CarlHoliday

Unfortunately, N. Vietnamese occurred in 1968, a particularly bad year for me and one that I have taken great pains to forget mostly due to a number of events regarding my sexuality, weakness for alcohol, and personal choices. N. Vietnamese might have stayed with me but for the future it foretold.

As usual it's close to 02:30 while I'm starting this entry. The surgery went well, I suppose as the meeting with the surgeon it's till next week. Pain medication lasted a few days meaning I still have lots if I need them in the future. I've started to teach myself Spanish (Latin American). I subscribed to Rosetta Stone and have finished two units so far. I like their immersion process as it is similar to the language training (North Vietnamese) I had in the Air Force back in the late Sixties. I am feeling a lot better now, though I think the Zoloft has done a number on the libido.

It's 02:30 now and, of course, I'm awake. It's a given, although last night I slept clear through. So the sleeplessness, like the depression, comes and goes. (I wonder if there's a link; well, of course, there's a link. That's already been established by the shrink. Only, I'm not depressed right now.) Why am I awake right now? Because I haven't gone to sleep yet. I'm wound up from nervousness because I have to be at the outpatient surgery clinic at 10:30 in the morning for the arthroscopy of my right knee and I'm always nervous before surgeries. I've certainly had my share so far. The good news is I'm back to working on Chapter 18 of The Artists and it seems to be going fairly well. I'm not pushing myself to get back into the swing of things or relying on the other two writing projects as substitutes to a lack of creative energy focused on the The Artists. I just want to get the story moving so I can find out which character is going to die. The bad news is I can't stay focused for any long length of time. Writing literally puts me to sleep, so I suppose I'd better get out of here and start working on Chapter 18 to tire myself out. I definitely don't want to be late for my chemically induced nap later today.

When I met with my therapist last week one of the things we talked about was waking up after 2 or 3 hours and not being able to get back to sleep because I couldn't turn my mind off. She spoke of recent studies that have shown America seems to be practically alone in its obsession with getting a "full night's sleep." 8 hours of sleep in a single, continuous slog doesn't seem to be the norm. Now, I'm not troubled that it is 0400 and I'm writing this instead of lying in bed trying to get my mind to turn off. Also, I was itching pretty badly and couldn't sleep anyway. Plus, I'm getting some regular writing done, too. I'm not saying the block has been defeated, but it's armor does have quite a few dents. Yesterday, took the wife to Miracle Ear and she's damned near totally deaf in her left ear. Her comfortable hearing range in that ear is 95 dB. Her right ear isn't much better; it needs 85 dB. As a result, we're spending nearly $6,000 of our remaining balance from the inheritance to bring her back into the land of "normal" hearing.

Okay, I'm on a schedule. The mood stabilizer is supposed to be taken 12 hours apart. And, no, I am not keeping a diary. I know I should, but I'm not. I'm not that kind of person. I've written two previous entries this week. Unfortunately, one is somewhere in GAland hiding under for barren patch of memory because I clicked when I shouldn't and the other because, well, I just didn't feel like posting it, some entries are simply not meant to live. I'm back in therapy and my counselor is forcing me to expand my horizons. Since I'm probably not going back to truck driving because I'm unsafe on the road, I'll be at home more often. I drove truck to be away from home. My goal this month is to find a photography club. Next month she'll probably want me to join the Y to get more exercise. I mentioned something about going to Europe for a couple weeks this spring. Of course, the wife can't go because: 1) she doesn't like strange food; 2) she can't travel light; 3) she won't like the beds or the bathrooms; 4) she will complain because all those people around her don't speak English; 5) she will complain because they don't have the same television programs and she can't understand them because they're in the wrong language; 6) she'll worry about Bonita being left at home; 7) she'll complain because all the museams are boring; and 8) she'll make me so miserable, we'll come home early and I won't get to see Leksand, Sweden, where my grandfather was born. I suggested substituting my son and the counselor said that's a good idea because I'll have to sell it to the wife, which comes under expanding my horizons. I called him and he said he'd like to go to Paris. I asked him why and he said, "That's where all the action is." The good thing is he wants to go to Leksand, too. Now, all I have to do is talk to the wife. If she starts crying because I love my son more than I love her, I swear I'm going to get into the pickup and drive away.

Damn! Damn! Damn! Expletive! Expletive! Expletive! I've actually been nominated in one of the GA Readers Award categories. Shit!

Went to the shrink yesterday and had a good visit. On past visits it's been "Hi, how're you doin'?", "Feelin' well?", "Okay, I'll see you in two months." This time we seriously discussed me being severely depressed and he seemed to be listening. He suggested changes in the antidepressant I'm taking since the Celexa doesn't seem to be working as well as it should. His first suggestion was Zoloft. Second, he asked if I wanted to go back to Prozac, which worked fairly well. Unfortunately, I couldn't handle zero, zip, nada libido Prozac gave me. I couldn't look at a guy and feel anything. Cute did not generate an emotional response of any kind. Then he offered some unnamed non-SSRIs. I was a little reluctant to go that far this time. So, I'm being transitioned to Zoloft. Hopefully its side effects won't be so severe or uncomfortable to outweigh any possibly benefits. No changes are being made to the mood stabilizer because he thinks it's doing its job by keeping away the dreaded super-happies. Oh, I'm going back into counseling. At least that works.

I have a lot of trouble with your statement that Obama is a homophobe because of his stand on gay marriage. You might want to consider Rachel Maddow's interview of the gay Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson.

After an hour and a half of sleep, I

Three weeks, give or take whatever temptations you're up against. As an ex-smoker who tried to quit numerous times and succumbed to that one, it only takes one as MikeL says, just as many times. I hope you make it because, like any addiction, it's damned near impossible to get nicotine out of your life. Celebrate 19 days! Celebrate everyday you keep away from the death sticks.

I do not like my cable TV provider. They're obnoxious and charge too much for what they provide. Unfortunately, they have had the fastest internet service out this way for a long time. I, on the other hand, haven't succumbed to their enticements, mostly because they were too expensive. I figured if you can provide a gazillion bits per second as a matter of course, you shouldn't put an exorbitant charge on it just because you can. So, I bided my time with DSL that ran at 56K at my house. Wireless broadband that ran a lot of time at 56K at my house. Since I won't be going back to long haul truck driving, I finally, almost gave into speed. Fortunately for me, I plugged the DSL into my laptop. WOW! I can watch YouTube videos. I can watch CNN news videos. Downloads that used to takes minutes now take seconds. It's still not as fast as my cable TV provider, but it's certainly as fast as I need to go.

I go under the knife on February 11th; or rather they'll make a few holes in my right knee and blow it up like a balloon before doing what needs to be done. The surgeon didn't like the read of my MRI by Radiology. He said it was "under read." He's fairly certain there's a meniscal tear on the left side, but there is also the chance I'm dealing with a lot of bone on bone damage, too. He said that when he gets in, if there's too much damage (i.e., nothing he can repair to make my knee better for the next five years), he'll simply back out and close up. My next stop will be a new knee. So, I get a new knee now or in five years. That's okay because I've had bad knees all my life and I'm old enough to get new ones since artificial knees don't last as long as real ones. The depression is lessening a teensy bit. I don't think I've gotten a firm hold on the ladder just yet, but I know that it's all uphill from here on out. I haven't called my old counselor, hoping to get in to see the psych first, but maybe I should touch bases with her just to get a boost up onto the ladder. This afternoon I worked a tiny bit on Chapter 18. I think I was able to write seven lines before exhausting the creative flow. The as yet untitled short story I've started (and plan to submit to Glimmer Train in their Unpublished Writers contest) now has a cast (3 primary characters, 5 secondary). This is the synopsis: Frank Meyers is the sole family representative to attend his youngest son Mike

I think it was a couple weeks ago when I thought it was a shame you can't dream when you're dead. My dreams of late have been very, very good, so good, in fact, I want to dream more than I desire to be conscious. Of course, that's not right; probably borders on insanity. A lot has been going on here. We bought a pickup Friday. It's a red 2003 Ford Ranger Edge SuperCab. It has the towing option so we might be able to get a travel trailer sometime in the future. I know getting the truck was not something I should've done, but the wife went along with it so what am I to say. I have a tendency to be financially irresponsible and she can't say no to anything I do. Rather a pathetic pair if you ask me. The one good thing we're getting with the inheritance is a new roof. The deal is done and all we have to do is wait for the job scheduler to call and let us know when they'll be out. We still owe them about $10K. Not writing, period. Have thought about writing. Even thought about writing a short story, but realized I couldn't get it to go anywhere. I was writing it in response to a documentary I'd seen on Logo this weekend and a kid I saw at our Mexican restaurant yesterday. It was about a father who begins to suspect his son, Mike, is gay. He wants to say something, but is afraid of stepping into something he's not welcome. Then Steve enters Mike's life. In the words of the Mike's father, "Steve was pretty, but not in a girly or fem way. He was simply pretty, maybe even beautiful. He was nearly as tall as Mike, but without the bulk of a jock. Yet, he didn't lack muscles that might belie too much time in front of a computer or television. His voice was tinged with some nonspecific accent as if his parents were from another country and he grew up speaking their language, but dropped it when entering school." I tried to work the story in my mind, but couldn't see where this story could possibly end up. I just can't concentrate long enough to get the story to go anywhere.

Yesterday morning at breakfast I read "The Whore of Mensa" by Woody Allen. It's a nice, short parody of those old dectective stories with an interesting twist. Last night I had an incredible dream of a fish hatchery tour, worn red brick, a small college graduation, and being much younger, like twenty-one, and looking for an apartment to share with, I think, six other guys. Puget Sound was on the wrong side of Seattle and it seemed more like the Pacific Ocean because of the sand dunes, lighthouses, RVs, and the condominium we went to check-out. As nearly always, the overall theme was searching for something, but this dream had the added twist of bipolar detachment which occurred inside the fish hatchery where there was this complicated process of catching a salmon to take home; you could take four. Plus, I was aware of being detached and returning to full awareness. It was like my sense of time stopped, I was only aware of me and what I was doing; the rest of the dream didn't exist. When I returned the tour was backed up because other people wanted to catch their won salmon, but I had only caught three. Yet, that was okay because the wife doesn't like salmon; she says it makes her smell fishy. Maybe its a good thing I'm going to see the shrink next Thursday. The physical therapist thinks maybe its time for a new knee. I'll wait for Ortho to give me an offer. I am working on getting back to writing, but I don't know what I'll be working on first.

It's been sunny, but cold the past couple days and the gray gloomies of winter are not affecting me so much. The knee is definitely worse, but I'm going in for an MRI tomorrow morning; the results will determine whether I go to Ortho for further treatment or get a cortisone shot from the PA-C I've been seeing. The exercises are not doing anything except making the knee hurt, but a good sign is most of the swelling is gone. Depression-wise, I'm still down too much. I need to get back to something better than on the verge of doing something stupid, maybe I should get a little counseling. Other than writing blog entries, I'm definitely under a block. Fiction is nearly impossible, but I picked up an anthology of stories from The New Yorker to get me back in the swing of things. Hopefully, I'll be able to get The Artists going again and move forward with the new book, too. I'd like to work on a story for the new writers contest at Glimmer Train if that's possible. It's a lot of work, but I do have a few ideas that might work out. After my knee is better we're driving south to LA for a week or so (I don't know if we'll do Disneylan). Right now I can't drive for more than a couple hours before needing a pain pill. I'm hoping for some sort of definitive answer after the MRI, but if I go to Ortho, that'll mean getting an arthroscope and spending four to six weeks riding around with the wife; or worse, hobbling around on crutches for a few weeks. At least it's been sunny. That's a good thing.

All night I had been plagued with explosive releases of pungent abdominal gas until I deigned to open the rear gate and allow a somewhat cohesive mass to drop into the water filled porcelain bowl upon which I sat. As I sat pondering the day ahead an unnatural squirting sound came from my belly. This was no rumbling, but a definite squirt followed another. There was rumbling, though. The rumbling of colonic distress, but I chose to ignore the ominous warnings. I returned to bed and suprisingly experienced yet another explosion from that nether portal between my legs. Thinking it was my position that was encouraging my bowels to rid themselves of the noxious fumes, I turned to my right side. Unfortunately, a few minutes later I was blessed with a false fart, signalling a day of total misery in company with the porcelain edifice in our bathroom. Needless to say, the composition of the rectal missignal was sufficiently liquid to transfer a good portion to the sheets under me. I made a mad dash to the bathroom and sat upon the county sewage interface. As copious amounts of lumpy liquid were expelled into the water below, I stared at the solid leavings, barely digested leavings of the false fart soiling my pajamas. I identified rice, shrimp, pinto beans, seeds of various sorts, and bits of onion. This wasn't from the night before, but from the night before that; in other words, it was right on schedule, but some sort of irritation in my bowels prevented the appropriate absorption of fluid in the ascending, transverse, and descending colon. I resigned myself to a day of sitting uncomfortably somewhere in our house awaiting a rectal signal to dash to the toilet. Ah, but was I naive to the physiological events ahead! As I sat watching television, an odd sensation filled my mouth and my stomach was definitely extremely nauseous. There was no mistaking it. Something was trying to come up. I ran to the toilet, raised the seat and awaited my body's need to rid itself of the contents of my stomach. I was puzzled though because there was another dinner down there some where. I assumed it was already making its way through the small intestine, so why was I receiving a signal to vomit? For the record, I do not vomit. The wife vomits on a regular basis. You could say she's practically an expert at regurgitation. When I was in fourth and fifth grade there was a kid whose nickname was "Throw Up." Luckily, the frequent interruptions to class eventually subsided and he went back to his regular name. But, I do not vomit. On numerous occasions I have had the feeling that my stomach was going to rid itself of something unwated, but mind over body exercises were always successful. Yesterday, that was not the case because my my was too occupied with interpreting anal signals. Strangely, I did not vomit and returned to my recliner to enjoy the company of Bonita and some buttered toast, the perfect food for upset bowels, I thought. Little did I know my stomach was not in the mood to have any more food, perfect or not, stuffed into it. A few minutes after finishing the last piece (I had only two) the unmistakable feeling returned and I hurried to the bathroom as I felt air being forced into my mouth. I made it to the bathroom. I got the toilet seat into the elevated position. Unfortunately, the first spasm splashed between my legs. I corrected my aim as the second and subsequent spasms vomited out of my mouth and nose. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day trying to relax. The diarrhea stopped and I had one more small vomit just before lying down for a nap. Considering this was the first time in twenty years, I have to admit it wasn't terribly uncomfortable and hopefully I'll be able to go another twenty years before having to use a toilet for something other than waste products.

On the whole it wasn't totally bad, just kind of unmerry. To put it simply, the wife and our son still do not get along. I think I'm getting tired of the subtle disrespect for each other. I don't know how many years this can continue. It's depressing, actually. There was a good foot and a half of snow at my son's new house when we arrived Christmas Eve and it was snowing. The wind was blowing, too. Frankly, it looked rather nice, but the wind was making it miserable. When we woke Christmas morning there was at least six inches on top of our new car, but the wind had stopped. We gave our son a decorative Santa, a gardening book, and a bottle of twelve-year-old single malt Scotch. He gave us nothing. Frankly, we expected nothing. We drove home Christmas day. We weren't expected to stay any longer. I suppose I shouldn't expect too much out of any of this since our son basically left our lives at fifteen and didn't come back until nearly fifteen years later. Ties get broken and aren't easily put back together. It could've been very depressing, but I'm already depressed enough to cover it. I think maybe I should call the shrink. It's not that I feel bad, but I don't feel good, either. It's kind of like being on the constantly tired, unhappy side of okie-dokie. I'm still sleeping a lot. Oh, yeah, the Subaru Forester won out and is sitting in our driveway. It's Silver with gray leather interior. Having it makes me feel good.

I went to a PT last week and we determined most of my problem is in the knee, not the Iliotibial Band. I still can't walk for any length of time and I can't stand in one place for any length of time, which makes shopping a real torture. 'Tis the season to be tortured. She gave me some exercises to do, but every time I do them I end up spending the next day on pain relievers (oh, they are sooo gooood) hobbling from bed to chair to toilet to bed. This shouldn't be going like this. Most of the swelling is gone, but the pain, especially the sharp stabbing pain inside the joint, is down right excruciating when I'm standing and move slightly. It's just a little slip of the joint, but the pain tears right through my brain. I'm getting in a lot of sleep due to depression. I tell the wife I'm tired since she's rarely interested in the truth. It's surprising how much she disregards me all the while expecting me to pay utmost attention to her. After 33 years of marriage, she knows less about me than I know about her. It's all a matter of focus, I guess. The real surprising thing is I know more about her than she knows about herself. It's rather pathetic, really. Today we're going to buy our Christmas gift. I'm stuck between a Subaru Forester, Nissan Rogue, and maybe the Toyota Rav4. I don't want to spend anything close to $30K, but the wife wants something new. Mostly, it will depend on what I fit in. Six foot five inches and two hundred eighty pounds need to be comfortable. I am not going back to truck driving. Um, or yeah, already covered depression. I've heard old people are more likely to die during the holidays than any other time of the year. I don't look forward to being lonely when I'm old. Luckily, I have a few years to go before I can seriously consider myself to be old. We're thinking about getting a kitten, but will have to get Bonita's okie-dokie first. No, I haven't been writing, on anything. I've been kind of thinking of going back to Chapter 18 and the new story, but the depression has a lock on my mind and I can't get myself going on anything. The mind is too muddled. I just want to sleep.

One of the aggravating things about going to a doctor is not coming away with a specific diagnosis. You go in with a pain right there and the doctor mumbles, "uh umm," and looks at the spot you're touching and causing nearly excrutiating pain. The doctor looks up at you and says, "Well, there's nothing there that should be hurting as you describe." No matter how much you plead you can't make headway against medical science. If it not supposed to hurt there, there is no way you can convince the doctor. Luckily, in my case, I pointed at the bony spur where the iliotibial tract connects at the knee. I had no idea what I was pointing at, but the doctor (actually a PA-C) knew exactly what it was. Iliotibial band syndrome is a common cause of knee pain in runners, but in my case it was caused by inactivity. I run my truck on cruise control for hours and a time, which means the right thigh is stationary all that time. Eventually, muscles, tendons, and ligaments start to tighten from nonuse and now I'm laid up doing exercises and taking oxycodone (which I can't take and drive at the same time). As a result, I'll be home for the next 30 days trying to decide if I want to go back to driving or not. I'd like to use some of the money from the inheritance to go back to school to get a certificate in something (I'm strongly considering becoming an LPN), but I've got a month to decide what to do. If anything, I hope to have more time to write, except right now I'm doing a lot of sleeping due to the oxycodone and the rest of the time is mostly a fuzzy blur. :wacko:

I'm at the Space Age truck stop outside Hermiston, OR, getting ready to get back on the road. It's raining up on Snoqualmie Pass so I shouldn't have any problem running over the hill this morning; it's simply a matter of getting myself going. Yesterday I didn't get myself going like I intended and ended up driving over the Blues in the snow. The weather forecast said it wasn't supposed to start until 10 p.m., but Mother Nature obviously doesn't get her clearances from NOAA. There must have been a snowplow about a mile ahead of me because it wasn't too bad, but it was getting worse. I'm certain the chains sign went up later. Today I need to get going so I can get home early because I need to run into Tacoma to get a blood test. So I need to get going soon or I won't get home in time to drive into Tacoma. Which leads us to getting going. I haven't been doing a very good job of that lately and I can't quite figure out what is happening. Maybe it's simply part of the mental illness. I don't know. Maybe it's just who I am and I haven't been paying all that much attention to myself before. Likke right now, it's one hour after my before breakfast pill and I should be eating breakfast, but I'm writing this instead. Guess I'd better put my pants on so I can open the curtains on the truck. Don't want to show off my tighty-whities to all the truckers and ruin their day before they even get out on the highway. Another thing I need to do when I get home is make an appointment with my GP. My right knee is unbearable and not getting any better, in many ways it's getting worse; and, now, I've developed a sore on top of my left foot where the anti-embolism stocking rubs on a bony knob on my foot when it swells up after driving about six hours. And, finally, I'm depressed, again. It hit me when I was driving through Georgetown, ID, Friday afternoon on my way to deliver bread crumbs to a potato processing plant in American Falls. I was just driving through this quaint little Western town and suddenly I'm sadder than I've been in weeks. Maybe it was just the idea of going home. Maybe that's my problemm. Maybe I don't love the wife so much just the meerest thought of being with her for a few days depresses the shit out of me. But, then, I also realize that I do have someone who loves me whether I love back at all. She does care about me. And, there is Bonita, too. Can't forget the dog. Oh, well, at least I'm not thinking of doing something stupid. Well, other than quitting driving because I hurt like hell and there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do about it because I'm taking the mood stabilizer and warfarin, meaning I can't take anything close to an analgesic because they mess up blood levels of the other drugs and may induce an artificial overdose and leading to an untimely death. With so many good thoughts, I guess I'd better quit and eat a bowl of Fruit Loops. Then I can get going.

Okay, so maybe it is a block. It

That reminds me, I need to stop at a Walmart and get a box of cereal.

That reminds me, I need to stop at a Walmart and get a box of cereal.

The weather gods smile on you and crap on me. But, you know they're prepared for it when practically everyone has a snow plow on the front of their pickup; and the snow blowers, you should've seen the snow blowers. There was also an old lady shovelling her driveway; well, not old-old, but older than me. She probably thought it was good exercise.

http://www.kpho.com/news/18154062/detail.html Ever think about limits, especialy your own? Ever consider life so bad you have to set a limit to the grief or punishment you endure? It seems the 8-year-old boy in Arizona who is charged with murdering his father and the man renting a room in their house had a limit. 1,000 spankings. 1,000. One Thousand. Think of an eight-year-old boy keeping a list of the spankings he received, probably for the meerest of reasons. The irony in this story is father was troubled over whether to give his son a rifle to shoot prairie dogs. Seems the boy had his own definition of a varmint. I keep thinking about 1,000 spankings, but I can't comprehend hitting a child that many times.