Reading is a nice hobby too...

I'm sitting here very early in the morning with my second cup of coffee, but I'm really so thirsty that I'm looking forward to a glass of cold milk. I'm going to have that as soon as I finish the coffee. Like I said yesterday, coffee isn't doing so much for me anymore, so the joy of it is gone and I don't need it so much anymore to wake up with. I'm very much awake on my own when I get up out of bed. That's a much better state of affairs, of course, and I'm not complaining. It is good to be clearheaded when I wake up and to not sit here half comatose. 

Yesterday morning, after I had written my post here, I didn't go back to bed, but sat down in my armchair and finished reading 'The Girls' Guide To Hunting and Fishing.' It was thoroughly enjoyable and I finished it in one fell swoop. It was such a different book than I had anticipated. It was actually a very mature look at a woman's experience with the various men in her life before she possibly found the one that was the one that was her soul mate. I say possibly, because that's left uncertain. We assume so. 

The book is not without humor and lots of insights into a woman's way of thinking about love and longing, all the feelings we share as women and that we spend a lot of our time doing, especially when we are younger and looking for our potential partner. When we are in our prime.

After I finished reading it, I started reading 'Vinegar Hill' by A. Mansette Ansay which is a book that takes place in the early 1970's and that is a dark and somewhat disturbing novel. The men in it are especially disturbed, although a lot of the characters are and the only really sane one in it seems to be the wife who is trapped in her role before women's liberation has really made itself known to her. There but for the grace of god went many of us, except that we weren't married to very odd husbands, or so we may have assumed. Those husbands of that generation may have actually all had a screw loose. 

I'm almost done with it and am already looking forward to the next novel. I spent a lot of time reading yesterday and not having the computer or the television on. I think it's better that way. It's better to lose yourself in a book and to use your imagination and picture the scenes and the characters. It's also better not to be constantly exposed to the latest news like I was. I get enough of that watching the 8 o'clock news and listening to the radio at night when I go to bed.If I can keep this habit up of reading like I used to, I won't be watching television all the time.

I don't want to be hooked on the computer. I have the habit of turning it on several times a day when I get bored and I can't think of a better thing to do. It's really ridiculous because I expect something magic to happen when obviously there is not. Turning it on once a day (or at night) is more than enough. Nothing bad will happen if I don't check my emails more often. I'm weaning myself of the habit to want to turn it on more often and really, when you're caught up in a good book, you have no desire to. 

I have several novels that I've read before in a long ago past that I'm planning on reading again. It's been long enough since I read them that I've forgotten enough about them so that they will be like new again. 'The Joy Luck Club' is one of them. 'The Accidental Tourist' is another. First I have to read the novels that I've never read and I have enough of them. I have a bunch by Edna O'Brien that I never got around to reading. They are in small print and I had no reading glasses when I acquired them. I have novels that were on Oprah Winfrey's recommended books of reading and she does do that very well. Most of those books are worth reading. If you need exposure to English language literature, it's a good source. 

I've increased my anti-psychotics by one more milligram and now feel very comfortable. I feel normal again and not so haunted and stressed. I had a fairly normal day yesterday, although that may also have been because I spent my day differently. I have to take care to build in as many soothing moments as possible and to keep the stress to a minimum. The weather co-operated and it was a gray and overcast day which suited my mood. I like those kinds of days better right now. I don't like glaring sunlight in a blue sky. Not right now anyway. 

I'm going to take my medicines and sit down in my armchair and finish that book. Then comes the joy of picking out another one. 

Have a good day.

Ciao,

Nora

C'est la vie...

I'm waiting for the coffeemaker to finish brewing the coffee. I can't wait to have a fresh cup. I am in dire need of one. I just had some milk to quench my thirst, but it didn't wake me up. I did function without coffee and managed to write emails that were quite coherent, but I'm yawning still and definitely need the caffeine to get me started properly. 

I craved Nutella and had a couple of teaspoons of that straight from the jar. It is my energy boost and I figure the hazelnuts in it are good for me. It's my secret passion, though I can't have too much of it all at once. There is a limit to how much of it I can eat, but that is good. A little bit goes a long way and takes care of the craving. When I say teaspoon, I mean one of those little teaspoons that are used with china cups  and saucers and tea glasses. Not what Americans consider teaspoons to be. Those are dessert spoons in my book.  

Yesterday, my SPN and I started discussing my second marriage and that brought us back to the very beginning of it in California where I lived then and I had to tell about my situation then. I talked about that period in my life with a lot of nostalgia and love and quite extensively, but later when I was home, I wondered if in my head all this time, I had not romanticized this period of my life too much and forgotten all the gritty details.

You see, I'm sure I have, and that I've only told a little bit of the story and not the whole truth. I think I walk around for years with the romanticized version of my life in my head and have heartaches about it, but when it comes down to analyzing everything, it turns out not to hold up under close scrutiny and the truth comes to the surface. I have to face all the not so nice things about it and destroy the mythology that I've built up around it.

Luckily, I'm willing and able to do that. I'm not afraid to dismantle the myth if it helps me let go of the pain. If they are just fables I've been believing in, then I'm more than willing to stop believing in them. I can't live my life as if it is a movie set or as if I am a character in an exciting novel. I can't have my memories be stuck in that kind of a format. I'm stripped of any romanticism now. I have no illusions about my life. I only see the naked truth. There's not one poetic bone left in my body.

I'm seeing my SPN again next week and I'll deal with the rest of the story and tell the truth. It will be good to have it all come out. 

The ice in the streets and on the sidewalks is covered with a new layer of snow. It will snow some more today. I'm expecting my other personal helper at 8:30 this morning. I have to get dressed before that time and get the show on the road. I wish she wasn't coming quite this early, but we thought it was a good idea to get me started well in the morning. 

Have a good day, all of you.

Ciao,

Nora

Drinking coffee early in the morning...

I got up early, though I had not gone to sleep until 10 pm, and doubtlessly that means I will have to take a nap later today. I may try to stay up and save any tiredness that I feel for the nighttime and try and sleep really well then. I'll have to wait and see how well I do today. 

Someone mentioned, on an other blog, that your need for sleep changes as you get older and that you need less of it at night. It would be nice if I could blame my short nights on that. I remember my parents always needing a nap in the afternoon as they got older. Maybe that applies to me. Maybe I am an older person now, though I would hate to think of myself that way. 

Maybe it is all a very personal matter and it depends on your individual internal clock and how it is set. Mine seems to be set for shorter nights, with an occasional exception, and naps in the afternoon. I'm sure there is no good or bad or right or wrong, but just a system that works well for each person. You have to accept what works for you and live with that, as long as you get enough sleep in the end and you don't do all of it during the day, like I was doing for a while because of the tranquilizers. 

I had a very satisfying session with my SPN yesterday morning in which I closed the chapter of my first marriage, because I think I'm done with it.  I've gained a lot of understanding about it and about my own role in it.  I can look back and see how events unfolded and why things happened the way they did and why it ended the way it did. I've been relieved of a huge burden that I carried with me for a lot of years and that really weighed me down. 

I'll be moving on to the next chapter and that is my marriage to the Exfactor, which needs to be discussed, though it is not nearly as pressing as my first marriage was. Having said that, I wonder what's going to come to the surface in those talks, because a lot of things happened in our marriage that are not so admirable from the side of either party. There's not going to be a blaming game going on. Just an attempt at understanding. 

I've had my coffee in the meantime and I have switched to cold milk. It's making me burp something awful and I'm a regular orchestra all by myself. Tyke and Gandhi are the only audience members, so I don't have to be embarrassed. 

My head's still on awfully straight. I haven't stopped being sensible yet. I don't know what's come over me. I don't know how long this is going to last, but I better take advantage of it and do sensible things.  One sensible thing I'm going to do now is get dressed and walk the dog. At least I will get that out of the way.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,

Nora

Time to write!

 It's early in the morning and I'm completely awake and ready to go and tackle anything that's worth tackling. I've had my second cup of coffee and barely had any cobwebs in my mind when I woke up. I'm just about to pour my third cup and have a good sit down here. My sore upper back is still sore, but it isn't nearly as bad as it was yesterday. At least the sharp pain is gone and it is now a dull ache. I think one more painkiller ought to do the trick.

I've visited Facebook and did the necessary socializing there. I don't do a lot of it, but mainly keep in touch with family and relatives and the friends that are 'real' friends. People who care and keep in touch one way or the other. I do appreciate that, those little tokens of affection. A person needs all the strokes they can get. I think that's what this socializing is all about. Mutual strokes. I must get better at it myself. I do think it teaches you to be less self centered. 

I've got to go see my SPN today and I'm more than ready to. I want to continue the work that I was doing on my first marriage, but I think I made a lot of headway already. I think I can come to a rounding off now, unless I'm very mistaken and there's a lot more beneath the surface. We will see. Whatever I have done so far has helped me tremendously and I can tell that by the nature of my dreams. They are far less sad and frustrating and are taking a far different turn. I'm even starting to dream about the Exfactor now. Maybe that marriage will be next on the program, although I feel less traumatized by it. I think that maybe the Exfactor got traumatized in it more than I did. I must find out about that. 

Since today is Wednesday, my appointment with my SPN is the only one in my agenda. I will not be seeing anyone else. I will have to do some laundry and straighten out my desk. I need to go through the paperwork that's stacked on it and see what can go. There are many odds and ends lying there that need to be organized and looked at and put a way or tossed out. I also have to try and get the speakers to work on my computer, but how I'm going to do that is not clear to me yet. I will have to fiddle around with them. That's all I can do. I'm not a technical wonder. I never was taught anything about electronics and computers. Maybe common sense will apply. I do have that for practical things. 

My head is on awfully straight this morning, but I lack an enormous amount of  imagination. I seem to be all business. I can't stand it when I'm like that. When I'm only efficient and not imaginative at the same time. I suppose I'm going to tackle everything head on today, without any complicated emotions. Well, I will have my moments of clarity, I suppose, when I'm no nonsense and get straight down to business. Maybe I better take advantage of it. I may get things done that have been lying by the wayside. I guess everybody has days like that in their life when they have good sobering thoughts and get their act together. 

I thought I had temporarily misplaced my dog, but he blended in so well with the interior of the living room that I overlooked him and I just discovered him. He was so quietly asleep and not even snoring. He's always so close to me that I worry if I don't see him. He's not like Jesker who would go off on his own and go to sleep in another room. 

I had trouble seeing through my glasses, until I took them off and saw that they were very dirty, so I took a bottle of window cleaner and got them completely clean and suddenly I could see again. What a difference that made. Everything got sharper contours. Leave it to me to be so absentminded as to not have noticed that earlier. I even do amaze myself at times. My right eye is fuzzy, though, and it needs correcting. 

Right, it's time to take my medicines and get dressed. I need to take Tyke for a walk. The early morning calls me. It's cold out there.

Ciao,
Nora