Bloody awful, I say.

I’m so bloody tired and I haven’t done enough to warrant it at all, so where does that leave me with my good behavior? Up the chimney, I would say. Tired and no excuse for it and longing to lay in a sweet meadow filled with four leaf clovers and other good luck greenery and lots of wild flowers to adorn my weary head. Oh yes, and for good measure, a gentle meandering brook with super fresh water to quench my thirst after I have finished off the bottle of cold white wine that I happen to have with me. The Überhund is there too, frolicking in the tall grass, chasing butterflies and being droll.

Ach, such fantasies are permissable when you get to be my age, it’s all doddery and senility from now on and foolish old woman talk. Which still leaves me tired from I don’t know what and how did this day get started in the first place anyway? Well, let’s look back…

It started with me almost forgetting that I had an appointment with my SPN. She had been on vacation and I had gotten so used to her being gone, that I had forgotten that she was back. AT 8 AM I thought, “Wait a minute, I am supposed to be somewhere at 9 AM.” Quick dramatic flurries of activities ensued, with me  making sure I looked great in the least amount of time, because I never leave the house for anything important unless I am put together well. I have to look good and smell good and have great hair before I go anywhere important. Luckily, I am very practised at this and I know how to do it in a hurry and have that casually put together, blown by a little bit of wind look. I tell you, man, I have to be able to meet the queen at a moment’s notice and look good enough. She has ‘able to withstand hurricane hair’ herself.

So, I had a very productive meeting with my SPN in which we talked about a lot of sensible things and made some headway in understanding where I am in my head nowadays. Which is basically in a very good place, so my next appointment isn’t until 3 weeks from now. I think we are both mighty pleased with the state of things.

Then I went to the big drugstore, because the Exfactor had given me a gift certificate and I wanted to spend that on food supplements. I got a big bottle of  Omega 3 capsules and a bottle of Kelp tablets, which are also good for your metabolism, and some other odds and ends. I now have 5 bottles of vitamins and supplements and some of those pills are big suckers and I worry about getting them down, but somehow I do. I am very brave that way.

I do love the way I so casualy hop on my bike and race from point A to point B as if it is no problem at all and no obstacle stands in my way. I hardly slow down for an uphill slant or a round about. It’s all a piece of cake.

Then I went to the pharmacy to pick up a supply of ‘feel good pills’ and fully supplied, I went home again, where the Überhund greeted me as if I had been gone on a Northpole expidition and was very disappointed when he found out that I didn’t bring home anything ‘good’ to eat. Good as in pudding with berry sauce, but I have sworn that off.

I took him for a walk, because after a certain point I had to stay home and wait for the delivery of my tunic and duvet cover. When they arrived, I tore off my clothes to try on the tunic and found out that it fit, but it fit just a bit snugly for my taste and it needs a lose garment to go over it like a cute little three buttoned vest in black that I just happened to find on line and that will get here on Thursday and will make the outfit complete. The tunic is very pretty and ever so nicely made and it looks very pretty, it just shows my tummy a little bit too much, so 5 kilos later it will look better by itself.

The duvet cover caused a whole bed change, of course, and I will go to sleep with clean sheets tonight. I would have liked to wash the duvet cover first, but I was too impatient and wanted it on there right away, I will wash it after a few nights when I change the bottom sheet and pillow cases again. I drool while I sleep, I kid you not.

I paid bills, which is like taking a rib from my body, because I makes my bank account shrivel quickly and the month isn’t over yet, which leaves me down to couting euro’s and how far I can make them go.

I did laundry and washed the dishes and wiped dog and cat hair of furniture, which is a never ending battle when your furniture is black. I think at night the dust fairies come with their little bags of dust and sprinkle a a light dusting all over the smooth black surfaces and the animals do the rest. They are in cahoots.Trust your animals to have strong bond with the creatures of the nether world.

It’s impossible to come to terms with the day. It wasn’t a good day and it wasn’t a bad day. It was just an ordinary hausfrau day. Well, you have to have days like that too, I suppose, although I like a bit more excitement in mine, ot am I forgetting something? No, no handsome man came to the door, I wasn’t swept of my feet, I didn’t dance the tango at noon, I didn’t go to a den of sin and debauchery. So, I guess it was just an ordinary day then.

It seems to me that ordinary people should have little escape clauses written in to their existance descriptions. That every day, for one hour, they get to debauch without dire consequences. Get drunk, smoke pot, have a torrid affair, have group sex, dine romantically with Rudolf Valentino, make love to Cary Grant and then, floops, they are back into their normal life again without any hangovers or social diseases. Oh, such heady stuff. Could we handle it?

Well, after such wishfull thinking, I can only hope that Harrison Ford shows up witha flat tire in front of my aprtment one of these days, but in the meantime, I am going to get into my pajamas for my regular eveing of relaxationa and fun in front of the dummy box and wach the news and see which country is getting hit by which hurricane tonight and not watch any news on John McCain and his token female vice presidential ‘candidate’ who makes me laugh, although she is a bit scary.

Right then, off I go. Tell no fibs, tell it like it is, bigger and better than life.

Ciao…

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Blegh!!!

I am full of exhaustion and I don’t want to be, I am going to fight it all the way to the sofa if I have to and not give into it one teeny little inch. It isn’t as though I had an especially tiring day, although I did do a variety of things and maybe they left their impressions on my easily impressed mind. I mean, I am not used to much, so doing anything out of the ordinary is bound to thrill me to pieces and wear me out at the same time from the processing of the details.

I started out the day really slow, because I went back to bed after I had been up for awhile, but I decided that my head was still in slumber attitude and that I was not ready to tackle the day and all it’s details that it would bring. So I laid me down to sleep, with Jesker beside me, and didn’t wake up until the phone rang and it was my sister to remind me of our appointment to go to Ikea, as if i would forget that outing!

I very slowly got dressed and walked the dog and then went grocery shopping and to the tobacco store, where they see me as one of their favorite customers, at least, that’s the kind of welcoming smile I get. They almost know what I come to get, and one day soon I won’t have to ask for it. They’ll just reach for the items on the shelf the minute they see my bright and happy face.

Back home, Jesker and I shared a pudding with berry sauce and then my sister came to get me in her new Peugeot, which is a sporty little 4 door car with a hatchback. She had the radio on and I felt like Thelma and Louise when we drove down the freeway. Luckily, we don’t need to make our escape, as it is our men that we send on their way.

Ikea had just had another grand opening and there were people in yellow jackets directing the parking traffic ineffectively, but we found a good spot anyway. The thing is to ignore the pointing fingers and to go by your instincts, which will direct you to the empty parking space. It will also get you a dirty look, but this particular yellow coated traffic director had a big earring in and we figured he wasn’t really anyone important at all, even though he had a decent haircut.

We were good shoppers and followed all the arrows and didn’t take any short cuts through the store, even though we new exactly what we wanted. We also wanted to look at all the things we weren’t buying and in the meantime we were talking and chatting like two chickens in a hen house, like we have a tendency to do. We must go back soon and really linger and spend an afternoon there, when we both have extra money to spend on gadgets and stuff. Things you don’t really need, but can’t live without that will improve your life so tremendously. That’s what Ikea is for, and oh, I walked by the sofa I want and it hurt me to leave without it.

We soon enough got the items we wanted and headed for the cash registers and after some indecision ended up in the right line. The fast one, where my sister found out that she had bought the expensive duvet, but she didn’t feel like going to customer service and undoing the whole sale and going back into the store to find the right one, as it has taken us some searching to find the one that we thought was the right one, you know, with all those names on the products.

We shoved the bought items in the car, my carpet was a little long, and then went to the garden center next door, which has the same sort of planned route through its shelved products as Ikea has. Lots of temptations to buy things. “Oh yes, I’ll have 3 of those and 5 of these. And that plant is really pretty too.” Friendly customer service all over the place, attractive prices, overabundance of goods, you think you are in Fantasy land. It’s best to be strong of mind and keep a steady hand on your wallet and be determined to only buy what you had come for.

When I came home, I unrolled the carpet and found out it was bigger than I had imagined, so that was good. Jesker laid down on it right away and Gandhi sharpened her claws on it, which made Jesker angry. I told him, “Good dog.”

Then I had to walk him and go to the pharmacy to pick up a large supply of medication that I had ordered two days earlier, but when I got there, I found out they never received the fax with the prescription, so I had to make a phone call and at the other end of the line a frantic search took place to find the missing prescription, which showed up in the fax machine 20 minutes later. I love mayhem, especially when it is about my precious pills.

On the way home, I stopped by the flower and plant shop and bought two plants of heather in pots and I have those sitting here instead of the ‘child in mother’s lap’ plants that weren’t doing so well. They cost me 2.50 Euros for 2. It’s a steal. Jesker thought I was bringing home food and was mighty disappointed.

I was just out back, and besides a lot of weeds, I have the jasmine and the golden rain and the 3 trees and now another unidentified bush has grown up amongst the jasmine. I have to try and find out what it is, but it is staying. Anything that wishes to grow here, stays. I’ll have to pull out the weeds this weekend, although that is not my favorite job, especially not now that my left knee is bothering me so much. It really hurts to bend it, especially when the weight is on it. I am wearing out, I guess.

I hope you all like my header. I went through some trouble to find something to represent what I thought was Another Bright Day and I thought this little child was perfect. There is innocence and happiness. It is a challenge to find the right photograph to express a meaning. I liked the gray slate too, until Maggie said it looked like elephant’s skin and I don’t want that. Besides, it didn’t express much emotion.

Now I am going to rest my weary bones on the sofa, after I have looked up a TV guide on line. I must remember to do that. I hope there is a good British thriller on tonight. Those are the best.

Have a good evening, get yourself ready for a lovely weekend.

Ciao…

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In Between.

I can’t write about my memories all the time. My head will get stuck in them and sometimes that is not a pleasant feeling, depending on the memories. Instead, I will write about what is going on right now.

I had told you all very proudly that I had stopped taking the Temazepam during the day. Well, as of yesterday I am back on it. It didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped and I am still not back to normal. The first days there were no problems, then I got a hypo manic mood and after that I went to hell in a hand basket with obsessive thoughts and feelings of panic. I tried to keep my wits about me, but found it very hard and finally decided to go back to the Temazepam, which is slowly bringing back some peace inside of me.

I am not a happy camper. There are too many insecurities in my life right now. I still don’t have my rent and medical care subsidies. I don’t know how much my next welfare check is going to be and if it will be enough to live on, and I got word from the Sonoma County Courthouse that my notarization for the request for the marriage certificate is not good enough. On top of that the dog and the cats have fleas.

The last problem is easiest to fix and I am working on that right now with special products and lots of vacuuming and the washing of various items. I will have that problem taken care of in the shortest time.

I also thought last month that I would go with a different Internet provider, but that turned into one great big hassle with nothing but problems, so at the last minute, I decided to stay with the one I had and canceled the cancellation. At the time they told me that would be no problem, but I am waiting today for them to pull the plug on me anyway and leave me without Internet and telephone and cable TV. It will be a small miracle if everything does keep working. Light a candle for me, will you?

Such are the woes and worries of every day life and when I wasn’t taking the Temazepam I began to obsessively worry and panic about these things and could not look at them objectively and rationally anymore.

I thought the dog had a skin condition, because I never saw a flea and he scratched very selectively. I very innocently took him to the vet who soon set me straight and sent me home with a bunch of products that seem to be doing the job well.

I do notice that the Uberhund is panting a lot when we go for walks. I blamed it on the hot weather, but this morning he was doing it again and it was still cool outside. I have to keep an eye on that and see how it develops. I am thinking heart, lungs, and want to have it investigated, but I won’t run to the vet yet, because the Uberhund doesn’t enjoy it very much and we were just there.

The Exfactor and I are developing a normal relationship. he can come here for a cup of coffee and take care of whatever business needs to be taken care of and we can sit and chat and exchange thoughts in a very reasonable way. He is even starting to feel comfortable enough so he will talk about the Paramount on occasion and that is fine with me. He doesn’t have to keep that part of his life a secret from me. It isn’t necessary. I am not jealous and not out to put her in a bad daylight.

I do see that, of the two of us, I have changed the most. He is still his usual self and i don’t know if that is good, but maybe in the circle of friends that he finds himself in that is okay and he is accepted. He is still very reactionary and radical and sometimes hotheaded about issues. An anarchist a bit, whereas I am much more conventional and middle of the road, although I do have my opinions and I do swing to the left, but that is nothing special in the Netherlands. I am just an ordinary Dutch socialist woman.

Well, I must be off to the post office and the grocery store. My favorite place to hang out. There is always that endless supply of milk to get and the dog and cat food.

You all have a most pleasant day.

Ciao…

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No way, no go…

For those of you who were looking forward to read all about my adventurous journey to Amsterdam, I have to disappoint you, because I didn’t go.

I woke up at 4 AM and dreaded the thought that I had to go all the way there and just could not find the motivation to and was hoping there was a way to get out of it. I called my daughter in Texas and asked her if there was any other way to get my request for the marriage certificate notarized. She said, yes, if I could find a competent and recognized notary in Maastricht, then that would do also.

Of course, I reached for the yellow pages immediately and started my search and soon found one that I thought would do and when it was a decent enough hour I called and made an appointment, which I was able to get this afternoon. Notaries are university educated people who do estate planning and last wills and testaments and make up contracts. They usually have their offices in the most beautiful old buildings in town. This one did too.

Anyway, my request was notarized and it will have to be good enough. They even notarized a copy of my passport. If this is not good enough, I will travel to Sonoma County and pick the darn thing up myself.

The rest of the day was spent walking around in the heat with the Uberhund and riding my bike to the store to make copies of important papers for Social Services and to do groceries, again. I drink a liter of milk a day, so I constantly have to replenish the supply and then there is always cat and dog food to get and fresh bread.

It’s very warm outside. Tomorrow it is going to be equally warm with rain and thunder storms. That should be quite a spectacle. I am already planning on wearing the least amount of clothes, because I was overdressed today. Trying to make a good impression on the notary.

I have lost 8 kilos since I have told the Exfactor that I wanted a divorce. Don’t worry, I am not starving myself. I eat when I am hungry, but my little stomach gets full very quickly. Today, for lunch, I had pudding with berry sauce and it went down well. Those kinds of foods always go down easy. Sometimes I let myself have a treat.

I have stopped taking the Temazepam during the day and have found no averse effects from it.  I am as calm as I was before. I take one 10 mg pill at night before I go to sleep and I sleep better. It is so nice to go to bed and feel myself getting drowsy and hear my book plunk down on the floor beside the bed.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for you today. Positively boring, isn’t it? I tell you, there is no drama in my life anymore. I am turning into just your everyday boring old blogger. Pretty soon I’ll have to start making up events to keep your attention.

Ciao….

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Back to normal.

Okay, back to normal, or as normal as I can get it for right now. I woke up very early and couldn’t sleep anymore and felt a little bit distracted and uptight and then more and more so and finally realized that I had forgotten to take all of my medications before I went to bed last night. So, I took some of them and I will wait with the rest, because in a few hours it will be time to take those. Slowly I am starting to feel a little bit more normal again. It is not good to forget the medications! Especially not the ones that help make you think straight.

I had an especialy tiring day yesterday and I think it was an especially emotionally tiring day. In the morning I saw my SPN and that actually was fine, but it did get a train of thought going within myself about my past marriage and it was hard to put a stop to it, especially as I had an appointment with Eduard later in the afternoon to see the divorce mediator.

I don’t think it is a very good thing for me to see that much of Eduard right now, but it can’t be helped as there are all these details we need to take care off, but he does end up taking up a lot of space in my head, to the point that I start to think that he is living here again and that I forget that I can go my own way and do things as I want them.

The appointment with the mediator went fine too and a lot of things were clarified. It was a very intensive conversation and we had to answer a lot of questions, but we do know where we stand financially now and the picture isn’t all that bleak. We’ll both manage.

I have to go to the Center for Work and Income today to get myself registered to get my welfare payment started and my subsidies on rent etc. I also have to go to the bank to change my account back into my maiden name and make in Internet accessible and have Eduard’s name removed from it.

I had to send away for a new copy of our marriage certificate from the Sonoma County Courthouse, but I was able to do that on line and I hope that all works out well, as it was very expensive to do and it will be sent by FedEx and should be here soon. I have yet to receive a confirming email, though. If this doesn’t work out, my daughter will have to get it for me and send it to me by regular mail.

Well, I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

This morning I have ergo-therapy and I am looking forward to that, because I feel a certain amount of stress and hope to get rid of some of it there. It will be good to sit around that big table and talk.

It is good to listen to the things that keep other people busy, what occupies their minds, what they worry about, what sort of troubles they run into. It puts things into perspective. You look at yourself and see that maybe you are not so bad off in comparison, that at least you would not want to trade your set of troubles for theirs. Some people get really raw deals.

Well, this is just a short post. I hope to be completely invigorated by the next and be roaring like a tiger and ready to tackle which ever problem comes my way.

Ciao…

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Contemplation.

I am writing this in addition to the post below that I published this morning, so by all means go and read that. I just felt like sitting here and putting some more thoughts on paper. Ha, it looks like paper, but it isn’t.

After I walked Jesker, I laid down on the sofa with the classical music MP3 plugged into my ears and fell sleep for another hour, which was quite pleasant, as I wasn’t quite done sleeping yet. I seem to constantly surround myself with music nowadays with every activity I do, where before I always had peace and quiet to the point that you could hear a pin drop. What a difference that suddenly is. I don’t know how that came about, really, but suddenly there was this need for music. ‘The time for silence had ended.

My daughter sent me some links for yoga and tai chi in Maastricht. She thinks it will be good for my body and mind to participate in one of these activities and I think she may be right. I am going to look into it. The tai chi sounds very interesting, but it is taught in a castle just over the border in Belgium and I may have a hard time getting there. We’ll see, there are all sorts of possibilities. I have done yoga in the past and I know it is something very pleasant to do. There used to be a woman who gave yoga lessons through the regional psychiatric center, but I don’t know if she still does that. I’ll have to ask about it.

I am undergoing the pleasant effects of my medications. It is such a pleasing experience when I feel them working. It is almost as good as having a whole body massage, but then in your mind, because it has the same effect. If I am the least bit uptight beforehand, I know it will be gone after I have taken my pills.

It is a strange experience to live in the same house with a man whom you suddenly don’t hug and kiss and caress anymore. I feel the need to, but I do not allow myself, as I feel that the act will get me pulled in emotionally again when I am trying to create distance and remoteness, as I don’t want to be emotionally involved. Having conversations about the subject of our marriage and the affair is as close as I want to come and that is already very close and I have to shake myself lose afterwards.

I am disconnecting myself and I find that much easier when he is not home, because I can go my own way. I feel seriously hampered when he is home and don’t know much else to do but sit on the sofa and listen to my music or watch TV. I don’t feel the freedom of movement that I have when I am alone. I would like to have discussions with him, but nowadays they are all about one subject and we do get done with that at one point. Eduard says that he feels watched by me from my position on the sofa and that he doesn’t feel free to do what he wants to do, so we seem to have the same problem. He thinks I can read what he writes on the computer from such a long distance and I can’t. I think he feels that I cramp his style.

Oh, I am listening to The Red Hot Chili Peppers now. I am not that familiar with their music, so this is an education. Listen, when you are a 53 year old woman, you have to do your best to stay up on the latest music. For all I know, I am already running behind the times. I do have to be a hip Momma.

If I remember correctly, I was hypomanic this time last year and I think that I am not now. I am pretty sure that I am not, because I don’t feel in the least bit religious and I am not going downtown to burn candles at the chapel. I remember feeling such a terrible need to last year and wearing my funky flamboyant earrings. I do periodically feel the need to buy clothes, but they are just little moods I get into. I bought a gorgeous sun dress, but I need to lose 10 lbs before I can wear it, so that is a good motivator. On Monday my gastric band is going to be filed some more at 8:45 AM and I am more than ready for it, because it has been since October since it has last been.

Speaking as a Borderliner, it seems to me that there ought to be a lot of literature out there about it, but I have been reluctant to find any books discussing the subject. I am so afraid that I am going to run into all sorts of horror stories of how bad it is to live with and how awful the symptoms are and what the suicide rate is. I think I must be better informed, but I have to find a safe way to do it.

At any rate, I must know when it is the borderline syndrome that is doing the speaking for me or if it is the real me that is doing it. There may be a very narrow boundary and it may be very hard to tell the difference. I assume right now that I am rational and that I am not deluding myself, but will I wake up one morning knowing that it was all a delusion I lived under and that I now see the real truth? I am still making sense, aren’t I? When you have an opponent who tells you that you have control issues you do start to doubt yourself.

Okay, I am going to do a little housework around here. I must keep up the apartment a little bit. It is quite dark outside and I have to have all the lights on inside. There is a big storm hanging over the town and there was thunder and lightning a while ago.

Ciao…

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Pills.

Well, I have had my share of pills today and they have helped me through the day quite well. I don’t feel drowsy or drugged right now, but quite relaxed and at ease, and I have managed to change my email address for all my incoming emails, which were scattered over two different ones and too confusing, so now I have a new email address with our existing provider, which after some confusion and help from the help desk worked out well. They were actually helpful at the help desk this time, can you believe it? Real service and so polite too! I just didn’t know what was happening to me at all. I was so surprised. Such nice and polite boys!

So, anyway, I have been taking a combination of Oxazepam and Temazepam and although the Temazepam makes me a little sleepy initially, it works well the rest of the time and that with the Oxazepam is making me a quite mellow woman with a more casual point of view on the world, which is a God sent. I get so terribly uptight and frenetic and anxious and desperate and frantic and scared and panicky and everything I don’t want to get and is not under my control and is most unpleasant to feel and be the victim of, because i want to self destruct and that is no good. So, I am not feeling those things now and I am very grateful for that and I am grateful for the medication helping me feel this way, even though neither my psychiatrist nor my SPN know that I am using it this way yet. I will worry about that tomorrow when I see my SPN.

I have been sober minded enough to walk Jesker 3 times today without tripping over any curbstones or other obstacles such as tree roots or well placed plant boxes. I didn’t fall off any steps by one of the fields where the sidewalk goes down and Jesker pulled me in a hurry to get to the middle of the field where he saw a duck. I very gracefully quick stepped down as if I did this every day of the week and didn’t lose my balance one bit. Not even while one nosy man was watching me closely in the expectation that I would.

It is true though, that you as a patient very often will know what you need when it comes to medications and what will work for you. You are your own best advocate in these things and it is as if you instinctively know what to do. I did know that I had to put a halt to my own madness, because I was moving in dangerous territory and things were about to happen that I no longer had control over.

Eduard did something evil and bought my favorite cookies and I ate them all. They are chocolate covered biscuits that are covered with pure chocolate and they are absolutely delicious. I had forgotten they were there until this morning, but then I had myself a party and ate them all. Oh, they were so good. Cookies I can chew very well in tiny little crumbs, so they don’t get hung up by my gastric band and pass easily. They are my downfall and if I ever go to heaven, it will be filled with boxes of chocolate covered biscuits. I can’t share them with Jesker, because of the chocolate and he looks at me very sadly, because he does not even get a crumb. I like having something all to myself. I am greedy that way.

Then they made me very thirsty, but I remembered that, for a change, we had a bottle of diet coke in the refrigerator and I had a huge glass of that, so it was a real treat for me today. Isn’t it nice when there is good stuff to eat and drink and they are just the things that you need? Somebody did some opportune shopping.

I am postponing going to bed. I want to stay up just a little while longer, although I know that as soon as I take all of my pills, I will be ready to sleep in no time. We bought a jar of honey yesterday at a stand with homemade products, so that should go well in a glass of hot milk. I can’t wait to try that.

The best thing about being home alone is that I can turn up the music as loud as the neighbors can stand it, which is not that loud, of course, but then the TV is off and I don’t have to worry about it bothering Eduard. I have turned up the bass high. It gives a nice booming effect.

I almost have to make new cigarettes and then I will stop writing and get that show on the road. It’s always a real pleasure to sit and do that repetitive action and swear when one of them doesn’t turn out right. All I say is shit, or something like that. I don’t really swear in Dutch. I never learned to and find it quite offensive if people do.

I don’t know what I am going to write about when I wake up in a couple of hours and find myself sitting here again behind this computer. It is possible that I will not have any subject to discuss and no post to write, accept to tell you how well or how badly I slept. I am sure I can write a paragraph on that.

Okay, now I am going to stop seeing as though this is my second post for today. I do overdo it at times, don’t I? It’s a hobby, you know, this blogging. Sometimes I just do a little more of it.

Ciao…or cheerio, as they also say in England I think.

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To Hell in a Hand Basket.

As I was afraid of happening, as this always happens after I behave so very mature and rational, my emotions caught up with me something fearsome yesterday afternoon and I started to fall apart badly. I was at the film house when I did and could not afford to make a scene there, so I put my sunglasses on over my crying eyes and peddled my bike home as quickly as I could. I rode my bike home as if devils were chasing me and when I got home I took a mega dose of tranquilizers and three sleeping pills and laid down on the bed and very quickly fell asleep for about 4 hours. I would have wished to have slept longer, but when I woke up the tranquilizing effect of the pills was still working and at least I felt very calm and relaxed and not much would and could have bothered me at that point.

It was a great relief to feel all that the stress of the past months had left my head and that for a while I didn’t give a damn about what was happening around me and who did what to whom. I felt complete calm and could not think of hardly any worry. When the pills started wearing of, I took another large dose of tranquilizers and when i went to bed at night, I took another sleeping pill, so I have slept relatively well.

So, you see that if I get the proper amount of medication in me, my suicidal thoughts leave me and I do not want to do anything drastic and regrettable and I am so mellow that I don’t really care about anything much, as all as long as I don’t feel it like a deep aching pain that is like a terrible twisting knife wound in my body and soul. Awful scenes of what I could do to end my life were playing in my head and they were all desperate and I do not want to succumb to them in an hour of despair and panic.

I wrote my psychiatrist a letter explaining to him my state of mind and will have Eduard deliver it to him when he goes to see him on his appointment this week. In it I clearly state my desire for more and better tranquilizers in order to keep my sanity and my head above water. I must take some combination of tranquilizers and sleeping pills to stay sedated and not get into trouble. Actually, the sleeping pills are nothing more and less than tranquilizers too, that work very quickly, and I would like to take a combination of those with my other tranquilizers during the day and night. I have looked them up and they have the same active ingredient and work basically the same way, but one works more quickly than the other and just a little differently.

These are drastic measures, but these are times that call for drastic measures. I know what I am capable of and it is not pretty and I do not want to go sliding down the slippery slope of madness and mayhem. I want to, at all cost, retain my equilibrium and my sanity and my inner peace, even if it is done artificially. I want to not feel and not give expression to my strongest and most violent feelings.

It’s a terrible thing to have psychiatric disorders which will make you behave in extremes where you know you do not belong and where you will feel emotions so overwhelming that even you want to hide from them. Where you have to protect yourself from yourself and keep dangerous objects out of sight.

I am sitting here now, being somewhat subdued and trying to make sense of it all. I am somewhat sober, but in a little while, I will take all of my medications and I will feel differently then this. Hopefully, I will feel pleasantly numb, while still being able to function. If I sleep away the hours, then so be it. Sleep is a healing master also and god knows that I need it.

Well, that’s all the words I am going to waste on the subject today, although I may write more later today, who knows? Jesker is making urgent sounds about his pain medication, so I have to go.

Caio…

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A little bit extra.

I ran out of sleeping pills and didn’t get to the pharmacy on time to pick up my new ones and as a result I have been sleeping strangely, falling asleep for about one hour and getting up again repeatedly. I keep going back to the sofa to sleep some more, but I keep the computer running for when I get up to read another blog and then to go back to sleep again. I think I am awake this time, but you never know.

I had been making myself mugs of decaf, but I think I will have some real coffee now and maybe properly wake up. I thought I was going through withdrawal symptoms from the sleep medication, but I guess I am not and just am not used to sleeping without. It is like being on an airplane and continually dropping off to sleep and waking up again, a little bit disoriented. I think I could do without the medication, but I do like those 4 hours of heavy sleep it gives me first thing at night.

There is going to be an awful lot of reading for you to do, because there is a whole post before this one that I wrote yesterday afternoon that you probably haven’t read yet, so you may want to catch up with that one first. I have this desire to write and put my thoughts down and that makes you the victim of that, whether you like it or not. Well, that’s your choice actually, isn’t it?

I have gone through 5 pages of design/lay outs again to see if I could find the right one with the right ingredients, but I keep coming back tot this one as the best choice of all. I know the text strip is kind of narrow, but it has a blogroll and archives, which the other ones don’t have combined. They have either/or. Mostly just the archives. So, I have chosen the best of the worst choices. I liked the theme of the very first one, but it is not available with the blogroll, unless someone can help me with that.

Eduard and I were discussing first names and how, if I had become an American citizen, my name officially would be Nora now and that a lot of the liberating and emancipated things I have done in my life, I have done in the name of Nora and how she is my true self in many ways and how I have given her an identity and a face and how very much I want to set that woman free and how giving her a weblog is my first attempt at that, since I brought her to life so many years ago and had buried her in my subconscious since that time. Eduard said that it is alright with him if I want to become that Nora permanently and he can understand my desire to. That I identified stronger with that woman I see who is Nora than that woman I see who is called by that other name. Nora has lived inside of me for many years and has been waiting to break out and this is her opportunity.

In tribal life, people take on different names in different stages in their lives when they have passed from one difficult phase into another. I feel that I have gone through a challenging and healing and cleansing stage and I am now ready to take on a different name and the identity that comes with that name.

In order to understand that, you would have to read “The Doll’s House” by Ibsen and imagine me being that Nora a long time ago. There was also a book with the title that was something like “A cabin of my own,” but I can’t find it on Amazon books and maybe I am remembering the title wrong. Anyway, it says a lot about my struggle with myself and the cleansing affect of temporary self induced loneliness.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had the desire to shake off the identity that you have and take on a new one that fits you better, because you have grown and changed and become wiser and more insightful and have gone through traumatic events that left you hollowed out to the core that you had to fill up again with whole new ideas and truths and experiences. This is what happened to me. I have re-examined everything and come to new conclusions about just about everything I thought was true. The “I” standing here today can not be compared to the “I” that was standing in the world 17 years ago. It took me 53 years to get here. That’s a long time. Call it retarded but explosive growth.

Anyway, better late than never. I feel that I am the beginning of something new. A new life, with new convictions and new points of view that have slowly been taking form and have found their solid shape. A new name, however fleeting yet, belongs to it, and a blog is a good place to start. I will look into the legalities shortly.

Jesker is very merrily and very cosily snoring on his pillow. There is nothing more soothing than a snoring dog. Every once in a while he dreams and makes funny little sounds and his legs twitch. Sometimes he barks softly in his sleep. I am an observer of his sleeping patterns, spending many hours awake when he is asleep and he doesn’t know it. He is oblivious.

I don’t know where the cats are. Mostly they have been sticking close to home. Considering the weather has been so good, they have not been outside all that much. Now that we have fewer cats, they seem to enjoy being inside a lot more. They still spend a lot of time sitting on the dining table staring out the window and laying in the sunshine there in the afternoon. They’ve each found their niche in the hierarchy and we seldom have any problems. They all get along well and leave each other in peace and tolerate each other well, with Toby definitely being the top ranking cat, but with Gandhi also having some status in the rankings. Nouri definitely is not a dominant cat, she is the little girl cat that is afraid of her own shadow and very skittish. If you move too quickly, she flies off into the opposite direction.

I have just looked up how you change you first name. It seems to be a pretty straight forward procedure that you file with the courts with the help of a lawyer and the Queen gives her final approval. That’s a formality, of course. It will all be decided by a judge. You have to show good reasons why you want to change your name, so you have to have a good story. I think I can come up with one. Right, I’ll be doing that next then. We happen to have an acquaintance who is a lawyer, so maybe he can help us.

Alright, that’s it then for now. you already have so much to read. Don’t forget about the post below this.

Have a lovely day. I am planning on having one myself and I am going to be cleaning the bathroom (scrubbing the loo). Oh, joy!

Ciao…

P.S. The Image above is made from a collage by the Artful Eye. Here is the original:

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Wanky Wooly Wednesday

Lake Wobegon Days.

Firstly, let me do a good deed for two people who made me smile especially wide when I read my comments tonight. All my comments make me smile as a rule, but these two made me smile more than usual and it is so funny that these two people both had the same sort of idea. They are Miss Understood and Stinking Billy who both sent me a silly poem that was just right to end the day with. I would like to give them this special award:

So, please pick it up and feel free to pass it on to others who made you smile today or any other day.

It’s a little past eleven PM on Tuesday night now. Eduard and I just came home from the film house where I leaned on the bar in my usual spot next to the nachos machine. A man and a woman came to stand there and they were obviously on a date, because the man said very apologetically to the woman, “Well, this is not the most romantic spot to drink our wine.” I could have told him that, because I eavesdrop on everybody and everybody feels that way about the nachos machine.

A funny thing happened. A volunteer colleague of Eduard tried to pick me up. He didn’t know who I was, but I knew who he was and I kept silent about who I was, so it was quite funny and we had a very animated conversation during which I was much flattered. His name is Milout and he comes from Morocco and speaks French fluently and his mother makes the best couscous. He talks very excitedly and with much body language and he is obviously an intelligent guy, but he was quite embarrassed when Eduard walked up to him and asked him in French if he was trying to pick up his wife. Milout said, “Oh no, she is your wife, surely not, you must be joking!” I was most charmed by this Arabic man who understands how to woo a woman. You don’t meet many men like that anymore.

Graffiti

Early Wednesday morning. I suddenly had to go to bed, I was overcome by sleep and nodding off behind the computer. That was before I took my sleeping pills, imagine me afterwards.

I discovered something about being wobbly on the bike. I realized since I had become so much calmer, that I did not need that much oxazepam anymore and that it was even starting to make me feel drugged. So, yesterday I cut back my massive dose of 200 mg to a more sensible dose of 80 mg, which is still a lot and suddenly I feel a lot more clearheaded. I needed them when I did and felt fine on them, but now that I don’t need them that much anymore , they make me feel drugged and drowsy. I am going to cut them down to 40 mg a day and stay on that amount, because I think I will always need a little and it is handy when I can increase the dose if I suddenly have to.

So, I am much less wobbly on the bike and can go at increasingly faster speeds now and that is ever so nice, like last night when it started to rain and we made it home by riding our bikes quickly between the raindrops and we hardly got wet. I am still having a tendency to veer to the right, but I feel much more secure now and that makes a lot of difference. I can’t quite say that I raced Eduard home, but I gave it a try anyway. He would always win that race. He’s like Speedy Gonzales.

Roadside Trees.

I saw my SPN in the morning. I told her about my newly acquired insights into my Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and she seemed relieved about that and said she had always been kept up to date about that by my psychiatrist and he had always shown her my emails to him about the subject. I showed her the notes I had made for myself and she asked if she could keep those. She said there is a bit of a waiting list for the personality disorder team, but that she would care for me in the meantime and that there should be no problem with the transfer of me from one caregiver to the next, that is all streamlined.

Actually, for me it is also a relief to have owned up to this bit of myself, especially when I read the various reports and letters about myself that I have always had the copies off in my big organizer. I was so obviously derailed and in such bad shape for such long time and there was such concern for me and my mental state of health. I have so stubbornly refused to see the writing on the wall these past 6 years or so, in the end I only hurt myself with that contrary attitude. It has to do with trusting other people and assuming that they have your best interests at heart.

I see it this way, manic depression is like an illness that you cope with and BPD is like a behavior disorder that you can teach yourself to change in.

Market Stall Shampoos.

Eduard and I wanted to have a cuddle moment yesterday afternoon, but we ended up having such serious talks about all sorts of things and then, worn out, I fell asleep. We are both going through a lot of changes right now and are discovering a lot about ourselves and each other. Sometimes it’s quite scary. I sometimes don’t know where we will end up. I do love him very much and am still very much in love with him. I realize that when I see him in a crowd, like last night at the café and I see him in comparison to other men, and I realize that I wouldn’t want anybody else. “It’s a puzzlement,” as the king of Siam said to Anna.

Oh, I am seeing the physiotherapist on Friday and I am looking forward very much as to what sort of therapy I am going to get. I am secretly hoping for massages, but I should be that lucky, right? “Please massage my back into the right place, thank you!”

I walked to my SPN’s office, which took me 30 minutes, and after that, I walked to the film house for some coffee and that took me about 30 minutes. I tried to walk straight up, but I think I may have given the appearance of a drunk woman. You know how drunk people really do their best to walk like they are stone sober? Well, I looked like that. I could have gotten a ticket for disorderly conduct.

Well, it’s time to hang up. I have to change my music download list. Fo
r some reason I thought it would be interesting to have a French rapper on it, but now it seems that every other song is one of his, so I am deleting him out of the system and I am going to find something better instead, so wish me luck. I was thinking of Linkin Park, but I think they may be a bit too hip for us middle aged folks.

Gotta set my priorities, am I hip or am I middle aged, or am I middle aged because I am hip?

Have a wanky wooly Wednesday and for all of you people who don’t have a queen, I say, try it, you may like it. There are some noble houses floating around Europe who could use a country to rule over symbolically. Then you wouldn’t have such abnormal moral expectations of your presidents. You could transfer all of those feelings to your Royal Houses. They’re good for that.

Ciao…

P.S. One for the road.

Market Stall Fabrics.

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