Thrashing Thrasher

Well now that I'm done cleaning up bird poop, I can tell you about the very exciting few minutes we had here at our house this afternoon...

As you may have read earlier, my dog has a bit of problem asking to outside so when the weather is nice, I tend to just leave the door open for her. I know training would be better, but I'm lazy. So this afternoon a curve-billed thrasher flew in the open door and attempted to kill itself by thrashing against the picture window. Bird poop is flying, the dog is frantic, and my toddler is screaming, "Get the birdie, Mommy!"

In its panic, it refused to be shoo-ed toward the door. I ended up grabbing it with a fleece blanket (to protect my hands, really) and taking it outside. When I opened my hands, it sat there for a few moments looking around at the backyard like it was surprised to find itself there. Then it flew to the back fence and sat there for a bit. I assume it was catching its breath. I sure was.

Late Nights, Early Mornings

I've been having a problem with insomnia lately. I sleep. I even probably get 6 or 7 hours a night. Of course I need about 9. But my problem is getting to sleep. It's that damn gerbil in my head again. I don't even feel anxious; I just have a hard time not following my mind as it wanders around aimlessly. Can I get a leash for it?

Last night I got to bed late because I was talking to an old friend. Thanks for the advice to just call, P. You were right. As usual. And C, I'll stay up late talking to you anytime.

This is my favorite way to wake up in the morning. Mmmm, tea. Everyone always asks me what my favorite tea is. It's the cheap kind. You know, the box of 100 tea bags with the name of the store on the box (I don't like Lipton). I drink 3 to 4 of these giant cups every day. Any day now I'm going to be British.

Early Morning Crap

This business of getting up early to write and possibly get my walk in, is not working. Turns out that if I get out of bed early, the whole damn house decides to get up too. Instead of blessed silence, I'm writing while listening to Noggin. And my hub, who regularly doesn't leave for work until 8, is suddenly disappearing before 7:30. Arg.

I don't like getting up early. Those of you who know me, know that I am very anti morning. I can only force myself out of bed in the hopes of getting some sort of reward. Like some alone time. Now what am I supposed to do?

Done for the Week

Well I did it. I managed to complete 7 days of morning pages, an artist's date, 5 out of 6 20 minute walks, and 1 hour walk. Almost a perfect score.

I fought with myself all day about going on that hour long walk. An hour alone with the voices in my head? Holy crap, that sounds awful. And it kind of was. But I survived, and I feel, physically anyway, quite good. A little sweaty, but good. Watch out - if I keep this up I might get really crazy and decide to go on a media fast. *shudder*

Thinking of voices in my head, I read part of an article in this month's Psychology Today about people who hear voices outside their heads. Apparently only 1 in 3 people who hear these voices have problems (nasty, violent and paranoid things that give them great difficultly in functioning normally). They quoted one woman (who wanted to remain anonymous for what I think are pretty obvious reasons) who is greatly entertained by the conversations that her voices have with one another. It's like a free sitcom that's on all the time just for you. Other people claim their voices warn them of speed traps and give them good advice.

It seems sort of bizarre and wonderful to me. I feel sort of pedestrian with my normal, inside the head voices. Wish mine would come up with some decent advice or a couple of witty one liners now and again.

Well I need to get going because there's this little TV show thing going on that I want to catch tonight. You might have heard of it. I, of course, have seen none of the movies that have been nominated, but that won't stop me from ahhing over the wonderful clothes and jewelry. Or thanking my lucky stars that no one takes pictures of everything I wear while mercilessly mocking some of the poor choices.

The Buffy Never Ends

Almost forgot! The only bad thing about going to the movies alone was that there was no one to share my delight with when I caught a former Buffy actor in a bit part. Over the last two years I've started a nasty habit of catching Buffy people everywhere. You can keep your Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon; I'm busy playing One Degree of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

A Date with Me?!

I went to see the new movie The Number 23 tonight, by myself. It felt almost naughty, obscenely indulgent to steal away that many hours and see an actual movie in an actual movie theater. It's not the movie I was expecting, but I liked it. Mr. Carrey is turning into quite the actor.

Seems I'm having a bit of a movie binge this week. I watched Freedomland yesterday and Matchstick Men today (while the babe was napping). And now that I'm thinking of it, all three of these movies have a similar theme of things not being what they seem. Hmmm, that sorts of ties into why I went to the movies by myself tonight...

In my continuing effort to improve myself (I may be cynical, but I don't think it could ever be said that I'm not optimistic), I have started picking my way through The Vein of Gold by Julia Cameron.

Some of you may be familiar with her most famous work (as far as I know), The Artist's Way. I've been through that one a few times on my own and once in a class. I've owned this sequel for years (perhaps since the Bay Area?) but have never gotten through the first chapter. She wants you to do morning pages every day, an artist's date once a week, and take a 20 minute walk every day. Just reading about that usually exhausts me.

Last week I decided to try it again. The morning pages, despite the evil of being in the morning, aren't that hard. Mostly because I've used them before and know how helpful they are. Which of course begs the question of why I ever stopped but whatever. And the walk is turning out to be not as difficult as I imagined. It makes my dog very happy.

I suck at the artist's date. For the uninitiated, it's a "date" with yourself. It must be a minimum of 1 hour, and it's supposed to be something fun. How is it that I can sit for an hour at night playing FreeCell, but the thought of spending an hour with myself doing something fun seems wrong somehow?

I was planning on going highbrow, taking in a play perhaps, but when I saw the movie listings, my inner child (it's getting a little crowded inside me if you hadn't noticed) jumped with joy. I used to love movies. Maybe I still do.

And to make a long story even longer, all of this arty "stuff" is supposed to open you up, make you more aware of coincidence and such. Three movies, in two days, that each explore the idea of the power we have to lie to ourselves. I repeat, hmmmmm.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Click

I watched the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang this weekend (yeah, ok, so I'm two years behind in my movie watching - sue me). It was hilarious! It just made me sad again for Robert Downy Jr though. It's too bad that his addictions keep him from working; he's brilliant. Of course I have completely selfish motivations as I'd like to see more of him.

Also watched Click (see, I do manage to watch some more current fare). My hub is a huge Adam Sandler fan, and I find myself liking his movies more often than I think I will. Underneath their veneer of cheap fart jokes, his movies reveal pretty mainstream family values. You don't see that very often in movies anymore. And now that I'm a mother to a toddler boy, I'm much more susceptible to fart jokes.

I'm not reading as much this year after a 7 month rush to read 2 to 3 books a week last year. But I am trying to watch more movies. My Netflix queue is getting truly out of hand.

Feeling Groovy

Starting taking my pills again on Friday night. I slept better than I had in a week. I even had vivid dreams again (is it weird that I use that as my barometer of mental health?). Placebo effect? Don't care. If it is, then I LOVE the placebo effect.

After talking to one of my dearest friends tonight (I hope you realize I could have talked for hours), I got to clean up massive quantities of dog pee. I have a very strange dog. I love her to pieces; she's very sweet and not destructive at all. But she has a few odd little quirks that we suspect are a result of previous abuse.

Most relevant tonight...she won't "ask" to go outside, at least not very loudly. Over the last 11 months we've gotten much better at reading her signals, and this is the first potty accident we've had since before winter. I had a feeling this was coming though. The last few days she's been refusing to go outside. I've had to put her on a leash and walk her into the backyard most mornings lately.

We've been taking her for walks (this doesn't help as she has to be desperate to pee before she'll potty in public; she's never pooed during a walk), and she spent much of the afternoon in the backyard with my hub while he worked on the lawn. I suspect something in the backyard has been moved to someplace she hates. After all, she's lived and walked in this neighborhood for 11 months and is still afraid of the cans on the street on trash day. It's sort of like she's autistic - if anything is different, she freaks.

I've heard that one's pets reflect one's own personality. For those of you who know my cats and now know a bit about my strange dog, this does not bode well for me. I am well on my way to achieving my goal of being the strange lady with all the cats. Except I'll have a dog too. And probably a few other animals just to keep the neighbors really mad.

Warning!

Adorable toddler stories ahead! Proceed at your own risk...

Yesterday the boy and I played baseball for awhile inside. He was hitting the (foam) ball so hard that I was thinking we won't be able to do this inside for much longer. After I left to go shopping, the boy asked his father to play baseball. After a long series of not hitting any pitches, the boy said, "No, Daddy, pitch so I can hit it!".

This morning the boy, struggling between sleep and waking, snaked a tiny arm around my neck and said, "Scotchie misses her family." Scotch is one of our cats. I can only assume he was dreaming. Or he's going to grow up to be Dr. Doolittle.

Maybe Not So Sick

Yesterday my head cold was still lingering, but it didn't seem bad enough to explain my bone deep fatigue. And an annoying thought began to ooze into my consciousness - what if I'm sinking into depression again? When I went to take my handful of pills last night (I swear I take more pills than my 66 year old mother), my synapses finally started to make sense of how I've been feeling.

A few months ago I felt that my Zoloft dose wasn't working as well as it had been (we addicts adjust so easily). I'd already upped the dose before and was getting dangerously close to being unable to tolerate the side effects. So instead of calling my doc, I started taking an amino acid that's supposed to increase serotonin. In a few days I was sleeping better and feeling less anxious. I ran out of those pills last weekend. And being the idiot depressive that I am, I assumed they weren't that important anyway. Then I stopped showering, stopped brushing my teeth, and starting eating chocolate chip cookies for breakfast again.

This morning I knew deep in my chest that I wasn't sick. Well, not in the I've-got-a-virus sense of sick. Unable to face the mall with a toddler in tow, I went after the hub got home tonight. I loaded up on two amino acids (one for our friend serotonin and one for epinephrine) and fish oil (recent studies are showing that this can have pretty dramatic effects on mood - of course we depressives are impressed with a few percentage points that might be in our favor).

Twenty-two years. I've been dealing with this demon for twenty-two years, and I still don't even recognize it when it comes beating down my door. After all these years I'm still in denial. Part of me still believes that I have a character flaw, that I just need to suck it up. The Bitch in my head keeps telling me I'm just a loser. I'm pretty sure she and the gerbil are in cahoots.

Still Sick

I can’t believe I’m still sick. It’s been a week, and the last two days I feel worse. Shouldn’t I be getting better at this point?

I’m feeding my toddler Chips Ahoy cookies for breakfast. Yep, that’s some quality parenting there! I don’t have the energy to fight him, and there aren’t many of the cookies left. I don’t usually have that sort of thing in the house; Fig Newtons are synonymous with “cookie” here. If we eat them all now then I won’t be binging on them while he’s napping or after he’s gone to bed tonight.

Still Sick!

The cold from hell continues to haunt our household. I broke down and started giving the boy antibiotics after the doctor saw fluid in his ears, and he seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Yesterday and today have been rough days for me. Everyone else in the family seems to be better.

The hub took me to a local resort Saturday night to celebrate my birthday. He was delighted to be well rested yesterday morning – no toddler kicking him all night (or coughing all night as he did last week). Unfortunately I brought my gerbil with me to the hotel so I didn’t sleep as well. What gerbil, you ask? The one inside my head that runs in its stupid wheel nonstop and keeps me from sleeping. Stupid f***ing gerbil.

I dosed myself with Benadryl and went to bed early last night. That helped.

Sleepy Couch Day

The boy continues his sickness today. My husband is completely freaked out and yelled at me this morning when I told him I hadn't called the doctor. The boy has a cold. It's an icky cold, but it's still just a cold. So I'm taking him to the doctor tomorrow morning at 9.

I pretty much got to sit on the couch all day, watching Noggin, reading two new books I got at the library on Saturday (thank god!), and having my boobs fondled. I've got a bit of cabin fever, but I'm too tired from the last couple of rough nights to actually get myself out of the house. Besides, I'm still wearing my pajamas.

Could not sleep last night even before the boy got restless. I know I should be focusing on my breathing and relaxing myself, but instead I'm writing blog entries in my head and thinking about how to rearrange the bedroom furniture. When I do try to meditate I find myself focusing on my wonderful guided meditation monologue.

When did this happen to me? I used to be able to fall asleep on a moments notice. I used to be able to sleep 12 hours a night AND take a nap. Now I have to listen to the entire house snoring for an hour or two before I join them (I understand my dog, she of the giant schnoz, snoring, but who knew a cat could make that much noise in his sleep?). Of course the fantasies about smothering my sweetly sleeping husband don't help me fall asleep any faster either...

Done!

Well it only took 2 years, but I finally completed our wedding album. It's actually been done except for the last three pages for months. And by months, I mean almost a year. I'm very good at starting things. I'm even better at coming up with ideas of projects to start. It's the follow through that I suck at. I create endless to-do lists, and then manage to get one or two things marked off.

Btw, this is not a complete page. I'm still learning how to use my scanner (completely acceptable since I just got it for Christmas), and I'm pretty useless with Photoshop Elements (less acceptable since I got it for Christmas...2005). I'm not sure, but I think it may be capable of doing more than removing red eye (although I did find out that it does not remove pet green eye). Maybe I should look into a class for that...

We are not currently at a Superbowl Party because the boy has a terrible cold. We were told we could attend anyway, but the boy is refusing to leave the house. Nothing like being held captive by a two-year old. Even if he is the size of most four-year olds.

Difficulties

I’m having a difficult time with the blog already. Although at least now it’s easier to read! I was hoping it would encourage me to write. Well, actually, it is encouraging me to write. I’ve written more in the last few weeks than I wrote for months prior. But the pressure of knowing people will read it seems to make me edit myself a bit. Nothing I write seems to be in my “voice”. Maybe that’s not all a bad thing. My style is definitely underdeveloped so this could be pushing me in new directions that I’m just not comfortable with. I miss the random non sequiturs and long winded asides that usually punctuate my writing though. Please bear with me. There seems to be more of a learning curve than I imagined.