June 2008 Archives

I think I'm a little manic.  I'm still not sleeping well, thoughts racing and reducing ability to concentrate, I keep getting the urge to shop, and last night's restless irritability are all symptomatic.  It's not too bad.  Though tired, I'm functioning, and I haven't given in to the impulse to shop in the last couple of days.

I haven't chewed anyone out, always a positive; rage is so unattractive, don't you think?

(Yet another) nasty storm starting up outside now, so I think I'll shut down the laptop and spin my wheels in other ways.

Later.  

I'm so restless tonight.  I keep trying to do different things, but none of them hold my interest.  Listen to music?  No.  Read?  No.  Watch T.V.?  No.  Draw? Nope.  My neighbor is having a barn party to which I was invited.  Definitely no.  Mom still has my camera, but it doesn't matter.  I don't feel like doing that either. 

What a drag.

I went to Harold's celebration and, happily, discovered that it was two other acquaintances' anniversaries as well.  It was a great meeting, made even more so by having an opportunity to catch up with an old friend with whom I'd had a falling out.  We talked for an hour after the meeting ended and, though we never once spoke of the night that we walked away from our friendship, I felt as though we were tacitly telling one another that it's okay now, that we're okay now.  We'll never be the friends that we were before, and that's okay, too.  But we like and respect one another, and can enjoy each other's company when we meet.

Relinquishing old anger and pain releases me in return.

After making a rather dumb mistake at work, I began to wonder:

When I go gray, will I still be blonde?

I haven't slept well the past couple of nights.  I was anxious Monday night because I had to attend the luncheon for scholarship recipients on Tuesday, and I knew that I was expected to say a few words.  I never fell fully asleep that night, edgy as I was.  The luncheon actually went very well.  The donors were kind and took a real interest in us.  I'm very shy, but I made it through gracefully I believe.

I was extremely tired for the rest of the day but, being me, got a second wind in the evening and had trouble falling asleep, and then staying asleep.  You know that old commercial "Gotta go gotta go gotta go right now?"  Well, that was me last night, and it kept waking me up.  The profound desire not to sleep in a puddle drove me out from under the covers, covers over which Randy and I kept fighting, and in which I didn't wish to swim.

It wasn't conducive to sleep.

Though tired, I made it through today rather well.  A couple of my friends celebrated their anniversary tonight at my former home group, and I went to be with them.  I haven't been to that meeting in over a year due to scheduling conflicts and, to be honest, a need to take a break from them.  Being there gave me a chance to catch up with some friends who I haven't seen in a long time.  These are people who I usually only came across at this particular meeting, and it was great to see them again.  I'll probably continue to pop in every couple of weeks over the summer to visit with them some more.  I also discovered that one of my favorite people in the program, Harold, is celebrating 28 years on Friday night, so I'm making it a point to go there, too.  I just love this old guy.  His son is in the program and, in fact, lives with my biological father's ex-wife, mother of the half-sisters I don't know.  Small world.  I don't hold that against him, though.  Both father and son are kind, funny and intelligent.  There are people in this life who touch you, and you may not even know why, but they do.  Harold is one of those people for me.

I guess that's it, that's all that's going on.  Oh, someone asked about the party my SIL called me about, the one with the "romance enhancers" for sale.  That's not until July 11.

I'll be sure to fill you in when it happens.

*G*

I was all set to write  some boring stuff about my day when I received a phone call from my mother.  Some time back I wrote about trying to locate my mother's best friend from high school via the internet, but without any luck so far.

Today, her friend called her!

It seems that she's living in VT now, only 3 hours away.  She came across my mom's phone number in an old address book and decided to give it a try.  How cool is that?  They both got teary while talking on the phone, and are planning to get together in a few weeks; Diane's about to go out of town.  To Alaska.  And she's not taking me.  Ah well, she called my mom, so that's enough of a gift.

I knew Diane as well.  Despite the fact that I was 7 or younger when they hung out together regularly, I was always a welcome addition to any get together whether it was lunch or a dinner party.  I haven't spoken with her since I was in high school, and am so excited to see her again.  Her friendship always meant so much to my mother; she was one of the most important people in my mother's life.  But Mom became busy as a wife and new mother (Andrew and Ashley) and Diane moved around a lot, and somehow they lost touch.  But they always stayed in each other's hearts in the way that true friends do.

I'm so happy for my mom!

I've fought it for a long time, but I've finally given in and bought an iPod.  Sigh.  I don't really need one.  I might use it at work, but probably not.  I won't be able to hear when a supervisor is asking me a question or offering me a task that I might enjoy more than the one I'm currently doing.  I also wouldn't be able to have as much fun with co-workers, chatting as we cross each other's path.  We're not allowed to stop for conversation, but some joking around and pleasantries are acceptable, and I like to do that.

So why did I buy one?

I began to jog again this past weekend.  Now that I'm not running across campus and up and down stairs, I feel myself getting sluggish from lack of exercise.  Pilates and qigong also figure into my plans. The trouble is that I used to listen to music on my desktop while I worked out.  The desktop has been sold, though, and I'm tired of moving my laptop back and forth across the house, running down the battery as I play tunes.   My other cd players are part of stereo systems which aren't easily moved.   Besides, I like them right where they are.

As a result of all of this, I caved in and bought a 2 GB shuffle.  As tempting as it was to buy a nano, I simply don't need it and can't justify spending the money.  The shuffle will more than do.  I also bought a sport armband for greater ease of use while running.  The shuffle  is currently charging and I've begun to import from cds, so we'll see how it goes.  It's seems pretty easy and straightforward.  The hardest thing was just getting it out of the box, a thing it was loathe to do. 

I think I scare it.

It's so cute and tiny, it has nothing to fear from me.

Unless it acts up.

We (the whole family) gave Ashley a laptop for graduation, and she's very excited.  I agreed to set up the wireless internet connection for her, and went over last night to do so.

I had set up wireless in that house before, when I gave Andrew my old computer.  He complained that it didn't work properly (funny, it worked every time I went over to check it- I think he just wanted to be on the computer downstairs) and Dad came over and removed the router setup.  Fine.  Now they wanted me to put it back, but Dad didn't keep everything together.  First I was missing the ethernet cable, then I discovered that the software was missing (what I thought was the disk turned out to be the disk for an earlier router by the same brand).  To make matters worse, their computer started acting up, refusing to acknowledge its connection to the internet despite the fact that I had restored the computer/modem connection to its pre-router state.  I wound up having to run to Staples quickly before they closed to buy a new router.  Fine.  Got a better one for less money.  Back to the house.  I uninstalled everything having to do with the old router and began setting up the new. Tried to reconnect to the internet.  Tried several times.  Went back to an earlier restore point.  Still wouldn't acknowledge.  One screen mentioned something about unchecking the "Work Offline" tab under "Tools."  Now, I never checked it in the first place, but when I looked I saw that the computer had, mysteriously, checked the box on its own.  I unchecked it, and the internet was restored.

Hurray.

I began to set up the router and, though there were a couple of false starts due to me (literally) having some wires crossed, it went well.  Until the last stage, when it asked me for the PPPoE password so the router could automatically connect to the internet.  I asked Mom for the password, but she didn't know what it was; Dad had set it up all those years ago.  So I called Dad.  He irritably informed me that he couldn't remember what it was, and that he had written everything down and given it to Mom at the time.  Mom and I searched, but couldn't find it.  Mom was so upset, feeling stupid for not paying attention.  Dad has that effect on all of us when he takes a certain tone of voice, and I became angry on her behalf.  Should she have paid more attention?  Yes.  Should she feel like an idiot because she can't remember where she placed something years ago and which she hasn't needed since?  I don't think so.  I told her not to worry about it, that it's a simple fix.  We can just call the ISP and get the password, no big deal.  But when I left last night- after 11- she was still tearing apart the home office looking for that stupid thing instead of enjoying the program she had been watching.  She felt so badly, too, because she wants to get Ashley's laptop hooked up to the internet so Ashes can enjoy it as she was meant to do.  I felt badly for putting Mom in this state, one which I couldn't undo.  At least now I know where I get that touch of OCD from.  And here I was blaming it on having bipolar!

I got home sometime after 11, where Randy was patiently waiting for me.  "Mission unaccomplished" I had to report, sadly.

I'll go back today, and try again.

Erg.

I dropped my brother and his friend off at JFK, and started for home despite a growing need to find a restroom; the airport was congested and I couldn't be bothered trying to park, etc.  I got stuck in traffic for an overly long time, and by the time I got onto the Whitestone Bridge, the situation was becoming critical and my toes were curled as tight as they could get.  What strange twist of anatomy connects the toes with the bladder, making it necessary to tighten the digits in order to keep the floods at bay?  I pondered this afterwards, though, being somewhat preoccupied at the time. It was so bad, I didn't even want to plain ol' swallow, because the thought of liquid in any form brought tears to my eyes.  I got through the toll booth, pausing long enough to ask for the nearest bathroom through gritted teeth.  Fortunately for me and my car upholstery, there was one just up the road.  I jumped out of my car and raced for the bathroom, my bladder so full I swear I could feel the bounce and swish.  I truly only just made it in time.

Next time I go to JFK, I'm wearing a diaper.  Fact.

I went to work for a couple of hours, then went home to get some sleep; I never really slept last night and I was shaking by the time I climbed in bed this afternoon.  When I woke up, Wheezy joined me.  She curled up on the mattress and began to bathe herself.  I love watching cats bathe themselves, which sounds a little voyeuristic if you think about it.  Anyway, I thought "Look how soft, fluffy, sweet and blissed out she looks.  Watching her, you can almost forget that this bath precedes the hacking of a hair ball on the floor later."

Then, tonight, Randy's younger sister called me to invite me to a sleep-over.  It seems she's throwing one of those parties during which erotic products are sold; she's been to a couple and thought they were fun.  Now, she lives with her fiance and they're getting married next spring, so it's not like I didn't know that she's sexually active.  And as a married woman myself, it's safe to assume the same of me.  But that doesn't mean that I want to know the sorts of things she'd be interested in buying, or that I want her to know what I would be interested in.   I agreed to go (I didn't go over for Easter dinner, so felt obligated- see what a guilty conscience gets you?) and am now destined to spend a perhaps uncomfortably enlightening evening with my SIL.

All in all, a strange day.

I didn't get to see her graduate after all.

It was obvious all day that it was going to rain, but the school insisted it was going to have graduation outside anyway.  We get there and stand (there were puddles in the seats provided) in the pouring rain for 15-20 minutes.  Umbrellas were little help, and my back was soaked right through my jacket.   Then someone came out and made the announcement that they were going to hold the ceremony indoors after all (duh!) but that each graduate was only allowed 2 guests instead of 4 due to limited space.  Obviously it was more important that Mom and Dad be there than Andrew and I , so there was nothing else for me to do but go home, dry off, and try not to cry.  I'm so bummed!

Now I have to try to take a nap.  Andrew is once again participating in the La Casa Project, and he needs a ride to JFK; I'll have to get up at 3:30 AM in order to pick him and his friend up.  Thankfully Mom is also able to come, so I'll have her with me to keep me awake on the way home.  I worked late tonight so that I wouldn't have to work much tomorrow.  I'll go right from the airport to work, but I'll only have to put in about 2 hrs, then I can go home and get some sleep.

With that in mind, I'll try to nap now.  Doubt it, but you never know.

Tonight my baby sister, Ms. Ashley, is graduating from high school.  She survived, we survived, her teachers survived.  She is free to move on to new challenges, new horizons, and new teachers to torture. 

I arrived at the hospital 5 minutes after she was born; she popped out too quickly for me to get there in time, though I was only 45 minutes away when I got that call that Mom had gone into labor.  I changed her diapers and sang her to sleep.  I dangled her head-down over the toilet and told her I would flush her and feed her to the toilet monster if she didn't behave, setting her potty training back by who knows how long.  I demonstrated the use of the word "shit" so effectively that she used it herself for the first time when she was two.  Actually, that's the age when Andrew and I both first said it also, so it seems to have been a family tradition.

Time passes so quickly.  I choose to look on this milestone as a sign not that I'm getting old, but that she is.

Hah.

Congratulations,  Ashes!

 

Today's Savage Chicken cartoon goes so well with what I just posted that I had to share it with you.  Too funny!

Please, before you read any further, understand that I do not mean this in any morbid sort of way...

I've always said- and meant- that it isn't death that I'm afraid of, but rather, by what means I'll die.  Obviously some forms of death are preferable to others.  I believe that what comes after will be peaceful and beautiful, and refreshing.  There is no fear.

Lately, though, I've begun to feel a shift.

Sometimes when I get that fluttering in my neck, or that hitch in my breathing, it occurs to me that one way or another, I will die; that's a fact.  And, for the first time, this troubles me.  It doesn't frighten me, just troubles me. 

This, I think, is a good thing.

I've spent so much of my life hurting and angry, depressed to the point of becoming suicidal.  Of course I had no attachment to life; I wanted to be rid of it.  This held true after I got sober, after I was diagnosed with and began treatment for bipolar disorder.  It didn't help, naturally, that I didn't take my medication properly, if at all, for the first couple of years after being diagnosed.  Shortly after that I was injured, lost my job, my father, a grandmother, an uncle and my dog.  To say I was depressed- despite taking my medication properly- would be an understatement.  I sank into isolation and the funkiest of funks, and I dwelled there for a couple of years, an emotional zombie.

Over the past couple of years, however, I've felt myself re-entering life in a way that I never had before.  The pain and the anger I've lived with have been reduced to echoes: there, but distant and fading.  Instead of wanting to throw away my life, or feeling apathetic about its course, I am now an active participant, if at times a little hesitant or timid.  I've opened myself up to others in ways I never could have before; I've been learning to let people in.

It is for these reasons that the notion of my death has become vaguely troubling, and why the fact that I'm troubled is a good thing.  It illustrates for me just how much I've reconnected with my life, and the people in it.

I still don't fear death, but I no longer welcome it.

I had such a great time last night.  Carla and her husband, Jol, are kind, warm and intelligent people with whom I had a wonderful evening.  Her work is vibrant, the women depicted blend so seamlessly with the natural settings in which they're placed.  When I strike it rich, I'm buying them all! :0)

I had a classic MapQuest experience along the way.  I wasn't sure where the iO Gallery is, so I looked it up.  The address is 131 South Kent Road, Cornwall Bridge, CT.  This told me that it was situated somewhere between the towns of Cornwall and Kent.  Randy and I thought that South Kent Rd. is probably Route 7, to the south of Kent.  That's how a lot of the roads around here work; major routes are also named in relation to the town(s) nearest that stretch.  But, I thought, I'd better be sure.  Therefore I chose to look it up online.  A good thing, I realized, as the directions told me to turn off Route 7 onto Route 45, then onto 341 to my destination.  So that's what I did.  Except that it directed me to someone's house.  I kept driving down the road, thinking that maybe I was at the wrong end of the street, that the other end was South Kent Rd; the sign on the road I was on simply read "Kent Rd."  Though the numbers came back down to 131 on the other end, it was also a person's house.  Realizing that by now I had arrived in Kent itself on one of its back roads, I figured the best I could do was to find my way back to 7, and check it out when I got back to the Cornwall Bridge area.  But as I was about to turn right towards 7, I noticed a road sign that said the the road to the left was South Kent road.  Bingo!  I turned, found 131.

It was someone's house.

By now there's was a terrible storm raging overhead and the road was hard to see.  I was so upset, believing that at this point I wasn't going to be able to find the gallery or, if I did, it would be too late and the show would be over.  I turned back and made my way to Rt. 7.  In a last ditch effort, I started watching street numbers as I re-entered Cornwall Bridge.  There it was!

Right on the corner of routes 7 and 45.

I had driven right past it as I turned onto 45 about 20 minutes earlier.

Granted, I was preoccupied with the directions in my head as I drove by, and the sign was discreetly elegant, but still.  There are statues out in front of the place for crying out loud!

I literally drove right past it.  Statues, parking lot full of cars, the works.

At least I made it with time to spare, met some really terrific people, and saw works of art (in addition to Carla's) that were beautiful and thought-provoking. 

And, Carla, you should have eaten dinner before leaving me a comment! *G*

If all goes as it should, tonight I'll be meeting Carla Kurt at a local gallery where some of her work will be showing.  I've been reading her blog, Anonyrrie, for a couple of years now; she's a lovely woman and a talented artist.  I'm really looking forward to finally meeting her.  If you have time, check out her work- it's beautiful!

Tonight, I went from watching Resident Evil to Murder She Wrote. 


While they had death in common, it was an odd mix.

I had every intention of blogging last night, but then we got hit by a whopper of a thunderstorm which wiped out power until around 9:30 this morning.  I can count myself lucky, though.  Many areas in my town still don't have power, and in fact my mother's entire town is without.  Mom has been told that she shouldn't expect power until tomorrow or Friday, so I expect that she and my siblings will be filing through here over the next couple of days to shower, relax and cool off.  Which meant more scrambling to tidy up.  I haven't vacuumed, and they'll just have to suck it up.  No pun intended.  For that matter, I don't mean it literally.  I've just had images of mother and siblings on hands and knees sucking dirt off the floor like a vacuum which, while kind of amusing, is also fairly disgusting.  I'm sure they'd think so, at any rate!

I had to stay up all night last night because Randy needed to be up for work at 6 AM, but our clock was out with the power.  So I stayed up until 5 playing Pitfall on Game Boy by candlelight, or reading through use of a book light clipped to my top because the book was a paperback and couldn't hold the heavier light.  The light was roughly over my heart and I thought "If anyone sees me through those blinds, they'll think I'm E.T."  At 5 AM I set the portable oven timer for an hour, placed it at our bedside and went to bed.  Voila!  He was up in time.  I, on the other hand, got only about 4.5 hrs. sleep and am groggy.  This afternoon I wrote 2 checks at the same time, and dated them both 8/13/08!  The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that I was trying to hold the fact that this is '08 in my head (I've had trouble with that lately, and I don't know why) and I thought somehow that today was the 13th, which it isn't.  The ladies at the bank laughed at me and, to be honest, I laughed at myself.  It's nice to be able to do that once in awhile.  After (very little) thought, I decided to stay home from work today.  I'll have no trouble getting the rest of my hours in over the next couple of days, and who knows if they even had power there anyway?  I ran a bunch of errands and such instead, including the purchase of an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock.

I found out that gas- which is $4.44/Regular- is going up $0.18 today or tomorrow.  *sigh*  I topped off my tank and then picked up Randy's truck and filled that up for him as well. 

At long last I was able to come home and fire up my computer to blog and be blogged.  My internet connection has been acting up lately, but there's a quick fix for it to get it going, so when I got that imperative yellow exclamation mark next to my  internet connection icon, I wasn't worried about it.  But this time the fix didn't work.  I followed the various troubleshooting suggestions, to no avail.  I wound up losing my network connection altogether.  I decided to reinstall the software for my router in case that was part of the problem, but it still wasn't working.  Mind you, my husband's laptop was still working properly, so despite the troubleshooting suggestions I didn't really believe that the router was to blame.  Then McAfee warned me with its ominous red box of death that my computer wasn't properly protected, and that I needed to dump my current version of McAfee and download it again.  That wouldn't be a problem as it comes free with my cable internet service.  But of course, I couldn't connect to the internet, so the warning was pretty pointless.

I'm not sure why it did all of that, or why it suddenly fixed itself.  Because it did.  My mother called me about her (lack of) power situation, and while I was speaking with her, my computer's network and the router made peace with one another, and McAfee has decided that it's okay and doesn't want to be replaced after all.  My connection has been restored.  I am now afraid to turn off my computer.

But I currently have everything back to normal with a purring cat in my lap.  She demanded petting, and there was much fur floating in the air during the process.  Another thing for my family to suck up. ;0)

The good news is that over the past couple of days Randy was able to hang all of the new doors and get them to fit properly.  One doorway was an odd, in-between size so Randy had to borrow my uncle's planer to shave it down.  All done, and looking pretty.  It'll look prettier when painted; the primer now has dirty hand prints all over it after my poor husband's struggles.

Also, he found the last air-conditioner to be had at the store yesterday.  Our only double-hung windows are a little too small for an air-conditioner to fit in, however a new one has been designed for windows such as ours.  It stands alone and is portable.  It has a plastic piece which covers all of the open space of the double-hung window, except for one circular spot.  A large tube feeds from the conditioner to this hole, rather like a dryer's venting system.  It's also remote controlled for those of us who thought we couldn't possibly get any lazier.

Ain't life grand?

There's nothing like misplacing a paycheck to inspire a gal to tidy up.

*sigh*

I was eventually successful, and at least now you can see the surface of my coffee table.  Or you could, if you were here.  Which you're not. 

So you can't.

The problem with watching shows like Trading Spaces is that then I want to work on the house.

The problem with watching the Food Network is that then I want to cook large, fancy meals (and eat them, of course).

The problem with not watching t.v. is that then I might have to get off my butt and actually do some of these things.

It's been the sort of day you could swim through, the air thick with moisture, heat that saps all energy, the sun and the storm clouds vying for the sky.  As the sun settled down for the night somewhere behind a blanket of clouds, lightning took its turn at illumination.  Rain crashed almost violently against pavement and earth, and for a short while a cool breeze offered some relief.  Now the rain falls gently pattering on the saturated ground, in puddles and mud.  Frogs and crickets- the night singers- form a chorus for the evening's concert.

I sit here in semi-darkness, listening.

Look familiar?  I've managed to make the blog look almost identical to its pre-upgrade state.  I'm still working on a new look, but I couldn't take the blandness of the default template anymore, so I adapted my old look to work here in the meantime.

Ready for a new Tale from a Bookstore?

Today I filled an order which included the aforementioned book on how to poison someone.  In addition to this, they also bought a book on Colt revolvers, and two books on learning Spanish.  I get the feeling that someone wants a South American really and truly dead; they're not taking any chances!

With books and fertile imagination, I'm almost never bored.

Today someone ordered both Howdunit's Book of Poisons and Granny's Recipes, Remedies and Helpful Hints. 

How to harm and how to heal.  Either we're dealing with a budding mystery writer, or I've got a potential client when I get my doctorate.



(Munchausen's is the disorder in which a person secretly harms themselves in order to get attention, particularly from the medical community)

Some more thoughts inspired by my work:

First, there's the book James the Brother of Jesus.  Every time I hear about James I think "Now there's a tough gig."  Can you imagine growing up with Jesus as a brother?  Nothing against Jesus, I'm sure he was swell.  Still, it can't have been easy.

Then there's Troubleshooting and Repairing Major Appliances.  Except that in the spine's design, the "and Repairing" is written smaller so that when passing by quickly, the title appears to be "Troubleshooting Major Appliances."

I don't know about you, but I have no trouble shooting appliances when they're aggravating me.  It's just as well I don't own a gun; replacing appliances could get expensive.

In other news, I've managed to install Gravatar.  So there's that accomplished.

Upgrade: check
captcha installed (but not enabled): check
Gravatar: check
blog design: WIP

This stuff is hard, but to be honest, I love the challenge no matter how much it drives me nuts.  I'm learning and I love that "Aha!" moment when it all comes together.

Unlike the famous Egg Man, I am whole once more.  I think I'll just chalk it up to a couple of off days and leave it at that.

Work is interesting just now in that I'm very laid back about the whole thing.  It's strange to be able to wander in and out when I want, and to not have anything else I have to do anywhere else if I don't want to.  That's not to say that I don't have plenty I should be doing.  I just mean that, for the first time in over a year, there's no deadline looming, no pressure, no need to rush.  It's so very strange.  Knowing that I have plenty of time available to meet my minimum quota of hours at work each week makes it easier (mentally) to put in more time than I actually need to do.  I don't have to be there, so I don't mind being there.  I can walk out anytime I want and call it a day. 

Yes, I know just how lucky I am!

If it makes you feel any better, the place is full of dust and you'll often hear people sneezing.  Factor in allergy season, and you'll understand why I'm glad that there are plenty of Kleenex boxes stationed around the building.

Since leaving work this afternoon I have been working on this blog behind the scenes.  I have configured and installed a captcha feature, currently disabled here, in case I need it in the future.  This way there's no bother about "white listing" email addresses of trusted commenters.  Hopefully, though, I won't need to enable the captcha feature anytime soon.

I've also been working on a couple of other features, but as I haven't got them figured out yet, they will remain under wraps.  That way you won't know what you're missing if I can't sort out how to use them.

I'm having a surprisingly difficult time coming up with a new design for my blog's appearance.  I don't mean coding it- I haven't even begun to play with that headache yet.  I just haven't settled on the overall design concept I want to implement.  I'm working on it.

Now, though, I've had just about enough of playing with my blog.  I think I'll read for a little bit until I'm ready to sleep.

I suspect it won't take long.

I've been "off" this weekend.  Physically, I've had a strange feeling of discomfort located at the lower sternum/upper stomach region; I'm still not sure what that's about.  I'm not nauseous or in pain, just uncomfortable and a little achey.  Today I also had a shaky, hypoglycemic feeling even though I had eaten a sandwich and a small candy bar before it started.   It wasn't caffeine-related; the shakes were different and I had already switched to decaf.

Even more troubling- to me at least- was a sense of disconnect.  I had to force myself to go to my AA meeting; I wasn't sick enough to use that as an excuse to skip it and isolate.  Once there, I felt out of sync with everyone.  I couldn't track with them, with what they were saying.  I drifted from group to group of friends before the meeting started, but felt that my responses to them were somehow wrong.  I wasn't a step ahead of where they were, or a step behind; I was a step or two to one side, if that makes sense to anyone other than me.   I don't believe anyone noticed, but I grabbed one of my closest friends there and told her what was going on with me.  She asked if I'm manic, and I honestly don't know.  I don't have that fey feeling I usually get when manic.  I suspect that this has something to do with suddenly having nothing much to do after having to do so much for so long; it's taken a mental and emotional toll. 

You know that head rush you get when you've stood up too fast, or if you've been sick in bed for awhile?  That sense that the world has slipped sideways for a moment?  That kept happening to me while I was at the meeting, and I tuned in and out of what was going on around me.  I'm not depersonalizing.  I don't feel as though I'm outside of myself watching me.  I came home and curled up in bed for a few minutes, and it suddenly struck me how weightless I felt.  I don't mean that lighter-than-air feeling you get when you're really happy.  This was ephemeral, as though a breeze would not simply blow me away, but dissipate me like vapor.  I wasn't real.  I wasn't solid. 

I'm a little better, I haven't yet completely reconnected.  Now it's as though I'm real and the world isn't.

You don't mind being imaginary for a little while, do you?

Today's project was to integrate my entries prior to the recent upgrade into my current blog setup.  I couldn't do it.  I've tried everything to re-connect to them, but it won't happen.  Luckily I still have all of those blog entries archived in various formats.

So, instead of integrating the old blog with this new format, I've created a second blog for archives, similar in concept to the archive blog I used to have prior to this upgrade.   I've  restructured it so that there are  4 entries, one for each year archived up to the present, with links to the monthly archives listed under the appropriate year.  There's a permanent link to the archive blog provided in the sidebar to the right, after Blogs of Note.

Now that I've worked out the archives- I couldn't stand the thought of being disconnected from years' worth of blog entries- I can turn my focus to the appearance of this blog.

I'm getting there.