Adventurata

May Day

                                    
                             My little house with naturalized daffodils coming up in the unmowed lawn.

The cardinals have been calling for over a month now.  I wonder if they have found their mates and made their nests while I have been making my nest, my house and yard torn apart and basement dug, foundation replaced.  I can now look out on brilliant green grass that has not yet had its first mowing, dotted with daffodils and framed with redbuds.   

I'm tired. The sun is shining, and the birds have been calling all morning.  I left the windows open last night, and the furnace on 65.  The air got cool so I could snuggle up in the covers with my little Jack Russell terrier, Chloe.

Now I've taken my vitamins, and am waiting for them to kick in, as if a pill can magically make me healthy and happy.  I guess we are not meant to have an easy life, somehow.  The struggle for peace is ever present.  Today, in spite of the beautiful weather, I am losing that struggle.  I fight to remember gratitude for life's gifts of movement, of thought, of freedom from pain, of pets, of friends, of beauty, of challenge, of music.

I have had that feeling of total peace and contentment, felt it rolling over me like soft sunlight. I felt it looking out my window at my horses contentedly munching in the pasture, framed by colors and indoor tropical plants.  I felt it several times in this little house, before I began taking it apart and putting it back together.  I wonder now if it will ever be back together.  Patience is a virtue, although at times it has come back to haunt me, seeming lazy instead of patient.  The torn up yard, the cement detruss, the open trenches, injured beds that were flowers and gardens, are all tasks before me seeming impossible. And they are if I try to do them all yesterday instead of today, one at a time.  

I opened the window.  The air is cool, the wind is coming up and playing the wind chimes.   I debate whether to sit here, listening to the world as the wind come up and pushes nature a little farther, to more extremes, or to venture outside into the spring fray.  Maybe more coffee...or just a little nap?  

Instead, I'm off to Peoples Unitatian Universalist Church, which is immensely satisfying today.  The senior high kids do the service, telling what they value about their UU connection.  We sing one song, .  I talked with some of the other members and really enjoyed that engagement.  Those connections are so worth the trip!

My level of energy is directly effected by my engagement or estrangement with life around me.  Why I keep trying to retire from it, I don't know.  Mornings are especially difficult for me to move.  By evening I am beginning to be rational.  There was a time not so long ago when mornings were the best.  I woke early, sat and wrote.  Now I wake very early, can't get back to sleep, lay and work at disciplining my mind to quit worrying, chanting mantras and prayers.  

So today, I try writing again.  My cup...my rosebud cup...runneth over.  Surely good and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life for I am part of the Whole...until I leave this world and disapate and become the One.  Namaste. 

                                       
                                   In the big yard, a tulip tree and up-ended blackberry bushes.

May Day

                                    
                             My little house with naturalized daffodils coming up in the unmowed lawn.

The cardinals have been calling for over a month now.  I wonder if they have found their mates and made their nests while I have been making my nest, my house and yard torn apart and basement dug, foundation replaced.  I can now look out on brilliant green grass that has not yet had its first mowing, dotted with daffodils and framed with redbuds.   

I'm tired. The sun is shining, and the birds have been calling all morning.  I left the windows open last night, and the furnace on 65.  The air got cool so I could snuggle up in the covers with my little Jack Russell terrier, Chloe.

Now I've taken my vitamins, and am waiting for them to kick in, as if a pill can magically make me healthy and happy.  I guess we are not meant to have an easy life, somehow.  The struggle for peace is ever present.  Today, in spite of the beautiful weather, I am losing that struggle.  I fight to remember gratitude for life's gifts of movement, of thought, of freedom from pain, of pets, of friends, of beauty, of challenge, of music.

I have had that feeling of total peace and contentment, felt it rolling over me like soft sunlight. I felt it looking out my window at my horses contentedly munching in the pasture, framed by colors and indoor tropical plants.  I felt it several times in this little house, before I began taking it apart and putting it back together.  I wonder now if it will ever be back together.  Patience is a virtue, although at times it has come back to haunt me, seeming lazy instead of patient.  The torn up yard, the cement detruss, the open trenches, injured beds that were flowers and gardens, are all tasks before me seeming impossible. And they are if I try to do them all yesterday instead of today, one at a time.  

I opened the window.  The air is cool, the wind is coming up and playing the wind chimes.   I debate whether to sit here, listening to the world as the wind come up and pushes nature a little farther, to more extremes, or to venture outside into the spring fray.  Maybe more coffee...or just a little nap?  

Instead, I'm off to Peoples Unitatian Universalist Church, which is immensely satisfying today.  The senior high kids do the service, telling what they value about their UU connection.  We sing one song, .  I talked with some of the other members and really enjoyed that engagement.  Those connections are so worth the trip!

My level of energy is directly effected by my engagement or estrangement with life around me.  Why I keep trying to retire from it, I don't know.  Mornings are especially difficult for me to move.  By evening I am beginning to be rational.  There was a time not so long ago when mornings were the best.  I woke early, sat and wrote.  Now I wake very early, can't get back to sleep, lay and work at disciplining my mind to quit worrying, chanting mantras and prayers.  

So today, I try writing again.  My cup...my rosebud cup...runneth over.  Surely good and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life for I am part of the Whole...until I leave this world and disapate and become the One.  Namaste. 

                                       
                                   In the big yard, a tulip tree and up-ended blackberry bushes.

Question of Values

The United States has become more conservative and fundamentalist in the last few years.  I don't understand how our "good" people live with this disconnect of values.  Our actions of aggression and intolerance are not the "christ-like" teachings of the majority religion.  I am a Unitarian-Universalist.  I believe that all beings are children of the Infinite.  All are one, seeking our own paths of enlightenment.

I was raised in a conservative, Christian household in Kansas. I went to church, Sunday school, and youth group every Sunday. I didn’t smoke, drink or swear. I valued truth in every circumstance; I valued education and learning as a way to the truth. I valued and admired science as the door to the future. I valued the rights of the individual and our right to choose our own government. I despised hypocrisy and lived my values. I loved my neighbor better than myself.  I believed in the right of the people to choose in the democratic process.

As a young adult, standing in the old fashioned kitchen, I asked my mother why the Bible says the Earth was made in seven days, yet we have science with millions of years of strata in the earth’s crust.  Then she said that both could be true; we don’t know how long a day was in Bible times, and the Bible doesn’t have to be taken literally.  Now she seems to support the political doctrine of "creationism" that makes the earth about three thousand years old.  How strange. 

What about thou shall not bear false witness? Thou shall not lie. This got me in a lot of trouble if someone asked me if I liked their new dress and I didn’t. I felt obligated to tell them the truth. My dad said that I have to tell the truth, and I did, even if it caused a problem. What about owning up to your mistakes? That was considered a part of telling the truth. Admit your mistakes and take the consequences. Does this apply to our Christian politicians? Even when they have been caught lying do they admit it and take the consequences?

What about thou shall not kill? What about really bad people who killed someone, and what about wars? Mom said sometimes we have to do what works, and it just doesn’t work to overlook bad people and sometimes we have to go to war to protect ourselves.

That doesn’t make sense. Sometimes, thou shall not kill means thou shall not kill unless you have a really good reason?

What about Jesus’s teaching? Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the peacemakers for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Is that right? Why do we call peacemakers unpatriotic?

What about….Judge not least ye be judged? What about …Love they neighbor as thyself? Does that mean only if my neighbor is Christian, non-gay, Republican, not Arabic, not on welfare, or a street gang member? What about the rest of the world?

Jesus’s message was love. I was told that “LOVE” was the difference in the Old and New Testaments. Is this love?

Judgement and war against gays, Moslems, Arabic countries? Killing over 100,000 Iraquis who were living in under their own country’s rule before we came? People whose homes American bombs have destroyed, who have one or more civilian family members killed by Americans in a statistically irrefutable study done by a former defense department statistician? Is this love?

I don’t understand. We already did this in Vietnam. We learned, after billions of dollars spent, and hundreds of thousands of lives, that to get out of that war we had to just say, “I quit!” and pull out. Didn’t we learn anything? Isn’t the definition of insanity to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome?

 Isn’t Iraq the same thing, only with oil fields instead of rubber plantations? With no Communist bad guys, except the ones we have motivated to fight against an evil giant? And we call them “terrorist” bad guys?

I always believed that we were the good guys. But this is not what good guys do. Good guys do not go around invading countries that are much smaller and weaker than they are because they don’t like their leaders. Good guys do not beat up other guys. Bullies do. Cowards full of fear do Good guys don’t start making the first new nuclear warheads in fifty years to send us back into the “we-can-kill-the-population-of-the-world-twenty-times-over. Good guys do not suck the life blood out of the Earth, water, oil, and natural resources and leave mountains of garbage in its place for their own comfort. Good guys protect the weak.

Of these, faith, hope, and love/charity, the greatest of these is love/charity. The Bible says that brotherly love is greater than faith.

I’m so sad. I have been raised with Christian values, but don’t hear Christians saying anything. It makes me ashamed. Of the lies our leaders tell. The policies of violence and surpression of individual rights. Of the lying and denial of our environmental impact and global warming.  The things we, as a democratic, moral people, accept, and allow our leaders to do.

I am sad, and I am sorry for the world. When the most peaceful country in the world without violent crime is Japan, a non-Christian country, I feel that cannot be Christian any more.  Because I live Jesus’s words, and that’s not really a Christian thing to do.

 Amen.

P.S.
I believe in the unity of the world. I am proud to be Unitarian.

 

 

 

Letter with Poem

I have been wondering about the classes at Pacifica.  How does it work to have three classes with one day each?  What does the work load feel like at home?  Do you communicate with the other students?  It would help that there are three people from Albuquerque.  Are you able to keep up with the work?  It looked pretty heavy and time consuming to me. 
 
Did any students elect to live in California for the three years? I have been feeling like joining the foreign legion or the Peace Corps lately--running away again.  I have traveled a lot this year, but I just can't really get away.  I wrote and submitted a poem for publishing called, "The Year of Running Away."  I also have a live journal on typepad. com where I just write personal stuff.  My daughter Cassie is the only one who reads it.  Oh, I do have a friend at the Unitarian Universalist church who is a writer-former reporter for a newspaper who occasionally reads it. 

Running Away

      

October 27, 2005

            

  1. This year
  Has been a year of Running Away.
  A year of cries and good byes.

                     

 He left first.
  He said he had gone years before…the children kept him here.
  That he lived in anger and unhappiness
  Under our roof.

                                  

I tried to remember a time when he was not unhappy.
  (He is so filled with love and compassion for his staff and  patients.)
  I tried to remember…when he held me several yesterdays ago,
  I felt his love and compassion. Protected. Like he was my rock.
  But he was unhappy. I  knew that. His friends knew that.
                  

When was he happy?
  Maybe the moment we married in the Kansas log chapel,
  Married by the Dean of Students who was also a minister.
  Walking down the wedding isle to an Irish jig and Bach.
  Because I hated, “Here comes the bride, big fat and wide…”
  Maybe when he saw tears in my eyes, and promised for life?

                                 

Maybe on our honeymoon, sandwiched in the spring break,
  and shortened when we ran our of money.
  No problem, just turn around and drive home from Colorado Springs,
  Me riding shotgun in his mother’s loaner, the brown Chevy  Duster,
  Through a fresh snowfall,
  Five to ten inches,
  Or was it three?   

Our tracks the first on the highway.

                                                 

Now I see 5x7 memory of that joyful March trip,
  Twenty-two year-olds in the Garden of the Gods.
  He jumped as the automatic shutter-timer
  Clicked.
  Beginning a new life together. 

 

2. Two as One.
  --Do you think we’ll make it?—I remember him asking me
  —Half of marriages end in divorce—   
  --I think so—I  said, but without the conviction,

                                                      without the  certainty of age and experience.                         

 I had vowed to be flexible, to change my infinite self to  fit his needs,
  For the family, for his career, for us, for him.
  I knew too many women who were selfish with their own goals.
  I would be more traditional, like women before me,
  Like women after me.

             

We said in those early years, the seventies, when there seemed to be no models for roles, Someone has to do the dishes, be the “wife,”
  Even when I was the bread winner in those med school years,
  I did the dishes, and the shopping, I mowed the lawn for the  first time in my life,   

  I paid the bills, I decorated the first Christmas tree.

He studied, and worked, and studied.

      

He remembers that he mowed the lawn, too, and did dishes.
I don’t. I remember he painted the outside of our duplex for a discount on rent.
I remember my plants and garden and dogs, and  being happy at home, if not at work.

                  

 When we could finally afford it, babies came in twos.
  He was there. And  there, and there. I cooked, and nursed,  and did laundry.
  He did all the dishes. We both had day-mares, since we didn’t get enough sleep to have  nightmares. He was there.

                                 

 When we moved, I changed my contract.
  The little woman quit changing herself for everyone  else.
  Sanity took a vacation.
  The choices I thought I had made for him and the family,
  that had left me feeling numb inside and disconnected,
  were MY choices, not His.
  If I was unhappy, it was not because of him, or anyone else,

It was because of me.

      

I made a different choice.

         

I searched, went down wrong paths, dead ends, and started to find choices that gave me joy, besides my joy in my children and family.
  And I found that I wasn’t responsible for his unhappiness.

      

He was.

      

So I let him be himself, and I worked on me.

      

I found that I loved him more. He thought I loved him less.
  And our rhythm of closer together,

farther apart,

together,

apart…

Over the years was broken.

                         

 Thirty-two years after the first snow… 

  3. He left.

             

 I started running.
  Did we make it to forever after?

 We made
  Three wonderful daughters
  A secluded, wooded estate
  A home with undercurrents that shadowed mental illness
  A home with love

      

He made his practice,

I practiced on the family.

                     

 He still has his practice,
  Which he hates, and loves,
  As he hates and  loves me.
  As he hated and  loved his mother

                                    His  sister

                                    His  father

                                    The  art world

                                    Politics    

                                    Organized  religion

                                    Medical school      

                                    Doctors

                                    Life

                     

Who will he hate when I am gone?
  When the work is gone?
  Or will he have learned/has he learned that
                                      Hate is the only enemy?
  That the darkness he sees is only his own reflection in a  mirror?

                     

 Monday, he took me to dinner.
  --I forgive you for everything you have done to me—
                                    he said after a couple of drinks.
                                        Taken aback, I  returned to him
  —Well, I forgive you for  everything you have done to me.
  Relief spread over his face—I so wanted that (you would  forgive me).—

 What was that? We  haven’t seen much of each other since.

 My year of running has ended, today.
            

 4. My Soul’s Journey

 I saw the Corte d’Azure in France,  Beaches in Santa Barbara,

Vineyards in San Francisco, hedge apples and muddy rivers in Kansas, a Hospital in Belvedere, Illinois, Renaissance Fair in Shakopee, Minnesota, Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California, Killarnery, Killkenny, and Stables in Ireland, a clear Stockton Lake in Missouri, Rosh Hashanah in Dallas, Peoples Unitarian Church in Cedar Rapids, Anyasara Yoga, and the Kabbalah

In the one year since he left.
  And when I got home, I was still there.

         

 My year of running has ended.

                                     

 Now I stay home and take care of business.
  Emotional cleaning,
  Physical cleaning,
  Living through more pain that I thought I could bear.
   I have opened and peeked into new doors.
  I am impatient to finish the cleaning,
  And step through a door, as  if it were that easy,

      

Into the Light.
 

 

  ________________________________________
 

 

There it is.  I have been studying Kabbalah, and reading the Tao of Pooh, and have a bunch of interesting religion and myth books to work with.  I wanted to do something on the relationship/commonality of world religions/myths.  I even thought about doing some research on Gypsies since not that much is known about them, and their mythology. 

 

      

 

      

 

      

 

   
 
 
 
 
   

Mon day

Monday.  I ran all over town with Robin today.  We mall-walked, then picked up Paige and went to the Half-Price Bookstore. I saw a friend, Keith, who works there and is a writer.   I finally got in the Christmas spirit (that of buying)  and got some Christmas presents there, then Best Buy, and Barnes and Noble.

I bought this great book that Natalie and Mandi told me about, POSTSECRETS.  It is a work of modern art and sociology in a plain brown wrapper.  It is a collection of anonymous postcards that were distributed by a New Jersey man with these instructions:  To write down a secret with these conditions;  that it is true, and you haven't told anyone.  He collected the "secrets" and they became a work of art.  He showed in art shows.  He got an Internet site.  It became a catharsis for him, and his anonymous donors.  I want to go back and read it, but I had to feed horses and write when I got home. 

Last night I called Mandi at 11:00.  Not cool.  She usually is asleep by then since she has to be at work at 7:00 a.m., an ungodly hour.  I had this sudden urge to become a nurse and I wanted her to go to school with me.  Now it sounds stupid.  On the news, they told about a free clinic that needed health care workers in order to keep helping people, and I wanted to volunteer.  But I can't.  I am not a health care worker.  It hit me that I possibly COULD be a health care worker, if I went to graduate school in nursing or public health instead of Mythology or the Iowa Writers Workshop or Higher Education.  It certainly sounds more useful.  They have a new MS program in nursing and public health at the University.  It could be very interesting.  That appeals to me more.  But I don't want to give up all my other interests...my dogs and cats, my horses, my church, my new friends, my writing, my grand-prix dressage training, my eco-development, my African family, my house, my biodiesel plant.  My life is full, and complex.  No wonder I feel crazy half the time.  What do you think?

Rental Chaos

What a crazy day!  I have been on the go all day, trying to get the duplex ready to show tomorrow.  I guess there was more than I thought, plus NONE of my four lawnmowers would start, so the grass is still unmowed.  The ad goes into the paper tomorrow, and we may, or may not get any responses.  I changed my barn number to the number of my NEW property management and services business.  Actually it is an old business...the rentals...but has a new name and a new bank account.  The accountant said that we needed to separate it's expenses from Bridleway.  I talked to my coworkers, and we agreed on "Acton Property Services."  No relation to "Lord Acton," who wrote a Brit Among the Hawkeyes, but it doesn't hurt us any to be associated with English nobility.  We just left the "I" out of action to get our name.

Cassie is home this weekend and wants a "Thanksgiving" dinner tomorrow afternoon, since we are going to Erie for Thanksgiving. I remember growing up when every Thanksgiving we had a reunion with the St. Louis cousins, the Cotterills, and then we went to St. Louis for Easter.  Some of my most cherished memories are of those times.  I will tell you more about it  another time.  Right now, I have cooking to do for "Thanksgiving ."   

I am doing better after my Kabbalah adventure.  Also, I'm entering a poetry contest with Iowa Source, the Fairfield independent paper.  You know Fairfield--Maharishi University and all?  Maybe I'll get brave and post it here.  Or maybe not.  We'll see.

Love to all,  Me

It's M O R N I N G.  I'm feeling better.  It was fun to check on my uploaded photo album.  I now have three on my blog.  I gave titles to my pics, selected a cover pic, and published.  I don't know that anyone really notices, but at least my family can look if they want.  I got online to check my calendar and ended up doing this.  I figured I have to finish 2 articles a day, plus read some pages in a book and I will have my homework done on time.  The only thing is I can't find the Bible I bought or Jung's Memories, Dreams, and Reflections.  I know that I didn't take it to Kansas when I went.

OH, that reminds me...I can publish my Kansas pictures here too!  See you later!

Sadness, home, and Mythology Homework

I don't understand why I always feel sad.  I do see people.  I went to Church today and talked to a number of people.  One person who is in my covenant group, Carrie, went out with me to Lois's to watch the Horse Trials for a bit. I was supposed to announce, but another woman had taken over for me while I was in church and she wanted to keep doing it.  I felt left out, I guess.   I feel like even my skin feels sad.  It hurts.  I want to cry.   Maybe too much thinking of myself.

I came home early from the show.  It was a good thing.  Chloe had gotten her front paw caught in her collar and was hobbling around on three legs crying.  Poor puppy!!!  Charlie was caught on the wrong side of the pasture gate and was lying down with his face on his paws until he realized I was coming to rescue him.  Then he ran the other direction to go bark at horses.  Stinker.  Chloe followed (now on four legs) and barked insanely.  The horses ignored her.  I got all the dogs to go to the house.

The birdies outside my window are loving my sunflower seeds.  I have a nuthatch and two juncos flying around taking turns at the green feeder.  A little black-capped chickadee is trying to steal seeds from a little hole in the side.  A rather tacky looking female (?) cardinal is sitting on the feeder top going, "teet...teet...teet...teet..."  Is that a female cardinal sound or is the something else?  Natalie would know.  It might be a male cardinal that got into a really bad fight or hail-storm.  So far he/she went to the ground to get seeds.  I wonder if the squirrel protection bar is too small for the cardinal.  He/she is bigger than the other birds eating there.  I feel bad if she/he can't get seeds.  Maybe I need to get my other feeder fixed so I will have a place for all the birds.  I can barely see a chickadee splashing in the birdbath through the red-twig dogwood foliage.   The bushes in the front yard have gotten so big with the automatic sprinkler system.  I have to get them trimmed down. 

When I come home, I just  go into the house and feel sad.  I don't really want to do anything, even though I feel better when I go outside or go up to the barn to see the horses.  I sometimes try to watch TV, and listen to NPR.  TV is almost always a bust.  Tons of channels, but nothing worth watching.  I have watched Wisdom Channel enough that I have seen most of the programs on it at least once.  They don't have a ton of new stuff.  Regular TV just makes me impatient.  I hate commercials.  Even if I turn them on mute they drive me nuts.  I bought some pre-made Margarita stuff, and some wine, but I don't think I want to drink alone and get a headache.  I wouldn't mind eating something but that seems useless, too. 

What I HAVE to do is my homework.  I have ten articles to read, and three or four books.  And I don't have that much time before I go to Ireland on Friday.  I have some time when I get back, but I need to keep with it.  The first article I finished is really good.  It's by the professor and is about Freud's take on myth and the soul.  She says that Freud felt like he was doing archaeology of the soul as he explored the unconscious.  At first he thought he was just dealing with the physical manifestations of the soul's pain in women with "hysteria."  But then he started looking at himself as a "normal" person and found that it applied to normal people, too.  She said that rather than taking Freud literally in all his sexual works that it shows that he was looking at the intersection of physical and the soul.  Sex is a dynamic manifestation of the junction of two souls coming together.  I really liked the way she talked about Freud's Narcissism as being part of the quest of the soul for connection, for wholeness with another but that constantly found fault with the other person because you can NEVER be completely part of the other.  Does that make sense?  I'm trying to understand all this, taking notes and paraphrasing to make sure I'm getting it.  I like working on this.

Cassie, did you see the album of a few pics from our horsey rides?  I will try to upload more as I can.  Also, Mom and Grandad want to have a Family Reunion this Thanksgiving.  Do you think you and Colin could fly down again, maybe to Tulsa this time?  I would try for tickets if so.  Lots of love to all.  Mom

Tuesday Noon

I think it's time for me to start writing in my log again.  I haven't written much since Gregg asked for a divorce.  I still have trouble believing it, but am coming around to it.  I really think that this is something that should take a long time.  It is hard to live with another person.  I think our society supports the wrong things sometimes when it stresses individualism above all else.  I do believe that we should make choices to be happy in our lives, so I guess I believe that Gregg has a right to choose to live alone, or with someone else that makes him happy. 

Natalie said something funny Saturday when we were over at Mandi's.  I said that Gregg feels less suicidal when he's living without me.  She said, "Yeah, that's what Walter said when he left Gram....for a while, anyway."  (Walter ended up killing himself at 55 after years of marriage to The Other Woman.)  I thought that was an interesting observation, because that's the way I see it too.  I think that Gregg's unhappiness is how he talks to himself, and the anger he has toward his mother first, and women in general.   How I fit into that is that I was there.  I am not perfect.  Far from it.  He doesn't really admire or respect me at this point I don't think because I am not like his mother all organized and super clean.  But he also hates his mother, so if I were like her, he would also hate me.   So, I figure at this point, I can't win.  He at least for now is being "nice."  I meet with my lawyer next week. 

I came up with a cool thing in counseling today...building a new house for me, or adding onto the house at 1399 to make it a duplex.  I think that would be really cool.  I need to do more research on the Internet to make it as energy independent as possible.  It is really exciting to think about this.  I would have to do it within a budget?  There are several companies that make "manufactured" homes in the area that are also energy efficient.  I also saw a company in Lawrence, Ks. that designs eco-friendly housing often using old materials.  That would be a good thing for me to do.   

It is getting harder and harder to stay in 1297 alone.  I don't look forward to the winter here.  I would like to try a new, more efficient place I think.  I know it will be hard for the kids and dogs and cats, but it is really hard for to be here.  Well, gotta go, Mr. Internet Elf.  See you tomorrow!

Home Alone

Okay.  It's Friday night and I'm home alone.  Not really a new thing, but somehow noteworthy.  I watched HGTV for a while, seeing how to make over my home for just pennies on the dollar.  It seems like I usually do that for dollars on the penny, and still have the same old look, eclectic junk-man.  That's being negative.  How about "eclectic zoo," or "eclectic menagerie" since animals tend to be a central feature in our house? 

I have missed writing or journaling at all much since I had this surgery.   It has been just over a month ago.  I was sick quite a bit this week when I ran out of pain medication.  I guess it really was helping a lot, but not inspiring me to write.  I haven't used much of it, but it must really be potent.  I was able to do without my antidepressants for the whole month!  Of course, when the pain med was gone, so was my good mood.  I guess that may have been why the biotch showed up.  But then I wonder, "which is the real me?"  Natalie says that I am more myself when I'm on my antidepressants, that the awful reaction isn't so much me.  I think eventually I would even out.  Right now, I can hear that darn ringing in my ears again.  I guess Effexor might do that too.  I know it plays havoc with my blood pressure.  Once I was off it, my  blood pressure dropped like a rock.  from about 175/120 to 103/74.  I wonder that I still could stand up!!!  I have lost over twenty pounds so far, though. 

Other weird things....I went with Natalie to Kirkwood Community College to help her sign up for the last course in her undergraduate career, and guess what?  I signed up for it too!  It's the "Fundamentals of Statistics."   OH  MY GOD.  I mean, I've been thinking of taking statistics for ages.  I needed it desperately when I was a research assistant at the University of Missouri-Columbia, and was told that I really needed to take it.  So, I thought, hey, here is your chance.  Take this class and you'll be ready to do research in graduate school!  I'm planning on going in Mythology, with Jungian psychology emphasis.  So does that make sense?  After I signed up for it, I have had some moments of....let's say, extreme concern?  I haven't taken any math for...what, thirty years?  I think my brain is still minimally functional, and I have almost always been able to pull it off, in terms of class work.  There was this one "C" I got in Comparative Anatomy...which I took because GREGG liked it so much, and it almost did me in, with the class filled with nursing and medical students.  I did it though!  I think that is the only "C" I got in college.  I got mostly "A's" in graduate school.  That's what I expect to get.  Hum...taking a class with Natalie...interesting to say the least.  My "Mandi"-ness may come out in this.  Plus I just committed to two hours a day, five days a week, for June and half of July!  WTF!  Just because I think I need to learn something (and support Natalie?)  Oh well...what was I doing with my life anyway?