of interesting friends, especially after I had visited their blogs already and saw and read what they had done. Some of these women are very talented and make me want to be very creative in my writing as well as the digital art. But I have a long way to go and I see that I really need a good digital camera or easier access to Eduard’s camera. I wonder if he would mind me using his on a regular basis? His camera does take good photographs if you know how to use it well. I have a bit of a problem with the focus part of it since I wear glasses, but maybe that is something that can be overcome easily. I am used to my smart camera that had an auto focus and never took a bad picture.

I have found a good way to read during the day without the danger of falling asleep with my book on my stomach on the sofa. I lay the book down on the coffee table and sit on the edge of the sofa. Then I bend forwards over the book and rest my elbows on my knees. I rest my head in one of my hands, leaving the other hand free to turn the pages or drink my coffee or smoke my cigarette or pet the dog. You see how I am multi tasking again. This way I don’t fall asleep and I can actually read rather quickly and assimilate a lot of information. This is how I sat and read the Power of Myth yesterday afternoon.

I have come to realize that my picture of God is actually quite limited. In mythology God plays an important role. He is sort of the star of the story and I see how I still think of God sometimes as this bearded man sitting on a throne surrounded by a host of angels up in a cloud somewhere. Now, my intellect knows that this picture isn’t right, but the child in me still believes this a little bit and it interferes with my idea of what God is all about. My God picture is still very much that off the Old Testament God, a wrathful God who can punish you if you get the instructions wrong and who can withdraw his love if this pleases him.

In reality, God is not an old man sitting on a throne. God is not even able to be caught in an image. God is not a person in a place. You can’t point somewhere and say there is God and this is what he looks like. That is way to limiting. God is not a He or a She. God is undefinable and indescribable. God is everywhere and nowhere. God is in all things, in a rock and in a blade of grass and in a mosquito. He is also in every human being, be they good or bad. That is, if you wish to believe in a God at all.

There is the question of course of there being such a thing as God. There seems to be a need for people to believe in a Higher Being, that’s what a lot of mythology is all about. Religious mythology is anyway. I seem to have a need to believe in a Higher Being, but I also see that my knowledge of what this Being would be like is very limited. I need to do a lot more reading on the subject before I can even come close to forming any sort of picture of It and then I will probably find out that no picture can be formed of It. It is suggested to look at nature and see God in it, but as we get closer to unraveling the mysteries of it, we are less in awe of it and less in awe of God. Yet, again we are in awe of God when we travel into the universe and look back on the earth and see the wonder of it and feel a need to describe that wonder. We keep feeling the need for a Higher Being who had a hand in shaping the universe or at least our little part of it.

I think the closer we come to explaining everything with science, the more miraculous everything seems to me. Science doesn’t take away the wonder of things for me, it only makes it more fascinating. But I definitely think that my picture of the probable maker should change quite a bit and I wonder if I can believe in something as simple as a Creator. I believe in the Big Bang theory, but then I am very curious how that came about, what caused the Big Bang?

People are so limited in what they can imagine about what a God should look like, because we have no idea what something as unworldly as that could look like. It probably doesn’t look like anything, it probably just Is! It is a state of mind maybe. I don’t know, like I said, I need to do a lot of reading about this still, but I think the Power of Myth takes me on the right road. It is a good starting point. If any of you have suggestions, please make them. I need all the help I can get.

Yesterday was such a mellow day. I didn’t do much in the morning but ride my bike to the place where I had to take my profile test. It was way out in the industrial complex and it took me twenty five minutes to get there, which isn’t too bad, I guess. The place itself was kind of a dump. Typical of something that was old and underfunded. It is run by social services and the people who were also waiting to take the test, looked like the kind of people who were reliant on the social services for their income. I definitely felt out of place there and wondered why I had to take the test when they clearly had such good test results available to them already. But I suppose I am just a little cog in the big machine of bureaucracy and I have to go through the system to reach my end destination.

The tests themselves weren’t too bad, except for one that was a timed test and that consisted of groups of objects of which one didn’t belong in the group and you had to be very analytical and figure out which one didn’t belong. I am sure that I failed that test. The first few ones were easy, but they became increasingly difficult and these sort of things have never been my strong point. It was about sequences and sometimes I just didn’t see the sequence, no matter how hard I tried. There was also a test with word interpretation which I think I did well on, but there were some words that I had never really used and that I had to guess at. I am sure that if this had been done in English, I would have done a lot better. I understood the Latin based words better than some of the plain Dutch words.

I was done quickly and rode my bike straight home and then thought how amazing it was that I was riding my bike so easily, into the wind too, when just a few months ago this would still have been a problem. I have gone from not riding my bike at all, to riding my bike easily. Even without any gears on it.

When I got home, Jesker was very cute and lovable and he leaned into me while I petted him. I like having a him there behind the front door when I get home. he always makes you feel so welcome. That dog is this woman’s best friend! The cats come in at a close second only.

Eduard was home early, because he had to work the late shift at night, so we hung out together and discussed my inability to do sequential tests and my concern that this showed a lack of intelligence on my part. Eduard was not convinced of this and tried to reassure me, but I think for someone who is supposed to be smart, I can be real stupid sometimes and I wish there was another way that my smartness could be measured.

When Eduard and I watch tough quiz shows on TV together, he always knows many more of the answers than I do, while I know that I should know them also, because I have read about those subjects myself. I just seem to have a really difficult time recalling bits of
information. It is not old age, I have had this problem my whole life and it is so frustrating! Things get lost in the maze of my head and I can’t retrieve them. I wonder if there is a way to train your brain to remember bits of information better? In school they always said: “She can perform better than she shows here.” That’s the story of my life. Under performance!

I remembered to hang up the laundry that was still sitting in the washing machine from the day before. I have been known to forget about that completely and have it partially dry in the machine, causing it to be very wrinkled, requiring lots of ironing on my part. The weatherman keeps predicting rain, so I don’t hang the laundry outside to dry, but then the weather turns out to be nice, so the weatherman isn’t getting any kudos from me.

I watched inane programs on TV last night and sort of fell into a slumber watching them. It is no wonder when I get up so early in the morning. I think Nederland 1 can be at the top for offering silly programming. At least it is completely harmless TV and when I fall asleep, I don’t miss anything. There is always a medical program on at 7:30 and I watch that and there is always someone who didn’t survive their operation and at the end of the show they announce: “Sadly, Mrs So and So died shortly after this was filmed.” And I think, how awful to announce that and for her family and friends who are watching the program and for the other patients watching the show, what sort of a message is it giving them? Oops, the operation went well, but the patient got up and died anyway? Despite our optimistic reporting, she is no longer with us?

I watch the news and never cease to be amazed at man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. The problem with the news is, that it shows you horrendous conditions from all over the world, without you actually being able to do anything about it. That is the frustrating part. Sometimes it makes you feel so helpless and you wonder if watching the news is good for your mental health. You almost have to become cynical in today’s world. It seems that if you are an idealist, there is not that much room to hang on to your ideals for fear of other people treading all over them. I keep believing in the basic decency of human beings, but sometimes I wonder if this is too naive.

We live in a global village now and Joseph Campbell said that we need a new global kind of mythology that we can all believe in and live by. We need to have common heroes and common Gods and common ethics. Local mythology and communal mythology are no longer sufficient in a world that is aware of itself globally. The first millennium Christian God needs to be brought into this modern world. We need to have an idea of a global God that we can all believe in.

I understand that there are some other books by Joseph Campbell that are worth reading and I will have to check the library to see if they have any of them. Otherwise it is to Bol.com to order them on line.

Well, it is that time of the morning again. I have to go and get on with my ritual of the cats and the dog and getting the day started properly, not to forget the medication and the make up and the decorating part.

Have a great day, everyone, ciao…

P.S. Some of my favorite blogs are from women who do amazing things with digital art. I am blown away by their talent and technique. I hope to be able to do a little of what they are able to do, so I am practicing as much as I can. There are some places where you can go for free digital art help and one of them is Picnik, just type that into Google and it will lead you to the right place. It is not a download but an on line program that allows you to manipulate your photographs quite extensively. You just need to register and that is quite painless. You can download the pictures from your own computer and save them there also.

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