One recent comment, from a Xangan whose site names her as €®¡n,
asked me why I subscribed to her but never leave comments.  I was
tempted to answer that it’s because I am the creepiest sort of stalker,
the kind that wants people to know they’re being stalked so they will
live in terror.  But that would be bullshit.

There is at least one way that my subscribing habits are like my style
of loving:  it has more to do with me than it has to do with the
other person.  I don’t read my subs on any regular basis, and when
I do, it is usually only a few of the ones on “top”, those most
recently updated. 

If I comment, it is either because it’s someone with whom I have a
“relationship,” no matter how distant or online-worldly, and I want to
let them know I was there; or else the entry elicits a response from
me.  If I have nothing to say, I say it; and, of course, if I’m
not reading, I’m not commenting.

I sub to practically every site I find, unless it’s a color scheme that
hurts my eyes or someone with a paradigm that hurts my mind.  I
sub so promiscuously so that I can find my way back to sites that, for
any reason, interest me.   Anyone who doesn’t want me to be
subscribed can block me, and that will automatically unsub me and keep
me from subbing again.

RaineWalker asked
why I live this “difficult lifestyle.”  Greyfox saw her comment
before I did, and he went to her site with his version of my why. 
Here is my version:

It would take a lot of money to be able to stay here and have an
“easier” lifestyle.  It is easier for me to adapt to the lack of
creature comforts and modern conveniences than it would be to pursue
the money.  As just one example, take the lack of running water
and the trips to the spring for water.

We live on permafrost that even with global warming has not entirely
thawed.  Even if and when it does, the winter freeze would
endanger any water system, even if it was equipped with electric heat
tape to protect the pipes.  It is during power outages that my
more affluent neighbors lose their water systems.  Many of them
subsequently lose their houses through their efforts to thaw the
pipes.  Getting water at the spring is, for these reasons, the
“easy” option, but there is more to it than that.

Wells around here produce water with such a high mineral content that
it accumulates in pipes and in water heaters, washers, dishwashers,
etc.  There is so much iron in it that it stains clothing that has
been washed in it.  The local laundromat has a high-tech
filtration system that has to be shut down weekly for cleaning.

Water from the spring smells better and tastes better.  I won’t
drink well water or bathe in it because most local wells are
contaminated with Giardia and B. coli and more.  But that isn’t
the best thing about getting water there.

Earlier this week, Doug and I did a water run.  I was about as
unperky as usual as I loaded empty jugs and buckets into the hatch of
my station wagon.  As soon as I knelt beside the outflow pipe and
looked down at the rocks lining the bottom of the pool, heard the
bell-like sounds of water falling into it, and felt the cool moisture
on my skin, I perked right up.

Water runs are big occasions for me.  Except in the coldest
weather, when I have trouble breathing and the lids freeze onto the
buckets, the plastic becomes brittle, and getting splashed with water
can be dangerous, the going and getting water is a pleasant way to
spend time.  Even in winter, or even especially then, having the
water, getting that task done, is a great feeling.  It’s a feeling
I never got from turning a tap anywhere else.

I have written at length about all the reasons I prefer living in this
place.  I used to think that I’d like to have enough money to
snowbird, out to Northern Arizona or somewhere in Montana or Colorado
for the winter, and back here for the summer.  Recently, I decided
that even if someone were to give me a free trip and expense-paid stay
Outside for a winter, the traveling and arranging for care for our
animals, my plants, etc., would be too stressful.  It’s easier to
stay here all year.  Bottom line:  I have this “difficult
lifestyle” because I am too lazy to do otherwise.

Hmmmm.  I was typing my title before I saw the double entendre in
it.  “Up to,” in the lexicon where I grew up, can mean either,
“capable of,” or, “engaged in.”  In the latter of those two
senses, there is a connotation of subterfuge, nefariousness, or at
least ulterior motives.  Mama would frequently ask me what I was
up to, and she wasn’t asking if I felt motivated or energetic enough
for something.  She was trying to get me to make my subtext
overt.  It was in that subtextual sense that I meant my tagline
today, even though the other sense has been an underlying theme in my
last few days’ entries.

Some of my readers may have noticed that I was largely absent from
Xanga for a while.  This weak (that was a typo, but I decided to
leave it — it could be a Freudian typo), I have been forcing myself to
sit here each day and grind out a blog entry.  Uninspired, I was
writing about what has been on my mind.  It is mostly stuff I
don’t particularly want to discuss, or even think about any more, since
I’ve already thought it to pieces.  Much of the writing was
stream-of-consciousness, just a little dipperful out of the current
flow.

I understand my motivations in slacking off on the blogging.  It
was more a matter of engaging my mind elsewhere, than it was one of
avoiding this occupation.  After months of occasional desultory
play on Disgaea, a game I’d mastered and with which I’d become bored, I
let Doug persuade me to start a new one, Phantom Brave.  That was
more challenging and engaging, more interesting and fun, for a
while.  It wasn’t until that addictive play began to wind down
that I managed to drag myself back to the keyboard.

The motivations that led me to drag myself back here are more
complex.  I felt that I’d started something and it wasn’t right to
just let it dangle.  I saw it as an already monumental investment
of time and attention that would come to nothing if I didn’t continue
working on it.  And, of course, with the initial novelty and
challenge having worn off the new game, I needed something different to
do and I wasn’t quite up to doing the physical work that needs to be
done around here. 

It is quite possible that if I had the coordination and stamina to
undertake the house and yard work, I’d choose instead to use it to play
Hit Man or another of the interesting-looking shooters with which Doug
occupies himself.  Maybe, in that sense, it’s a good thing that I
am not up to playing more interesting games and must content myself
with these simple, relatively unchallenging and uninteresting
pastimes.  It’s easier to drag myself out of them.

Nagging at the back of my mind ever since I started writing my memoirs
is the task of finishing them.  Next week (got it right on the
first try that time), Mercury goes retrograde and it is my intention to
get back to work on the memoirs.  That is real work.  It may not be of any intrinsic value, but it requires a definite effort. 

Both dangling ends of my story, as I grew into my teens in the
mid-1950s and into my thirties in the ‘seventies, were relatively
insane times in a life not particularly noted for sanity at any
time.  I used rationalization and denial to carry me through some
of those times.  I have transcended the denial and rationales, but
telling the story from my current perspective wouldn’t convey the real
sense of what was going on then.  That’s a challenge I have met
thus far in this memoir process by pausing occasionally for some
retrospection and self-psychoanalysis.

I don’t know what I’m going to do henceforth.  I’ll take it as it
comes.  Today, this week, right now, I am revving up, shifting the
mental gears, forcing myself back into the keyboard routine and getting
back into letting my thoughts flow out through my fingertips. 

If these daily stints at the keyboard don’t totally knock out all my
stamina, I’ve got something else for these fingers to do:  Greyfox
is down to the last 18 pairs of my earrings to sell, and it’s the start
of the selling season, so I really need to make more earrings. 
There’s also a backlog of readings waiting to be done, both for me and
for Greyfox, but I don’t really want to think about that right now, and
to judge by his responses when I bring it up, neither does Greyfox.

Stay tuned… or not.  It’s up to you whether you read.  If
you do read, though, and you have any feedback, any thoughts in
response that you’d blurt out if we were talking face-to-face, gimme
that feedback please.  I’m not asking for support or
criticism.  When I say feedback, feedback is what I mean. 
Whatever….

In my profession, I was exposed to a lot of the New Age YCYOR (you
create your own reality) dogma, and to the idea of affirmations (saying
it not as you see it but as you want it to be).  In 12-step
programs there’s an idea that’s expressed as “fake it ’til you make
it,” or just pretend you’re all spiritual until you magically become
spiritually evolved.

The reality I have observed appears to be only partially of my own
creation.  It seems to me that the only people who truly create
their own realities are psychotics.  The rest of us affect our
realities to some extent, while living with effects created by
others.  The “no-limits” philosophies of people like Wayne Dyer
work for me in some areas and not in others.  As for
fake-it-till-you-make-it, I’ve observed that those who fake it are the
ones least likely to really make it.

What I  have been doing is testing my limits.  I don’t assume I can’t do anything, nor do I assume I can
do everything.  My father trained me not to say, “I can’t.” 
It’s self-defeating to think that way.  It can also be
self-destructive to act as if I can do things of which I’m not capable.

The variability of my M.E.
symptoms from day to day, and even from minute to minute, make the
whole subject of limitations problematic.  It would be sweet to
have a little gauge, say on the back of my hand, that I could look at
and see how far I can walk before I fall down, or whether it’s safe to
try and stand up, climb stairs, etc. 

I have been trying to learn to tune in on my physical condition to get
some idea of where the limit is before I start a task, but so far, I
haven’t a clue.  Oh, sure, if I can’t get up from a seated
position, I can be pretty sure I shouldn’t try repairing the roof or
going to the laundromat.  But when I’m getting around the house
okay, I really don’t know whether I’ll be able to make it to the end of
the block and back, much less whether I can handle a trip to town.

Yesterday, I had been thinking about what Greyfox has said lately about
enjoying every day.  The weather was beautiful and I wanted to get
out in it.  After some initial trouble getting out of bed, I was
navigating around the house okay, so I hung my camera around my neck
and set out for the end of the block and the road out to the cul de sac.

I wasn’t thinking ahead.  Just living in the moment, walking at my
normal pace — the old “normal” for me, long strides and fairly rapid
rhythm — I was feeling the warmth of the sun and listening to
birdsong.  About halfway to the end of the block I felt a wave of
weakness and slowed my pace.  I made it around the corner and
maybe twenty yards along that road before I had to sit down.  I
rested until too many mosquitoes found me and were swarming me so thick
I couldn’t help inhaling a few.  Then I got up and shuffled back
home.

I don’t know if I learned anything useful from the experience. 
Maybe if I have enough of those experiences, I will begin to get a
sense of what I am capapble of doing before I attempt to do more than I
can.  Thus far, I have overestimated my capacity more often than I
have underestimated it.  I do get tired of hitting that damned
wall, but it is still better than just sitting around wondering where
the damned wall is today.

Some of my male readers have suggested lately that I may need to see a
doctor.  I do have one.  I must make an appearance at the
local clinic every six months for renewals of the prescription meds I
take for dyspnea, to keep breathing.  Mary, the M.D. there, is
attentive and intelligent.  She admits that I know more about my
condition (both my personal
condition and the disorder I am living with) than she does.  With
that acknowledgement, she has earned more of my respect than has any of
the other medical personnel I’ve had to deal with. 

Some of my female readers have expressed approval and even admiration
of the way I handle my disability and nutrition, etc.  I don’t
know what this says about differences between the sexes.  Although
I appreciate the guys’ concern, I am reminded of the recently published
research showing that men think with only half their brains.  I’m
doing my best to use all the brains I’ve got. 

That’s really my only viable option, since the medico-pharmaceutical
establishment and government agencies such as CDC and NIH generally act
as if they have their metaphorical heads up their figurative
arses.  Many of us with M.E./CFIDS believe there is a conspiracy
involving the insurance industry and big pharma, to promote the idea
that this disease doesn’t exist.  If they are correct, that
situation will probably change as soon as someone develops a diagnostic
test and/or effective treatment for it.

Personally, I don’t know if the problem is ignorance, fear, malice,
greed or all of the above.  I’m too busy trying to have a life
that’s just a little more than mere survival, and I don’t have enough
energy to spare to try and figure that one out.

…and aren’t you relieved?  Full disclosure would be too tedious
and exhaustive, as exhausting to read as it would be for me to
write.  I seem to be on a roll with this theme of only getting
part of the story told at any given time.  I hope to ride that
back into a pattern of daily blogging.  My spirit helper surely
had my best interest in mind when I was instructed to keep a
journal.  I have been neglecting it lately, and feel that it would
be in my own best interest to get back into it.  The logical place
to approach that return is with what’s been going on with me while I
have been slacking off on the blogging.

I usually say it this way:  “I’m having a rough time, a tough
time.”  Those are code words that although honest from my end and
conveying a comprehensible meaning to just about anyone, would mean
more to someone with the background from which they have come to
me.  In the Family Rap therapy group run as a community outreach
project by the abstaining junkies of the Family House residential
heroin rehab program, those were the words that claimed the floor and
set the tone for a dump of feelings that usually ended up with not just
free-flowing tears, but flowing snot and convulsive sobs.

It is understatement, a thin wedge with which to begin to ramp up to
describing feelings and/or events that are too extreme, too excessive,
to jump into all at once.  Compared with things that came out in
that group of street cops, parole officers, paramedics, fire fighters
and social workers, my situation is quiet and mild.  I have
adopted that phrase, “having a rough time,” as a simple way to respond
to polite queries into my state of being.  Someone asks about how
my day has been or says, “How are you?” and instead of lying with the
polite but inaccurate response, “fine,” or “okay,”  I say it is
rough or tough, unless, of course, I’m having a good, fine, okay day.

Usually, it is Greyfox asking, because on the rough days I seldom see
or speak to anyone else besides Doug, and Doug is here with me and
knows how I’m doing.  He can tell how severe the day’s
sensorimotor deficts are, by whether I roll out of bed on my own in the
morning or ask him for help.  This morning was one of the
worst:  I couldn’t sit up in bed right away when I woke.  I
made several attempts before asking Doug if he could do something for
me.

He asked, “What?”  I said, “Bring me the coffee that’s left in the
carafe, start a fresh pot, and nuke a muffin?”  He responded, “I
suppose I could do that,” got up from the couch, and went into the
kitchen.  While he was in there, I chuckled and he responded with
a simple, “What?”  I said that it used to be scary when I couldn’t
move.  I had been lying there remembering fifth grade, when
sometimes I couldn’t even lift an arm or shift my legs under the
covers, and how frightening that had been back then.

Eventually, I learned that with extra effort I could move something,
maybe roll my head side to side, wiggle my toes, close my fingers into
a fist.  Then I could ramp up the effort, roll onto my side, get
an elbow under me and push myself up to a seated position.  That’s
the way I do it now, and I no longer go through the fear.  Most
days, I don’t even feel any frustration.  That chuckle expressed
how I feel about it:  amused and relieved that I’ve transcended
the fear, and that I now know what I have to do to get moving.

A week or so ago, I had been thinking about that extra effort I must
make sometimes, just to shift my body.  I realized that for
decades I have had to make a greater and greater effort to do what was
originally an almost effortless task.  Even now, on good days,
movement is almost unconscious:  I don’t have to think about
reaching or picking something up, I just do it.  However, I have
learned some caution and I don’t usually just act without
thinking.  I gauge my effort and try to avoid the failing grasp
that causes spills and messes, the over-reach or spasmodic motion that
sometimes makes me knock or hurl things across the room, or the
too-rapid rise to my feet that causes orthostatic hypotension and dumps
me on the floor.

As I reflected on how much more effort it takes to overcome the
sensorimotor deficits, I thought, “no wonder I’m so fatigued all the
time.”  I know that is part of it.  Physically, sometimes a
given action takes more effort than the same action takes at other
times.  Mentally, trying to gauge how much effort to give to a
task at a particular time is wearing.  One gets used to just doing
things.  Conditioned reflexes that make life easier and more
efficient for a normal person are dangerous for someone with variable
sensorimotor deficits.

Adapting to all that variability isn’t easy.  I know people who have the same disorder
I have, who haven’t managed to adapt.  I have never encountered a
doctor, a book, or a website that addressed that adaptation.  I
count myself fortunate for having been young and adaptable at the onset
of the disease, and at having the sort of analytical and reflective
intellect that has allowed me to understand the adaptation and
communicate about it.  While I’m counting my blessings, I suppose
I should mention the remissions, the little “vacation” breaks in
symptoms that I’ve gotten at various times of my life.

I am currently trying to analyze my remissions in the light of what I
am learning about brain chemistry.  There’s a pattern.  If I
can determine whether the remissions of symptoms preceded or followed
some of the changes in my outer life circumstances, that could have
significance beyond my own life.  Just as with physical movement,
coherent thought is more difficult sometimes than at others. 
Also, just as with the physical “paralysis,” exerting a greater effort
often overcomes at least some of the deficit.  Right now, I’m
working very hard at this task.  I’ll try to keep up the task of
recording my progress, or lack of it, here.

That’s a joke — heavy irony, black humor.  If I were to be
uncompromisingly honest here, I would tell everything in minute detail
and include both sides of the story.  Every story does have two
sides, at least two.  For me, there are no unmixed blessings, no
clouds without silver linings, no roses without thorns.  Even when
I try very hard to be completely open and honest, I’m frustrated
because I run out of time or energy before I get the whole story told,
or I simply forget at some point where I was going with my story, and
tell only part of it.

I posted, several entries back, about noticing that I had been engaging
in negative self-talk and turning it around to something that if not
positive was at least honest and had a neutral emotional load. 
There was so much more to that story that I didn’t tell, I was
uncomfortable about posting it but couldn’t bear to sit here long
enough to try and explain it fully.  When I wrote last time about
Greyfox’s trip up the valley and the things he brought, I didn’t even
get into any of the things that had impelled me to start that
post.  I lost my train of thought while I was setting the
scene. 

Even now, I don’t recall everything I  had meant to say, but part
of it was some of the downside of this relationship.  That post
was all about the upside, except for the teensiest hint in the final
paragraph.  Greyfox does
have narcissistic personality disorder.  We have been working on
it for three years and he has gotten better, but the conventional
wisdom is that NPD never fully goes away.  Sometimes, he chooses
not to even work on it, and other times it just asserts itself and he
apparently doesn’t even realize how selfish and unfeeling he’s being.

Among the things he brought us was a number of DVDs, large number,
somewhere between ten and twenty, I guess.  They were scattered
among several bags and boxes with other stuff:  dumpster score,
his last season’s clothes for me to store away for him, etc.  I’m
not sure I have found all of the DVDs yet, because I haven’t been able
to get everything unpacked yet.

Today, I decided that some diversion was in order.  I have mental
and spiritual resources, psychological skills, spirit helpers, that I
rely on to maintain a semblance of sanity and a will to live with my
challenges and shortcomings, but sometimes I just want a little
vacation from reality.  Video provides it — or maybe not. 
We don’t have a DVD player.  We watch DVDs on the PS2.  Doug
has five new games now and getting him away from the PS2 to do
anything, even sleeping, can be a chore.

Today, I asked and he agreed.  There were several titles among
those Greyfox brought that we both wanted to see.  Trouble was,
our PS2 wouldn’t read any of them.  That’s not a new
situation.  The disks will work on Greyfox’s player, but not on
ours.  He had offered to give us his old DVD player after he got a
new one, but he didn’t bring it when he came up here last time. 
He didn’t forget.  He said there were just so many things in the
car already that he didn’t want to bother to rearrange stuff to get it
in.

It would have been better, from my perspective, if he’d kept the disks
until he was ready to bring us the player.  Two of the disks we
tried today worked just far enough to get us interested in the movies
before they got into the areas that couldn’t be read.  There were
half a dozen more that I tried that didn’t work at all on the
PS2.  What I had thought of as some amusing diversion on a rough
day, to get away from my difficulties for a while, turned out to be a
frustrating experience and a tiring task, cleaning disks, changing
them, upping and downing….  Eventually, I quit trying. 
Doug went to bed. 

When I’m done here, I’m going to try one more movie.  If that
doesn’t work, I’ll put a game disk in and play for a while, then go
read a book until I can sleep, unless my eyes and hands go too wonky on
me.  If I can’t play or read, I’ll sit and think or meditate some
more, zone out and hope for sleep.  Writing this is about as close
as I can get to doing any real work today.

I have never been able to understand high-maintenance women. 
Except for my sex drive, I never required much from the men in my life,
and very few of them ever complained about the frequent sex.  The
best friend of one of my guys did complain that I was wearing him out,
he’d lost weight and never had time for nights out with his friends,
but the man himself wasn’t complaining. 

I used to be highly independent and mostly self-sufficient.  In
many ways, I still am.   Often, I prefer to do without things
rather than to burden someone else with my wants and needs.  Even
so, I have gotten to the point where I am no longer able to do all that
needs to be done to maintain myself and this household.  I hope
and pray for a remission.  I endeavor to keep a positive
attitude.  Once in a while, I slip and start thinking it’s time to
just die and get out of everyone’s way.

I know that I could still make a contribution, could give — through my
writing and my mental/psychic skills — something of value to
others.  The trouble is that on the few occasions recently when I
have had the energy for it, I have spent that energy on
survival-related work.  Prioritizing becomes more difficult when
there simply isn’t enough of me, in terms of time and energy, to get
everything done that needs to be done.  The debris from the recent
electrical fire in the bathroom remains as it was, even though I know
it’s unhealthy not to get the sludge, soot, and fire extinguisher
powder cleaned out of there. 

First things first, but what comes first when there probably isn’t
going to be anything coming second?  Should I just sweep aside the
clutter from my work table and do a reading first thing in the morning
and hope that Doug will pick up the mess off the floor before he sits
down to play a game?  Or should I fix some food and eat first,
even if that means I won’t get any other work done today?  That’s
an honest picture of my daily dilemma, some days.  It’s not the
whole story.  I don’t have the time or energy to tell the whole
story.  I have to go find something to eat now, before my blood
sugar dives any further.

I know I have mentioned this before, but….

My beloved Old Fart has so many “gifts” that it’s easy to miss a dozen
or more when trying to enumerate them all.  He is often
outrageously funny, and can even make me laugh at situations that are
horrendously serious.  That’s truly a gift to be treasured.

He has another trait that I treasure:  he likes
to make me laugh.  That’s a win-win one, because laughter is often
the medicine I need most.  He sings to me, for example.  I’ll
answer the phone with a simple, “hello,” that sometimes has an
undertone of depression or comes with a pained whimper.  He’ll
respond with some original ditty that can’t fail to draw a laugh from
me.  Lately, his little songs have been on a common theme: 
the new pet name he has come up with for me, “Schnoodles.”  Not
particularly pleased to be called Schnoodles, I am nevertheless proud
to be that man’s Schnoodles.  It’s a paradox I can live with.

He
sings spontaneously of Schnoodles, but I have to ask him to, “do the
Mighty Mouse.”  Besides having a good singing voice, he’s a gifted
mimic and can sing, “Here I come to save the day!” just like in the
cartoons we remember from when we were kids.  There was so much
going on yesterday when he came up the valley that I didn’t even think
to ask him to sing out about saving my day.  I guess it’s enough
that he did it:  not just saved the day, but at least a whole week.

When we parted in Wasilla a month ago, we both laughed as I said
I’d see him when I ran out of cat food.  Looking over the carload
of supplies I had gathered to haul home, and considering the
comparative consumption rates of the dog, Doug and I, and our housecats
plus the feral felines and strays we feed, I was pretty sure that I’d
run out of cat food before running low on any other necessity. 
It’s as much as quadruple the town price in the little local stores, so
I hesitate to buy much of it around here.  Ergo:  “see you
when I run out of cat food.”

I anticipated being driven out onto the road to town by a lack of cat
kibble, and it still looks as if that might be what eventually urges me
into town, but on his stop here yesterday before heading up the valley
to Sunshine Clinic to get his teeth cleaned and pick up our monthly
supplies of prescription meds, he dropped off a case of stinky canned
cat food and a big bag of kibble, so my eventual need to go to town has
been pushed back about a week.

That liberty to stay home and rest is what I appreciate most, but it’s
not all that he brought.  He brought more of the vitamins,
minerals, amino acids, herbs and OTC cognitive enhancers that are as
important to my well-being as the prescription meds.  He brought
fresh fruit and vegies, too, which I value highly.  There had also
been a sale on steak, so all three of us enjoyed a rare (in more ways
than one) treat for lunch before Greyfox headed back on down the valley
to his little home away from home that is basically a bed in the little
cabin that is mostly a knife warehouse. 

I sent him on his way with a big container full of home-cooked beans
and ham, and a smaller one of rice to go with it.  We nurture each
other.  Some might see that as a token of “love”, and maybe in
some way it is.  I see in it a sign of our interdependence, an
acknowledgement that we each have a stake in the other’s
well-being.  It’s also a practical matter, as well as a way we can
please each other.  With no cooking facilities other than a
microwave, Grefox often subsists on frozen dinners that are more
expensive and less tasty than those beans.  It’s another win-win
deal for us.

This entire relationship has been a win-win deal in ways that neither
of us ever anticipated.  That’s really a good thing, too, because
neither of us has gotten out of it what we wanted when we got into
it. 

I am inexpressibly glad I’m not too old to learn.  Sometimes I
think it’s awful that it has taken me so long to learn some things, but
even when I feel that I should have learned something long ago, I am
glad to have finally gotten the lesson.

This week, I realized that it is not prudent, not even SAFE, really,
for me to wait until one month’s supply of supplements is gone before I
make up a new set for the next month.

It wasn’t such a big job years ago, when I wasn’t in such bad
shape.  Even now, I’m accustomed to being able to get it all done
in a single day.  Maybe I had better get used to the idea that I
may not always be able to do it all in one day and at the last
moment.  There are 120 little bottles into which the hundreds of
various pills from big bottles must be collated.  It takes
forethought, planning, manual dexterity and a certain amount of stamina
or physical energy. 

All of those requirements are things I don’t always have at my disposal
at the same time.  That is particularly true if it has been days
or weeks or (horrors!) months since I had my proper doses of vitamins,
minerals, herbs and amino acids.  My body can’t extract the
B-complex vitamins it needs from ordinary foods.  I have been
supplement-dependent since childhood. 

You’d think that by now I’d be used to it and would have worked out
some routine to deal with it.  If you’d think that, you just don’t
know me very well.  Routine and I are not friends.  We are
barely even acquaintances.  My motto is, “Trains run on
schedules.  I don’t.”  Up to now, when I’d get down to my
last day of supplement packs, I would start getting things together to
make up a new batch.  Either that, or I wouldn’t.  I have
sometimes deliberately let myself run out of pills just because I was
weary and sick of taking pills.

Eventually, though, without the pills I become sick in a different and
more profound way.  This time, I didn’t want to be without my
pills, but it worked out that way and that situation continued longer
than was beneficial for me.  A month or two ago (okay, so I don’t
keep track of things like that–so sue me) I ran out of pills at a very
bad time.  I was in a severe immune-system flare-up, and there
were other crises I had to deal with. 

When
I got around to trying to get the new pills together, I was unable to
even make a good start at it.  A “good start” would be getting the
big stock bottles out of the bin where they’re kept, sorting out those
I currently need, getting out the 120 small bottles with their
color-coded caps, and then taking a deep breath and resting before
beginning the opening-up, emptying and filling of bottles and capping
them.

For a few weeks now, I have been trying to get started.  I had
begun the process the day the bathroom caught on fire. (Mitch, Greyfox
was factually correct regarding wildfires up north, but the fire I was
referring to in my last entry was the one in my bathroom.  I
intend to post pics of the damage sometime soon.)  After several
false starts that got me basically nowhere, I realized I wasn’t going
to be able to do the whole job all in one day.  Then I regrouped
and figured out a way to divide up the task into several days.

 It took three days, but I finally finished it today. 
Tomorrow, I’ll have my full complement of supplements for the first
time in months, and maybe someday soon the improved body chemistry will
allow me to get some work done around here and get back to regular
blogging. 

Maybe the improved brain chemistry will allow me to work on the backlog
of readings.  Maybe, just maybe, the improved brain chemistry will
help me remember what I learned from this experience, and in about
three weeks when I begin to run low on this month’s meds, I’ll start
working on the next batch.   One can hope. 

First off, I must say that’s not a plea for more help. 
Fortunately, right now, I have all the help I need.   That
statement is nothing more than an affirmation.

I had caught myself indulging in depressive negative self-talk.  I
was feeling pressured to do things such as laundry, yard work and
cleaning up the mess from the fire.  At the same time, I really
wanted to get out and walk around the neighborhood and maybe capture
some good green images of summertime.  Lacking the stamina and
coordination to do much of anything, I have been sitting around
avoiding, as much as possible, activity that would set me back further.

Realistically, what I can physically accomplish is very limited. 
Trying to water all my houseplants (they hang in or sit on the sills of
two windows) in one day is too much, so I break it up into two or three
parts.  Lately, standing on my feet long enough to bake muffins or
cook a complete meal is about all I can handle before the tremor,
vertigo and sensorimotor deficits become too debilitating.  It has
been months since I have been on a long walk through the
neighborhood.  I just don’t have the energy or coordination for it.

For me that is a frustrating situation.  A few times I grumbled to
myself about what a useless lump I had become and how futile my life
is.   My self, however, has been well-schooled and
immediately caught on to what was going on.  I also noticed that
my mood had led me to exaggerate the real situation.  Far from
useless, I can and do fulfill a role in my family and community. 
I’d enjoy being able to do more, but that’s no reason to discount the
importance of what I do.

A week or so ago, in a few phone conversations and a bit of driving
around, I recovered some stolen stuff a couple of neighbor children had
taken from my old place across the highway, counseled the kids,
supported and encouraged their mother, and persuaded another neighbor
that it wasn’t an appropriate matter for the state troopers.  The
vigilant neigborhood watcher had told Greyfox and he and she were all
for getting the cops in there to put the kids in jail.  They were
a twelve-year-old girl and her eight-year-old brother.   I’m
all for giving them another chance.

That’s just a sample.  I do more, as often as I can.  I even
occasionally make some material contributions to the support of myself
and my family.   Even when my contributions are mostly
verbal, psychological, and emotional support, this life is not
futile.  So, I started casting about for some honest self-talk to
supplant the self-defeating depressive bullshit

.

Without exaggerating or minimizing the
severity of my disability, the simplest and most accurate statement I
can come up with is, “I need a lot of help.”  I am grateful that I
have enough help.  I can also find cause for gratitude that I
don’t have it too easy around here.  I’m still challenged, still
must work to rise to the occasion on occasion.  Right now, the big
challenge I’m facing is to conserve and marshall enough energy and
coordination to put together another month’s supply of the supplement
packs I need.  It’s a job I must do.  Sitting here is not
getting it done and is using up energy that would be better spent
elsewhere.

Don’t worry about me.  Send me positive energy and encouraging thoughts, and NO BULLSHIT, please.

She’s not dead!

She’s just resting.  This is ArmsMerchant (aka Greyfox)–just thought you might want to know.

Franco, however, IS still dead.