Best Birthday Ever

Nick came by a little after noon with two cakes, a card, lovely espresso cups, and good conversation.  Nick cooks.  Nick bakes.  Nick has the right equipment.  Check out these cakes.

Then later in the afternoon, Ms M and Roscoe came by bearing gifts and flowers.  While she was here, Esther, Marsha, Rachel and David came.  At the end of the day there were two Davids in my house.  Both lovely men.  My friend and neighbor supplied and cooked for the party.  And the food was great. There were five dogs visiting my two, so it was a wonderful dog party as well.

I woke late to cold and rain.  I don't remember ever having bad weather for my birthday.  It's one of the nicest things about having an early June birthday.  I began the day cursing the weather until I found my glasses.  Then Nick called and nothing could ruin the day.  It was perfect in every way.

To those of you on twitter and facebook, thank you for the lovely birthday wishes.  I have never had so many people wish me happy birthday.

Western Tanager Chick Down

We've had a series of intense winds and rain storms.  Wednesday morning when Marly and I went out during a break in the storms we discovered a baby Western Tanager on the walkway.  Marly was very respectful of this baby.  She did a very good imitation of a Pointer, just looking at it very intently.  She didn't bark or growl or poke it with her nose.  We watched it for a moment and then I took Marly in, grabbed my camera, and took a series of photos in quick succession.  When we first looked at it, it's head was up, but as I was snapping pictures its head drooped and it's wings began to look less useful.  I hoped if we left it alone, mom or pop would come to the rescue.  Next time we went out it was on its side and seemed to be rapidly dying.  Today I'll bury this baby.  I'm hoping that since Western Tanagers lay from one to five eggs, there will be surviving fledgelings.  This baby looked big enough to fly.  It's wings were very sturdy looking.  I can't imagine what brought it down.  Yes, there were winds and yes, there was rain.  But somehow I can't imagine that sturdy little bird getting downed by wind and rain.  I'll bury it today.  I think it's a boy and would have grown to look like its magnificent daddy.

Thank You Ms M

Roscoe woke me up early this morning whimpering at the door. That's how it always was.  I let him in and we went back to sleep. Now we're up and I'm getting my first cup of coffee, then we'll all go outside for their morning comstitutional.  I'll feed them.  And our day will be off to a good start.  It's so nice to have handsome Roscoe around today.  I'll keep my camera close so I can document everything he does.

Coping

Ms M has decided to keep Roscoe at her mother's house.  I feel as if we're all being punished for being happy.  She said he needs to get used to being alone.  Why now?  He'll have plenty of time to get used to being alone when they move. 

In the years Ms M and Roscoe lived with me I was a generous supportive friend.  I've always cared for Roscoe when she worked.  I encouraged her to go back to school.  I helped her in every way I could.  Taking care of Roscoe was part of my helping her.  Now it feels as if she's punishing me for my generosity.  I wonder how Roscoe feels?

I'm coping.  Marly and Cyrus are coping.  I talked to my therapist, Fred, on Friday.  He's kind enough to do a mini-session on the phone as an assessment.  Do I need to see Dr Isabella or not?  Do I need a change of anti-depressant or not?  "Or not" is the conclusion we both came to as I talked to him.  I have a bad day or two and think I'm coming undone.  Bipolar disorder can get tricky when you're transitioning.  The way down and the way up are dangerous times.  It's then when you have the energy to do real damage or chose the final solution.  I'm not worried about that for myself.  I know that if I stay on top of this illness I can keep myself fairly stable.  It's when I ignore changes that I get into trouble.  It doesn't take much to knock me off this narrow balance beam.  So I'm vigilant and I don't put off checking in with Fred.

Saturday morning I woke up and decided to cut my hair.  Change can be good.  Change is inevitable.  Embrace change!  I didn't hesitate.  I got my coffee, had a smoke, and hacked off my hair.  I went from chin length bob to short short in less than a half an hour.  I'm good.  I can cut the back of my hair using only touch to feel the length and thickness of it.  I think of the first big haircut change as a rough draft.  But when writing poetry and cutting my hair, the rough draft is often what works.  I'm happy with the result.  I almost have a Rachel Maddow cut.  And the few people who've seen it have been complimentary.

Now I have to take Marly for a walk so she'll stop waiting for Roscoe.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

I'm fading into the background of my own life.  I'm hardly even here anymore.  Nothing works to distract me from the bleak realities of my everyday existence or the disgust I feel for my bad attitude.  There are no humans in my photos.  That's a result of my having alienated everyone.  There's no one left to offend.  I have driven them all away.  I make no effort anymore.  And aside from the things I've blogged about there are a couple of new things that are now just having an impact on my state of mind.  Yes, circumstances can tip the scales toward a bipolar event.

A couple of weeks ago I found out that my internist is going to work for the V.A.  I think it's admirable that she's willing to work with Vets, but she has been a very good medical professional for me.  She knows me very well.  She was the gate keeper, the nerve center, the one person who could tell me to call my shrink when I got too gloomy.  She didn't nag me.  She didn't judge me.  She seemed to genuinely like me.  I don't get that much.  I know I'm not that easy to get, to like, to care about.  I'm sometimes very prickly, impatient, irritable.  Now I have to start with someone new, who hasn't read my fucking chart, who has no idea who I am or how I think, or what matters to me.  She even shared my political passions.  I've been sitting on this catastrophe as if it hasn't really happened or won't matter all that much, but today as I was filling my pill minder I saw that I was running out of Warfarin.  I called in my refill but the pharmacy will need to contact my doctor to get more refills.  And that's when it hit me.  I've lost someone else who really matters in my life.  Now I have to negotiate everything anew.  Now I have to prove to someone else that my bipolar diagnosis isn't the totality of who I am.  My bipolar disorder is a challenge but it doesn't explain everything.  It's not the only reason I'm a difficult woman.

Last night Ms M came home from Michigan to pick up Roscoe.  Last night Ms M told me she's taking Roscoe with her to Savannah when she moves in July.  Months ago she asked me if I'd keep him when she moved.  I said yes.  At that point I began to think of him as my responsibily.  He's a wonderful dog who has spent almost all of his life here.  This has been home.  This place, these people, these dogs are his familairs.  I was losing Ms M.  But I was happy for her, proud of her.  I was doing her a favor and doing her dog a favor.  Now I'm losing them both.  If you've looked at my photos much you know that Roscoe is the most photographed presence in my pictures.  Roscoe is a big part of my life.  Roscoe has special needs.  He's a dog who hates to be alone.  Now I have to start learning to live without him.  My life is shrinking at an alarming rate.

Stone Work

We had two whole days without rain.  The temperature was in the 70s.  I've been slightly depressed by the news.  Twitter always reports the big news stories a day or two before they hit the news programs so I knew the Aid Flotilla was coming and I knew Israel wasn't going to let it in.  I'm starting to get really hammered by the Gulf oil spill story.  I'm starting to get depressed for President Obama.  The Bush chickens are all now coming home to roost and it's a foul mess landing on Obama's shoulders.  I feel sorry for him, sorry for the people of the Gulf.  I'm horrified by the confrontation between aid workers and the Israeli soldiers.  So I took a couple of days off.  I didn't even check email.  No twitter, no blog, no news.

I started unearthing the stone work I did twenty years ago.  And I mean that literally.  For almost twenty years no one has been clearing leaves and other debris from the alley side of the little house. So all that debris has turned into soil that's been collecting on the old stone walkway.  I began a small archeological dig and took pictures as I worked.  I also began adding stones to the path to the main house, enlarging the area covered by brick.  I have no idea why doing stone work is so enjoyable for me.  When I began doing the this work back here twenty years ago I found it both satisfying and somewhat meditative.  It's hard work but I love the final result.  That's a good thing since I have a huge pile of bricks and all the work I did all those years ago has been shifted as tree roots have grown under the pavers, lifting them and making tripping hazards here and there.  Making my patio area larger and better is going to be my summer project.  Here are the photos of my efforts so far.

Baby It's Cold Outside

It may look pretty, all these shrubs bursting with blooms and berrybuds, the green tunnel of foliage, the soft light of an overcast day, but I'm starting to be seriously affected by this unseasonably cold Spring.  I have had one day of good weather here or there to prune the tunnel of pink honeysuckle, to gather the clippings and dispose of them before the rain comes again.  I should be happy for all this rain.  It means I'll have to water less than usual, since the trees are soaking it up. The weather forecast may be pretty good for a week, but two days into it, it turns to unforecast cold, unforecast rain, unforecast snow, as if the weatherperson is just guessing moment to moment and is surprised by it all. It's impossible to make plans to party or work outside.  Or, if plans have been made, to dress appropriately for the possibility of rain, or snow.  You can start the day with the sun shining, wearing shorts and a sleeveless shirt only to be searching for a warm sweater by midday when the storm clouds roll in with a very chill wind scatters napkins and paper plates across the yard, foiling one more attempt to have a barbeque and a beer in the gazebo.  So far, the gazebo has gone unused.  The cold puddles of rain water have never evaporated this Spring and are probably breeding pools for mosquitos to plague me all Summer long.

I have weather whiplash.  The sun is shining now, but it's 55 degrees outside and the space heater is chugging away beside my bed and I sit here typing in winter clothes.

The Brilliant Bird In the Bush

I usually wake up just before dawn to pee.  Then I go back to bed until 9:00 or so when the dogs begin to get restless.  This past week I've been hearing baby birds chirping for breakfast at dawn.  One morning I lay awake listening to them and then suddenly they went quiet and silence descended on the dawn once more.  It's a lovely sound, that baby bird hunger satisfied, that contented silence returning.

My little house is nestled into a near jungle of trees and shrubs.  The yard of my little house is a mix of untended perenials, some of them planted and some of them just pretty weeds.  If it blooms and is pretty through the hot dry spell of summer, it stays.  I'm trying to conserve water so I only water the trees, but I have so many trees that it's a lot of watering and it pretty much covers the property.  I'm letting the Vinca invade the lawn, since grass seems like an invention to make the manufacturers of lawnmowers rich.  My patches of mown green, small as they are, provide a bit of contrast to the wilderness. But if you sit in my gazebo mid summer you'd think you were in the country, so green and quiet it is, the silence punctuated with the sounds of songbirds and squirrels, the occasional bark of a dog and the laughter of children playing.  I seldom hear the sound of traffic.  I live on a narrow street that dead-ends a block to the south of me.  Anyone who drives down this street has to drive slowly; there isn't room for a car to pass another.  Yet here we are in the middle of a city.  And this year for the first time ever, after the coldest, wettest Spring in my memory, I have a pair of nesting exotics.  They look like they belong in Costa Rica.  And they've nested near my deck; the bush they're currently feeding from is right outside my bedroom window.  I have no idea what kind of bird they are, but maybe you know.  I've seen the female and she's not half so lovely as this guy.  I hope when they leave in the fall they remember the abundance of food here and come back next year.  These photos were taken through my dirty window.  This was the first day of sun in awhile, and knowing the next would bring rain, I have waited to wash the outside of my windows, so imagine how lovely he'd be without the blur of a dirty window.

Abuse

I have a friend whose husband very emphatically dislikes me.  In his estimation, I'm very very crude.  I call shit "shit." I don't use euphemisms for bodily functions.  When I had a recent sewage backup caused by the bad kids who stuffed their toilet with paper towels and handy-wipes, the fact that I talked about raw sewage coming up from the floor drain in my solarium caused him to forbid her to visit me.  Raw sewage got added to the list of words that are forbidden.  Since I was having a raw sewage problem, she wasn't allowed to talk to me.  And if she did talk to me, she couldn't talk to him about what was going on here.  He claims he can't trust her not to use those "bad" words when she talks with me.  However he has no problem telling me to go fuck myself.  "Fuck off!" is okay but calling raw sewage "raw sewage" is forbidden.  So all during that crisis in my life, the words raw sewage and shit made me off limits to her because he has a problem hearing about the specific problem I was having.

They pick up my Doxie to walk with their Chihuahua every morning.  I don't ask, but she gives me the lowdown on Marly's "output."  I don't need to know how many times Marly made "output."  Euphemisms for normal bodily functions make me gag.  I have a hard time with people who are too precious to call shit "shit," but who have no problem screaming at a neighbor to "Fuck off!" or "Go Fuck Yourself!"  It all seems pretty crazy to me.  But since I'm crazy, intimating that someone else might be a touch crazy is the like the pot calling the kettle black.  I usually don't go there.

I've been buying beer and bourbon for her for a long time because he counts the beers she drinks at home, so rather than battle it out with him, she comes to visit me when she needs a beer but has exceeded her "allowed number of beers" at home.  I'm astonished by how controlling he is and how much of that controlling behavior she puts up with.  They have "good chemistry."  I think that's a euphemism for good sex.  And I understand the power of good sex.  I lived with Tom for five years longer than I would have if the sex hadn't been so good.  But in the end, good sex couldn't make up for bad communication and a lack of reciprocity in our relationship.  By the time I left him for the last time, I was disgusted with myself for living with a man who never once told me he loved me, but who was a good fuck but not a good lover.  And Tom wasn't a tenth as controlling as my friend's husband.  I'm astonished that she allows him to tell her what she can and can't do, let alone what she can and can't say.

She and I were going shopping today.  She stopped by to show me that ads for Old Navy that made her want to shop there.  But as we were talking she told me about my next door neighbor asking her one morning as she and her husband where walking the dogs "What's going on with Peggy and her tenants?" My friend told my neighbor about the raw sewage problem and it's very deliberate cause.  Her husband stood there calmly listening to the conversation.  But when they got home he was furious that she used the "forbidden words" and told her she isn't a "trustworthy person" because obviously she can't keep her promise not to use those words.  If I were her I'd be choking on words.  Those words would be like bones stuck in my throat.  I'd be strangling on those words.  But his rage over the use of "forbidden words" is like she'd been fucking the mailman on the front lawn and charging admission to watch.  His rage over the words she uses is so out of proportion to the offense that as she was standing in her kitchen with a full quart of ice water she'd just pulled from the fridge he grabbed the water out of her hand and emptied it over her head.  She just stood there.  When the bottle was empty she calmly walked out of the kitchen, picked up her purse and keys and left.  She had to go visit her dying blind mother who lives in a nursing home north of Salt Lake.  On a good day that's a painful visit.  She adores her mother and seeing her in her current state is always painful.  Her mother has vascular dementia.  Same illness my mother died of.  Only her mother was a loving and good mother.  So the pain she feels is terribly poignant even without carrying the pain of her abusive husbands treatment of her.

As she was telling me this story she started crying.  I asked her "Has he apologized?" "No."  Apparently he feels completly justified.  But what he doesn't know is that his behavior has pushed her to make plans to escape and stay elsewhere next time he goes off on her.  And I'm betting he won't have the slightest idea why she's left him.  She does everything for him.  He'll be like a helpless baby if left to his own devices.  He has no idea that he is mentally ill.  And when doctors have tried to get him to take a drug that will help him with his out of control rage and abusive controlling behavior, he refuses to take the pill that would help him.  He doesn't think he has a problem  But I'm the crazy bitch with a potty mouth.  At least I take my pills.

Am I sick or Is It Bipolar Disorder?

I don't feel well.  There are many reasons I might not feel well right now but I can't rule out the possibility that this might be the beginning of depression.

I don't want to do anything.  It might be the unseasonably cold temperatures and the fact that I awoke yesterday to a snow storm.  Or it might be the beginning of depression.  I can't quite wake up.  Things that usually please me, like visitors, make me feel vaguely annoyed.  I'm not exactly annoyed at the people visiting me, but at my own lack of enthusiasm.  I can fake it for awhile, long enough to make it through a visit.  I don't lack interest.  But when the visitor leaves, I'm relieved to be alone again.  Today, though it's cool now, it's supposed to be 71 degrees.  Perfect weather for working outside.  Perfect weather for taking a walk.  But I want to pull the shades and sleep.  I can't quite wake up.  The dogs enthusiasm for their morning routine makes me irritable.  I can fake my way through the morning.  I know what the dogs expect of me.  But I just wanted to sleep another hour or ten, so when I get out of bed, I'm very very tired.  And there is no good reason for this fatigue.

Usually when I wake up one of the first things I do is look in on twitter.  I have no interest in twitter today.  I feel a little bit sick.  This used to confuse me because feeling sick can be cured, but a depression can last for years and there seems to be no reason for it.  I'm a reasonable person, so a bad mood or a need for a nap I can deal with.  But the black cloud of depression can't be dealt with in quite such a rational way as tackling a real illness or just a bad mood.  If I were vomiting or had a fever, I could overlook this lethargy and know why my body didn't want to do anything but lie in bed.

I have congratulated myself for this long period of stability.  It's been years since I had a real serious bipolar event.  I take my medications and check my emotional temperature every day.  If I'm really off, like very angry or very irritible, I realize that I might not really be all that angry or irritible, it might just be a bipolar event.  I can't take my feelings at face value.  My feelings could be quite reasonable given my circumstances.  But if they seem overblown to other people given the provication, I have to consider the possiblity that it might just be bipolar disorder and not my friend's incredible insensitivity.  Fact is, not one of my friends is all that insensitive.  Nick just called to see if I wanted to go to a movie.  And I worry that my lack of enthusiasm for much of anything might seem like I just don't want to do anything with him.  Truth is, he's the only person I'd go out with.  But for now, I'm going nowhere.

Big Snow the Last Week of May

This is what I saw last night just before I went to bed.  It was in the low 40s and I thought that was cold.  This is the pink honeysuckle beside my front door.  It's so loaded with blooms it looks weighted down.  Bees love it.  So do hummingbirds.  It was cold and wet all day yesterday.  The dogs didn't want to go out in the rain.  Did tell what pussies my dogs are?  Cyrus is the only one who isn't fazed by bad weather, but the slightest loud noise and he starts shaking and trying to get under my bed. 


This is what I woke up to this morning.

Inheritance

The things I got from my family
are a hinky heart and a hot temper,
a dark brooding streak and a propensity
to be alone; leave me alone, but listen

They were aggressively smart people
Good looking and full of seductive power
Careless and hurtful.  Don't take it personally
It's all in your head.  Snap out of it!

The house came tripped to crumble five years
Into the second great depression when I was
Finally left alone in the forest here at the back
Hiding on the alley locked and gated all but invisible

Just me and the dogs waiting
For the loud roar in the quiet of a late summer night

When the house implodes with it's secrets intact
And the roof comes tumbling down

Twitter and My Bipolar Disorder

I woke up this morning feeling like the air was the weight and density of molasses.  I felt like depression had claimed me and as I sat on the toilet I thought the next thing I should do is call my therapist and ask for an antidepressant change.  But first I got coffee, slammed back a hand full of pills, and then the tall boy's girlfriend came out to visit the dogs.  She's very sweet and smart.  I love the energy these young people have.  She's working on a studying film making at the U. (I was a film student there a year or two after the program began).  They're having another dinner party this weekend.  I heartily approve.  When she left the phone rang.  It was my friend Esther.  Talking with her cheered me up even though we both just complained about one thing and another.  She's far more cheerful and optimistic than I, but she'd had a pipe burst in her bathroom and needed a plumber, quick.  I have a handyman who can do it all and I gave her his number.

I checked the weather forecast and realized I'd need to mow the lawn, and soon.  Snow is forecast for this weekend in the foothills and higher.  It won't stick, but still, it's almost summer.  But when I stopped to check my email and look in on twitter I realized today is Friday.  Fridays are celebrated on twitter with the hashtag #FF or #ff which means Follow Friday or FollowFriday.  I had a bunch of follow Friday messages.  I know it sounds very silly, but it's a way of letting your favorites know you appreciate them.  So there are people who think of me as a favorite. People say good night to each other on twitter.  People listen in and then let you know they wish you well, or hope things get better soon.  People encourage one another and flirt with one another and tease each other, even as we tweet our reaction to politics and disasters.  Even as we pass on breaking news stories.  I've heard more news reported first there, often hours before I hear it on MSNBC or NPR.  It's always exciting and interesting on twitter.  I follow some very intelligent, funny and passionate people on twitter. They inform and entertain me. Life is sometimes more real on twitter than it is in the meatworld.  I love the written word.  Twitter is all about concise use of language. Twitter is pithy at it's best.  Roger Ebert is really great on twitter.  Can you feel how visceral my reaction to a dose of twitter is? Speak the written word. Forget rules. Write like you talk.  I'm off and running.

So I'm no longer mired in the molasses like atmosphere of depression.  In fact I may be rapid-cycling a bit.  A transitional position on the bipolar roller coaster of tripping from pole to pole.  It's hard to be around someone who is rapid-cycling because they will be motor-mouthed and oblivious of the needs of others.  But on twitter I can have conversations with ten or twenty people about many different topics.  It's a fast fast world on twitter. Perfect for the woman rapidly swinging from pole to pole of her bipolar disorder.  "Disorder" is such a great word for it.  When one is "rapid-cycling" there is very little order and what order there is can be smashed in a second by the next mood swing.

When I went outside to mow the lawn the lawnmower gas cap was missing.  The tank was empty too.  This made me angry at myself, since I was the last person, the only person to use the lawnmower,  After I filled the gas tank I went in the house and bitched about the missing gas cap on twitter.  When I came in after mowing the lawn there was a message to me with a warning from a tweeter about getting a replacement for the missing gas cap, with a command to do it soon. I'd used tinfoil to fashion a temporary cap.  There's a risk of flash fire when you're mowing sans gas cap.  Good thing I'd finished.  And I won't use it again until I get a replacement.  Thanks, friends from twitter.  You changed my attitude and helped me keep from sinking into the quicksand of depression.  Or maybe my drugs are working better than I thought.  Maybe both. 

I seem alright tonight. But who knows about tomorrow.  I could wake up unable to pull myself out of the quicksand, unable to tell the difference between being tired and being depressed, because depression often begins like any other illness.  It aches all over, it hurts to move, light is too bright, the dark might be the only comfort.  It might be impossible to speak without slurring words.  It might last an hour or a year.

It's an intricate dance we bipolar people perform with all the passion we can muster.  Please understand, those of you who are not afflicted with this monster of an illness, but live with someone who is, that, in as much as everything is in one's head, this too could be said to be "all in my head."  Ok, I'll give you that.  It's all in my head.  But no one can simply snap out of an illness.  Only the illness can snap you out of it, and the illness can turn you into a tireless, cheerful, organizing wizard or it can turn you into a hot tempered shouting, sobbing mess so fast there seems to be no precipitating event.  Would anyone choose to feel this way if they could choose the way they felt?  Certainly not, especially if one lives in a disapproving and shaming family.  It's painful to know that those you love find you embarrassing or think you're lazy and self indulgent.

There are times when this illness is wonderful.  It bestows a certain access to a world of creativity that I never want to be cured of.  Sometimes, in a blissful moment, I think I would choose to be this way, but then I live alone. I can do what I please on my schedule.  I think for me it is easier.  There is no one shaming me for my mental illness.  There is no one calling me lazy, moody, too loud, acting crazy.  There is no one yelling at me to "SNAP OUT OF IT!"

Stress, Anxiety, and Bipolar Disorder

I'm tired, so tired, and have been for days.  I haven't been able to just sink into this fatigue, since there are still things to do that are time related. I've been working on deadlines for weeks.  I've been spending money I don't have, trying to get things done that will at least allow me to have an income so I can start paying off the things I couldn't pay for once my bank account was emptied but the work not finished.

I always worked on deadlines (modeling and acting) and I always spent more than I earned (compulsive shopping is a symptom of bipolar disorder).  This creates a lot of stress even without the horrifying thrill of knowing that your house might fall down around your feet. I have termites.  And it's been the rainiest spring I remember.  This is a dry climate, and so termites are not that common.  But this year it might as well be the Pacific Northwest and termites are drawn to wet wood.  So I'm exhausted and worried.  That's not a good combo for anyone with bipolar disorder.

Those of us with bipolar disorder spend most of our lives coping with the stress our disorder creates.  For people with families, bipolar disorder effects everyone.  In my case, it has effected a man or two or three.  I can only imagine how difficult it would be to know that my personal chaos was driving my children crazy.  And then there is the genetic factor.  I didn't reproduce because I'd been raised in an abusive family and wanted to stop the cycle of abuse.  But in the bipolar family, if one person is bipolar, there will be others.  Bipolar disorder is one of the few genetic illnesses that has not just one genetic marker, but two.  This is a double whammy.  There is no escaping the fact that if you have children, you will be passing this illness on to the next generation and the next and on into infinity.

I take my bipolar medications religiously.  Even when I was on bipolar drugs that made me fat and lazy, I took them as if my life depended on it.  And in truth my life does depend on it.  I have had bad psychiatric care and good psychiatric care, but no matter the quality of care, I've taken the drugs they prescribed for me.  Suicide attempts and hospitalizations for psychosis will scare the bejeezus out of almost anyone.  Years of sleeping as if you were under the spell of an evil witch will make you hate your wasted life.  Depression kills.  There is no way around that.  And after awhile, it is only on the way down or on the way up that you know you have a window of opportunity and the energy and the knowledge to plan and carry out another suicide attempt. Suicide is our leading cause of death.  I know this, and so I take my medications.

I carry thirty to forty pounds of drug weight.  But I'd rather be fat than dead.  I'd rather be fat than in a sleep coma.  I rather be fat than bankrupted by a shopping compulsion.  And even with those extra thirty or forty pounds I'm normal weight for my height and age.  It's just that as a former model I was always very slender.  I am genetically predisposed to be thin.  So "fat" to me is not "fat" to most.

Today I'm taking a day off.  I'm going to stay in my little house and putter around.  I'll do a load of laundry and make my place a little cleaner.  I'm going to let the boys do their thing without any help or input from me.  I'm going to ignore the phone.  I'm going to nap when I feel like it.  I'm going to rest my weary body and mind.

The Bedrooms

Heading up the stairs to the bedrooms.  I have my trusty companion Roscoe, the guard dog extraordinaire.  This used to be his house.  For five years he spent his nights in one bedroom and then the other.

Ta Da!

The house is clean and welcoming.  It isn't perfect but if you were 120 years old, you'd show a bit of wear too.  I have one thing left to do in the kitchen and it's a bit of decorative cover-up.  The old faucet was on the white tile wall behind the sink.  The new faucet is on the sink.  I'll cover the old faucet holes with a row or two of tiles three wide and two high.  It won't be that hard and it won't take long to do.  I'm sure the boys won't mind.  They move in tomorrow and are having a small party to celebrate.  I've been invited. 

Here are a few photos as promised.  I'm starting with the kitchen and working my way through the downstairs.  I'll take you up to the bedrooms tomorrow.

Missing In Action

I'm sorry to have abandoned you.  I'm working.

`Today I finished painting the kitchen.  This involved five colors of paint.  I figure if you're going to paint a kitchen why not make it really difficult.  And every color that's dried gets taped for the next color.  It's a time consuming bitch.  Three days of painting and cleaning up after painting has turned my hands to sandpapery claws with little infected splits at the tips of my fingers.  I'll take pictures.  Today I worked fifteen hours.

Then I started cleaning blinds.  Holy fuck, that's a nasty job!  And time consuming too. Then I washed the bay windows in the fireplace room and I notice that every window sill is filthy. Those damn kids.

I won't be able to participate in the current political conversation and a lot of things of are happening.  I feel left out.  I have three more long days of cleaning.

Don't forget me while I'm gone.  All I'll need is a day of two of total vegitating and I'll be good as new.

Happy Mother's Day

Due To Old Age and Naiveté I'm Spent

The house and I may be too old to fix.  But I'm trying to keep us both patched up with as little money as possible considering the need for much work.  Now that the new countertop and sink and fixtures and cabinets are in, I need to verathane the unfinished wood or paint or stain it.  But I'm going for the quick cheap fix.  The whole kitchen needs to be painted.  And if I can put it on the bill, I'm going to try very hard to get my handyman to help. He's painting elsewhere today.  I have some of the paint I want to use.  I want to paint the wainscoting a medium warm gray.  I'll paint the walls a pale neutral close to the color of the wood and a fleck in the countertop.  The upper cabinets will be brown. That is, if I can get the help and pay it off after the rent starts coming in.  I had to pay cash for the cabinets.

But the bad kids left the house uncleaned.  The carpets and rugs have gone unvacuumed the hardwood floors are dirty.  The windows are smeared with dog nose mess.  Feathers and dog hair and dust drift and every surface and drawer is dusty and gritty.  The blinds Ms M and I cleaned before the kids moved in are all dirty again.  Blinds are time consuming to clean.  The tub looks as if it hasn't been scrubbed since Ms M last cleaned it.  I'm afraid to think about the toilet.  And my back and knees are giving out.  I have cracks in the ends of my fingers.  The kids left the fridge full of long-ago-rotted food.  I tossed it all today.  The oven is...  Well, just thinking about it is about to make me cry.

And lest we not forget, I have to buy a new washer and dryer and get them installed.  I'm worried about the floor under the old washer.  Now that I'm thinking about it, I was going to get my laundry done today, but just didn't make it.  But I did buy a couple of rolls of quarters.  I'm going to bed early.  I have an appointment with the Terminex man tomorrow morning.

The two handsome young men move in a week from today.  And I want things to be finished by then.  This is going to be tricky.  Too bad I don't have a man in my life.