Another Year

It is Halloween today, 2006, Savant will have a birthday tomorrow.

I have an older son with problems also, but I'm trying to pull back on divulging what both my sons' issues are. I need support, but I don't want them, or anyone else to get the very wrong idea that, by writing about them, I get some kind of creepy emotional pay off. As you know, any person with very serious family issues benefits from knowing that they aren't alone.

I took my son to his doctor appointment yesterday, and after talking to him, she told me to take him directly to the hospital, where he will be for a while. And I had just written to a friend and one of my sisters, telling them how much better he seemed.

Because of his right to privacy, all the doctor told me is that: his condition is much worse than I think it is.?! How am I supposed to know what to think it is? I will see if she can arrange some family appointments, with my son's consent, because you can't deal with something when you don't know exactly what she is talking about. Today though, I'm glad I don't know. I hate when I spiral into that crummy emotionally raw place.

I was told, in the class I took when he was in the hospital for the first time, that Halloween is the worst holiday for schizophrenics. The slasher movie retrospectives for at least a week, the portrayal of scary homicidal psychos, which can heighten the fear ordinary people have of the mentally ill, the costumes and decorations, etc., can really knock schizophrenics into a place where they become very frightened.

I don't think that he is suffering because of that, but I would never have thought of it before he became sick.

~~~~~~

Happy Birthday Love.

What Is It About A Red Dress?

I experienced the totally puzzling red dress phenomenon first hand.

I used to work as an architect in the greater Boston area, and I had one red dress. It gave total body coverage, no cleavage or slit up the side, screaming: Look At Me! Look At Me! But I noticed that when I wore the red dress, some of the men I passed on my way into the building or on my way across the park to get to my car, felt compelled to tell me how great I looked. I got wolf whistles from passing cars. One guy even said quietly, as he passed me, "Mmm mmm, sure do look good in that dress." I felt like a cupcake with sprinkles. If I was wearing any other color: nothing.

I frequently had lunch at the cafeteria in a bank nearby. One winter day I set my tray down at an empty table, took off my coat, and sat down. I was soon joined by a man who, after greeting me said, "I want you." You guessed it, I had the red dress on. He gave me his card, a stock broker, and with puppy dog eyes asked me to call him.

I told my husband about the strange powers this dress seemed to have. He was not happy to hear about it. But he did agree that I looked really great in that dress.

I still have it and I may pass it down to my daughter so that it can journey through the generations, and maybe someday science will be able to shed light on the origin of its mysterious powers.

I've wondered if it is a regional thing or is it hard wired into the brains of men everywhere?

If anyone can shed light on this, I'd be really interested.

Trust The Mandarin

One of my earliest memories just popped into my head.

I was probably about 3 years old. I was crouched down on the sidewalk in front of our house, poking my finger into a blob of chocolate, preparing to taste it, when my brother informed me that just because it is soft and brown does not mean it is chocolate. He provided me with a short list of other possible soft brown sidewalk blobs and that was the day I decided to always believe my brother. And, to stop eating stuff I found on the ground, no matter how much it looked like candy.

*****

This might explain why one of my favorite jokes is from "Pinkie and the Brain" (they are cartoon mice). Pinkie asks the Brain, "What's brown and sticky?" The Brain is pretty sure he knows the answer, but knowing how important it is to Pinkie to fool him, says,"I don't know, Pinkie, what's brown and sticky?" and Pinkie says, " A STICK!" and Pinkie and I laugh our asses off! Everyone says the joke isn't funny, which makes me laugh even harder.

Drunkard's Dream Chauffeur Service

The drunkard's dream chauffeur service is on vacation....kind of. It is doing me a world of good to have some time to think happy thoughts! It occurred to me that I am not only dealing with Savant's mental illness, I've lost my life. He doesn't drive since he got sick, which has left me acting as his chauffeur. I can say no, but then he asks me repeatedly all day, like an impatient little child, which drives me nuts.

I want my life back. I can't really remember what it was, but I want a new, less co-dependent one. I'm not kicking myself, for giving up my architecture career, quite so often these days. Savant has been back at school for half a semester, taking one course. It is a lot of money, but it is his money, and it is worth it to give me some breathing room. Hopefully he is learning valuable life skills and becoming more independent.

But when he wants me to drive to the town the college is in because he is out of cigarettes, or some such nonsense, I get stressed and angry but I can't show it, so my nervous ticks kick in and beat me up. Stress makes Tourettes amp up to a painful ferocity. It's the answered prayer of everyone who ever wanted to kick my ass.

I still do have to drive him to his doctor's appointments, which involves a three city marathon, each way, that takes hours, but the doctors he had in M'boro sucked. It was obvious they were only interested in playing: tag the patient and collect the money. Health care got skipped in the process.

Is Everyone In Italy?

Any of you who have read my posts for over a year may remember that I went to Italy last December. And it was not good, for me or Italy. I was totally stressed out before I went and I met up with my daughter who had been living there, for a jaunt that would take in towns all over the country, while dragging along many bags, one that was the size and weight of a small refrigerator, and the one that gave my daughter the most trouble, that was the size and weight of her mother.

At least two of my sisters and my mother are going to be in Venice until the end of next week, and now I read in my brother's blog that he has also headed to a gorgeous spot in Italy. The picture on his last entry is of Ravello on the Amalfi Coast line. Gorgeous! I can still picture the ocean views of Gore Vidal's cliff hugging home there, from Architectural Digest.

So, I feel like it is time to tell Italy that I'm ready for a second date.

Recovering eBay Addict

I discovered eBay back when you could have a three digit password. When giving a reason for why I went to the web site in the first place, I kind of point the finger at my grandmother, even though she was no longer with us. She had a modest collection of small coffee cups and saucers, espresso size, known as demitasse cups. I thought they were really cute and my three sisters, my step mother and I split up her collection and we each got a few.

It could be hereditary, but tiny things like that have attracted me ever since I was little. In kindergarten on the base in Japan, they had a little grocery line set up with small versions of canned soup, etc.. I went nuts when I saw the tiny Tabasco bottles in military MRE's one of my sons had, and yes, I have saved one.

I decided to see if I could find some pretty demitasses on eBay. You could spend years going to antique stores and never see anything but a couple of ugly ones. Big waste of time. EBay is a collector's dream. You want something obscure? They will have it, and perhaps thousands of different ones to choose from. This is how I became an expert on my chosen obsession, silly as it is. I'm not going to count them all, but I have well over 200.

Well you'd think that would be plenty, but there are always those that are gorgeous but that I know will be out of my price range when the bidding is over. Every now and then everyone who will bid a great item up to a couple of hundred dollars, will have overlooked it because of a mistake in the description or the seller won't know what the china mark means, or some other good luck for me. But as I said I don't need a bigger collection, and as soon as I get a camera that will work with my new computer, I'm going to try to sell off the ones that I'm no longer in love with.

I used to have my own store on eBay, Beautiful Mind Fine Art, selling stuff I wanted to get rid of, plus large prints of Savant's art work and the cookie jars I make [see november 2005 archives for some of Savant's older pieces, and march/april 2006 archives for some of my older cookie jars that aren't always used for cookies]. I may start that back up now that my co-dependent is off at college, taking a course load of one class. It may be a good time to sell more of his work called Chomsky.

One of the drawbacks on eBay is sellers who have a screw loose. I had one guy in England reply to my email, regarding shipping, with outrage that I was yelling at him! I had no idea that if you type using the caps lock, or if your font size is larger than this, some people think you are yelling at them. I was using a larger font in capitols because I just liked it. When the plate came, it was completely smashed to bits, in a box that didn't have a dent! You can sometimes spot the nut jobs before you get stuck in a transaction with them, by looking at their negative feedback.

I spotted something great with a tiny opening bid and was tempted until I checked the guy's feedback and decided there was no way I'd ever do business with him. I have copied some of his replies to complaints to give you an idea of why this seller rates as a nut job:

1. Complaint: NON-SELLING SELLER. Paid TWICE aggressive seller refused to complete sale BEWARE
Reply by seller: PROUD TO HAVE SOLD AT A £60 LOSS, YOU NEVER PAID SO STOP TELLING PORKIES

2. Complaint: Item was damaged prior to dispatch, ignored emails, not recommended as ebayer
Reply by seller: vindictive and malicious comments made me cry for days..pass me the tissues

3. Complaint: Seller threatens negative feedback when I complain about shipment problem
Reply by seller: Not that I use them, however I have a number for a 1st class shrink for you.

I'm starting to wonder if this is the same guy who sent the broken plate.

We sold our tractor and bush hog, and a vintage sports car on eBay with no problem. The people who bought the tractor and bush hog, drove down from Ohio and picked it up in a snow storm. The person who bought the MG, sent it to Europe where it was bought by someone in the Netherlands who emailed us that he was thrilled with the car and wanted to know if we would send him the Tennessee Vintage Car lisence plate it wore here. We sent him the lisence plate and he sent us a picture of the car!

Some Things Can't Be Fixed

A piece of junk mail, with Newton, Massachusetts as the return address, came a couple of days ago. We used to live there. Before I lived there, I believed, as almost everyone does, that the city called Boston was the large one on maps marked with that name. In reality, Boston is one part of a conglomerate of small cities. For instance Harvard and M.I.T. are really in Cambridge. One city blends seamlessly into the next. It is hard to know where the "big" Boston ends. Newton is on the western edge of the larger metropolitan space, and is itself divided into sections. If you live in Newton Lower Falls, that is different from Newton Center, or Waban, etc.. Lower Falls borders Wellesley and we lived about a block from where they meet.

From our kitchen window, we could see the Boston Marathon runners on Washington street, though it was more fun to walk down the hill and sit on the sidewalk. The highlight of the day, which always brought me to tears, was to see the Hoyts. Dick Hoyt, runs all of the marathons pushing his handicapped son Rick in a racing wheelchair. The feeling of their love was nothing short of stunning.

Near that corner is an old graveyard. I was fascinated by the old headstones and the inscriptions that left so many questions unanswered. The one that interested me the most was the stone for the Moulton family. Our street was named after them. The stone was very tall and listed the births and deaths of many children. All of them but one, died as infants or as very young children. Some died within days of each other. I tried to imagine how this couple could survive the loss of so many babies. I still wonder why they all died. I know that back in their time, many families lost young children to what we now consider simple or avoidable illnesses. I can not imagine how difficult it must be to experience that kind of tragedy over and over again. How did they do it?

It is probably because of the unexpected things that have happened to my family members, that the recurring theme of my thoughts today is of parents, children, loss, and love. When the loss is associated with one or more of your children, the result can be crushing pain. Most of the time you may seem to be handling it well, and it becomes easier to appear occupied with the mundane tasks which make up much of life, that you have moved on in a healthy way. No one wants to hear, more than once, if at all, that you are forever broken inside. It is a topic that should be kept to oneself. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and soldier on. Do you think you are the first person who has had it rough? Other people have had it much worse than you and they bore it with grace. I already know all those sayings, and they tell me that I can't even do this right, this suffering.

I cannot write or create art when I am in the depths of grief. If you think Van Gogh did, you are wrong. It was in between, when he was feeling better that his art was made. His suffering was part of what he had to survive in life, but his work stopped when he was in the depths of his psychosis and mental anguish. The pain had to recede at least somewhat to let the art out. I watch Savant lose and regain his abilities in much the same way.

I wrote "In The Rain" because I wanted to see if I could capture in words, at least one day when I was so consumed with sadness that my body felt numb except for the knots in my chest and stomach and the cry in my throat. I wish I had never felt that way more than once, but the truth is that I have felt this way, at times, throughout my life.

The rainy day was months after Savant's disease turned on, and my devistation was so overwhelming, that every time I came out of the numbness that followed the anguish, I would know, as if knowing it for the first time, that he was gone forever, and Love and Time and God could not change the finality of that fact; and the pain would hit with me with full force again. My husband found me and carried me into the house, got me out of my dress and into a warm bath and then into bed.

In The Rain

When I feel this bad, I want to be near the trees. I know it is raining. It feels cool and wet and makes my dress stick to my skin. I don't think I have shoes on, just a dress. Walking into the tall weeds of an unmown field, my hands are out above my sides, grazing the tops of the plants. I lie down. No one can see me here. Insects are welcome to join the weeds and rain upon my skin. I am the same as them. The word, WHY, is growing silent now. The anguish is being replaced by calm. I want to sleep here. I reach up with one hand and run it over the wet plants. There are flowers in here. I didn't notice them before. The rain continues to fall, replacing the tears that have stopped. I want to sleep here. Now from my mouth, the words directed toward the sky, "No! No! No! No..." Fading into an ache in my chest and stomach. It can't be true, but, No.. it is. IT IS

I roll over on the ground. The crying begins again and I cover my face with the plants. I want to be near the trees. I stand up and walk slowly to the pine trees. The pine trees, my babies, I put you in the ground when you were the size of my hand. I want to feel your trunks with my hands, your wet needles with my face. You are so beautiful. I fall to my knees and lie down under the branches that come close to the ground. The world will never be the same, now. How many times have others felt this. Millions I guess. It is unbearable, but it has to be born; God, no other choice is given. I am only strong enough to stay on the ground in the rain. To leave, to leave is calling me, the liquid will mix with the rain and I will go to sleep. It would take strength I don't have to make the opening. And I can't leave you alone. I'm useless, covered with dirt leaves rain mud crying crying No no it can't be true. But it is. IT IS! Again I rise upon the wave of the reality of the horror, in a while it recedes and I am numb again. Thank God for the receding pain.
I want to lie in the field below the weeds in the cool rain. I want to sleep here.

Weird Day

Thursday, my computer committed suicide. I'm using Savant's computer, even though he doesn't want me to use it or hang out in his room. The restore disk didn't fix the computer and I am too stressed to even begin to tally what is lost. I was told by the manufacturer that my computer, five years old, is obsolete anyway. I was reading blogs and hit a highlighted link in one and the screen went black and the computer started making clopity clop noises like a fake radio horse.
I removed all the rude expletives from this.

It Was Great To See You, Even If I Didn't Get To Lick Your Face

Hi,
I haven't felt like writing for the last month. My brain entered an observing and waiting zone.
I did get to have contact with several wonderful people though. It was a great treat for me to break out of my mostly sequestered routine, if only for short time.
I got to see my brother for a few hours, not nearly enough time to have a proper visit, but I was very happy to see him.

I have a bad habit of thinking that I have totally screwed up visits. After it is over, I go over all the things I should have done differently: We should have eaten in the dining room, the chairs are softer and the view is better. Why did I let everyone eat in the kitchen? Bad, bad hostess!! Did I talk too much? My social skills are pathetic! Everything I said was stupid! I wanted to know so much more about what his life is like, what he is doing, but I probably interrupted with some inane gibberish about me, me, me. He'd never been to our new house. I forced half a tour on him and then thought that maybe everyone doesn't hunger for mental floor plans the way I do, and perhaps it was rude to march him through the house.

Sometimes I wish it was sufficient just to bark, and wiggle and wag my tail, and jump up on people and lick their face. Then when they petted me on my head and called me a good girl, I could go to my happy place.

Someone once told me that being self-conscious, shy, or self-deprecating is the height of conceit, because your focus is on yourself and not the other person. I don't agree that it is conceit. I think conceit would leave you feeling better, instead of second guessing whether your guests are looking for the first chance they can take to flee. If I'm not well adjusted by now, I don't think it's going to happen.

I also met some old school friends for a few days at the beach in Tybee Island, Georgia. My friend that lives in the Savanna area, also has a house on the island, so she gave us a wonderful tour of the area. Savanna is so visually different from anywhere I have been, that it felt like a visit to a foreign country. I almost got too shy to go, but I'm so glad I was in the mood to break out of my usual isolation. It turned out that only four of us went, but it was perfect because it is easier to become reacquainted with a small group of people in that amount of time.
I liked the feeling of being with people you have some background with. I want to do it again.