This one is for Sophie I.T.M.

I stepped outside into the cool night air before getting ready for bed tonight, looked up, and saw a wonderous sight. The moon is bright orange--a result of the fires in California.

For a better look, click on the picture.

please

Put me out of my misery. If I can't have the me that worked so well for so long, I'm not interested in making do with this bland, colorless, unappealing version.

Fuck it.

Godspeed, Ted

You're going to be missed. Your friends, supporters, and even your opponents came forward to say that you were larger than life, passionate, and committed. You never stopped fighting the good fight--many good fights--continuing on even when you were starting to fight the illness that eventually took your life.

I'm glad you never became president. If you had, you never would have been able to flourish with your imperfections. Some of your most important work never would have become reality. Despite your own privileged upbringing, you were always able to champion the cause of the average, working-class American, including the most downtrodden among us.

I was never what one would call a Kennedy fan or supporter, but I had a deep appreciation for the issues you were willing to take on as if each was a personal burden. If ever I had had the opportunity to meet you, I would have thanked you personally for your legislative work that made my life a bit easier to live. It wasn't limited to just one thing, either. I appreciated your ability to see the bigger picture and future impact when choosing your Congressional battles, particularly in your tenacious and hard-fought work to establish mental health care parity. It was an unpopular issue that you defended fearlessly and for that, you have my deepest gratitude.

Now, let the sails billow with a late summer wind heading toward the horizon.

Godspeed.

Every victory has a taste that's bittersweet.
--Mark Knopfler, Dire Straits

This really should have been included in the post titled, Well said. It's quite suited to accompany Kaye Redfield Jamison's quote about being a lesser version of herself once she became stable.

The song, On Every Street, is the first song on my iPod's "Sleep" playlist. The entire second half of the song is a four-chord phrase that repeats and builds from something spare until it becomes a lush blend of four instruments played to their potential. It is stunning.

And then it's over.

Sometimes it feels bad

I am unliked by those who know me.
I am unpopular.
I am insignificant.

I fully understand why. This is not among the mysteries in my life.

I am the leftover piece, the piece that never fits. There is no right place in the wrong context.

Alone is a state of being.
Alone is an empty feeling, a jar filled with gravel.

Sometimes, the pain in my heart is almost unbearable. With whom do I share these thoughts? Well, nobody. Jolie is far away and beset with deep troubles. Frank has no comfort to give right now. Joanna appears to have bowed out entirely.

That's the entire roster.

I am on my own. Blogging can't address every difficulty in my life. People can't, either.

I'm quitting therapy. It's useless in my situation. This is a bit of a bipolar slide, but being sad is much more acceptable socially than the churning storms of a mixed state.

There is no hope. The box of hope has gone missing.

Well said

This Saturday night, the Brainucopia is full of feelings, thoughts, and ponderings. I was looking for a quote that could describe how I feel about Facebook, somewhat believing that would be an impossible task. Turns out I was wrong.

We seek pitifully to convey to others the treasures of our heart, but they have not the power to accept them, and so we go lonely, side by side but not together, unable to know our fellows and unknown by them.
— W. Somerset Maugham


Somewhere amidst the many quotes I found about all sorts of fascinating things, words uttered by people far more clever than I will ever be, was this one. It's near and dear to my heart not only because of who said it, but because she did such an astounding job of describing my life when she wrote about her own.

"I compare myself with my former self, not with others. Not only that, I tend to compare my current self with the best I have been, which is when I have been mildly manic. When I am my present "normal" self, I am far removed from when I have been my liveliest, most productive, most intense, most outgoing and effervescent. In short, for myself, I am a hard act to follow."
— Kaye Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness


What I had really hoped to find was a quote about illness, the unknown, and uncertainty. Or, perhaps one about whether it's better to know or not know. Maybe one about a situation appearing to be headed from bad to worse. Thinking about it all made me wonder if I might derive any sense of relief from being able to say, "It was never bipolar disorder. My behavioral health was wrongly accused of offenses that were actually rooted in something much more socially acceptable but with far more terrible consequences in the end."

That's a lot to think about when you think about it.

Photo by me, last week.

Dilemmas of anonymous blogging

I just read this article on CNN online: The coming-out stories of anonymous bloggers.

It starts like this:
By John D. SutterCNN

(CNN) -- Blog fans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, saw PittGirl as their masked superhero -- a comedian and local commentator who jibed the mayor without reserve and ranted freely about her hatred of pigeons.

Virginia Montanez says she was fired because she revealed her identity as a local blogger.

But despite her effort to keep her real name secret, people started to figure out who PittGirl was.

Feeling pressure to take control of her identity before someone else outed her, PittGirl on Wednesday posted pictures of herself on her blog and introduced readers to her real-world self: Virginia Montanez, a 35-year-old married mother of two who worked in the nonprofit sector.

"My friends and family call me Ginny," she wrote on her blog. "But you can continue to call me Your Majesty, because I've grown accustomed."

On Thursday morning, Montanez was fired from her job because of her online persona, she said.

Oh, shit.

Staycation, day, oh, I don't know

Note: I am on vacation; therefore, there is no proofreading at this time.

The to-do list was long. It's still long. I haven't accomplished much. My intentions were good, but frankly, I'm tired. Much more tired than I thought.

I'm ready to go to the island with Jolie. Our island. It's our plan. We're going to go to an island where we will be the only inhabitants. We will not have to take meds because nobody else will be there--there won't be any need to be anyone other than who nature intended us to be.

We understand each other. We don't offend each other. Much. If we do, it's no big deal. We've learned not to take things personally.

When I told Frank about the island, his immediate concerns were pragmatic: "How will you get supplies?" I said we'd have them airlifted and dropped from planes. "Well, what if you get sick of each other and one of you kills the other?" I replied, "We probably had it coming."

Frank got quiet and asked, "Can I come visit?"

"No."

The other day I interrupted Jolie's peaceful retreat from civilization with a phone call. My loneliness was getting the best of me. the boredom was even worse.

"Jolie, I always thought I would be a world traveler. The bad thing about FaceBook is that I'm finding out that everyone I ever knew has traveled extensively while I've been driving in circles."

I don't think Jolie can really empathize here. She's already covered, like, half the planet. I tried to explain that I was supposed to be a world traveler. It was my plan and I thought it was my destiny. I had already been to South America twice--without my parents--by the time I was 18. Now I'm on vacation and I've put 14 miles on my car since August 7. There is no travel now or in my future.

Jolie asked me if I have a passport. Oh, great, now I'm going to really look like a loser.

"No, Jolie, I do not have a passport. The one I got in 1976 expired in 1981, and I haven't had any need for a new one."

"But what about when we go to our island?"

"Jolie, if we're the only ones there, we won't need passports. It's not like there's going to be any immigration or TSA people waiting for us."

She thought about that and said, "Well, there could be processing en route."

Good point.

"Here's the thing. I thought about getting a passport in case I needed to flee the country or something--especially during the Bush years. I filled out all of the paperwork, but I hated how my picture came out. I went to a different place and got my picture taken again, but I didn't like that one, either. I put the passport application aside and when it was almost ready to expire, I got my photos retaken. They weren't any better than the previous ones, so I threw them away and shredded the application. That's why I don't have a passport."

This vacation, I had a budget of $50 for the entire two weeks. That kind of puts the whole passport issue into perspective.

On a related note, I've been taken aback by the number of people who suggested camping as a vacation activity. Oh my god, why do people camp? I can't think of anything worse for a vacation, except for ending up on that show, "Locked Up Abroad." Camping? Seriously? Outside? Where there is either no bathroom or one I would have to hike to in the dark when I wake up in the middle of the night? Plumbing. Without 21st Century plumbing and electricity, trust me, it won't be a vacation.

Frank will only travel to countries where English is the first language. I will only travel to places with good plumbing and modern bathrooms.

Perhaps this explains a lot about why we don't travel.

My brain is off

It appears that my brain has no thoughts to process, or else, it's not trying very hard.

However, the word of the week is: parasthesia.

Yes, I think my brain has locked up. Hmm. Didn't see that coming.

Better late than never

When I graduated from college, I had to move back to my parents' house. Having paid for my college education myself, I was absolutely broke. It took a year, but in January 1985, I packed up my stuff and moved into my first apartment. I had a roommate, and it was she who had invited me to live with her since her roommate at the time (her sister) was about to get married.
Our apartment was in the center of town, above the Army-Navy store. Just around the corner was the storefront gallery of a local artist whose work I loved. I used to stand on the sidewalk and wish that I would someday be able to afford one of the watercolors or lithographs on display in the window--many of which depicted Doylestown streetscapes.

When my 24th birthday came a few months later, my roommate was waiting for me as soon as I woke up. She handed me a heavy cardboard tube and said, "You can't even imagine..."

She was right.

The tube held a lithograph of David Frame's print, Dance. Frame had pencil-signed the print and written a birthday message along the bottom of the paper. I was astounded.

Dance by David L. Frame, 1976

I knew how much this print cost, and I couldn't imagine how my roommate, a college student, had been able to buy it. She told me that she stopped in to take a look at the lithograph a few days before. She asked the man who was sitting there reading a magazine if the gallery had anything small she could see. They didn't. He asked her why it had to be small and she said, "Because I know that I can't afford anything big."

My roommate went on to chat with this guy for quite some time. She explained that she was shopping for a birthday gift for me, that we were newly on our own, both totally broke, and that I loved art and was generally interesting. She told him that I traveled overseas without my parents--twice--as a teen and that I spent my senior year in Chile. She also explained that I had just graduated with a degree in communications/broadcasting/journalism, but I hadn't yet broken into the field. She also said that I had a nice collection of coffee-table art books, but that I had never been able to buy a "real" piece of art. In fact, I didn't have one thing to hang on the wall of our apartment.

She mentioned that she was standing in this gallery because I absolutely loved David Frame's work. The man asked her which subjects I liked and she pointed to Dance. She said that I was so taken with the print, that I had stopped in several times just to look at it.

The man said that in order to show her some things I might like, he needed to know how much she could afford to spend on this gift. She told him, and it was about half of the selling price of Dance.

And then it happened. David Frame introduced himself as the artist, saying that being the artist qualified him to be flexible in his pricing.

I never had the money to get the lithograph framed. Something always came up, or I was in the process of moving, or sending money to my parents, or needing a car, or paying for graduate school, or something. Every year around my birthday, I would take the picture out of the tube and just look at it before tucking it away for another year.

This went on for too many years. This year, I decided that I wanted to spend some money on something that wasn't medical or pharmaceutical in nature. One Saturday afternoon, I took the tube out of its storage spot and headed out to, of all places, Hobby Lobby. I had a coupon.

There is something about this picture. The framing technician unrolled the print and weighted the corners with little sandbags. After a day full of baby pictures, ten-dollar posters, memorabilia and the other things people want to frame, he was stunned to be looking at, as he said it, "the real deal."

I gave him the short version of the story of how I got the print and what I knew about the artist. He stepped aside to take a call, and gradually, a small group of people gathered around the Frame print. Everyone was taken with it, and everyone had questions. I love this picture and I was glad to be able to tell about it. The framing shop manager came over and asked if I needed help. I said, no, I was waiting for the other framer to finish his call. The manager immediately fell in love with the print and asked me a lot of questions about the artist and about Bucks County.

Then he asked me why it had taken me 24 years to get the picture framed. I explained about finances, grad school, life, and my recent medical expenses, as well as the financial realities of my choice to work with refugees. I said, "I still can't afford this, but enough is enough. It's time."

When my framing tech came back, his boss called him aside and talked with him briefly. The tech came over and said, "My boss wants me to do this job for you for half price, no strings attached."

And so it is that I finally have this large, gorgeous picture prominently displayed in my little house. It looks perfect.

David Frame's bio/obituary.

View some of David Frame's art by collection

Sometimes I copy myself

Vacation, day seven. As planned, there has been ironing, cleaning, painting, picture hanging, a new roof, trips to the vet, grocery shopping, obscene amounts of TV and Internet, lundry, weight gain, watering the garden, fixing a few mechanical things, etc.

I bought a copy of "O" magazine and I have been able to concentrate enough to read three articles. The Suze Orman column always makes me feel like a loser of epic proportions.

Frank took off from work two days this week. I thought it was to do something vacationy with me, but as it turns out, he took this time so we could paint the living room, dining room, hallway, and anything else we can accomplish. I told Frank I could do the painting alone, but he was quite uncomfortable with that idea. And this is where I let my email tell it. I told it all to Jolie who may or may not even be reading my messages since she feels pretty unwell herself these days. Here's what I told her:

Anyway...I wanted to do this myself during my vacation time. Frank would have none of it. He insisted that he knows exactly what we should do, he wants to spackle a certain way(?), and he knows how to paint, blah, bah, blah... Here's the thing. I don't like to paint, but I am very, very good at it. I'm experienced, careful, detailed, and my technique is nearly flawless. I know a lot of good tricks and my prep work is excellent. I'm slow, but the end result looks very professional. Frank is not a very good painter. He doesn't listen to anything I say, he thinks I overthink the whole process, and he says his way is just fine. I don't know why Frank doesn't trust me to paint. It's not a life-or-death, no-going-back process, you know?

Here's how today went:
We didn't prime even though we're going over semigloss paint that had approximately 100 matte spackle spots. "This is good paint going over off-white walls. We don't need to prime."
Frank painted the ceiling a few weeks ago, so he knew exactly where all of the rollers were. The first one we tried to use still had water in it. I said, "did you leave this standing upright to dry?" "Uh, I don't remember. Maybe not. It felt dry so I put it away in the big plastic bag with the others." That meant that not only hadn't the water drained, but it had no way to completely dry out.

When Frank painted the ceiling, there were about 10 little shiny spots showing where he hadn't completely covered with the paint. When we were painting today, the same thing was happening. First he said it wasn't but it was obvious. So, he said he didn't understand why this was happening. I asked if uses the V pattern when he paints. He assured me he does. I watched him, and he doesn't.

I don't know if you've done any painting, but here's what you're supposed to do: Paint a "V about three feet wide. Using horizontal strokes, paint from the top of the V to the bottom so you're left with a squarish rectangle. Then, paint over the square with vertical strokes. It's done this way because it ensures total coverage of each wall section in all directions. It's not rocket science--the directions are printed on the can label. So, there are little, shiny white spots showing through the wall paint. I also told Frank that this show-through happens if the roller has any flat spots. Guess what--the roller wasn't stored standing up, either. Why, why, why doesn't he believe what I tell him???

I noticed today that he hit some spots on the ceiling. He told me it's not a problem because he has to touch up the spots he missed with the ceiling paint anyway.

More fun on Friday. Maybe I'll just take myself out to a movie.