Resolutions

I've been reading Zen Habit's blog for a while and he has another one about changing habits and doing only 6 in a year so that the likely hood of actually doing them is increased drastically.  Here's a link to one about starting a new habit (i.e. exercise) and how to go about it I found particularly useful.

http://6changes.com/post/288452935/exercise

I've gotta say the idea of public accountability is pretty good. If you tell everyone what your habit change is going to be then you're going to feel the need to keep it up more than if no one but yourself knows about it.  It's interesting that we are more accountable to others than ourselves, but I think that says a lot about how we feel about ourselves sometimes too.  One of the things I need to do most is stop eating sugar.  It's terrible for me an I have an awful sugar tooth.  Worse than all the other things like dairy and wheat!  So I guess my public proclamation will be to give up sugar for ALL of 2011.  Scary, but I'll try it one day at a time.  And keep tabs here and my FB page.  We'll see how that goes.  

Sunrise on a new day.

After a quite a few days in bed not feeling well and sort of depressed I couldn't sleep last night but was rewarded with the most beautiful sunrise!  There are benefits to being a morning person I suppose, but sadly I work nights and only see these things by chance. 
I finally pulled myself out of my miasma last night and went over my friends house who my family is sharing Thanksgiving with, and injected 3 of the turkeys that I will deep fry for today meal.  It's our contribution to the dinner. AND I make my own fancy-ass marinade that has pretty much every spice in it but cilantro (which I loathe and wouldn't be fitting here even if I did like it)  After I made a big ol' quart of this fancy marinade I injected the three turkeys while my friend kept me company and watched my bizarre and willy-nilly way of concocting the marinade that also includes fruit juices and whiskey.  The injecting went quite well up until almost the last moment of the last turkey when I ended up squirting myself in the eye (the hot sauce in there stings!!) instead of getting it in the bird!  But I am excited about how they will taste today when we deep fry them. They've had 12 hours minimum to marinade so that should be pretty yummy when I take them out of the deep fryer pot. 
I've fried me many a turkey and have never burned myself (other than a bit of spattered oil here and there) nor burned down the house, garage, etc., but I have had more people tell me to be careful the last time I did one that I wanted to bop them on the head. As if I'd just fallen off the turnip truck!  I guess northern men aren't used to women playing with fire. (giggle, snort, grin) Or at least not with 5 gallons of peanut oil to play with it with!

The funny thing is that folks up North here DO burn themselves and burn down their garages! While no one in the South, no matter how drunk we are when we are doin' 'em, ever does.  I guess every culture has their innate gift. 
My first time doing a deep fried Turkey up here in the North by myself was on the porch of my City Island apt.  for my then boyfriend and his friends from back home in England.  There was snow outside, but if anything went wrong I was only about 50ft from the bay so I could easily deal with any disasters. The first turkey was fantastic!  The second" Well... not so much.  I didn't wait until the peanut oil got back up to 350 degrees so the bird never got seared/sealed by the oil.  I kept checking it cause it never floated to the top and couldn't understand why it didn't look right.  The last time I tried to pick it up it just fell all to pieces back into the oil.  EWWW!  Deep Fried Turkeys are actually not oil at all the heat instantly sears the bird so that no oil gets into the meat during frying (if you do it right) and it seals in the juices so it's very very delicious!  That turkey that fell apart ended up sitting in the pot for most of the winter. As soon as it got warm enough to actually get the oil to soften up a little I dumped the sludgy mixture into 5-6 plastic bags and into a box closed up nice and tight so that it could go to the dump.  It had been too frozen to dispose of that winter and being frozen didn't smell thank goodness!  But I'll never forget the lesson learned about deep frying and proper temperatures! 

May everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving and remember all they have to be thankful for.

Gratitude continued.

I started listing things I am grateful for last month and found a sight from a friend http://www.gratitudechallenge.com/ which is a challenge to list daily for 21 days things that you are grateful for and I joined it today.  Being someone who battles with depression I've been told that one of the ways that helps to put a dent into it is to daily remember what it is that you are grateful for before you go to bed or write it down regularly so that you start conditioning yourself to see the good instead of the negative.  I am guilty of being too negative about myself where I would not let someone else say the things to me that I say to myself.  Weird, huh?
Another thing that has been very effectual in giving me insight to those things in my head and my heart has been listening to Mother Night by Clarissa Pinkola Estes.  Which I highly recommend as a way to look at how to look at life and fix the broken parts. She's a wonderful reading voice, too!  http://www.soundstrue.com/authors/Clarissa_Pinkola_Estes/  She also wrote a book called Women Who Run with Wolves which I've yet to read but look forward to greatly. Or you can find her on www.Amazon.com or www.Audible.com 

Pumpkin is quite irritated with me for putting that little bit of anti-flea and tick stuff on the back of his neck. I've to to sneak up on him to do it and then he is convinced I'm trying to kill him instead of making him feel better.  He's now slinking around the house trying to avoid me as I've suddenly turned evil again after being nothing but indulgent to him for 3.5 years.  I love these cats and I guess I 'own' them as much as cats can be owned, but compared to my Simpkin I had for 18 years, damn they are dumb!  But lord knows they are very good hunters!  I've got to give them that!
Happy Thanksgiving!  I've got to make marinade tomorrow and inject 4 Turkeys to deep fry tomorrow! 

Disappointment and Gratitude.

After sleeping through 4.5 days, my body decided that it was FINALLY going to let me stay awake and get on with life and work.  And after 5 days without any human contact and a great deal of feline contact mostly in vying for my own bit of room on the 'full' sized mattress I returned to work where I got less than stellar human contact and dim fluorescent lighting.  My co-workers are all married, and either with child or already have them running around breaking things in the home.  In the next few months two of my co-workers will have left on maternity leave.  Leaving a whole two other women in the department who already have children.  Even the men are married with children or homeowners who are going to get married and have children.  I seem to be odd man out and so have no real basis of comparison it seems since I don't want to argue with those who can't see it about why Sarah Palin is a moron or hear why so and so on such and such a team just made or broke their fantasy ball team - bores the crap out of me.  But I digress. Needless to say work is a bit like being all alone in a crowd these days. I don't want to get in on the negativity about management, it's all been said and nothing done, and I don't cherish being reminded I've got nothing in common with my co-workers anymore when I used to have lots, or at least something I could talk about besides being in pain and being cheesed about it.  I generally try and keep my headphones on, listen to books and do my job the best I can.  But this is not much of a life.
After a less than satisfactory Doctor's visit today I was told even back surgery wouldn't stop the pain in my legs that makes me want to climb the walls using my finger nails. Lately the pain is more than the 'patch' and the pain killers for 'break through pain' can handle.  Sadly, I know why people with chronic pain go insane and do stupid things.  I figured that surgery on those bottom herniations would relieve some of that leg pain and I could maybe get much more of my life back where I could do the things I used to when I wasn't having a Lupus,  Fibromyalgia, or Sjogren's flare up.  Taking more drugs isn't working for me. I hate it as I can't think clearly without...MORE drugs and I hate taking them as they make me fat, slow, tired, and clench my jaw very hard where I give myself a headache and that's all just to get out of bed in the morning.
Now, my dad is one of the most 'calm and at peace with himself, and his God' type people I've ever known of or seen.  His advice to me is to pray and to be constantly grateful which you forget when you're kicking, crying, and flailing about like a 3 year old having a tantrum, or being the subject of an exorcism, just to try and get some relief to the pain in your legs. The entire bottom half of your body's muscles have seized up so tight that you could play those muscles like a banjo if there wasn't all the other stuff in the way. These spasms feel sort of like when you hit your funny bone very hard but find nothing funny about that weird pain.  Problem is this leg pain doesn't go away in a few seconds, it makes itself comfortable and waits up for the late late show.  I've always had an amazing tolerance to pain, but this pain turns me into a crazed idiot, and I'm the first to admit it.  Breaking bones doesn't hurt the same way and doesn't last as long. 
So how do you remember in the midst of all that to be grateful?  Well, that's the lesson I'm trying to learn.
So maybe now I'll start a list of the things I am grateful for and maybe try and put it somewhere I can look at it a bit more often than I do my blog.

Things to Be Grateful for
1  My parents.  They are not only still living but healthier than I am.  While I am adopted I could not be any more their child than I already am.  Especially my dad, we are so obviously cut from the same cloth, though I'm an odd mix of my parents who are quite polar opposites of each other.

2. Living in the USA - I see how women in other countries have it and I've never been so grateful to have my freedom to be who I am and do what I wish.

3. Ability to support myself and keep a roof over my head and a car in the drive.  I wish I were more so so I could help my family and others more and not live from pay check to pay check - hey, I LIVED for a few years and now I'm glad I did or I'd have missed out.

4.  Sense of humor. If you can't laugh, you are a sour dried up useless person.  laugh at yourself and anything you can find as long as you're not hurting someone to do it.  Or at least pay them for their trouble.

5. My education.

6. My friends. I'm as rich in friends, though they be far away or on different work schedules. I really got lucky to know some wonderful people.

7. Nature.  I love the beauty this is in the most simple leaf. Put it all together and it's mind blowing.

8. Men.  God, I love 'em.  My grandmother once asked me if I was gay.  She figured since I drove a pick-up and went diving with all men that I was gay and said, " You do like men...DON"T YOU????"  I told her I had a hard time keeping my hands off them in the subway.  This both alarmed her and eased her mind.  Quid pro quo, in a way.
And I do so miss the company of men like back in my old diving days when we'd all go out and get stupid after diving. It's not for the physical/romantic I like them so much (though that sure is great!), I just love their company - So much more fun and adventuresome than talking about shoes and fingernail color.
9. Cats. what an amazing a perfect beast a cat is.  I still need homes for my guys as 4 cats and one sick woman in a 250 sq. foot apt. it too much and I'm sort of a one cat woman.  My last baby I had 18 years and I'm still not over losing him but I'm grateful I had his companionship and love. We didn't look a like, but we sure thought alike!
10. Curiosity.  When you stop wondering, you stop learning. Then you're basically just using up good air.
11. fast cars.  I love sports cars and going fast. Now, if I could just do without all the tickets!!
12. living on wetlands. Sure, I argue with raccoons over their strolling into my house with their dirty pond muck feet stinking and messing up the place uninvited. I don't go in THEIR den do I? But the quiet, the wind, the bird songs and being at one with my little bit of nature away from all that is the city and humanity is wonderful when I have it to myself.  Sure the mosquitoes are hell in the summer, but it's beautiful to see sunrises, sunsets and all those stars!!  In winter I can build a fire outside and enjoy the night. Folks who only know buildings, concrete and mechanical noise don't know what beauty there is in nature.  It's wild.
 13. Sailing. Between a few friends and teaching myself by single handing,  I have found a passion for sailing that is up there with the best of things in life!  I had my own 25 ft. Sailboat I bought cheap off an old boyfriend who was desperate to get rid of it and it was the best purchase other than my old Spider, I'd ever made! not only did I find a passion that still sings in me and has since I was young, but I know that if I have a boat, I'll always have a home even if it is smaller than this place! I will get another sailboat before it's all said and done.  I also met lots of people sailing who played wonderful parts in my life, but I realized I had a real knack for the sea and I gained a lot of confidence in myself and abilities learning how to sail that boat all by myself.  It was pure heaven.
14. New Orleans. It'll always be my home though home is a place I'm a bit shaky on in this world.  For all its problems it's still an incredible place filled with people like no where else in the world.  And as messed up as it is, I'll always take me back with open arms and we'll muddle through it together somehow.

Okay, with that thought in mind, I"m going to hit the hay and try again tomorrow. This list is to be continued.

Be well all!

Art?

The start of my swirl design images. Sort of meditative to do!

This is a close up segment of another drawing

Here's one of the drawings I've been working on.  I've been trying to exercise a little creativity since I've become less active in outside endeavors.

Trying to practice what is preached.

I've been going to church with my dad on Sundays. I'm not particularly a church goer though I have nothing against it in general. It's been a time I get to spend with my dad that is very relaxed as we go for a bite to eat at a diner afterwards. The hardest part of it is getting up to be there for 10:30. I work nights and with exhaustion from Lupus/Fibromyalgia it is a challenge since getting to work is an even bigger one.

People getting together to worship and honor the Maker is a fine idea. When they start getting bogged down with dogma and comparing themselves with others is when I start taking umbrage with it. self-righteous behavior is extremely distasteful with me since we all fall short of the glory which is God. If you start pointing out differences between yourself and others and looking down on them for it, you are no longer 'loving your neighbor as yourself' since you're basically being a judgmental ass instead. Doesn't the good book say to judge not least ye be judged? It might behoove a few church goers in this world to actually read the Bible as a whole book and specifically the words of Jesus before they start pointin' fingers and getting all puffed up about how they're better than another. If they actually read the words of Jesus he specifically speaks out against such behavior and I often have to remind myself of that when I'm being critical of others or shout at another driver to discover his 'fucking turn signals' on his car. I know I have a long way to go.

I've found the messages of Buddhism to have almost the identical messages of Christianity. In fact all the major religions have basically a similar message but with slightly different points of view and a few rules that are specific to themselves but not necessarily the word of God. When all these religions fight, they are fighting over how each perceives the same God. Allah and God are the same thing. It always strikes me as two fleas arguing over what a dog is.

The "Ten Grave Precepts' of Buddhism are as follows

1 Do not kill
2 Do not steal
3 Honor the body - don't misuse sexuality
4 Don't cloud the mind (for example don't walk around drunk or stoned all the time)
5 Do not lie
6 Don't speak ill of others faults or mistakes. Don't gossip
7 Don't elevate yourself and blame others
8 Give generously. Do not be withholding
9 Do not be Angry
10 Do not defile the three treasure: Buddha, Dharma, and the Sanga.

Basically it's very much like the Ten Commandments.

We are all alike more than we know. When we move to find what is alike with someone we will be surprised to see how much there is. Differences aren't as great as we think they are.

While I don't think I'll be joining my father's Church any time soon, but I will enjoy the time I get to spend with him there and after having a bite to eat.

Stage fright

I spent the weekend with my folks at a convention for those in a specific branch of the art world. This would normally be a laid back affair where I'd be enjoying myself but relatively indifferent. The difference THIS time was that I got to actually speak. I wasn't the main speaker of course, but help him in a secondary roll. He was there to talk about his work and I acted as a kind of interviewer and a time keeper, but I also got to tell a few jokes of my own on him and that was so satisfying after all the tricks he's played on me over the years! And much to my surprise I got laughs at the jokes I made despite it's my Dad who's the funny one. We are both a little bit too easily distracted and tend to either hyper focus or go off on tangents so it was my job to help him cover the desired material somewhat fluidly and cue him during awkward silences or on forgotten details. Considering we had no time to practice and the format changed on us at the last minute, all went well. Many folks came up to me saying how much they enjoyed our presentation. While this flattered me greatly, I was a bit worried as I didn't want to take away from my dad's moment.

They say public speaking is more stressful that moving, job loss and divorce. Maybe it's my natural inclination to be a clown and make people laugh (runs in the family), but I don't find it all that hard. Sure it is a stressful (especially when we aren't prepared!) but it's far from the stress of some of life's other trials. Or maybe I've just reached a point in my life that I"m not so concerned about being a fool.

That night we sat at the Table of the president of the organization, and his family. We chatted a little but his anxiety was quite obvious as the other couple who was supposed to be sitting out our table were over 40 minutes late and when they showed up I thought it was going to be nice to have someone to talk to as the conversation around the table had been a bit forced especially over the loud music and no one was to my left and my dad was to my right. However the man who sat down next to me immediately started talking to the President and said nary a word to me. Okay, I don't expect people to kiss my hand and chat me up all night - though it would be awfully nice - but it's bad manners to ignore the person next to you and not say a word to them nor introduce themselves! I was snubbed by someone I didn't know and who'd never met me either! I guess I"m a real fuddy duddy when it comes to manners, etc. but I thought it was beyond the pale! Beyond being rude! I had even showered so I have no idea what the problem was! Why have manners and common courtesy disappeared? What happened to them? I had hoped to run into them the next day to say, "Hey it was such a pleasure sitting next to you last night, I had a really wonderful conversation with you." But alas, I didn't see him and I'm trying not to be a total dick in case these are people my folks have to deal with at some other point. But what a WANKER!

Other than that, we met lots of fantastic people who were extremely warm and for the first time in my experience with people in the North East, we found the entire staff of the Hyatt, in New Jersey on the Hudson over looking Manhattan, to be the friendliest and warmest people I've ever met in the service industry in my life outside of New Orleans! AND it didn't seem like it was forced! I was bowled over! I'm so used to surly workers in most businesses being impatient with you and annoyed that you've bothered them when they were at their job, yet their job is to be bothered by the likes of folks such as myself. Coming from New Orleans this was never clearer than when I first went to the Duane Reade Drug Stores in NYC. The folks behind the counter would frown at you and be quite chuffed that you were bothering them. Since they didn't want you to take the items out of the store for free and were actually standing at the registers, I was a little confused how I'd pissed them off so grandly. How dare I buy a toothbrush when they'd rather be on a break! The nerve of me! I have actually changed my route to work because of poor service. I was going to a Dunkin' Donuts that was on my usual way to work however the girl there who sees me 3-4 days a week for the last 5 months never acknowledges me and rarely get the order correct that I've ordered the exact same way for the previous 4 month. Plus they could be doing something behind the counter (often on a cell phone) and while I'm the only one there they never say, "Hey, I'll be right with you in just a moment." I worked bartending and service industry jobs for over 10 years and I know how hard it is, but I also know a snotty attitude and I've never given them a hard time always said hello. please and thank you.etc and left money in the tip cup. So I am now driving a different way to go to another D.Donuts where they are quicker (despite more people on line) and much more polite. When did I turn into such an old curmudgeon?? I'm like that weird old woman who lives with too many cats and threatens all the kids in the neighborhood and won't give them their ball back when it comes into my yard. Okay, I'm not done that YET, but I fear it is merely a matter of time.

I think the loss of civility and common courtesy is the sign of a society in decline. When we become a nation of selfish individuals who are only concerned for themselves and never for the community as a whole, we all suffer. Eventually something has to break. But I"ll save the discussion of politics for another time. And I need to educate myself more on what's really going on. Not just listen to some talking head's opinion and accept it as gospel which is the common trend of the day.

It's so time for me to move back to the south were people are so friendly you gotta pry them off with a crowbar half the time. Or maybe I need not to have such a big pole up my ass. Though we've all got pet peeves, right? What's yours?

MIA

Yes, I've been off the grid, but in that time I've managed to make some decisions and that's always good! I have decided after a visit home to New Orleans that it is time to move back. Now, all I have to do is figure out how! Hopefully it will be before the Winter Solstice and I can enjoy a very mild Southern winter and get my mojo back.

New Orleans is a special place and anyone who's ever spent any time there outside of Bourbon St. and the French Qrt. will know this to be true. Ain't nothing else like livin' on the bayou!

Now all I have to do is figure out how to find homes for my beautiful loving no-longer-feral cats. I am tempted to take Kagome' with me as he's sort of glued himself to me and is just the quintessential love bug! But he's also a tad skittish and living with two dogs, 5 chickens, a cat strange to him and two horses not to mention a lot of them scary two legged things might just freak him out seriously! But I think he'd like to stay with me as both he and Fleur have rarely left my side since returning to NY. Go figure.

The Zen of Driving

It's been a long week since Monday started it with a funeral for my dear friend's father. My commute takes me for a good long drive into Manhattan where I don't leave until late, late at night, but on yesterday's trip in I decided to try something a little different than my usual listening to French Radio (I'm trying to reteach myself the language), Audible's recorded books, or just letting my mind wander on any ol' subject that happens along, which with the attention span of a knat, can span the universe and back; I decided to 'just drive' this trip. In Zen there is the concept of just doing that which you are doing so that when you are eating, you are just eating. It's practicing mindfulness and being in the moment, so when you are driving you're just driving the car, you're not playing the radio, thinking about your ex or the dead bits of poor wee mousie that your cats thought you would like but you didn't, or that your coffee is probably cool enough to drink now.
So I tried just to drive the car.
It was weird as I suddenly realized all the things I have been doing when driving the car besides actually driving the car. Stopping myself when I started thinking about things has always been a challenge as it is for everyone during Zazen or Meditation, but I figured I'd be more involved with the driving so that it would be a tad easier, but driving is almost an auto-pilot thing that it felt more like just sitting in a seat while the car drives it self so very little was different other than movement from regular meditation.
One of the reasons I tried this is that I find myself quite easily irked by other drivers as I am convinced Long Island and New York City is the home of the most selfish of all humans on the face of the Earth - except for maybe LA, but I didn't have to drive in traffic in LA. When I get on the road, I'm always frustrated by the folks who tail gait, cut you off, won't let you in, won't let you merge, etc. I'm often beyond irked and get my panties in a twist about it and I loathe anger and wish to avoid it if at all possible. There are, after all, times when it is appropriate, but I'd like to be in charge of my emotions not victim to them. As it is now, I do what they tell me and when they say 'jump', I ask how high. I am their bitch; it's true. But at 40 something, this has become tiresome and I'd like to just wave goodbye as they sail off into the sunset so I can then get down to the real business of getting my life back; getting healthy, producing art, help others and finding moments of joy again.
I made it the whole way into work working on 'just driving'. I noticed things I'd not seen before on my previous 3,000 other trips on I-495, buildings I'd not seem and details I'd not noticed. Every time I started thinking about something instead of just driving, I'd bring my mind back to the driving and try again. There is no right or wrong with meditation, but a constant practice to be in the now and return to it when you start focusing on the past and the future. Another interesting discovery was that it made me slightly anxious for some reason and that makes me want to examine it further. I am quite fond of the quiet when it is filled with nature, birds, wind, etc. as those things soothe me, but the quiet of the car was very different. I'll have to do it again on my trip in Tuesday so I can pinpoint what it is a little better.
Most people are afraid of the quiet and where their thoughts go, but I think if we face those things we stand a significant chance of freeing ourselves from them. I've been looking into Zen and meditation because often I feel I've had quite a bit stripped away from me ( except round the waist line :-) ) and that I needed a way to be at peace and to accept where I am in order to deal with it or leave it behind for something better. This is a journey towards recovery and learning to be happy with what you have. Making it an adventure makes it more enjoyable as I have tried the 'simply endure it' method and that one clearly sucked. Now if only I could get it to where I battle real monsters and have clear ideas about what to do, etc. like 'take sword, kill big ugly monster that is trying to kill you and live happily ever after or until next monster.' But things are never that black and white outside of Fairy Tales. Even in math where that might be plausible, given quantum theory and space time bending, parallel lines do eventually meet. Doesn't that blow your mind?

The circle of life.

The older we get the more we see those we know and love grow old as well. Today, I attended the funeral of a dear friend whose father passed away. The open casket thing always weirds me out a little bit as I keep expecting them to move some little tiny bit and their lips are so tightly sewn together that they look as if they are trying hard not to say something. And, of course since I am the world's nosiest person, I want to know what that something is; the answer to life, the universe and everything? Which is 42 for all you Hitchhiker's Guide fans. What he would have liked to have said now that there are no consequences? A summation of the life he lead?
My friend was having a really hard time and did his best to keep his emotions under control, but you could see how intense the grief was for him. I wish there was more I could have done.
There was good turn out of mutual friends and so nice to see some of them I'd not seen in almost 2 years despite the fact a few live only 5-8 miles from me. Working odd hours and their having wives and kids and day jobs makes finding common free time near impossible. They all look the same, but more adult. Myself, I remain remarkably immature despite the shock of gray hair at the hairline of my forehead. It's started there and is slowly working towards the back. If I wear a hair band, it's like I've a black wig over the gray. Gotta find the time to dye the damned thing.

After the funeral, I ran some errands had a coffee with my buddy Jim and an early meal with the folks at a diner. Now I'm completely shot and think a nice cocktail and maybe a movie is a good way to end the day, but there's so much crap that gets left for the days off that when I sleep through the my 1st day off after the work week, I have to cram it all into the next day and there's not enough time to do it all AND try and have any sort of social life.

I used to be a very very social adrenaline junkie. I'd spend my weekends sailing (single handing even when I owned a boat) or scuba diving with the good folk at Captain Mike's Dive Shop in the Bronx, or playing with the 1979 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce' I owned and restored a number of years back or just hanging with friends and going hiking, drinking, what have you. Then I did a wreck dive on the U.S.S San Diego and did not compensate for the steel tank when I put my weight belt on and over weighted myself so that trying to climb up the ladder in very rough seas did something that herniated two discs in my lower back and from then on not only give me lower back pain but pinched some nerves that send pain down the back of my legs (one or the other, sometimes both) that is like the pain of hitting your funny bone or the pain you feel when your leg falls asleep and there is a feeling that comes after the pins and needle part stops that feels like the muscles are constricting or cramping severely for a moment. However, the pain I get in the back of my legs, this constricting of the muscles and cramping feeling isn't quick. It goes on and on and no amount of stretching or Tylenol, Ibuprophen will stop it. It literally drives me mad, bringing me to tears or spending half the night up walking around trying to 'stretch out' this horrendous pain. I've always had a high tolerance to pain, but this one literally bring me to my knees. Then add Lupus and Fibromyalgia to the mix and I bet it would make Arnold Schwarzanegger whimper like a little girly man.
The Lupus started showing signs in blood tests many years ago, but I hadn't had any 'flair ups' of any significance. But shortly after 9/11 I got Epstein Barr from working 50 hours a week and going to school full-time which brought on severe exhaustion and Fibromyalgia started often leaving me looking like I was drunk I was so tired. Having unknowingly herniating my neck (one major herniation that has left a permanent muscles in my neck and shoulder) and two bulges were from the end of 2001 when I tried to go skiing without having a cocktail before hand. I know what you're thinking. You'd have broke your neck if you'd been drinking, but I learned a long time ago, that since skiing kind of scares me a little since I'm super bad at it and my skis were wrong for me, but I was too cheap to get new ones, I do better when I have a drink or two since I loosen up and my fear of being out of control minimizes and I do a lot better. I realize this isn't logical, but of the many times I've gone skiing I've always found it to be so. Therefore when I wiped out and whacked my head so hard on the ground despite having tucked my chin to my chest and tried to break my fall, it still slammed into the earth and I was on my back facing up the mountain! I must have flipped in the air somehow. So feeling like I'd been chewed up and spat out I went into the bar and had a few gin and tonics and went back out to do 10 more runs which were 100% better - faster, more controlled, easier and I felt that I wasn't leaving the mountain with it having beaten me.
When I got up the next day and couldn't move my neck left or right without serious pain, I know that mountain had one and I was never going to be a good skier. It wasn't until years later when I started feeling the effects of the Lupus and Fibromyalgia that I got MRIs and saw all the damage. They had asked me if I was ever in an accident, and I'd said no. I had always thought of an accident as a car accident and was defined by not being able to get up and walk away from it. Having gotten up and walked away from all the horseback riding crashes and skiing ones, I never thought of them as having an accident, just pulling a muscle here and there. I figured I played rough and occasionally I was going feel it, but this was something new, and after the lower back herniations from diving was when the Lupus began showing its what it was capable of: exhaustion and pain like I'd never known before and wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Soon the diving stopped and then later after a year or so the hiking and the even the kayaking slowed down significantly. It was hard to get to work every day (the hellish commute didn't help) and I was just too tired and hurt too much to do very much. And in a year, everything in my life had changed and was turned upside down, and all the things I did to blow off steam, make me happy and gave me something to look forward to - defined me - was gone. Now after 5 years, I'm still not used to no longer being the me I used to be and I continue to try to find a way to find the girl I used to be. This is my adventure. It seems I am to learn how to take crap and use it as fertilizer instead of just being knee deep in stinking filth. It's going to be interesting to see exactly what I can do to give my life meaning and bring back the joy I used to feel in a new and different way. Here we go...

And So IT begins...

It has been suggested that I start a blog. However, for so long the thought of it has filled me with anxiety. What if so and so reads this? What if I say something really stupid, which I am famous for, and it gets me in heaps of trouble? What if I bore myself to death because I don't really have anything to say?
Lots of What-ifs, but I can try it out and see how I feel about it and then I can decide if I wanna tell anyone I know I am finally giving into what is decidedly a very self-centered act. While I am quite self absorbed, I often am not comfortable with being so self-centered as it is significantly louder, and I have become a bit more tempered as I hit my 40's.

So for what it is worth, here I am. I'm in my 40's, as I've mentioned, I share a very tiny apt. in the middle of nowhere with 4 not-so-feral-anymore cats that were dumped on me by their mother before she split town, for apparently the great catnip pasture in the sky the poor dear. I'd tried for so long not to be the 'crazy cat lady' and only had one cat, more of a significant other, often called Sim for short. Sim and I moved into this little tiny spec of an apt on some wet lands after my relationship hit the rocks. I figured it would be a wonderful place to meditate and soak up nature, listen to the birds and lick my wounds of a 'he just ain't that into you' that went on two years longer than the four + years it was in existence- we tend to beat dead horses in my family. Soon a calico feral cat came around talking her head off and asking for a bite to eat here and there explaining that she'd got herself in the 'family way' and was all on her own and just beside herself over it all. Sim and I felt a little sorry for her so we didn't chase her off like we should have and soon she got so round it was a wonder she didn't stagger from the weight shifting! And after she'd suckered us in, she gave birth to 6 kittens. As life is hard and damned unfair, 3 years later there are now 5 cats living of the original 6 and both Maa Preggers (the hussy mother of the brood) and Sim have both passed away - Sim from kidney failure at 18 years of age. Now for roommates I have Kagome', Fleur, Pumpkin and Fuzzbutt; they are beautiful healthy sweet rag doll type cats who are weary of my intentions at times and dumber than a box of rocks! Sim was remarkably intelligent and compared to the Plume-tail Gang, as I refer to them as, a rocket scientist compared to a bunch of sugar amped 3 year olds. Yet, I've grown used to them and they me and each night we get in bed and they hunker up next to me, turn over on their backs and demand tummy rubs. There is no logic here.

So, this is a little bit about me a crazy cat lady of the wetlands.