One Two Three

Maybe All You Need is a Net

What would it take
To reach the stars?
Do they make
A ladder tall enough?
Do you need a space ship?
Because I don't
Have enough money
For a space ship.

Taking Chances

My Eraser has worn down
With misspellings,
And inappropriate words.
Without it
I would never be as free
As I am
To say whatever it is
That I want to say

Agoraphobia

Have you ever wished
You owned nothing
Except what you can
Fit in one box,
A suitcase,
A car trunk?
Have you ever wished
You could drive away?
Sometimes I do,
For as long as an indrawn breath,
And then I breath out,
And I am here.
In my basement room.

Size 6!

I'm wearing size 6 jeans.

Found this Old Thing on YouTube

This is a national commercial I filmed like 12 years ago.  It ran forever.  If you pay attention you'll notice that they use my real name.  They used it during filming for continuity, and told me that the voiceover would cover it up.  If people didn't recognize my face they sure recognized my name.  I expected a few people to see the commercial and know it was me, but by using my name, anyone who ever met me thought I'd had a baby and called me up to sypathize.  It also lent a certain legitimacy.  And no I never had a baby.

Looking Thinner These Days

Violin

Yes, I can play the violin.

I started learning the violin when I was in fourth grade. Yes, the violin. Not the coolest instrument to play in school, but hey, it got me out of math twice a week.
I was never very good until college. I hated practicing...not for the obvious reasons (I actually liked playing). The violin's really loud, and my brothers liked to tease me about how bad I was at it. At the time my brothers' opinions counted for a lot.
I played until my second year of college. I was in the orchestra. I used to do badly on my seating tests so that I could sit in the back where the crowd was more relaxed, music stands were convenient places to prop snacks, and general disrespect reigned supreme. I fit right in.
The music building at my university was built in the 50s, and had been added onto a dozen times since then. It was a maze of back hallways and dead-ends. Along every corridor there were practice rooms, and ratty couches. There were always students, no matter the time of day, waiting to use the practice rooms. They hung out in the hallway with naked instruments in hand, and dog eared sheet music at their feet.
I loved it. I used to practice by listening to something on my headphones, and playing along. I played along to the weirdest bands like 311 or the Beastie Boys. I liked finding a place for the violin.
And then I quit. I didn't really want to. I wasn't a music major, and I started needing the practice time to study for my real major. And my violin started making buzzing noises. To be honest I'm surprised the thing lasted as long as it did. I'd dropped that poor instrument a hundred times coming home from elementary school (hey I was just a kid). It was only a matter of time before it gave out. When it did, I was a poor college student, I couldn't afford to buy a new one.
So I put it away. It's still in the closet of my old room at my parent's house. I miss it. I miss it still, but I haven't bought another one. I don't really know why. Sometimes when I'm listening to music, I'll know just where I'd play my violin. I had to put one CD away, because I started dreaming of it.
I think I'm afraid that it won't be the same. I think it can't be. I can't go back to that music building, they tore it down. I'll never find my friends from the back row again, its been too long. So I've avoided the violin. I should just play, and be happy with it. Maybe I'll try it. Maybe I'll sign up for lessons.

Did I just eat all that? No, really. Is it gone?

I've gained 50 pounds on Zyprexa.  I was 125, and now I'm 175.  I'm tall so it doesn't look too bad, but still 50 freaking pounds.  How long will this go on? My doctor doubled a prescription of a drug I'm taking that's supposed to supress appetite,  and if that doesn't work I'll try a diet drug that I haven't tried yet because it causes anxiety, and works against an antipsychotic.

I have a little tardive dyskinesia left over from last time I had a flare up.  The above video is how bad it was while I was taking .25 mg of Klonopin.  I'd been asked a couple times if I knew my mouth was twitching before I took the video.

Below is this is at lunch after taking .50 mg of Klonopin.

I had to put my dog Fender down because he hurt his back.  It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.  The next day my sister in law took me to Davis County Animal Control.  I wasn't planning on getting a dog yet, just to see them.  But when I saw Gibson I knew he was the one.  He's the dog in the picture above.

Gibson is a sweet dog that get's along with everyone, even the kids that come over.  Which is totally different than Fender, who I had to lock up when people came over.  Gibson loves to play fetch, and have his belly rubbed.  And he likes to cuddle.

Getting a new dog was the right thing to do.  My sister in law was right to take me.  It doesn't change that I'm sad about Fender.  It just gives me a little extra room in my heart.

I found some papers from before I quit my job, and got on disability.  This poem was written  when things were bad, because I was so stressed out.  Anyway, judge for yourself.  There is no title.

There is a voice in the back of my mind
Whispering nothings into the air.
I only follow along,  because
I have no where else to go.
Do you think there are nothings
To whisper to the wind,
Or is nothing the strange netherworld
Full of promises often best forgotten
In the dark of the night.

If I told you the truth would
You believe me?
If I told you how close I've come
To Death,
You'd shrink from me.
I've stood on that precipice
Staring down into the wanderings
Of a mind stood still too long.

Do you think I'm lying?
Do you think I'd tell you
A distruth when I have now
Nothing left to lose?
I speak only whisperings of a thing
In it's honesty,
And shout meaningless phrases into the twilight.
Choose now which you will hear.
The other will seem strange
With the passing of time.



There are two more poems written at the same time as this last one.



The door is open on gentle hinges.
At any moment they might give,
And snap closed the plank.
To walk through that door terrifies me.
I fear for my well being,
For my peace of mind,
And in fearing make real
That very thing that I dread.



And the last one:



There are shadows in my head,
A mockery of fairnesss and understanding,
Too late to see the severed hand of love.
It lies outstretched but undone;
To twist between it's fingers
Now the cloth of ingenuity.

Do Butterflies Frequent This Garden

Have you ever promised
But lied,
Or maybe not lied,
But didn't follow through;
Which is kind of a lie.
If promises are like flowers,
Then lies are like those
Huge pitcher flowers,
The ones that smell
Like a rotting corpse,
Or maybe that's just the big lies.
Maybe white lies
Are just baby's breath.
No smell,
And they go along with everything.

I found these poems of mine, almost songs really.  They must be four or five years old.  There are no titles or punctuation.


Sometime I wish you would
Gently die
Let go
Sometimes I wish you would go away
I won't beg you to stay this time
Let go
Oh let go
And I promise
I won't call you back
You're gone so please go
An indrawn breath
And a sigh
See how I'm still alive
So let go
Oh let go

You grip me so tightly
I tremble to know
That someday I'll die
And then you might go



And then there's this poem:


If you've never tasted it
Never hated and loved it
Then you'll never understand me
Cold
And hot
A sharpness that dulls
Fuzzy smiles
That weep
If you've never known the smell
Never heard the crying
Then you'll never understand me
Scars that don't fade
A shame that forgets
Fuzzy and hot
A smile that weeps

Take for me an undrawn breath
Peer into an open door
The one that won't shut
It's supposed to lock out the world

A Little More

Where Can I Get Some

What gives a baby bird
Courage enough to make
That first flight?



Contemplation

Did you ever play that game?
Telephone.
Where a message is whispered,
And everyone laughs
At how the sentence has changed.

There are two kinds of lines, laugh lines and frown lines.

When I'm old I want laugh lines.  I want a face that crinkles into lines I've earned by a thousand jokes, and decades of the happy wellbeing of myself and my family.

I don't want bitternes and envy to show on my face.

More Poetry

Moth

It's an empty space
With a light in the center.
Out in the dark there are walls,
But I can't see them.
I hover around the light.
Looking into it.
Blinding myself the the corners
Of the room.
But maybe, just maybe
The answers I'm looking for
Aren't in the light.
Maybe there's a dresser or chest
With everything I need.
I just have to let go.
Have faith.
And step into the unknown.




Maybe I Should Have Taken the Elevator

Watch your feet on the stairs.
The third step is missing.
The fourth one kind of moans
When you step on it.
It's doing the job of two steps.
The top step is made out of gold.
Solid gold.
But gold is heavy,
And bracket where the left end
Is connected to the wall
Is not made out of steel or titanium
Or any other strong metal.
It's held up with will power.
If the step falls
It will take me with it.

More Poetry

Understand Me

My mental illness
Is like paint
Splashed
On a great statue.
It doesn't change the fact
That the statue is great.
I was carved by a master,
And I won't let that splash of chartruse
Make me any less than
What he carved.




You Can't Paint Over Wallpaper

How can one little change
Have such a magnificent effect.
Like yellow roses or red.
Bumble bees or hornets.
Salt water or fresh.
In these differences,
Small as they might be,
A whole world can change.




The Veiw

Sometimes the moon is dark.
Sometimes it's hidden behind clouds,
But it still exists.
And all those stars you can't see in the city,
Those constillations are all still the same.
Moving slowly across the sky.
Sometimes it takes the desert.
If you lay on your back in the dirt,
Somehow you can see the galaxy.

No, thank you.

I've been switched to Zyprexa.  The drug that everyone knows makes you gain weight - like 100 lbs of weight.  A lot of the people I've talked to about it gained 20-30lbs in the first month.

Roughly 20% of people taking it don't gain any weight.  Hopefully I will be one of them.  I excersize everyday, and eat right.  I've cut way back on soda, and I'm going to try to avoid high fructose corn syrup.

So far (only 2 days) I haven't gained anything, and I'm still 5 pounds down from my short experience with Geodon.  So I have a little cushion.

Recovery - Noon Tuesday

This video was taken just one day after switching to Zyprexa from Geodon.

I'm lucky.  Not every case of Tardive Dyskinesia goes away, but it looks like this one will.  I only have a few slight movements left, and hopefully they'll go away as the Geodon clears my system.

I've been writing poetry as a journal for therapy.  I thought I throw out some of the better ones.


BBQ

I think the window
I've been looking out
is one of those old ones.
The kind with bubbles and distortions. 
They tell me I should
Just look closer,
But what I really want
Is something to break
This glass.
So I can see,
And maybe go out.




SCUBA

They say he'll never give you
More than you can handle.
Spend a week in the psych ward,
And you'll know that's not true.
I  think sometimes the people
Who say that
Don't know how deep the water can be.




Milk, Eggs, Leftovers, and Butter

When the sun comes thru this window
It leaves a patch of light on the floor.
I lay in that light
With my cheek against the carpet.
If I'm there long enough
The heat from the sun
Reaches clear inside me,
And closes the refridgerator.

Monday at Noon

This is the latest video to cronical my worsening symptoms.  In this video I hadn't taken Klonopin since 8:30 AM.

Experiment

I noticed my symptoms getting worse as the day went on so I filmed them.  This is at 1PM before taking Klonopin.

This is at 2:15PM one hour after taking Klonopin.



Lip Twitch Sunday Morning

In my last video I was watching as I filmed, and I was tensing my lips as a result.  In this video I was watching TV, and not thinking of my lips at all.  You can see the difference.  I am still opening my mouth about once a minute, but I didn't catch it in this video.

So Here's the Sitch

It's been awhile since I've posted.  The morning after my last post I checked myself into the hospital.  I was there for 8 days.  Wow, I could tell you stories about the hospital, but I won't.  I signed a confidentiality agreement.  Anyway, I came out with a new antipsychotic - Geodon.  It works great for my psychosis.  I haven't seen or heard anything since I came up to dose.  There is one small problem.

It's been coming on for awhile now.  Just weeks into Seroquel I felt my jaw start to clench.  That's how it started last time.  It's been gradually getting worse.  Last night when I was doing my guided imagery for therapy (works great by the way) I noticed my cheeks and lips twitching.  Tardive Dyskinesia.  This is the next step.  From here I can expect opening my mouth, which I've started to do sporatically.  You can catch it at the end of this video.

Passenger Side View

Last night Mandy, Tiffany, and DeLise had their Christmas Stocking party.  There were only 6 of us.  We went to dinner at the Red Butte Cafe, which is not one of my favorite restaurants...but oh well.  After we went back to the Davis house, and everyone opened the gifts we'd all brought for each other.
Then we left.  It was only 8:30PM, but some of the girls had kids at home.  I walked out to my car, which was parked in the church parking lot next door under a street lamp.  I hit the button to unlock the door, and the interior light came on, which is when I saw the man sitting in my passanger side.  He was only there for a minute then disappered...like magic.

When you hallucinate you don't get to pick how it makes you feel, that comes along.  This time I was completely freaked out.  I've seen imaginary people before, and it's always scary.

The funny thing about the whole thing is that it was Alexander Skarsgard (I don't know why I'd think he's scary).  I've also seen Lenny Kravitz, and that kid from the Sixth Sense on other occasions.  It's always weirder to see someone I recognize from somewhere else.

DJ Random

More music for you to listen to.  I don't own any of it.  It's here thanks to Youtube.

AFI - Kiss and Control

Led Zepplin - Immigrant Song

Muse - Unintended

Listening the Radio on a Sunny Day

What the Hell am I Supposed to Do with Myself for that Long.

So I changed from Seroquel to Ability because of sedation.  As I said before I've been sleeping in until noon.  I just started Abilify, and aside from the horrible nausea things have been great. 

But now I'm waking up at 8:00AM.  I honestly just looked at my computer clock thinking that it was 4:00 or 5:00PM.  No, no it's not.  It's 11:44 AM.

I'm seriously going to have to pick up some more hobbies.

 

It's Been Awhile Since I Wrote Poetry.

I was going through a box looking for something else, and I found a printed paper with 15 of my old poems (1999) on it. Here are a couple of the better ones.

The Day You Fell
The sweetness of your breath
Still tasting of Scope
And orange juice,
Whispering of summers
When dandelions
Were still for wishing
And fairies still lived
Under the white porch,
And the day you fell
Out of the mapel tree,
Not so huge today as then,
But still a monster
To crowd your sleep.
You lean in close,
To hide your face in mine
As memories slip out
That you thought
Were safely tucked under the bed.
Don't look too close.
But I can see the summer yard,
The pealing paint on the porch,
The smell of dirt and grass,
And the scope and orange juice
In your mouth.
I can also see the monsters
Under your bed.


Lazy and a Little More Than Just Confused
I can see the simple depth of the sky,
And the yellow and green sunset.
Visible.
Easy to understand.
Easy to turn your head and forget.

I don't want to forget.
I want to see it
When I close my eyes,
And understand it
When I can't understand
Anything else.

I want to open my mouth,
And let the light drift in,
To taste the infant sun of spring.

No, It's True. I Went to Sleep at 10:00PM and woke at 12:00PM the Next Day.

This week I'm switching from Seroquel to Abilify, because the Seroquel was making me sleep 14 hours a day.  I heard that Abilify causes anxiety the first week, and boy am I anxious.

Have you ever been anxious over nothing?  It's different than over stressing out about bills or your relationship with your family.  When there's nothing, there's nothing you can do to fix it.  You can't sit down and figure out a budget, or call your mother.

This is when people cut, use drugs, get drunk.  I used to cut, years and years ago.  Now I sit with my computer in a warm room with 3 walls of windows overlooking a snowy yard.  My dog is here sleeping.

You know maybe sometimes when there's no reason to be anxious, anything comforting can fix it.

DJ Random

I've decided to post 3 songs that I like.  You'll see them in the posts following this one.   I don't know if you've heard them before, probably one or two.  Anyway I hope you like them.  I don't own these.

Unloveable - Baby Bird

Sad Sad City - Ghostland Observatory

One Day - Matisyahu

This is what you get if you wake me up by yelling "SMILE".  It's an old picture but I thought I'd add it here so it didn't get forgotten.  I don't suggest trying this with just anyone.  Some people's first reaction wouldn't be to smile, but to punch.

I'm keeping this blog to myself I think.  I don't mind if strangers read it.  I don't really know what they'd make of it, but I want to be honest and open, and I think that if I told everyone I know about this blog I would edit myself.



Why So Fast Miss Name

 

I've moved to a new part of the house so I'm starting a new post.  It just feels right. Today I did a stupid thing.  I wrote a letter to the beautiful famous Mr. S.  I just saw his address somewhere, with a note that he read his own mail, and I thought why the hell not?  It wasn't like I was busy curing cancer, or figuring out why I always use a spoon when eatting canned peaches when clearly a fork is required (damn things always slip off the spoon).  I have the freedom to spend my time how I will, and if I want to write a letter to "iceman" then I will.

I don't think my letter made much sense.  I'll post it here:

I was 5’10” in seventh grade.  For anyone at that age, that’s tall.  For a girl that’s especially tall.  The average girl’s pants had a 32 inch inseam, which left a three inch gap between the bottom of my pant leg and the top of my shoe.  To fill some of that gap I wore dirty high top sneakers, and white athletic socks.

I don’t know if we have anything else in common other than being tall.  I’m pretty sure you didn’t perm your hair from 1992 to 1995.

You already know about you.  You already know about your work.  So I’m going to tell you about me, five things about me.  Being tall is number one.

2              As long as I can remember I've had music in my head. When I'm alone sometimes I dance to it. Not the kind of dancing that I'd do in a club or on stage, but real dancing, like it doesn't matter who's watching. Because no one is.

3              As a kid the most exciting part of a ride was standing in line scared to death. As an adult that's still the case. Anticipation is the best

4              Jumping on the bed is difficult when you're a 5'10" girl, the bed's 2'6", and the ceiling is 8' high. Yes, I actually thought this out.

5              I once reached under a bathroom stall wall to get toilet paper from the other side.  Yeah… there was someone over there.

Thanks for reading this,

It's a Word if I Want it to Be

I'm sitting in the dark with my dog, and my computer.  Somewhere someone in the house is watching the X Files.  I should start out with a welcome.  If you've found my blog I'm impressed.  I think that I'll mostly be talking to myself.  That's not so bad, right?  More than once I've sung to myself in the bathroom mirror with an imaginatory microphone.

I'm schizoaffective. Don't bother following along if you have a problem with that. I'm healthy and happy, don't let the stigma of mental illness convince you that I'm not a good person.

Also, I'm retired.  The US government has declaired me disabled, and I collect social security.