Thursday, September 28, 2006

losing it!

I went down to put the laundry in the dryer only to discover that it hadn't done t's spin cycle because I'd neglected to close the washer!  WAHN!

Monday, September 25, 2006

My day so far on Monday September 25 at 12:45 PM

I worked in the mid-basement and "completed" the rest of the south west side closest to the lower basement (yesterday I'd completed the back corner of that portion, this morning I completed the front corner of that portion).  By completed, I mean I believe I have removed everything I want to take to Detroit from that area.  I have not swept or vacuumed or removed boxes of stuff that don't relate.  I left a box of kitchen stuff:  glasses, cups etc, from the house at the lake without even examining it.  Hope there's nothing in there we want! 

I hauled out to the garage a HUGE garbage bag full of old clothes, papers, school papers, art and other nonrecyclables.  There are now three full trash bags for this weeks trash cycle.  Hard work, sweaty, dirty and the progress is incredibly slow.  From that stash, I did save some stuff, including pix from 1976 and earlier.  These included pix of Sara as a baby and toddler.  Also somehow a few of baby Erin.

I need to break now to shower, dress and send poems and pictures to Christopher Bursk for the reading I am doing in PA on Friday November 10.  I need to wash dishes (I'm getting behind again), fold laundry, call about Medicaid and social security for Mom (and maybe for myself), CANCEL a whole bunch of upcoming medical appointments including the MRI for my brain tumor since my heath insurance is now in Detroit, etc.  A lot of etcs including pack for Dodge.  BAH HUMBUG!  I want to get out of here, but none of those things will further that task.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Freedom

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That stomach ache

That weird stomach ache is here again.  I just ate 3 tiny grilled fake cheese sandwiches and a bowl of cereal.  1 small bowl of cereal with rice milk, and now my tummy hurts.

RAIN!!!

It's raining again.  Still.  Well it did stop yesterday, long enough for us
to walk.  I'm sad about each of a number of things I'm throwing away, the
test results for my ski test, those expensive and nice lightweight pants I
loved so much.  Sweaters and T-shirts with tiny minor flaws that they won't
want at the salvation army, but that I would wear if I hadn't gained gained weight.  I hate being fat,

It's pouring.  Adam's sister just came over to invite me to a "block party" they're having.  Adam and his friends are going to be playing music.  I was about to go out for my constitutional.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

This house-cleanng is getting me down

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One photo brighter?

The light at the end of the seemingly endless tunnel may just have gotten one photon brighter.  I finally finished essentially removing myself from one more room.  For a number of winters, I slept in Erin's old bedroom because my water bed is too cold at in the winter.  It is amazing how much of my stuff accumulated in her room.  It's nearly all out now, and I've done all I can do of the claiming myself portion of the job. 

It's not done.  For one thing, we're probably going to take the mattress on the bed.  But I can't do that alone and there is nowhere else to put it other than leaving it there until we take it.

I haven't removed anything of Erin's, and haven't vacuumed, washed windows or done any scrubbing or dusting.  I'm not doing that at this stage.  Right now, I am concentrating on removing myself, mainly those things I need or want in Detroit.

The bad news is:  piles of stuff from Erin's room now clutter the living room and hall and need to be dealt with.  More bad news is that I have asthma and hay fever from the dust.

The good news is, my stuff isn't in there and I am one step closer, small as it may be, to being finished

Saturday, September 16, 2006

In Limbo

The wretched problem with Ticketmaster and the Tickets to the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival reminded me how I'm in Limbo.   don't live anywhere, I don't have a name, an occupation, and existence  I don't live in Detroit or in NY.  The people in Detroit thingk I'm still in NY and the people in NY think I'm in Detroit.  I'm not really a writer or a poet or a photographer or a writer or a scientist or an educator, I'm not even a proper wife or mother.  I'm not sleeping but I'm not properly awake.  I can't go backpacking and I can't sing.  And I'm too tired to explain why.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

one more box UN

one more box UNloaded.  A big one.  I filled two bags of garbage and one jam-packed bag of recycling.  And made the mess of sort piles in the living room even bigger.

MY whole day so far is sorting two large boxes.  I haven't walked yet.  My day and my life these days.

Till Death do us Part I

Till Death do us Part IIa, by Mary Stebbins Taitt, click image to view larger. For all the men who murder their wives and girlfriends or other women. And for Vera HousePosted by Picasa

small steps

My accomplishment for the day so far is to sort one very large box of stuff.

Before the appraiser came, I had cleaned and vacuumed the livingroom, but the sorting process has created piled of stuff and a huge mess again.  I did throw away a lot and recycle a lot, but there are other things that are going elsewhere, sitting in piles waiting for me to deal with them.


Says you! and "the Lion's Share"

I thought I'd missed Says You, but I hadn't!  YAY!  (Sad to miss wait wait!)  It was very funny, as usual.  It was a rerun, and I'd heard it before, but it was still funny.  It was in Vermont.  I remembered the thing about the word "livid" as in livid with rage--it does not mean red or purple, but rather grey and pale.  Also, the Lion's share does not really mean the larger portion, but all of it!  It comes from an Aesop's fable where the lion talks all the jungle creatures into doing the work and then he takes all the profit because 1) he's the king, 2)he organized the event and 3)who dares to try and take any.  The moral of the story is, you can share in the work of the rich but you won't share in the spoils.  More "proof" that the rich are bad.

At the museum where I worked, most of the people on the board of directors were rich, but they thought it was OK to pay us poverty wages.  I was going to say, "I will never forgive them for that." but I probably should, for my own sake, not theirs.  They don't know that I hate them for it.  They aren't suffering from my unhappiness with them, I am.  Hmmm.

I wish like Amy Tan and Kim Edwards I could somehow humanize them, but I see them as monsters.  Like David Henry, they made a wrong choice and their wrong choice had a negative effect on my life and the lives of my children and long-range bad effects hat are being felt now in the house situation.  But they did it probably to "save the museum."  I think it was a bad chocie and that the museum would be a better place if they paid better wages.  They could hire better help and people paid farly will work better and be more faithful to the organization.  At least I think so.  Their miserliness hurt not only me and mine, but them as well.  Or the museum anyway, probably not them.  I haven't forgiven them yet, but I suppose I should try.

cpap mask and another comment on sleeping late

My CPAP mask fell apart last night and again this morning, luckily both times when I was already awake.  It's horrible when it falls apart in the middle of the nght because it is such a hassle to reassemble it that I get all wakened up..

Another problem with sleeping late is that I miss my favorite NPR programs because my schedule gets pushed forward,  I missed both wait wait don't tell me and Says You , not becasue I was sleeping, but because my schedule was off.

small note, sleeping late, small dream, swollen feet

Sleeping Late

I rarely sleep late.  In fact, I rarely sleep (LOL!)  But I slept late this morning, though I did wake often and drift away again.  I slept much later than I "ever" do, until after 10:15.  The night before last, I had terrible insomnia.  I was awake until after 2:30, woke often, and then woke early and couldn't sleep.  I was worried about the mortgage being refused by the bank due to the bad appraisal.  I think last night I was making up for the loss the night before.  The problem is, when I lay awake in bed, I am not accomplishing anything, and then, if I sleep late, I'm taking away from my work time.  But I don't know how to sleep at night when I am having insomnia and if I don't sleep when I have the opportunity, I'm tired all the time and can't do as much.  I hope this doesn't disturb my sleep patterns even more by making me not tired or sleepy at bedtime.

Small Dream

I had a lot of dreams last night.  At the moment, I'm not remembering most of them, though some are hovering around the edges.  I do remember one small hynogogic dream where I was reaching into a basket of Indian (Native American) jewelry to pick up a beaded ring.  What was so amazing to me is the texture of the ring.  I could feel the round beads and wirey, resistant texture so clearly and startlingly that I woke up.  I could still clearly feel it, so I rubbed my fingers together, but there was nothing there that might simulate the sensation.  My hand was empty.

Swollen Feet

After days, maybe weeks of being boney and "thin," yesterday my feet were swollen, and they are swollen again today.  I don't know what causes this and it worries me.  I often think it is something I ate bad, but I don't know what.  Too much salt?  Too much fat?  Too much cholesterol?  Or something else entirely?  I am concerned about my weight and I wish I could turn it around and lose weight instead of gaining.

Friday, September 08, 2006

Listening in the Forest

Listening in the Forest, by Mary Stebbins Taitt, click image to view larger. Posted by Picasa

Tearing my hair

Tearing my Hair ("Weasels Rip my Flesh")
Friday, September 8, 2006, 6:02 PM

I am out on my constitutional, finally, walking in the neighborhood. I was supposed to walk with Scott, but that fell through. He got laid off yesterday and has a lot to do, dump stuff to prepare as well as employment issues.
He got bad news and I got bad news. I've already told my bad news to some of my family and friends. The house failed the appraisal, though I haven't heard enough to know exactly why. Bruce is busy with Golden Harvest Festival (I wish, in a way, I could still be involved in that!), so he doesn't have time to tell me what he learned and discuss the ramifications. Scott's bad news is that he got laid off from the temporary job he got when he got laid off his real job.
It's a warm sunny day and it's the first time I've been outside. I used to live outside whenever I could and it's sad to be inside.
I'm sad period. Very sad, depressed, maybe. I feel bad for myself, bad for Erin, bad for Keith, bad for Bruce, bad about the whole thing. I feel guilty, but I don't seem to be able to change who I am. I feel like it's my fault and that I'm a bad person. And, it is my fault, in some respects. I'm sure I could have done a better job care taking the house.
Then again, the house was half Bruce's and he could have helped too. He had money to travel a lot, seemed like a lot, and could have contributed to the upkeep of the house which he was supposed to half own and be getting half the profits if there are any.
Maybe we should have taken the $60,000 that Mike and Mike offered for house as is.
I have a lot of reasons or excuses. Rationalizations, perhaps, though they do have some truth in them:
• I've been very poor since Bruce left me, always under the federal poverty level with the exception of two years near the end of my stay at MOST where I crept just slightly above it. Barely, still pretty poor.
• I was almost always working extra hours at MOST and one to three additional jobs, even four sometimes, teaching courses, working at beaver Lake part time etc. I was always busy.
• I was sick. There was a period of time when my fibromyalgia was extremely bad and it was hard for me to do much of anything and before that, I had a really bad spell of asthma.
• I have ADHD and have serious problems concentrating and following through and it is not "my fault" in the sense that I didn't choose to have that condition, it's biological.
• I have and have had for a long time severe insomnia that seriously compromises my energy levels, moods and motivation. I'm always tired. It's not just a matter of the physical difficulty compromised but my tiredness, but my ability to be motivated, think things through, come of with a plan, and carry through with it.
• I've had a life-long problem with neatness and cleanliness; it just doesn't come naturally tome and never has. I don't seem to have a gene for neatness. I wish I did. It's exactly laziness, though some might define it that way. I'm capable of very hard work. I didn't graduate magna and summa cum laude on brains alone, I actually had to work. I didn't write several complete first draft novels without investing time energy and work. I didn't run the planetarium and the Martin Luther King program without a great deal of work. I didn't get an MFA in creative writing at Vermont College without a really lot of work. I can work, but I can't seem to clean and organize the house, and I feel as if I am getting worse, not better.
• I suffer from Posttraumatic stress disorder due to having been raped and physically and emotionally abused. I'd like to get help but everyone ignores me when I ask for help. While my choices are clearly my responsibility, there are certain thing I need help with and that is one. Posttraumatic stress effects mood (mood disorders, anxiety), relationships, ability to concentrate, motivation, etc. For example, it would behoove Keith in our relationship to encourage rather than discourage my healing in this regard. I can't guarantee that if I'd been offered assistance instead of put on a waiting list at rape crisis that my house would be neater and better cared for, but it might be. It might well be. Fat, grouchiness and messiness may in part be a way that I keep people, especially men, at arm's distance. It may be that if I felt safe in the world, I would be healthier, happier and more productive. Or not.
• I also had motivational difficulties because the house was only half mine and anything I did to improve it would be at least half lost in the sale of the house. I'm sure this is a terrible shortcoming on my part that might have been able to be overcome to some extent with better communication with Bruce, but I would write to him or call him about problems and I rarely if ever heard back from him, Usually had tow rite 4,5,or 6 times or more to get a short cryptic answer and months would go by and nothing would happen. I do realize that HE also was very busy and not particularly motivated to talk to me, but if we'd been able to communicate better and share the burden of problems, I imagine things would have worked out better. I do think I made an effort in this direction, but apparently it wasn't enough and half the blame belongs to me.
Not that assigning blame solves anything. I know I am NOT blameless in this. I am NOT trying to shuffle off the blame elsewhere. I failed to care properly for the house. For whatever reasons, I failed.
The problem now is to find a solution that will work for everyone involved. I realize there may not be one that works for everyone, but we have to try.
One possible solution is for Erin to take over the FHA mortgage that Bruce and I are currently holding. First, we'd have to find out if that was even possible. I think it might be, since she's our daughter, but I don't know that. Then there are to her problems with that option:
• It won't provide her with money to make improvements
• It won't provide money to pay off Bruce and me.
It's possible that we could hold the mortgage and Erin could pay us, but that sounds to me like a recipe for disaster. It would be a brewing place for anger, resentments and misunderstandings. It would not give her the autonomy she needs, and if she had to give us money, she might grow to hate us.
I could just give her my portion of the house, but that would not really be fair to me, to Keith who has to support me if I don't work, or to Sara, since I can't give her something of equal value.
I'm still out walking at 6:30. The sun is getting lower and lower, but it is still hot, uncomfortably hot, oddly hot in the sun and cool in the shadow.
I'm walking slowly because my fibro is quite bad. I can't walk any faster; it hurts enough as it is.
I feel like a loser. That's why I want to make excuses for my failures, my total abject failures. Last night, lying awake unable to sleep, I felt so bad, and guilty and so at fault for the failure of the appraisal that I considered suicide. The idea was that if I were dead, Bruce would own the house outright and Erin could have it. Keith could toss out all my boxes and save his life from my failures and messiness.
I considered suicide and decided against it. For one thing, I'm a coward. For another, in spite of my pain and my tiredness, my insomnia and fibromyalgia and the house dragging out, there is still much good in this world and in this life. I love Keith and want to make a life with him, I love Graham and want to see him grow up, and I love Sara and Erin, my friends and my family. I love my writing and my photography and my art. I'm hoping against hope that somehow this will all work out.
Meanwhile, I am lugging cameras and gear that I'm not using and my back hurts and my knees hurt and my hips hurt and what I am looking forward to when I get home is more packing and sorting and cleaning, which I hate. The truth is, I hate it, and I don't know how to change that.
Figure I've been such a bad person that I'll probably die and go to hell, and hell will be more of this cleaning and sorting. Forever, in a hopeless ever-expanding mess.
Some days, I walk this route through Kimbrook and get back home and still have to walk 6-10minutes, but today I may not make it back in 45. My hips are really bad.
Scott wanted me to come and camp at Silk Creek and I would love to do that BUT
• I have all this work to do
• I think all three of my tents are in Detroit
• I need to buy one of those portable batteries if I want to camp away from the car because I have to wear my CPAP or I could die.
I am very depressed about how fat I am. I just keep getting fatter and fatter and nothing seems to help. I can't stop eating. Basically, I am a basket case. I'm doing nice art every night after I say goodnight to Keith, though!

throwing things away

I'm throwing things away again. Someitmes it's easy and satisfying and sometimes hard, and today it's hard.  The gold sweater I used to wear.  It's too small, but I can't give it away because it has a tiny hole in it.  I'd wear it a while longer if it fit, but I can't wear and I can't pass it on because no one wants anything imperfect.  Such a wasteful world we live in now.  In some ways, I prefer the old world where people used things up and hand-me-downs were greeted with appreciation.  I also have a green sweater I made myself.  I hung it in the closet.  It doesn't fit me, but I can't bear to throw it away.  I was imagining vacating the house soon, and Erin coming in and throwing away the sweater I can part with.  At least, I wouldn't have to see it.  But now, there's been another problem, another delay.

I have boxes spread around the house that I'm sorting.  I had one going n the livingroom, but somehting came on NPR that I wanted to hear and the radio down there no longer works right, so I got another box out to sort in the bedroom while I lisened to that story.  That's the box that had the gold sweater, waiting for me to lose the weight that's prolly killing me.

My feet are swollen.  They haven't been, not in a long time.  Why, I'm not sure.  It's scary.  Something I ate, prolly.  Though today I ate nothing but healthy food to the best f my knowledge, and nothing extra.
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Thursday, September 07, 2006

It's boxes this week

I got thirteen (unlucky number?) new boxes at the liquor store today and I put out 13 old ones along with a bunch of trash. Lots more to go, but I'm so tired I have to rest. Posted by Picasa

Tired

I'm so tired I just want to lie down.  Hard to work when I'm this tired!

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