My Thoughts at the End of the Blogging Day…

You Just Gotta Laugh…

Imagine my excitement a moment ago when I found a twitterer who was following countless doctors of psychiatry.  Much following ensued.  I was excited to hear what these doctors had to say.  I wanted to hear about their practices.  The medications they prescribe.  Their feelings on being doctors of psychiatry.  Much to my chagrin, they turned out to be the most egregious group of Twitter link linkers I have ever encountered.  They were posting all these countless links that had no merit towards me and my mental illness.  Unfollowing ensued fast.  I was so disappointed.  I thought I had found the mother lode for mental health on Twitter.  Instead, I get a bunch of doctors posting countless and useless links to articles about psychiatry and mental illness.  I can look for and find that stuff on Google myself in my own time.  I wanted to hear personal things – wanting to get to know the doctors and develop a report.  Oh well, you just gotta laugh.  I am slowly learning my way around Twitter still it seems.

Restlessness…

I am feeling some discomfort this afternoon mentally.  My injection is again well near being this Tuesday.  I feel restless and uneasy  -- this feeling of doom and dread overcoming me.  I just called mom to talk about it, but she was out of it and couldn’t speak long or coherently.  I moved my bed again so I could lie down and use this computer.  That seems to help.  I am prescribed extra Risperdal – twenty to be exact just for these occasions.  I just can’t call dad and ask for them though.  He suspects I will abuse them – one of the many dangers of crying wolf once too often just to get a buzz from my medications.  I will soldier through, though, as I always do and eagerly await Tuesday.  Tuesday will be a day of euphoria and I can’t wait – to feel that high giddiness and to feel my version of normal for a day.  The calm comfort of another two weeks of slow release antipsychotic medication.

I’ve actually been doing so well lately and it’s been nice.  Today’s uneasiness is nothing compared to the mental torture I would experience on a daily basis just a year ago.  We seem to have found a comfortable stasis with my medication regime.  I have to remember it’s all relative.  It is easy to let my discomfort get the better of me not remembering the past.  This is a walk in the park. 

Well, I am off to eat my supper of lasagna and read for several hours.  I finished Gone with the Wind last night and will start another book of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.  I have really enjoyed that series, but each book gets less enjoyable than the last.  You can tell she was running out of words at the end.  Good night dear friends and I hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow.   It’s Friday – the front porch of the weekend.  

Media Matters…

I have over 500 compact discs I bought and collected in the years before I become sick and when I still worked full time.  Along with reading again, I’ve been able to listen to music avidly again for the first time in years.  Well, I’ve spent hours tonight ripping all my CDs into MP3s.  I have about 100 left and I will be finished.  I am slowly filling up that 2 Terabyte harddrive.  It is going to be so neat today to listen to music I love and haven’t listened to in years. 

I have a complicated matter to share with you all this morning.  A conundrum of sorts.  I am almost finished with reading Interview with the Vampire.  Well, the library didn’t have the second book in the series, The Vampire Lestat.  They said it was on loan to a patron.  Well, I found an eBook copy online to read next.  Is this legal?  Am I breaking copyright law?  I love reading eBooks on my computer.  Google recently released over 500,000 classics and out of print books for download in eBook format.  With my new huge monitor, reading on my computer is pleasant and a breeze.  I settle in my comfy Lazy Boy, put my mouse in my lap to scroll, and lounge back to read. 

Update…

I looked up The Vampire Lestat eBook on Amazon.com and it was $6.39.  That was enough to make me delete it.   I will just wait until is comes back to the library.  I am so impatient though and so into this series right now.  Patience young grasshopper! lol

Loneliness is a State of Mind…

I sat two hours yesterday talking to mom.  I get so lonely in that house of mine despite Maggie. Maggie went with me and lay on the floor beside me listening to every word and watching the cat on mom’s bed warily.  Mom was in the bed with her cat Muffin on top of her. We talked mainly of small talk; a subject I am still mastering.  It was good practice.   It also gave me a good excuse to drink all the cokes I wanted.  Every time I would run out of a drink, mom would suggest I get another out of the fridge.  Bliss!  That doesn’t happen often. 

“Mom, do you think I am doing better?” I asked at one point.

“You’re still obsessive compulsive, but your doing better than you ever have before,” she replied.

That made me feel better.  Sometimes, you just to have to hear it from someone else. We really haven’t had any episodes out of me lately for a long time. 

Soon, dad was home from work.  He gets off at 2 PM on Saturdays. 

“I see I’ve got my whole crew here today,” he said with a smile.

“We’ve been talking for hours, “ mom said excitedly. “We’ve had the best time.”

“When you were drinking,” dad said. “You would never do that.  You would only be thinking about getting drunk.  You would never give time to your mother or I.”

He was right.  Drinking was the be all and the end all.  

Eggs, Bacon, and Sobriety…

This Sunday morning we have our traditional breakfast with Mrs. Florene and George.  Mrs. Florene already told me she was cooking scrambled cheese eggs, bacon, and biscuits for breakfast last night on the phone. 

“Monday, George will be two weeks sober,” she told me proudly.  “He really is like a different son. He is just much more responsible and thoughtful.”

“Alcoholism is he epitome of selfishness,”  I told her glibly.

My heart goes out to Mrs. Florene.  She is a saint.  For years, she’s put up with George’s alcoholic antics like running over the mailbox, pissing all over himself, puking till his guts about hang out, pissing in the bed and coming home mad and screaming and hollering at his mother.  Etc.  

Reading List…

Well, I finished Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga.  For a series of books written for girl tweens and teens, I really enjoyed it.   My favorite character in the end was Jacob.  I just loved his snarky wit, and what is there not to like about a good hearted and good natured werewolf?   The ending of book four left you hanging.  Which, I hope, means more sequels on the way.  The rumor has it that Mrs. Meyer wrote a sequel and it escaped out on the Internet.  It is now a new eBook free to download on her website.

I am currently listening to Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet.  I much prefer audiobooks cause I can pace the house all the while smoking copiously and drinking Wal-Mart orange drink.  It is a ritual of mine and good exercise.  So far the book has taken a sad turn for the worse and I hope it improves for the main characters. 

Next on the agenda, it the Harry Potter audiobooks.  Mom, my librarian, gave me the choice to listen to them or read them.  You already know what I picked.  Mom disliked the books saying they were childish.  I hope I fare better. 

AA on the Mind…

When I first quit drinking, Alcoholics Anonymous was an immense help.  It was a safe place I could go every night to commune with people like me and to talk about my cravings and problems thus disarming them to some extent.  Well, last night I went to a meeting.  Many of the old familiar faces were still there which was comforting.  One old timer even came up to me to shake my hand and remembered my name. 

It was a twelve and twelve study where we read and discuss the twelve steps and twelve traditions.  The more I go to AA, the more I realize it is less about drinking and more about a complete reprogramming of your personality, mind, body, and spirit.  As you change spiritually, the urge to drink lessens.  Thankfully, I am long past those horrible cravings that hit you in the early days of sobriety – that empty hole in the pit of your stomach that needs to be filled with drink.

I enjoyed last night despite my social anxieties acting up to some extent.  The hour flew by and before you knew it, I was walking home – a feeling of peace surrounding me.

The Reading List…

I am well into book four of the Twilight Saga now. I am finding the last book much more quickly paced and enjoyable.  It was sort of incredulous though when Bella, a human, got pregnant by Edward, a vampire.  I thought the book was going to take a turn for the worse, but Stephanie Meyers surprised me.  It has been a page turner and the prose has improved. 

I’ve also started reading Interview with the Vampire which I picked up at the library.  What a depressing and morbid book!   My friend Karen said Louis was “angsty” and she was right!  Another disturbing point about the book are the strong undercurrents of homo-erotica and pedophilia.   It can be unnerving to say the least. 

Will Isabella Become a Vampire?

I finished reading book three of the Twilight series this afternoon.  Each book has been much the same with the first 3/4th’s of the book being vampire romance and character development and introspection.  Each book concludes with a grand and sweeping action sequence of vampire fights.  I can see why guys just weren’t captivated by these books.  They are incredibly slow and filled with romance.  That said, there is something endearing about them.  I can almost find myself falling in love with Edward, the central vampire in the book and Bella’s lover.   He is so appealing.  I will start book four tomorrow afternoon after I grow tired of fiddling with the Internet and my computer.  Also, tomorrow, I hope to swing by the library to find copies of Anne Rice’s vampire books.  It’s a vampire themed reading month here at Andrew’s. 

 

Malice…

An attorney friend contacted me today warning me of how easily it was to find my father and his pharmacy on the Internet.  Apparently, an anonymous commenter said they were going to report my father (I missed this comment).  I assume it was to report him giving me medications un-prescribed.  I assure you, the only medications I am taking are prescribed either by my psychiatrist or my brother and sister.  I am prescribed, by Dr. Kern, extra Risperdal and Klonopin to take in emergencies.  Dad long ago learned his lessons about such things running a pharmacy for 30 years.  He dots his I’s and crosses his T’s.  Thank you to the concerned and caring friend who is an attorney.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart for contacting me and looking out for me and the blog. 

Gone with the Wind…

I finished Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind.  A fascinating and captivating book.  On to Scarlet now which mom says is really good.  Mom didn’t like the Twilight books so brought them by to me since I’ve seen two of the movies and loved them.  I’m already on book three, Eclipse.  It took some getting used to Stephanie Meyer’s childish prose, though, which was why mom didn’t like them. “Too hard to read,” she had told me as she handed me the bag.   I love them in their own awkward way.   Mom also brought me Robert Jordan’s complete Wheel of Time fantasy series which is twelve books.  She said if I love The Lord of the Rings then I will love this series.   I have so many books now I don’t know what to read next.  Mom is like a library.  I find myself reading a few chapters of one then moving to another for a short while for a change of pace.  It is just amazing I have the concentration and patience to read again for the first time in years.

Maggie and I have slept off and on for most of the day power napping.  I gave Maggie two whole Poptarts a few days ago and watched as she took each outside to bury them for later.  It has rained since then so imagine my joy when she brought in a soggy Poptart through the dog door that was falling apart as she carried it.  Luckily, she cleaned up after herself eating every morsel.  It was pretty gross.

Dad and I have talked several times on the phone about the weather today.  It never got above 35 degrees here today according to my wireless weather station and that is unheard of this deep in the South.  We have a hard freeze warning out for tonight (19 degrees) so I will most likely check my pipes in the basement and continue to finish putting the insulation on Charlie brought me.  I will also let an outside faucet run slightly tonight just as a precaution.  Friday it may not get out of the twenties.   We haven’t seen this kind of cold since 1899!

Late last night I was sitting at my computer as my left arm went numb.  This is a sign my medication has run out and my schizophrenia is about to act up.  My injection of Risperdal is this Tuesday and I eagerly await it.  If I can just make it a few more days, then I will be over the hill so to speak.   I also had a period of giddiness and euphoria yesterday mental illness induced.  I LOVED IT!  Food tasted better.  Smoking was ten times more enjoyable.   Listening to classical music was like an orgasm.  Do “normal” people feel this way from time to time and thus do not need drugs to feel better?  Is that why addicts are caught so firmly in the grip of substances as they lack this normal mental ability?  I don’t know, but it sure felt good.  I wouldn’t mind it happening again today if fate would so have it.  I love anything that makes me feel abnormal in a good way.  It’s my Achilles heel.  

Vampire Romance + Teen Angst...

"Twilight!" mom explained after a temporary lapse of memory when I asked her what books she had bought today.

I had just driven over to get some soft drinks for my daily caffeine fix.  From what I've heard online, these should be some interesting books for mom to read.  I am wondering if she will like them.  She disliked Harry Potter.

Mom then asked me about my magazine on tropical fish.

"I always pick the most expensive hobbies to be a poor man," I told her chuckling.

"Well, maybe you will get an aquarium for Christmas," mom told me.

I wasn't going to get my hopes up.  Last year, I wanted curtains for my house for Christmas and they never materialized.  I never did get a Christmas present from my parents.  I just chalked it up to how much they do for me year round.  I really couldn't complain. 

As I was leaving, I walked downstairs into the foyer and then into the basement.  Inside the fridge was ANOTHER gigantic bottle of wine.  I muttered obscenities under my breath as I grabbed three Diet Dr. Peppers.  It had been almost a whole year and the desire to drink is still there.  Albeit muted.   A year ago, I would have drank the whole bottle as I stood there without a care in the world.  Is this some sign from above that I am getting better?  I do know that I will always be an alcoholic though.  There is no cure.  The obsession just lessens over the years I hope.   

Books and more Books

Sorry for the lack of updates. I have been on a book reading frenzy and haven’t been online much the past few days. I am currently reading David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars. It is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. Next on my reading list is Phillip Roth’s The Plot against America; a hypothetical tale about what if Charles Lindbergh had become president and had collaborated with the Nazis. The book centers on a Jewish family and their plight during those times. I look forward to reading it.

I did manage to get down to the Pig yesterday as is my usual routine. George was no worse for wear and was busy drinking cheap wine. He had escaped a DUI charge and somehow made it home.

George and I talked for a long time about my ex-wife Rachel. He thinks he knows her and talks as if he and she have conversations on a regular basis. George lives in an alcohol induced fantasyland, but he means well. He just can’t understand how I am content with not getting “laid.”

I had planned on going camping tonight but axed that idea after I glimpsed at the National Weather Service website. They are predicting severe storms tonight accompanied by a strong cold front and freezing temperatures. Not ideal camping weather let me tell you although it would be exciting to weather the storm so to speak. I think I will stay safely at home and curl up with my books in the bed as the thunder claps outside.