Amen. Journaling got me through some really tough times in my life.

06/06/2015

   The mood is...well...flaky. That's the best adjective I can come up with.

  There are ants in my mailbox.

  No, this is not a zen thing. There are truly hundreds of ants in my mailbox. They're scrabbling around like they're on ant-acid or something. I've examined the mailbox thoroughly. There is nothing even remotely edible in there—not even my mail, which they never touch.


  WTF?

  So I put one of those liquid ant baits in there. They work very well. I use them every year when the ant war begins. Usually they invade the kitchen. Not sure why they want to capture the mail box. Maybe they think my master battle plan is in there? For the record, it's not. I just put down the ant bait and in a few days there are tiny corpses all over the place.

  The annual spider invasion has been defeated. Or at least, deflected. During the winter, I noticed I could actually see through the gap where my bedroom wall meets the floor. No kidding! I could see right through to the outside.

  So that's how they were getting in. And spiders just love setting up shop somewhere nice and warm. Like in my bed. With me in it. There was screaming involved. The chemical warfare was effective but I've run out of chemicals. And, for some reason, I always forget to get more when I'm out. Looks like this is in my blind spot.

  So, anyway, I headed off the invasion with good old duct tape. Taped all around the room at the join with the floor. I haven't seen any spiders yet. I'm hoping if they do break in, they'll go for the nice, tasty, toxic, poisonous ant corpses.

  I can only hope.

  I was out of just about everything so I had to go to the grocery store today. Alone. By myself. This is never fun. Usually Nice Wendy goes with me but she's busy today. I texted Bad a few times, didn't get a response. Never do. No idea what the hell she's doing.

  Any rate, I did okay. Although people were staring at me when I stopped at the entrance, took all of my groceries out of the small cart, and loaded them into a big cart. It's that lack of a sense of scale, you see. I had a list but had no idea how much crap it really was...until things started sliding off the top of the little cart.

  I've been examining that aspect of my personality. The lack of scale. I've discovered it applies to a lot more than just physical size. I also have no concept of temporal movement. I believe I could leave in the middle of a conversation with someone, come back fifteen years later, and pick it right up again.

  Things change. Everyone knows this. But I see things both as they were, as they are. Sometimes there's a might be in there somewhere. You see, placement in time doesn't make any sense. It won't process. In order for things to be the way they are now, they also have to be the way they were then.

  With out a was, there can't be an is.

  So I get the tenses a little confused sometimes. My therapist calls this nostalgia but I'm not really longing for things that have passed because they're still there. They have to be.

  People will say that we, as a species, move forward in time. I believe this is incorrect. We aren't moving. We're static. It's everything else that's moving around us. But we've sliced everything up in to seconds, minutes, hours, days, and so on. We're just measuring something that's moving around us without really understanding what it is.

  I honestly don't think something like a time machine is possible because you're not moving.

  So that was the philosophical moment for today.

  I like my thoughts. They can get a little out of control sometimes, become distracting, sometimes depressing or distressing. Anything observed in any way will trigger a thought string that ends up all over the place. It's interesting what you can discover when you just let things run.
  Kinda like what you just read.

  Thanks for listening

Didn't proof read this one, sorry if it's confusing.
06/07/2015

  The mood is upwardly optimistic with a teaspoon of apprehension.

  I went off the wagon. Way, way off the wagon. Like an entire carton of Marlboroughs off the wagon. All the benefits I'd gained by putting them down came back with a vengeance. A setback. It happens.

  I let the cigarette supply run out again. Yesterday at about 4. There is no tobacco of any kind in the house. If I can just resist buying I think I can pull this off.

  I wanted to write a fantasy novel. I have a lot of good scenes but can't see where everything is going or how it ends. There has to be some sort of overall plot. I've decided to just start writing scenes in short-story format. Maybe after reading some of them I can string them all together.

  Bad is coming over today so I'm going out into the world. Yippee! Want to wander around the mall, eat some things, buy some incense because The Stealth House smells like smoke, have a milkshake.

  As long as there's someone acting as a buffer between me and everyone else, I can relax and enjoy myself.

  I live in mortal fear of a stranger attempting to speak to me when I'm alone. Also, when I'm by myself I frequently vocalize my thoughts. So people stare at me. And that makes me even more anxious. Which makes me vocalize even more.

  A vicious cycle indeed.

 I've talked to my therapist about this. I told him that there is a voice in my head, but It's my voice. And it's chattering constantly. And haring off in random directions all the time. Anything can trigger a lengthy soliloquy in stentorian fashion, explaining or exploring anything and everything.

  He said that was called thinking.

  Really? So everyone else has this constant chatter going on in their heads? Constantly being driven to distraction? Probably not to this degree. I think about this a lot. I think the reason it's so lengthy and so detailed and so distracting because all I do in my spare time is read.

  When I'm reading, if the writing is any good, it's like you're watching the story. People, places, and things all seem very real. Like everything I'm reading happened or is happening. So when I'm not reading, all these stories are bouncing around in my head and I'm picking things apart.

  I would probably be nice to be in a reading group of some kind. I can't imagine a fantasy reading group would be easy to find.

  I have three Kindles. The one I bought is called Portal, the Kindle Fire is called Gate, and the Kindle that Bad gave to me is called Doorway. I thought those were appropriate because they transport me to other places. I love to read. I'm an addict.

  I'm very hard on Kindles for some reason. Probably because I'm always carrying one of them. The Portal is in very hard shape. Cracks, burn marks, and a chip broken off which I repaired with duct tape.

 Anyway, the fantasy series I'm reading now is called The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. If you're fan of epic fantasy, I highly recommend reading this series. I believe there are nine books in the original series. There there are spin off books and short stories.

  The writing is magnificent. Complex, detailed, very easy to fall in to. It's one of those stories that starts off without explaining everything. You get a feel for what's going on, how things work, and where things are going by getting into the story.

  My dishwasher is broken. It's one of those roll-away models that has an adapter with two hoses that you connect to your sink faucet. I works pretty well and I can use it as extra counter space. So I'd loaded all of the crap from the barbecue last weekend, rolled it over to the sink, and grabbed the adapter and pulled.

  The damned thing snapped right off the end of the hoses.

  I've had this dishwasher for four years and this is the first problem I've had with it so I wasn't too angry. Near as I can tell by examining both hoses will need to be replaced. The fittings are still screwed on to the adapter. There is no way to reconnect the hoses because the sleeves snapped off at the hose ends.

  I have tools and such and can order parts but after careful consideration I reached the conclusion that this is not something I could do myself. It looks like in order to access where the hoses are connected to the dishwasher, the entire housing has to be removed. Not something I could do.

  So I called Sears

  I tried calling the store here in York. They have one of those automated operators that gives you a list of options that are in no way related to the reason for your call. So I asked for customer service. Auto-Annie said please wait, then transferred the call.

  The phone rang. And rang. And rang...no answer, no voice message, nothing.

  I gave up on that and went to the Sears website. You can actually schedule an appointment yourself. I tried to do that. Failed. Said no service in this area. I clicked on the chat button and some guy in India calling himself Jeff got on the chat with me.

  Jeff asked what he could do for me. I told him about all of the above. Then I said “I tried calling but every time I asked to speak to customer service I was transferred to a phone no one answered. I posted that and before Jeff could answer I posted another line saying “That says a lot about Sears when you think about it...”.

  There was a very protracted pause.

  Then Jeff posted the standard stock apology, probably a macro, and we moved on. Jeff was able to schedule to have someone come out on Wednesday. The appointment time is 8am to 5pm. They're supposed to call the day before and tell me if it will be morning or afternoon so I'm hoping I won't have to use up too much leave for this. They do not have weekend appointments.

  Bummer.

  So I'm currently washing clothes and just bouncing around the house.

  I seem to have an excess of energy.

 And a positive outlook.

  So far a very fine day.

  Thanks for listening.

Please continue your stop smoking campaign and continue to tell yourself no, it won't hurt me, but it will KILL me!

06/13/2015 addendum

  The mood is level. Easy. Even mellow.

  After a brief hospitalization in January of 2013 I turned my back on the world. It was just becoming too much. All of the wonderful things we do to each other were filling up my memory with the screams of the hatred and violence we are so very good at.

  So I just stopped listening.

  No more cable TV. No more commercial radio. No more internet news. No more newspapers. I feel that this, more than any of the other aspects of my psychiatric and psychological treatment, has helped level me out.

  The unfortunate side effect is that I have no idea what's happening in the world of entertainment.

  Did you know that the whole Hobbit movie trilogy was finished? Even available on DVD? I had no idea. Today was the bi-weekly economic stimulus trip with Nice. We do this every pay weekend. It's a fun day. We have breakfast, go shopping, just basically hang out and spend money. I found all three movies at Best Buy.

  I'm very much looking forward to a movie and popcorn marathon.

  Nice has been under a great deal of stress lately with her boyfriend's job. He runs his own business doing promotions. He even has his own record label. There is a great deal of work involved especially when there are openings or promotion events.

  Nice has been supporting boyfriend (didn't get permission to use his name, maybe later) in his efforts. Apparently he's really good at his chosen profession. Which means he's always working his ass off. And so is she. In addition to her full time job. And both their families.

  It's hectic.

  I think today's trip was the first time that I was providing the decompression, not receiving it. It's a strange feeling. Imagine, someone feeling relaxed and unruffled just by being around me. Normally it's a whole bucketful of crazy. She apparently finds this relaxing. Who knew?

  I get along well with children. At least for the most part.

  A nine year old once described me to her mother as freakin hilarious. A fifteen year old told his mother that he liked me I treated him like a person. I think the reason I get along with young children is because we like all the same toys. Seriously. That and I find children so refreshingly uncomplicated. They haven't yet learned things like deception. At least not to the point where they're any good at it.

  Which puts us mostly on the same level. At least from a sociological perspective.

  One of the things I learned in my college psychology classes was that adults have an annoying tendency to treat small children like they're just smaller grown-ups. Some children seem to be expected to know things about social interaction or basic behavior that they were never taught and never encountered. Even more, they're expected to fully understand these concepts.

  A brain grows, just like a body. It doesn't come with preloaded software. It isn't a recording device. It's isn't a sponge. What I'm getting at is this; you wouldn't send your child off to work in a steel mill. Their bodies aren't developed enough for something like that. So expecting them to comprehend something it's taken you a lifetime to learn is unreasonable because their brains aren't developed enough.

  And I think this is why children seem to like me.

  I listen to them. I'm genuinely interested in what they say. Because it's just so enlightening. Every concept is stripped of all meaning other than what they're trying to express. Straightforward. Even profound.

  The next time you get to spend time with a child, ask them what they think about something. Then listen, just listen, to their reply. Don't direct, don't correct. Just hear what they have to say.

  Who knows, you might learn something.

  I certainly do.

  Thanks for listening