Year: 2013
Herd
Posted on October 14, 2013 in Creatures Hiking Neighborhood Prose Arcana
Seven mule deer gathered near the dead end of the trail.
Typing Errors
Posted on September 3, 2013 in Anxiety Attitudes Bipolar Disorder Fear Reflections
Mistakes like this cause me to enter a highly vigilant state of mind.
Dream
Posted on August 31, 2013 in Dreams
I am sorting through some things when my bare calf is bitten — or rather mouthed — by a red, white and blue ball. The ball has no mouth of its own — rather there is a head wrapped up inside of it and it is the head that is trying to bite me through the thick, leather walls of the ball. Lynn tells me to give it to her and she will take care of it, so I do. I put up some latex gloves and pick up some stuff that is littered on the floor such as torn up shreds of paper and dog droppings.
Mustard Road: The Race
Posted on August 19, 2013 in Body Language Coronary Hikes and Trails Hiking Reflections
The bikes come singly or in pairs or triplets or, sometimes, squadrons. I listen for the whirr of spokes behind me and try to guess which way to jump when they get closer.
An Unsung Side Effect
Posted on August 6, 2013 in Body Language Psychotropics
The doctor who was going to perform the colostomy spent several minutes of my preliminary appointment putting information from my new patient form into the computer. He asked me a question here and there about previous conditions: why, for example, my anemia was of concern? (My hemoglobin count had dropped from 13.7 to 12 in the course of six months.) How long had I experienced gastric reflux? (On and on for twenty years. For this I won the bonus prize of an endoscopy to be performed at the same time.) Then he reviewed my medications and saw that I was on psychotropics.
“We’re going to have to bring in an anesthesiologist,” he announced.
The reason for this is that my psychotropics tend to raise the level of sedation. The valium they use for most patients won’t put me out. I would find myself enjoying every moment of the procedures as they poked my orifices and sought answers in my intestines and my esophagus.
The extra attendant would cost me $260 which my insurance might or might not pay. I sighed and made a note of this, then followed him to have a clerk send my prescription for the laxative to the pharmacist and explain to me what I could and couldn’t have before the probe.
Dream
Posted on August 4, 2013 in Dreams
A black man keeps preventing me from taking sugar or salt from a bowl by pulling on a string he has around my right arm. When I ask why, he says he is protecting it from other people. When he gets up from the table, I follow him. “Tell me about McCarthyism,” I ask. He gets me a convoluted answer in which he insists that McCarthy was a Canadian who fought in the war and then became a great American senator. For his wrong answer, I tie him up and carry him off to a place where there are other black people. To get there, I have to walk against a crowd which is going to see the Fourth of July fireworks. There is only one white woman walking the same way. Everyone else ignores us as I take my prisoner to other black people who will sit in judgement.
Dream
Posted on July 25, 2013 in Dreams
While I make an announcement about the support group, the members begin to meet with some new people. I finish my work just in time to see the newcomers get up before the end of the meeting and go to an outer area to eat pancakes with blueberry syrup. I feel hurt. The leader of the newcomers listens to me as I explain that they need to stay for the whole meeting. He says they don’t want to follow my rule, so I suggest that they could start their own group. The leader — who looks like a young Stephen Jobs in a blue suit — likes the idea and proposes they hold their meeting on the same night. I try to convince him that this won’t work, but he just keeps shaking his head.
Humility and Moods
Posted on June 8, 2013 in Bipolar Disorder Humility
Humility is neither blind optimism or blinding pessimism.
Dream
Posted on June 5, 2013 in Dreams
A pair of maids are helping me clear out my brother’s bedroom in the old house. One of them keeps knocking pictures from the wall. I tell her that it is all right and help her cut away the broken frames and stack them neatly. She produces an old movie poster from a Chinese film framed in cardboard. “I remember seeing that,” I said. Then after a moment’s thought “You can throw it away.” I go outside onto the back porch. They’ve done a terrible job of sweeping it — there’s lots of dirt. I walk on it in muddy shoes which infuriates my mother and father. Mom screams at me and blames the entire mess on me, so I tell her that I will sweep it. While I clean up the maids’ mess, I hear my parents arguing in the house. I finish sweeping and take the broom to the garage. I hear Dad say that he has a solution for the family’s finances just as the door opens and a large car rolls into the garage. An Asian man gets out. He tells me that he knows me and explains that he is renting the space. I hear the family coming out, so I tell him I can’t talk. They come out in a ragged line with my father at the front. My brother tells my brother that he has been to a casino in Las Vegas. “Which one?” my mother asks. He names one that I have never heard of. “That’s not a good one,” she says. “They have small cash payouts.” I take my place at the end of the line. Many members of my family are eating dinner, including many little brothers I never had. I cringe at the thought of my father hitting me because I didn’t get the patio swept to his satisfaction. He is putting a sausage on his plate and complaining about the job I did. I want to tell him to show me the right way, but I am scared.
Dream
Posted on May 1, 2013 in Dreams
The teacher is standing in the center of the room holding up a flip chart. The subject is mathematics. She has divided the test into two kinds: one for those who like math and one for those who hate it. The second part features an algebra problem in which we are to figure out how many deer (or ducks) and how many does (or ducklings) are featured in the problem. I wrack my brain looking for a trick answer, but force myself to awake. When I go to sleep again, the problem is still there and I keep waking up and falling back to sleep to find that the problem is still there, begging for me to answer it.
Guilt vs. Shame: Torture vs. Tool
Posted on April 19, 2013 in Guilt Mania Therapy
I don’t think the answer is feeling guilty but part of my recovery has been to feel a proper amount of shame for the demonic releases that I perpetrated while I was high on my illness.
Dream
Posted on April 18, 2013 in Dreams
I am on a cruise with my brother. There seems to be a writing conference going on. We meet someone we both knew in Boy Scouts. My brother comments that the range of people on the cruise seems narrow and the friend agrees. I find that I am sitting in the chair that one of the instructors is using to teach a class in film. He makes sure that every item in the scene is where it should be and asks me to focus the frame while he puts the last touches on it. Just don’t press the shutter he says. I wait in his seat — a little proud that he asked me to fulfill this function for him, until he is ready and can start. I step back when he is and then a man with a ragged beard and round glasses from the port asks me to help him find some film in the shop. The instructor has a reputation as a bigot, so I take the man behind a wall where he won’t be seen. We find all kinds of film and recording tape, but no Portra which is what I suggest and what he wants. Someone sees that the man is Middle Eastern and goes to tell the instructor. “You need to get out of here,” I say to the man. He runs. When the informants return, another person in the shop derides them. “You don’t even know if he was a Muslim or a Christian,” he says. “What business do you have harassing him?” Another man calls out that he was a “zohmay”. Before I can find out what that is, I wake up.
