Don’t wanna talk about it. Just am.

Today Siske said my wound is leaking too much so now I have to have a nurse come in and change it daily because going back to the vac isn’t an option considering they took it back on Monday. Apparently it costs $300/day to have them in the home so they don’t like to have them out if they’re not being used and apparently there’s also a waiting list for them. I’m back on the waiting list for it but I won’t know if we’re going back to the vac until I see Dr. Hanrahan on Wednesday. Siske only works every other day so tomorrow Janice is coming and Blake has to go to work so I have to deal with her all by myself, which has me really really nervous.

This is what my dressing looked like this morning, it was changed on Monday:

Gross, right? You should have smelled it.

This is what my cheese pizza wound looked like today.
To the right is my bellybutton.
The pink stuff at the edges is new skin. It’s very very smooth.

We still haven’t heard from the surgeon who will be doing the pseudocyst procedure. I’m really curious to know if they’re going to snip it and let the fluid just drain into my abdomen or if they’re going to insert a needle and suck the juice out of it. I thought we would have heard from him by now and the fact that we haven’t makes me nervous because that could mean that he maybe can’t do it because my guts are all twisted up. Dr. Hanrahan said that was a possibility.

I have to get a new binder because the one I have is too big/doesn’t hold my guts in tight enough and my dressing leaked all over the one I have, staining it, so I can’t take it back. There’s another $50 down the drain. Thanks to some generous friends I’m a little less stressed out about this expense than I was before but it still seems like such a waste.

Halloween. Madison is going out as Nyan Cat and Wes is going out as his own creation, “W Boy”. Over the summer when they were in Michigan, the kids went to camp and at Wes’ camp they made him this “W Boy” costume that’s just a white t-shirt that says “W Boy” on it that he coloured himself and a cape with a silver “W” on the back. The kid practically lives in it.

Over the weekend we did pumpkins and by “we”, I mean “Madison” because she did them all, I just roasted the seeds which are my favourite part of Halloween but apparently they make me throw up. :o(

She made Blake a Burning Man pumpkin:

She made Wes a Nyan Cat pumpkin (it has ears but you can’t see them in the dark):

She made me a Hello Kitty pumpkin:

And she made herself an Angry Birds pumpkin:

I thought it was weird that Wes is obsessed with Angry Birds but Madison made HER pumpkin Angry Birds and Madison’s being Nyan Cat for Halloween but she made Wes’ pumpkin Nyan Cat. What a weirdo.

And last but not least, I got into Touched By Fire this year.
They chose “Black & White” for the show.

Oh and in case I forgot to mention it, my Etsy shop is open again.

Now I’m going to bed.

Meet Anxiety Cat.

Swap Xanax for Ativan and that would be me.

This one is also me.
I pretty much only pick up the phone if Blake’s # shows up. Or the school.

So not much new is really going on in Sunnyland. The kids started school this week. Wes is happy with his teacher and classroom arrangement whereas Madison is not because she’s in the 7/8 split and “none” of her friends, including her boyfriend, are in her class. She’ll get over it and hopefully she’ll have a smarter, more attractive, classier boyfriend soon. (Although I’m not holding my breath, in this town the pickings are pretty damn slim.)

I just wrote a few paragraphs trash talking Madison’s boyfriend and his family, but I deleted it because that wouldn’t be very classy of me. Just know that I’m not at all happy with Madison’s selection in light of the fact that I’m pretty sure she’s dating the boy’s mother more than the boy. And I’ll leave it at that.

Onto other things…

So, most of my time is spent in this bed in the living room and today I got Blake to charge the batteries in my camera, which died while I was unconscious, so I could start a feature in blog posts or maybe just one big blog post where it’s just “scenes from my bed”. I’m sure I’ll get bored with it pretty damn fast but at the same time, I’m pretty damn bored and this is just a way for me to make things more interesting. Chances are, all I’m going to end up with are a million photos of my dogs begging for food. SO BE IT.

So that was my genius idea of the day. Bask in its glory.

I worked on a page in my Sketchbook Project 2012 sketchbook this week using Derwent’s Inktense pencil crayons because I can’t exactly haul a whole ton of paint into my bed and so far it’s turning out pretty good. It’s a 2 page layout, a drawing of a girl with rainbow hair. All she needs to be finished is a dress but I need to get into my office and sitting at my desk to make that happen because that’s where all of my scrapbook paper is, so that’s my plan for the weekend: to get this page finished. Oh and the background of the page is black so I was going to add stars using my silver pen.

My Sketchbook Project theme is the same as last year’s, “Untitled”, so I can really do anything. I learned last year that my metallic paints, which I love so much, don’t do well in these scrapbooks because the pages stick together, so since they’re out of the equation, I have to learn some new tricks and adapt. Varnish also didn’t work so well for me last year and I can’t stand the feel of acrylic paint without it, so I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that. I don’t think I’m going to be able to complete the whole book without using acrylic paint because that’s just what I use, so I’m going to have to figure something out.

I entered 6 paintings into Touched By Fire, despite knowing full well that I won’t get in because my work’s not moody or emo enough for that show. Sure, they embraced me with open arms the first time I submitted because my work was manic and angsty and representative of bipolar disorder but as soon as I GET BETTER and start creating more cohesive works, they want nothing to do with me. (But they have no problem asking me to donate my artwork for their cause. “No, you’re not good enough to be in the show, but how about you give us your hard work for free? Thanks!” I don’t fucking think so and I hope very few artists agree to that. They just started that crap and I’m hoping it was so unsuccessful that they won’t ask again this year.)

Speaking of being an artist, that’s all I am now. That’s my only job. I don’t have a job to come back to. Somehow my boss got the impression that after I got out of the hospital I wouldn’t want to work because certain people took it upon themselves to speak for me without speaking TO me, and she hired 2 girls full-time to replace me. Now before you all get upset about the fact that not having a job to come home to after being sick is super illegal, it’s not when you’re a sub-contractor and the company you work for is in another country. Also, they HAD to replace me, what were they going to do while I was out indefinitely? The other existing 2 girls couldn’t cover my share of the work, especially for that long, so they had no choice but to hire extra help. I’ve e-mailed my boss and asked her to keep me in mind if anything opens up after I’m recovered from my surgery (still not sure when that’s going to be though) and that’s really all I can do.

I’m pretty upset that I don’t have a job anymore and really pissed off that certain people would have said those things without speaking to me first, especially because every waking moment when I was in the ICU, I was crying and scared that I wouldn’t have a job to come home to and Blake told me to stop worrying about that, that he’d been e-mailing with my boss the whole time and that I had nothing to worry about. Talk about a slap in the face to come home and find out otherwise.

I’m extremely worried about money. We know that we can scrape by on one income, but it really fucking sucks to have to. Moving is going to have to be postponed indefinitely, so Blake’s going to have to commute 4 hours a day indefinitely. All winter. Probably for several winters.

Until I have the surgery to close my cheese pizza wound, remove my gall bladder and fix the hernia that’s making my guts fall out all over the place – and then recover from that – I won’t be re-opening my Etsy shop. Blake doesn’t know how to print invoices and shipping labels or how to pack paintings and I’m in no position to do that stuff myself at the moment or the very near future, so the shop is going to remain closed.

I wasn’t going to apply for the Emerging Artist grant this year because I’m sick of them rejecting me but if the deadline hasn’t passed then I think I’m going to because putting food on the table is part of being an artist and we really need the money.

The good news is that I got loan forgiveness on my student loans, so we don’t have those to worry about and right now the only debt we have right now is the house and car, but still, things are gonna be pretty tight.

Anyway, enough about that crap, it’s bumming me out.

My cheese pizza wound is getting noticeably smaller with the help of the vac dressing. I *believe* that when I was in the ICU at RVH, it was 26cm across and that would have been about 6 weeks ago that they told me the measurements. I forget how long it was. Now it’s 17.5cm across with no scarring whatsoever and 12.5cm long. The skin where the wound used to be just looks like normal skin. The only thing that’s weird about it is that my bellybutton is still a few centimeters to the left of the wound.

I go to see the surgeon who will be slicing and dicing me on October 4th so I’ll have more information after that. The surgeon in Toronto doesn’t feel a follow up is needed. Originally the surgeon up here wanted me to follow up with him because I have pancreatic pseudocysts but Blake figures if they were a big deal, I’d still be in the hospital, which is a very good point.

Today I was on Wikipedia reading about pancreatitis and these 2 complications are basically what happened to me:

• Dehydration, and kidney failure (resulting from inadequate blood volume which, in turn, may result from a combination of fluid loss from vomiting, internal bleeding, or oozing of fluid from the circulation into the abdominal cavity in response to the pancreas inflammation, a phenomenon known as third spacing).
• Respiratory complications are frequent and are major contributors to the mortality of pancreatitis. Some degree of pleural effusion is almost ubiquitous in pancreatitis. Some or all of the lungs may collapse (atelectasis) as a result of the shallow breathing which occurs because of the abdominal pain. Pneumonitis may occur as a result of pancreatic enzymes directly damaging the lung or simply as a final common pathway response to any major insult to the body (i.e., ARDS or acute respiratory distress syndrome).

If you’ve been reading my blog for any great length of time, you’ll know that I’m not very good with birthdays. My own especially, but also other people’s. This year was no different, despite everyone’s best efforts.

First of all, last night Blake and I were screwing around with this pink aluminum baseball bat that I bought in the states last night and he had one end and I had the other and we were fighting over it in the dark (don’t ask why, it doesn’t matter). Long story short, I ended up getting nailed really hard with it, right above my right temple and today my head is literally mushy. My hair hurts. It hurts when I chew. We’re fairly certain I was/am concussed. I cannot deal with my emotions right now, like I have to control over them whatsoever. I woke up in much more pain today than when it first happened even and I basically spent all day crying.

I’ve been chowing down Tylenol 1 and Naproxen like it’s candy and that’s helped a little but but I think I’d be screaming if I wasn’t drugged up to the tits.

So that set up my birthday and made me a very unhappy person all day.

Then I had to go to metabolic clinic, which I really didn’t want to do because I really didn’t want to get out of my pajamas and make the time up on the weekend when I already have to work an extra 8 hours this weekend because of the time I missed for the funeral. But I went anyway. It was a module on stress and was mostly unhelpful, but at one point we had a 20 minute discussion on smoking and…

…after the class was over, I told Blake to stop at a store because it was my birthday and I’d smoke if I goddamned well pleased and I goddamned well pleased. So we had one in the car and I said I was just going to smoke today but when we got home I felt guilty and flushed the rest of the pack. Smokes are $10.25 a pack now, by the way.

After metabolic clinic I had to work for another 2 hours, so I did that and when I was finished, I told Blake I needed to sleep because all day, and this can apparently be a concussion thing, I was extremely drowsy. Like, I could barely stay awake during the metabolic clinic because the lights were off and they were doing a Powerpoint presentation. I actually closed my eyes during it a few times and kinda jolted awake.

So I slept from 6pm-7pm and then Blake went to get dinner (Chinese food), we ate, I felt sick, I took Gravol and then we did presents with the kids. Wes got me the next 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer books for “season 8″, Madison got me a laughing Buddha cone incense holder with some incense and my step-mom sent down a small gift with Madison which included a $25 gift certificate for Starbucks, a leather journal, some neat sparkly nail polish and some lip balm. (This may or may not be common knowledge but I’m a lip balm/chapstick hoarder due to chronically chapped lips. It’s been an issue my whole life.)

Oh and before I go any further, I gained 2 lbs this week but lost an inch. This is what happens every week, I either gain or lose 2 lbs and gain or lose 1 or 2 inches on my waist but never at the same time. Also on the way home from metabolic clinic we checked the mail and the CD Blake ordered for me a while back finally came (Bossanova by the Pixies so now I have them all). The birthday card my mom sent me last Wednesday had not arrived yet, but it’ll probably be here Saturday when Blake checks the mail next.

After presents, we finished watching Big Love and then I started to watch last week’s Jersey Shore when suddenly I panicked that I couldn’t smoke again after today for a whole other year because the rule Blake and I made in the car was that I would only smoke on my birthday. So I popped 3 Ativan, grabbed my wallet and keys, put my shoes on with no socks and drove to the store where I paid another $10.25 for a pack of smokes. That’s now $20.50 for smoking today, for those doing the math.

Now Blake’s gone to bed and I’m staying up a little later than usual (I usually go to bed around 10/10:30pm) because I want to make the most of this smoking thing and also because if I’m tired tomorrow I can start work at 11am and finish at 7 because my work is flexible like that. My lungs feel like they’re on fire though and before I go to bed I’ll be flushing the rest of this pack and if I want smokes tomorrow I’m shit outta luck because I have to work and there’s no way I’m walking to the store. Plus, I’m a non-smoker again as of midnight so I’m just not going to go there again until next year.

In other birthday news, my treadmill from Charlie is going to be here this Saturday and my step-mom is taking the elliptical. To go with the treadmill, Blake bought me a new pair of shoes for my birthday, which I’m in love with. These ones:

Yeah I know, Shape Ups are supposed to be bullshit and they don’t do what they claim to do (tone your legs, give you better posture and some other stuff – I haven’t watched the DVD they came with yet) but I don’t care about that, I didn’t want them because they were Shape Ups. I wanted them because I love them and because there are no laces to do up and I don’t have to put on socks to wear them. I can throw them on with bare feet in 30 seconds, go on the treadmill for 10 minutes between answering e-mails, throw them off, continue working and repeat throughout the day. The metabolic clinic people want us walking 3k steps a day but I can only do a little less than half that just walking around the house, so my first goal for the treadmill is going to be that per day in small increments, working my way up to more and more.

Oh and Blake’s also getting my Team Canada jersey lettered with Sidney Crosby. :o) It’s at the pro-shop right now being done. I’m very excited.

Chali also got me a gift certificate for Lush, so any day now another Lush box is going to be at my front door waiting for me and I started planning both front and back yard gardens with Ruggedo yesterday.

So “stuff”wise, I made out like a bandit for my birthday and I’m very grateful for everything I got, it was just a bummer of a day and I’m glad it’s almost over.

The next thing I wanted to write about is sleep. My shrink gave up on giving me benzodiazapines for sleeping (although I’m still taking clonazepam) and she gave me an anti-psychotic instead, called loxapine, which seems to be working. She said there was a small chance that it would increase my appetite and if that happened to stop taking it but it seems to be having the opposite effect and I’m just not hungry these days.

Also helpful is this thing Kevin got me, it’s called a Wake Up Light (watch the video in that link, it’s sorta cool). I was really really skeptical when he suggested this thing but I’ve gotta admit that after a week or so of using it, it really is working. How it works is that you set it for when you want to wake up, in my case that’s 9am. So at 8:30am, the light comes on dimly and starts getting brighter and brighter until 9am when these little birdies (or radio) start chirping. I have my phone set for 9:15am and 9:30am as a back up but this week I’ve been getting up about 10 minutes before the birdies come on and it’s a totally different morning because the way you wake up feels like you naturally woke up (which I suppose in a way, you did) and you don’t hate the world because of your fucking alarm. At first I resented the birdies as much as the roosters (my phone’s alarm, which is the most obnoxious thing in the world) but now I don’t even hear them. This morning I woke up 3 minutes before the birdies because I think a part of me fears the birdies. But still, it felt like I woke up naturally so I didn’t wake up hating the world (well I did, but it had nothing to do with the birdies). I definitely recommend this Wake Up Light to anyone who has sleep issues or a hard time getting up in the morning, especially if you sleep in a pitch black room which I mostly do.

Anyway, I love the thing. It makes me a much nicer person and I cannot thank Kevin enough for being such a huge nerd for even knowing about stuff like this. And for getting it for me because he knew I’d never buy this for myself in a hundred million years.

I’m still struggling to get back into the swing of things after being in the US last week. My routine has been disturbed and when that happens, it takes me a long time to get re-acclimated. Before we got word that Blake’s grandma was going to go any second, I was actively working on Cammity Jane, which some of you know about and some of you don’t and I’m not going to re-explain it because you’ll just have to read it when it’s finished. I was going pretty full tilt on it though and I was actually really impressed with my own dedication to it because I never really finish anything when it comes to writing, especially anything good and in my opinion, this is good – or at least it’s going to be. Charlie’s helping me with continuity while I just get the story down and HOPEFULLY my friend Robert will edit my punctuation when I get it finish. (Robert, will you? I’ll even pay you to do so.) He’s an English teacher and knows more about grammar and punctuation than anyone I’ve ever met. I haven’t worked on it since we got back but I haven’t really had the time. I’m hoping to work on it from Charlie’s notes on what I have so far starting tomorrow though.

I’m also about halfway finished my Valentine girl who I really do believe is my best work to date. I’m really impressed with her and plan on not putting her up for sale. Right now she needs arms, her Valentine placards, varnish and corset stitching, then she’ll be finished. I meant to work on the placards tonight but got distracted by everything else.

So, I’m being productive, or at least I will be once I get back into the swing of things in Sunnyland and as soon as my head stops hurting, which will hopefully be soon.

One more thing before I finish this post: Charlie Sheen. Holy shit right? Check out this site, it’s hysterical. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Goodnight internets, and thanks everyone for everything. <3

Oh man.

So we’re back from Militiagan, we got back last night. When we got home, Alex & Ronny were here so we watched The Leafs lose pitifully to the Penguins while eating steak & potatoes for dinner and reminiscing about the lovely ol’ US of A, where Ronny also happens to be from.

Oh yeah, since I missed several days of work, this post is going to probably be all over the place because I’m working all day today.

Anyway, blah blah Ronny & Alex, dogs were happy to see us, so was cat. Kids are still up North (Blake’s picking them up right now but I bet they’ll be back by the time I finish this post).

So obviously, if you’ve been following along, Blake’s grandma, who was 98 or 99, finally died. She’d been dying for a really long time, as long as I’ve known Blake, and this was like…”finally”. People were sad of course, but like I said in a previous post, I think there was also a lot of relief.

We left for MI Wednesday night after I was done work and the drive was pretty uneventful, no issues at the border which we were worried about because Blake’s US passport is long expired, I don’t even have one, and Blake’s permanent residence card for Canada is expired as well. But no issues so whatever. We stop at a gas station just outside the border in MI and there I found a TREASURE TROVE of goodness, behold my bounty (oh PS, this post will have a lot of pictures):

You cannot get these everywhere in Canada. I’m told other provinces MAY have them from time to time but you cannot get these in Ontario. I was very excited.

But nowhere near as excited as I was to see THESE:

I loved these. We used to have these. They stopped making them or distributing them in Canada in 2002 and when I learned of this, I went out and spent around $100 buying up every box I could find, hoarding them for like, 2 years. I was SHOCKED when I saw them at this MI gas station. So I bought 9 of them. Not 10 because that would have been the whole box and what if someone else wanted one? So I just got 9.

Did I mention that I love these? Remember that. We’ll come back to it later.

We got to our hotel at around, god I don’t even know, I want to say it was near midnight. Our hotel room was pretty cool, it had a fridge, dishwasher, 2 element stove and a microwave but we got the handicap suite so it didn’t have a bath tub and therefore all the Lush stuff I’d brought with me never got used. Didn’t matter, there was no time on this trip for Lush baths anyway.

As it turned out, Thursday was to be the wake/viewing (they called it a viewing, my family would call it a wake, I dunno if they’re the same thing, they sure seemed the same) and Friday was going to be the funeral, so we planned on staying until Sunday but I had a minor freak out Friday night after way too much stimulation so we decided to leave Saturday instead. But I’m getting way way way ahead of myself.

So Thursday morning, we got up early and Blake went to visit his friend Mandy and her baby while I got an hour of work in and then we had to get ready vite vite vite because the wake was at 2pm. This is what I wore:

Another Free People outfit (with my Docs) because when I leave the house, that’s basically all I wear.
The skirt is sort of a peachy sheer thing and the sweater is a charcoal grey that flows out over your bum.
I was paranoid the whole time that I was showing everyone my ass but Blake assured me I was not.
I wore beige underwear just in case. ;o)

The wake was…overwhelming. Blake’s family is Albanian (this was his dad’s side) and a lot of them are newer immigrants from the last 20 years or so. And there are a lot of them. I can remember who everyone was and more or less how they were related to Blake but it was a lot to take in all at once. It was nice though, that they included our family in the big boards Blake’s Aunt Pat had made with pictures of the whole family and all the grandkids and stuff and Blake’s grandma looked pretty good, probably the best open casket job I’ve seen to date (I hate open casket though, I think it’s gross). “The family” got there at 2 which meant Blake’s Aunt Pat, his dad (who’s a fuckbag) and his dad’s wife Kim (who’s a mega-cunt), his Uncle John and these cousins from New Hampshire that I’d never met before, Marc (nice, old guy), his son Boyce and Marc’s sister (I think?) Diana who is 72 and a total riot. I loved the crap out of her and honestly, without our kindred spirits connecting I’m not sure I would have made it through the whole thing intact.

There were deciding the order of the procession to the cemetery the next day and it was funny because Blake is the last Vulpe male and he took MY last name when we got married, therefore Wes the other “last Vulpe male” has MY last name as well, so we Blake told them what kind of car we drove and his name, Blake Crittenden, his dad like, paused and gave him a look because I think this was news to him and it was SO FUNNY. Anyway, we were 2nd in line for the procession with Blake’s dad, Kim, Uncle John and Aunt Pat in Blake’s dad’s car being first. Then Marc, Boyce and Diana behind us and other people all behind us.

At the wake I met about a hundred and fifty million people, namely the aforementioned Albanians, Blake’s Uncle or cousin (???) Nico and his daughters Tina and Helena who I HAD actually met before but that was 8 years ago now and honestly, they were teenagers them so I barely paid any attention to them. Now they’re all grown up. I’m not sure was Tina’s in college for but Helena is just starting her residency to be a neurosurgeon. SUPER nice girls. I added them on Facebook the night after the funeral and from what I can tell, the whole innocent thing isn’t an act. These girls, well, women I guess, don’t really swear or drink or show their boobs on the internet or anything even remotely controversial from what I can tell. So strange. But nice girls nonetheless, I really enjoyed their company.

Something I noticed almost right away is how close the Albanians are with each other, like, they’re a REAL FAMILY, like the Greeks I knew growing up, who were also mostly recent immigrants. And it makes sense that they’re so close, because all they’ve really had is each other and the church which is just so interesting to me because my family sucks, on both sides. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m GLAD AS HELL that I wasn’t raised in a religious environment, but our family plays so many psychological games and there’s so much bullshit it’s unbelievable and with the Albanians, there’s none of that. They just love each other BECAUSE they’re family and that’s just what you fucking do. Like I remember when Wes was born, Nico and his family sent us baby clothes for him and this was BEFORE I’d even MET THESE PEOPLE. But Blake was their family and that’s just what you do BECAUSE they’re your family.

And that whole vibe or attitude or whatever was SO strong and so prevalent at the wake and the funeral and the “thing after the funeral with food” (reception?) that I was actually feeling really weird about it. Like on one hand I was totally jealous over it because I’ve never had that and I didn’t even really know I wanted that until that moment but also I got kissed and hugged by so many Albanians who I didn’t know and they just automatically embraced me wholeheartedly. I married Blake and I am their family, no matter what. I’m probably not even doing the experience justice but it was POWERFUL and I find myself like, craving these people. It really makes me sad that Pat deleted her Facebook but I promised to keep in touch via e-mail, which I will do. I added Tina and Helena, like I said, and I’m looking forward to dancing at their weddings one day. As much as I hate going places and as much as I hate the border and as much as I hate blah blah blah come hell or high water I will stay in contact with these people, to the best of my ability, with the…well I won’t promise, but with the possibility of visiting as often as we can. As I can, I guess. They are my family, no matter what.

More about them later though, the funeral was Thursday and we had to get up at ass o’clock because Blake was a pallbearer, they decided, which meant we had to be at the church super early. I think like, 8:45am.

The night before we tried to watch The Kids Are Alright but were too tired to finish it so we watch the other half Friday night. It was alright, I hope it doesn’t win any Oscars tonight. I love Annette Benning and thought she was genius as always, but there are so many other deserving films…anyway….

So we were at the church right on time. Here’s what I wore, which you’ve already seen me wear with jeans but this time I wore it with a black tulle skirt that matched the tulle of the slip so I was super gauzy and I loved it:

The church thing was weird. This was only the 3rd or 4th time I’d ever really been in a church and I’d never ever been in a church like that with all these icons and the stained glass windows and a chanting/singing priest and bible stuff in Albanian and incense and doing the sign of the cross (which I don’t even KNOW) and kissing icons and crosses and shit. It was crazy! And I was SO tired and the incense was making me SO sleepy that here I was, sitting in the front row with the family (more on that in a sec) half falling asleep. Pretending I had my eyes closed to listen, so I’d nod and look contemplative from time to time but really I was just about falling asleep. lulz. Blake and I both felt really awkward sitting in the front pew with the family and being 2nd in line in the procession. See, at first, at the wake, Nico was kind of a little bit short with us and Blake thinks it was because Blake sort of moved to Canada and never visited and the family felt abandoned and rightly so. All was forgiven by half an hour later, if in fact that’s what that was about, but still, Nico and his family stayed by Blake’s grandma’s side until the very end and we felt that they should have been sitting where we were because who the hell are we? I mean, to hell with what’s proper and let’s go with what’s right! But Pat & John wanted us so we just did as we were told. I felt horrible though, I mean, I’m not even family.

And then there’s the fact that I barely even KNEW Blake’s grandma, she was pretty well far gone by the time I met her  but I found myself getting a little “misty”, we’ll say, at the funeral just because, I think, of all the love and warmth that was just pouring out of all these people. It was incredible, I’ve literally never experienced anything like it.

Blake’s Uncle John was sitting beside me and he was pretty upset so I just hugged him and wiped his tears and told him I loved him. He’s suffering (pretty severely, I’d say) from early onset dementia and it is SO sad. He’s probably the person on Blake’s dad’s side I know the best and he is (was?) such a great person and to see him so unlike himself and out of it broke my tiny, black little heart. More about that later.

I gotta hand it to myself though, for being smart. Before we got to the church, I made Blake stop at a CVS and pick up a bunch of those mini travel Kleenexes for people, which I think was appreciated. Blake’s dad asked me for Chapstick too, which I gave him because I always have at least 3 in my bag, but Blake’s dad has herpes so we threw it in the garbage when we got back to the hotel so I wouldn’t use it by accident. *shudder* Herpes aside, I was glad to provide, even if he is a shitbag.

Next was the procession to the cemetery.
Meet Blake’s dad:

Yes, that is his real license plate. It’s on his fucking Escalade.
I hear his penis is minuscule.

You would think a funeral procession would be uneventful, and it was, except that I think we drove halfway across the state to get to the cemetery and then GUESS WHAT? I WAS IN ROSA FUCKING PARKS’ MAUSOLEUM! (Which is also a memorial.) That’s where the cemetery part of the funeral was! Inside it! I asked Blake if his grandmother was being uh, I don’t know the word for it, like put in a drawer there or however they do it, and he said he didn’t think so but his dad’s like, a bajillionaire so it’s totally possible. I was in absolute shock, I didn’t even know the whole Rosa Parks thing happened in Michigan or that she was from there. You’re goddamned right I Foursquared that! lulz again.

Speaking of Foursquare, I am totally bummed out that I didn’t get a badge for being in another country. I feel cheated. Especially considering the fact that I spent over $50 on data usage while we were there because I don’t have a roaming plan. Oops. And Charlie even warned me about that too, but it snuck up in me. :o/

After the funeral was FINALLY finished all of its components, Blake and I went back to the hotel because I’d forgotten my phone and was hating the crap out of his Blackberry, then we went to this fancy restaurant with valet parking for the reception. We were basically the last people to get there, which was fine, and we sat with who I’d call the “core” Albanians and they all spoke Albanian with each other and pretty much ignored Blake and I for the most part, which was fine. Normally I’d be paranoid in a situation like that that they were talking about me, but I didn’t feel like they were and truthfully, I don’t really feel like they are that kind of people. The mom, Tonzi, married to Nico, was really nice to me and asked about the kids and stuff so I showed everyone last year’s school pictures, which I had in my wallet. Then they went back to speaking Albanian and ignoring me, which again, was fine. I didn’t mind, especially because George (pronounced gee-u-rgie in Albanian) doesn’t speak English.  The food was excellent and I because I’m a big fat sucker, I asked Blake to please give his dad, who he hadn’t spoken to in 7 years, the pictures of the kids I had in my wallet.  So now I don’t have pictures of my own kids in my wallet anymore but I think I made an old man happy so that’s okay. I have the genuine articles. Maybe he wouldn’t be such a shitbag knowing what he’s been missing out on these past 7 years, right?

Nope.

Well, let’s give credit where credit is due: Rudy has never been anything but nice to me to my face and the same with Kim but neither one of them is warm toward me in any way and they’ve both been awful to Blake for most of his life and that’s why I hate them.

On Saturday we went to Pat’s to have breakfast and Blake’s dad (Rudy if that wasn’t obvs) was there, much to Blake’s dismay, as was John, Diana and Pat’s friend whose name is completely escaping my brain at this present moment but it’ll come to me. She was very nice and it bothers me that I can’t recall her name right now. :o/

Anyway, Blake’s dad was basically bragging about Blake’s niece being invited to the Junior Olympics for skiing and how she goes to a “magnet school”, which I think is a private school, which no doubt he pays for, and that Blake’s other 2 nieces, who are babies right now, will go to the same school because the public schools aren’t good enough. I have issues with this line of thinking, but whatever. Then he got on Blake about being healthier and stuff and telling both of us to get into winter sports and basically lecturing Blake to be more active, which he;s been lecturing Blake about since Blake was a toddler. Just falling back into fuckbag territory after Blake hasn’t spoken to him in 7 years, like nothing ever happened.

Luckily he left before we had breakfast so after that, we just had a good time with everyone else. Diana, as I mentioned, is GREAT and both her and Pat cleaned me out of business cards (lulz once more! They’re probably reading this right now, aloha, ladies!) which I thought was cute and supportive. I haven’t decided which one yet, but I think I’m going to send Pat one of my paintings. I’;m thinking “Shimmer II” off the top of my head, but we’ll see. Anyway, a great time was had by all, I think, we just sat around and shot the shit and it felt so relaxed and NORMAL and I loved it. John made me sad because he’s just not John anymore, he literally acts like a clown, like if you dressed him up and painted his face and taught him how to make balloon animals, there ya go. Like he’d tweak your nose and make faces at you and strange sounds and stuff, never making a lick of sense. So sad. And scary because with Blake and I, that could literally be either or both of our futures. I’m wondering now if there’s a genetic test you can get done to see if that would happen to you and if you test positive, if there’s anything you can do to prevent it. I know I’m susceptible being bipolar but I also know that being medicated early in life (relatively speaking) protects me somewhat, or that’s what I understand from talking to our family doctor about this whole thing.

So that was pretty much the whole funeral/trip EXCEPT, Blake took me to a Meijer for the first time and this is everything we hauled home because we just don’t have this shit in Canada!

Generic brand American mixed nuts are a must because Americans are less healthy than Canadians, or at least they have less food guidelines, and therefore they have a LOT more salt on their nuts than we do. These were actually kind of a let down in this regard, CVS actually has the best ones, but they were still pretty great.

There are no Keebler elves in Canada, just Santa’s elves.
I’ve never had these before but they looked pretty good.

“Better Made” is a Michigan brand and Ronny wanted us to bring him home some “hot” Better Made chips, which we did, but these looked good too so I grabbed a bag. After trying them last night, I wished I’d brought home a zillion more bags because they’re delicious.

In case it’s not obvious, I like pretzels and these looked pretty rad. Rold Gold is my favoured pretzel brand, but we don’t have the variety the US has.

I actually got this at a gas station.
It was pretty weird and despite the fact that I generally like all things cinnamon, especially Hot Tamales, I didn’t care for this very much so I gave the rest to Alex.

Canada doesn’t have Pepperidge Farm.
When I was living in New York, my boyfriend’s work, which was a sound studio, bought P. Farm stuff in bulk for clients and we used to steal it constantly. I was bummed I couldn’t find the soft Sausalitos but ya take what ya can get.

We have Goldfish crackers in Canada, so it’s weird we don’t have everything else P. Farm, but again, we don;t have the variety of Goldfish the US has. There must have been 10 different types at Meijer. I got the neon ones for my little sisters, I hope Blake remembers to give them to them.

OF COURSE we have Jones Soda here, Jones Soda was invented in BC!
I’ve just never seen it in 1L bottles. Especially with “litre” spelled wrong.

Tra la la la la!

More Better Made chips and my sexy-assed husband:

This was a total let down. Not like theatre popcorn on all.

Then we went down the cereal aisle…

(I always get Cookie Crisp but this is a NEW ONE!)

I’m kinda surprised we don’t have this here.

Blake’s favourite.

GOOD SOURCE OF VITAMIN D!

And last but not least, the only thing I really cared about because we don’t have it here and I don’t understand why: Cherry and Vanilla Coke Zero

We’ve never really had Cherry Coke here so it’s not surprising that we don’t have Cherry Coke Zero here but we used to have Vanilla Coke, which you can still sometimes get, yet we have no Vanilla Coke Zero? I think it’s a travesty that we don’t have either of these in our fair country and that it costs a million dollars to ship because it’s so heavy and that you can’t ship it in the winter or they’ll explode.

And that concludes my post on the US of A.
Glad to be home.

Edit: Blake tells me Rosa Parks did the bus thing in Alabama but moved to MI later in life.

I’ve been listening to a lot of Pixies these days because we’re going to see them in April. None of us (me, Blake, Alex, Ronny) have seen them before, so it should be a good time. Blake was supposed to see them a long time ago when they opened for U2 (how insulting!) but he decided to go see Mr. Bungle instead because he didn’t want to see the Pixies in a giant auditorium. That week? They broke up. So this is kind of a big deal for Blake. It’s their Doolittle tour so I’ve been mostly listening to songs from that.

I also got Blake the new Trail of Dead CD yesterday, which should be here by the weekend. Back to the Pixies for a sec though, we realized yesterday that the only Pixies CD we don’t have is Bossanova, and that sucks because that means I’ve never heard it. (Although I’m sure I’ve heard most of the songs from it anyway, with all the b-sides, live, compilation stuff we have, but that’s not the point.) So once I have money again, I’m going to do what I can to obtain that so our collection is complete.

Yesterday was metabolic clinic. According to their scale, I lost 2 lbs but according to their measurements, I gained back 2 of the 3 inches I’d lost last week on my waist. So be it. I weighed myself on the Wii Fit this morning and it also said I’d lost 2.2 lbs, so yay!

For some idiotic reason, I decided to break in the boots Charlie got me for Xmas, which are a lot like these, except yellowy brown and with a heel. I wore them with my brown Free People dress that I bought to wear for The Square Foot Show and Blake said I was bonerific. I don’t really go anywhere, normally, because of the whole “leaving the house” thing, so I’ve been kinda dressing up for metabolic clinic because Charlie’s bought me all of these beautiful clothes for Xmas that I’ve never worn because I have no occasion to. So now I am. It sucks that I still only have one pair of jeans though, but that’s okay, I have a million other things to wear that I haven’t yet.

Creepy nurse boy was there this week, but OF COURSE he was because today was our second module with Stephanie, the dietitian who he’s so obviously crushing on it’s ridiculous. I welcome this though, because that means he’s not staring at me and that’s a very good thing.

Yesterday’s class was about reading food labels and it was all extremely basic stuff. One thing I did learn though, is the rule that “5% is a little, 15% is a lot”. So if you’re looking at a food item that has 20% of your daily intake of salt, you want to avoid it because that’s a lot, but if it only had 4% of your daily intake of salt, then you’re good to go. And the opposite is true too, if something only has 4% of your daily intake of fibre, you probably want to skip it, but if it has over 15%, you’re good. Pretty much everything else in the class I knew already, but I found that “rule” helpful.

After the clinic, I had a meeting with the pharmacist, whose name is Afra and she’s really super nice and not a moron. We came to an understanding right away that I’d Wikipedia’d every drug I’m on before I take it and that I know about them all for the most part (I knew one of them was messing up my period, but I didn’t know which one) so we kinda skipped that part of the talk and her only real recommendation was she wants me taking 500 units of calcium every day along with 400-800 units of vitamin D because I guess you need the latter to make the former work. She never said for sure, but I’m assuming this is due to bone density loss which starts in your 30′s. She did say it was because of my age, which made me feel elderly. :o/ So on the weekend, we’ll be getting more pills for me to take. Yay.

After the clinic, we had half an hour to do some groceries at the “good” grocery store in the town where the clinic is. I love this grocery store, it’s big, beautiful and it has so much variety, especially compared to the grocery store in our town (THE grocery store – there’s only one) that’s only about 4 times the size of my house. The grocery store we went to yesterday actually has a BUTCHER on the premises and their meat department is just beautiful. They also have salmon steaks, whereas our grocery store only has fillets SOMETIMES and I think those are gross (it’s a texture thing).

So for dinner, I made myself a salmon steak, fried in olive oil, salt and pepper, sauteed mini portabellas and a small Caesar salad. For lunch, right when we got home from the grocery store, I had sweet potato fries because they are low on the Glycemic Index and that’s apparently a good thing, although I’m not sure I remember why. For breakfast I only had 1 kwish, instead of 2, because I felt a little bit sick and was not at all in the mood for broccoli that early in the morning.

This is all riveting, I know. You’re all on the edge of your seats. I’m just trying to demonstrate some of the stuff I’ve been learning at the metabolic clinic.

OH! One thing we got at the good grocery store is a half a turkey breast and the thing is HUGE! My plan was to put olive oil at the bottom of a roasting pan, throw the turkey breast in the middle and cut up potatoes and carrots to go around it and roast the whole thing at 350 F until it looks done. Does that sound like a good plan? I don’t really cook, and I’ve never cooked that, so I’m not totally sure what I’m doing.

Last night the Leafs beat the Islanders 5-3 which made me very happy because I hate the Islanders and they were 5 goalies deep so if we didn’t beat them I would have been completely and utterly ashamed of my Leafs. BUT they won so yay! This is the first game I’ve been able to watch since “the incident”, which I’m still not over, but I will be eventually. At least I’m at the point now where I can watch a game without feeling like a complete failure as a human being so that’s a start. Maybe next year I’ll be able to actually go to a game. (Although to be perfectly honest, I think I prefer to watch games on TV because then I have an announcer telling me what’s going on which is good because I paint when I watch TV.)

Speaking of which, I got my Valentine girl’s skin shaded last night and this afternoon when work slows down a bit, I’ll go in and do her eyes and then her black outlining. There’s no way she’s going to be done for Valentine’s Day so I don’t think I’m going to put her on Etsy until next year…or maybe I’ll keep her…I don’t know yet, we’ll see how she turns out. I am getting better at shading black skin, though, so that’s a plus. It’s trickier than white skin because with white skin you can paint and paint and paint and it’s never really going to change colour but with black skin, if you do too many layers, your girl will end up super black and then you won’t be able to see her nose and painting her lips is going to be difficult. And it’s really easy to mess it up by doing too many layers in an effort to get her skintone even. That’s what I’m learning to perfect right now and while I don’t have my technique down pat yet, I’m definitely better than I was a few months ago.

Anyway, I think that’s all I have to say and I have 10 minutes before work starts to eat this morning’s kwish. OH! Speaking of kwish! Y’know how I told you guys that last week I gave everyone at the metabolic clinic a copy of my modified lower fat kwish recipe? Well the one lady there, Sherry, (who is also super nice and not a moron) told me that her and her family made kwish on the weekend and they all loved it! My little kwishes are moving up in the world! Something I found out  the hard way though, is that if you use too much broccoli in them, you have to cook them longer and even then your kwish is going to end up soggy at the bottom. Also, when you’re using low fat cheese, you have to put ham on top of it or the cheese like, crisps but not in a good way. In a plasticy way.

Anyway, I thought it was awesome that someone else actually tried them and loved them.

Okay, time to work.

PS. I had a drink last night and was asleep by 10:45pm. Woke up this morning before all 3 of my alarms, at 7am, because Lucky was barking to be let out and as per usual, the children were ignoring him. But whatever, I was up and couldn’t sleep anymore, so hopefully tonight I’ll be tired enough that I won’t need a drink to fall asleep.

“In rare instances, this medication may increase your level of a certain chemical made by the body called prolactin. For females, this increase in prolactin may result in unwanted breastmilk, missing/stopped periods, or difficulty becoming pregnant.”

- Ziprasidone pharmacy fact sheet

Gee, we’ve only DOUBLED my ziprasidone since my last period…think the two things might be related? I LOVE BEING MENTALLY ILL. IT’S SOOOOOO AWESOME.

So I’ve mentioned before how I’m fat, right? And I know I’ve mentioned before about HOW I got fat, right? Well for those who missed it, I was on this heinous drug called risperidone that made me VERY VERY hungry but also made my metabolism VERY VERY slow for a double fatty whammy that had me weighing an extra 60 lbs in a matter of 3 months.

That was, oh, 2 years ago now, maybe 2 & a half, and while I’ve had some success with eating protein in the morning to boost my metabolism and make my body burn more calories during the day, I’m still not the 105 lbs I was BEFORE I was subjected to that heinous drug and that’s a problem.

I was just watching Portia de Rossi on Oprah talk about her eating disorder and of course that made me think about my own weight and something I realized is that during my stint with the risperidone, I discovered that for the first time ever, I enjoyed eating. It was pleasurable. Never before in my life have I ever found eating pleasurable, it was always just something I had to do. Because you have to eat, that’s just how things are, right? So not enjoying food particularly + a super fast metabolism + smoking a pack a day + being 20 = 100-105 lb me.

While my metabolism is recovering because I’ve been off that drug for about a year & a half, it’s still not to where it was before and probably never will be. That sucks and there’s not a whole lot of things I can do about that, but another long term effect of this situation is the discovery that food is good, which, combined with the fact that I quit smoking 8 months ago, is probably a large part of my current problem. Oh yeah, and I sit at a desk all day, so there’s that too.

Anyway, it just occurred to me today that I’m now one of those people who likes food and I’m not sure what that realization means necessarily, but it’s something to think about that I’d never thought about before. It’s just kinda weird because now I look forward to meal times, they’re something TO look forward to, whereas before the only meal I ate was dinner and that was just because I had to eat something that day. Of course, I’ve always been a junk food connoisseur, but I had that whole speedy metabolism deal going on so it was never a problem and it really pisses me off that it’s a semi-problem now in that, I can’t live off of it anymore. It pisses me off that I have to give my food choices thought. I despise the fact that all of a sudden my mind is preoccupied with food when I never gave it a second thought before.

I HATE THAT THIS WAS DONE TO ME.
I’M PRETTY SURE I’VE MENTIONED THAT BEFORE.

I don’t know how much I weigh right now because I’m too scared to power up the Wii Fat. Last I checked, I was 130, which was 5lbs heavier than I was a couple of months before. 5 lbs, no big deal right? Well, I’m a small girl and these are 5 visible lbs. The reason my weight loss ended and I gained 5 lbs is for the following reasons:

• I stopped eating eggs for breakfast, which was what was responsible for my weight loss over the last year.
• I started eating junk food again. Not a lot, but more than none.
• I stopped eating steak 3 times a week and started eating pasta and foot long subs instead. Carbs carbs carbs instead of protein protein protein.

And that’s it. That’s the whole reason why. I don’t make New Year’s (please note the apostrophe, there is only ONE “new year” – just a little pet peeve of mine) resolutions but I decided that starting today I would eat eggs for breakfast again, not because it was the new year, but because Blake would be back to work after a whole bunch of holidays and the kids would be back in school, so I could start getting my routine back together (although altered because I have a job now and that sort of interferes with eating). So what did I have for breakfast today? A Stouffer’s crustini thing. It’s like a hot pocket type of thing which ham, turkey and cheese in it, which is a miracle I’ll even eat it because there are 2 type of meat in it mixed together and that’s a huge OCD thing with me. Why did I have that and not eggs? Because we got a toaster oven for Xmas with a timer and in the morning I woke up to almost 200 e-mails that took me until noon to clear so at 11:30am, I ran in the kitchen, grabbed a drink, threw that Stouffer’s thing in the toaster oven and when it was done, I ran back in the kitchen and got it, not disrupting work for more than 30 seconds per trip.

So now I have to figure out how to do that with eggs. The thing that I’m stuck on is what to put the eggs IN that could also go in the toaster oven. Like something metal, I would think. And how long would you put them in for, at what temperature? Could I add bacon? Or would it not cook properly? What about cheese? OH YEAH, PS, I CAN’T COOK FOR SHIT.

Yoga. Our goal for 2011 was to go to yoga twice a week. Ideally Hatha on Tuesdays and Vinyasa on Wednesdays. If we could only do one, I wanted to do the Vinyasa because I really really don’t like Hatha. I think it’s boring and unhelpful. But the Vinyasa class was full and there was only one spot open for Monday’s Hatha class, so we’re stuck still doing Hatha, and only Hatha, on Tuesdays. Which sucks. I wish it was possible to go somewhere else, but it’s not with Blake’s commute. In fact Tuesday nights are even questionable because he often doesn’t get home until after the class starts.  So that’s yoga. And don’t tell me to do it at home, I’m not doing it at home. If I had a clean, pet-free home that was at least twice the size of the one I’m in now, maybe then I’d do it at home, but as it stands now we can’t even bring our mats into our house because they’ll be covered in fur in 2 seconds. And Wii Fat yoga is a joke.

Today I got a call from the mental health clinic I go to about the metabolic clinic that I’m starting on the 18th that runs for 11 weeks and that supposedly most patients are having success with. Cuz y’see, weight gain is a huge part of all these drugs we need to function so they’re brought in a whole team of people to help us with this, all courtesy of our fine Canadian government.

In June I saw a nutritionist (is that the doctor kind? she was a doctor) and she asked me a million questions about my eating habits and activity levels and I was supposed to be signed up for the metabolic clinic starting in August or September but either the clinic was canceled or they forgot about me (haven’t gotten a straight answer about that…) and it never happened so after several requests, they finally put me into this group.

On the 19th I see a dietician and I have to keep a food journal for 5 days and the day before, after the clinic, I have to see a “recreationist”, which is about the most fucking ridiculous thing I’ve practically ever heard of. Check this shit out. “Recreation therapy” even has its own Wikipedia page. This person is going to…what? Tell me I should….skydive??? I have no bloody idea, it just sounds really really stupid and it kills me that this is an actual job that like, requires a degree. And I don’t mean to be a Negative Nancy here, but I know recreation. I paint. I write. I blog. I have slacked professionally for most of my life. The only physical thing I do is yoga and that is the only physical thing they will GET me to do so I’m really just going to this appointment to humour them.

The other thing I had to do as part of the metabolic clinic is blood work, which I had done on Dec. 21st. It’s a really thorough program by the sounds of it and as I said, it’s apparently really successful so hopefully they can get me on a manageable path. Maybe they can tell me how to make eggs in my awesome toaster oven with a timer.

I know I’m eating the right amount of stuff, for the most part, every day. I only eat 3 meals a day and try to keep each meal at around 300 calories with the option of 2 snacks per day and I know that’s right as far as calories consumed, I’m just not eating the right kind of calories, I guess. And a calorie is not just a calorie. I’m not buying that line anymore. A sugar calories is different from a fat calorie or a protein calorie. There’s a whole video on YouTube about it that I totally can’t find right now but it was a black guy talking about it and it was very very convincing, like with science and everything. If I can find it again, I’ll link it HERE.

Anyway, now that I’ve written over 1600 words about fat and food and my lard-ass woes, dinner’s going to be read in 10 minutes and Blake will be home at the same time, so…it’s time to EAT!

Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga’s Soul
This is very interesting.

Our yoga class mentions nothing about Hinduism, unless you count the “Namaste” at the end, which I don’t say. I don’t know why I don’t say it, I just don’t.  I guess I kinda think it’s cheesy. On one of the walls, our teacher put up a giant poster of all the various asanas and it has a faint, giant “om” symbol in the background but that’s really the extent of Hinduism in our class so I guess we’re totally appropriating.

HOWEVER, when you sign up for the class she makes you fill out a sheet with your info and sign a thing that says she’s not liable etc. but on it she asks why you want to learn yoga or why you want to take this class. On mine I put “to maintain weight” (which is so not working because we’re doing Hatha now instead of Vinyasa haha, but whatever, we’ll be doing both in the new year hopefully). But I think if enough people put on that sheet that they wanted to pursue yoga  for religious reasons or even just spiritual reasons or whatnot, she would alter the class. She actually went to college to learn how to be a yoga teacher and she’s been doing yoga herself since she was a teenager so I know she knows all about it. But I think everyone says they want to do it for exercise purposes so that’s why the class is the way it is.

Sometimes she interjects during poses that “this one’s good for digestions” or “this one’s good for headaches” etc so she tries to make it more than athletics but not by much. I think I’m going to e-mail her that article and see what she thinks of it. She’s probably already seen it.

This week I got a new shirt. Let me show you it:

I like it a whole lot. In fact part of the reason I like it is because I can do yoga in it. All of my yoga-appropriate shirts are short sleeved and I wear a hoodie over them TO class, but I can’t do yoga with my hoodie on because the hood gets in the way and it’s too baggy etc., so this shirt is perfect for that. I mean, I like it and can wear it other places, but specifically I like it because I can do yoga in it, be warm and not look like a total schlep. The ooooonly problem with it is that it’s a thermal, so it’s that waffle material and holy hell does it ever pick up every fluff, fuzz, dog hair, MY hair and the like. But that’s okay, I’m a compulsive lint brush user so it’s all good.

So I’m sorta…avoiding and rambling because I couldn’t decide whether or not I should write about this because it’s not really supposed to be about me and I feel kind of selfish making it about me but it did and does affect me and I think for my own sanity I should write about it so here goes:

I’ve met Alex’s brother twice. Well, three times now, but prior to Thursday night, I’d only met him twice and had only spoken one sentence to him ever. But I’d heard stories about him through Alex & Ronny many many times and a lot of those stories had to do with the fact that he’s extremely paranoid and once was so violent to Alex as a result of his paranoia, she had to call the cops and ended up moving out more or less because of his behaviour. That was a couple of years ago now, but he’s still extremely paranoid. For example, he used to think that Alex was putting “stuff” in his shampoo to make his acne worse. (This is why he reacted violent toward her.) Hearing the stories, I have always suspected that he was probably mentally ill and I realize I’m not a shrink but from what I’ve read, I’d peg him as bipolar II or maybe even schizo-affective.

It should also be noted that he smokes a lot of pot, just as I used to prior to my stint in the psych ward in 2006. Marijuana doesn’t cause psychosis, but it has been written and I believe that it definitely exacerbates the problem and shouldn’t be used, or at least used with extreme moderation, if mental illness is in the picture at all.

Everything that has happened over the past week or so is a blur and most of it I only heard second-hand so apologies to Alex if I get the sequence of events mixed up.

At some point last week, Alex’s brother (I don’t want to use his name) told Alex that he’d had a dream and as a result of this dream he knew that he was a shaman and that she was too and along with saying this and trying to convince her it was true, he displayed other strange behaviours, although I’m not clear on what those behaviours were. I do know he wasn’t sleeping though and he had mostly stopped smoking pot all of a sudden.

Throughout the week, his strangeness and paranoia increased and after being told about it, Blake & I agreed that he was likely psychotic. Grandiose ideas, paranoia, hallucinations, etc. It all sounded very very familiar. We told Ronny & Alex to keep a close eye on him and at the first sign of total loss of reality to get him to the ER.

So they watched him for a few days. They watched him not sleep and become increasingly, well, nuts.

On Wednesday night, around midnight, something happened or he said something that alarmed them enough to take him to the hospital in Barrie which is called RVH and which is the same hospital where I was taken when I was psychotic. They were there until 4am because while Canadian hospitals, especially ERs, are great, it’s been my experience and now theirs, that they just don’t know how to deal with mental illness. They told Ronny & Alex to take her brother home and to bring him back Thursday when a shrink would be around to take a look at him.

So stuff happened. I don’t know what. But on Thursday he was acting so mental that Ronny & Alex called 911 twice and the mental health crisis line twice. The second 911 call resulted in Alex & her brother being taken back to the ER in an ambulance while Ronny followed behind in his car.

At the ER, a shrink, a young one, saw Alex’s brother for about 10 minutes, gave him a prescription of 200mg of Seroquel (which is like, NOTHING for a guy who’s 3 times my size and I think I was on 600mg daily) and Welbutrin (you do not rx an anti-depressant in a suspected bipolar patient until their mood is stable with something else because it can make them WORSE) said he was “likely bipolar” but that there were no beds in the psych ward and that he was going on vacation and wouldn’t be back until February so he wouldn’t be able to see him again until then. And then they were sent home.

So Alex & Ronny go to Shopper’s Drug Mart to fill the prescriptions and I guess Alex’s brother flipped out completely and was like, yelling that people should stay away from the vitamins because they were poison or something. They got the pills and took him home but not before he told them that he was the second coming of Christ, that the world’s problems were on his shoulders and that they had to kill him so he could die for everyone’s sins. He said that they had to do it because he couldn’t kill himself. Then he tried to throw up on a tree because he said that he had to expel all of the negative energy into another living thing and he was afraid that if he didn’t throw it all up on this tree, that it would infect Ronny & Alex.

After that I’m not quite sure what happened but they ended up back in the ER because it was pretty clear that Alex’s brother was getting worse instead of better and they didn’t know what else to do.

I was working when all of this was happening and so was Blake, but the second he got home, I told him we were going to the ER to wait with Ronny & Alex and to just lend support. Also, Alex’s brother, as I said, is a pretty big guy and if he decided to be violent or flip out, Ronny wouldn’t be able to contain him but Ronny AND Blake probably could. I also thought we should go because we’ve been through this before, at the very same hospital, so we would know better what to say to make sure they were finally going to be taken seriously and to have Alex’s brother admitted to the ward on a 3-day form.

It should also be noted that as of Thursday night, Alex & Ronny had only had about 2 hours of sleep in 2 days as a result of all this. Also, Alex’s dad was on a business trip in Ottawa so Ronny & Alex were dealing with this all alone.

We got there and were just as supportive as possible. I joked around with Alex’s brother, like when he said that everyone was looking at them (they weren’t), I told him that they were actually looking at me and then he called me an albino haha I screwed around with my phone a lot & showed everyone how I could watch porn on it, I used an app I’d never used before that scans the barcode of any food item and gives you its nutrition info, I tweeted, I e-mailed blah blah blah. I joked around with Alex and engaged her in a fart war while Ronny & Blake sat behind us and just talked about stuff I guess. After I think 7 hours in the ER this time and after the nurse gave Alex’s brother another dose of Seroquel, a doctor was finally ready to see him so Alex & Ronny took him into that area and told us that they could handle it from there.

The nurse, after talking to Ronny & Blake and observing Alex’s brother for herself, told them that she was going to recommend to the doctor that he go to the ward on a 3-day form, which is what happened and we all went home.

To “end” the story…Alex’s brother escaped from the hospital on Friday morning and the cops were out looking for him., He walked all the way from the hospital to their house because he wanted to have a shower. The cops waited for him to have his shower and then drove him back to the hospital. The hospital then decided that he was more than they could handle, so they transferred him to an actual psych hospital about an hour away which happens to be a VERY VERY good thing because I use this hospital’s outpatient services and they are excellent. Also, my own shrink either does work there or used to work there and she’s pretty decent so I know they’ll bring him out of psychosis properly, that he’ll come out of there with an actual diagnosis (whereas I did not when I was in RVH) and that his aftercare will be excellent.

He’s got a really really long road ahead of him but I think he’s in the best place possible right now so hopefully he’ll have an easier time than I did with the whole thing.

So having said all of that, after Blake & I got home from the hospital, I was tired and hungry and so on edge that I completely lost it and started sobbing uncontrollably because it was the same hospital, the same situation and I knew exactly what he was going through. I was so scared for him and so pissed off at the hospital for putting Ronny and Alex through all that bullshit. Then when I found out they were moving him to the actual psych hospital North of us, I was so relieved for him that I just bawled.

And I did a lot of crying over the last couple of days because this whole thing has brought up a lot of stuff that I’d thought I’d dealt with but apparently not. My shrink has even said that part of my problems now is that I never really dealt with what happened to me in 2006 so it’s no wonder I’m completely traumatized by this whole thing now. Supporting Ronny & Alex in this was a no-brainer and I’d gladly do it again and will keep doing it, but I’ve very glad that I’ll be seeing my shrink on Monday to discuss all of this.

It’s hard for me to even put into words all of the things that have surfaced as a result of this but I’m better today than I was yesterday and I suspect I’ll be fine in a few days. When we got home from the hospital I told Blake that there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d be able to visit Alex’s brother with them while he was in the psych ward of RVH but now that he’s been moved to the better hospital, I actually want to go up there with them at some point just to see what the facility is like because I’ve heard so much about it.

In the midst of writing this post, Ronny called me and told me that they’d visited Alex’s brother at the hospital today with their dad and that her brother’s pretty disoriented, thinking he’s been there for days instead of not even 24 hours. You can kinda tell that the meds are starting to do their job because he’s a little pissed off that Ronny and Alex “put” him there, as any sane person would be if they were in that situation. The nurse that they spoke to while there said that she doubted he would be out sooner than a week, which I explained to Ronny as being very good news. As long as he co-operates and actually speaks his mind, he should be able to get an actual diagnosis and start the long process of trying to find the right meds.

And as I explained to Ronny, their outpatient services are excellent and that since Alex’s brother doesn’t drive and lives an hour away, they’ll actually send a cab to pick him up for appointments and another one to bring him home, all on the government’s dime. He’ll also be able to get his medications through the clinic so he won’t have to pay for them, which is good because he doesn’t work and psych meds are super expensive. In a way, this story has a happy ending.

In other news, my kitchen is finished. Blake and Madison and Madison’s friend are putting the cupboard doors back on and after a bit of touch-ups on them because the paint stuck to the plastic they were laid down on, Blake’s going to paint our shelves green (which are now white). Then at some point my mom’s going to wallpaper the backsplash and line the shelves with the same wallpaper, then we’ll put everything back in the cupboards and it’ll be done! It looks GREAT, the light in there is so much nice now that it’s bouncing off of a greyish blue instead of pineapple yellow.

Tomorrow night is the finale of The Walking Dead, which Ronny & Alex are going to come over for and that should be awesome.

The only thing right now in my life that isn’t so awesome is that I’ve been gaining weight again. This is partially due to the fact that I’m not eating my eggs for breakfast anymore, that I’m not eating dinner with the family anymore, I’m eating too many large assorted subs, I’m doing Hatha yoga now instead of Vinyasa and because now that I have my own money, I can afford more junk food. In other words, I am absolutely doing this to myself and it’s making me very angry.

So starting Monday, I will be eating my eggs for breakfast again and I am going to start eating dinner with the family again, while cutting out most of my junk food consumption.

See the thing is, if I’m eating my eggs and having dinner with the family, I can “afford” to have a bit of “vitamin J” every now & then, but with the combination of things happening diet-wise right now, I can’y and especially not in the quantities I’ve been having.

I know it’s a total cliche to say “the diet starts on Monday”  but it’s easy to eat eggs on the weekend because Blake will make them for me, it’s NOT so easy to eat them during the week because I have to work and don’t have time to make them. (I think microwaving eggs is an absolute SIN).

And I absolutely have to give up my subs, or at the very least, limit it to a small one once a week, as opposed to a large one a few times a week. Truthfully, I’ve been eating them so much because I don’t know what else to eat since I haven’t been eating dinner with the family and since they eat gross things so often it’s just easier to get a sub and be done with it.

But the key is the eggs, so that’s priority one.

Anyway, I’m just babbling at this point, so that’s life right now and I hope you’re having a wonderful weekend! Mine is dedicated to watching really bad movies and painting because it’s been a while and I have a lot to catch up on. THE END.

It’s been…a week.

Yesterday, all I did was read A Thousand Splendid Suns (which is very good so far) at my desk and…that’s really pretty much it. I don’t expect today will be any different, aside from making this post.

Whoever recommended I download Mother Mother a LONG time ago, thank you. They’ve been keeping me sane-ish this week. Blake didn’t want to install iTunes on his computer, which I’m using until mine gets here, so I’ve been using Media Player and it didn’t import my playlists so I’ve been listening to albums instead and saw O My Heart by Mother Mother in my list and decided to listen to it, with their first album Touch Up directly after and I fell in love. This is the video for O My Heart, which isn’t my favourite song (I like Dirty Town, Polynesia and Oh Ana from their first album the best) but that’s the only video I could find.

They’re Canadian, you should all check them out.

Today the rain and wind let up long enough for me to go out and survey the damage to my garden. The vegetable garden (or should I say tomato garden) is okay but most of my sunflowers got knocked down even though I tied them up weeks ago. The wind was strong enough that it broke the string that I’d used. :o/

All the ones that were on the ground, I cut and brought inside to put in a vase and they’re not sitting on my kitchen table, along with the craptonne of tomatoes I picked while I was out there. There are still a lot of green ones out there that I don’t think will turn orange before the frost comes so I picked the ones that were more or less ripe or that would ripen inside in a few days and brought them in.

I also have about 6 more in my fridge…Katie, how the hell do I make sauce since I don’t know what else to do with all these tomatoes?

While I was out there, I also picked what I think will be close to the last of the cherry tomatoes. There are a lot of almost ripe or green tomatoes on the plants but there appears to be an abundance of slugs right now with all the rain and they’ve gotten a lot of them. Plus, with the way the weather’s been, I think frost is going to happen soon and then that’ll be the end of them. If things stay the way they are right now, then I should be able to get another 2 containers full of them but I think that’s it.

This morning Madison gave me the finger as she was leaving for school because I was making fun of her for looking like Justin Beiber (it’s her bangs haha). So she gave me the finger right as she was going out the door and then she came back in 2 seconds later to say “I was only joking plz don’t ground me!” haha Anyway, it was a proud moment. Her biological father used to tell me, when he was a teenager, that he’d read somewhere that if a child swears at their parents, it means they’re comfortable with them and feel secure enough in their relationship with them to know that things will be okay in the end. Does that make sense? I always thought there might be some truth to that, although I think there are exceptions to the rule, like when I swore at my mother, there was no security there. I didn’t think my mother even loved me until I was in my 20′s. Our kids KNOW we do and while Wes doesn’t swear, Madison feels comfortable with us to swear occasionally just in conversation.

Anyway, yeah. She gave me the finger. I was in tears I was laughing so hard. (Maybe you had to be there…)

Speaking of laughing…last night I was eating dinner and Blake & I were talking, as we usually do while we eat and as I was taking a drink, he said something really funny – we have no idea what – and I BLEW SNOT all into my drink, like it was floating on the surface. It was so gross but so fucking funny, I was just about on the floor peeing my pants as he went to get me a new drink in a new glass. Again, maybe you had to be there…

Okay, that’s the only excitement there’s been this week, aside from the whole wanting to kill myself thing. I’m gonna go make breakfast now and continue reading my book.

Oh, btw, I did submit to Touched By Fire. I’ll be very surprised if I get in, but I figured I had nothing to lose by submitting.

I see my shrink on Friday and the weather’s supposed to get sunnier as the week goes by, so I’ll come out of it (and I’ll probably have my meds adjusted) but right now I’m living in a world of suck and self-loathing. I’ve never really kept a calendar of these things ( I  probably should) but I think the end of summer does this to me every year. The first day of school comes and I start to feel like I’m dying. And this weekend has been extra brutal because it’s like, as soon as Friday at 5pm hit, everything got cold and rainy and windy and miserable and it was like *bam*, here we are in fall. (I realize fall doesn’t officially start until Sept. 22nd, but it is very much fall up here already. The leaves are starting to change colour and it’s only about 12 degrees during the day.)

I mean, here’s how the year goes for me:

Spring: I start to thaw and come alive and suddenly the world is wonderful. I get excited looking for the first robin of spring, the first crocuses, the first ladybugs. In March I start plants inside and get excited watching them grow. My sleep schedule goes straight to shit though, as it does in fall because these transitional months wreak havoc with like, my biological clock or something, but it’s okay, it corrects itself by about June-ish.

Summer: I’m in loooooove. The hotter, the more humid, the better. Yeah, I bitch about the heat like everyone else, but the heat just means that the kids and I have all day to scrounge up change to go to the beach when Blake gets home. I nap a lot more in the summer because when we have a heat wave, it gets so hot you can’t move and you just get sleepy (especially because of the meds I’m on that make me sleepy to begin with) and so, I do a lot of my painting at night when it’s cooler, but also at night is when I go to the park across the road and swing on the swings and watch the stars and dig my toes in the cold sand. We eat fresh food, whether it’s from our own garden or stuff grown locally at the grocery store and my whole body just feels better, it feels more alive.  Admittedly, by the end of August the kids and I are all getting on each other’s nerves and they’re ready to go back to school and I’m ready for them to go back to school too, but Labour Day weekend, I think, is usually still hot and this year it’s fall weather and that has me bummin’ hardcore.

Fall: I hate fall. I hate that everything is dying. (Well I guess everything’s not dying, some things are just going dormant and if the trees didn’t go dormant we wouldn’t have maple syrup in the spring…) I hate the Fall Fair. I’m really starting to hate Halloween because I have GREAT anxiety about people potentially coming to my door wanting candy when I have none and I don’t want to buy any because no one ever comes to the door, I just think they might, and the kids bring home almost a garbage bag of the stuff so we don’t need an extra bag of it when I’m throwing out half of their haul behind their backs anyway because it’s junk and none of us needs it…yes, I’m a horrible mother.  I hate the wind and the rain and the leaves blowing all over the place. I hate the grass turning yellow and dying. I begin to worry about Xmas. I used to love the first day of school but now I hate it. The kids are going to come home that day with a million problems that I’m expected to solve by the next day and they’re going to lay 30 trees worth of paper on my desk that I don’t know what to do with for field trips and things we can’t afford but must shell out money for anyway.

On Tuesday there will probably be a fight on the way home from school, which I’m worried about. This 9 year old little shit up the street is jealous of Madison having a friend her own age and jealous of her boobs and just jealous of Madison growing up in general, as evidenced by the fact that this 9 year old tries to dress grown up in boob shirts (where there are no boobs) and high heels and wobbles down the street in front of our house, swinging non-existent hips with her nose stuck up in the air, lipstick on her teeth and a purse around her arm. When Madison uploaded pics to her Facebook last week (two of which I posted here on my site), this 9 year old’s jealousy really bubbled over and she told Madison she was “ugly and horrable”. Then when Madison blocked her on Facebook and MSN, the girl started telling all the neighbourhood kids that Madison was a lesbian because I guess when you’re 9 and live in a very small town, that’s the worst insult you can come up with. Madison laughed it off and set the record straight with the few girls who messaged her to find out if it was true or not, but the 9 year old’s been talking trash about her ever since. Because they walk home the same route, I know there are going to be problems on the first day of school possibly even violence because this 9 year old acts pretty big for her breeches.  But the thing is, this 9 year old, in the past, has known that she can’t do anything to Madison, verbally OR physically because Madison would just ignore her. Madison towers over her and could push her over with one finger, but she’s wise enough just to not engage. So instead, the 9 year old goes after Wes to antagonize Madison into a fight. Blake said he has no problem, if this all plays out the way I’m afraid it might, going  to the kid’s grandparents (who look after her and her sister) and putting an end to all of this shit but I’m the one who has to deal with it “on the front lines” so to speak and the whole situation gives me anxiety like nothing else has in quite some time because I’m afraid of Wes getting his nose punched in as a casualty of war.

Plus there’s also the fact that fall is another transitional season and my sleep schedule gets completely fucked up. Like, here I am at 5 in the morning on a holiday writing a fucking blog post when I should be sleeping.

So that’s fall, or at least this one.

Winter: Well if you’ve been reading this blog for over a year, you know how I get in the winter. I’m better now that we’ve identified that I have S.A.D. and I do my light therapy, but for the most part, all winter I just do my best to cope. It’s fucked up though, as much as winter destroys me, I wouldn’t live anywhere, I don’t think, that doesn’t have it. I think snow is beautiful and many times I’ve tried (and failed) to record what snow looks like through my eyes. I think that without the cold and snow, I wouldn’t have the appreciation for spring and summer that I do. I think my body is so attuned to the 4 seasons that missing one would be worse than enduring it. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t pass up a vacation to somewhere warm in February, but I couldn’t live there. And of course winter means dealing with Xmas, which, as I pointed out, I start worrying about in the fall.

Admittedly though, last winter, with the lightbox wasn’t as bad as previous ones, but I’m still definitely not at my best in any way, shape or form (although I do feel I do my best creative work in the winter because I’m inside all the time and have to use my imagination to entertain myself).

Life is so grey area, y’know? Nothing’s every black & white, as much as I want it to be.

Lately part of my depression has involved privilege, self-esteem and awareness of the issues around me that I never saw before.

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So add to the list that I’m feeling entirely inferior as a blogger, despite the fact that Blake pointed out that I get e-mails from people who say that I’ve helped them in some way by writing about my life and saying some of the thing I do “out loud”. I guess that’s something…not something I’ve ever striven for or done on purpose, but I guess it’s a positive side effect of being so self absorbed….

Onto other things…

Yesterday Blake & I went to Toronto to pick up my paintings from The Square Foot Show. The trip was pretty uneventful, we just drove there, went to the gallery, stood in a line and picked up my paintings. Nothing too exciting. When we were walking down the street toward the gallery, there was this guy dressed in shabby, dirty clothes and a shirt that didn’t fit (I don’t think he was homeless but definitely mentally ill) and as we walked by, he said to Blake, “do you have some spare change for a Coke?” We were walking pretty fast and Blake just shook his head “no” and as we were walking, I asked Blake if he really did ask for change for a Coke and Blake said yes, and so I said if the guy was still there on our way back, I’d give him the Coke that just so happened to be in my bag. (I’m on meds that cause dry mouth, I travel with liquids.) So we went to the gallery and got my paintings (I didn’t sell any, which is a good thing*) and on our way back, the guy was still there so I got the Coke out of my bag and said, “Sir? Here you go.” and he said, “I don’t want that.” Confused I said, “Isn’t that what you asked us for when we passed by here earlier?” and he said, kind of belligerently, “NO, I asked for a COFFEE.” So I said “sorry” and we just kept walking to the car. We know for a fact that he said he wanted a Coke when we walked past him the first time, especially since we heard him, as we were approaching him WITH the Coke, ask another person for change for a Coke, so Blake figures he really wanted money for beer or something, which just made me sad.

On the way home, as we were on the outskirts of our town, the clouds were pretty spectacular so Blake pulled over and I ran into a field to take pictures of them. Behold:

My pictures, admittedly, suck, and they looked much cooler in person.

*So like I said, I didn’t sell any of my paintings at The Square Foot Show, which is a good thing and I found it funny that there was a guy in line talking to a VERY outspoken American woman who was happy that he didn’t sell anything either (which surprised her). I’m happy to have not sold anything because AWOL Gallery takes 50 goddamn percent of the $225 they charge for your paintings plus you’re out the $20 it cost to get in the show (plus gas to get the paintings there, then going to the show, then picking them up), so really you don’t make any money at all. The show, for me, as I think I’ve said before, was just to have another show on my resume for when I apply for the Ontario Arts Council emerging artist grant which I’m told by one of the program’s directors isn’t even necessary so next year I doubt I’ll take part in the show.

I would like to somehow find out about other shows that are actually happening in my area but I don’t know how you go about doing that. There IS some sort of arts council in Barrie that I know of but I’ve been on their website and they only seem to advertise events after they’re already happening, so that does me no good. There is also a local like, arts club type of thing but you have to pay quite a bit of money to be part of it, if I recall correctly, and I don’t think I’d benefit from it enough to make the financial investment because I don’t live in Barrie and I don’t think you should have to pay money just to find out about art shows before they happen. There has to be a better way, I just don’t know what it is.

Since I didn’t sell anything at Square Foot, I am going to submit all 3 of those paintings to Touched By Fire. I’m 99.9% sure they’ll be rejected because they aren’t depressing enough, but that’s okay, I’m going to submit them anyway and see what happens. No harm, right? And if I get in, that’s kind of a cool thing because the show’s at the ROM in Toronto and I happen to know the food is excellent and that there’s a free bar. Or at least that was the case when I was in the show before.

Anyway, I’m just rambling now…which I suppose I’ve been doing this entire post. I think I’m going to check e-mail, go back to bed and when I wake up, I’ll post my new paintings to Etsy.