I'm tired today. And hungoverish.I say -ish because I can't tell if I'm feeling sick from having perhaps one too many glasses of wine last night or if it's just stress plus tiredness. Probably all three. And soreness too. Yesterday, I had a second mammogram and an ultrasound and I am sore from people poking and prodding and mashing my boobs around. I'm trying not to be worried yet. I haven't had the biopsy. My husband keeps telling me, don't worry till you have something to worry about. Still, I'm worried.
On the plus side, I've been inspired to make some art. I've been making these quilt pieces lately that are simple circles- cut into snowflakey (how's that for a terrible word) designs. I haven't been able to figure out what they are for but I've been enjoying making them. There is something soothing about sewing the same shape over and over again. Each just slightly different. I was looking at the ultrasound images of my breast tissue yesterday and thought, geez- I've been making breasts. Go figure. But I have lots of ideas of what to do with these things now.
Maybe I'll go to the fabric store. That'll make me feel better.

already november is almost gone. how can time simultaneously be going by too fast and too slow? I still have about two momths to go before my birth and the emotional rollar coaster of october has abated--somewhat. overall, it's been a relatively easy pregnancy,minus the emotional stress i've gone through the past couple of months. still i have my good days and my bad, but it's mostly been good i suppose. i need more things to keep me distracted. mamaphiles helped with that, so have the 7 or so books and various magazines i've read in the past couple of months.
i started naomi wolf's book, misconceptions, about motherhood, pregnancy etc. in our culture. i'm half way through in just a day and it is so interesting to read. it talked about how for many pregnant women, death seems highighted. i didn't really think about it before--but just this month my doula's grandma, a friend who frequented my job, and my great aunt all died in one week. that was slightly overwhelming. not only literal death, but the death of many relationships occurred this fall--mine and the baby's father,of course, my doula and her husband separated, a boss and his wife at work got a divorce, and several other separations that i kno of. definitely a time of changes and transformation.
i'm also eagerly awaiting jessica's book in the mail from AK and a book on vaccinations as well. all the reading--one of the main reasons i love winter.
everytime the baby moves i think about his father, it makes me sad that we can't share this together, but it also puts a smile on my face and i think being able to feel him move in there the best part of being pregnant. the father said he wants to be in peep's life, but i don't feel the support right now. although i'm getting great support from family, my housemates (all guys(!)who have totally taken on a nurturing role toward me--cooking, backrubs, etc.) and many friends, it doesn't feel the same as if the father was there doing the same thing. i appreciate my support network so much tho!
i kno he's just scared and i hope he comes around, i guess it's the uncertainty of his presence that worries me.

I feel like doing something, but I can't think of anything, so I'll write a journal entry.

Thanksgiving. Whatever. I had a wonderful time, and now I am so relieved that the guests have gone home. We invited them for a week, and that was a mistake. After this, we'll limit visits to five days; it's really all I can tolerate, no matter how good the guests.

Little Brother is invited for eight days for Christmas. I'm laying plans for how to survive.

I'm thinking about sweet potato pie. I like pumpkin, but I can't have it because of the sugar. P made some pies with Splenda and Sweet'n'Low for Thanksgiving, but the sweeteners don't taste good to me. He was so sweet to try it out. The consensus of people who actually like artificial sweeteners was that the pies were good. I made apple with whole wheat crust, leaving out the sugar and using Cortland apples, which are tart but sweet, and the results were excellent.

But no pumpkin. Sweet potato pie is not the same thing at all, of course, but because the potatoes are naturally sweet -- and to my amazement acceptable to eat even though white potatoes are not -- I think I can fiddle a recipe to work without sugar and get an acceptable pie. It's going to have to wait until the next time I feel like making whole wheat pie crust, though. Pie crust in general has to be handled a little delicately, but whole wheat pie crust is just plain fragile. I got an intact double crust onto the pie, but the edges were really, really ragged because I couldn't get the crust to cut neatly. For someone who has always made nice, presentable pies, that's frustrating. Of course, the pie pan doesn't help -- it's a metal job with little "handles" on it that are hard to cut around. I need glass pie plates with thin rims.

B is a bad influence on me. He spoiled me with gifts for my birthday, and I know he's going to do it again for Christmas. The only time I haven't been showered with gifts was last Christmas, when he managed to get me the leather jacket I've wanted forever.

Usually, I wait until the last minute to get him gifts (because, sad to say, I forget), and get him one thing, maybe two. Two means I'm getting fancy. Usually he gets a book, or a DVD of a television series he likes. Bitty stuff. And I've been feeling increasingly guilty over it, although I have to tell the truth, which is that he's hard to buy for. Doesn't want much. Nuisance.

This year, I have the traditional book, and decided to do what I considered last year but bailed out on -- I bought some lingerie to put in his stocking. (I'll have to remember to tell him to open his stocking discreetly.) I can't decide whether to go with my usual impulse, which for anybody is only a gift or two, since I'm allergic to clutter and junk, or to try to match him gift for gift. Frankly, I'm stupid to even think of gift for gift. I don't think I can think up that many things, I don't think I have the money, I don't think it's a good idea anyway. I almost, *almost* have myself talked into leaving it at a book and a thrill. Now if only I can resist the urge to get him season 4 of "Scrubs," or a CD set of one of the management books he wants.

Christmas. It's too soon to think about Christmas, except that I know that if I don't figure out gifts soon, I'll be made crazy. The neighbors are putting up their lights already. We don't put up lights, and if we did it wouldn't be until Christmas Eve. Well, to be correct, we might very well put them up earlier, since it's generally bloody freezing around here on Christmas Eve, but we wouldn't turn them on. In any case, it doesn't matter, because we don't do lights. Last year we went hog-wild and actually put a wreath (unlighted, thankyouverymuch) on the front door.

If we want to cut our own Christmas tree, we're going to have to do it early because of the drought. Usually it's the last Sunday before Christmas -- I like the tree to be fresh -- but the local farms are all going to be closed by then. I'm torn. We could always buy a pre-cut a few days before Christmas, but I don't know how fresh those are, either. So I guess we'll cut.

This is all fluff. Here's the important stuff to remember: who would like a Habitat for Humanity or Heifer Project donation as a gift. (That would be my mother, who is also notoriously hard to buy for; charitable donations are right up her alley.) We need to make a major purchase of flour and sugar, and maybe some Christmas candy, for the food pantry. They're always short of flour and sugar, but especially around the holidays. We need to write a check to the food pantry *before* we buy any gifts. Except for the Giving Tree gifts, which we need to buy right away.

It breaks my heart -- a couple of the names we have are kids who are clearly broke to their socks, because they've asked for purely practical stuff, like jeans and shoes. Those ones are getting some extras wrapped in with the jeans. One year, the company B worked for gave all the management employees turkeys for Christmas. There was one more delivered than they had employees, and our tradition doesn't include turkeys at Christmas; we were able to redirect both to families who wouldn't have had much at all.

Gift-giving and feasting holidays are always a conflict for me. I love them; I love the time with my family and I'll cheerfully admit that I like the gifts, giving and receiving. But no matter how much we donate, there are still going to be families whose concerns at Christmas have to do with getting anything at all to eat, not to worry about whether it's a holiday feast or not. And kids who will be grateful for a pair of jeans and some gym shoes, when other kids I know will throw tantrums because they didn't get fifty dollar game cartridges for their DS's. The world is such an unbalanced place.

I need to put together some stuff for a package for a friend. She's just having a shitty time. It seems as though she's doomed to be dogged by one disaster after another. It's about time for something nice to happen to her.

I said I was distressed that I hadn't been writing anything but personal stuff. Then someone, in a completely unrelated move, introduced me to Dog the Bounty Hunter and his frantic efforts to get back in America's good graces.

*closes eyes wearily* I live in a society that is so full of various kinds of shit that we can only see it when it's piled as high as Dog the Bounty Hunter piled it. And there are *still* a huge number of people insisting that there is no elephant in the living room.

The only redeeming aspect, and it's a tiny little one, is that a friend expressed great confidence that as soon as I knew the details, I would administer a "public bitchslapping." Her words. And she's right -- I couldn't have helped doing it even if I hadn't wanted to, and I really, *really* wanted to.

But it's really the little incidents of everyday oppression that get me down. People arguing on a fan forum that it's okay to constantly call a character's "ethnic" hairstyle sloppy, ugly, unkempt. People insisting that they can use the word "retarded" because "I'm not using it to refer to the mentally retarded." Constantly putting down people's descriptions of their own experiences as "oversensitive," or "too angry." And on and on. How can we make a new society if we can't get people to recognize the flaws in the one we have?

It makes me tired and furious just listening to it, and I'm so privileged I can pull away from it and ignore it any time I want to, basically.

Subject change; I've already done my ranting on this one.

I didn't make it out of the house today. My head is a little light. And it's been really, really dark grey for two days, so dark that the light is all amber. Amber light screws with me if I have to be in it for too long. Tomorrow I get out, one way or another.

I did manage to write a piece of poetry. As usual, I don't know if it was good. Lots of internal rhyme, which I like, and I don't think it sounded strained. Grim poetry, but it's been a grim sort of day.

I have a friend whose memory is bad. I don't mean she's a little absent-minded or that her memory is slipping as she gets older. I mean that she'll be talking and all of a sudden get hung up over a common word -- like "boat" -- until someone figures out what word she needs and supplies it. She once described how it felt; she says that usually, when you pull a blank on a word, you sort of "work your way around" from another set of associations to lead you to the word you want, but that when she stalls out, it's like a blank wall. No way to get around it. As though all the associations have been cut.

Apparently it's a symptom of whatever it is that causes her chronic pain.

I know what she means when she says, "work your way around." I get stuck doing that a lot, much more than I used to. It could be the cognitive crunch from the bipolar -- it's been scientifically proven that there is a cognitive decline with both depression and bipolar episodes -- or it could be a side effect of the meds. Whatever it is, I sometimes find myself pausing, eyes closed, hands gesturing, trying to find that elusive word.

I'm told that scientists who study *that* think that the gesturing is not an attempt to communicate with your listeners, but a way to help yourself remember the word you want. Could be. That's how I feel. Trying to communicate to myself.

Sometimes I pause in the middle of a job, unable to quite make the jump from one task to another. Moving from taking the meat out of the oven to putting on the rice to cook, for instance. I'll set the meat down and then pause, not quite sure what to do next. If I wait patiently, rather than fighting for it, it comes.

I've developed an odd little habit. When I get hung up like that, and sometimes when I get hung up over a word, I clap my hands. Not like applause, but a steady, rhythmic clap. I think it's just a place holder so that I can relax and remember. It doesn't take much, just four or five claps. Sort of like tapping your fingers when you're impatient, only calmer. And a little bit louder.

All of a sudden I'm slipping. I'll be fine, but V just came up to me and told me she left her special (and expensive) pen in class this afternoon. I'm in a minor panic, which is ridiculous. If she needs a new one, she has enough money to buy it herself. Right now, P is helping her to find the college coordinator's number so that she can ask the coordinator's secretary to look for it and hold it in the office. Last week it was P's glasses and notebook. For the second time, yet.

Mrs. F must think my kids are chronically disorganized. Or absent-minded. I'm afraid that they take after me; Nick spent our entire eighth grade year picking up my purse after I left it in various classrooms.

So a minor little bump like that is tripping me up. Ridiculous. I need something to eat. I think hunger is making me faintly crabby. I don't know if there's anything around for me to eat. We're due for a grocery trip.

I haven't been sticking quite as closely as I should to the doctor's orders. Somehow, discovering that I lost a bunch of weight as a result of changing my diet has derailed me. All of a sudden, I am hyper-aware of how my pants fit me. Are they too big yet? Are they too big yet? (That's what persuaded me I had really lost some significant poundage.) I have a vision of how much weight I'm going to drop, but it's really pure wishful thinking. I have no idea where this is going to take me. So I need to let it go, already.

Never thought I'd be even mildly obsessed over my weight. It was actually easier before I lost the weight; then, I didn't really care. Now, all of a sudden, I care. What a pain. Is this what ordinary women, ones without the super-high metabolism I always had, go through? Because it is *such* bullshit. I've been dealing with being obsessed about it for, what, a month and a half? and I already can't stand the horse hockey.

I wish people would stop saying, "Oh, you look so slim!" No one ever said that when I was tiny -- at this stage, it's the well-meant equivalent of, "Boy, you've finally lost that unattractive fat!" And it irks me. I can't even be rude to the people who say it. In this society, it's a compliment; how would they know that it absolutely rubs me the wrong way?

In any case, I have long since accepted that, regardless of my objective weight, I have a goddess body now, not a maiden body. The chances of losing that sloping stomach without doing a lot of masochistic exercises that I know I'll never do are ... huh, huh, huh ... slim.

What I do need to do is lie down and do the stretches Dr. M. showed me for that nasty little group of muscles in my back. I don't care that I'm not a sylph, I don't care that I'm getting bifocals, I don't care whether I look forty or not, but a functional problem is really a *problem*. As in, I don't care much about appearances, but I want my body to keep working as though it's relatively young. For that, I'm going to have to do some maintenance.

I'm getting restless. Almost everything I write about is personal these days. Very little politics, very little cultural stuff; I haven't described an independent trip some place in well over a year. And I'm starting to get scared to go places on my own. Bad. Bad, bad, bad. I have to contact Sti and go visit and hit all the museums and theaters in Minneapolis. I need to figure out the damned busses, already, and go into the city. All of those gorgeous museums, just sitting there waiting, and here I sit.

If I have to, I suppose I can start figuring out how B and I can escape for a weekend day and go be cultural. I wonder if S would be willing to describe how to get to Women and Children First via Metra. C'mon, taking the El can't be so awful. People do it every day.

There was a while, after college, when I really blossomed, when I really recognized my own abilities and pursued my interests. For once in my life, I wasn't hobbled by fear. That's all gone with the Episode from Hell. I wonder if I'll ever be able to face up to my fears and get that confidence back?

I don't know why I am still awake. Last night I was up all night worrying about stuff. And somehow, exhausted this afternoon I had a burst of energy and came up with all this good stuff. I am working on an art curriculum for a new charter school that some concerned parents and educators in my neighborhood are trying to start. One of the founders mentioned to me, "oh, you should head up the art curriculum." hmm. I've been thinking about it for days [and nights] now. And I'm really excited about the prospect. The opportunity to really shape something at the grassroots level is exciting. And I think I can create something really good. In my most exhausted state this afternoon, I had an epiphany that it could be centered around environmental responsibility. And not just the natural environment but the personal and social environment too. How we are responsible for not only our impact on the ecology of our waterfront but an art curriculum that stresses how we CREATE the world around us for better or for worse. We create our neighborhoods, our cities, our towns... I'm gonna have to write this up alot to make it make sense. But I have it in my mind so it's a start.
And I'm going back to school (again!) to get my certification so that when the charter school does happen I will be qualified to have the job.
And I just got another job offer right this minute via email for a teaching artist in the schools.

I was up all night worrying about should I get a job, should I go back to school, am I giving up my aspirations as an artist so that I can get a real job, etc... I don't know what the answers are. I do want to make my own art. I do want to make a living at being an artist. But the reality is that I can't be self supporting as a visual artist. I just can't. I've been trying for ten years. And I feel proud of the accomplishments that I have made. But as a woman, I can't just be reliant on my husband's income now that my son is old enough to be in school full time. I really feel like I have to have my own earning power as much as I would like to act like it doesn't matter. Money is power and as much as I say I am an Artist, the reality is, that as a non income earning woman, I can say I am an Artist a million times and I am still just a Housewife, a Stay At Home Mom-and whether we like it or not it is a totally POWERLESS position to be in.
And so,here I am, up all night worrying about it.
I think I can still make art and not feel guilty about self indulgence.
I think I can satisfy my need to make a small difference in the world by teaching and by helping to start this school.
Is it self indulgent to make art?
Maybe I think I can still make art and not feel guilty about self indulgence only IF I think I can satisfy my need to make a small difference in the world by teaching and by helping to start this school.
I'm starting to feel guilty about feeling guilty about feeling guilty...
If I were a man would this even cross my mind?

This is the month for a bunch of my friends to be in crisis. Financial, emotional, physical. All I can think is a combination of, Thank goodness it isn't me, and, Thank goodness I'm healthy enough to be able to easily offer support.

Being able to offer support is important to me. I can't do it when I'm unstable, so this means I'm doing really well. I soak up the negative emotions if I'm not healthy, but I'm able to listen without getting sucked under. I would erase every crisis if I could, because they're hell to go through, but since I can't do that, I am tremendously thankful that I can at least help.

I find that every once in a while, I think bitterly, No one did this for me when I needed it. I'm still having a little trouble forgiving the community I lived in, which was fairly close-knit, for letting me down so badly. But I can think about it without going into paroxysms of rage, which is an improvement.

Things are so different now. I have a couple of friends -- only one or two, but they're there -- I know I can talk to, and who will step in if I need help. And vice versa; we're the ones they call if they need someone in the middle of the night, too.

My care team is already in place, and I have a good relationship with them, so I'm not trying to build trust in the midst of a crisis. I don't have that fear that they will let me down; I know they're in this for the long haul. And I know it means a lot to them for me to remain stable; they'll work as hard as I will to solve any problems.

The biggest change is that I'm not in emotional or spiritual crisis right now. I've reached a place where I can feel spiritual change taking place, but it's not guilt-ridden or strained. It's just there. And while we were fishing around trying to find solutions to the crisis, I hashed out a lot of stuff. I have a lot of tools for dealing with emotions that I didn't have before.

The things that comforts me most is that I have awareness. I now know that the truly awful times were not straight depression, but mixed mania. I know when I'm teetering on it, and I know to reach for the emergency meds right away. I'm beginning to be able to separate chemical difficulties from the difficulties being caused by being physically sick, which I can separate from emotional difficulties. I know what's happening, instead of being constantly thrown around by forces I don't understand.

I'm even starting to understand where B is coming from on the rare occasions when he gets cranky, instead of immediately cowering in fear that I've done something to upset him. (That is a very, very old reaction, for sure, since it goes back to my childhood.) I'm not as good at that, because it's recent, something I've started to catch onto now that I'm stable enough to look outside myself.

Things are just so different. A friend of mine who is on anti-anxiety meds and ADs says that until he got onto them and they started to really work, he didn't understand how unhappy he'd been. He didn't get that ordinary people don't feel the way he'd felt for years. That's kind of how I feel, although I can remember patches of being calm and content before I went into really serious crisis. But there's no little undercurrent of darkness hanging in there to threaten my calm anymore.

Maybe it won't stay that way, of course. Eventually I'm going to hit menopause, and who knows what that will do to my brain chemistry? And there are plenty of other things that could potentially destabilize me. I always feel compelled to say that I understand that, but I also don't spend much time thinking about it. It's a reality, but it's a pretty distant one for now; why spoil what I have with anxiety about something that nebulous?

I don't know why, but the phrase, "I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter," just came into my head. I keep thinking that I need to sit down and sort some stuff out; maybe that's the letter I need to write. I don't think I need to pretend it came from someone else, though.

We get promo e-mails from B&N. Usually I toss them, but I do flip through them to see if they have any straight-up coupons. This time, they have a movie I think the family might like. I'm a renter, usually, but with this little advertisement I've suddenly gone thump into the Christmas buying season. As usual, I'm thinking buy less, spend less, let's see what we can donate. As usual, I'm not sure we can pull it off. Buying a smaller family present, which is what this movie would be, might be a start. Of course, we could skip it entirely, and maybe I'll do that.

Depending on whether he has a job or not, my little brother might be out to visit us for Christmas. At first I was pissed as hell that my mother suggested to him that he call us, rather than calling me to suggest that I invite him, but I'm over it. I'd still rather have inviting suggested, rather than dumped in my lap with essentially no chance to say, "No," but I'm not pissed about it.

I don't know what to get him. He's been known to send us fruit and things like that at Christmas, but we've basically done no real gift exchange for years, basically since we all stopped living at home. I know he likes movies, but he has a hell of a collection, so I don't know what he already has. I know he likes country music, but ditto. I know he likes books, but ... see a pattern developing here? So I sent him the same kind of e-mail I send B at this time of year, accusing him of being impossible to buy for and begging for help. I'd better get the kids started thinking about making some gifts for family while I'm at it.

B's parents, and his older sister and her husband, are coming out for Thanksgiving. This is a minor miracle, as we'd pretty much resigned ourselves to the idea that we would always have to go to them. Last time they said they'd come, they took a freak about Chicago winter weather and changed their plans last minute. They said we were expecting snow and sleet storms the week they were supposed to be here. It was mid-October, and the forecasts were for sixty degree weather. Whatever. It pissed of B (it was supposed to be for his fortieth birthday celebration) and I think it hurt his feelings, but he won't admit it.

This time around, we refused to invite them out for our birthdays, even though they made it clear that they were thinking about coming, and used the resulting guilt on their part to leverage Thanksgiving. Then we end-ran them by buying them plane tickets and arranging car service on their end so that they don't have to get to and from the airport to their house. That way, they have no excuses, and if they change their minds we eat the ticket price, and they know it. They'll come.

I guess that makes me sound a little crabby, but I was pretty angry with them for swearing up and down that they would make it for B's birthday and then letting him down. He's a pretty private person about his feelings -- he's close with me, but even with me he's reluctant to admit that someone has hurt his feelings -- and he tends to get angry rather than admit he's hurt. I love his parents, who are wonderful people, but his father especially tends to be a bit ham-handed about how he interacts with his kids. He means well, but emotionally he's a terrible klutz.

The funny part is that I personally am not wild about the idea of having them here for a week. I don't like anyone coming for a week -- a long weekend is my idea of plenty long enough -- and while, as I said, I love his parents, I'm not sure I want them in my house for that long. I treasure my insular little world. It's hard for me to go outside of it, and harder to let other people come into it. Mind open, emotional and physical world carefully guarded, that's me. Oh, well, I'll enjoy the visit, but I will be terminated afterward for a couple of days.

So much for an introspective letter to myself. I think I'll go do my chore for the day and dig out the pile of books and magazines by the bed. B's parents are in their seventies, and while we finally have a decent guest bed, our room is much more comfortable and convenient for them -- they won't have to climb over each other to get into the bed. So I have to go dig out. Maybe I'll introspect while I do it. And maybe I won't.