But it feels so much later!

Having set the clock back on hour is a tricky thing to have done. I had set my watch back already and the alarm clock. The computer's clock had set itself to the right time. I hadn't set back the living room clock, though, and kept looking at it as if it was the right time and being tricked by it. I finally set it to the right time and now it is only just past noon and not nearly time to go to my sister. 

I have already taken the dog for two long walks and my legs are tired enough. I can only handle one hour at the time. I need better walking boots if I want to do more. The ones I have are torturing devices, so I'm not wearing them anymore. I do have to get some new ones before winter gets here, otherwise I won't have any grip on the snow and ice.

You see, I'm assuming that there's going to be snow and ice. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there weren't any? Today is so mild that you would almost believe it. The temperature is pleasant and we haven't seen any rain yet. The sun is even peeking through the clouds. There is a little bit of wind and leaves drifted down on us when we walked along the sidewalks. 

It was very pretty in an autumnal way. If you're into that kind of thing. I'm always too busy keeping control of the dog to fully enjoy myself. I have to make sure he doesn't run into gardens and bike paths or poop on somebody's well manicured lawn. He is a mixed blessing. He gets me out of the house for walks, but then I really don't enjoy them as much as I could. 

Because of him, I don't get to walk around and daydream, which is my favorite activity, unless I have a human partner and then I like to talk. The Exfactor and I used to go for enormous walks when we were first married and before we had a dog and we would discuss everything under the sun and have opinions about everything too. We were world improvers and if only they made us boss. 

We were a little bit naive back then, although we didn't think so. We were both new to the country and the way things were done and we thought they could be done better, well old rotted socialists that we were, although some American influence had rubbed off on me. 

The Exfactor was actually more of an anarchist and hard to pin down in any sort of group, but socialism came closest. He was such an extreme anarchist that he was almost ultra-conservative and a republican of the worst kind. That's all I could think. He made for an interesting conversationalist. I disagreed with him often and felt like he was brainwashing me. I tried to influence him in becoming more tolerant. 

Anyway, walks! If you're living by yourself, you have a tendency not to take that many, at least I don't. I feel very conspicuous walking on my own, unless I have a goal and I think people can read that on my face. As if walking with a purpose is somehow more permissible than slightly sauntering. Hence the dog! Anybody with a dog is allowed out on the street wherever. 

Still, this setting the clocks back one hour, which is really what I started off with, is making me feel very frustrated. The time is crawling by today as if it is doing it on slow motion on purpose. Whoever is in charge of time, is holding back the second hand. The hand that counts the seconds. Not the second hand stuff that you buy at garage sales. 

Although going to garage sales is a lot of fun and I miss that. We're only allowed to sell our old junk without a license once a year on Queen's Day. It's called Free Market and everybody can and does do it. It's a wonderful event and treasures are found. I think recently a Van Gogh surfaced. 

But that is just an aside. 

I'm going to have coffee with my sister and I must remember to bring that cardigan. She probably won't like it because it's cheap, but that's a chance I'll have to take. 

I hope you're all having a nice Sunday. It's a boring day, isn't it? Really? 

Ciao,
Nora

Singing in the rain...

I went out shopping today. I had it in my head that I was going to go to some discount stores and be successful and find some good loot, so that's what I did. I made sure I was dressed properly and that my hairdo was halfway presentable and got on my bike and rode it to the shopping center. 

It wasn't very cold outside, nevertheless, I wore my winter coat and my thick scarf and was toasty warm. I was only wearing one pair of thin leggings, but I didn't get cold legs, so I must be tougher than I think I am. Or it must help to keep certain parts of you extra warm, such as your feet and neck and arms. 

It's only a theory, of course. I know you are supposed to keep your head warm and I certainly don't do that with my short haircut and no hat. I have a hard enough time keeping my hair looking nice without ruining it with my snow hat. I must find a better hat and for that I'll have to go to the department stores downtown where they have a large collection of hats to choose from. 

Anyway...I went to the textiles shop first where they have wonderful discounts and the first thing I spotted was underwear. Good cotton ones with a little bit of stretch in black. Four of them into the basket. A pair of gray leggings, also into the basket. A powder blue top with a cowl neck for 4.99, into the basket. My favorite deodorant on sale, two cans and you know where they went... I checked out a lot of other things, but they were not deemed good enough buys to go home with me, so I went to the cash register and paid a ridiculously small amount of money for my purchases. 

Then I went to the drugstore and made my way to the discount aisle. The bins were a bit of a mess and I had to poke around very well, but I did come up with a couple of items. A black scarf, which I didn't have yet, a black cardigan, which was packaged and which turned out to be much too small when I got it home, but I will give it to my much skinnier sister, 3 pairs of stud earrings that look like they're silver, but luckily are not because I'm allergic to silver, and to top it all off, I got Tyke 4 small containers of chicken and rice dog food. Oh yes, I also got 2 candy bars. 

When I got outside, I saw that it had rained and my bike was soaking wet, but that didn't matter because I went into the fashion shop next door where I saw a neat pair of boots on sale for 15 Euros, but not in my size. I also saw scarves there, but noticed that they were very delicate and that they would have runs in them in the shortest amount of time and they weren't worth the money. So, I left empty handed from there.

I rode my wet bike home and just as I got there, it started to rain and it hasn't stopped yet, so I was just on time. Tyke just about tore the bags out of my hands thinking rightly so that there was something in there for him, but I let Gandhi have some of the food too because she likes that stuff very much, even though too much of it makes her barf. Tyke loved it and had two portions of it and seemed like he was a happy dog. I ate my candy bars and was a happy woman.

And now I've got to go lie down for a little while because I'm tired. I've only had one tranquilizer so far today, so that can't be it. I must just be tired. I'll go lie down on the sofa with the red fleece blanket over me, nice and cozy. 

Hav a good rest of the day!

Ciao,
Nora

After hypo-mania.

I'm constantly in danger of falling asleep. I keep nodding off and having to take long naps. I sit behind the computer and yawn something awful and have to go to the sofa to sleep. I make pots of coffee and hope they help, but they don't, the need to sleep is stronger. 

Nevertheless, I just made myself some coffee and still hope it will work and I'm drinking the first cup of it now. You can't say I'm not willing to try. Actually, if you take away the sleepiness, my mood is good, so all that needs to happen is for this coffee to work. All I need to do is stop yawning. 

I've taken some time off to write some emails and by now I'm doing much better. I'm drinking my second cup of coffee and feel more awake. I've stopped yawning and even played ball with Tyke who really wants to be walked and who I will have to take out in a little while. 

I was thinking how it is really too bad that the 'coffeeshop' is no longer around the corner so I could buy some hash to roll a joint with and have that and sleep really well from tonight. I haven't had any for a couple of years and sometimes I dream about it. It's so nice because you don't have a hangover the next day and wake up so nice and gentle. I must see if I can get some. 

I've walked Tyke and he led me on a wild goose chase. He picked up the scent of something and I let him follow it. He took us all over the place and then doubled back. I decided to take charge again and get back onto our normal route where we met a King Charles Springer Spaniel. It was a meeting of mixed feelings with both dogs, but ended up friendly. Tyke does stand his ground and is not intimidated. He's not a scared dog. The other dog was growling and wagging his tail at the same time. He couldn't make up his mind, but they did kiss and make up in the end. 

It's too late to drink any more coffee now, so I will switch to milk. I do have to sleep tonight and I hope I haven't used it all up today. At least I've saved myself from a dark and gloomy mood by sleeping. I would have been in bad shape if I had not. My sister doesn't understand this and thinks I sleep by choice and not from necessity. She thinks I ought to stay awake and doesn't realize that it's impossible. I would be a wreck if I even managed to stay awake. My sister is not a very smart woman, even though she had all that education. It was largely wasted on her. 

On that cheerful note I'm going to leave you and see what other sort of trouble I can get into. I think I'll go and put my pajamas on, so at least I'll be at that point of the proceedings. 

See you later.

Ciao,
Nora

Moving around endlessly...

After not having slept all night, I did manage to sleep for a few hours on the sofa this afternoon, because I was running out of steam and my body had to catch up with my mind that was working overtime. I didn't want to go to sleep and I fought it, but I had no other option, otherwise I would have fallen asleep behind the computer with my head on the keyboard and that leaves nasty marks on your face. 

I very dutifully laid down on the sofa and made myself go to sleep and woke up about two hours later. I made myself some coffee and slowly came to my senses, though I think I may have written a post before I completely had my wits about me. That will make for interesting reading too. It may boggle your mind, as it boggled mine when I read it later. I thought, now what in the world was I talking about? Is this woman quite in her right mind? Is there a screw loose maybe? Does something need to be fastened? 

See, I make fun of myself so you can't ahead of me. We can laugh together anyway. It is better than feeling embarrassed. I've always got to make fun of myself when I think I'm in danger of having made a blunder. I read an article about that in a woman's magazine today. The best way to deal with a blunder is to laugh about it yourself and to not take it too seriously, as long as you learn a lesson from it so you won't repeat it. I think that is good advice. 

I'm try to keep all my blogs straight and update the one that I wrote in the longest time ago. I try not to repeat myself, but write something new wherever I am. God forbid someone should actually read all 5 blogs, although I think it's not possible. I don't want to write the same story in all 5 blogs so I aim for variety. I mustn't fall into repeats, though the temptation is there at times and sometimes I will and there will be overlap. It's hard to be completely original all the time. Even the greatest diarists couldn't have done it. 

It's great when your mind is full of ideas and curiosity and goodwill and words and deeds and points of view to get across. but your body has to co-operate too. I wish I was a teenager with the endless energy of one and the capacity to sleep until noon the next day. I feel that I have so much I want to say, but I'm sluggish and I really am dragging my body through the day more than I'm willing to admit. I don't want to go to sleep, though, because I would be afraid that I would miss out on something fun that I could do. Sooner or later I have to go to bed for real, in my pajamas and under the duvet. I must try to get some sleep, even if it is only for a few hours. 

It's funny, but when I opened up ' The Choppy Sunflower' blog, there were immediate comments, as if people had been waiting for me to return and it was the most normal thing in the world that I did. There was no mention really of my long absence. I thought everybody would have forgotten me by now, but apparently that is not true. I do have followers wherever I go. It's not a multitude, but there are some people out there.

Oh hallelujah, my medicines have just started to work and I feel so much better now. What a relief that is. I was wondering if I was going to notice anything in this state of mind. I did feel a certain amount of stress that I wanted to get rid off. 

I was just out walking Tyke when we ran into the Yorkshire Terrier puppy that was also being walked. He was so enthused, that within the shortest amount of time our leashes and the fringe of my scarf had become completely entangled and we couldn't get it undone. We had to let the dogs off the leashes and mess around for a good 5 minutes before we got everything disentangled. It was actually pretty hilarious and the dogs had a good time. Tyke likes being off the leash and doesn't go anywhere. He's completely fascinated with that puppy, as he likes all puppies. I'll have to let him off the leash there more often when the other dogs are out and let him have a good run around.

Well, that's it for me for now. I wonder what I'm going to do next? How will I get through the rest of the evening? What stunts can I think of? 

Ciao,
Nora

Another day like this, please...

I tell the story in sequences on different blogs and to keep it straight for you, I suggest you go here to enjoy this part of it, though it isn't absolutely necessary, but you'd do me a big favor with it if you did. I'm also comment hungry, but that's a secret that you won't tell anyone, will you? 

I'm sitting here with a lovely cup of coffee and my cigarettes and life almost couldn't get better than this, although if I use my imagination I can think of a few other things that I'd also like a lot. All of them involve a lot of money and foreign travel and expensive hotels with room service. Yes, I do have rich tastes and should have been a capitalist and power hungry and ruthless. 

Alas, it's not in my nature to be that way myself, nor was I savvy enough to marry someone like it. I couldn't stand to be married to someone like Bill Gates and I doubt he could stand to be married to me, because I would tell him what to do with his money. I would do sensible money management and since I'm a socialist, there would be a lot of sharing of the wealth. I wouldn't just build a factory in Africa, I would build a village with an infra structure, so no shanty town would develop where people would have to live in indignity while they worked in my factory. I'm sure a lot of that is going on wherever big companies set up business.

I'll get off my soapbox, but you know where I stand on these things. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's the abuse of cheap labor and dire living circumstances for anyone. I count my blessings every day. I know how lucky I am. 

My meeting with my personal helper and my SPN went well, even though I had been nervous about it at first and was worried about how well they would get on and if there would be any friction with both of them having an interest in me, but coming from two different points of view. I need not have worried at all and we had a good and enlightening talk that was clear for everybody and that was not at all stressful or difficult. My SPN handles these things so well and I'm always impressed with her professionalism, even though she is relatively young. She doesn't have an enormous ego that gets in the way of her.

I think my personal helper feels reassured now too, because a lot has been made clear to her and she understand things better now. She got a good look inside the kitchen, sort to say. It's a great relief to me that this talk has taken place and that more talks can happen in the future if there is a need. Now both sides know what's involved and know each other. 

That's boring talk and I refuse to write about it more. I'm not in the mood for it. I want to write about different things altogether. About how incredibly nice this day is turning out to be and how happy I am to be alive and how well I feel about myself right now. I wish I could hold on to this feeling always and put it in a box to take it out for use whenever it was necessary. There should be a place where you can store spare happiness, although it is nice to be overwhelmed by it all at once. That and a 50 Euro bill can make your day. 

I have the heater turned up a little high because I was shivering although it really wasn't that cold in here. If it had been this temperature in the summer, I would have thought it was nice. Now I thought it was too chilly. There must be a draft. This morning I discovered that the domestic help had left open the bedroom window yesterday. I was wondering why it was so cold in the bedroom, but I didn't notice it behind the closed shade. Her logic escapes me. She also likes to rearrange my objects as if she's playing house and I regularly have to put things back where they belong. I do think it's kind of endearing, though. She does care enough, although she likes to put everything at an angle as if that is more artistic. She would have done well in the Baroque Age.  I put everything back straight. 

Tyke is having a good old snore. He doesn't realize that it's about time for a walk. He's too busy sleeping. It's okay with me, because I'm not exactly looking forward to going out in the cold, even though I do have that very nice scarf to wrap around my throat. The rest of me is cold, no matter how many clothes I wear. It's really going to be a problem this winter on how I'm going to manage to stay warm. I've turned into a real wimp when it comes to going out in the cold. I do so appreciate my warm apartment and the warm duvet when I go to sleep at night. As a matter of fact, I still want to get an extra cover for my bed, because I'm so cold when I first get in it. I keep my socks on. I wish I had one of my grandmother's crocheted bedspreads now. 

Tyke is awake and telling me it's time to go out. He's barking at me even, because I'm not doing what he wants. That is, get up out of this chair and put my coat on. I suppose I better go do that then. He's a bossy little dog. No manners whatsoever. Somebody didn't raise him right. 

Have a good evening!

Ciao,
Nora

A pot of strong tea...

It's early in the morning and I've run out of coffee, so I've made a pot of strong tea and it seems to be doing the job of waking me up properly too, which I had not expected, although I hoped it would do something. I've had 2 mugs of tea and feel as wide awake as if I had one mug of coffee. I am much pleased and can't believe it's working. I thought I had to sit here half asleep forever, but it's not true. 

Because I was emotionally so wiped out yesterday, I went to bed at 4 o'clock in the afternoon and slept until some time in the evening, when I briefly got up because I thought I was awake. If I had had coffee then, I would have had some and become awake, but luckily I didn't have any, so in the shortest amount of time I was back in bed and sound asleep until about 4 o'clock this morning. You could say that I slept almost 12 hours and that's a long time for me.

I feel much better this morning than I did yesterday afternoon and have courage again. Yesterday afternoon I was rapidly spiraling downwards and it was not a heck of a lot of fun. I'll spare you the details of how I tried to cope with that. I didn't do anything stupid, but I reached out and touched a lot of people. That's always kind of embarrassing afterwards. I was aided and abetted in this by my personal helper and I have to watch that as she tries her best to rescue me. There can be too much of that too. She becomes an enabler instead of a helper. She starts grasping at straws and has me grasping at them too. I have to keep my own council more.

My personal helper and I are meeting my SPN today. This was at the request of my personal helper who wants to know better how to help me and I think she will be set straight by both my SPN and me, because my personal helper seems to think that I need to be rescued somehow out of a terrible situation. She doesn't realize that I have good people working in my interest. 

Ha! The dull details of my life. Let me think of what else I can tell you. The Exfactor is coming by this morning to do the groceries and it's a good thing too, because I'm running out of things. I'm down to my last little bit of milk and I'm going to drink that shortly, although I must say that the tea doesn't make me nearly as thirsty as the coffee does. So it's true that tea is a great thirst quencher. I'll drink more of it in the future and put a couple of packages on the shopping list. It's called English Tea, but the English probably don't have it. 

Okay, I'm off to other things. 

Have a really terrific day.

Ciao,
Nora

Movement...

I need a lot of coffee, because I'm almost dozing off behind the computer and it's not nearly time to go to bed, although I am more than ready for it to be. I may go early tonight and sleep as long as I can possibly manage to make up for last night when I hardly slept at all. 

Still you would think that all that sleep this morning would have made up for it and the nap this afternoon. Apparently that didn't help at all, or I'm so tired after my little drama that I need extra sleep. I can't forget about it, because my sore wrists remind me of it constantly. I would like to completely put it out of my mind, but I'm afraid I'll have to send an email to my SPN in a little while explaining to her what happened. There's always an aftermath to deal with, isn't there? 

I'm almost embarrassed that I rapid cycled about such a little incident that took mostly place inside my own head and that had such dire consequences for me. I felt I was going to rapid cycle a while ago when the cigarettes were all gone and the coffee spilled over the desk and the ashtray. I felt like breaking down and crying, but then I thought that it was only a temporary setback that could be fixed and I could always go to sleep if I couldn't handle it. Rapidly cycling downwards is like having a nervous breakdown repeatedly. 

Rapidly cycling upwards is like repeatedly finding joy and elation at nothing at all. At just any ordinary thing and getting the most pleasure out of it that you can. Finding ecstasy, even if it lasts for only brief moments, and pure unadulterated joy that lasts for hours. It's like being high on a drug. 

I've had 2 cups of coffee and that is enough. I'm awake again. I mustn't drink any more, because I may not fall asleep tonight.  I am planning on sleeping well and not having a long night up like I did last night. That was so silly, I fell asleep behind the computer with my head on the edge of the desk. I still have a sore spot on top of my forehead. Luckily, I'm not permanently branded by it. I could have fallen asleep on the keyboard too. I wonder what sort of problems I would have gotten the computer into then? I would have given it conflicting messages. I might have had a mess on my hands. 

I was just standing by the back door, letting out Tyke, and it was cold outside. Now I am chilled to the bone and I really need a cup of hot chocolate milk, but I don't know if that works the same as caffeine. Does it? I should just give it a try, because it would warm my stomach and surroundings so nicely. It's practically a meal, a cup of hot chocolate milk. I always feel very full when I've had one. That reminds me of when I used to drink Cup a Soup. That was always very good too. I must get into that habit again now that the weather is colder. 

Well, I'm off to the microwave oven. No pots and pans required. 

Have a nice evening!

Ciao,
Nora

Go lightlly...

 The package that was supposed to get here between 9 and 12 o' clock, got here at 5 minutes before 12. Well, I suppose somebody has to get squeezed in last. I would have been ready to make a phone call at noon if it had not been here, I am that much of a stickler. The poor man did look harried and I forgave him on the spot. I'm sure he does not have an easy job delivering all those packages to uptight people who are waiting impatiently like I was. All those harassed housewives who want to try on their new clothes and other assorted customers whose addresses he has to find.

I took my package into the bedroom immediately before Tyke could rip it out of my hands, because he thinks everything is for him that gets delivered, and got out the black mini skirt and the leggings that I wanted to wear with my new purchases. They are a black T-shirt with a draped neckline and it is draped going down too, so you mustn't pull it down too tightly otherwise you lose the effect, and a very modern looking cardigan that reaches down in long points down the front, which are edged in a braid in the same material and which look very neat. 

So I put that all on right away and my earrings too and felt smashing. It was even better than I had hoped for. I do know which clothes I like and what looks good on me. I zero in on those things right away and instinctively know that I should get them. No, I don't have a big head at all, just a super inflated ego. Ha! You see how incredibly vain I am, don't you? 

I was just outside with Tyke for the second time and it was pretty cold. There was quite a bit of wind and now it has started to rain, so there go my plans to hang up the sheets and pillow cases on the clothing line.

My sister just called me to tell me that she and her boyfriend were going to the thermal baths at the spa and to tell me how cozy they had it last night together with her daughter, while I thought she was calling me to invite me over, because when I answered the phone, I said, "Yes, that will be fine."  She didn't ask me what I meant by that and I felt like a fool. 

I'm afraid I'm feeling awfully sorry for myself right now, because I'm never invited for anything. I'm not included in my sister's very busy social life at any point, while she has so much to go around. The Exfactor also does not include me in his, even though we shared the same people. I think people aren't very generous and are mostly concerned with themselves and don't think what it's like for me to always be alone. Nobody ever thinks, let's ask Irene over, she could use some diversion. 

I'm rapidly cycling downwards now and I'm sitting here crying, but it has a cause. The cause is my pity party. I'm sitting here all dressed up with no place to go and that is what it finally comes down to. It doesn't matter what I look like, there's no one to look at me and tell me I look pretty. 

Ciao,
Nora

Something went pop...

A while ago, I heard something go pop in the kitchen and the refrigerator shut off. I also lost my Internet connection. I went to check things out and indeed, the refrigerator wasn't working and all the lights on the modem were out. Mmm...

I called the Exfactor and posed my problem to him. He told me to check the extension box that both the refrigerator and the modem were plugged into in the kitchen closet where the hot water boiler is also. I picked it up and water ran out of it. 

The Exfactor said that he had expected as much because of the water ballet he had had when he last had to fill the heating system. Water had sprayed all over the place. He told me to get a different extension box and plug the cords into it and it into the wall and then to check the fuses in the electric meter. 

I did all of that and made sure the buttons in the middle of the fuses were pushed in, but I still didn't get my power back on the refrigerator and the modem. Everything else seemed to be working. 

I called back the Exfactor and told him I was sorry, but that I was not smart enough to figure out the problem from that point forward because I was used to an American system and I didn't understand the fuses and the switches. He said not to worry, that he would be there as soon as he could. 

I took Tyke for a stroll to the mailbox to mail some letters and after that made a phone call to a friend and then the Exfactor was here. He looked at the electric meter and discovered that there was one old fashioned fuse in it that had popped and that needed to be replaced. Well, who ever heard of such a system? I've never had to deal with it. 

He went to the hardware store and came back with new fuses and I had him show me how to replace it just in case something like it happens again, though the Exfactor swore it wouldn't because he had improved the heating water filling system. Which is true, he has, I've seen it with my own eyes. Apparently it doesn't work quite as perfectly as we would like yet. 

The good part is that the modem and the refrigerator are working again, so the story has a happy ending and I asked the Exfactor if I could give him a big kiss for that and I could. All is well, that ends well. 

Ciao,
Nora

How I made a mess...

I still had Ubuntu installed on this computer and in my effort to uninstall it, I wiped everything off the hard drive, Windows XP and Ubuntu. That's when you get too smart for yourself and start messing around in systems where you have no business being. When you only half understand what you are doing.

I switched the computer off and started it up again and got the message that I had to reboot by inserting the device and pressing any key. Well, the only device I had was the Ubuntu installation CD, so I inserted that and installed the program. Since it was so old, it had to download over 600 new packages of software to update it. So I very patiently did that. All went well, no hitches.

Then I noticed that I could update to the latest 10.04 edition and did I want to do that? I thought, sure, why not. While I'm doing this, I may as well do it right. I had to download 1,604 packages of software and it was going to take a little over an hour. I did that, waited patiently, drank some coffee, smoked some cigarettes, and yes, it did everything it was supposed to do.

Next, it had to install everything and clean up the system. That took another hour or so, but everything went very smoothly. I couldn't believe my luck. I entered my user name and password and could get started. I started up Firefox and opened up all the tab pages that I was going to need with all the websites on them.

Having done that, I opened up the email program and added all the relevant information to start receiving and sending emails. That almost went perfectly from the beginning. I made an error, but knew how to fix it, and everything was fine after that. I do still have to enter everyone's email address and that's going to be a lot of work. I'm not looking forward to that.

So, there really was no hitch, you see? Except that now Ubuntu is my only running program and that Windows XP has disappeared.  When I shut the computer off for the first time, I was afraid to turn it back on again and get some sort of awful message that I would have to reboot the system all over again, but apparently updating it has worked beautifully.

I took a sleeping pill and went to bed and slept until 2 pm and Tyke ate my cigarettes and lighter that I had forgotten to put away, so that's my own fault. He would do something like that when tempted. He didn't actually eat them, but rip them apart into small pieces that I found on my bed and the floor beside it. I never hear a thing, sound asleep as I am.

It was a slightly hypo manic night, I think you could say that. I'm feeling fairly normal now, but I don't know how the rest of the day will go. Now that I have Ubuntu again, I will be drawn to the computer even more than I usually am because of curiosity. I'm not going to do anything really out of the ordinary with it, but I did download Foxsaver for the pretty photos. I don't have any images yet in my folder of images, so I must do something about that. Therefor these posts will go without pretty pictures for a while.

I must get the show on the road now and be a good dog owner and apartment dweller. I can't sit here all afternoon, much as I'd like to. There are some jobs waiting for me that must be done before I can enter the email addresses into that program.

Have a good rest of the day and try to stay away from your hard drive or whatever in the world it is called. I get those terms mixed up and I have no one to ask.

Ciao,
Nora

Thursday morning...

If you look at the links in the right hand corner of my blog, you will see that one of them has a different name. If you click on that one, you will read the explanation as to why that is. I'm too wiped out to repeat it here. I'm just not going to do it.

I'm sitting here with my last cup of coffee and I really ought to go to bed because I haven't seen the underside of the duvet yet and I would like to put my head down on the pillows. But I'm too tired to go to sleep. I must get into the proper sleeping mode first and I haven't quite figured out how to get into it yet.

Outside the sun is shining and the sky seems to be all blue, at least what I can see of it. There is a bit of a wind blowing, however, and that does not entice me to go outside. Luckily, Tyke is still sound asleep. I will have to get dressed shortly and take him out, but I'm trying to put that out of my mind for now. Actually, I really hope that he'll be happy to just go out back and that I'll not have to get dressed. I do need to go to bed sooner or later.

I've had an adventurous night which I'll tell you about another time, if I can bear it. You haven't heard the ending of it yet. How I fumbled and failed and maybe came through after all. I do do some dumb things sometimes. I truly am the proverbial dumb blond. Maybe I should color my hair so it's not so obvious.

I'm going to bed so that I can sleep and wake up thinking straight. I'm too tired to do a good job of it now. First I'll see if I can get Tyke to do a piddle out back. Hopefully he'll be co-operative.

Have a good day!

Ciao,
Nora

Up early in the morning...

I'm having my cups of coffee and my cigarettes and have just written a post for my other blog The Unquiet Mind. Please go have a look, it is an update on my psychiatric situation. Much too serious a subject to discuss here, where I want to keep it somewhat lighthearted, although it may not always seem that way. I must admit that I do on occasion get serious here too, but I don't always set out to be, whereas on the other blog, I always do. I hasten to add, though, that you will not fall over with boredom if you read it. Besides, I need the traffic there, because it seems to be my orphaned blog and not a lot of people have made the link yet.

I didn't get a lot of sleep. I was up late working on the LibraryThing website, adding the proper covers to the books on my lists of books and it was a lot of fun. It became somewhat addictive and each time I said to myself that I would do one more page and stop, only to do another page after that. At one point I just had to stop because I was too tired, but I stopped reluctantly and I will finish the job today if I get the chance. I don't nearly have all the books I have ever read listed there, but at least the ones for the past 6 years or so and maybe more. I did go through a period when I read ferociously and read a huge amount of books in a couple of years time. Some of these books I don't remember now at all and I will have to reread them and a bunch of them are on my wish list at bol.com. Which reminds me that I still have to reorganize the bookcase.

I didn't sleep late, but got up in a half stupor, very sleepy and barely able to make coffee, but in a good mood, feeling very sleep wobbly and cozy. I sat and had my first cup behind the computer and managed to write an email that was very simple and I felt oh, so good in my warm bathrobe. Soon enough I had a second cup and the caffeine started to work and woke me up properly. 

There is a difference between Fair Trade coffee and the regular coffee I get. The Fair Trade coffee seems to be lower in caffeine and doesn't wake me up nearly as well. I don't know how that would be done, if that is possible, but it seems to be so. Maybe the beans are roasted differently and the Fair Trade coffee is not as intense. 

I have no appointments and the only exciting thing about today is that it is payday. That means I get to pay bills. That's always the saddest thing about having money in my bank account. Watching chunks of it disappear. I do have a free day and must take advantage of it and hope that the weather is halfway decent so I can take the dog for a few long walks, because it seems to do him good and it doesn't hurt me either. It did rain on and off yesterday and during the night and everything is awfully wet and dripping. It's not going to be very warm either and more rain is expected, so we may not be able to make great expeditions. We'll have to see how much the sky clears up. 

I must go back to bed now, as I'm falling asleep in my desk chair. I need to sleep for at least another 5 hours. At least I have the time to do it. I have nowhere to go. Had I been smarter. I would have gone back to bed in the middle of the night when I was still so sleepy, but I had to be stubborn and get up. I do get a kick out of the most unusual things. Being half stoned with sleep and sitting behind the computer, for example. 

Have a good morning!

Ciao,
Nora

A misconception...

I managed to sleep for more than 7 hours last night, although I did get up to go to the toilet once. I was smart enough to go back to bed, but I woke up when I couldn't catch my breath and was having breathing problems, which would be the sleep apnea acting up. I got up then and looked at the alarm clock and decided that I had slept enough and that it was okay to start the day and go have a cup of coffee. 

So far that's all I've had, one cup of coffee, and I'm undecided if I will have another one. There's enough for one more cup in the pot and I think I may as well have it, though the desire is not great like it usually is. I used to drink coffee as if it were the elixir of life and I don't have that anymore now. Not since I've stopped taking my sleeping pill and on top of that, I'm sleeping better too.

I was out walking Tyke last night and found it very cold. I'm just not used to it anymore and can't imagine it getting colder than this. My legs don't feel warm enough in the leggings and pretty soon I'll have to start wearing knitted tights underneath them.

There seems to be some idea that I can't write about my memories here from when I was a child. That somehow this is going to be damaging to me and that by doing so I will become a sorrowful heap of sadness who won't be able to get through the rest of the day. I have to tell you that this is not true and that writing down these memories can be very liberating. I am, after all, exposing the experience for the farce that it was and the culprit for the bully they were. All of it was a farce, of which I was unfortunately the victim, but that is how I look back on it now. I was a child, but very much aware that something was majorly wrong with the picture. That I was ruled by imbeciles and the main goal in  my life was to become an adult as quickly as possible and be free of them. Now, it is true that this backfired on me, but the intention was there. 

Enough said about that. 

Tyke was very bad during the night and pulled my clothes off the rattan chair and chewed on my bra and my boots. I got very angry with him, but I don't think he is impressed. Now I have to leave my clothes in the bathroom where he can't get to them, but he also pulled a book off the shelf and chewed on it. He's being especially destructive lately, even though I take him for more walks. I think he wants more attention from me and it is possible that he's not getting enough of that. I have been preoccupied and he must sense that my mind is not on the job. 

Today is the first Monday that I'm also getting a personal helper besides on Fridays and I'm looking forward to it. She will motivate me to get things done and be company for me. Getting things done is the most important thing, such as taking a shower and washing my hair and finding new clothes to wear, which are important things to start the week with. I have a hard time getting the show on the road on Mondays and I also realized just now that I have to stop taking my tranquilizers in the morning, because they make me feel too tired and they slow me down. So I do need to drink some more coffee and hope they wear off soon. I won't take any this afternoon. I think I have enough in my system and it will be a good time to start reducing them. 

Right, I have to get going. I have to pick up the pieces of the destroyed book and clean up the kitchen. It does have to look as though I care a little bit. 

Ciao,
Nora 



 

 

Forget-me-nots.

 I found it impossible to write a cheerful post here yesterday. I tried it a few times but it was to no avail. Each time I got maybe one paragraph done and that was it. Then I sat and pondered the screen for a while until my screen saver came on and I knew nothing would come of the post I had planned to write. I was just not cheerful enough. I was mostly sleepy and took naps on the sofa and in bed. Actually, taking naps is a good thing when your mood is not co-operating. It is the best way to see you through it.

It was cold out and I couldn't get warm enough inside either, although the thermometer said it was 20C degrees. At one point, I wore my bathrobe over my clothes to get warm. I think I can't quite trust my thermometer. I have all the windows closed now and sometimes turn on the heater, though I try to be frugal with it and only turn it on if it's absolutely necessary. I doesn't help to sit here and have cold drinks. They cool off your whole body. I must remember to buy stuff to make hot chocolate with. That would be wonderful. I think I've already promised myself that before and forgot about it. I must put it on the shopping list.

Today is Sunday and a wonderful day to contemplate my navel and to sit and do nothing special at all, although I do have to get dressed to walk Tyke. I slept for 7 hours this morning, after I had gotten up in the middle of the night, and I feel very refreshed. I must try to go to bed quicker and get more sleep in. I don't always have the luxury of staying in bed so late, people do come and go during the week. I will make it a point to only stay up for a little while during the night and go back to bed sooner.

I have so many good intentions and then a lot of them fall by the wayside or only get halfway accomplished. I make them work to some point, at any rate to a point that I can live with them and be somewhat comfortable, but never to the point that they are perfectly worked out. There are always loose ends and unattained goals. I suppose that's my modus operandus. I live with them until I reach the point where I can't and I should have had a better system in place that would have supported me better.

I just got dressed and took Tyke out. It is cold outside and you really need gloves. It's 6C degrees and overcast. Still, there are people out for a Sunday stroll with their kids. You do have to get some fresh air on a Sunday. That's what the day is for. I remember that clearly from when I was a kid. We always went out for an afternoon stroll on Sundays. Sometimes we had a goal and sometimes we didn't. Usually it was some café to get a drink at. Tea or hot chocolate when it was cold. A cold soda when it was warm. And a beer for my father. Always a beer. He was a repressed alcoholic. In the closet, where my mother kept him by sheer willpower.

I remember my mother hitting my head once when we came home from one of these walks. I was standing on the door mat and she hit my head for not wiping my feet. My head hit the head of my cousin who stood next to me very hard. It was so demeaning. My mother didn't like me very much. I'll never forget that incident. It was a perfect example of her taking out her frustrations on me, the black sheep.

I mustn't get too bogged down in those memories. They are interesting to hold to the light, but I mustn't get lost in them. There is the here and now, today.

It's time for me to get something to eat. I'm starting to yawn from hunger and I'm getting cold too. I do think I should turn up the heater a bit now. I think I'll have a glass of warm milk to heat my old bones and raid the refrigerator for some protein.

Have a good evening!

Ciao,
Nora

Something completely normal...

It's in the very early hours of the morning and I feel like writing about very ordinary things, although I don't know how many ordinary things I have in me to write about. I want to get one thing out of the way first: that theory about me being up in the middle of the night because of my mother's murder? I am dismissing that whole idea right now and I'm not going to pursue it. Pretend I never even brought it up and that it has remained unmentioned, because I was on the wrong track. It was a misguided attempt at trying to find an explanation for a problem, but I think it is not the right one. I probably am not going to bring it up again.

Now, on to ordinary things. That's a little bit harder than I assumed it would be, because I have to take a whole different direction in my head. I will start with the fact that I'm sitting here with a glass of cold milk, but that I'm going to switch to coffee in a little while because I think I need it in order to function better. I was very thirsty, that's why I'm drinking the milk, but it doesn't do much for my spirit. It's too bad that cow milk does not have a magic uplifting ingredient like coffee does. It's so benign.

I've switched to a nice mug of coffee and I should feel the benefits of that quickly. Before you know it, I will be a perfectly well functioning human being. I won't have to fake it like I was doing up to now.

I have to decide which clothes I'm going to wear today and all I can think is that they need to be warm, so I must wear layers. There's a great desire to keep wearing the knitted black cardigan, but a body does want some variation once in a while, so I'll go to my closet and see what jumps out at me. I'm not depressed yet if I care about what I look like and I feel like wearing something bright, which is a good sign. The more colorful I am, the cheerier I am, or at least I'm making that effort.

I'm very glad that today is Friday, which is a day that I consider to be the serious run up to the weekend. The weekend starts for me at 2:30 this afternoon. That's when the domestic help leaves and when I'll have a clean apartment all to myself and hardly any obligations beside the usual chores that always need to get done. I do look forward to the somewhat unstructured days and the empty hours that I can fill as I please. I'm out of the pressure cooker, which my psychiatrist says I always live in.

The Exfactor is coming by today and I made sure that he knew not to come by when my personal helper is here, because he always forgets about that and shows up at the wrong time. It's just a little bit awkward to have them here at the same time, although he's always welcome for a cup of coffee. Speaking of coffee, I have the bottle of vinegar ready on the kitchen counter to run through the machine, because when I ask for 6 cups it only gives me 5, so I think it is time to clean it. I have had the coffee maker longer than a month and that is how often they recommend that you clean it when you have hard water.

It is because of all the limestone in the region that our water is so hard. There are whole cave systems in the hills where you can have guided tours, but many unofficial ones too where people can get lost and not find their way out. It's kind of a sport to go into them with a torch. Every once in a while a road sinks into a cave because the rainwater has worn away the roof of it. And remember, we call a hill a mountain. You would too if the rest of your country was flat and below sea level. When I was a child, there was a place in the forest where there were a few hilly sand dunes and we called this place 'Little Switzerland.' We were used to so little, there were even postcards of it.

Imagine my surprise when I was 15 and went to the Black Forest in the south of Germany and saw mountains for the first time. I immediately felt at home there and didn't want to leave. I felt like I belonged there and wanted to stay forever. We traveled all around the region and it was beautiful. I cried when we had to go home again. I saw those flat Dutch meadows of the north with their wet ditches and thought it was the most ugly place in the world. My heart was broken. I found out much later that the Black Forest was where some of my ancestors came from. It was in my genes.

I have an hour and a half left to go until dawn. The day is not creeping up on me yet, but soon will be. I'm feeling the restlessness of it already and have just taken my medicines and they should work shortly. I have to try and decide how long I'm going to sit here in my bathrobe, but I guess that's really up to Tyke and his early morning wishes. He's still asleep now, but soon enough he'll come to his senses and let me know that it's time to go out. I have to time my shower before or after.

Actually, there aren't any hard rules and I can plan it any way I wish, so I shouldn't fret ahead of time, but just let the scenario unfold as it will. I have to start thinking outside of the box more often. I do wish that would come more naturally to me instead of wearing it like a foreign costume. I'm an overanxious planner and worrier when I should be more carefree. I do have lots of opportunities to be it.

Allez, that's enough of that. I'm off to prepare myself for the day. I'll raid the closet first. I've got to find my denim mini skirt so I can alluringly show off my legs in their leggings. Yeah, right! Some people will do anything to get attention.

Have a good day!

Ciao,
Nora

So what else is up?

I changed my profile picture because after I cut my my hair, it looks more like that now than it looked like the former. I also think I look younger in it, so my deed was not without second intentions. If I find any pictures in which I look younger still, I'll probably post one of them. I'll have you believe I'm a young middle aged woman yet instead of this aged one. I'll slowly creep back in time and undergo a metamorphosis.

I have hurricane proof hair and it's so hard and spiky that I can poke your eye out. That's just a temporary condition to get it to sit in place this morning. I used hairspray on it when it was still wet and now it's like it's cemented. I have to brush it to get the dangerous elements out and soften it up again. It will definitely stay in place now, there's no danger of even one hair going in the wrong direction or lying down too flat.

I was awakened to the irritating sound of the alarm clock at 8:30. That meant it had been going off for some time, because I had set it for 8 o'clock. I only had slept for two and a half hours, because I had been up the whole night. Somehow I managed to get out of bed and make myself some coffee and drink it quickly so I would come to my senses in the shortest amount of time. I had another cup as fast as I could and I recovered from my stupor in a hurry while I also smoked some cigarettes. All I had to do was get dressed and hop on my bike to go to the clinic to see my psychiatrist. I had one hour and ten minutes to pull myself together before I had to leave. That was enough time to ponder all the bigger questions in life and get dressed.

I had developed a theory about my not being able to sleep during the night and it had to do with a subject that I don't like to think about, let alone discuss on this blog. I always thought that I woke up around 2 am because my sleeping pill was done working and that I wanted to be up because it was the most peaceful time for me to be awake. The fact that I went to bed at 6 am and slept well for a couple of hours, I blamed on the fact that I was trying to postpone the day and all the pressures of it. Until I really tried to sleep through the night and found that such an awful experience and had those awful nightmares.

The theory has to do with the murder of my mother, which to this day is the most shocking and traumatic thing that has ever happened to me. My whole life long I had a fear that one day my father would kill my mother. I had this fear since I was a small child and thought I could prevent it from happening. I thought I had the necessary psychological skills and bravery to prevent it. This fear never left me and just before my father actually killed my mother, I felt the fear very strongly.

My father prowled around the house at night very quietly. Some people had said to my mother that she should put a lock on her bedroom door, but for some reason she never did this. I don't know why not. I don't know why she thought she was safe in her sleep when she was in fact at her most vulnerable. My father killed her in the early morning hours, very brutally, with a hammer and a knife. He then smoked a cigarette in the bathroom and after that very calmly called the police and told them what he had done.

I discussed this theory about why I'm not able to sleep during the night with my psychiatrist and he thinks it is very likely that this is the cause of my sleepless nights and that it is something that needs to be worked on very seriously, especially since my dreams take on such gruesome forms.Which goes to show you that some things get easier with time and some things get worse. It all depends on how you've dealt with them.

I made a new appointment and my psychiatrist said that he would inform my SPN whom I have an appointment with on Tuesday. He said that considering the circumstances and the fact that I had been rapid cycling, which was his diagnosis, he would not change anything in my medication, as that might bring about the onset of another bout of it.

Writing about this subject makes me very uncomfortable and I feel that I need to move on to something else as quickly as possible. It's like dragging old skeletons out of the closet without getting anyone's permission, but I'm afraid that it's stuck in my head now and I don't know what else to write about. It makes me infinitely sad and I can push that away as I usually do, but it will just put me back into the same position. I am planning on going to sleep at a normal time tonight and I will see what happens. Maybe a little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

I am tired in a really good exhausted way. I feel like I've done a lot of work and am at the end of it, while I'm really only at the beginning.

Have a good night, everyone. 

Ciao,
Nora

It's cold outside...

Today I was forced to change from my tank top and my pretty red cardigan into a turtleneck sweater and a knitted black cardigan, and when I went out to walk Tyke in the afternoon, I wore my warmer brown leather jacket with my big blue scarf doubled up around my neck. I had been freezing my buns off when I met my friend Lucienne for coffee at a café where there was the only non heated terrace in town with the wind blowing right on it and we sat and shivered at the table because we both smoke and didn't want to go inside.

Neither one of us was dressed warm enough, because this kind of weather was not forecast. We wore fall clothes and what we really needed were winter clothes. We should have worn gloves, that's how cold it was. There had been no sunshine in the morning, so the world had not gotten a chance to heat up. On top of that, we were at a café across the station, which is a notorious place for being windy. It wasn't my choice for having a cup of coffee, but that's the way it worked out. We both had appointments with our therapists at the same time and met afterwards and Lucienne had made arrangements to be picked up at that café.

I had to ride my bike home in the cold and swore at myself for being so thinly dressed when I knew ahead of time from the Exfactor that it was cold outside. He had arrived in the morning on his motorcycle complaining that it was cold and he doesn't complain quickly. He had also needed to wear extra clothing. His long johns for one thing. I'm never going to wear thin clothes again from this point onward. It will be double layers from now on and always my thick blue scarf and I will put my gloves in my pocket and look for new ones to buy to match my scarf so that I will be color co-ordinated. You do have to give consideration to these things even if you are cold.

My appointment with my SPN went alright, except that we talked about me getting up in the middle of the night and my subconscious desire to want be up then and to not want to be asleep, although I expressed my wish to want to sleep all night long. Apparently I so enjoy my time during the night that I have programmed myself to be awake after I go to the toilet. The thing to try to do is to go back to sleep immediately and to not even get up for a cigarette and a glass of milk. I wish I had that desire in me, but I have such a big wish to be awake. I don't know what role my dreams play in it.

Tonight I have to try to sleep through the night because I have an appointment at 10 o'clock in the morning with my psychiatrist. I will not have the opportunity to get up and go back to bed and sleep late. So tonight is a test to see if I can do it and sleep decently until the alarm clock goes off and what dreams I will have. I had very sad and complicated dreams this morning and I have to think about them all day long and wonder what they mean. Maybe I make too much of them.

This morning I only had decaf left to drink and let me tell you, that does not work if you are used to regular coffee. I sat here in a stupor, yawning and trying to get my head to clear up while trying to make conversation with the Exfactor. I was nearly incapable of it. I hardly got a word out. Then he went grocery shopping and I walked Tyke and when he got back, the first thing I did was make a pot of coffee and have a cup immediately. It was as if a miracle took place and I became coherent again and my mood improved by a multitude. Actually, the Exfactor became more talkative too, so it had an effect on him also, so decaf was not working for both of us. Apparently he had not had enough coffee yet either.

The Exfactor accidentally bought Fair Trade coffee. He thought it was priced cheaply and didn't find out it was 2 Euros more expensive per pack until he got to the cash register. I had never bought it, but my sister buys it and I always think her coffee tastes bad, so it was with some amount of trepidation that I made the pot of coffee, thinking that it wasn't going to taste as good as the coffee I normally get. But I have to tell you that it was fine and tasted good, so it is all in how well you make it. Apparently my sister doesn't know how to make a good pot of coffee. I use one rounded tablespoon per cup and I think I possibly make strong coffee, but that's the way I like it. Everybody else seems to think so also. I would love to buy Fair Trade coffee all the time, but it would add 4 Euros a week to my grocery bill and I can't afford that. Poor people can't afford to buy ecologically and biologically sound products. We just have to do without. I just can't do without coffee.

I just took Tyke for his last walk of the day. The wind has stopped blowing as much and now it's just pleasantly cold. That thick scarf sure is a pleasure to wear, but I notice that I really need a warmer winter coat, so I will have to save up my money for it, or wear more layers of clothing. I had forgotten what it feels like to be cold and this is just the beginning. I don't mind as much if the wind doesn't blow, but that's the culprit. I still don't have the heater turned on, because  it's still warm inside. The sun shines through the living room windows in the afternoon and heats it up in here. I have closed the bedroom windows because it was getting too cold with them open at night. I was freezing my butt off when I got undressed in the evening when I went to bed. The back of the apartment is in the shade, so definitely cooler and the windows don't have double glazing.

I'm going to cut the top of my hair in a little while. The rest of it has been cut short, but I didn't have the top cut short enough. I can do it myself easily with sharp enough scissors and save 15 Euros, or look ridiculous, but I don't think so, because I used to cut my own hair all the time. I looked at my friend Lucienne's hair today and realized that mine was too long. Hers was shorter and perkier and made her look younger and was better styled. My hair is unruly and hard to tame and only in good shape when it's just been cut. So, before I put my pajamas on I will do that.

Have a good evening, everyone and tell me about your weather.

Ciao,
Nora

On succesfully being awake and living to tell about it.

Although I had a big mouth this morning about getting dressed and going out early to walk Tyke, I did no such thing, but went to bed instead and slept for 4 hours. The prospect of going out in the cold morning air wasn't all that appealing when I considered my warm and cozy bed and the sleepiness that suddenly started enfolding me. I decided to do the easiest thing first and get a few hours of sleep before I became an active and responsible dog owner. I set the alarm clock so I would not stay in bed too long and fell asleep almost instantly with Tyke by my side. I guess he was okay with the whole plan and he snuggled up quite cozily. 

When I got up, I made myself the obligatory coffee and smoked some cigarettes. Waking up wasn't too hard and I hardly had any cobwebs. I had two cups of coffee and I didn't feel discombobulated at all. Then Tyke and I got ready to walk to the tobacco shop with baggies in my pocket and my wallet in my purse. Tyke likes the walk there, because it allows him to explore some different territory and to pee against different trees and bushes and to hopefully find edible items when we pass the little shops. He is an equal opportunity eater because he eats from the fish monger and the Arab grocer. 

When we got to the tobacco shop, it was closed due to illness, so we had to turn around and go home again, because I could not take Tyke to the supermarket. I took a different route home, thinking that would be exciting for Tyke and I was not mistaken. There were many good trees that needed to be thoroughly sniffed and examined and very regularly there was something minuscule on the sidewalk that needed to be closely looked at and tasted. Tyke lies down and makes himself into a dead weight that refuses to budge and can't be moved without you looking like an animal abuser. So you stand and wait until he's done. I have to have patience. Luckily, I had little kids once and I've been well trained. 

I did chores when I got home, because my domestic help was coming and I do want to look like someone who cares and empties her ashtrays and folds her laundry. It was my very own Monday domestic help that was coming, so I was very happy about that. I picked up the place as much as I could without actually cleaning it and sorted out all the things that needed to be sorted. I even tackled the mail and it was all good mail. I was supposed to have done this yesterday, but I chickened out at the last moment. My excuse was that it was Sunday then and not a day to worry about bills.

I rode my bike to the supermarket in the afternoon, in the bright sunshine, in the somewhat chilly temperatures, and made copies of my passport and birth certificate for my daughter who is applying for a Dutch passport. We are in the preliminaries and many certified copies of documents will have to be sent. I also bought tobacco and filter tubes and managed to retrieve my bike out of the overfull bike rack without damaging it and without pulling a lot of other bikes out with it. It's the handlebars that get caught. It's like when you have a box full of clothes hangers and you want to pull one out and they all get caught in each other and you pull them all out.

I just took Tyke out for another walk and we went to the field. There was a little Yorkshire Terrier puppy running around and it was love at first sight. I've never seen such a thing. That puppy looked like he was attached to a rubber band and hopped up and down around Tyke quicker than a ping pong ball. Tyke was mesmerized. I think he would like a little puppy of his own. Oh, I mustn't even think about it.

I'm getting awfully tired and must think about going to bed. I haven't had that much sleep. It will be nice to lie in bed and read for a while and hopefully remember to hide my book from Tyke. 

Have a good night everyone. 

Ciao,
Nora

For the better part of it...

I woke up after a couple of hours of sleep and was wide awake. I got up immediately and didn't even try to stay in bed and go back to sleep. All I could think was, "Get up, get up, and make the most of it." I didn't want to stay in bed and struggle with sleep and nightmares and tossing and turning, when I could be up and have a good time behind the computer in the quiet time of the middle of the night. I realize that now I have to catch up on my sleep during the day or otherwise pay a terrible price in the form of a depression, but I've got the whole morning to sleep and I assume I will get tired toward the dawn. 

I now realize why I don't like sleeping during the night. It's those nightmares and the tossing and turning and the feeling that the night seems to last forever and be a matter of hard labor that turns me off. That headache I woke up with in the morning, and that I thought had disappeared with the first cup of coffee, returned in full force and lasted all day until I took a paracetamol with codeine. I'm sure it is a stress headache and not a migraine, and several times my neck cracked when I turned it, but I don't think you're supposed to get stress from sleeping. The nightmares bothered me very much and I didn't want a repeat of that.

I did last well all day, though, and didn't feel the need for a nap and my mood was good all day long. I even changed my clothes and got properly dressed and put earrings in. It does feel good to look nice and feel as if you've pulled yourself together, even if it is only for your own benefit and to walk the dog in. At least I enjoyed walking the dog several times, regardless of the never ending sameness of the scenery and it wasn't a chore like it sometimes is. Walking a dog in the suburbs can be very non-challenging and boring. I'm sure it isn't that much fun for the dog either, although he seems to make a big deal out of it and is always tracking something. Maybe he gets a bigger kick out of it than I do and I'm projecting my feelings onto him. 

I have to set the alarm clock for 10 am, because the tobacco shop is only open in the morning on Mondays. I must get my own brand of tobacco, because anything else doesn't taste as good and is thrown away money. The stuff they sell at the supermarket isn't half as nice and comes in inferior containers that have a lot of crumb in them. I guess you could say that when it comes to tobacco, I am a connoisseur and that's why I have it specially ordered. 

I have just taken my morning medication and am waiting for that to work. I should be more relaxed in just a while. Subconsciously a lot of tension creeps in as the day grows nearer. I start to worry about how the day will go and about the things I'm supposed to do and I always feel like I'm not up to doing them. They overwhelm me, simple as they are. I'm starting to get a headache and I guess that's the new way the stress is going to manifest itself.

I'm waiting to get tired now. I expect I'll get sleepy soon, but I don't feel it yet. I think I will wait until it's time to take Tyke for a walk and then maybe go to bed. It's cold outside and the cool air should do wonders for my headache. It will shock it right back to where it came from. 

Have a good morning.

Ciao,
Nora

Sleeping successfully...

I finally did it. I managed to sleep for 12 hours, with one minor break in it at one point during the night. I slept so much that, when I first got up this morning, I had a headache from it. It was cured pretty quickly with a cup of coffee. I got up during the night and was very disappointed, thinking I would be up for hours. I got a glass of milk and smoked a cigarette and answered some emails and went back to bed, very determined to fall asleep again, and I did. 

I did have the most awful dreams about the American War for Independence and death and mutilation and murder. It was all very graphic and gruesome and I felt the pain in my sleep. I don't know why I have to dream about such violent things. They are what I am most scared of. A whole night's worth of sleep sure gives you the opportunity to dream a lot and my imagination apparently knows no bounds. All I can tell you is that dying by bullet is a kinder way to go than dying by sword or knife. 

Now it very happily is Sunday, the day of rest, and I am more than ready for it. All I have to do is go to the gas station to buy cigarettes, because with all that sleeping I did during the day yesterday, I forgot to go to the tobacco shop and I've used up the last crumbs of tobacco to make myself some cigarettes. I will not let that spoil the day, however, and I'm planning to make the most of it. The church bells are joyfully ringing and the sun is shining and it promises to be a nice day. 

Actually, it is the kind of day that makes you want to go to Ikea and buy things for your apartment to liven it up, because the drive over there is pretty too and it is so much fun to walk around in the store and to covet all the things that are on display. Alas, the budget does not allow it, unless I go rob the gas station and I'm too law abiding to do that. Imagine having the nerve to do that and having to live with the knowledge afterwards. I think I could only get away with robbing a really rich Arab of his pocket money, lol. But he probably only carries credit cards. 

The Exfactor was just here on his way to Belgium to see how I was doing. I think that was very kind of him, because the last time I talked to him on the phone I was not doing so well. Luckily, I only needed to mention rapid cycling and sleep and he understood what was going on because we've been through this before. I made a new pot of coffee and we smoked my last two cigarettes. You can't say that I don't share. It was good to seem him and I was glad he came by so unexpectedly. 

This did necessitate a quick trip to the gas station to replenish my supply of cigarettes and I hopped on my bike in the bright sunshiny day. I needed a jacket, but the sky was bright blue and everywhere there were people out enjoying the day, pretending it was still summertime and dressed in a variety of clothes, the more optimistic ones with bare arms. It isn't really that warm outside yet, but if you are in the sun and out of the wind, it is pleasant. The Dutch adore the sun and seek it out even when it is cool outside. 

I'm carelessly dressed and just put on what was lying in the chair in my bedroom. I'm not even wearing earrings.This morning I didn't give a hoot. I didn't even bother very much with my hair, which was sticking up and which I sort of got into shape with a comb and some hairspray. I couldn't be bothered and I think a person ought to be allowed days like that too. I would wear sweat pants and a T-shirt if I had those. Or an old pair of jeans and a flannel shirt. It's really too bad that you can't get away dressing like that over here. You always have to look presentable, even when you're having an off day. Even if you're dressed casually, you have to look good, like you put some thought into it. I will put together a better outfit in a minute because I have to walk the dog and I'm sure the dog cares. Lol. 

Boy, sleeping nights sure is a lot of work. I feel like I've done a lot of labor and that the night lasted a long time. I hope it gets easier, because it's not something I look forward to now. All night long I was very much aware that I had to sleep and that I had to stay in bed and that I was uncomfortable doing so, and then those dreams!

Allez, I'm going to change my clothes and walk the dog. It will be nice out and good to get some fresh air. I'm sure the dog will enjoy it too. 

Have a very good day!

Ciao,
Nora








 

Rapid Cycling...

I got up during the night, although I had vowed not to do that. I wrote a post about that experience, justifying it and making it look like it was not such a bad thing to do at all, and that I could really handle it and that it was unlikely to cause me any problems. That post was, in fact, a load of bullshit and I realized that in the morning and deleted it. I know there were people who read it and I'm sorry that they did, because they must have had their doubts about me and my sensibility. 

I did go back to bed after I wrote that post and slept another few hours, but after I had been up for a little while, I rapidly started to cycle downwards into a depression. At first I didn't realize the cause and the effect and I thought I was doomed to have another bad day. I didn't know what to do and thought maybe the medication I was taking was all wrong for me and that all sorts of things about it would have to be changed. 

I walked Tyke and then tried to concentrate on watching some cultural programs on TV, but it didn't alter my mood and I thought, "My God, what's the sense in living?" I took my second batch of medicines and laid down on the sofa, not knowing what else to do. I fell asleep there and slept for 4 hours and when I woke up, my depression was gone and I felt fine. Which goes to show you, like I already knew from past experiences, but had forgotten, that when I'm rapidly cycling downwards, I need to go to sleep and seriously sleep for a couple of hours, deeply and undisturbed. 

I used to have a sign that said, "You are rapid cycling! Go to sleep!" I don't know what happened to it and I will ask the Exfactor to make me a new one. All I know is, that when I'm rapid cycling, I need a lot of sleep, more than usual, 8 hours isn't going to do it, and a disturbed night's sleep is really bad. I need to sleep at least 10 hours if not more. The depression is cured by sleeping. 

So the next time I'm up in the middle of the night and I decide to write a post, and it is a bullshit story justifying my reason to be up, just ignore it. Or better yet, call me on it.

Ciao,
Nora

What the heck?

I was up during the night and I was so hypomanic. I was higher than a kite. I only wrote emails and comments on blogs, but I wonder if I was obnoxious? I took my medicines at 5 am and went to bed a 7 am and slept until 10 o'clock when I had to get up for my personal helper. I was not in a very good mood and it worsened with time until I was deeply depressed when I got out of the shower. I was a mess and wanted there to be a way to end my life. I sat in my armchair and cried. 

The personal helper did the dishes and walked the dog. She talked to me and tried to make me feel better. I was inconsolable and took my next batch of medicines. They started to work after a while and I calmed down some, but I couldn't get rid of the feelings of dread. 

The domestic help arrived and the personal helper explained the situation to her. The domestic help did her work quickly and quietly while I sat in my armchair. My psychiatrist and my SPN were both absent for the day and I tried to reach someone else to talk to. After the domestic help left I went to bed and pulled the covers over my head and tried to sleep. 

Someone else called me and tried to make me feel better. It didn't help much, except that I got to tell my story. I went back to sleep. Some time later my personal helper called to see how I was. I said that I was trying to take care of myself. I slept until 5 o'clock and when I woke up I felt better, though I was distinctly lacking in enthusiasm. I had something to eat and took my next batch of medicines and sat in my armchair. I was supposed to walk the dog, but had to wait for the delivery boy from the pharmacy. 

I watched TV without the least bit of interest until the delivery boy showed up. Then I walked Tyke in the very cool evening air. That got some life back into me and when I got home, I turned on the computer, not really knowing what to do once I had it on. I was undecided about writing a post. I'm going to shut the computer off now that I've written it. 

I have to sleep well tonight and not get up. I don't know yet how I am going to manage this. I feel like I'm playing with fire. I'm very discouraged, but I have to try my best. 

Ciao,
Nora

Slept right through it...

I fell asleep on the sofa and slept right through the news, so now I don't know anything about the state of the country or the world and I feel very badly informed. Do you think it is really terrible if I miss a couple of days? Actually, it's been more than a couple of days and for all I know the queen has taken over the leadership of the government and sent the whole incompetent bunch home. 

Oh no, I did watch the repeats of the news this afternoon and everything was as incompetent as ever, that's right. Our new government was almost being formed, we're just a hair's breath away from it and we're all just thrilled to pieces. It's been an extremely difficult birthing process and I think that shows it's not really meant to be, but onward they go with one track minds. I won't go on about this, because I'll get bogged down in details and I'll get upset and that will influence my good mood. 

When I woke up, I did not feel the need to make a pot of coffee like I usually do when I wake up from a nap, but got a glass of cold milk and that's what I'm drinking now, figuring that it will help me fall asleep quicker tonight when I'm ready to go to bed. So, I'm not having to artificially alter my mind with caffeine to feel good. I think that's a good sign. I'm a bit wary of drinking too much coffee, because I don't want to become hypomanic again. There's still a slight danger that I will, because sometimes I feel very good, as in, "Wow, are those fireworks exploding in my head?" And "My God, everything is full of stars!" 

I've started reading 'The Amateur Marriage' by Anne Tyler. Sometimes you need to read an uncomplicated, non-offensive book and that's the kind Anne Tyler writes.This is one of the few books by her that I've not read. I've also got 'The Accidental Tourist' and I'm going to be rereading that soon. I remember enjoying that one very much the first time around. When I read in bed, I have to hide my book and reading glasses so Tyke doesn't destroy them while I'm asleep. I shove them under my pillows when I get sleepy and hope he doesn't see me do that. Today he tried to steal my lighter, but I caught him on time. Now I leave everything on my desk and on the dining table. I think he's trying to get my attention. 

I'm off to bed now. I'm tired and more than ready to go to sleep under the duvet. I must remember not to get up in the middle of the night, but to keep sleeping. My personal helper is coming in the morning and I must be fit for that. We have some jobs to do together. 

Have a good night.

Ciao,
Nora