The Bloody Doors Off

Whoooo child, if you could be in my head right now.

It’s a smorgasbord of monologues, a constellation of ideas, a smattering of paranoia.

Lizzo needs to rap my thoughts.

I spent ten minutes sorting through my texts, deleting groceries orders, message from phone numbers no longer active.

That was a judicious use of time.

I also promised myself forty-five minutes ago I’d get ready to walk Auggie at 7pm. Still got fifteen minutes to pull that off.

Headaches have started to return. Low-grade, easily managed. Hoping it stays this way. When I was a kid, up until my early twenties, I suffered from debilitating migraines. I have memories of locking myself away in a blacked-out room, no sound, cold cloth over my eyes. Crying in pain. Vomiting sometimes relieved the pressure. There were trips to the hospital. One emergency room couldn’t qualify my pain and left me to suffer under the harsh lights of the waiting room. Scarborough Grace Hospital whisked me immediately into another room and got me an intravenous of pain medications and gravol for the nausea. A woman suffering a psychotic break flew open the partitioning curtain, stared at me with dead eyes and demanded, “Satan, get out!”

I was so loopy from the pain meds, I concluded. “Cool. I’m the devil.”

That was the last migraine I remember, until recent years. And, as I typed earlier, they’ve been managed.

But the frequency. Makes me uneasy.

You know what else makes me queasy?

They got Dame Helen Fucking Mirren to host a Harry Potter slash Hogwarts-themed game show on TBS.

And I thought I was depressed before.

Battling inertia is exhausting.

I feel as though there’s a 50 pound weight tied around my soul. I can still move and get things done, but the expended effort is tremendous. It took 15 minutes to tie my shoes in order to walk the dog.

It may sound similar to the side effects of taking lithium, but I assure you they are not. The previous affect felt like paralysis; I wanted to accomplish things, but couldn’t move. Tonight’s struggle was is purely mental.

I can’t even craft a decent blog post to work it through.

Goddamn it.

The one problem with having a flash of creativity, is the possibility you can’t turn it off when it’s done.

Email from a client, asking for designs for their company holiday party. They were honest and said they had no direction, that the discretion was mine.

And I thought back to when I created my own e-Christmas cards. I loved doing that. I tried to find a theme, sometimes a funny image. The best I’d ever done was a Da Vinci Code inspired piece, The Santa Clause.

And boom, an idea flew in. And a second. And they are fucking awesome. One is kinda chummy (that’s the best word I can come up with) and the other is more formal. I was going to send them off when I went down another rabbit hole and found a third concept, radically different from the first two.

And I was listening to Elton John Live in Australia on Spotify, and I sit back and look at what I’d created as Sir Elton sings:

The king must die
The king must die
The king must die
The king is dead
Long live the king

The King Must Die, Elton John

This. Is going in the portfolio.

Too bad I can’t share it right now.

But enjoy The Santa Clause.

I slept in this morning. Didn’t wake up until after 10am.

Normally I’m up at 6:30 am, even without my alarm. The body just decides that’s enough and jolts me awake.

Not today. Okay, I didn’t go to bed until 1 am last night. Usually I’m in bed at 11 pm.

But we got to watching the film Yesterday on Netflix (which I highly recommend) and it held my attention.

But this morning. I could go back to bed for a few hours.

How am I this exhausted?

So I poured a second coffee, which seems to help.

Stand by, kids. Today’s gonna be an interesting day.

Given my brief foray into mania this afternoon, I’d say the lithium is out of my system.

This is the first time I had an anxiety attack while shopping online for groceries.

I once had a meltdown in a No Frills. (Shortly after I got out of the hospital.) That was hell.

It’s pushing the same buttons tonight.

So I put on Wheel of Fortune to calm down.

And I realize, oh gods, I’ve become my mother.

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Someday you’ll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you’ll no longer burn to be
Brothers in arms

Through these fields of destruction
Baptisms of fire
I’ve witnessed your suffering
As the battle raged high
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There’s so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun’s gone to hell and
The moon’s riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line in your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

Brothers in Arms, Dire Straits

I was woken at 5:30 am by a dog needing to poop.

How’s your day going?

There’s little doubt I’ll be slipping under the sheet soon enough to catch more sleep.

But for now, I’m awake and this song is running through my head.

I should’ve gone back to bed. But my blood sugar was low so I ate a cookie.

Been getting a lot of lows lately. I’ve reduced by insulin accordingly, yet it still drops.

Might have something to do with my eating habits.

More times than not, I’m skipping lunch now. That’s what I miss about working in an office. Your body is programmed to take a break in the middle of the day, and the logical break coincides with lunch. And your body ends up tricked into thinking, “I need to put fuel in me to get me through the rest of the day” because fuck knows coffee isn’t gonna cut it.

So I tend to gloss over a meal. And then dinner isn’t quite involved. Can’t remember the last time I cooked. It’s all about convenience, it seems. And if I do partake in an actual meal, I come to regret it. It takes me forever to eat the damned thing. The three of us went to lunch yesterday with Marlo’s mum (I skipped breakfast) and I was self-conscious at how long it took me to eat.

I don’t have an eating disorder, I just need to take better care of myself and not worry about the length of time it takes to clean my plate.

Alright, it’s 6:45 am, time to stop yammersteening and do something productive, like figure out what to put in the boy’s lunch box.

No quippy title tonight.

I’m feeling kinda raw.

Watched a video of my mom chair dancing to Gangnam Style, and while it made me smile, it made me miss her even more.

And being November, it reminded me of our annual “Christmas in November”. Mom and Larry wintered in Florida and always made the drive down just after the middle of the month. So we would gather for a dinner out — usually Red Lobster — then reconvene at Kevin’s where we’d exchange gifts.

I know, it seems silly. But I really miss it.

We lost Allan a year ago.

My Uncle Bernard last month.

I don’t wanna lose anyone else.

I’m not done making memories with you.