Over the past several months, a combination of new medication and perimenopause led to fatigue and increased appetite, which meant I've been eating more and exercising less. Add to this that I no longer have a car and my work isn't located close enough to the Metra to get to the Y in time for classes, and you have an extra five or so pounds. Doesn't sound like much, but I'm five feet tall, so it's actually somewhat transformative; jeans that were comfy are tight, dresses that fit comfortably are now land mines of bulges. I'm not fat, I'm still pretty petite, but I feel uncomfortable and I miss being OK with what I saw in the mirror.
I'd always vowed that as I got older I'd not go gently into that good night of becoming fat and frail, so I've been looking for a new gym to attend. Kevin sent me a coupon offer to try 5 classes at a gym not far from one of the El stops on the way home, so I bought them and tonight went to my first spin class there.
The class was a nice mix of ages, and had a fun, mellow vibe. The instructor was a woman about my age, and she played excellent music. I do love Lady Gaga; the woman is a spin-class answer to prayer. The man behind me, who appeared to be in his 50's and was clearly a fit bike enthusiast, periodically whooped when he was feeling happy. It should have been annoying, but it was pretty cute.
I'd been worried about what it would be like to spin after abstaining from biking for awhile, but I did pretty well, and had a good workout. Got the eye from the older guy, and I think a lesbian flirted with me in the locker room.
In other words, the usual.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Peruvian Food and Zombies
My friend Kevin suggested a free preview of a play he'd heard of, and had a Groupon to a Peruvian restaurant about 8 blocks away, so we decided to make it a night.
The restaurant was really cozy and I liked the atmosphere. The menu had a fair amount of variety, unless you are a vegetarian, in which case your choices are variations of pasta and mushrooms. I can't eat mushrooms, so I made do with a really tasty yucca appetizer and some potato. Hey, you can't go wrong with starch. I liked the place, overall, limited food choice notwithstanding.
We walked the distance to the theater; it was a cold but calm night, so the walk was brisk and pleasant. At an intersection I recognized as the one by Fred's glass studio, and I mentioned that I'd ben thinking it was time to go back and do some more projects. I looked toward the studio, and who was coming out with his bike but Fred.
"FRED!" I yelled across the 5-way intersection. He looked up and I ran across and got a big hug.
"I thought you were mad at me," he said.
"No, I've just been busy and poor, and you know how time just passes and before you realize it a year has gone by," I said. "Can I come back?"
He assured me I could; I just had to call first to make sure he wasn't using all of the tables. I've been wanting to finish the two windows in my living room and work on something for the kitchen so I have more privacy; neighbors are very close.
Kevin and I finished walking to the theater, and made it just before the show began.
It was free, it was short, and it was an object lesson on how some actors could be less bad if they had some direction.
Set in Chicago, the play had this premise: a woman is shot at an amusement park, it's ruled an accident, but her husband believes she was murdered. She was (although why is never really explained). The husband, a newspaper reporter, works with a junior reporter to uncover the mob connection at the amusement park. They do this by working with an informant, a call girl who has been dating the corrupt alderman in hopes of bringing him down for the murder of her mother when she herself was 10. The reporter breaks the story without consulting the junior reporter (who has been the informant's contact); the mob figures out who snitched, and they kill her.
But before they kill her, she puts a Polish curse on the alderman and his henchmen. Henchmen begin to die quickly, and the ghost of the woman keeps appearing to wreak her vengeance, eventually killing the alderman as well as the male reporter who betrayed her.
The plot has its problems. Why was the reporter's wife murdered? Dunno. Why did the reporter run the story without warning his associate so she could in turn warn her informant? What kind of moron jeopardizes informants?
And why did Vengeance Woman work with a reporter to break a story that would bring down the corrupt alderman, when all she had to do was use her witchy powers to kill him? If she can come back from the dead and kill people with a gesture of her hand and some strobe effects, why didn't she just kill him when she could?
And most of all, what the hell was in the letter that was found left for the junior reporter by the dead woman? We are never told, and this is pretty unforgivable.
"I"m so sorry," Kevin apologized later.
"Hey, I don't care, it was short and it was free," I said. "It was also educational. I did of course sit there thinking, 'and I can't get cast?!?'"
But you know, I had a good night anyway. It as one of those random, try new things, mellow deals. I like those.
The restaurant was really cozy and I liked the atmosphere. The menu had a fair amount of variety, unless you are a vegetarian, in which case your choices are variations of pasta and mushrooms. I can't eat mushrooms, so I made do with a really tasty yucca appetizer and some potato. Hey, you can't go wrong with starch. I liked the place, overall, limited food choice notwithstanding.
We walked the distance to the theater; it was a cold but calm night, so the walk was brisk and pleasant. At an intersection I recognized as the one by Fred's glass studio, and I mentioned that I'd ben thinking it was time to go back and do some more projects. I looked toward the studio, and who was coming out with his bike but Fred.
"FRED!" I yelled across the 5-way intersection. He looked up and I ran across and got a big hug.
"I thought you were mad at me," he said.
"No, I've just been busy and poor, and you know how time just passes and before you realize it a year has gone by," I said. "Can I come back?"
He assured me I could; I just had to call first to make sure he wasn't using all of the tables. I've been wanting to finish the two windows in my living room and work on something for the kitchen so I have more privacy; neighbors are very close.
Kevin and I finished walking to the theater, and made it just before the show began.
It was free, it was short, and it was an object lesson on how some actors could be less bad if they had some direction.
Set in Chicago, the play had this premise: a woman is shot at an amusement park, it's ruled an accident, but her husband believes she was murdered. She was (although why is never really explained). The husband, a newspaper reporter, works with a junior reporter to uncover the mob connection at the amusement park. They do this by working with an informant, a call girl who has been dating the corrupt alderman in hopes of bringing him down for the murder of her mother when she herself was 10. The reporter breaks the story without consulting the junior reporter (who has been the informant's contact); the mob figures out who snitched, and they kill her.
But before they kill her, she puts a Polish curse on the alderman and his henchmen. Henchmen begin to die quickly, and the ghost of the woman keeps appearing to wreak her vengeance, eventually killing the alderman as well as the male reporter who betrayed her.
The plot has its problems. Why was the reporter's wife murdered? Dunno. Why did the reporter run the story without warning his associate so she could in turn warn her informant? What kind of moron jeopardizes informants?
And why did Vengeance Woman work with a reporter to break a story that would bring down the corrupt alderman, when all she had to do was use her witchy powers to kill him? If she can come back from the dead and kill people with a gesture of her hand and some strobe effects, why didn't she just kill him when she could?
And most of all, what the hell was in the letter that was found left for the junior reporter by the dead woman? We are never told, and this is pretty unforgivable.
"I"m so sorry," Kevin apologized later.
"Hey, I don't care, it was short and it was free," I said. "It was also educational. I did of course sit there thinking, 'and I can't get cast?!?'"
But you know, I had a good night anyway. It as one of those random, try new things, mellow deals. I like those.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Get Thee to Indiana..
It began with a suggestion to my friend C-- last week that we go hiking in the beautiful autumn air before things got crappy. We outlined a plan to head north, perhaps to a nature preserve. I had visions of rolling hills (well, of finding rolling hills), cottonwood trees, majestic oaks.
Another friend, K-- asked whether we wanted to do anything this weekend, and we told her of our plans. She suggested a drive to Indiana to Amish Country, where we could go to farm stands and markets, etc. She seemed excited about it, so I thought, "Sure, why not? Not exactly what I'd had in mind, but if we're outside walking around, that should be fine." K is the salt of the earth; a good friend, comes through in a pinch, thoughtful, giving. We tend to have dissimilar tastes; she's a picnic blanket and classical music, show tunes on the radio; I'm The Vaselines at the Metro, alternative on the radio. Like most good East Coast kids, I'd been packed on a bus as a teenager with a school group and taken to Lancaster County, PA, to see the Amish and the Mennonites (the main difference, from what I could see, was that the Mennonites were kind of like Amish but had taken some PR classes).
I'd spent that trip being an annoyingly socially conscious 12-year-old, grabbing classmates' Kodak Instamatic cameras lest they take forbidden photos of the Amish. What I remember mostly were beards, bonnets, carriages, and shoo fly pie.
Cut to this morning: K-- is driving; J- is in front, C-- and I are in back. Show tunes play until I beg K--to kick it up a bit, and she relents. OK, Bryan Ferry and Haircut 100 are not exactly what I'd wanted, but they were better than Peggy Lee and the Nelson Riddle orchestra.
We shout "WOO!" as we cross the Indiana state line, toy briefly with the idea of stopping by Michael Jackson's old home in Gary, decide Gary is not calling us, and keep heading on. I'm sitting, enjoying being a passenger, thinking back to my Amish experience so long ago. The clothing, the beliefs, the customs.
Wait.
"Hey," I said, "has it occurred to anyone that we are heading to Amish Country...on a SUNDAY?"
"So?" asked C--.
"It's the Sabbath. Nothing is going to be open."
We rode in silence for a bit. I felt like I had to salvage something.
"But hey, there will be non-Amish places open, I'm sure, and we can enjoy walking around!"
We found the Visitors Center in Amish Country. I assumed the staff in the shops was not Amish. The lack of bonnets and the fact that they were doing work seemed a confirmation. J--wanted to watch the free 20-minute video on the Amish, and asked about it. The bored man behind the counter informed us it was shown on the bottom of every hours. We'd just missed it.
Apparently the Amish had not heard of a button called "auto replay."
One of the things the Amish are known for is excellent craftsmanship. Everything is made manually; no trips to Sears for some Black and Decker. Furniture, quilts, candles, you name it, the Amish do it right. So it was a bit disappointing that instead of fine handcrafts we gazed upon Amish snow globes, tacky ornaments...a lot of junk made in China, even the apple peeler.
"If some foreigner came and were unfamiliar with the Amish," grumbled C---, "this crap would give them no idea."
We drove on, and on, and on. Pretty countryside, the occasional Amish buggy, but otherwise nothing. The only moving things were farm animals in the pastures we passed. Small town were closed. We began to get hungry, but could see nothing. We tried the quilt gardens only to find they were closed for the season. I thought wistfully of Wisconsin.
We finally ended up in Elkhart near Mishawaka, and I recognized the commercial strip I'd visited with Marilyn when I'd stayed at her land. I found the diner we'd liked, and we all sat down to a good, friendly meal.
All in all, it wasn't a bad day, but I was sitting for most of it. I'm participating in an organized bike ride next week, and the guy giving me a ride apparently has a cabin in Wisconsin. I pray he's normal and sane and wants to be invaded by a group of nerdy women.
Another friend, K-- asked whether we wanted to do anything this weekend, and we told her of our plans. She suggested a drive to Indiana to Amish Country, where we could go to farm stands and markets, etc. She seemed excited about it, so I thought, "Sure, why not? Not exactly what I'd had in mind, but if we're outside walking around, that should be fine." K is the salt of the earth; a good friend, comes through in a pinch, thoughtful, giving. We tend to have dissimilar tastes; she's a picnic blanket and classical music, show tunes on the radio; I'm The Vaselines at the Metro, alternative on the radio. Like most good East Coast kids, I'd been packed on a bus as a teenager with a school group and taken to Lancaster County, PA, to see the Amish and the Mennonites (the main difference, from what I could see, was that the Mennonites were kind of like Amish but had taken some PR classes).
I'd spent that trip being an annoyingly socially conscious 12-year-old, grabbing classmates' Kodak Instamatic cameras lest they take forbidden photos of the Amish. What I remember mostly were beards, bonnets, carriages, and shoo fly pie.
Cut to this morning: K-- is driving; J- is in front, C-- and I are in back. Show tunes play until I beg K--to kick it up a bit, and she relents. OK, Bryan Ferry and Haircut 100 are not exactly what I'd wanted, but they were better than Peggy Lee and the Nelson Riddle orchestra.
We shout "WOO!" as we cross the Indiana state line, toy briefly with the idea of stopping by Michael Jackson's old home in Gary, decide Gary is not calling us, and keep heading on. I'm sitting, enjoying being a passenger, thinking back to my Amish experience so long ago. The clothing, the beliefs, the customs.
Wait.
"Hey," I said, "has it occurred to anyone that we are heading to Amish Country...on a SUNDAY?"
"So?" asked C--.
"It's the Sabbath. Nothing is going to be open."
We rode in silence for a bit. I felt like I had to salvage something.
"But hey, there will be non-Amish places open, I'm sure, and we can enjoy walking around!"
We found the Visitors Center in Amish Country. I assumed the staff in the shops was not Amish. The lack of bonnets and the fact that they were doing work seemed a confirmation. J--wanted to watch the free 20-minute video on the Amish, and asked about it. The bored man behind the counter informed us it was shown on the bottom of every hours. We'd just missed it.
Apparently the Amish had not heard of a button called "auto replay."
One of the things the Amish are known for is excellent craftsmanship. Everything is made manually; no trips to Sears for some Black and Decker. Furniture, quilts, candles, you name it, the Amish do it right. So it was a bit disappointing that instead of fine handcrafts we gazed upon Amish snow globes, tacky ornaments...a lot of junk made in China, even the apple peeler.
"If some foreigner came and were unfamiliar with the Amish," grumbled C---, "this crap would give them no idea."
We drove on, and on, and on. Pretty countryside, the occasional Amish buggy, but otherwise nothing. The only moving things were farm animals in the pastures we passed. Small town were closed. We began to get hungry, but could see nothing. We tried the quilt gardens only to find they were closed for the season. I thought wistfully of Wisconsin.
We finally ended up in Elkhart near Mishawaka, and I recognized the commercial strip I'd visited with Marilyn when I'd stayed at her land. I found the diner we'd liked, and we all sat down to a good, friendly meal.
All in all, it wasn't a bad day, but I was sitting for most of it. I'm participating in an organized bike ride next week, and the guy giving me a ride apparently has a cabin in Wisconsin. I pray he's normal and sane and wants to be invaded by a group of nerdy women.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Changes, Changes
I've noticed that life is cyclical (Whoa, you say, earth-shattering, JC). Yeah, yeah... what I mean is that it's important to remember that it's cyclical. So when things are really good, you hold onto that, knowing that someday they won't be, but that the bad stuff always passes. And when things are bad, you say to yourself, "Hey, remember when things were good, and you promised yourself you'd remember that good things always come back around?"
I have this sort of hypomania, which can be understood best by remembering the part of the children's rhyme that goes, "when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad she was rotten."
So when I'm up, I'm up. When I'm down, I'm down. I've been on meds for this, but the drug I've been on has made me incredibly fatigued. I stopped taking it about 5 days ago, and I was good. Very, very good. Manic good. Energy levels off the charts; my brain feels like there are a million things churning inside, trying to all get out at once. Everything makes me think about something else, something so interesting that I have to just talk about it then and there. I have to exert a conscious act of will to not do this. I get up from my desk ten times every half hour to go get water, find a reason to move and shake the overwhelming agitation that comes from sitting still.
Now, the way I describe it, you might think I look like a freak, but I have it under enough control that I come across as just quirkily energetic. I'm paranoid that I will look look a nut, so I work very hard to compensate.
But social concerns aside, how does mania feel?
It feels fucking glorious.
It feels like being high as a kite, like being able to access all of your brain cells at once. It feels like a superpower. it feels like being free. All you are is what you want; you become your fullest expression, freed from concerns about consequences, because every impulse, every single beautiful impulse zapping nonstop across your mind is good and right and too delicious to ignore.
It also feels like a horrible curse. Because you can't shut anything out, and you can't stop the emotional reaction you have to everything, EVERYTHING around you, from TV commentators to conversations overheard on the elevator. The tone of some one's laugh, the monotonous beat of headphone overflow on the subway, and you go from Jekyll to Hyde in a nanosecond. Your feelings are raw and powerful, and there are no grays, and they are triggered by so much external stimuli that you feel like you've been hooked to a never-ending shock treatment like some monkey trapped in the sadistic experiment of an invisible madman.
And when it goes bad, it goes so far beyond bad. You're eaten by Leviathan, and it's dragging you in its belly to the depths beyond light and balance and rationality to a dark place where your limbs lie ponderous and passive under the weight of it all, and your brain keeps going only now it's an endless chant of no no no I can't what's the point, and you feel your lungs and heart will collapse under the immense inertia of futility. And you wish desperately that they would.
Fortunately, I have a doctor's appointment in a few days and will ask to try something else. In the meantime, I remember that life is cyclical, and that I've felt good before, and that I've felt bad before, and it will always come and go, and that's OK, and that's life.
I have this sort of hypomania, which can be understood best by remembering the part of the children's rhyme that goes, "when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad she was rotten."
So when I'm up, I'm up. When I'm down, I'm down. I've been on meds for this, but the drug I've been on has made me incredibly fatigued. I stopped taking it about 5 days ago, and I was good. Very, very good. Manic good. Energy levels off the charts; my brain feels like there are a million things churning inside, trying to all get out at once. Everything makes me think about something else, something so interesting that I have to just talk about it then and there. I have to exert a conscious act of will to not do this. I get up from my desk ten times every half hour to go get water, find a reason to move and shake the overwhelming agitation that comes from sitting still.
Now, the way I describe it, you might think I look like a freak, but I have it under enough control that I come across as just quirkily energetic. I'm paranoid that I will look look a nut, so I work very hard to compensate.
But social concerns aside, how does mania feel?
It feels fucking glorious.
It feels like being high as a kite, like being able to access all of your brain cells at once. It feels like a superpower. it feels like being free. All you are is what you want; you become your fullest expression, freed from concerns about consequences, because every impulse, every single beautiful impulse zapping nonstop across your mind is good and right and too delicious to ignore.
It also feels like a horrible curse. Because you can't shut anything out, and you can't stop the emotional reaction you have to everything, EVERYTHING around you, from TV commentators to conversations overheard on the elevator. The tone of some one's laugh, the monotonous beat of headphone overflow on the subway, and you go from Jekyll to Hyde in a nanosecond. Your feelings are raw and powerful, and there are no grays, and they are triggered by so much external stimuli that you feel like you've been hooked to a never-ending shock treatment like some monkey trapped in the sadistic experiment of an invisible madman.
And when it goes bad, it goes so far beyond bad. You're eaten by Leviathan, and it's dragging you in its belly to the depths beyond light and balance and rationality to a dark place where your limbs lie ponderous and passive under the weight of it all, and your brain keeps going only now it's an endless chant of no no no I can't what's the point, and you feel your lungs and heart will collapse under the immense inertia of futility. And you wish desperately that they would.
Fortunately, I have a doctor's appointment in a few days and will ask to try something else. In the meantime, I remember that life is cyclical, and that I've felt good before, and that I've felt bad before, and it will always come and go, and that's OK, and that's life.
Friday, October 7, 2011
If only we could Apple-Z Steve's departure.
Steve Jobs died yesterday, and I've been feeling as depressed as I was when Jim Henson passed. We all have our personal stories about Macs in our life, and I won't bore anyone with mine. But at work today, the big TVs in the break room kept showing Steve's 2005 commencement speech at Stamford in 2005. I'd never seen it, but I couldn't keep from stopping to watch it over an over each time I passed through. It's simple, it's brief, and it hits you between the eyes.
The basic message is, "Life is short, so don't waste it doing things you don't love." A corollary is, "Do what you love, even if you don't see the value, and one day you will see how it got you where you want to be."
He asked whether what we did today would have been what we'd chosen if we'd known it was the last day of our life. That hit me.
So tonight at the closed board meeting as the Impossible Board Member's Unbalanced Wife presented her gate design plan, and I tactfully mentioned that what she was presenting as a finished product was not what we'd selected for her to finish, and as she made a huge scene and accused me of having no taste and attacking her personally (this despite my pointing out a number of times that the design we'd chosen was one of HERS), and during the interminable discussion about bed bugs, and watching Impossible Board Member and the two new guys talk and strategize without even bothering to look at the three woman board members, and when the treasurer flaked and didn't show, which meant we couldn't discuss the budget, and as I reflected that I put a ridiculous amount of personal time and energy into this board and I really just don't want to any more, and that I'm burnt out...I realized that of all the things I would not want to do on the last day of my life, this is right up there, slightly behind a root canal. And that because I'm too taken up with responsibility, I have no time for fun. And I AM fun, not this angry, frustrated, irritable shrew that all of this has turned me into.
So after the board meeting I went to a neighbor's apartment (she'd been president too and had also dealt with Impossible Board Member), vented, got a little tipsy on wine, came back to my place, and calmly sent my resignation to the board.
A huge, HUGE weight has floated off of me.
I'm going to start doing things I like to do. And I'll type about it on my Mac.
Thanks, Steve.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Forgive me.
Blogger now offers templates, so you may find that the look of this page changes somewhat regularly while I make up my mind.
October
Well, last time I posted it was spring and I was having an acting-class breakdown. It's now fall, so the weather has gone from chilly to blistering to chilly again. I have not acted since last December and have pretty much lost my appetite for performing. I'm feeling more satisfaction in solitude. I have other artistic interests that I've been neglecting, and I don't need to prove to someone that I can do them in order to do them.
I have a new rabbit for Leroy -- she's been around for several months now; she was very young when I adopted her, so she's his trophy wife. They took to each other very quickly, and now they are inseparable. She's small. brown, and I've named her Sparrow. Actually, her full name is Lady Jane Sparrow Vashta Nerada Furry Piranha.
Because she, Gentle Readers, is a chewer. A chewer that makes a Great White look like a milk-licking kitten.
I've plexiglassed the furniture, shoved blankets under the sofa bed (she was climbing under and up inside and shredding something), stapled hardware cloth to the bottom of the love seat to prevent her from eating it from the inside like the creature from Alien, and have put flexible aluminum ducting over the legs of my dining-room table.
The trash-picked wooden side table has been given over as a casualty of war.
Part of this, I suspect, is because she's very young, and getting adjusted. As she's grown, the chewing has diminished, and hay seems to be all she needs for her chewing urge. She's also still a little skittish (she was found roaming the streets -- people, do NOT dump unwanted rabbits outside - give them to a shelter!) and I think the chewing calms her. As a stress eater, I can relate; what I do to a pack of gum is unholy.
But I'll keep the place locked down for now.
George, Harry's brother and my last cat standing, passed away in August. He'd been having some issues with bladder inflammation, had an ultrasound, threw an embolism, had what appeared to be a mini-stroke, and after several days of watching him get worse, I took him to the vet to be put out of his suffering at the age of 20. What can I say -- it was hard. I miss having a kitty around -- It's been 23 years since I've lived without one. For financial reasons I won't add one to the house yet, but I do miss kitties. I miss my kitties, terribly.
Have finally gotten over my crush on Younger Guy -- I knew I would; I just needed to wait until my brain got over it, and it did. We are completely incompatible, and there's only so many times I can suggest a movie or a book or a musical performance or an outing or a play and have it routinely shot down by a laundry list of gross over-generalizations as to Why He Won't Like It. There's no way I could be happy or grow with someone so determined to reduce life to a series of unshakable prejudices. It's too bad - he's not a bad person, and I hope he finds that woman someday who motivates him to take more chances.
I'm getting to that point in life where I'm losing interest in romance completely. Or rather, in the notion that romance is real. I find myself more interested in hanging out with my female friends and having no guys around at all.
Earlier in the year I went back on an antidepressant I'd taken many years ago. I got tired of feeling on the verge of tears constantly, not to mention the free-floating rage. I'm better now, less manic, able to focus and be more measured. Which is by no means to say that I'm calm; just able to control the impulsivity much better. One side effect (which I had before) is memory issues. I forget the names of actors, books, etc. Things that I'd always been able to pull out of the air stump me. People watching me on the train must be perplexed to see me staring furiously at a point in space for several minutes before a look of relief washes over me as I mutter, "DIANE KEATON!"
I'm still stressed, mostly from work related to my condo board. Our property manager is another hi-drive woman like me; turns out we are on the same medication, and the other day we were talking about our crazy stress dreams:
"I'm in school and I can't find the classroom!"
"I can't get someone to drive me to the airport so that I don't miss my flight!"
"I'm trying to hurry but the ground turns to mud."
"I'm back in college and I can't keep my grades up with a full-time job."
"None of the cars starts, and when one does, it has bungee cords where the doors should be and I'm afraid the goat will fall out."
Much more has happened this summer, but enough of going backward --I'm making a pact to blog regularly again. It clears my mind, it helps me process and unwind. And it brings me closer to you.
I have a new rabbit for Leroy -- she's been around for several months now; she was very young when I adopted her, so she's his trophy wife. They took to each other very quickly, and now they are inseparable. She's small. brown, and I've named her Sparrow. Actually, her full name is Lady Jane Sparrow Vashta Nerada Furry Piranha.
Because she, Gentle Readers, is a chewer. A chewer that makes a Great White look like a milk-licking kitten.
I've plexiglassed the furniture, shoved blankets under the sofa bed (she was climbing under and up inside and shredding something), stapled hardware cloth to the bottom of the love seat to prevent her from eating it from the inside like the creature from Alien, and have put flexible aluminum ducting over the legs of my dining-room table.
The trash-picked wooden side table has been given over as a casualty of war.
Part of this, I suspect, is because she's very young, and getting adjusted. As she's grown, the chewing has diminished, and hay seems to be all she needs for her chewing urge. She's also still a little skittish (she was found roaming the streets -- people, do NOT dump unwanted rabbits outside - give them to a shelter!) and I think the chewing calms her. As a stress eater, I can relate; what I do to a pack of gum is unholy.
But I'll keep the place locked down for now.
George, Harry's brother and my last cat standing, passed away in August. He'd been having some issues with bladder inflammation, had an ultrasound, threw an embolism, had what appeared to be a mini-stroke, and after several days of watching him get worse, I took him to the vet to be put out of his suffering at the age of 20. What can I say -- it was hard. I miss having a kitty around -- It's been 23 years since I've lived without one. For financial reasons I won't add one to the house yet, but I do miss kitties. I miss my kitties, terribly.
Have finally gotten over my crush on Younger Guy -- I knew I would; I just needed to wait until my brain got over it, and it did. We are completely incompatible, and there's only so many times I can suggest a movie or a book or a musical performance or an outing or a play and have it routinely shot down by a laundry list of gross over-generalizations as to Why He Won't Like It. There's no way I could be happy or grow with someone so determined to reduce life to a series of unshakable prejudices. It's too bad - he's not a bad person, and I hope he finds that woman someday who motivates him to take more chances.
I'm getting to that point in life where I'm losing interest in romance completely. Or rather, in the notion that romance is real. I find myself more interested in hanging out with my female friends and having no guys around at all.
Earlier in the year I went back on an antidepressant I'd taken many years ago. I got tired of feeling on the verge of tears constantly, not to mention the free-floating rage. I'm better now, less manic, able to focus and be more measured. Which is by no means to say that I'm calm; just able to control the impulsivity much better. One side effect (which I had before) is memory issues. I forget the names of actors, books, etc. Things that I'd always been able to pull out of the air stump me. People watching me on the train must be perplexed to see me staring furiously at a point in space for several minutes before a look of relief washes over me as I mutter, "DIANE KEATON!"
I'm still stressed, mostly from work related to my condo board. Our property manager is another hi-drive woman like me; turns out we are on the same medication, and the other day we were talking about our crazy stress dreams:
"I'm in school and I can't find the classroom!"
"I can't get someone to drive me to the airport so that I don't miss my flight!"
"I'm trying to hurry but the ground turns to mud."
"I'm back in college and I can't keep my grades up with a full-time job."
"None of the cars starts, and when one does, it has bungee cords where the doors should be and I'm afraid the goat will fall out."
Much more has happened this summer, but enough of going backward --I'm making a pact to blog regularly again. It clears my mind, it helps me process and unwind. And it brings me closer to you.
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