All the king's men...

I should paint you a different scenario than the one I always paint and that's the one in which I always sit and have coffee and cigarettes. I'm afraid it is no different this night however and that's exactly what I'm doing. If anything, I am predctable, which is saying a lot for someone who is bipolar. At least there are some things that are always true about me. I do have some routines that never change. 

It's nice to be somewhat predictable. You do feel that people can count on you in some regards  and I do have my steady habits. I am a ritualistic woman and like to perform the same little actions every day at certain times. Very often they do involve peaceful times and coffee and cigarettes. I must have been dreaming when I thought I could give up that combination. It is such a part of my contemplative existence. 

I was depressed earlier during the day and had accepted that. It is a mood I am familiar with and I know how to handle myself under those circumstances. I was not really fighting it. I let it wash over me like a big wave from a vast ocean. I knew I wouldn't drown in it and would somehow manage to keep my head above water.

Now, during the night, as is usual, things don't seem as dire, but then they never are in the silence and peacefulness of the darkness. I feel relatively safe because the world is asleep and nobody can harm me and it isn't as if people are lined up down the street waiting to do so. That's just my subconscious imagination at work. It's a vague feeling of discomfort that I carry with me.

I should feel safer than I do, but because I'm alone I never quite do. I always feel a little bit haunted by the world around me and never completely at ease. It's like I always expect an attack from the outside and I always have to be vigilant. Maybe it is that way for everybody and we all feel that way. Does anyone feel safe?

I'm drinking ice cold milk and very good it tastes too. It's like having a bowl of ice cream. I wish I really had one of those, but there's no such thing in the freezer. Ice cold milk is the closest I can come to it and I consider that lucky. It does cheer me up and my stomach likes it too. It's gently growling instead of loudly protesting like it used to. The medicine for it does work. 

My headache is slowly getting better. This is the fifth day that I've got it but it's not nearly as bad as it was. I've just taken another paracetamol and I should be rid of the pain in just a little while. It's a long lasting headache, that's for sure. I don't think I've ever had a headache for that long a time. 

I should think about going back to bed. There are some hours left to sleep until it's morning. I've got to take care to get enough sleep. 

Ciao,

Irene

No neglect...

This particular blog does not want to be neglected either. I mean, look at the name of it and consider who writes it. I couldn't possibly leave it lying by the wayside. I must pay it some attention. I am still a dueling Dutch woman, after all. Although I mostly duel with myself, that is true. I don't have many other opponents. I have none that I know of, actually. 

I think the 'dueling' part was based on the fact that I am bipolar and in my duality do battle with myself. I don't mean to imply that I have two personalities because that's another illlness altogether. I just have two opposing poles. A happy one and a sad one. Sometiimes they rapidly switch positions. That's called rapid cycling. It's very tiresome and confusing no matter how often it happens. 

So now I'm sitting here in the middle of the night with my cup of coffee and my cigarettes and am quietly enjoying the serenity that lies around me. The animals are asleep, as they should be, and I have have just taken a paracetamol for my ongoing headache. Luckily, it works very well and I should be fine in no time at all. 

The coffee tastes great and does what it is supposed to do, namely make my brain function at peak performance, but I'm going to switch to ice cold milk in just a little while because I'm very thirsty. I'm just joking about the peak performance. I only reach that when I'm hypo-manic and I'm certainly not that now, thank goodness. It may sound great, but it isn't. It's like being high on drugs and having no control. 

I prefer feeling my normal self when it gets down to it, but I suppose that I've not quite accepted that and think the hypo-manic me is having more fun. I must get it though my head that this isn't so and that I only run into trouble when I'm hypo-manic. I think the kick that the adrenaline gives me is very deceiving. Life just seems dull without it, but it isn't really so.Or if it is so, I must accept it. 

I'm drinking a tall glass of milk now and it is very refreshing and quenching my thirst. I haven't met a glass of milk I haven't liked yet. It does have a tendency to make me sleepy so I may end up going back to bed yet. It would be good to get a little bit more sleep. I don't think I'm quite done with that yet. But there's time to sleep during the day too. I only have an appointment with my therapist and that won't take up much of my time. 

I hope you all had a good night.

Ciao,

Irene

Never mind the foolishness...

I've been up for a couple of hours and had two cups of coffee. I had gone to bed on time, but once I was lying there, I realized that I was not at all sleepy, although it took me an hour to figure that out. That's how long I stayed in bed anyway. 

I figured it was pretty futile to continue lying there and got up again and made some coffee and turned on the computer. There were emails to answer and comments to read. Those were good enough pastimes for me. 

After that, I finished reading all the blog posts of 'The Gaff Giraffe' which had taken me a couple of days to do. It was very educational and showed me again how neurotic I can get sometimes and how completely like an unguided missile, and how very boring I can get at other times. Like a true bipolar person, I guess. From one extreme to the other.

I'm starting to yawn now and am going to have to find my bed soon. In the meantime, I'm drinking cold milk which is bound to make me sleepy. As soon as I stop drinking coffee, I start going downhill. It almost makes me want to make more coffee again so I will have more energy. I'm not quite ready to go back to bed. 

Since it is officially Saturday now, I feel I have the privilege to stay up as long as I want because I can sleep late. I suppose I'm having another one of my celebratory moments in the middle of the night when I feel on top of the world and want to make it last as long as possible. 

Being slightly in a stupor only adds to the attraction. I feel a little stoned and it's rather pleasant. I'm dopey with the need for sleep, but I have the will and the desire to stay up, so I'm on the edge. Don't I like to live dangerously? It's my middle name. Yeah, right. 

I have the smell of Chinese food on my brain tonight and I have such a hunger for it that I'm ready to go to the Chinese restaurant and order them to open up and fix me a meal of Nasi Goreng, which is really an Indonesian dish but the cultures get mixed up. I would love to have a portion of satay with that. Of course, my eyes would be bigger than my stomach and I would never be able to finish it, but I'd enjoy trying it. 

I guess I'm bound to get these olfactory fantasies every night because they are secret desires for foods I long for but can not eat. Or only eat in very little portions. Sometimes I think I smell a Hema smoked sausage which are the best in the country. No such luck for me. It's terrible, the things I have to do without. 

But I do get to lose weight, albeit agonizingly slowly because of the medicines I'm on. It would go a lot faster if it weren't for them. They do hinder me in my weight loss. Especially when they are increased and I don't even know if that is helping me, as is the case now. 

I know one thing, I mustn't give up coffee completely because it keeps 'the black dog' at bay. Trying to only drink tea is not such a success. Drinking coffee puts me in a much better mood. I just have to not overdo it. There's to be moderation in it as in everything. I'm certainly not going to quit cold turkey like I had planned to. That was a very unrealistic idea. It was a shock to my system and not a very pleasant one at that. 

I got my second wind and am feeling good now. I'm over my sleepiness. Speaking of food must have done me some good. I almost feel like I had some. I get the same sort of satisfaction from reading food recipes down to the minutest details. I feel like I've partaken of the meal. I've had this habit since I was a kid. Reading my mother's cookbook and looking at the pictures of the dishes.

Have a good Saturday you all.

Ciao,

Nora

Cups of comfort...

Since today is Sunday, and truly a day of rest, I will change my bed and do a load of laundry. I will also do the dishes and pay whatever bills there are. Isn't that a great plan for a day of rest? Somehow it seems easier to do those things today and don't ask me why. There's no rhyme or reason for it. I'm full of contradiction. You may have noticed that by now.

It's probably an effort on my part to take the sacredness out of the weekends. I don't want them to be so special anymore. I had my lazy day of indulgence yesterday, when I did almost nothing but sleep (I blame that on the depression and the increase of the medication). But I don't want to have another lazy day today when it is allowed. Today I want to be active.

Of course, it's easy for me to speak in the middle of the night when I'm always quite perky. It's another matter altogether during the day when I actually have to get into action. I have been known to fall by the wayside then. Daytime and I don't seem to get along so well. It seems I'm a nighttime person and have all my energy and spontaneity when I'm supposed to be asleep.

It must be because of those excellent cups of coffee I make. But I have them during the day too and they don't have the same effect then. I probably have an aversion to daylight. It's a mystery to me. I have daytime depression and nighttime perkiness. Well, it isn't quite as black and white as that. There are gray areas.

I mustn't get bogged down in my bipolarity. I'd like to think of myself as more multi-faceted than that, although I am a person of opposites. I do at times walk the middle line. I do on occasion have moments like that. Very often these moments involve the dog and the freedom of boundaries I feel in my interaction with him. There's a total loss of inhibitions when I play with him or otherwise communicate or cuddle. Animals are good for that.

I've had enough coffee now and am switching to cold milk. No doubt that will be a shock to my braincells. The coldness of the milk will shock them into action. I may tell you a whole new story. When I went to get the glass, I bumped my bad knee into the wooden frame of the armchair. That was not such a nice encounter. I still feel the after pain of it. I think that was a bad move.

I didn't stay up to watch last night's thriller because it was on too late. I do dislike that about Saturday night's thriller. I hardly ever manage to stay up and always want to go find my bed before that time. It's only on a rare occasion that I stay up long enough. It's a shame because it's the Swedish 'Wallander' and I do like that series.

It's going to be a partly cloudy day today with the temperature at 64F. At least we'll see some sunshine and that has been a while. Real summer weather is predicted in a couple of days from now and I can't wait. July has been the gloomiest month. I will still wear warm clothes today, but tomorrow it's supposed to be 78F, which is a real improvement. The fact that the sun will shine will be most important though. 

I think I will go back to bed. My brain has been sufficiently frozen into inaction by the ice cold milk and I can hardly think of another thing to write. I will lie in the semi-darkness and listen to the radio with my trusty dog by my side. He's got a new rawhide bone that he will very noisily chew on. It doesn't keep me awake. It's a familiar sound.

I hope you're all having a good night. 

Ciao,

Nora

What have I done now?

I went back to bed this morning after I set up this blog and when I woke up, I thought, "Oh no, what have I done now?" Really, what possessed me to set up a completely new blog and to call it The Dueling Dutch Woman and to think that was a good idea? I felt as if I had gone temporarily mad during the night and had lost my marbles. What I felt more than anything was complete embarrassment at my impulsive deed, which had seemed like such a brilliant thing to do in the middle of the night. It seems that I am possessed sometimes and that I need to do great and unusual deeds that go beyond the 'normal' changes one would make.

The first thing I did when I got up was turn on the computer and have a look at the blog and I must say that it didn't look all that bad. It wasn't the horrible thing I had pictured it to be in my mind. The title didn't seem all that terrible and even appeared somewhat benign to me when I saw it at the top beside those tulips. I liked the template and thought it was a good choice, Maybe I could live with it and not die of embarrassment and maybe it wasn't such a horrible thing that I had done. 

Of course, I'm going to get all sorts of comments, but that comes with the territory and I have to be tough enough to take those. I got myself into this pickle and I have to live with that. I do intend to stick with it, no matter what my initial doubts are. I can't change my mind now and say, "Oops, I made a tiny error." That's not the way it works. I will write posts for this blog and hope that I will get followers. I'm stubborn enough to hang in there. 

The blog title refers to my bi-polarity. The two extremes of my moods and how they are often in conflict with each other. You mustn't imagine me having a duel of words with anyone. The only duel I have is with myself. The tulips on the template speak for themselves, because aren't tulips the very symbol of everything Dutch? 

I went and had my hair cut this afternoon. First I had to get some money out of the cash machine, but it would not give me any, saying I had insufficient funds. I knew that could not be right and I thought maybe someone had broken into my bank account and stolen all my money. I went home to check on my bank account, but all my money was still there, so I went to the hairdresser without any money. I thought they would let me pay later, because I'm such a good customer of theirs, but while I was waiting for it to be my turn, I called the Exfactor, who had arrived at my place in the meantime to trim the Golden Rain, and asked him if he could bring me some cash. So he showed up a while later with the money and stayed while I had my hair cut. 

I told the girl exactly how I wanted my hair cut and she got it exactly right. It's just the way I wanted it and it's cut so well that I don't have to mess with gel or wax or hairspray to get it to stay into place. It's probably the easiest hair I've ever had.It's not punky and spiky anymore and I don't have to worry about lying in bed and having it point in the wrong direction in the morning when I get up. I'll try to get a good picture of it and post it.

The Exfactor and I walked home and he stayed for coffee. He had trimmed quite a bit off the Golden Rain and I hope that my grumpy neighbor is happy now. He had been complaining about it for a while, but he always has something to complain about, because he is an old grumpy man with nothing better to do. That's why it was such a bother that the Exfactor kept on not showing up. 

I think I may be slightly hypomanic now, because I feel the urge to do great deeds, but the tranquilizers will be good for that condition also. Hopefully they will calm me down enough so I will not do anything too crazy. Starting a new blog is crazy enough. 

I will take Tyke for a walk. It is not raining now. As a matter of fact, the sun is temporarily shining and I have to take advantage of that.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,
Nora