I stole this from MattJ's blog

Real friends are those who, when you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel that you've done a permanent job.
--Erwin T. Randall

Alan Ball Quotes

Alan Ball is the creator of “Six Feet Under”, and also wrote "American Beauty".

"What grief can do for us is teach us that the ability to feel tremendous pain increases our capacity to feel joy. You can't just have it one way. Life is filled with both. If you really drop your guard, if you fully love something or someone, you'll lose them eventually, or die first."

"What's necessary, what's important, is not failing or succeeding, it's the struggle that's important. Our culture is so much about success, which I think is very -- very -- shallow. You learn more from failure."

"’If I chase away my devils, my angels may leave too.’ This whole Puritan notion -- be pure, be clean, strive for perfection -- it really encourages us to deny what's human about us. Only if we forgive our own shortcomings can we forgive others."

“Redemption comes through darkness, I think. A lot of times pain and suffering go hand in hand with redemption and grace.”

Faith

Faith is a passionate intuition.

William Wordsworth

Acceptance (inspired by Nate Fisher)

Cindy the therapist asked me last week if I was coming to a place of acceptance. She meant acceptance of the fact that I suffer from depression. The answer, quite frankly, is no.

I’m mad about this burden, this waste of my time, this sucking the life out of me. I have things to do, that I want to be doing, and I am not doing them. I want to work and make money. I want to play with my kids. I want to enjoy the world with them. I want to continue working on our house, getting it ready to sell. I want to look at new houses and see the fun of possibilities. I want to enjoy time with my husband. I want him to make me laugh, and I want to watch his face change when I say something that delights him. I want to play, and see my friends and have some red wine and go to a movie. I want to feel like the world is safe and good and a place that I’m lucky to be in. Right now, I get none of that, and no I don’t accept it. Fuck it.

Instead I’m sitting here at 1 a.m. wondering how long I’m going to be like this. Is it permanent this time? Or did my drugs just quit working, which they do for some people. The only thing to do in that case would be to keep trying them and see if they work. If after several weeks they don’t work, then I get to try another drug for 6+ weeks and see if it will work.

How is it acceptable that I am giving up my precious time to this bullshit?

What I need right now is hope, and that’s not something I can pull out of thin air. I’m doing every goddamn thing in my power to feel better, and here I still am sitting in this basement thinking about turning the TV on and watching “I Spy” or “All in the Family”.
That’s not hopeful.

qi gong experiment

I decided to try qi gong again since it helped me deal with stress while my mom was here. If nothing else, a little deep breathing and quiet movement can't hurt. My goal is to do 20 minutes per day, and I just did my first session with my "Spring Forest Qi Gong Level I" DVD. Another thing that my Mac is good for!

Now that I'm finished, I'm very aware of how dark this basement room is. Also that I'm quite hungry. Up to the kitchen to make some breakfast.

10 things I'm learning from round 2 of depression

1. I am not invincible. Young people think that nothing can touch them, and I'm not as young as I used to be.
2. My will is not my greatest asset. I used to think that I could handle anything if I just decided to. My decision that I am no longer vulnerable to depression is not working.
3. Biology and genetics really matter. Again, my will does not overcome them.
4. Stress has a cost. My body has told me that enough is enough. I cannot handle it like I used to.
5. There are times for being weak and vulnerable. Everybody has them, every one gets their turn. My turn is right now.
6. Resilience ebbs and flows. Sometimes we have more, and sometimes we have less. I used mine up while my mom was here. Now I have none left.
7. Everyone is human. We all have limits. That includes Tim and my family and my friends. I need help now, but they cannot do it all.
8. I need the spirit. Spirit is not human, but works through us. Even though I'm not in touch with her while I'm in a depression, I have faith that she is taking care of me and that I will be okay even if I don't feel her.
9. Trying to act normal when I don't feel normal is a mistake. My brain is broken, and needs a rest. For me that means I need understimulation-less light, less noise, less talking, less movement. If I overdo it, I will move backwards.
10. " Dawson's Creek" was a really good show. Gotta go now because it's coming on the television.

inspiration

A few years ago my step-mom Susie gave me an Eleanor Roosevelt quote to think about.

"It is none of your business what other people think of you."

I went looking for that quote today, but did not find it. Instead I found some others from E.R. that are speaking to me:

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along."

"As for accomplishments, I just did what I had to do as things came along. "

"Women are like teabags. We don't know our true strength until we are in hot water!"

"Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn her back on life. "

"With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts. "

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. "

"The giving of love is an education in itself. "

"What is to give light must endure the burning. "

underground again

I admitted to myself yesterday that I am depressed again. I assume that the decrease in drug is the problem, so I increased it myself today. Sleeplessness is preferable to the pain of depression. I'm not bothering to call my doctor until Monday, since I will just get the nurseline and they will tell me to increase the drug and call M.D. on Monday. Also left a message for my therapist, but don't expect to hear from her until Monday either.

Tim took kids to Rebecca's today, and M and F are having an overnight with Noah to celebrate Maggie's birthday. Tomorrow she will be 6.

Top 10 signs that I am Going Off the Deep End

1. I announce to Tim, “I’m leaving now.” as soon as he gets home from work.
2. I obsess about bad things that have happened to my kids.
3. I think that Tim made a big mistake marrying me, and now he is stuck with a huge burden. Namely, me.
4. I try to act more normal than I feel. My interactions with people feel fake because I’m not my comfortable self, and just trying to blindly gauge what “normal” is.
5. I want to stay away from my kids because their needs are like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard.
6. I need my kids to stop talking to me. Several times a day I find myself saying to them, “now we are all going to ZIP the LIPS and have some quiet thinking time.”
7. My life as a parent looks like a dark and endless tunnel, full of anxiety and misery and proof of my inadequacy.
8. I consider the possibility that my kids will do better in life without me as a mother.
9. I forget that healing is possible.
10. I believe that I am alone in this, and that no person on earth can help me.


I got Word test drive up and running on my computer. Thank God because it may supply my only therapy for the weekend.

Why do I think I need to get Microsoft Office? So I can use Word.

Appleworks is too small to see my work clearly. With Word I can just expand the page across my computer screen, and then zoom the text size to 200%. If I can see what I am doing I can just take off writing without distraction. Appleworks is making everything too hard to figure out. I don’t even know if I can zoom the text size or expand the page, and I’ve been trying long enough to decide that the answer is probably no. I have a test drive of Office on my new hard drive, so for 30 days I can use it for free before I decide whether to actually purchase or not. Tonight my guess is that I will end up buying it.

I’ve read that some Mac users find that Office crashes a lot, or slows down their work. Has anyone else found this to be true?

I've been tagged by Katy again. Even though I didn’t finish answering all of her questions from last time! I’m working on that,really.


3 names I go by: Katy, Kate, Katze (per my friend Rebecca)

3 Screenames I've had: katzke, alberto, ?

3 Physical Things I like about myself: my cute feet, my graceful hands, my bust

3 Parts of my heritage: German, Irish, Swedish

3 Things I'm wearing right now: Tim’s t-shirt that his mom got him in the mid 90s in Ireland. It has a picture of a horse on it and the words “Irish National Stud”. I wore it a lot when I was pregnant with Maggie because it was big enough to fit over my belly. Also because I find it ridiculous! Shorts that I got in the mid 90s, and now I get to wear them again after a year of stress induced weight loss. Comfy brassiere I got at an outet store in Story City, Iowa for $3.50. found it on one of my many drives to and from Iowa last winter.

3 favorite bands/musical artist: this changes all the time, but lately I’ve found myself listening to Greg Brown, Bruce Springsteen, and K.D. Lang.

3 Favorite songs: this questions requires too much thought for me.

3 Things I want in a relationship: mental stimulation, laughs, respect

3 Physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to me: or what qualities am I attracted to? being less intense than me, being funnier than me, being bigger than me

3 Favorite Hobbies: writing, cooking, playing with my baby

3 Things I want to do badly right now: ? eat dinner because I’m hungry

3 Things that scare me: raccoons, our president, our pope

3 of my everyday essentials: fluoxetine, something green, kisses from my loved ones

3 careers you have considered or are considering: writer, claims department supervisor (luckily I got over that one), spiritual director, but not until I’m much older and wiser

3 Places you want to go on vacation: New Mexico, Alaska, Banff

3 Kids names you like: Magdalena, Frankie, Maureen

3 Things you want to do before you die: I don’t like this question, so I’m skipping it

3 Ways I'm stereotypically a girl: I cry openly, I put polish on my toenails, I like flowers

3 Ways I'm stereotypically a boy: I like a good fight, I want to win, ?

3 Celebrity crushes: Keanu Reeves in “Something’s Gotta Give”, but only for a week because then I’d be bored
Owen Wilson
Jon Stewart

advice from my advisor

While I was in Kentucky Ted suggested that I try writing more for myself. That was why I wanted to have Word on my mac, so that I could write more offline. The word processing programs that are built into this computer are not impressive, but I just found a free trial of iwork in my stack of discs. I installed it, and am now ready for another experiment. What if I take myself into a more private space and write whatever the hell I feel like? I intend to find out.


If anything interesting related to my sandwiched life,( i.e. parenting, depression or being Carol's daughter) comes out of this, I will probably share it. But who knows, this is an experiment so I don't know what the outcome will be.

Visit the M.D.

I got to have an audience with my psychiatrist yesterday. Actually it turns out I like her, mostly because she kept me waiting for 20 minutes. And I was 10 minutes late, so it sort worked out just right. Anyway, why do I like that my doctor was late getting to me? Because although she works for the HMO machine and seems to be just another cog in the mental health factory, she did what she needed to do to care for a patient. The woman who came out of the doctor's office before I went in was clearly in need of help, and despite the fact that HMO administration believes that all patients need 20 minutes or less with their clinician, Dr. Shrink gave the patient more. Obviously the needy patient's time with M.D. ate into my time, but I had already been planning to make this "med check" as fast as possible so that I could go pick up my kids. My doctor was very apologetic to me when I got into her office, but of course I told her it was no problem.

My doctor is younger than I am. I guess that will happen when you start pushing 40. She is from Pakistan, I think, and does not wear a wedding ring. She wears a long thick braid on the back of her head, and glasses. She is serious, with kind eyes.

I got straight to the point that the sleeplessness is not working for me, and the way my limbs jerk involuntarily when I lie down to rest is troubling to me. I believe these are side effects of the SSRI drug, and I would like to start taking less of it. Doctor agreed that these are signs that I am getting too much of the drug, so we are cutting me back to 30 mg. instead of 40 mg. I was ready to drop to 20 because my mood is stable and anxiety attacks are a thing of the past. I will go with 30, however, and see what happens. Unfortunately this drug takes 6 weeks to take effect, and consequently 6 weeks to decrease in the blood stream. I guess I might be able to stop taking the sominex sometime in mid July. Hope it works!

one reason to buy Apple

They picked up my computer at about 4:30 p.m. yesterday, and I just received this email:

Your product has reached our repair center. We will notify you by email when the repair is complete.

Check your repair status at http://www.apple.com/support/selfservice/status

Apple

Mac is back in TN

A guy came and picked up my Mac yesterday, and it is on it's way to Memphis.

I'm wondering if any Mac users know whether Microsoft office for Mac may have caused my problems? Tim's friend Sam said that his machine went kaput after he put on an older version of Office, which is just what I was trying to do when my computer went wacky. Luckily Sam knows computers and was able to save his. Also I don't think my problem was simply the software I was trying to put on the computer. I think my Mac's troubles went deeper, but didn't surface until Sunday.

I'm wondering if the newer version of Office would be friendlier to my Mac? Not that I want to go buy it, but I do want to use M-soft Word because there is no decent substitute that I can find.