Dear Internet,
Today’s walk was actually a hike through one of our favorite areas: Pyramid Point. Last year when we did this hike, we meandered off the main trail and ended up more than 2 miles further from the trailhead than we were supposed to be and the 2.7 mile hike turned into 5 miles.
Then, after we figured out our location and were walking towards our car, I managed to have a massive anxiety attack and shut myself down. TheHusband jogged back to the car on his lonesome to come back and pick me up since it was clear I was refusing to not move an inch. After he had been gone for what felt like years, I somehow got myself pulled together and trudged forward, meeting him 1/10th of a mile from our where our car was parked.
Good times!
Now that I know the area better, and I’ve been steadily walking around the neighborhood these last few weeks, I felt much more confident going into the hike.
Plus it’s hard to not feel awesome when wearing a pair of sassy orthopedic socks.
Beginning of the trailhead.
After walking about about a half a mile to the split, you could either continue climbing up and to the lookout to view Lake Michigan or continue on the trail into the woods. The lookout is densely packed and with the large number of people hanging out today, we decided to go right into the woods.
If you did choose to up to the lookout, you can hike around the bluffs and come back down via this sand slide to the trail as an alternate route. TheHusband wants to get in shape enough to come up this route instead of the trail in the beginning since it will be less populated. I laughed in his general direction.
TheHusband is contemplating a tree that had half of its trunk neatly cut off by lightning.
There are loads of fallen trees over the trails and I love them. I feel like I’m hanging out in Middle Earth and these are seating for giants.
There is a side loop you can take through meadows, where last year I kept saying, “The Orcs are chasing us — run!” as we hiked. Why? Because Old Age Pensioners (or Orcs as I like to call them) were catching up with us and having the elderly more fit than you is embarrassing.
Anywho, that loop brings you back to this point, and this is where we fucked up. We started out taking the meadows and took a wrong turn somewhere and this is how we ended up 2 miles further than we were supposed to be. This year, we said fuck the meadows and just continued on the trail in the woods. Much safer that way. Plus — no Orcs!
Distance: 2ish miles (round trip)
Walk time: 40ish minutes
Pace: 26:32/mile
I forgot to turn the Fitbit on until after we had started the hike and there were also some hiccups, so the times is sorta of close? During bits of the hike itself, Fitbit kept crashing as evidence by the lack of red line connecting the beginning and the rest of the hike and I realised you could also “lock” the timer into place so if you navigated away from the screen, it wouldn’t put itself on pause.
Tomorrow TheHusband has found us another hike. Good times will be had whether we like them or not.
xoxo
Lisa
Tag: Panic Attacks
daily walk: pause
Dear Internet,
Today is my last day at MPOW and this morning instead of doing my new usual morning mile, I lolled in bed slapping the snooze button until I had to get up.
It would be irony to be late on the my last day of work.
Truth be told, it was not overt laziness that prevented me from getting up but downright sleepiness and exhaustion. Starting with Sunday night, this week has been torture for sleep. I could not sleep until 6AM Monday morning and then ended up sleeping for four hours which threw Monday off like woah. Monday night we gutted like pigs in a trough over pizza and I took a Benadryl hoping it would knock me out early so I could actually get some sleep.
That failed as four hours later I took a Klonopin to finally knock me out.
Despite the drugs, Monday’s night’s rest was short which coupled with getting up early on Tuesday to walk, and the same pattern repeating itself on Tuesday meant I was averaging about 4-5 hours of sleep each night.
After dinner on Wednesday, I decided to put my feet up and do some web work with Orphan Black on in the background. TheHusband was off playing a video game, so he was relaxing on his own. I was feeling fairly peaceful as I worked until I got hit with rapid heart beat, which is my usual physical manifestation of anxiety.
A panic attack while watching Orphan Black? Really? Fuck this.
So obviously I took a Klonopin.
Hearts and guts are treacherous souls.
An absolute known, for me, on taking Klonopin on consecutive days is that I feel sluggish and even more tired the more I take it, even though the shelf-life is not long. Klonopin is great when I need to put a rampaging panic attack in its place, but it can never be more than that thought on occasion it has been.
So you will forgive me, I hope, that today’s walk was not done. After all, tomorrow is another day.
xoxo,
Lisa
This Day in Lisa-Universe:
she-bear
Dear Internet,
TheHusband and I were set to go up to Throbbing Cabin last night but opted to stay home to circumvent the potential traffic bomb of travelling on a holiday weekend. Our plan, then, was to leave this morning and stay at Throbbing Cabin for the rest of the weekend, coming home on Monday morning.
This morning, however, had other ideas
When I woke up, I went into a massive panic attack where I refusing to not just not leave the house, but I was not going to leave our bed, or even get dressed or any thing resembling personal care. I became so agitated over the prospect of leaving, moving, interacting with people, I started to get into manic mind mode. TheHusband, who had been out walking the dog when the attack started, returned back to our bedroom to my meltdown.
When I saw him, I immediately burst into tears.
Needless to say, we’re not going anywhere this weekend.
TheHusband has learned to stop asking me what is setting off the panic attacks because I never know. Sometimes it’s mental, sometimes they are physical. Sometimes I can ward them off, and others, like today, I’m overwhelmed by their sheer control over me.
The attacks, or in this instance the need to shelter myself from the world, has become more intense over time. I often feel hyper sensitive to the outside world. People. Situations. In my head, when plotting a set of errands that require me to leave the house for long periods of time, I attempt to sort them to make them least painful and less having to interact with anyone. Sometimes, more often than not, I lie to get out of situations because the thought that I would need to be around other people, or more rightly in places that are not familiar, makes me anxious. My house is my touchstone and if I cannot have things set up the way I need them to be set up to function, then things start to break down.
While my depression in the past has been the cause for decrease in sexy times, the drugs have amplified sexy times, along with everything I have just explained. I’ve always had voracious attitude towards sex and with nearly a year on Lithium, it has dried up like an October leaf. I was telling a friend of mine recently, who was newly diagnosed as bipolar himself, I could have Alexander Skarsgard naked on a chaise reading a book in front of me, and I’d be, “Eh.” I don’t want to touch myself, let alone my own husband, and I could not even summon the desire for a naked Alexander Skarsgard. Or James McAvoy. Or any of my fictitious husbands. I used to be the girl who wanted to have sex every where and with everything, and now I would just like to put the kettle on and have a good pot of tea.
And yes, I have a fairly healthy vibrator and dildo collection that is currently gathering dust. Which is a shame as some of them are expensive and were gifts.
At my last medicating appointment, Dr. H. was absolutely positive that by taking Klonopin at night would help some of my issues. The idea being if I take the drug at night, I will get a sound sleep. If I get a sound sleep, then I will feel rested in the morning and more at ease.
Except that didn’t work. After trying this for a week or two and still feeling exhausted and pent up, I told Dr. P. who suggested I take the Klonopin earlier in the evening, say 7PM instead of 10PM. The reason is that Klonopin releases slowly so if I’m taking it later in the evening, by time I wake up, I’m groggy because the drug is still working. Then I start amping up on caffeine to get over the hump and the cycle begins again.
Dr. H. gave me a prescription for Wellbutrin, and after several weeks of circling it like shark, I bit the bullet and got it filled. Numerous friends of mine with similar brain issues have all reported good things with Wellbutrin and as it was not a SSRI, I figured it was worth a shot.
The first few days of Wellbutrin, I was downright cheery. I didn’t feel the energized pep that several friends reported, but I was honestly okay with all of that. By the end of the first week, the dark clouds started to form and for the entire second week, I was hell on wheels. It was not so bad that other people knew, or commented, but it was so bad that I picked up all the signs that this was not going to end well. My meltdown this morning was the final straw and I stopped taking the drug.
Some medicating therapists will have you push on through these periods because after the drug settles, it is smooth sailing. I can’t do this, emotionally, physically, mentally, or financially. My brain chemistry is such that what takes someone 21 days to metabolize a drug, it takes me 7. I may have a fight on my hands with Dr. H. this week because he’s going to report back to me my lithium levels are still in the therapeutic range and I’m going to tell him that regardless if they are, I need to get off that drug in a safe manner because I’m done with this experiment.
A year ago when I called Dr. P. to get my life on track, I was open to the idea of drug therapy because I wanted the pain to end. I wanted a way to chemically fix what was broken if talk therapy didn’t work enough. and to fix what behaviour modification could not fix. Dr. P. recommended Dr. H., who confirmed the existing diagnosis of ADHD, Bipolar I, Borderline Personality Disorder, with a top up of anxiety.
The idea was to get my mood stabilized with lithium, then start adding in the ADHD drugs to control that. Once we found the combination, everything would be grand!
Well, not so much.
Reading through some of those old entries, a lot of patterns begin to show. The drugs, mood/ADHD, are clearly not working. I can’t afford to emotionally keep putting my life into upheaval every time I go on something new to see if it works.
This nine month experiment, while peppered with good intentions, has crippled me more than I could ever imagine. Feeling myself hit the wall, time and time again, the disappointment I’ve laid on myself when something didn’t work, the guilt I built around me when I couldn’t complete a task, and the friendships I lost because I was not the person they thought I was.
The constant stress of wondering who I was going to be that day when I woke up, and how that affected work and personal relationships.
I’m done. I don’t want to be this girl anymore, who hides in her bedroom afraid of the world. I’m done not living a life because I feel too medically incapacitated to do so.
The new plan is to get weaned off of Lithium, and start a diet and exercise routine because literally, every book on bipolar talks about the lessening symptoms if you do these two things. Continue to see Dr. P. for talk therapy, once a week as current or more if he warrants it.
Anything has to be better then the now.
I want my life back and it looks like, I’m the one whose going to have to go get it.
x0x0,
Lisa (Day #36)
This day in Lisa-Universe in:
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.
http://instagram.com/p/csNwGivJDP
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)
holding up a corner of the sky
Dear Internet,
The other day I was on the toilet, reading National Geographic as you do, when I had a panic attack.
Let me repeat this:
I’m on the toilet.
Taking a dump.
Reading National Geographic.
Having a panic attack.
I was more surprised rather than panicked about what was happening, and thankfully the attack came and went fairly quickly. This little episode seems to sum up what’s been going on with my brain as of late, which is to say, an even more chaotic mess.
A few weeks ago I was scheduled to see my medicating doctor for my monthly visit and a few days before the appointment, I had irrational fight with a friend online. The fight was not serious by any context, but I was able to step back and see what is going on before it DID get serious. But the fact the fight happened at all was a huge wake-up call. A few days before that, TheHusband made an off hand comment I had been acting “weird,” but he didn’t really qualify it other than he didn’t think things were going well with me and he was concerned.
During the session with my medicating therapist, when I relayed all of this to him, it sounded like the lithium was not working as well as he had hoped. I agreed. He upped me another 300mg, for a total of 1500mg to be split over the course of the day (morning, afternoon, night).
A week and half later, I find myself sitting in the shadows of a room steaming over god knows what.
I got some relief on the first few days after the dosage was upped, but since then I’ve been super lethargic and now overly anxious. The lethargy is destroying much of my productivity because I have zero motivation and will and it’s a struggle to stay awake. I’m bordering on always being on panic mode. That feeling gets intensified when all of these fixes for ffor my brain chaos stop working and the cycle seemingly always repeats itself.
I can’t get any relief and I feel like I am going crazy on fixing my crazy.
Tomorrow I am calling my medicating doctor to get off of Lithium. I’m not sure what has changed with my body chemistry in the last month but I thought the lithium was at least a cure-all for my bipolar and instead, it’s now destroying me. He’s made suggestions of putting me on Depakote to work with the lithium but so far I’ve read or heard nothing but terrible reviews. I’m at the point right now, six months after starting it, that I have not seen enough evidence to continue taking it.
The quasi-fight TheHusband and I are having is about space. Some couples fight about money, some couples fight about temperature control, TheHusband and I fight about space. The fact we have too much of it, it seems.
Throbbing Manor, including the finished bits of the basement, is 3200 sqft. According to my European friends, I live in a goddamned mansion. According to the American contingent, we live in a nice place. We know it is too big, and we also know how we use space doesn’t mesh with the flow of the house. Yes, the house is nice.Yes, we live in a desirable neighborhood. But this house isn’t us. We don’t use the space that is here, instead we hang out in only a few of the many rooms. Because we’re not hanging out in many of the rooms, wer’re not buying any furniture, household goods, or wall art to finish the rooms off. We’ve lived here for 2.5 years and people have asked me for updated pictures and I’m embarrassed to say there aren’t any.
The sunroom (or solarium) has been one of those rooms where we go back and forth on what to do with it. First it was indoor/outdoor furniture to turn it into a cozy reading/hang out area, then it was double it up with plants, then it was get a drafting desk so TheHusband could draw and paint, and I could calligraphy.
In the nearly two years we’ve been having this discussion, we’ve bought three large plants, of which one is nearly dead and we’ve commissioned the handcrafted table that goes over the absurdly long radiator. In the winter, during the holiday times, if we’re feeling like putting a tree up, it goes in here. But any of the aforementioned items I’ve mentioned we were considering on purchasing – we haven’t purchased. The indoor/outdoor furniture is never right for his taste, we can’t find a drafting desk to meet his needs, and so forth and so on. Finally, I decided to take a stand and turn the space into a writing area.
And this is where the argument starts.
TheHusband states I’m taking over space by putting my stamp everywhere (duh, I live here. I should be able to do that anyway!) and I now have essentially two offices. Then he’s pissed because we had to move one of his plants (a lime tree) to another space in the room, but the damn tree is dying anyway. A 6′ lateral move is not going to hasten its death!
Secondly, getting to know myself as intimately as I have in the last six months, in order to cope with my ADHD drug free, I need solitude space of no interruption. This means TheHusband. He says I should just close the door to my office on the second floor, but it isn’t the same. Sitting here in solarium has a different vibe then siting upstairs. The view is better. I’m away from external noise that comes from the other side of the house. The chair is not as comfy so the likelihood of me fucking off while doing work is less likely. And most importantly, I’m close to my books.
The final big reason is we decided to turn the bedroom into a gadget free zone once we get to the point where we move the bedroom TV up to the cabin, forcing us to watch TV in the Rumpus Room. I’m started that process early by moving my laptop out of the room and into the solarium. At least here I can work with minimal interruption.
I told TheHusband if he buys a drafting desk, we buy the indoor/outdoor furniture, or any of the other things we talked about doing to this room, I’ll gladly move this desk back upstairs and live will continue on as normal. My desktop, TheHusband’s old laptop that is wire bound now, is slowly dying so the move may be sooner than I think.
Pro tip: Marriage is overrated.
x0x0x,
Lisa
This day in Lisa-Universe in:
the perfect storm
Several days later, I had a massive anxiety attack while at work, the first one in months.
And I believe the hemorrhage and the anxiety attack are related.
It’s time to strip naked everything.
Panic in the Streets of Grand Rapids: Conversations about mother (part iii)
To support NaNoWriMo this month, I’m finishing the 30+ odd drafts laying about and posting them through the month of November.
Part I: Conversations about mother
Part II: Conversations about mother (part ii)
I felt fine in LA and in Phoenix (no minute or heavy stress attacks) as I drove but somewhere around Las Cruces, NM I began to have a major panic attack. It was late at night, I was stuck between two semis and the 10 had turned into single, each way lanes coupled with high cement shoulders due to construction. To top this wondrous night off, it was raining and raining hard.
I began to panic.
I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t breathe and I was freaked out of my wits.
This stepped up the racing thoughts that any second I was going to careen into the cement shoulder, hit a semi or get run over by the semi behind me. After what seemed like hours but was probably only mere minutes, I pulled off the road when I found the first mom and pop motel where I grabbed a room for the night. Even by taking myself out of what I thought was a dangerous situation, my heart wouldn’t stop racing. I made deals, bets, begged, cajoled, pleaded and bargained with whatever deity was above me to make this end. Nothing happened. I paced my room, smoked a million cigarettes and did everything I thought of in my power but I could not calm down.
The situation was made more intense that while I was no longer freaking out about my impending death on the 10, new thoughts would appear about my situation. I was in the wilds of New Mexico! Alone! With hardly any money! No one I know for hundreds of miles! With a crap cell phone!1 I was literally thousands of miles from my destination, alone, nearly broke, and frightened and scared.
Common sense roused its stately head and forced me to go to the mom and pop of the mom and pop hotel, to explain in very poor pidgin Spanish, that I felt like I was unable to breathe because that was the first thing I could think of to tell them. I could hear the crackling of Spanish on the radio in the make-shift lobby as I spoke. I remember how warm the night felt against my skin and how the air hung with wetness from the recent downpour. I must have looked like a crazy person, standing there, begging for help in a reasonable voice while my heart raged on and clearly, able to breathe.
EMTs shortly arrived thereafter and gave me oxygen, which upon my first inhale I immediately calmed down. They found, just as the ER docs found a few weeks before, nothing wrong with me. Healthy as a horse. It is like once the attack has been fully addressed in some manner, it decides to leave as quickly as it sprang up. Instead of being thankful to the EMTs for the reassurance, I remember feeling chastened. Slightly ridiculous that I called them out in the middle of the night for a panic attack. Also a little stupid, a little insane and a whole lot of embarrassed.
Moments of lucidness during my attacks, when I knew I was fine and I knew I was not in harms way were always felt to be made like disappearing bread crumbs along a well worn road by the panic. It is a struggle, still in the now and sometimes almost daily, to differentiate between the world colored by anxiety and the world in which is real. It is an exhausting struggle within my brain to fight for what could be potentially destructive behavior as compared as to what is termed normal behavior.
I do not know.
1. Back in ye olde times when cell phones were bricks, on analog service and you paid by the minute.
At Bay
it’s 1am and i have to be up in several hours to sling coffee for jesus. i cannot sleep and anxiety steals upon me like a thief.
so much is left unsaid, deep in our consciousness. we are so polite and benign to each other that we forgot how to feel. and if we say how we feel, then we are either very good liars or we are faking it.
i look so ridiculous, it’s my own constant source of amusement. my tattooist uses what is called “wrapping” the first few nights you get a tattoo done. Which you do is basically slather Tattoo Goo (or ointment of your choice) and wrap the tat with saran wrap to keep it moist all night long. Please don’t email me about whether or not this is a good practice or not, each artist is different, i understand that. I prefer to use Tattoo goo and any other non-lanolin or non-petroleum based lotion to keep my tats looking black as night.
Because of the precarious position of this new tattoo, wrapping it was a bitch. First, my arms are not long enough to slather the whole tattoo but all but the bottom inch or so, but i try. I then use saran wrap and concoct some sort of half-bra and wrap myself in it. I’m wearing a tank top and sweat shorts both equally of different colors and different patterns. I’m standing, feet apart in my dining room taking deep breaths, keeping the demons at bay.
You should have seen me the summer of 01 when i got my lower back piece done. It was 90 degree heat and high humidity and here I was sleeping in saran wrap.
people say, what are you so stressful about? and you wonder just exactly how much of this is made up bullshit and how much is reality. Panic attacks are like that, it feels so real even though it’s all generated inside your head. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was having a bloody fucking heart attack only to be told I wasn’t. i wish I had, sometimes, it would make things easier.
Even though I eliminated smoking, the obtuse exboyfriend, got rid of a highly stressful job and moved back home, the attacks have been coming with regularity, mostly around my menses. But they still come like clock work. My world is pent full of anxiety. My fucking dogs are proof of this as they are losing half their fur and Lily is on anti-anxiety meds. I need to fix something and as I get rid of all the bad things, it doesn’t seem to be helping.
I don’t know what it is.
I don’t have a solid answer and perhaps that is the solution to the problem, or at least a proof. Remember geometry? Remember doing proofs? I hated doing them.
The Vegas trip is just over a month away and i’m already getting irritated. most of the people are having commitment issues and Paul made a big stink about “not being invited” which was a load of crap to begin with, then he gets invited then he bows out stating he’s planning something else! Europe is also beginning to get on my nerves as well. People are being kind and offering their homes but then I stress on the whole “how long is enough to stay?” etc. It’s all becoming one big fuck off.
Suddenly everything seems like a fucking hassle. The idea of going to the South of France seems to appeal every day. I’ve been watching french movies and listening to anything french that I can download. I have no idea what they are saying and I think I prefer it that way. Though sometimes I cheat and use babelfish to translate the song titles and then I make up the song lyrics based off of that. I was disappointed to find out that title to one song was basically ‘the wind carries’ — haha. It sounds so much better in french.
i am tired of my unconscious mind.
Does anyone want it?
xx0x0x
ps: My horoscope has been strangely accurate. For 4.18 it said that a out of town trip was going to be postponed or changed. I got a phone call today from United that my flights for Vegas had been all changed around. Coincidence?
Your Daily Horoscope for April 19, 2003
Dear lisa,
Upsetting news that you receive from far away, perhaps through fax or email, could send you into an emotional tailspin. There is, however, an aura of uncertainty about what you hear – it may not make sense. Before you pass the news on or go into a panic, lisa, make sure you know all the facts. You’re likely to find that it’s been blown all out of proportion. In view of this, you deserve an evening out. Go for it!
I don’t feel right, I’ve got a crack in my heart
“You know Lisa, when you do something, people think it’s cute. When I do the same thing, people ignore me.” – Paul
Paul and I have been having this on-going “disagreement” on who started what and when and how. Simple euphemisms and mannerisms have become intertwined no one can remember who is a lisa-ism and what was a paul-ism. Scary.
Anywho, Paul and I talked about which songs describe us to a T. Paul picked No Fair Fights by Prick as one of them. He ripped the song for me and now that I finally have a working sound system, I finally downloaded it and have been replaying it over and over again. And anyone who knows me the slightest knows that I have a thing for lyrics (hello! Why I love Afghan Whigs and like bands) and I really dig the lyrics for this song. Paul will probably sit and smirk but hey, the words rock.
knee hurts. ow.
Anyway, I haven’t been writing much cos my life was anymore of a mess it would be a soap opera. Well, it is. Let’s see, in the last three weeks, I’ve had the following things occur:
- Roommate sideswiped car trying to miss one of our nine cats (damage estimated at one thousand dollars)
- I got canned from Slip.Net. That was fun. I won’t go into reasons why I was canned (the following Monday after being said canned, my website got hit from 80% of Slip.Net’s SF office. Word on the street was that I had “walked” out. Wrong, I was canned.)
- I took myself to the ER for “feeling funky” — found out I am slowly killing myself with stress. Basically, what had been happening started out with ear ache for the last couple of months. Then I was always so damn tired. Then for the last week I’ve been feeling like “airy” like I’ve been really high and i was losing sensation in my body. I remember standing, naked and dripping water on my bedroom carpet looking for the strength to get dressed. Sharp shooting pains going down right side of my body. Nine hours in the ER and find out it’s stress. Which I kind of thought.
So, I have start eliminating stress from my health, quit smoking, quit drinking caffeine, lose weight and get in shape.
And that alone above isn’t stressful? heh.
(Damn! I wish I was your lover)
Oh and the trippy thing? Save for the ER, all of these occurrences happened on a Friday. And on THIS upcoming Friday, I’m moving:) wooha!
“Time flies by when flirting with Lisa.” – Paul
Argh I’m so excited! I’m leaving and going down to San Diego and hooking up with Bear, Ducky, Moe, Jon, and others. Than driving to Texas and then ON TO ATLANTA BABY!!!!!!
Four days and three nights.
Yum.
I had more indepth things to say, but yanno, it’s 3:54am.
I’ll save the bitching for another time.
x0x0x0x0x
Angel Baby Heaven
mom’s birthday
Today is my mom’s 57th birthday.
I got a few emails from friends of the family asking if I was gonna call her and I haven’t made up my mind yet. Last time I spoke to her, which was a week ago, I started crying after the short 10 minute call. I’m sure my brother will call her. Hell, she’s found Jesus™ now, so what does she need me for?
Ufie dotted — again
Several weeks ago, my cohort Thyla and I put together a page simply called Carbonated Borscht for the Evil Geek’s Soul that parodied some funny stuff. It got mentioned on the news feature of UserFriendly and actually got /.’d. This week, Godmoma put together a page called Illiads Harem.
I have no idea what’s going through Godmoma’s head. 🙂
So, any rate, I’ve been Ufie Dotted — again. Got over 500 unique hits yesterday. Woo. That surprised me 🙂 So I felt I must update. heh.
Blatant Promotion
My buddy and yours, Mike Norton recently finished work on his new comic The Waiting Place. I got to see the um, rough draft of it when I was in Mayumphis in July. The story is really cool and the drawing is incredible. Mike is obviously, ultra excited about this.
Since I’ve met Mike back in May, he’s helped influenced my non-comic reading butt into reading comics. Now i’m addicted to Strangers in Paradise and have been looking at other comics as well — namely ones that Mike and other people have recommended.
It goes without saying I was completely detached from the fact of just how many people read comics these days. It’s almost as bad as the damn Trekkies. 🙂
Regardless, Mike came to me and asked me to promote his work since I have gotten a ton of people to read SIP and they all adore it. So PLEASE PLEASE go support a young starving artist before Mike makes me buy 15000 copies!
Speaking of comics though, I’ve been neglecting my own habits. I’m only up to early Vol 3 in SIP and haven’t had a chance to catch up. People have been offering new comics left and right and I’m going insane with the divulge of offers. Calm down people, after i move and get settled in, i’ll start my addiction back up again.
Lisa-Cross-America ’99
Well it’s been official for awhile, but you all know I’m leaving the greater Bay Area in early October.
My numwitted ex-fiancee Danny has recently informed me that he cannot drive with me and thusly I’m doing it alone. I had a brief panic attack (like ohmygodwhatifigetcaughtwithaflattireinbfetexas) — but after a minute or 100, I calmed down and realized that spending four days alone, in my car, could be a good thing (you know they say if you keep repeating something, it just might come true).
I’ve been mapping out my itinerary and it looks like i’m driving south to SoCal and then straight across crossing through NM, AZ, TX, OK, etc on my way to Atlanta. What’s in Atlanta? Why Atlanta Linux Showcase my dears. There will be the BIGGEST party that side of the Mississippi for geeks. I hit LWE, now it’s on to ALS.
I think it’ll be cool though. I will have my laptop, cell phone and all my credit cards. I will be updating on the road as I plan on spending about four days driving — maybe less depending on my speed. heh. I might end up in Atlanta on Monday night. Who knows? Anyway, I’ve been attempting to coordinate with friends about crashing at their place on the way across. So, I’ll be okay. Just look for the black Saturn with LNX and LinuxGurven stickers plastered all over it doing 80 and you’ll find me.
I realize that driving cross country is something that I’ve been dreaming about for years. I wanted the opportunity to see this great land we call home before I flee this white trashy country and go to Europe. What I can’t understand, is that with so much time available for me to do it, why I’m planning on taking a more direct route and not seeing the country. My friend James, who drove solo from SF -> Gainesville FL was telling me about the pit stops he made when he drove across — which he did twice. Not many people get the chance to see this wonderful country of ours and I’m worrying about all the extra time I’ll have.
My favorite catch phrase recently has been “But I worry”. It’s driving me insane.
I’m gonna end up in Virginia, where Shelly already has our apartment that she’s cohabitating with her bf. Everything is set into place. On one hand, I’m ultra excited about doing the move. On the other hand, I’m afraid of falling on my face.
This should be very interesting.
x0x0x0x
moi