Klonopin – Page 2 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

attending shenanigans

Dear Internet,
It’s spring and along with it being the prime for allergies, it’s also cold drink season. Years ago I was introduced to the Toddy Cold Brew system via Kate and have been hooked on it ever since. Since I’ve been (more or less) caffeine free since January 1, and my recent exposure to caffeine did not end the world, I decided to mix 60% decaf and 40% caf coffees together for my first cold brew batch of 2014. The reason for the mix was that I did not quite have enough decaf for the brew and had extra caffeinated hanging around, so why not?
Big mistake.
The standard serving measurement is 1/4 cup of the concentrate per 8oz of milk or water. On Saturday, after brewing the coffee for about 24 hours, I mixed 1/4 cup concentrate, ice, and about 12oz of vanilla almond milk for consumption.
I was high all of Saturday and far into Sunday. I was so manic I opined the following on Facebook:

J. seriously considered throttling me in stores.
Case in point: Looking for shorts to wear to play tennis tomorrow, thought it bright idea to try them on outside regular clothes mid-aisle.
Subtitle: Keeping it classy since 1972.

I was so manic that even though I took one Klonopin that night to knock me out, that wasn’t quite enough to knock me back into the netherworld I so desperately needed, which lead into more mania into Sunday.
On Monday, because I hate throwing away waste and rather enjoy the brain mixing, I tempered down to 1/8th cup of concentrate, ice, milk and the mania was still on fire. Not as bad as over the weekend, but still pretty awful. A Klonopin was produced.
Tuesday, I took it down to a tablespoon of concentrate, then mixed in the ice/milk and we seem to have a winner. I can still get coffee taste without wasting what I had already produced AND most importantly, without enflaming the mania. I’ve been doing this combination, mixed with 1/8th cup of water to help the dilution, all week and so far its been working.
It will take me a very long time to go through this batch.
As the cycle of the mania continues its elliptical path, when I was feeling so calm a few weeks prior, I wasn’t too surprised I started crashing Thursday morning. I’ve noticed my agitation on certain things escalates when I’m peaking during the mania, right before the downward dog starts occurring.
One thing I’m super impressed with myself on is my new superhero power of pulling in the crazy before all hell breaks loose. I found myself in a variety of stressful situations this week where I could have done some real damage. I swallowed hard the impulse, which seemed to sap a lot of my strength, but I’m just puffed I was able to keep it together. To be sure, there some difficult situations I had to address, even if I tried to escape from them, so I settled on brusque politeness to get the job done. That seemed to have done the trick.
Sometime this week, I found out it was National Mental Health Month, which lead me to my twice yearly search for a national foundation for people with bipolar in the United States. The United Kingdom has one, why don’t we?
After much digging around the Internet, I finally found a nationwide organization that supports both depression and bipolar, what has a local chapter here in Grand Rapids. I got in touch with the leader and they do indeed meet 2x a month, so I’m going to be checking this out.
I am suspicious of such things, as I am always suspicious of these matters. The last group meetings I did was about a decade ago for Borderline Personality Disorder which freaked me out more than helped. People obviously much sicker than me, barely able to cope with their daily lives, that I felt like an imposter within their midst. I wasn’t REALLY sick, because I was functioning far more in day to day lives then they were. The doctor amped them up on drugs for control, she pulled me off of mine and kept telling me how lucky I was to be so well adjusted despite my maladies.
Right now I feel like I’m grasping at straws. Drugs don’t work, thus I need better coping mechanisms. After awhile, you get tired of crying in your car as you head home because you’re too manic to cook bacon, because you know if you do you may accidentally set something on fire. You’ve done it before and you know you will do it again. Your whole life is a chain reaction against a single action, inflamed by this disease.
I wonder if any therapist ever gets that we want more than to “function”? We want the normalcy that we envy in others. We want to do more than just be able to hold down a job or attend school or keep a house. We want to live.
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2013

queen’s cushion

Lancelot rescuing a lady from the bath, from British Library Add. 5474, 13th c.

Dear Internet,
Monday I had a massive panic attack that came out of nowhere and incapacitated me for the entire day. I did breathing exercises, 5 minute meditation, and various other exercises and nothing changed. I called on TheHusband who had me run through a few mindfulness exercises, several times, but it was almost utterly useless. My heart beat so fast and loud, you could watch the skin on my chest bone wiggle.
Somewhere in all of this, I took a shower — for I was to get ready for work, see — and found myself having a hard time breathing in the shower and my fingers were starting to go numb while my heart raged on. I climbed out of the shower, turned the taps off, and padded down the hallway and called in sick. There was no way I was going to be able to dress myself, let alone make it full a full day at work.
I downed a half a Klonopin, waited 30 minutes, and then took a full dose.
I was back in bed wearing jim jams, hair wet, glasses on, and waited for my heart to subside. It took nearly an 1.5 hours from the first dose to that blissful moment when the rapid beating just becomes a quiet murmur and my body is at ease again.
I slept for six hours.
I woke sometime in late afternoon, TheHusband brought me lunch in bed, and this was the rest of my day. At various points I used the bathroom and the watched TV, but I mostly dozed and stayed off the Internet.
I took another Klonopin sometime around 9:30PM and was asleep within the hour. From the time I went to bed on Sunday night and to the time I woke on Tuesday morning, I was only awake for 6 hours. Maybe 7.
What caused it? I’ve been known to have had panic attacks while I was in midst of joy, so on one hand, it is hard to say. On the other, I can start to pin point various things that are making me insane. Projects that need to be done, but won’t get completed without me even when other people are attached. Things that I attempt to pass off to other people to take the load off of me, but which are getting dropped and forgotten. My own passions are getting wrapped up in various things that are pulling me away from my goals, but which are more lucrative so I chase them and not my dreams. Then I start to feel guilty for not putting the time in for those dreams because I’m too busy wheeling and dealing over something else.
Then there is the Internet of course, for you are never far from the drama laden land of high school cliques. I can’t seem to shake you no matter what I do.
So it is everything and it is nothing at the very same time. It has the smell of the past, for it reminds me of that very awful time in 2002 when I cut out the cancers and ran far away to reinvent myself. It is clear now no matter how much good work is being done and how forward I push things to make changes, I am forever tilting at windmills. With very little backup to support me, I am running against a system that refuses to change or won’t change or finds the necessary changes to be unnecessary.
But it is interesting how little public support I get on projects yet privately I am told are worthwhile cases to push for. Hardly a single fucking person wants to get their hands wet or upset the status quo. Because it is easy for them to say such things to me privately, they have nothing to lose. But supporting me publicly is a sin means they might get their knuckles rapped and shamed for going against the grain. And I am tired of the hyperbole being laid at my feet on an almost daily basis, dressed up as supportive words. Either you stand with me or you don’t. If you don’t, get the fuck out of here.
What I can control, and what I can create and thrive, is work that is related to me and only me. That rejection of this work will only make me better, stronger, whereas with the other work, it strips you naked and forces you to submit to a system that steeped in history and heredity. That work, where only the like will talk to like, who will navel gaze until they have become contortionists, and who will only give props to those of their ilk, their kind. Celebration for things that aren’t really all that important but can be dressed up and taken out as if it was the most important things in the world. Work is not important, but showmanship IS. This is what I’ve learned. If you suck enough cocks, drink with enough vendors, and finger fuck everyone else, you too can be part of the inner elite. You too can have BS awards for superficial things that have no meaning other than to a select few. I don’t have time for such foolishness. My time has become, now, ultra precious.
Maybe it is time for me to burn the walls and plant a fuck you kiss to my detractors, and start anew.
Yeah, maybe it is time.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2009

Sick of Shadows

Dear Internet,
The crazy has been hitting me pretty hard for the last few days — well the better part of the week, which for me means lots of mania which rolls over into having a constant headache that I cannot shake. I’ve taken 1/2 a Klonopin this morning when I woke in the hopes it would quiet down some of the noise, but it feels like it has barely made a dent. I will more than likely take another 1/2 dose when I’m done writing this and a full dose before bed.
We kicked off the New Year by Wednesday having a pooping accident on our bedroom floor which she proceeded to then fell in to, which led to us giving her a bath and the obligatory anal gland squeeze, which was followed with her pooping more in the utility sink.
We sure know how to party.
TheHusband has been working with TheMIL on her oral history today, which has freed me up to do writing but with my brain spinning a million miles an hour, I’m finding I cannot concentrate more than a few things at a time. At best I’ve done is finish up my Book List of 2013, start the 2014 page and kind of putz around my office. The day is still relatively young but I am not feeling much to do anything at the moment.
The weather has been awfully frightful and currently sits at 10F/-12C with dipping down to 2F/-17C this evening with the never ending parade of snow. Even with several layers on, I’m constantly freezing. I’ve been chugging hot tea like there is no tomorrow to keep my innards warmed, but it doesn’t seem to be helping.
Tonight kicked the beginning of season 3 of Sherlock in the UK, which has Twitter enflamed. Several people asked nicely to not spoil it, so I won’t. Instead I’ll give you the teaser that was released for Christmas from BBC on Sherlock’s return.

xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 2003

a place to call home

Dear Internet,
My list yesterday of 50+ shows to keep you entertained while waiting for the next season of Downton Abbey / Miss Fisher turned out to be a huge hit. Cheers everyone! I’m glad my obsessive television tendencies were finally put to good use! Maybe I should start a “IF YOU LIKE, YOU WILL LOVE” feature because surely, all of this information should go somewhere.
Like the rest of the world, except for apparently Miami, I’m buried under a million feet of snow and ice. It has been snowing steadily since the weekend and if my weather desktop app is to be believed, there does not seem to be an end in sight.
Today marks the half-way point of December (It is also my half-birthday! Happy 41.5 to me!), we have not even hit the longest day of the year and I am already tired of winter. Kate and I were talking about taking off for a long weekend somewhere where we can pile on the 50SPF, drink fruity drinks with dangerous amounts of alcohol in them, and go swimming in blue oceans. And no partners allowed – no husbands, no boyfriends, no whiny dogs OR kids. We just may need to make this happen.
This week has been awful for many of my close crazy friends and that has been making me feel helpless, as I watch them struggle with their own diseases and I cannot help them. My own anxiety has been setting off like crazy at the tiniest of changes and moods. I’ve been having anxiety attacks at the most random of places, and at the most random of times, namely all fast beating of my heart that makes me feel like my chest is about to explode. Sometimes the beating is so hard and fast, you can see my shirt move or the pulse visibly quickens at various pulse points on my body. The attacks come on quick, there is no warning, and then leave just as if they never happened.
I am grateful they have been short lasting, for when they are prolonged, I tend to get exhausted quicker and immediately go into protect mode where I want to cut off all contact with the world, something difficult to do when at work. I have not been taking my Klonopin as often as I should have done, even when the first attack hit on Monday. When I had one today while randomly discussing something benign with a friend, all I wanted to do was take a whole pill, which would have promptly knocked me out. I need to score my pills for anxiety emergencies because this unnecessary insurmountable stress will just keep getting worse.
Friday at roughly 4PM is my last work day for the semester and I do not have to be back on campus until January 8th. TheHusband is already off for his holiday vacation and does not have to back until January 6th. We have absolutely no glorious plans other than my mother-in-law who is coming to visit between the 25th and 1st. I have stocked up on jim jams, tea, and will be sure to keep comfort food around me. My goal? To do absolutely nothing but wallow in my own filth, drink lots of tea, do old lady crafts when the mood strikes, watch more hours of the telly, and stuff myself silly with chocolate and treats.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe:

My history’s mysteries, curios, and future delightfulments

Dear Internet,
I’m so terribly glad the week has ended.
It began the previous week when a fire at work started out as a slow ember. By Monday, it blew up gorgeous blaze that only I could fix and spent all of my waking time working on the problem through the course of the week.
Monday eve I saw my medicating doctor, whom I’ve partially fired. He agreed to start downgrading me from the lithium, which is going to take about a month or so to happen. He’ll still be my klonopin dealer, thank fuck, but my involvement in the world of chemical imbibement is going to be gone.
Tuesday saw the advent of my period, who’s new thing is to play a game of “Heavy, heavy, normal, light, YOU ARE GOING TO BLEED TO DEATH!!!!!” pattern by the end of its cycle. Tuesday also was the day of my EEG, which after the procedure I had the energy of slug and slept for most of the day.
I taught all day Wednesday and Friday.
Thursday was the day all faculty had to have their projected performance evals done and turned in. Mine was not so. When I was at work, not teaching, not on the reference desk, I was trouble shooting the aforementioned gorgeous blaze that the final data collection submitted to IT was closing in on half a dozen pages of notes and results, which was submitted on Thursday.
Friday morning an email from my dean on why my eval was not completed and he wants to see me ASAP. My response was a copy of the six page ticket I opened with IT and an explanation of what I had been doing for the past week and half. I promised to finish the eval this weekend, but of course! The online system we use for such things, running on Oracle, is dead in the water. Oh, how bittersweet! Monday’s early appointment with my dean should be loads of fun.
TheHusband and I spent a good portion fo the weekend cleaning – it’s that time of year you know. People get overly excited for decorative gourd season and the onsalught of pumpkin spice latte whatever. Me? I dream about cleaning. We divided up the work over two floors and two days, and if we’re honest, we probably didn’t work as hard or get as much done as we had planned. But we’re okay with that, as we plan on pecking at it during the week
I burned through a lot of appointments this week and some commitments that I have set up for this upcoming week are going to be curtailed. I’ve decided to start reigning in on some things for the moment, only temporarily, as I wean off the drugs. If anything has been learned of the lesson of my drug life, the lack of any kind of emotional planning for what is going to happen is naught. Yes, I get it – you can’t control when the crazy comes but it would be nice to at least have an inkling. Thus, I’m clearing everything off the decks while I detox.
During the downtime this weekend, I worked a lot on the archives the site, hanging out mostly in 2010 – 11, which was not as interesting as 2003 or 2008, but there is a lot there for me to process. I also updated a few projects that were found such as Book List and To:Be Project, both which will remain current.
I get a hankering to look at the archives as work continues because seeing some of those years fill in makes me happy. I don’t only feel like I’m doing something here, completing a task, but I feel like I’m making art.
x0x0,
Lisa

In which the dog hate pees, my boyfriend shows up, and thehusband admits he has no sense of humour

Hercules vacuum cleaner, 1930s; State Library of New South Wales. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.
Dear Internet,
First I must tell you it’s much later than what the time stamp says on the entry. The second thing I must tell you is that I’m fairly high on Klonopin, which is in part thanks to having a physical anxiety attack this late evening. One pill couldn’t cut it, it seems, so I took two.
This week was kind of adventurous, which I’ve got started as another post-dated entry, but to bring you up to speed, we’re up at Throbbing Cabin which was solely to be for our vacation and not for renovations. Yet instead, it has turned into a comedy of errors.
As some of you may know, earlier this week I had a round of The Plague which changed everything, namely this entire week was to be our vacation week where the cabin was to be our actual vacation home and not a money pit of despair. The hope was to have day trips all over the area and see things we haven’t seen yet outside of our little 10 mile area.
We were obviously too ambitious.
We came up to Throbbing Cabin late Thursday afternoon, two cars packed with goods. After getting unpacked, it is discovered I left the non-perishable groceries on the counter in the kitchen back in Grand Rapids, which leads us to quick on the fly thinking of where to do for food, ending up having dinner at Little Traverse Inn, where their gastropub specialize in British foods with a twist. I really enjoyed the haggis parcels.
After a marvelous dinner, we head into Glen Arbor to grab the missing dry items left in Grand Rapids, head to the cabin to get ready for bed and sleep.
Except that didn’t quite happen. Wednesday had been acting odder than usual since I picked her up from the bordering place earlier in the day. I had thought it was their off her schedule walking that twas giving her troubles, but even after we right the wrong she decides to do two things:

She pees on the new wood floors right after we arrived
She pees on our bed at the end of the night, soaking through the duvet, sheets, and the mattress pad

Even better? TheHusband had been laying on some of the pee.
Thankfully we had back up sheets and comforters on hand. Also thankfully the mattress pad was designed for just such an occasion so the mattress itself never got wet.
Now I can speculate for as long as the day as long as to why both instances happened:

She’s 13 (or 101), and she’s incredibly picky how things are done. If they are not done just so, she gets upset
Boarding place said they had walked her twice before I picked her up at 11:30AM that morning, yet she almost immediately shat and pissed in my car. So see point the first.
We walked her more as soon she got home and after, yet our punishment was the peeing in the house.

It’s worth nothing that today she’s been fine. As a precaution, we’ve removed the water bowl we kept for her in the bedroom (since we’re upstairs, and she cannot get up/down stairs).
With that incident having now occurred, we knew we were going into Traverse City to do emergency laundry and then the thinking went, well as long as we’re in Traverse, might as well run a few other errands since we’re in the city.
Which completely shot our damned day. We were thinking beach! Hikes! Things! Not sit in a laundromat, watching DEAL OR NO DEAL.
My boyfriend, as he’s referred to, is the contractor who laid down our flooring and also builds homes. We’ve been getting price quotes from him to do work beyond our means, like rip out the second bathroom and redo it properly. We’ll also be contracting him further down the road to gut out and redo the kitchen (hopefully via IKEA).
He’s called such because it seems he only calls me, not TheHusband, for anything and we’ve now moved on to texting. The luck of the draw is that he looks like someone I would date. And there might be slight chemistry between us. But it’s kind of hard to feel the allure when the only times he’s ever seen me is when I look my not so very best.
After TheBoyfriend had come and gone to drop off some contract work, breakfast was made and consumed, we spent time putting together yet even more IKEA items from our haul this week. I prodded TheHusband to call a pest control person for we were finding little piles of dust in the master bedroom area and as luck would have it, the pest control could be out there early evening.
With our chores and bathing done, we started the slow trek into Traverse as we had stops such as at the recycling and gas station to embark on.
The bane of my existence during our courting years was TheHusband’s obsession on finding the perfect engagement ring. I looked at hundreds, if not thousands, of rings that all began blend into the same one.
Shopping for floor rugs with this man has the exact same experience. Online or off, there is always something not quite right about anything we have seen. We stopped at a rug showcase on our way to the laundromat and one after. My eyes were glazed over with all the seemingly same choices. My final threat was we were going to pick up something from Target, which turned out how our search ended with two area rugs thrown into our cart. Now we’re finding ourselves saying things like, “Well, if we don’t like it, into the guest room it goes!” which was also our mantra for Throbbing Manor.
Which explains so much about our decorating process.
Errands done, finally, headed back to the cabin, we meet up with pest control guy who showed up a little early. After poking and hunting around the cabin, he can’t quite find any trails to suspect carpenter ants are eating at the cedar. Since it’s either them or carpenter bees, and the bees are not here, then it’s got to be the damn ants. Traps were laid about the house and the outside perimeter was sprayed with poison. We report back to him in a week.
After all of this is done, it’s now closing in on 8PM. We wolf down dinner, grab the dog, and head to the local beach to watch the sunset and ended up staying for little over an hour. I was hoping to see more stars, with zero light pollution, but we were woefully unprepared for hanging out on a darkened beach.
We headed back to Cedar and got slushies before heading home, and here we are.
Mood update: Mood update has been pretty chill, though I’ve been sick for the better part of the week. I skipped a few days of the klonopin because I didn’t want to have an interaction with Day/NightQuil. I have not started Wellbutrin but several friends are reporting they are feeling good things about it, so that is still a might see.
I cancelled my appointment with Dr. H. on Monday because I had completely spaced on the appointment AND I don’t have the ready cash. Dr. P. and I have been unable to connect for a few weeks so hopefully I’ll get to see him soon.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #21)

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2003, 2003

If you see a red flag, run

Liberal Unionist poster, circa 1905-1910. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.
Dear Internet,
Dr. H. has become pushy, for him at least, on what drugs I am and am not taking. I should not fault him too much, because interaction could mean death. But he’s been pretty insistent my Metformin script is causing the havoc with me as of late, and I have to say, he may potentially have a point. I was pulled off of Metformin, after being on it for years, last winter when my GP and I were attempting to figure out if I was diabetic or not when I was going through all my ankle surgery woes. I use Metformin for my PCOD, but since it’s original intent is for pre-diabetics and diabetics not on insulin, it made sense to pull me off of it to make sure my blood work was not throwing up false negatives.
This, of course, all starts before Dr. H. and I start meeting and I’m off of Metformin for months. I think I finally went on it back in March when I got the all clear from the orthopedic surgeon on my ankle and my GP that I was not diabetic. Hurrah! Shortly after I start taking Metformin again, it was around that time when the sleepiness and other bi-product of lithium would appear and then disappear a few days later.
Since my sleepiness has been ebbing and flowing the last few days, I decided to do an experiment of my own by taking myself off the Metformin and see what happens. Oddly the day I stop taking it is the day I start my period, and I hope ultimately this doesn’t end up as a choice: regular, pain free periods OR less crazy.
Dr. H. wants me to start Wellbutrin this week as he’s also pretty convinced this will save my soul, thus once I’ll get my prescription filled, the regime will be:

500mg Lithium, 3x a day
1 mg of Klonopin, night (during day as needed)
Wellbutrin, morning
Daily vitamin, morning
Glucosamine Chondroitin, morning
Metformin, morning (On hold)

I’m ending the Glucosamine Chondroitin as it doesn’t seem to do anything for me anymore. I need to do more research into the vitamin shenanigans before giving that up completely. I’d like to get myself off as many drugs as possible in the end. Too much evidence is showing me a healthy diet and serious exercise regime is much more therapeutic rather than dosing me up with chemicals. Except for Klonopin, as that is the savior to everything.
In so far as exercise, TheHusband and I walked two miles yesterday and today I did entertain the idea of rowing, so there is that.
I’m not terribly sure if it is because I stopped the Metformin today OR if my period started, but what I do know my sleepiness is not as terrible as the day has progressed as it has been for the last few weeks. This morning I still had coffee and later, a 12 oz Red Bull, but I felt like I kept my shit together while I worked and I did drink a lot of water, which later supplemented with a bottle of coke. Maybe my caffeine intake is spiked and I need to adjust that more? I did stop drinking caffeine when I was on the legal meth for my ADHD and didn’t really miss it. I’ve also done routes of stopping caffeine after say noon to help me sleep better.
Right now this is not so much as planning as it is talking out loud to myself. Like I said, the boring bits of every day life but one I would like to track with gusto.
Dr. H’s idea behind the Klonopin is if I take it at night, every night, then a lot of the stress and other triggers that seem to randomly come and go will be squashed. If I can sleep a full night’s sleep, deeply, without fretting then I own’t be tired in the morning, and if I’m not tired then I’m not mainlining caffeine of of a hooker’s ass, and well, you get the picture. The number that is counting up after my name in all these recent posts is the number of nights I’ve taken Klonopin before bed, so that I could keep track in some form.
After a week of this inhaling of my wonder drug at night, and still feeling like death warmed over on a daily basis, Dr. P. suggested I take Klonopin earlier in the evening, say between 6-7PM so that the entire life of the drug would have cycled through before morning. The reason why this is important is because by taking it at my usual time (9-10PM or so), by the time I get up in the morning, the drug has such a long half-life, it would still be feeling the zombie effects come morning.
Makes a lot of sense.
Even with all of the Klonopin inhaling, I am still having panic attacks. Nothing to the extent like they used to be, but they are still there. One popped up an said hello today at around lunch time, so I popped half a Klonopin and did some breathing exercises to exorcise that demon. No one has time for that shit!
My social feeds have been abuzz about Night Vale, the podcast that is eating up the airwaves. Told in the format of community updates of the small desert town of Night Vale, it is the most delightful podcast. The show has been on for over a year now and one of the lovely things about finding out about something long after it has started is that you can gorge on the episodes. I would highly suggest you checking this out.
Finally, after weeks of trying to make this happen, TheHusband and I were able to make homemade pizza for dinner tonight and I did not die! As I’m allergic to cow milk and I can tolerate sheep and goat milk, how would I fare with buffalo milk? Namely, buffalo mozzarella?
Apparently, in all of Grand Rapids, the locations to get true buffalo mozzarella are minute. Once we found a place, I grabbed some gluten free crust for me and made a wheat based crust TheHusband. Below is the gluten free version.

The taste? Not bad. I like thin crusts so that worked out well, the cheese didn’t spread as much as I had hoped, but as we bought only a single container, we weren’t sure how much would last for pizza. TheHusband made the sauce, which was sweet just as I liked it. Overall, probably the best version of pizza I’ve had since being diagnosed with my allergy and the ability to at least get gooey cheese was orgasmic. We will be making this again.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #13)

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2012, 2003

One Who Guesses Right

Portrait of an articulated skeleton on a bentwood chair, circa 1900. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.

Dear Internet,
The 12th Doctor was announced today. I’m not sure how I feel about the selection but as I said on Twitter, it’s not so much they went with a white male but the beeb, the show, Moffat – they have this AMAZING opportunity to take the show into new direction, pushing boundaries and make the show worth a damn! But no. Moffat on why no female Doctor, “It didn’t feel right to me, right now. I didn’t feel enough people wanted it.”
That has got to be one of the most cowardly statements ever published. Will I stop watching? More than likely not.
Today was a good day! TheHusband and I got up early, there was no leaping from the bed but early it was, and made some serious head way into the great weeding with the before illustrated below:

After two hours and stuffing to the gills a 96 gallon yard waste container, our yard looks exactly the same! Well, not exactly – the weeds between the bricks in the walk are gone. So there is something. TheHusband and I keep going back and forth on how to take care of this mess, knowing really if we spent a few a hours a day working on it, it would be fantastic. And knowing who we are, it’s not probably not going to happen.
But we continue to be optimistic.
After cleaning ourselves up, we headed over to antique row, which is a series of antique stores located in the old warehouse district south of downtown. This area, along with other blighted spots, are getting their own gentrification so now instead of it being a sketchy area to park and shop in, the streets are getting nicer and better shops are moving in.. The row has now doubled to contain six distinct antique and speciality stores, such as one store that specializes in Mid-Century Modern and another that does specializes in reclaimed materials. Reclaimed from what, we’re not sure, but it looked too high falutin for us.
Our needs were pretty simple: Look for Fiestaware, furniture, and a few other odds and ends we need for the cabin. We might as well been shooting for the moon. Several weeks ago, we lucked out when we found Fiesta plates at a local thrift store near our cabin for $1 a piece. At every antique store we visited this weekend, they were selling between $10-30 a piece. Now I know some of this stuff is worth the price, but selling contemporary pieces for vintage prices is a fucking dick move! We saw this in a lot of things we picked up, items that were retro made to emulate vintage looks but priced as of original. I Instagramed some choice pieces but overall, our time at the antique row was a bust.
I also feel like I’ve combed through most of the thrift stores and antique markets in our areas and either we’re not getting the right days or I’m missing something. It’s become pretty frustrating.
We ended our pretty busy day out with dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and we both tried something new. The evening was wrapped up with True Blood and some other mindless television before crashing.
So mood – how was my mood. For the most part of the last few weeks, my mood has been pretty steady even and the Klonopin at night has helped taken the edge off. But the edge is still there and sometimes I can feel it like a serrated knife against my chest.
I am so fucking tired. Of being tired. Sometimes I feel like all I do in inhale enough caffeine to keep me functioning for the moment and then I inhale some more. I feel like it’s a lost cause and I want to get off of Lithium so badly but I’m more afraid of the ramifications of going off the drug cold turkey.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #11)

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

licked out of ice

Ice-hockeying women in bathing suits. Minneapolis, USA, 1925. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.

Dear Internet,
I’ve been hooked on using IFTTT lately and have been intrigued by some of the recipes that have popped up. One such example is to have a random Wikipedia article sent to Feedly every morning to increase my general knowledge. I thought this was exceptionally brilliant as TheHusband and I play team trivia on occasion and any edge is a good edge. Today’s article was about Thorarinn Leifsson, an Icelandic artist and illustrator whose done a few graphic novels that seem up my alley. Problem is, his site is under construction and his books sites have been taken over by spam. His work has apparently been printed in English, but I’m only able to find German copies at Amazon US and Amazon UK. If anyone has any leads to reasonably priced copies, in English, that would be fabulous.
An interlude:

This morning was glacial, as I dilly dallyed about, spending time reading while I ate breakfast and then continue to read long after the last bite had been swallowed. Work was slow, because no one is around on Friday. I did end up going to lunch with Work Husband #1, which was fun. Sometimes it’s comforting to hear that how I feel about things is echoed by others.
TheHusband came home tonight after spending the last month up at Throbbing Cabin, directing the renovations that have been going on. He’s been luxuriating in all the comforts of the 21st century since he’s been home. We ended up at a chain BBQ place late for dinner and had a really good night. The family, TheHusband, myself, and Wednesday the Pug, were back together again.
Overall, my mood was pretty good and even. Dr. P.’s suggestion of taking Klonopin at 7PM seems to be working. I had my 8 oz Red Bull in the morning, a few sodas at lunch and nothing for the rest of the day. To make sure that my body is not so dependent on caffeine, in the late afternoon, it’s no caffeine. I’m bringing Shirley Temples back.
In other news and world reports, I also applied to write for No Flying No Tights.
Some days, it is all about the banality of day to day life. And that is totally okay.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #9)

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2012, 2012, 2012, 2008

i would prefer not to

Auchinleck Manuscript – Reinbroun. National Library of Scotland. Courtesy of The Commons, Flickr.

Dear Internet,
I did not so much as leap out of bed this morning in so much as I forced myself to acknowledge that yes, morning was indeed here and yes, it was time to get up. I used to go from dead sleep to out of the house in 45 minutes. But then the ankle surgery occurred and I slowed down a bit. Now with the constant energy drain, I’m positively glacial. Dead sleep to leaving the house is not 45 minutes anymore, it now takes close to two hours. This summer gives me loads of flexibility because I’m not tied to any kind of schedule so I can pretty much roll into work whenever I want to.
But when fall comes, that will be a whole different matter.
And by fall, I mean start of classes which is in about three weeks.

Later

I had the good grace to get this entry started this morning, a running commentary through my head as the day progressed. Let us get the work out of the way first before continuing, and see where that takes us.
On the Wednesday front, she started spaghetti legs again this evening and I’ve started her on a dose of Gabapentin to go with her ‘roids. Like before, it just shows up. She remains as alert as ever, which we’re constantly surprised as she’s 13 years old and you’d think there would be some feebleness to her. Oh, no. She’d cut a bitch for pizza crust, let’s make sure we’ve got that correctly. She’s back to chewing on her raw hides again, which she hasn’t touched in years. It was eye brow raising moment of “Que?” when she picked up this habit again, for she just waltzed into the living room, dragged a rawhide with her (mind you, the same one she’s been working on for 3 or so years) and put a big dent in it on afternoon. Now she does this every night.
This morning, I was up and out of the house within 1.5 hour of waking up, so minor victory! My decision to pre-pack my lunch, pick out the day’s outfits, and get my gadgets in gear helped. Ages ago, I learned the lesson of packing for the day the night before so these are not new introductions to the plan, rather just tried and true ones. Also ages ago, I used to eat breakfast at work, so my lunch bag was doing double time, but lately I’ve been eating before leaving, namely as if I don’t have food in my stomach in and around the time I take my pills, then I start to feel awful and get massive cramps. Eating breakfast at work was to “save time,” but now I found eating at home is faster because I don’t have to prepare and pack more food.
I weighed and measured myself, transposing that into Fitbit this morning. I’m unsure when I’ll keep that active – weekly? Daily? Monthly? Something will naturally occur. I also started, again (always again), tracking my food portions but opted to not finish out the day. My caffeine intake consisted of an iced coffee at 2PM and a 8 oz Sugar Free Red Bull in the morning. I consumed 32+ oz of water during the course of the day and this evening, I’ve been double fisting water and blood red orange soda for I am desperate to not be dependent on caffeine. My food choices were healthy, for what it was worth, and my only indulgence were the aforementioned large iced coffee before I headed to see Dr. P.
My session with Dr. P. went really well, as par usual. The chaos inside my brain seems to soothe a bit after I see him. He did suggest that while taking Klonopin at night was a good idea, it has an extremely long half-life, so I should be taking it earlier in the evening. This means if I take it before bed, as I had been for the last week plus, it has not completely cycled by the time I’m up and at ’em, which explains why I’m groggy in the morning. Then add on the lithium which causes low energy and you have yourself a winner. His suggestion is to take the drug at about 7PM or so, so that it would have cycled by the time I get up, which I’m starting tonight.
(With all the med changes and other special needs I need to be aware of, looks like I’m making another IFTTT recipe. I love this service.)
My mood today, in the morning, was fairly focused as I started getting some work done that’s been woefully behind since I’ve been rarely here. I was still feeling tired for the better part of the day, but it came in spurts. One minute I was fine and then a few moments later, I could curl up and sleep with it disappearing again not long after. Since I took the Klonopin late and I didn’t get a full 8 hours of sleep which is usually needed, I’ll assume this is part of the problem. As I have taken the Klonopin earlier this eve as directed by Dr. P., I will now have a control study of sorts.
While I was fairly focused, I was also feeling very pedanticy, meaning I had this urge to correct and illustrate my awesomeness to everyone. Mainly with vendors. Case in point: I emailed a company that solicited us for one of their products. After going over their website with a fine tooth comb, I could not find the answers to my questions. So I emailed the sales rep explaining I could not find the answers on their site and here were my questions. The sales rep turns around and emails me a copy/paste job of their technical support page. So I responded back that I had already read this, as I had pointed out, and if she could not answer my questions, could she haves someone else do it for her?
She’s working on it, she says.
Variations of this happened with several other vendors today. Is it the fact it’s August 1? Do people not read their goddamned email or understand their products? It just got me really irrationally worked up. But I recognize it’s irrational.
Since my original plan was to head to Throbbing Cabin for the weekend after the session today, it was curtailed as TheHusband is coming home on Friday, I was out of sorts after my session with Dr. P. ended at 3PM. I then got this urge to garden or perhaps use our rowing machine for 1/2 hour or so tonight. Or maybe do both! Also, maybe get some writing done and get caught up on paper reading.
No. No. After beating the exercise and gardening demon back to their black holes inside my soul, the night turned into a lot slower. I was able to clean up some server work and get some digital reading done, but no where near what I had anticipated or hoped. And I’m reminding myself this is okay.
In my session with Dr. P. today, I mentioned the following and about a few other things which I’ll write about tomorrow. I said to him that I don’t know if it is the drugs, or the circumstances, or what, but I don’t like this person I’ve become. While I was never a WILD AND CRAZY GIRL, I didn’t have any qualms or issues about being a bit reckless, or doing things outside of my comfort zone. And now, I’m more often than not, trapped by fear. And that has become the most crippling feeling of all.

x0x0,
Lisa (Day #8)

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2011, 2003, 2003