Month: July 2007
What I am at
Posted on July 17, 2007 in Site News
Currently familiarizing myself with the fundamentals of podcasting. While you wait for my first production, you can stick a pin in my new guest map.
Close up in Upper Newport Bay
Posted on July 15, 2007 in Photos Plants Travels - So Cal
I think my eye is coming back. And with my eye, my ear follows.
This photo and others come from the other side of Upper Newport Bay. The name of the plant is bladderpod. I love using my closeup lens.
[tags]marsh, estuary, bladderpod, native plants, Southern California, nature, Newport Beach, Upper Newport Bay, travels, photos, photography[/tags]
A Good Ear and Cortez, Colorado
Posted on July 15, 2007 in Disappointment Vacations
I’m at the computer late, my good habit of turning myself to bed at ten or so long abandoned. Playing solitaire, a game called Red and Black. And while I click on the cards against a red sunset, I think of a time when we found the one “California Cuisine” restaurant in Cortez, Colorado, not far from Mesa Verde National Park. I took a lot of pictures — now they are gone or lost in some box — and I remembered that I ordered red snapper, which surprised me to be on the menu of a bistro located nearly a thousand miles from the ocean where it found itself dragged up from the depths, its eyes bulging from the loss of pressure.
And tonight I think about what it takes to be a good ear, nonjudgemental ear. You don’t try to solve problems unless you are truly in key with the soul you give your time to. When I am at my best I am like that. And, as the scarlet clouds of Cortez, as the lights fade on that boulevard that stretches out into Route 666, I doubt that I have ever known a friend who has tolerated me as long as I have tolerated others, except Lynn. A few think that the listening can be reciprocal — you getting what you put in — but it never is. I’ve been a giver and when I look around for my own place, I find myself gasping like a sea bass or a blue-green rock cod, choking on an atmosphere which is not my own.
The last time I trusted someone I got burnt. And now others seem to be angry with me because I am watchful, because I don’t tell stories about what is really happening in my life right now and because I don’t open my heart for comment.
Unmanageable
Posted on July 13, 2007 in Caretakers Crosstalk Stigma
Now and then, I get seriously fed up with another blogger. In this case, it happens to be a family member of someone who is mentally ill. Of course, I am suspect: I suffer from mental illness, myself, so it will be said that I am backing up my own or that I am deranged so my opinions cannot be taken seriously. I’m “just a bipolar” and “can’t see the suffering that family members go through.”
But I come from the accountability school. I agree the illness makes it harder to see things clearly when the medications are not allowed to do/doing their job. (That’s why I take medications.) So I must take my medication so that my wife’s life is easier. I’ve learned to chart my moods and watch for signs that I might be slipping so that I can work with my psychiatrist. If I start seeing things jumping in from the sides of my vision while driving, I get myself home and avoid driving until the symptoms have passed.
Some family members, however, put the whole blame for the mess the household is in on the mentally ill individual. Like the patient, they deny that their actions harm the family. As of today I am no longer following the blog from which the following excerpt is extracted because the writer is stubborn about acknowledging the degree to which he/she is making things worse for her/his family in the name of making her/his mother better (!?):
Our oldest son had some doubts a few days ago about the severity of the messages – after a conversation with him, it turns out that he really didn’t remember what was said, only that he didn’t like it. The next day, after making sure that he still wanted to, I played some of the messages that he had heard for him. He only got through four of the seven before he was nearly in tears and didn’t need to hear any more.
There follows a detailed list of the number of phone calls the mother made to the home phone and a personal cell phone. The writer has a great stake in convincing us that his mother needs to take her meds (yes, we got that) and will stop at nothing to put that message across. I call this obsession pure and simple.
If there was a Twelve Step program for the families of the mentally ill, the first step would undoubtably read “We realized that we were powerless over the mentally ill and that our lives had become unmanageable”. This is certainly what needs to be on the lips of the adult child of a mentally ill person here. He/She can’t make Mom take her/his meds and the more posturing that he/she does, the more he/she tries to make a case to his family about what they already know, the worse he/she makes it for everyone. It’s not Mom who is making things unmanageable but the zealous child. Under such an assault, who can blame the mother for resisting?
For those who wish to make a sincere effort to support a family afflicted by mental illness, I can recommend these organizations:
And for the truly brave and loving family member, I suggest the services of a therapist, a watchful eye from a professional.
[tags]bipolar disorder, homecare, mental illness[/tags]
Friday Xenartha Blogging — UC Irvine
Posted on July 13, 2007 in Xenartha
This was almost the year for the UC Irvine Anteaters. Join the Eater Nation.
Scenes from the Bipolar Ghetto
Posted on July 12, 2007 in Neighborhood
My neighbor across the way moved out abruptly. The sound of hammering woke me on Monday, but I did not connect it with anything until I saw a workman breaking up the deck. Pieces of wood and insulation flew about for a couple of days before ceasing this morning. Last night, I noticed that the furniture in the condo was gone. She and her children had disappeared without notice. Neither Lynn nor myself know where they went. We doubt they’ll be back.
Today while I was feeding the birds (yet again….) someone called from over there “The Great Birdfeeder”. I looked to see a red sleeve and then just an elbow disappearing into the side of the window.
My therapist feels that I need to make more contact with people who are not bipolar sufferers. I agree, but not at the price of giving up my friends. We’ve been giving thought to getting a dog so that I will meet other dog owners. Either a [[pug]] or a [[Boston Terrier]] sound good. I’ve been doing some searching, thinking. It has to get on with cats. And I have to get on with people outside of the Bipolar Ghetto.
Around and About
Posted on July 9, 2007 in Travel Whimsies
I found this stuff on Liz’s site
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
In related news, check out the final selections for the New Seven Wonders of the World.
Savetheinternet.com
Posted on July 9, 2007 in Commons Theft Net Neutrality
They’re still trying to rob us of our free speech….
Upper Newport Bay Photos
Posted on July 9, 2007 in Biomes Photos
The first photos from my new camera have been posted at Paths of Light. Please take the time to review and rate them. Some are surreal, some more concrete. As a borderline between the dry and the wet, a marsh creates landscapes that we do not see other than in the methane seas of Jupiter and Saturn.
Upper Newport Bay offers strange divergences. Atop the bluffs lies a desert wreaked by trailcutting and the extreme dessication of this past winter. At their foot stands a land where a few inches to the left is immersed in water and a few inches to the right is rock solid, dry clay fired in the sun.
At the Feeder
Posted on July 8, 2007 in Creatures Weather
You can’t chew on blue skies, mash the seeds of the clouds if they leave no rain.
Spousal Communication
Posted on July 8, 2007 in Partnership
Me (seeing Lynn duck back into the car): Be sure to grab the medications.
Lynn: (Unintelligible)
Me: They’re on the floor in front of where I was sitting. Just put them in the bag I left for you.
VERSUS/PLUS
Me: (unintelligible)
Lynn: OK, I’ll grab the bag and the watermelon.
Me: (Unintelligible)….the bag….
PRODUCES:
Bag with medication left in the car. Necessary to retrieve them wearing pajamas at 1:30 a.m. because both partners were sure that they knew exactly what the story was!
Friday Xenartha Blogging – Arctic Sloth
Posted on July 6, 2007 in Xenartha
A lot can be said about a person’s intelligence, experts agree, based on whether they can see the rare arctic sloth depicted below:
You do see it, right?
