i just saw this guy on the news.
how in the world does he ever get taken seriously...
with that mustache???


in other news, the bruises from the dog bite on my upper arm are fading, but now there are a couple big, hard lumps under my skin where the bruises were.  anyone know what this might be?  it still hurts.  i hope i don't have to go to the doctor.


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when i don't shower for a few days, my armpits kinda smell like grapefruit.


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today was my first ear candling experience!

well, after that nice post the other day about how lovely my life is right now, i started having fevers. 
we almost went to the emergency room the other night at 3am because it had come on so rapidly and wasn't responding to tylenol or ice packs for hours on end.  as sheila was getting stuff together to take me to the hospital, it finally started to come down.  or maybe, subconsciously, i just didn't want to spend the next 6 hours in the ER!
fever persisted yesterday, though didn't get much above 101F, so it was tolerable and i was able to get a little bit done. i still feel pretty shitty though.  no appetite, a little nausea.  on the night of my first fever, i got 2-3 hours of sleep.  then last night i went to sleep at 9pm, woke up at 11pm, and was off and on like that until 4am, when i gave up and got online and here i am.
so much for sleeping it off!
some of sheila's co-workers are coming over on sunday, so i hope i feel better by then.


.

sometimes i think that the day might come when i wake up and fucking get over myself.  maybe i'll finally be able to see my life as an outside observer.  so much more will make sense.  seeing it all in a different light, i will be faced with reality and immediately sink or swim.

i often get the feeling that i'm living life without really experiencing it.  maybe this is what is behind that long aged veil of moderate depression that the meds just can't touch.

sometimes i wonder what is left under all these pills.  i get all philosophical every week when i'm filling my pill holder.  i know how it feels to go through withdrawal and lose my balance, then become just ill enough to convince myself to start taking them again.  but who would i be after the withdrawal symptoms?  i don't really feel like i know who my unmedicated self is.  i don't remember me anymore.

this is not some whiney existential rant to justify going off my meds.  more accurately, this is probably just a whiney existential rant on account of not sleeping last night.

.

the crap that i got myself into over the weekend has led way (i think) to a head cold.  the whole situation took such a toll on me that i'm assuming it compromised my immune system just enough to catch a bug.  kind of annoying, but not debilitating.  just stupid.  i can't believe i didn't keep closer track of my meds to know when they were running out.  it's more of a challenge when you use a pill holder instead of opening up the bottle every day and looking inside.

our offer on the house isn't looking too good.  they got another offer that i think they're gonna go with instead.  that's okay though.  there are more houses.  AND, yesterday afternoon we were finally able to turn in the rest of our paperwork and documents for the home loan application, and we FINALLY have a pre-approval letter in hand!  you have no idea how excited i am about this.  it really means a lot when you are looking at homes and making offers.  people take you a LOT more seriously.

alice and i went to the trans group a couple days ago and had a good time.  we all went out to dinner after the meeting.  they're such a fun group of people.  as always, i feel lucky to know them.  they're so good humored and passionate and we never fail to have fun.

in other news, i have recently updated my user info (finally)... go take a look! 
fyi: all the names of pets and friends are links to pictures of them.  i don't know if people assume this or just think it's underlined text.

there's only one possible reason why i would ever be updating at frickin 6:30am...
i ran out of trazodone on friday.  i haven't slept well all weekend.  (this means zero hours of uninterrupted sleep, and 3 or 4 hours of tossing & turning each night.)
i shouldn't have let myself run out.  i should have been paying more attention.  i should transfer my prescriptions to a pharmacy with more convenient hours.
weird things happen when i don't get enough sleep.  my body's ability to regulate its own temperature gets out of whack.  i'm hot, i'm cold, i'm both at the same time.  my skin becomes very sensitive to the touch.  i feel almost feverish.  right now i'm hot and my skin feels cold.
and one of the biggest reasons i'm on trazodone to begin with is because it is SO important for me to get enough sleep.  the amount of sleep i get directly correlates to how well i'm able to manage my mood.  i'm cranky and have been picking fights.  poor peaches :(
i took some nyquil last night, and i think it might have gotten me a couple hours of tossing & turning, but nothing more.
to add to it, i've been waiting anxiously all weekend to hear back from the sellers in regards to our offer on their home.  and stressing over stuff that needs to get done to finish our mortgage application.

my back has been pretty consistently painful these past couple days.  i mean, it almost always is anyway, but even more annoyingly so now.  if i think of it as anything other than "annoying", i'd probably cry.  same goes for the foot pain.  i'm tired of being in pain, but i'm in pain so often that it's more normal now than anything.  i was filling out a form before i had my massage about past medical issues, and i put down my scoliosis and plantar fasciitis, and the lady asked me if i was in pain, and i said yes.  then she asked if i was in pain yesterday, and i said yes.  then she asked what i did that caused it to flare up, and i said, "it just never flares DOWN!"
and i really really really really hate talking about it.  i can't believe i just said all of what i just said.  it's taking all my restraint to not hit the delete key over all that shit.

i'm such a jackass today.  sometimes i feel like i'm not a good mother to our animals.  i feel like i should take care of them before i take care of myself.  but then i don't take care of myself either.  i just sit around, stinkin' the place up.

my dreams are telling me that i spend too much time in the past.  i know that's where my obsessions lie.  it's so hard to move on.

my goal this week is to call the social security administration on monday, wednesday, and friday... and to call the local SS office on tuesday and thursday.  i will continue like this until money starts showing up.

i've sort of put my realtor on hold, and i'm sure she's getting irritated (or maybe i'm projecting... i'm DEFINITELY irritated with myself!).  i'm so tired of looking at houses.  though i really enjoy it, i get my hopes up and then realize we can't afford them.  i STILL need to sit down with a lender and get the nitty gritty details figured out after the money comes and before i can be completely comfortable with a price range.  we're probably going to get our loan through national city.

i need to get to the DHS this week... tuesday would probably be a good day... to drop off the rest of the information that is necessary to apply for food stamps and medicaid all over again.  having those will help quite a bit, and i'm pretty sure that at least the food stamps would pad our application on the mortgage.

i'm getting pretty excited about finally being in charge of my own finances, and am moving towards ways to make that happen regardless of the stupid representative payee situation.  there is an appeal process on that determination, but it might be too late.  they give you 60 days, but i'm not sure from when.  and even if that's a bust, there are ways around it.

there is some sort of mouse or rat (i couldn't get close enough to tell) living under the eaves on our balcony now, right where the sparrows used to nest.  i saw it run out and attack a frickin squirrel earlier today.  there was much squeaking, and the squirrel fell off the railing and the other little rodent-like creature ran back into his home so fast that i barely saw what happened.  i hope i can get a closer look at him soon.

sheila got eleven teeth pulled on friday.  i thought she'd be knocked out on vicodin all weekend, but no!  we went to the k-wings game on friday night.  it was a pretty good game, went into overtime, and then into a shoot-out.  we wound up losing, but it was only preseason, and it was still fun.  even on vicodin, sheila barely gets drowsy.  and the pain has been pretty manageable for her, so that's good too.

i did 2 loads of laundry today.  would have been 4, but i let one of our neighbors cut in.  i can finish tomorrow.  i went through all my clothes and put a bunch of stuff in a bag for goodwill, then rearranged everything, including my underwear drawer!  i did the semi-annual throwoutthesinglesocks ritual.  and i made room for charlies ever-expanding wardrobe in my dresser.  he's got half a drawer of his own now.

i miss my syd  :(

it's so nice to feel like i'm not living under a microscope anymore.  i don't have to convince anyone of anything.  i can start working on restoring my trust in HIPAA.  no longer does anyone have the right to read every sentence of my medical records (which pretty much turns out to be my life story when it comes to therapy notes).  there is nothing hanging over me, and i imagine that we won't have to go dumpster diving anymore.  also, i can probably forget about having to walk for two and a half hours just to get to my therapy appointment because i don't have sixty-five cents for the bus!
i'm nervous about handling such a large chunk of money.  once i know definite numbers, i'll be able to budget things up and figure out what i can spend on different things and how much to put away, and i'll feel a lot better.
i keep reminding myself that the house thing doesn't need to happen right away.  i think that was freaking me out a bit.  i'm not sure if i'm responsible enough to own a house.  it's a lot of work.  i've been looking into condos and townhomes that are for sale and finding those options more appealing.  it seems like you get more living space for less money, and things like outdoor maintenance and snow removal are already taken care of.  then the association fee takes care of many other things that you would otherwise have to budget individually.  plus the place i like has a lot of perks... clubhouse, lake, indoor/outdoor pools, tennis courts, security, etc.  all for the price of a much smaller, older house where you would have to do so much more work.
there's much to discuss with sheila.  i'm going to put away a large chunk of the money (enough for a down payment on a house) in a savings account where it can earn interest.  we will keep adding to it every month until we find someplace that we both really like and want.
one of my top priorities, right after paying back debts, is donating to charities.  i'm going to make several non-profits very happy this year, and i can't wait!  :)

sunday was really nice :)  we sat around, watched a movie, took a nap, went swimming, and then i took a looong walk with charlie after it cooled off in the evening.  i ate muffins all day.
i need to cut back on the damn lemon muffins.  i've made them so much that i have the recipe memorized, and you KNOW how hard it is for me to memorize ANYTHING.  but i'm out of shortening now, and i'm not buying any more!  i've gained 5 lbs, but there's more to it than just muffins.  ever since i was staying at syd's, i've been eating more and exercising less.
anyway, today i'm calling around, trying to find a primary care physician who will continue to write prescriptions for my non-psych meds.  i cannot afford to see my previous doctor now that i'm off medicaid and have no insurance of any kind, so i called the clinic that works on a sliding scale.  they said they need proof that i'm not working.  which means a letter from a physician (hello, i wouldn't be calling if i already HAD a physician), or social worker.  i dunno, maybe i can call my case worker at community mental health.  other than that, i have no idea.  it's easy to prove that you're working, but not so easy to prove that you're NOT working!  the lady on the phone tried to run things through with sheila's income and it's too high to qualify.  (yet, it's still not enough to pay full price for me to see a doctor... $50 up front, and they bill you for the rest).
so in the mean time, i'm out of a couple of my meds... ortho tri-cyclen (which i take for PCOS and without which i never have periods, which puts me at an elevated risk for endometrial cancer), and avandia (for pre-diabetes).  i'm also going to run out of synthroid at some point, but i have quite a bit of that stock piled in the cupboard.  the other stuff, i have no extra.  i guess i'll talk to my caseworker at community mental health, and see if there's anything he can do in regards to helping me prove that i'm not working.  *eyeroll*
9 days until my hearing.  i'm anxious, but doing okay.  definitely, better than last week.  i was able to relax a bit over the weekend, with sheila being home and all.

hope the rest of you are doing well, although i know several of you are not :(

EDIT: i spoke to my cmh case worker and he said he can make a copy of my "ability to pay" form that i can pick up tomorrow.  relief!

talking to dawn earlier, i really lost my composure.  i cried.  and cried and cried for the better part of an hour.  put myself together long enough to walk out the door, along the sidewalk, and down to a picnic table under some trees around the side of the building to sit and wait for sheila to pick me up.
i'm so drained.  mentally exhausted.  i don't often deal with such depth of emotion... i try not to experience it in doses so strong as that, even though i probably should.  it's just a matter of how much comes out at the same time... how many doors are open at once.
it was enough.  too much.
i'm going back on thursday.

i should mention that charlie is the Best Dog Ever.



on the days when i can look down and see this, i know that things will be okay.

apparently there's an iphone that's about to come out?  we live a few blocks from a cell phone store, and as i was walking charlie tonight, i noticed that a bunch of people were lined up waiting for it to come out tomorrow.  wow.  it's a phone.  people are CAMPING OUT for a PHONE.

omg, so how do i survive without a cell phone?   it's horrible, i tell you.  i have privacy, and i deal with people on my OWN schedule.  i don't have to make excuses for not answering my phone 24/7.  and if not being able to call peaches when i'm at the store because i can't decide what flavor of ice cream to buy is the sacrifice i have to make, so be it.  i'll just get vanilla.

taking charlie to therapy with me is turning out to be helpful.  he lays on the couch next to me, all calm-like.  and he lets me play with his toes absentmindedly while he's sleeping.  my therapist brings him water.  he likes her.

social security sent me another one of those "daily activities" forms to fill out.  i know they have to, and logically it makes sense, but i'm freaking out, thinking that they're looking for discrepancies, trying to catch me in a lie or something.  and it's likely that they WILL find discrepancies, not because i lie but because from one day to the next, you can ask me if i have this symptom or that, or you can ask me how well i do with cooking, or laundry, or hygiene, or whatever, and i WILL have different answers because i forget how things are.  my memory is so so SO shot that someone will remind me later of problems i have in a certain area, and it will be something i haven't written down.  and if i bring it up later and say it's been like that all along, they think i'm just trying to pad my case at the last minute.  i'm so anxious about this.  i tried to get ahold of my lawyer yesterday but he left the office early.  i don't know if i'll have time to try again tomorrow, maybe i will.  if not, there's monday.

sheila has some overtime hours for sunday morning, then we're going up to her mom's house in the afternoon.  taking charlie, and seeing how he gets along with their golden, clyde.  i have some hesitations about this, because clyde isn't the most well-adjusted dog in the world.  and neither is charlie.  but clyde has bitten other dogs.  he's got no boundaries, no rules, gets away with everything, no limits, and of course separation anxiety, food aggression (he's free fed & obese), and all the shit that goes with that.  the woman raises dogs exactly like she raised her kids!!  i mean, she's nice and all, and a good person, but her dog annoys me.  i'm not worried about charlie picking up those habits, because it's just not going to happen.  mostly i'm just worried about how out of control clyde is.

i watched sophie's choice tonight, just because it was on our "free movies" on-demand menu, and i have heard mention of it in the past as something that's relatively good, sort of a classic, if you can count anything made in the 80's as a classic.  so i watched it... and it was okay.  very watchable, kept my interest, though in the end i couldn't figure out why.  i mean, it was alright, but not something i'd watch again.

my trazodone's kicking in.
goodnight.

so many things in my head.

dreaming about potatoes a lot.

29 days until i go to court to try to make people understand.  to offer myself up for judgement.  tell me, strangers, am i worthy of your help?

i got really triggered reading a steven levenkron book saturday night.  it's fucked up how that shit sneaks up on you.  i talked with peaches about it and felt a bit better.  stayed safe.

but how depressed can i get without even realizing it?  i am not in sync with myself right now.  really unbalanced.

my head's full.  i don't know that i can find ways to say anything else.  i had more words earlier, but now they're gone.

one of the issues that i was VERY worried about has been resolved.  if i had only called community mental health sooner, i wouldn't have spent 2 weeks freaking out about not having med coverage.  i feel like an idiot, but it's all good.

i'm going back to brachypelmic's house on monday to stay with her animals while she's at bonnaroo with d3p3ch3mod3.  i'll be taking ziggy, charlie and larrypimp with me.  it will be nice to have some (more) time away.  after i started settling into a routine down there last week, it was so good for me.  not having internet or cable tv = me seeing more sunshine and reading more books.  i'm going to take pen and paper down there too, and see if anything spills out of my brain.

i'm going to see dawn on friday.  it's been a couple weeks since i've seen her, and it'll be a couple weeks more after that until i see her again.  i repeat the mantra in my head, "i am not dependent on my therapist, i am not dependent on my therapist..."  do i believe myself?  yes, to a certain extent.  i'll be okay, i know.  the part that bothers me most is that having a break like this causes some issues to have to be started in on all over again... out of sight, out of mind, you know?  also i feel that she's one of the few people who understands me and can read me when i'm bullshitting and saying everything's okay.  and it's nice to be around someone who knows, intuitively, that i usually need far more than i will ever ask for.



emc
May, 2007
Little Cities
Kalamazoo, MI

hello.
i have so much bullshit going on right now.  i'm trying to keep my head above water.  my brain has responded by pushing ALL of it away, for pretty much 23 hours each day.  and for that 1 hr that i'm actually thinking seriously about it, i am unable to think about more than 1 problem at a time.  literally unable.  i'm grateful for my head for making that small effort at self-preservation.  it helps.  everything is just too huge.
i'm reading a really overwhelming book that's sort of keeping me up on the edge too.  but it's something i need to read, for myself, because i need to have things IN my fucking life instead of pushing them away all the time until they build up and i explode with no apparent cause.



emc
May, 2007
Back Alley Art
Kalamazoo, MI

dirty dishes piling over the sink and halfway down the counter top.
litter boxes reek to high hell.
dog's diarrhea on the bedroom floor.
moldy loaf of bread next to the stove.
tons of laundry to do but no quarters.
dirty clothes on the floor in every room.
trash everywhere.

and i can't stay out of bed.

things are starting to go pretty shittily in my head again during the past several days.  the temptation to do something really fucking stupid and self-destructive (not kill myself though... and not drinking and not using) is so strong because i have been really neglecting my need to communicate how i fucking feel.  i'm really really bad at asking for help.  but definitely, i'm not feeling stable right now, nor am i feeling very much like dealing with it in a mature manner.  3 different things, all relatively significant, have been affecting me, and i haven't talked about any of them to anyone.  i suppose that's what i get, huh?  i don't care to get into the details here... i have therapy tomorrow...
i fell asleep and missed charlie's vet appointment this afternoon.  i assumed i would wake up when the maintenance guy came back to my place, as i told him i would only be home until 3.  well, he never came back, so i didn't wake up until 5:30ish.  all of my other planned commitments went okay today.  saw my psychiatrist this morning, saw my grandma tonight with alice... that went better than i expected, and we're planning on visiting her every week now.
we have a hole in the ceiling in our bathroom.  to make a long story short... the guy upstairs needs new sealant around his bathtub.  his water was dripping into our bathroom whenever he took a shower.  that's gonna be a several day project for the maintenance guy, which pisses me off because i just feel like spending several days in bed.  see now why i have charlie?  :P

1.  syd and i went to a k-wings game friday night and it really sucked.  you can't tell so much from the stats, but had you been there, you would have wilted away in despair.  they looked fucking awful.  we went to snak & yak after the game.  then we took chaz for a walk.
2.  i keep forgetting to take my meds and experiencing little forays into the world of mental shittiness.  usually when i'm forgetting meds on a regular basis, i assume there's some sort of subconscious aspect to it, like not wanting to take the meds on some level or something... you know what i mean.  and if you don't, go away.  i don't know what i want.  i'm done talking about it.
3.  syd and charlie and i went to the humane society dog walk thingie on saturday.  the weather was awesome.  it kept threatening rain, but never came through, and the temperature stayed mild all day.  there was so much to do, and we did the walk part twice too, because it was so nice.  i saw a handful of people i knew from different places.  charlie and i waded in the lake.  there were agility and freestyle obedience (dancing with dogs, etc) demonstrations that we watched.  we didn't see some of it because we walked twice.  we missed the costume contest, dog/owner lookalike contest, singing contest, and something else, but that was okay because we weren't as interested in that.  we watched the frisbee dogs.  the lunch that they supplied was pretty good.  people had better leash manners than i expected, but still it was pretty consistently something that you had to be on the lookout for (people letting their dogs wander around behind their backs on retractable leads and not paying attention to where they're going).  they could use a "leash etiquette 101" flier at the door next year. 
thanks to oregonsongbird, foalstory, lezah, sare, and themidnightsea for sponsoring us.  together, we were able to donate $120 to the kalamazoo humane society! 
syd took pics and i will have them up here as soon as she uploads them.
4. on our way back to the car at the end of the afternoon, a cameraman from the local news channel shot some footage of charlie.  but then of course sheila and i forgot to watch the news to see if he was on tv.

these are pics from last week when syd came up to visit charlie for the first time since he's been here.  i've had him for 5 weeks now :)
me & charles:

i'm so frustrated that i'm about to cry.  and you know why?  because i can't find my local on-demand cable listings online.
that's just pathetic.
something's building in me and i don't feel right.
when i saw dawn on friday, we talked about something other than what we have been spending most of our time on recently (you know, the kid stuff).  and it was nice to have a break from all that deep shit.  but it's catching up to me.  it won't be ignored.  it needs to come out.
i have been losing my temper today.  and the night before last, i felt... a nostalgic sort of not-goodness.  i don't want to go there.
but who knows... it could be all on account of my period starting soon.
i hope that's it.