Month: March 2020

Right after commenting that I have been watching zero amount of tv I watched a movie last night on Netflix – “Change in the Air”  and it has left me craving a little magic. Not Penn and Teller magic but – hmm, how should I call it? The magic of the unknown; the magic of belief, of love, of healing, of peace to the heart. The ethereal, makes no sense but it brings warmth. That kind of magic. You can make of the story as you will, as you want to believe.

Practically it has a phenomenal cast doing their best work – quietly as the story is. It left me smiling and warm at heart and craving magic of that special kind. I shall have to try and figure out a way to make some magic.

I did actually make food yesterday in my new slow cooker, beef stew,  and it was good but too rich for us. My husband and I are both feeling queasy today (you really don’t want the details.) We are not used to such foods anymore, most especially me.

I’m a tad annoyed with my husband’s children, that they are not checking in on him. His son, who never ever calls or emails did call 2 weeks ago and you could have knocked my husband over with a feather! Middle child, who hates my guts, also called a week ago (and didn’t ask for money, which was a shock) and that was a cause for wonderment. The youngest child calls once a week, emails once a week, so there is that. She has been good about staying in touch over time.

My husband is far from the great communicator so some of this falls on him. I don’t interact with his two eldest children except to write the checks and send the cards. The youngest and I communicate more perhaps because she is amenable to it and because I think she appreciates the good care I take of her father. Plus, she is a very nice woman. (I refer to ‘the children’ despite them being 41, 38 and 36 LOL) Eh, it is what it is.

I’m still anxious about obtaining food supplies, I’m just about out of milk so I’m going to have to learn to drink my coffee black, or just stick to tea – I’m not too thrilled with that – I don’t drink a lot of coffee but morning just doesn’t seem to work without it. My husband doesn’t seem to be worried at all about anything, he just assumes I will figure things out and make them happen. If I die before he does the man is going to be up shit creek without a paddle!

The search for food has now become an amusing obsession. Delivery from approximately 10 stores in a 20 mile radius has no delivery times available until April 1st. How one could put together a shopping list is problematical because everything is out of stock. Interesting – Can I get nothing delivered on April 1st, please?

I shop primarily at Harris Teeter and they have instituted ‘Seniors Only” shopping hours. 6-8am on Monday and Thursday, the thing is the store doesn’t open until 7am but hey…They also have Senior Pick-Up times available if you order on-line but that requires personal shoppers and there are no available slots for the next week and a half.

You really have to laugh at this stuff. No, really you do because what other choice do you have?

I was up at 3:30am today – don’t know why, just woke up and there I was. Until I got the newspaper it never crossed my mind that life was any different than usual, it took the headlines to remind me that everybody’s new normal is my same old-same old.

According to reports people are watching more tv these days, contrary person that I am, I am watching less, okay, make that none! Since I discovered 2 weeks ago that the pain in my hip seemed to originate from sitting on what passes for a sofa in our house, I haven’t sat on the damn thing. The only time I ever sat on it was in the evening to keep my husband company watching stupid tv. Now that I don’t do that the only place for me to watch tv is on my computer sitting at my desk, which quite frankly is quite comfortable. The thing is, I spend all day at my desk and computer, come evening I’ve had it.

I suppose eventually I will get around to watching the season finale of ‘This Is Us”, and clean out (delete) anything on the DVR. I keep putting things on the watch list for the numerous streaming apps we have but I’m thinking I’ll be dead before I ever watch them – even if I live to be 100. In the meantime I am enjoying NOT being in pain and being able to walk reasonably well. There’s an upside to everything!

Today is going to be the last nice day for awhile, 2 nice days in a row and then blammy – back to chilly, overcast and possibly rainy (the rains came and never left).  Perhaps I will take my pain-free hip and newly rejuvenated walking ability out for a trial run and amble up to the little grocery store on Glebe, how much you wanna bet their shelves are just chock-a-block with goodies? Not exactly the ones I’m wanting but I bet I can get eggs and milk. I don’t need eggs and milk at the moment but I bet I can get them!

Oh – when I was checking the Harris Teeter website, their already outrageous prices seem to have gone up ($7.99 for a dozen eggs!) -the seltzer my husband drinks went from $5.69 to $8 something for the 12 can pack –  price gouging anyone?

Oh it’s a wonderful life!

I do love how folks are going on and on about the social distancing and self-isolation. I have been living this way for 12 years now, and not by choice.  So aside from no bread or milk the bitching and moaning about the cautions being put in place only make me laugh sardonically.

My husband has been telecommuting or tele-working, howsomever you call it, for 12 years, so again, no change in our lives, welcome to my world.

The economic impact is very real and that disturbs me greatly. Not for my sake but for others who were living on the edge before all this.  And 12-Step participants – are they doing video meetings? And what of the people who don’t have the capacity to do that?

I am so socially isolated that since I deleted my Facebook account a week ago no one noticed. Well, one person mentioned via their blog that they couldn’t find me there to thank me for a birthday card I sent.

I grant you that I don’t really participate much on FB – I just go along my feed and click ‘Like” and move 0n – so it can be difficult to notice something is gone if you never really noticed it was there to start with.

Most of my quote/unquote FB friends are people I have never met and don’t really know.  I ‘met’ most of them, years ago, through blogging, but with one exception (2 if you count me) none of them blog anymore. They have lives to live – unlike me.

I’m sound like I am complaining but I don’t think that is quite the right word because my situation can be laid directly at my door. I allowed this to happen, ain’t nobody’s fault but my own.  It is NOT the way I would choose to live. I am not really an anti-social introvert.

I have always been happy in my own company, yes. I do dislike crowds, and yet I really prefer to live in large cities because – People! Large cities equal lots of things to do – out there in the world. Yet, I do need time spent in my own interior, solitary world. For the majority of my life I easily and happily had both. You can have both; you can be both – extrovert and introvert. It’s called ambivert, BTW and quite frankly I think most people are really ambivert – the middle ground where most of us reside.

The current health climate has only exacerbated my depression which is rooted in my isolation but also cheered me because now I’m thinking – “Ha – welcome to my world, now you know how I feel.” And that is just unkind because I wouldn’t wish this lifestyle on my worst enemy.

but it annoys the crap outta me. All the happy horse manure is what I’m tawkin about. Just be happy. Decide to be happy. Turn that frown upside down. Don’t be depressed. Just be happy. Be grateful.  Bullshit.

You know what, even if I could, and I can’t (just ask the people who are taking happy pills and are still staring longingly at the knife drawer) and I don’t wanna. What I want to do is FIX THE GODDAMN PROBLEM.

My usual depression has, over the last few weeks, deepened to the point where I’ve been dangling at the end of the rope thrown over the rafter while I balance precariously on a wobbly chair.  That bad. It’s been that bad before but not for a lot of years – still.

(And, NO – this has jack all to do with the current world situation. Yeah food has been hard to come by but I’ve cut back on the whole eating thing so – hey, I already live in social isolation – so I’ll stay home, where would I go anyway?)

I reach this point when I can see no way out, no way to change. When my back is pushed so far into a corner the corner is closing in on me and I can’t even lift my arms to push away.

So yeah, ever been in that place? And was telling yourself to decide to just be happy an option? Did it work?  Or yeah, how about yoga – that’s another good one – maybe there is a form of yoga you can do hanging from a rope, or when you curled up in a mewling, puking, quivering ball on the floor – hey, you know, you’re already on the floor, right?  Meditation is another good one – if we could not think all these bad thoughts, if we could shut them down, space away from them, don’tcha think we would?

I don’t know about other people, but when I write, share however I’m sharing, these feelings, I am not looking for answers – I am simply looking to be heard and seen. I’m not looking for advice. If I want advice I’ll ask.

I have been passively dumping some of this shit on my ‘friends’ these past few days – ah, the temptation of social media.  Post some wretched depressive shit and then delete it. And maybe a few people read it and they are all “What-What?” And then they say “I’m here for you” except they’re not. They are hundreds, or thousands of miles away.

And then two things happened – someone actually DOES something – a small thing – from 3000 miles away – they send me flowers. I have been heard. I have been seen.

And the second thing is – I CAN make some of those changes – I have made them but now I own them. They are my new normal. I was explaining this, in an email, to the friend who sent the flowers and I’m just gonna copy and paste it here –

“I am feeling better because: After our shopping excursion I am happily committed to eating very little, only what I want, when I want. I love NOT cooking. I love NOT eating food I don’t want when I don’t want to. I love NOT having to clean up the kitchen. I love NOT sitting on an uncomfortable couch watching stupid tv shows.  For the past 5 – 6 days since I have sunk into this very deep and dark depression I have stopped doing all those things – and guess what I have lost 6 pounds and my blood pressure is normal, my hip has stopped hurting (stupid couch) and while my back always hurts, it is hurting a lot less – And then the kicker to the lifting – YOUR FLOWERS. So fucking perfect. 

I am once again re-inventing myself – I swear over the years I have had more alters than Sybil – I miss some of them – particularly one of my most recent – Margo Flutterby – I miss Margo but I couldn’t do right by her. So I’m back to Broadway Matron – not sure who she is but I’m comfortable with her right now. I’m keeping the name Grace because I love that name and I’m good with it – the rest of my names – pfft – I don’t want middle, birth, marriage names – none of them are me, probably never were. I deleted my facebook page and made a new under Broadway Matron – I have no intention of using it for anything except – I don’t know – looking at cute animal photos? 

Love you to the moon and back – (put me down in your practice book as a success story – you have no idea how much you have helped).”

BTW – My friend is a therapist, so the reference to her practice book…I think what I meant was her case files, but there you go.

is my usual response when I hear or read something so awful/stupid/incomprehensible because it is so stupid/horrible – well, you get the idea. Sometimes all you can say is but-but-but or just, ya know, foam at the mouth.

So – Politics: I haven’t read the front of the newspaper in close to 4 years now because my blood pressure can’t take it. My husband watches the local and world news in the evening so I have to listen to it – One would think in this country there would be some individual(s) with some smarts and intelligence who would run for political office. Well, history has proven you would be wrong.  Or, that they ran and lost. The current leadership, and I say that with tongue in cheek and the utmost disdain, is unspeakable. The boobies from the other party who are duking it out to run against the unspeakable are not, to my mind, up to the task – of winning or leading. Is this really the best we can do? Must I again vote against someone instead of for someone?

Now we have the corona virus to fuel the fools. Nevermind what our fearless leaders are not doing and don’t know, but I’m reading that people are reacting in totally moronic ways – there’s a run on toilet paper? Seriously?

So much stupid shit going on that my head is about to explode.  Join me in mourning the death of common sense.

So – kitty pics…

I don’t sleep well on Sunday nights, never mind the whys and wherefores, having had a total of maybe 4 hours sleep over an 8 hour period, I decided to try to catch a nap at 8:30 this morning. Miss Frankie Lulu Belle had other ideas.

That’s my little princess perched precariously on my rib cage (I’m a side sleeper). She doesn’t weight much more than 8 pounds or so but dang that hurt! The death stare was because I dared to ignore her –

not just physically, which was to be expected, but mentally and emotionally. So tired. I feel flattened, deflated, uneasy. Every little thing seems to upset me.

I don’t spend a lot of time on social networks – I have them all – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook – whatever all else there is – I always sign up for anything new and shiny and then discover I have no use for, or interest in them.

I deactivated Facebook today – not because of all the political posts – I don’t see any of those because I don’t subscribe to any of them. I have 33 ‘friends’ and that is a few too many – I approved friend requests from people who I did indeed know but who I have no interest in, so I put them in a particular category and I never see their posts not do they see mine.  I think, out of those 33 people, less than 10 see my posts and I theirs.

Yet – FB just annoyed me today – other than the occasional post by our daughter, there’s nothing and no one I can’t find/contact by other means.

I’m just very tired today.