ROW80 DAY 18 - MANY MOODS OF MARY

I was planning on waxing ecstatic about my new group of victims, er,  friends, that I have joined. Triberr! Yes, I am in a very prestigious tribe, with Head Chief of none other than Andi-roo herself, along with my swell Bonfire mates, Amberr Meadows, DadBlunders, Lottie Nevin and last, but definitely not least, the estimable, Jesse Libecap or "Hubz". In honor of this fine occasion, I hereby  dub Andi-roo "Grand Duchess of Dialog." Well, at least until I think up something less hokey. Anyway, after I admired my new Tribe and read all the cute little comments, I checked in on my own blog. Actually, I read my email.

Disaster! Well, kind of. Or, actually some of my Mary Confuse-a-(fill in the blank) struck a hapless reader. A very kind lady and a fine writer was confused by my timeline or description, or perhaps my life, and for that I apoligize, Michelle G. I kind of picked on all of my readers a few posts ago, indicating that I don't get much feedback from you, so I'm not sure what you all are reading or not reading. If this were in the daily paper, I could inveigh heavily on how this was mighty fine toilet paper, or bird-cage liner, but the culture has changed; we all know that. In my post-analytical, pray to the God of logic and sense, I am at last comfortable with the fact that I sow confusion at least as much as I am confused and am unbothered by it. Some people are bothered by it though and still appreciate some rational behavior. However, most of my readers are familiar with my rather free-wheeling approach after everything went to hell. I have a decent rein on my circumstances; my bills are paid, I have a roof over my head and I'm pretty healthy. Just about all my readers know why I blog now and why I'm no longer in the concert halls or working for IBM or Verizon anymore. Let me recap, quickly.

I became homeless after a lengthy hospitalization. I'm not anymore, but live across the street and over one block. I see lots of the same people. I'm glad that I am here. I can write about these folks and maybe be of some help to them.

This is one of those days when I just can't scrape up the enthusiasm, to be cheerful, insightful and breathtakingly witty. I know it's temporary, but everything seems so bleak. I hate being blind, it fucking sucks. I run into walls, doors. I jump because something the size of a mouse seems the size a car and cars are the size of mice; it's always DefCon5 in my head. I hate having to plan my goddamned day around the St. Vitus' Dance thing. I wonder how long it will be before I have to get rid of things I can't button. How long will it be before someone has to feed me? I haven't been able to drive for several years. I have trouble cooking now and pretty much don't now. I blame it on the heat. This is the down side to the bipolar thing. I'll take the up thing. I'd rather stay up for a month and forget August. I can wake up in September in the hospital again and call it a month.

Jesus, I'm sorry. I have no one to talk to, really. I love JC beyond measure, but we are worlds apart in so many things. He has no concept what I've been through and where I'm going. The only reason I pour this out to you, is because I have been caught at a low point in this instant. And why? Who knows? I don’t feel ill, I don't believe there are any celectial bodies in some kind Szyzygy thing, I took my meds. It's just that every so often... I don't feel right. I don't think we're meant to walk around in some kind of happy haze and I'm not that type anyway. I usually walk around in a froth of righteous anger, ready to punch out the lights of any Simon Legree who dares to cross paths with me. I will hurt you in a heart beat if you take on the weak, defenseless, young, halt, lame and I have.

Well, that must have been just a melancholy instant. I feel better now. Ready to see what is going on out in the world. Ready to figure out this Triberr thing. I think I'm going to be the Critic/Cheerleader of the outfit. I can't write fiction. It's like when I was in music school. We had to actually compose music. I can play music, just don't ever, ever ask me to write the stuff. If something diabolical happened and every piece of sheet music ever written disappeared and everyone who ever remembered a piece of music or played by ear forgot how to do that, it would be unanimous. "Mary is not allowed to put pen to paper."

When I was in Music Composition II in college and struggling, my professor said, "here's a fool-proof method," whereupon he had me map out a bunch of triads, tonic, subdominant, dominant, tonic, something simple. Then he had me circle one of the notes in each triad and draw a line from each note, a musical sort of connect-the-dots, "fool-proof," if you will. I did as he instructed. He played what I had written. He sat there, at the piano for a minute. He said, "God, that's horrible." So, Mary doesn't write music. And Mary will not be writing fiction.