SUNDAY JULY 22, 2012 CHECK IN ROW80 DAY 13 - I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW

One day back in June of about 2004, I noticed my vision getting a little blurred. I chalked it up to allergies, and kind of forgot about it, as there was a ton of other shittery going on in my life that I sort of alluded to a couple of posts ago. So, let me chuck any semblance of narrative flow into the shitter and cheerfully skip ahead several years to about, oh a year ago:

This is me, sort of; divide by 3, add some hair and clothes, lose the fur and voilá!

People shy away from this. Before I went through my second eye surgery and Dr. Eyeball told me he would not do any further surgery on my eyes, I just went around and bumped into things and people. And people bumped into me. A lot. I found I did not like this at all and because I couldn't see them coming, I appeared to be rude and I really couldn't blame them for being upset with me.

When Dr. Eyeball and I had our talk, he suggested the stick and glasses. "It's rough out there." Point taken. I should mention he and his brother are the official opthamalogists to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, so they do know a bit about rough. I can't tell these two apart, aside from the fact that one of them hates computers and is the internist and the other is okay with computers and is the surgeon. If I mention computers to one of the brothers and frothing at the mouth commences, I know I've got Bernie the internist, not Donnie the surgeon.

So, off I go in my bumbling way, dragging my whack-a-mole stick and wearing these glasses, per Donnie. And... I'm still getting stepped on, bumped into and now it's getting a bit annoying...to me. I believe I've mentioned before I do not live in the best of neighborhoods. In fact, I live in an area that is dangerous. It's a simple matter of economics. So, I find myself telling people who step on me that if they don''t want to get the shit beat out of them to back off. Sometimes I have to say it 2 or 3 times. Sometimes, I have to say it loudly and profanely, while brandishing whack-a-mole. It leaves an impression, and not one has threatened me... yet.

Eventually, around here in the neighborhood, people began to get the idea that I might not be someone to fool with, that I might not be quite right in the head. This idea was reinforced when it was "leaked" (by my PR group) that I spent some time in the hospital, courtesy of the State of Florida. I'd never been known to be dangerous, but peace is tenuous here on the Avenue. The "communication" system on Nebraska is interesting to say the least. Fueled by a combination of sterno, radiator fluid, 10 dollar crack hits, meth, heroin and just plain delusion and lack of sleep, one is apt to hear of the coming of Elvis, Judge Crater and Britney Spears in Concert Together Again at Checkers. Tomorrow is the Apocalypse! 2 for 1 Spliffs with every 8-Ball purchased!!!

So, it's fairly easy to convince most of them that I have some kind of evil visitation going on and am not quite in control of my impulses. And even though I don't see well and am legally blind, I can tell when people are trying to come up to me on the street. I can stop that shit in a heart beat and have done so with a flick of my head and a whisk of old whack-a-mole in their direction. It scares the hell out of people. They mostly just stay away. I think there really is something superstitious about the whole dark glasses and cane thing, although a rigorous 15 minutes spent on Google and LOLcats found nothing of the sort. The closest thing I found that made me have the heebie-jeebies was when I Googled "eyeless." Gah! The pictures alone will keep me awake.

That shit really creeped me out. But it didn't creep me out nearly as much as that damned thing, "The Man With the X-Ray Eyes" directed by Roger Corman. That movie was and still is, one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen. I think sometimes, that kids sense things that will happen to them later on. As impossible as it seems. I saw this thing on the KTLA Creature Feature when I was about 11 years old. I remember thinking then that the man could still see, even after he had torn his eyes from his sockets. I was freaked out. But that was not the ending shown, unless I am mis-remembering it, which is entirely possible, because Stephen King in his excellent book, "Danse Macabre," writes that the original ending with Ray Milland screaming "I can still see!" was deemed too horrifying for the viewing public. So, I probably just have it all mixed in my usual Mary Confuse-a-story. But, I honestly think it's a truly terrifying movie to this day. That horror has never worn off. Oooh! Fun! Now, I'm off to see what Chupacabra tore up in the back yard.

ROW80 DAY 12 - SO WHAT IF IT'S THE WEEKEND?

Now that I'm "retired," weekends don't have the same meaning for me that they might for the 40 hour a week wage slave. When I did work, I worked more than 40 hours and I know that most people do, either out of necessity or because they genuinely love their jobs, so the 40-hour-work-week thing is kind of mythical. Of course, if we all lived across the "pond," in Orlando, er, ah, Paris, France, we'd work 20 hours a week, or something and take 37 weeks off a year. At least that is what I keep reading on HuffPost, or is it the Daily Beast? I don't know. I'm still reeling from the fact that TomKat didn't work out; I thought it was a forever thing. Holy Toledo! What next, Katy Perry and Neville Brand*? Oh, she was married to Russell? Who the hell is he? Never mind.

*Neville Brand (August 13, 1920 – April 16, 1992) was an American television and movie actor. The one Katy wasn't married to; color me shocked. Of course, I didn't know he died in 1992. That kind of slows down the romance.

*Russell Edward Brand (born 4 June 1975) is an English comedian, actor, radio and television presenter, singer, columnist, and author. The one she was married to. Is he funny?

So, you can see that I am really on top of it culturally, as well as politically, socially and economically, too. Or I will be, just as soon as I dig around in the couch I bought and dragged home from the Goodwill. Apparently, the people who deep clean the furniture and make it look less contagious beat me to whatever treasures lay in the depths. Nary a coin to be had. I did however, find 2 rusted bobby pins, a Buzz Lightyear head and a Pokey character and some hairballs.

Well, I was never one of those people who hated Mondays, was kind of okay on Tuesdays, sort of happy-ish on Wednesdays, lighthearted on Thursdays, tapping my toes on Fridays, drunk on Friday nights, drunker on Saturdays, blurred on Sundays and do the whole fucked up Merry-Go-Round all over again come Monday. I kind of let my dad do that. Except he just drank all the time. At least he was happy about it.

No. Although I did my share of tippling, playing music for a living and then going back to school because I was stupid enough to marry ANOTHER viola player who thought I was going to magically turn into a fucking zither player after I married this fucking dimbulb and I was too fucking nuts to tell him to A) go fuck himself or B) go fuck himself, so I did the simplest and easiest thing possible: I went back to school full time and majored in computer science. What a wise choice, because A) I did so well in Algebra and Geometry in High School, garnering an aggregate grade of "C" and those were sympathy grades and B) I fucking HATED math and C) I originally majored in a discipline that has been the same for the last 140 years and computers are ground-breaking technology. I turned one on... once. Maybe. Fucking brilliant. Made sense to me. Off I went.

Well, guess what I found out? Music is math. After all those years of fighting it, it turns out that all those cute little patterns and relationships, hand framings and thirds, fourths, seconds, tri-tones and such I learned on my viola? They're all in there. They're all in math. And they're just the cutest little things. Oh, I worked my ass off. I did 4 years of math in 2 years. I approached my college Algebra, Calc and Trig the way I did my viola in College. 8 hours a day every day. I really loved it. I had a professor, Dr. Gingrich who thought I was a "caution." I got all in a panic over something, I can't remember what and in an aside asked him about the "pretend numbers." He looked at me quizzically for a minute. "oh, imaginary numbers."

I finished school and divorced the dimbulb. And silly you just knew that was a match made in heaven. By this time, I was playing and traveling most of time. Weekends had no meaning at all. Musicians usually play on the weekends and Mondays are what we call "dark." During certain holidays, I used to play every day for about 3 months straight with no days off. I have friends who play out at Disney in their Candlelight Spectacular. That cranks up between Halloween and Thanksgiving and doesn't stop until after January 1st. The musicians will play 7 or 8 shows a day, of 45 minutes a piece. I played for Disney once up in the Midwest and swore never again; it was like boot camp, and frankly I don't like Disney. A friend of mine calls it "Mouseschwitz." I loved playing for Warner Bros. Give me Bugs anytime.

Speaking of old Bugs, I have Opera stories. I played in Opera Tampa for about 12 years. We've had about every catastrophe. Well, not every catastrophe. We didn't have the "Aida" one, where the elephant got loose, but we did have the Circus horse thing. We also set Mimi on fire in "La Boheme," but we were only kidding. Musicians are barbarians.

Anyway, I need to read me up some how-to on how-to end these blog posts. Just taking off and not wishing you good evening, or some other happy-crappy just doesn't seem right, but there it is.

ROW80 DAY11 PERFECTION IS A STATE OF MIND

SYMBOL OF HAPPINESS IS MY STATE OF MIND - FOR NOW

How very Zen of me. I thought I would type that because that is as close as I am ever going to get. You see, after I posted yesterday's magnum opus, I decided to proofread it; REALLY proofread it, numbers and all. Only I did this after it sat out in cyber land for about 6 or 7 hours, stinking up the neighborhood. Did any of you 2 or 3 eagle eyes who read my drivel, happen to notice the lack of number 11? How about the fact that I am apparently punishing numbers 17 and 18 and have banished them either to their rooms or some kind of digital oblivion, there to remain until they are sufficiently chastened? Yeah, me neither.

No, the simple fact is, that in my usual, crappy-fun-house-mirror-vision way I sort of looked at the words and they kind of formed sentences that vaguely made sense, so we were good to go. Click on that "Publish" button quick. I haven't Twittered, bothered anyone on FB or Runescape for, oh about 45 minutes and they all are missing my airy wit and gentle sarcasm. *Snort.* What they get from me is a bunch of non sequitirs, nonsense, diversions and useless facts. Kind of like this blog. Kind of like my life.

I think it's almost oxymoronic to say that I take life seriously, because it may seem to most that I take nothing seriously, which I prefer everyone to think; less messy that way. Keeping that in mind, I'm sure it's no surprise to anyone, for me to reveal that I am truly bipolar. Yay, me! And what fun it is. Again, I think I am blessed to have found this out at a relatively old age; most people exhibit moderate to severe symptoms at early ages and have a horrific time dealing with it. Suicidal thoughts and tendencies are very common. I never felt that bad, but I have had psychotic breaks, bizarre behaviors, memory loss, and woken up in hospitals, not knowing how I got there.

Usually, there's some guy in a white coat asking me if I meant to do that, whatever "that" was. I've never threatened or harmed myself or anyone; I just do weird stuff. I know, I know, but it's different than my normal weird. All of this is just since last March. At first, I didn't know what to think. I knew I wasn't quite right; I felt "electrified" all the time. I still do, but, I'm better. I am taking a combination of drugs that don't take me to zombieville. I'm still crazy, but I control it. I know it's there. So, I've decided to have fun with it. It's part of my life. So, I may as well add it to the fabric I'm weaving in my loom. 

This is my Happiness Project Totem and I think it's appropriate, for now. 

It's also running at about 200 miles an hour

This was Shared on Facebook today, courtesy of 2 of my favorite ladies, Lyn Griswold and  Bipolar Chick . Please visit them both on FB. They'll probably ask you to tea. I tend to act like this too. There are days when my powers of concentration are wonderful and I can stay on task for 1 or 2 hours at a time. Some days if I can focus for 10 minutes, that's good. I don't sweat that kind of thing. The fate of the free world doesn't depend on me concentrating on a picture of a lion and then hopping over to a puzzle 3 seconds later.

The one thing that I do have to be aware of and I notice this with other bipolars is mood swings. This bipolar thing has pretty much trumped any depression I once had. Admittedly, my depression was more situational, I think. Once I started having acute bipolar symptoms, depression went out the window; I suspect it was pretty mild. What I said about being older? I've lived through a lot and when I feel like I'm losing it, I can get on top of it (with the help of meds) and calm it down. Some people can't. Bipolar chick has lots of Facebook friends who come to her page for support and they get it. It's heartbreaking reading, but so, so necessary. The beauty there is, so many people support the ones suffering at that moment. Without knowing that others are out there and that people care, it's easy to slip over the edge. 

I remember being in my teens, 20s, 30s and 40s. Hell, on my 50th birthday in 2005, I lost a job. Earlier, in November I found out my 3rd husband was cheating on me, I had just gotten out of the hospital with CHF and had to put my deceased mom's cat to sleep on the very day I was released from the hospital. I held him while he was euthanized; I never, ever want to experience that again, but I will. It was one of the best things I ever did.

I was totally blind in one eye and still driving. Why they didn't pull my license I'll never know. My husband was a complete bastard to me and I drank myself to sleep every night, sleeping in my truck in the Publix parking lot, because my heart couldn't take the tension at home. Yeah, brainiac I was; mixing heart meds and beer. Highly recommended. So's sleeping in your truck cab in a grocery store parking lot. Death Wish Much? I was confused and depressed and I was 50 YEARS old and couldn't figure out what to do. My life was a fucking shambles and I thought I knew tough and how to survive and I didn't know a fucking thing and why didn't I just fucking die already. Way to go, asshole. Really honor your mom. Disappoint her one last time.

Well, that didn't happen. This did. I've come a long way and learned more than I ever anticipated. I never counted on being in this place and not working. You know what? It feels pretty good. I don't know if I would have cultivated the observations otherwise. I certainly wouldn't have developed the compassion and the feelings.  We make our own lives.

Okay, enough rah rah. Just remember. My Happiness Project is a bunch of words, at least for now. Later, it might be something the cat horks up on the living room carpet.