Dear Internet,
It’s some ungodly hour here in Kentuckiana (should I be worried that word is not coming up misspelled?) and TheExHusband is snoring so heavily, I’ve lain awake for hours waiting for him to, well, not snore so I could get to sleep. It doesn’t help that I took a nap on the couch from 20:30 – 23:00, so I was wide awake for a bit regardless.
The sun is starting to make its ascent.
I’m here because I’m in the last throes of sorting through my shit from the stuff was shipped down here from the east coast. The deal made with TheExHusband was he could have my furniture (the purple leather couch and living room suite) if he paid for the shipping from east coast to him. As he reckons, that bill would be significant lower than buying all new furniture. Worked for me.
In this need to purge since I’ve been here, I’ve gotten rid of three big black bags of clothes, a big box of toys and trinkets I’ve collected over the years and have remained packed for longer than I care to admit, three to four boxes of books, and some other odds and ends.
This is in addition to the purging that happened when we separated last fall.
Lisa the minimalist.
I am noticing some stuff missing like my Chucks collection, the only shoe I’ve been able to wear since my ankle surgery three years ago. I left a few pairs unpacked but the rest, including black high tops and Aquaman high tops, are now missing. I had nearly a dozen pairs. Also missing are other shoes, mainly spring and summer, that when packed last fall, as I had assumed I would be in my own permanent place by now. So at some point, those need to be replaced when I’m more flushed with cash.
I’m also missing my Swatch collection and a few other things that ARE packed somewhere and I haven’t found them or were stolen at some point. My Fiesta Ware collection surprisingly remains unbroken, which is important because that shit is expensive.
Once I leave here on Friday, I’ll be heading back to Grand Rapids for about three weeks. TheBassist will then be coming to town to be my date for a friend’s wedding and then we start the drive back to the east coast. The plan is that the stuff in Grand Rapids (of which is not much, mainly furniture) will stay, over the summer, in a storage pod. The rest of my stuff will remain here in Kentuckiana. I’ll be shacking up with TheBassist as I continue my job hunt from a singular location (if none of the current positions pan out). Once job is acquired, everything will be shipped to me at the new location. If job is not acquired by, say, Labor Day weekend, then I’m more than likely have to head back to Kentuckiana.
Then, who the hell knows.
I wish I could say I’m desperately trying not to have panic attacks as I flip around the US due to familial concerns, but that would be lying. I’ve been pretty zen as things have popped up and surprised me, I’m not stressing about money too badly (though I am beyond broke), and while I’ve gotten to the point airport security knows my name, the traveling hasn’t worn off just quite yet.
With no income coming in, this is obviously not the way to continue living. My landlord made a half-joking proposition to buy Jeeves. I was tempted because as not long before I jokingly said to a few friends that I should sell him (and he is paid off) and float around Europe for six months. But I would be in the same position then as I am now, just even more heavily in debt.
I’ve been noticing patterns in my writing in that during the headier days this past fall of the mania, I barely wrote. You’d think with all of that bloody energy I would be cranking out a million words a minute and even more poignantly, working on my book.
That answer would be a, “Fuck no.”
The book is stalled as it is, and again, I am zen about it just as I am with everything else.
Obviously the lamictal is working.
When I think about the long road of mania that lead me to where I am at right now, what pushes me forward is to NOT go through that again. I’ve always prided myself up to that point on not doing many stupid things when off the drugs That’s what makes me atypical as a bipolar: I have no drug, alcohol, or sex addictions. My spending was minimally excessive (not an oxymoron). I’ve held down jobs for long periods of time, finished my education and all of this (mostly) without drugs.
This last early fall/winter just broke that streak.
I have started referring to this past year as my long nervous breakdown, though I wasn’t hospitalized or put into out patient care other than my weekly shrink appointments. But the best way, even if it is glib, to come up with an explanation of my train wreck of a life is, “You lose your dog, your job, your husband, your home, AND get sued for $1.25M in the span of seven months and see how you handle the situation.”
Amirite or am I right?
I could see how that statement was pushing the responsibility of my actions onto others but recognizing I’ve made some very bad decisions about a host of things and since the fall, the repercussions have been coming fast and furious. It’s a combination of bad luck, timing, and bad decision making.
Along the way, I’ve noticed that numerous people, local and far, have cooled towards me. It’s hard to repair relationships when you’re not sure what went wrong or that you know because of your train wreck of a life, they’ve cooled against you. It’s sad, it’s diappointing, but I can’t blame them.
What I’ve accepted is I have a wonderful opportunity to completely rebuild my life from scratch. There is nothing tying me down to one place or even one profession. What I need though, more than anything, is a break. A sign. Anything to at least point in some direction so while I mentally may never be lost, physically I’d like not to be a whirling dervish.
But right now, I’m sitting in a darkened room eating tortilla chips at nearly 06:00.
xoxo,
Lisa
Tag: Insomnia
the gods ruffled their skirts
Dear Internet,
It’s late and I’ve just come back inside after hanging out on the front deck for a bit. It’s dark out; the kind of dark that is so deep and black, even the pin pricks made by the stars seem like interlopers to the night.
The kind of night made for Jason Voorhees.
(Last night was even spookier. The master bedroom is the in the loft of the cabin, I had the windows open and heard every movement by every beast in the area.)
I keep processing how geographically isolated I am right now. The nearest town is six miles down a straight road (or six miles in the other direction over a curvy road that hugs Lake Michigan) and while I have neighbors across the road who have lights on at their place, it could be for security rather than notification someone is at home. The only sounds I’ve heard all evening are the ticking of the clock in the main room of the cabin, the water heater and fridge kicking on and off, and the accordion sound of the plastic bag hung around the internal open exit of the metal chimney that used to connect to a gas stove.
(We discovered while the chimney is screened and capped outside, moths, rain, and other tiny creatures were still getting inside so TheHusband mcguyvered the bag to catch the detritus from the outside world. It works, but the downside is the bag moves when the wind moves so it blooms and closes with each movement. It’s alternately creepy to hear but also strangely soothing at the same time.)
I was feeling exhausted after my long day yesterday and put myself into bed at 8PM, with the laptop in tow. I started doing research for my book and when I eventually took a break, it was nearing 1AM. I took melatonin for the first time as I needed to get some relief to sleep without taking Klonopin, which when taken for consecutive periods, makes me feel drugged the following day. The melatonin worked as I was out within 10 minutes.
It worked so well, I didn’t wake up until nearly 11:30AM, 9.5 hours later.
I planned my day around having dinner with my brother this evening, since I did not know how long that was going to take and I wanted to make sure I got a lot of work done before we went out.
That did not work out as well as I had hoped.
I was planning on doing more research and start working on the structure of the book when I realised tomorrow was the 16th anniversary of my online journal and I had planned on writing something to celebrate. The draft had been sitting for months as a reminder and I figured it would only take me a few hours to get it written, polished, and formatted and then I could continue with the rest of my plans.
I, regrettably, was horribly off on my time management.
I had the piece half done before my brother and his coworker showed up around 3PM and they were itching to have an early dinner. As the restaurant we were going to didn’t open until 4PM, that meant drinks until it was time to leave. On our way to the restaurant, the TPS was showing my front right tire was low on air, which was odd because I just had the tires checked on Monday before heading out of town.
After dinner, we drove to the village gas station/grocery store/pizza place/deli/butcher/movie rental place to check the pressure and all of the tires were registering at the right PSI. After picking up a few staples at the gas station/grocery store/pizza place/deli/butcher/movie rental place, I headed back to the cabin, parked, and read the owners manual to figure out what the fuck was going on. Apparently when the pressure of the tires is changed (and in this case, my tires were over inflated to 39 PSI instead of regulated 32 PSI), the TPS needs to be reset, which didn’t happen. I reset the TPS and the warning gauge finally cleared. However, my brother noted when following me into the village, my left rear driver’s tire was rotating at an odd angle, meaning it wasn’t rolling up and down but rather it looked like it was rolling more at an angle.
(The tire place I got my tires from has a store in Traverse City, so I’m going to be heading there tomorrow morning to have a check. If there is something majorly wrong, while there is no MINI dealer in the area there is a BMW one, so I should be fine.)
By the time I was done fucking with my car and getting back into the groove, it was coming on 6PM. I figured I had a good six more hours to work tonight, with maybe one MAYBE two hours geared towards finishing the anniversary piece.
That piece was finished at 10:30PM and came in at 2300 words. Then it was a break to sit outside for a bit, listen to the gods ruffle their skirts, and here we are.
Tomorrow I’m going to buckle down and start making progress on my large writing ToDo list. Right now the goal is to get up fairly early, get into town to have the tire looked at and dealt with and be back at the cabin no later than noon. Thursday, sans car issues, will be more of the same of writing. Friday I’m going kayaking with Emili, and Kristin is coming out to have bro time on Friday evening. On Saturday evening, Kristin and I are going to head up to the dark sky park to watch the stars with my telescope and camp out for the night. Sunday we head back to the cabin, and then we head to our respective homes.
xoxo,
Lisa
daily walk: the floating head tree
Dear Internet,
Last night I was utterly exhausted when I crawled into bed around midnight with the hope that by reading, I’d be able to nod off and get to sleep. My brain had other things on its mind because I finished the book around 1:30A, and still wide awake at 5:11AM watching Bob’s Burgers.
I took half a Klonopin around 4ish, which I think finally drove me the edge into wonderland of sleep. However, I bolted upright in bed at around 9:30AM as if I had slept for days.
TheHusband, who was appreciative of me being quiet as a mouse while I watched terrible television last night, tried to cajole to go back to sleep but I was BRIGHT EYED AND BUSHY TAILED. LIke a squirrel on speed.
I decided to harness this extra energy by walking to the Downtown Market for their Saturday Farmer’s Market since we needed an assortment of veg. The round trip is about a mile and would also count as part of my daily walk series, PLUS getting some kind of exercise should help with the mania.
Win-win all the way around.
As we walked to the market, I had forgotten the house with the floating heads was on our way, which marked the perfect beginning of the journey.
Because of some dilly-dallying on my end at home, we didn’t get to the market until after 12PM, so most of the fruit/veg were picked over but we still ended up scoring us some great finds. We were hoping to have lunch at Grampas’s Pasty Co., because goddamn their Conrish influenced pasties are delicious, but they were down to two flavors we weren’t rather fond of so we skipped them this week.
After loading up our messenger bags with our finds, we walked the Market’s inside hall to see if we were missing any else and to get lunch ideas. We ended up with a few treats from Sweetie-licious Bakery Cafe for later, but still no lunch options were tempting us. Since we’re right downtown, we decided to see what was open.
Stella’s is one of our favorite spots to eat in the downtown core. They have awesome burgers, great fries, and metric fuckton of old video games to play. But we weren’t in the mood for Stella’s so we kept walking and ended up at Meena’s Joint, which serves stoner food with a Rasta vibe.
TheHusband might looks like he partakes but we are aging alternative hipsters and coupled with the Coheed and Cambria on the stereo, we were definitely not the clientele they are catering to. The food is basically anything that could constitute a sandwich filling packed into a grilled tortilla and the taste was merely, “meh.”
With our bellies full, I was ready to keep on walking around downtown, maybe do a stroll through GRAM or a saunter down Monroe Center, but the threatening rain finally decided to open up the skies.
We decided to just walk home in rainy, companionable silence.
Distance: 3 miles
Walk time: 1:00:54 (This is total walk time, does not include time we shopped at the market or lunch)
Pace: 20:17/mile
xoxo,
Lisa
This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2010