A Girl Kisses the Sky

This fortune rocks:

The ability to buy fresh fish, healthful foods like lentils and wild rice mix and beets, Kashi cereal, a four cheese frozen pizza, and re-charge the cell phone. A $25 off coupon for the hair salon. An OK apartment. The ground below my feet.

I kiss the sky now because I've learned how to kneel, as the U2 song lyrics suggest. God's promise to each of us is that we are worthy of his love, of other people's love. This gets lost in the translation in everyday life. It's hard to believe he's a loving God. God has nothing to do with the hate in the world. Love is a choice. We can decide to love even when we don't feel loving.

I'd like to read the book I bought in Barnes & Noble, The Compassionate Life. I totally respect and believe in Barack Obama's focus on public service. The other president forgot that being president is the ultimate public service job. Obama seems confident and humble. He knows it's a great honor to have been chosen.

Came home from the hairstylist and slept for an hour.

Today I do absolutely nothing because the truth is, I have two jobs, and a third on the side, it's entirely too much, and I must pace myself. It's because I have Gemini in my natal chart that I'm always doing two things at once. In here, I quoted Frente, the band whose lyrics were, "A girl is a verb, in doing she's being." That's exactly how I felt all these years: as if I weren't productive if I weren't doing anything. To cross something off a to-do list is a powerful feeling.

A book I checked out of the library, Everything (Almost) In Its Place talks about the Buttoned Up [tm] organizing philosophy. It's a great read and I'm going to buy the book to keep on hand. The solutions aren't regimented. The section on how and when to delegate things gives useful suggestions.

I like the concept of "buttoned up" because it implies neatness. Even your house or apartment can have an attractive demeanor. Every which way I run the numbers and it looks like I stay put at least another six months to a year. So I spruce up this apartment while I'm here.

In April, I turn 44 years old. I also like the idea of having a "buttoned up" recovery: a tidy, structured routine to my days, and nothing disheviled in my persona.

This, too, rocks: the day. Always you and I have one day in which to live. Make it a good one. We won't have another like it ever again. Today I kiss the sky by kneeling before the world. There's an Oprah Winfrey quote from O magazine that sums it up: "There is no greater calling than service to others. And there is no better way to have your blessings multiply."

To be in service is to truly be fortunate.

You see, I grappled with this: what if it appears insulting that I want to help others? It's my belief that compassion isn't a dirty word. The Nelson Mandela quote gets it right: "You are a child of god; your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you."

So I trust that the world needs to hear my message, and the ones who need to hear it will either welcome my words, or remain closed off. Turning a light on in someone's mind is what I aim to do though this is of course a hard battle at times.

It isn't shabby to fight the good fight every day.

You see, as I always believed, more people are open and accepting than not.

To give up because there's a narrow-minded faction isn't the answer.

Besides, I just wanted to write a great [maybe even cool] memoir that stands on its own as a book worth reading. Tomorrow I query 12 literary agents. Mercury turns direct. It was retrograde in my house of career, which explains the slowness of things. Hopefully it picks up in February.

Would like to segue out of this philosophical wave and into a different outlook, because it could seem like I'm trying to justify things in my head. Before I move into another groove, I'll finish here with the idea that every life is sacred, everyone has a purpose and God loves all of us.

Here goes:

A friend called up because I hadn't returned her calls and she was having people over to watch movies today. The phone rang when I was sleeping earlier and I picked it up, saying I couldn't come over tomorrow, and she said, It was today. I told her I needed to rest, and she asked if I were OK, and I said yes. I"m gearing up for a challenge that will take a good chunk of my time each week, and so I wanted to enjoy the quiet before the buzz of activity.

Yes, I'm definitely buying the new desk and hopefully the free assembly option is still in effect in the next two or three weeks. There's an off chance I'll move out of here in the fall and even if I do, I want to invite people over and host an out-of-town guest this spring, so I'm going to get the desk and paint the walls. Tonight I call Aunt Bee to ask her if she thinks my cousin can come with me to Staples, bring the desk home in his pickup truck, and carry it with me up the two flights of stairs. He and I could carry the old desk out to the curb. He also needs to give her the folding chairs I borrowed.

Things are looking up. The past three weeks have been a rollercoaster and the ride has ended in a good way I couldn't have predicted when it first started. You would fall asleep at the drop of a hat if your worry kept you up late at night.

This seems frivolous: talk of home decorating projects. Yet I need to do things to cheer myself up. Dr. Altman rushed in to tell me, "Paint the living room soon. You need to cheer yourself up because you're getting depressed."

How does one deal with a rollercoaster except by buckling in?

SZ is like a fun house hall; every mirror you look in reflects a distorted image; it mocks you, laughs at you. You always do your best.

Ana told me, "You turned your SZ into a positive thing."

So you see why I lie low when I have the free time: we all need to pace ourselves, living with a challenging medical condition. I'm hyper-aware that the reason I'm able to do what I do is because I remain faithful to the drug routine. I link the two together because I have that insight.

Thus, this weekend I do absolutely nothing.

The time has come to exit gracefully and attend to tidying up the apartment.

Have a happy day.

1:43 PM

Walking down the street to the hair salon, I wondered, "What if I told the stylist I have SZ?" As I eased into the chair, Sofia proclaimed, "You are a brilliant woman." Hush-hush, she told me about how she was searching on the Internet about mental health, and found my blog on the Connection. "You have a gift for writing," she bubbled. "You should get a degree in journalism."

I told her that in my early twenties I had wanted to go to NYU for a Masters in journalism. I didn't tell her I would rather go back to school to become a therapist.

She cut my hair extra carefully, because she suggested, "It looks better longer. I saw your photo on the web site, and it's beautiful." [A testament to her talent with scissors.]

I pushed her, because I was curious. "You wouldn't have known otherwise?" Sofia said that you can't tell by looking at someone. Then she told me to use her cell phone number to set up the next appointment.

Life Outside

Could go to work today yet don't have the energy for the gym. A co-worker gave me a messenger bag with our logo so I'll wear it to run errands in the neighborhood or when I make my shopping runs to the Container Store for household projects.

Alas, I'm not "waiting on the world to change," as the song goes. On Monday night as I lay in bed, sleepless, I accepted that in my lifetime I might not stop stigma forever. Yet I can do my part. I can be an activist in my own way, do the best I can to feel I've changed people's lives for the better.

That is the secret to happiness: to feel your life matters to other people. Why is dignity a concept and not a practice? When we treat people with dignity, it shows them that they matter to us. I've long been unimpressed with the "anger culture" that's so prominent in daily life; the disrespect a person shows you and the judgment he makes about your worth.

Is the solution dressing the part of a "living museum" woman with the Cole Haan shoes and the immaculate hair and fastidious appearance? It certainly helps to dress well, yet we can't cater to someone else's insecurities, nor does dressing well always predict we'll be treated well.

Some people just don't get it that everyone living on earth is a human being, with feelings and needs just like anyone. The healthiest response is to set boundaries and fight for our right to be seen and heard. If we are placed in the bottom of the barrel, we need to fight our way out of it. Do we have control over what people think of us? I dare say we don't because the media is a strong influence, exaggerates what goes on, makes things larger-than-life to sell the drama of a story so you tune in. It's a hook. We don't have to fall for that bait, yet so many people do who hear horror stories about people diagnosed with SZ.

Today, yesterday, the day before: I grappled with this and yet I knew it's not over until it's over and if my role is to fight stigma, so be it. I do this because it's the right thing to do, I'm pulled to do this and so I accept that I answer to no one. One day you wake up and realize that right here, right now, there's no place you'd rather be, and you're happy being you. This is your purpose: to be who you are. So it doesn't matter what other people think if you're guided by your vision of what's right and how you want to live your life.

Now, I suggest you read gaining-insight.blogspot.com, which I link to on the right. It's well worth the read and frequently updated. She has a web site, too. In her latest entry, she talks about creating art as therapy so that she can cope well. Alas, I've yet to buy the table top easel. I have an ulterior motive for not doing it: I'm afraid to take the risk, yes I am. Possibly I feel like I'd be "all thumbs." The temptation to worry about whether I'd be good at it has come on. Of course, with practice, I'll do OK, be able to consider myself an artist as well as a writer.

I would love to consider myself to be an artist, too.

When I traveled to Montreal, I loved browsing the Musee De Beaux Arts the best. Seeing colorful artwork revives the soul. It gets my creative juices flowing.

I titled this blog entry "Life Outside" because I wanted to talk about going outside yourself to be involved in the life around you. Surf over to the Connection [I link to it on the right] and click on the latest news link to read about a theory that sheds light on why people with SZ could be focused on themselves and what's going on in their head. Intriguing.

I realized, 20-odd years later, that when I thought the government was after me, I turned around to believing this because I was powerless to halt my grandpa's death when he was in a coma. So after I attended the Milt Greek lecture at the NAMI convention last year, I understood that I wanted so desperately to believe that my actions could have an effect on people. I had started a revolution through music and the government was out to stop me.

Life Outside. Life outside the hospital. Life outside the mainstream. Life outside of the ordinary. Life outside of the box. Unbuttoned. Unstarched. Unscripted. Lived as I go along, lived in an authentic way.

My friend M. is sending me a tee shirt with the lyrics "Normal is Overrated" on the front, a promotion tied in to the TV show, House, whose members are working with NAMI to fight stigma. Normal is overrated. I once bristled at the suggestion someone made that he was proud to be "off-kilter." Years later I see there's no glory in conforming, acting or living a certain way to please other people, smothering your own identity and choking your soul.

The SZ, in a significant way, is part of my life. Yet I don't tie my identity up in the symptoms. Who gave other people the right to judge us? Who has the right to decide what's normal and what's not? We need to throw out the narrow tape measures. I aspire to the kind of compassion Mother Teresa had. This is a noble goal beyond the reach of most people, yet we can certainly open our hearts a little more and this is what I'm compelled to do.

It is a heartbreak. That is the word my mother used to describe how she felt when she drove home after seeing me in the hospital. "It was a heartbreak."

In all I do, I seek to educate others, to liberate people from the fear that shackles them, to tell my story in the hope that others will be inspired to tell their stories.

Today, tomorrow, the next day: I've been waiting on something to happen that has yet to happen, so I have to wait to get the living room painting. I'm also buying a new oak desk to replace the one I have now that's 12 years old and falling apart. I can pay someone to assemble the new one. It costs $80 and then I'd tip the person extra. Tomorrow I pop in to Staples to see the desk again and ask if it can be picked up at the store. I'll do that after Mercury turns direct.

OK, I've run along a philosophical wire in here tonight.

I'm wise enough to know that sometimes you can't change someone's mind because their belief is ingrained. Yet in a lot of others you'll see an opening, and so you can insert a suggestion, seduce them in a subtle way. It's the art of being an advocate: you fight the good fight with open arms, not a clenched fist.

So that's as far as I'll go in talking about the SZ tonight. In two weeks, I'll be able to have the painter in to paint the living room. I'm hoping to pay no more than $600 for the living room and $200 for the insides of the two closets. On the phone with M. earlier I detailed my closet organizing project, which will outlive this apartment because I plan to carry this ethic into how I organize the closets in the next living space.

With Mercury retrograde, it's best not to take action or sign contracts until Tuesday, after Mercury turns direct, and if you think this is astrology hocus-pocus, think again. Every time I've had furniture delivered during this retrograde period, the delivery date was changed to a later date or the furniture arrived banged-up. I kid you not, it screws up computers, the mail, documents, negotiations and any kinds of communication. Three times a year Mercury is retrograde. So right now things are up in the air and I have to "wait and see" when things are finalized in order to be able to do the paint jobs.

Luckily, I can do this before my birthday because I'm throwing a party then. If I wanted to, I could go to Staples a week from Saturday and buy the desk. I'll see if I can get my cousin to bring it here in his truck and carry it up the stairs with me. He can then take the folding chairs and bring them back to my Aunt Bee's..

The reality is, I'll have the painting done before the end of March.

The landlord knows I'm painting the walls a color and doesn't care, so I'm lucky.

OK, I've talked about SZ, I've talked about the apartment. There's not much more to report.

I'll go sign off now.

Enjoy.

p.s.

Ah, I've decided to read A New Earth before I dismiss it out of hand. It would make a good book club read. I'll reserve comment though I've said before that the writing rubs me the wrong way.

I feel I must check it out to give it a fresh look, read it sentence-by-sentence. Only then could I walk away from it. That book has been like a bad penny following me around.

To-Do List Revived

Good morning.

I suggest you click on the link to Kate's blog on the right and send her some cheer as regards her weight loss and household organizing projects.

Last night I came home from the therapist's with aches and chills, shut the lights at 10:30 p.m. and couldn't sleep all night. Turned on the lights at four in the morning and finished reading November 22, 1963, a light book about Jackie Kennedy's life in the days after her husband was shot. The images of her clothes fascinated me. It was historical fiction cobbled together from interviews, details and information obtained by Adam Braver, the author.

In two hours I call in sick to work. I don't have the strength to go in. I'm afraid if I go to work I'll faint at my desk.

The person from the Masters program in rehab counseling responded to my e-mail query, re: the days and times of the classes and where they're held. I hinted that I might not have the required number of undergraduate credits in certain courses, though I did take economics, sociology and psychology-three of the required courses. He said my Pratt GPA greatly exceeded their minimum of 2.7. This intrigues me: how could their program claim to be highly selective if you don't need a 3.0 to get in? I just thought of this now.

This is something I have to do, don't ask me why I think I need to do this. How will I be able to go back to school in my fifties if that would require so much time and effort that I'd rather retire than continue to work and go to school at the same time. You see, my mind is fuzzy right now because I'm sick, and so luckily no tender thoughts have been wobbling in my head. Will try to get some sleep in the late morning.

I'm convinced that because I look 10 years younger than I am that ageism won't be a factor if I begin looking for a new job when I'm 60. There's a word to describe my MO and it's not PC, not at all, so I'm not going to use it, except to say that when you've been certified, you can do anything you want and not care what people think. Certified as in, you lost your mind. I really can't say I'm losing it when I've already lost it, right? This gives me a perspective that not everyone holds: that because I was disabled so early in life, I deserve to shoot for the moon because what else have I got to lose?

The word I feel describes me is a certain kind of clock, with all these ideas about what I want to do darting in and out of my head at strange moments and announcing themselves in loud voices.

I'm pulled to be a motivational speaker [number eight on the list of my Top 10 careers when I took the career matchmaker test]. Librarian was 35 out of the 40, rehab counselor and career counselor were in there as well, along with writer [number 10], activist and clergy [number seven]. Truly, I toyed with becoming an interfaith minister after my final retirement from work.

Next up I e-mail in the spring the rehab counselor I met to conduct an informational interview with her when the weather turns warmer. I'm interested in what the salary is like for someone just starting out as a mental health counselor.

Oh, all this pops out right now, and I don't know why, except that I don't want to give my current employer my life and have nothing to show for it when I'm 65. I can't imagine staying here 30 years although I've been here close to 10 years and had an easy time of it so far. So the idea of turning around and doing something else in just 10 years from now appeals to me because it would be a breeze to bide my time here.

This is all very day-by-day and if Joyful Music is still in cyberspace 10 years from now, you'll find out if I made good on this goal or decided to sail on until 65 and retire then. The thing is, and this is going to sound weird, the psychic said I'd live "a long, long time" in this lifetime. And so I can't imagine retiring for good at 65 and playing golf. I met a woman who suggested I wouldn't be happy to do nothing, I'd want to keep active. She read me like a book.

Will somebody please chime in.

You think I am, right?

You've never met someone quite like me.

I told you before in JM that I'm a strange girl.

Being a bit fuzzy now from the aches and chills has really done a number on me.

It's best I quit while I'm ahead.

Go read somebody else's blog. Pretend I haven't spent an hour ambling through the murky mess of my head.

Cheers.

Vanilla Blues

U2 with "New Year's Day" is on Sophie radio right now as I type in here. An advertisement for the radio station proclaimed, "It's a drug that speeds people up." Music is the drug I love.

It was so cold today that my fingers are still freezing stiff even though I've been in my apartment for an hour. I'm grooving on the music now. Would love to be on a Hawaiian beach instead of in this wind chill temperature.

The Peculier Pub was closed in the late afternoon so we ducked into Wicked Willy's and sat on red velvet couches at a round table. I don't drink. The others had cosmos. A pretty pink drink. I secretly covet the ability to have just one drink, or two, yet I won't risk it. The prescribing info for Geodon instructs you to avoid or reduce alcohol. Though it tells you that you can "reduce" alcohol, that sounds coy to me, like a concession, when the truth is, it's best NOT to drink alcohol when you're taking meds. Now, as for wine, I'm not sure about that. Though it seems to me wiine should be a no-no, too.

It's said up to 50 percent of the people diagnosed with SZ have a chemical dependency, MICA. I wonder if that statistic is accurate. The reality is, drugs and SZ don't mix. If you wanted to make doubly certain you had no chance of recovering, your best bet would be to smoke marijuana or do other drugs. If you desired to have a better life, you would resist the urge to dabble in street drugs.

Sophie plays great music like the D.J.s are magicians pulling songs out of a hat. You never know what's coming next and yet it all sounds so good. When I was a teenager, I was entranced with the music heard left of the dial. It spoke to me and gave me hope as I listened to my portable radio under the covers at night in my gingham bedroom in a house in the suburbs. I could believe there was a life outside those four walls.

Across the harbor the City loomed. When I was young and in love with the sound of the radio, I'd go to CBGB and the Cat Club to hear bands perform, or drive over the bridge in the opposite direction to see bands at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey. Three months after I came out of the hospital in 1987, I dared re-read the journal entries I kept in a spiral-bound notebook with a hologram cover. In black-and-white, under the date September 18, 1987, I saw that I had attended a Naked Raygun concert with my college buddies. One week later-on September 25, 1987-I had a breakdown.

When I re-read that journal entry, I was struck by how outgoing I was. My break was total and sudden. Just one week before, I was sitting on the bleachers in the night club watching Naked Raygun. The title of their song, "Vanilla Blue," described me. I was vanilla blue. I bought their purple-and-green tee shirt at the back of the room.

C. asked me if I wanted to return next week to see Death of Samantha, an indie band we played at the radio station. At that moment, I panicked. I felt a doom was about to come on. And sure enough, one did though at the time I didn't know how or when it would. On Steptember 25, 1987 at five o'clock in the afternoon, I told my parents the government was after me. Things spiraled from there. The next morning, my mother drove me to the hospital and I was admitted for three weeks.

Nearly five years later, when I had a job and my own apartment, I felt I was doing well enough not to need the Stelazine. Dr. Santiago supervised a fateful drug holiday that failed. Within three months, I had to be hospitalized for two weeks to be stabilized on the meds again.

The SZ has been the soundtrack to my life all these years. I've been in recovery 22 years. Do you want some kind of reassurance that it gets easier? In most ways it does. Yet in some telling ways it is challenging. New symptoms could arise after a relatively calm period, as happened with me five years ago. You take your meds and do the best you can. Life is only as hard or as complicated as you make it out to be. I'm able to accept with grace that my brain isn't well. It's liked I pulled a slot machine and everything came up lemons. "Congratulations, you're a winner." The SZ chose me, and I had no control over it.

I'm wise enough to have let go of the need to be in control at all times. As I've told you in here, I don't like to talk about the hell. I've had plenty. As long as I stay on my meds [I made the choice to take them for the rest of my life], I do just fine. There is no hell anymore. And that is what's possible for you: a life that can be even better than it was when you first started out.

The key thing is not to measure progress in terms of superstar achievements like the Wright Brothers inventing the airplane. The secret is in objectively evaluating how far you've stretched yourself today that you weren't able to do yesterday, or a week ago, or a year or five years ago. You don't see the rose evolving from a bud all at once; it uncurls slowly, petal-by-petal until it's in full bloom. You are like the rose: a thing of beauty at all stages in its development. And yes, your life will be filled with thorns at some times, so you'll need to be careful and tread lightly.

When you're diagnosed with SZ, there are no rules. You get to decide how you want to live your life, you figure out early on what's important to you, what you can keep, what you need to discard. This applies to habits, beliefs, friends, routines. You have the power to transform your life by committing to your recovery.

What a beautiful life it can be.

An Accident of Hope

Right now I'm filled with heartbreak because I know a friend was abandoned by her friends when she got sick. I'm aware of how it is because of the stigma, and I feel like reaching out to people who've been cast out because of their SZ, to say, it's OK, you will find your way, keep reaching out. I'm not certain, it could be possible, that a woman treated me poorly when she found out long ago in the journal writing workshop. I feel sad about the agreements people have, their unwavering belief in what's normal, what's not. I've come to this stance because I crossed over and came back, and I know that if I forget, it could cross over and not return.

Susanna Kaysen, in Girl, Interrupted, writes about a character's new "slipcovered" life. As if there's a covering that protected her from herself. Again, I believe we are all people first, and as much as hearing voices or having delusions is outside the realm of what others deem normal, a taint will pollute those experiences, which are real and terrifying to those of us who battle them. The goal is to educate, educate, educate the general public every chance we get, at opportunistic moments, and even not-so-opportunistic moments.

Mary Poppins sang, "A spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down." That's my approach to telling my story. A story of hope wrapped in a purple wool cardigan with boots made for stompin' on the SZ by someone holding out a chocolate bar like a carrot to entice people to believe. You see me, you see my life. I am not ashamed. I'm proud to speak out.

It's what I must do. As my friend Ana told me, "Maybe you're here to fight stigma."

She also told me that one of our friends explained what having something was like, when someone asked, "What's it like to have a mental illness?" After she set him straight, the guy wondered, "Is there a pill I could take for that?" As in, it sounds cool, I'd like to hear voices. How insensitive. You could experience hearing voices by wearing the Mindstorm headgear that simulates what it's like inside the head of someone with SZ. This isn't for the faint of heart. The Winter 2009 issue of SZ magazine's cover story about hearing voices gives the URL for the audio/video version you could experience on the Internet. It's truly frightening.

So it boggles my mind that "Gentlemen's LSD" is all the rage, and so are other drugs that cause hallucinations and psychosis. One honest guy, at a lecture I attended at the Learning Annex, told the speaker, Lori Schiller [who wrote The Quiet Room], that he felt sad when his voices went away. He had done cocaine in his youth and welcomed the odd sensations and experiences he had while high.

The Hearing Voices Network [worldwide] was founded by people who wanted a forum where voice hearers could come together to talk about their experiences, and coping skills, as a way to normalize what goes on and take it out of the realm of pathology, to give each other dignity in a welcoming space.

In Patrick Tracey's book, Stalking Irish Madness, he talks about how one HVN member could accept the voices yet it was the diagnosis of SZ that was his undoing, because it affected how he thought about things, and how other people viewed him. Tracey posted a comment to my book review at the Connection in which he clarified that, indeed, his aim in writing the memoir was to put a positive spin on it because of the emerging hope people living with SZ have because of groups like the Hearing Voices Network.

One thing I would do, should someone I love cross over: love them to pieces, and tell them I loved them, and spend time with them. I would mourn, as I must, and I would embrace a new future with all its uncertainties and challenges, and I wouldn't give up the hope that things could get better.

All of us are gripped by voices, whether real or imagined; the critical narrator in our heads that harshes on us, often daily. On Friday, a man came in to request a book for his wife, and said, "You look nice today." He clarified, "Not that you don't look nice other days, you always look nice." The voice in my head told me I didn't deserve this compliment, though of course I thanked him and took it. I wore the black patent loafers, black tights, magenta-print short skirt, and the black wool sweater. Interestingly, I was wearing my black eyeglasses that I don't like to wear. So his compliment boosted me despite my immediate reaction. I always felt the glasses were ugly and hid my face. Now I know better.

The U2 song, "Grace" is one of my favorites of that band's, with the lyrics: "Grace makes beauty out of ugly things." In my volunteer award acceptance speech, I told the audience that if I could turn my pain into a thing of beauty for other people who suffer, I will have done my job. It's true beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.

There's an expression, "Don't hide your light under a bushel." Doesn't that mean you should be openly proud of your achievements and your good qualities? I also quoted Nelson Mandela in here if memory serves, so you could search under his name in this blog's search bar to find the quote of the century. In effect, he tells us, "Who are you to deny your greatness?"

So as the words tumble out tonight as I flash my fingers across the keyboard, I have the belief that we must worship each other, "Be impeccable with our word," to quote Don Miguel Ruiz, the author of The Four Agreements who I quoted here and at the Connection.

Oh, I realize I'm taking a great risk writing this blog, and doing my advocacy work, when the reality is, stigma is alive and well and living in the hearts and minds of people everywhere. Future employers will Google you and go on social networking sites to uncover information that brands you as weird or untrustworthy. With all that's at stake, you could legitimately ask why I'm pulled to publish my memoir, to be open and honest? I would quote the Anne Sexton poem if it wasn't copyright infringement. To sum up, she said that if she tried to give you something outside of herself, you wouldn't know that her worst could be "an accident of hope."

Immortal words that outlived her.

I much prefer the company of those who've walked down this road, who are not afraid to be themselves and accept that their MIs are part of their lives. I can only be honest, and my memoir will get published. Because Elyn Saks and those before her blazed this trail, and I will follow. I feel-OK, I'm going against my better wishes to say this-that it matters if I speak out or remain silent. I will not remain silent. There: I've told you how I feel, the feelings I have on this run true.

That's all I can tell you right now. In short, I'm committed to seeing justice served. Justice=Dignity.

Salud

The words won't come to title this blog entry, so I'm going to keep typing until I find them.

When I came home from the morning podiatrist visit, I decided to lie in bed under the covers until the last possible minute before I had to leave for work. At 12:15 p.m. Barack Obama's proud voice woke me up on the alarm clock radio. I wanted to title this blog entry Jubilee, and decided against that because of the connotations, also Jubilation implied a future positive event, and as of today, we don't have to wait, the dream has come today and we are living it.

If I were able to record the inauguration, I would've so I could play it back tonight on the TV. Alas, I'm sure I could find it on the Internet. We had a debate about this at the Spanish restaurant on Sunday, feeling Obama will make a darn good president and that's why everyone around the table voted for him. Yes, I wish I were able to watch the inauguration. A friend went to D.C. with her church group. Isn't Aretha Franklin known as the "First Lady of Soul?" And didn't she perform today?

Barack Obama will get the job done, and do it right. Anyone who holds him to a higher standard than Bush should examine their own achievements. When you're starting with a trillion dollar deficit, even Jesus couldn't save us. So I urge people to lighten up and expect that whatever Obama is able to accomplish during his time as president, we're going to be a lot better off than we are now.

Besides, I'm reminded of an article in Vanity Fair written by Fran Liebowitz many years ago in which she hit the nail on the head. Hopefully it doesn't apply today. We don't want bozos running the free world. Barack Obama is articulate, passionate, and dare I say it, the leader of the century. I respect and admire his job as a community organizer.

On Martin Luther King day, I did indeed volunteer my time for the board I sit on, and we discussed an issue that has civil rights implications for people with MIs. I felt excited that we could actually shape policy in a positive way.

_______________________

The acceptance speech was rebroadcast, and so I watched it when I arrived home from work.

Shut the lights at 9:15 p.m. and woke at eleven o'clock to shut down my computer that was glowing in the living room and casting light into the bedroom.

Wish me luck on Friday night when I ask the landlord to repair the ceiling. If the roof is the underlying issue, I'll have to wait until spring to get the ceiling fixed. Bummer.

The gown Michelle Obama wore to the inaugural balls was gorgeous. It's been donated to the Smithsonian. Tomorrow I'm reviewing Autobiography of a Wardrobe by Elizabeth Kendall at work. A book told from the point of view of her wardrobe and the colorful characters living in her closet. It's a quick read, you can easily read it in five hours or less.

Ah, writing this reminds me that I want to start the painting jobs. I could possibly start with the inside of the closets while I'm waiting on the living room project.

My luck has run out, as I'm tired of buying pants that don't fit, or fit poorly, and having to return them. The latest pair I need to get hemmed, and yet I wonder about them, too. I could possibly buy another pair of light-color Dockers if I wanted to go that route. I'll see. Oh, the perils of the dressing room. It's like looking in a funhouse mirror.

Tonight [a day later, and I'm continuing this blog entry] I hit the treadmill for fifty minutes. The idea to slim down appeals to me. Finally my c-reactive protein is normal. To keep it up, I have to do cardio and the machines, faithfully. Otherwise I'm at elevated risk for heart disease. [It has nothing to do with the Geodon.] Even when I was on the Stelazine, my c-reactive protein was wacky, all those years.

Would rather return the pants and buy the dress, ah, you're chuckling about this. The thunderous critic reigns again in my head. Are they too tight? Should I get the loose pair? Do I want to have the expensive tailor close to my house hem them, or take them to the regular guy on Saturday? Hmm.

Elizabeth Kendall, in Autobiography of a Wardrobe, dismisses Ann Taylor as a line that's ordinary, doesn't take risks. That's fine with me. Loft has a beautiful cardigan: I can dream, can't I? Yet to buy anything new, my drawers would be overstuffed.

I am a woman in agony over her clothing. This is no joke, though it sounds funny. In my late thirties, I grappled with this and wrote about it in my journals. I was coming to terms with the odd effect: the weird clothes I wore as a young woman. That could be just how it was back in the 1980s and 1990s, yet I see it as a false persona, I followed trends or, that is, dressed left of center. A counselor at the day program said, "You dress very Greenwich Village," at the time I was looking to find a professional job.

Now, you may feel that was simply my younger self in a trendy mode, and alas, you could be right. However, I feel that it was an extension of illness, an expression of how displaced I felt. Because I wasn't a true trendy; I was at odds with myself.

Oh, too, the 1980s were the Weird Decade, truly. Those clothes! Those bands! Those fads!

Does it seem I return to this often? You can only imagine how I set it down in my journal when I was in my thirties, seeking closure on that era. I used to love to shop in Warehouse. When I was in grad school, I occasionally shopped the Warehouse on lower Broadway. I still have an interesting black nylon jacket with a zipper pocket on the left sleeve, that I do enjoy wearing to this day. Most of their clothes were too daring for me, though.

My inner wild child is a closet Trendy.

Yet because I'm hyper-aware of the stereotypes of people diagnosed with SZ, I much prefer to fit into the environment I'm in, and so my fashion risks are calculated when I do take them. You should log on to my Connection blog entry, "Digital Health Records: Not So Fast" to read about how even MDs and other professionals have such low esteem for us once they surf over to our psychiatric histories or find out we have SZ.

As I've suggested in here, there's a strong pull for others to label you if you don't conform. Maybe I'm not going to wear jeans and sneakers and a sweatshirt like everybody else does. Maybe I'm not go to hit the bars after work and pub crawl through Manhattan. Maybe I'm not Carrie Bradshaw. That's OK.

The older I get, I give myself a wide latitude to accept other people's quirks and to embrace my own. Even if the unusual no longer holds an allure for me.

As you can see, I write to distract myself. I feel most alive when I'm doing my writing. The fashion tip could keep me going for an hour or two.

At least, the evidence is gone. I have no photographs of me in the strange clothes. Today I wonder at my attraction to the items in Antique Boutique and Flip and elsewhere.

One photo is arresting, and particularly so to me. It was taken on the Fourth of July, 1987. I wore my size 3 jeans, the vivid orange tee shirt with the pocket on the front, and a necklace comprised of those plastic trinkets that were popular, given to me by Aunt Millie. That was me before. Before the breakdown. Before all of this went down. I was another girl, so young and vulnerable, carrying on in her life, unaware that three months later I would be diagnosed with SZ. Where did that picture go? It was my one artifact. Proof. Proof of who I used to be. At the time I had a tangled mess of curly hair, looked like the undead with my pale skin and jet hair. Underneath I was all bones. I stare out into the distance. My life wasn't a shame. It isn't now.

If you can understand, then, how fashion moves me. And music, and language.

This is what I can give you today: a diversion, images, a life lived.

So I will end here by urging you to celebrate your life: the ordinary moments as well as the glorious ones, the days when the good times roll and the dark nights, celebrate yourself, where you've been, where you are now.

Salud.

RSVP

There's an expression, "mad money," used to describe money you earmark to go wild with every so often. I've given myself $15 every two weeks to do this, and thus the clothes I bought yesterday when I was paid. The pants are coming out of the last remaining money from the job I lost at the end of December. I tell myself, I tell you, that this is it, yet how can I be sure? Especially when I saw what I call a beautiful "date dress" to wear out on dates in the spring. Maybe I can do that. It's too cold now to want to travel in this frightful weather.

A co-worker years ago gave me a Laundry spaghetti-strap dress that a friend had given her and when she tried it on, it didn't fit, so she gave it to me. It needs to be taken in under the armholes, so I do that tomorrow when I take the pants to be hemmed. The dress is black wool with an embroidered design and fits beautifully, is elegant enough to wear to a book signing [hopefully my own] or gallery showing.

Next Saturday I risk showing the landlord the peeling paint and asking her to repair the ceiling so I can paint the living room. The sooner I can paint it, the better. Because I want to host my own birthday party in April, and I'd like to have the Tiffany blue walls by then. I'll invite a crowd that can spill into the dining room. Maybe Mom can cater it, I'll see.

Remember how just three or four entries ago I wrote that sometimes the detours are necessary? How prescient that was it appears now. I've decided I'm going to roll with it, rock-and-roll with life. So I want to have the party dress on hand, ready to slip into at a moment's notice.

Yet the idea that a person can be in control at all times is flawed. We do the best we can. I would rather talk with a friend at a coffeehouse than schmooze at a cocktail party, even though I'm a Classic. I'm not into that whole deal-making ethic, the "corner office, I've arrived" kind of mentality.

The idea of singing my own song appeals to me because I fought for the right to be free. The Judy Mowatt song, "Sing Our Own Song" was my anthem in the 1980s even though it referred to South Africa.

Ah, pinstripes. I have a pair of brown pinstripe pants that I wear in the fall and winter. That's a creative twist on the pinstripe suit I wore to the interview that got me the job at the law firm. I'm of a different stripe, always have been. Even today I muse on the idea that music energizes me, cheers me, and I could listen to iTunes radio for two hours. Because I can't live without music.

It also helps me cope with the blues, uplifts me in this review period. I like the image of designating an "off-season" shelf in a closet for our feelings we need to let go of to make room for new ones. A new image I use along with the apothecary chest where I place each feeling in a separate drawer. To visualize this enables me to let go and let life. It's not so overwhelming after all. Everyone has feelings. In Mercury retrograde, I've revisited things and today I placed the feelings on the off-season shelf.

That's as far as I'll go without talking about what I actually felt, as that belongs in a therapist's room. Understand that things like fashion and music and keeping a journal are coping techniques, as well as creative visualization, which works wonders.

Friendships help, too. Today I met the others at the Spanish restaurant for lunch. I nearly fell asleep in the cafe afterward, so decided to come home instead of going to the theater. You do what you can.

Eddie, Ana and the others are my good friends. The diagnosis was the ice breaker, and after that, it was their personalities that hooked me. They're good people. We spoke of how others are snooty, won't even say hello to you. Some of us were abandoned by our friends after we got sick. I pretty much go my own way and as the song goes, "get by with a little help from my friends." [My chemical friends, too.]

I'm a reverse snob who doesn't expect so-called normals to understand, the people who covet living a straight-and-narrow life yet ironically pigeonhole those of us who do our own thing. We're not this indistinguishable blob. Each of us has her own quirks and traits and feelings and life experiences that make her who she is.

The revolution will be televised if I have my way. My memoir, Left of the Dial, will be published in due season. The waiting is the hardest part, yet I'll gladly wait for that day. It is something I quietly work about going towards.

I want to help others find their voices. Hopefully my memoir will inspire others to come out of the closet, take their advocacy on the road, so to speak. I consider my role in this lifetime to educate others about what it's like to live with SZ.

This is it, folks, this is all I have to give you: one woman's life, on display like fine china.

The table is set and dinner's at eight.

Just Like Honey

In the 1980s, a band Skeleton Crew had a song with the lyrics: "There's no convenient time to break your neck." Ah, so true in all regards. When is it ever easy to face a hardship?

In the last couple of days, I've come around to accepting that things are the way they are. It's my "one thing" motto: you're here in this life to do one thing, and in the next life, your role is to do something else. So to hate yourself in this lifetime, to beat on yourself, isn't healthy. You're given what you're given: traits, a personality, quirks that make you, you.

So the sooner you give up resisting your nature, the better off you'll be in terms of your mental health.

Riding the train into the City today, I wrote in my spiral-bound notebook to keep the thoughts from pouring out. As I did, it was clear to me that I'm not responsible for what other people do or think, and I don't cause them to be hateful. I understood that they have "agreements" that determine what they think. These agreements are actually hang-ups about other people that are a reflection of that person, not you or me.

The one thing I realize is that some people have an agreement about what's acceptable, what's normal and what isn't. That's why gaining-insight.blogspot.com is such an antidote, it gets you to question how far off on the fringe people with SZ are compared to those of us with tongue piercings, tattoos and other hallmarks of unconventional, free-spirited expression.

Marilyn Manson is the gold standard of weird.

As I write this in here, it's also clear to me that no one else dare judge us, and for you or me to sit in fear of being judged and thus conform, act counter to our true selves, ah, that's the bane of every creative person: to be forced to wear gray flannel when she'd rather browse a thrift shop. That's what I'm getting at: there is no normal.

Someone who has an agreement with himself that he knows what's acceptable and what isn't is often the kind of person who will judge you or me if we don't agree with what they believe, or follow their doctrine. So you see it's exhausting even to talk about narrow-mindedness, let alone experience it out in the world.

Part of what I've been grappling with in the last couple of days has been the reality that when I was younger, I had no tolerance for the residents I felt accepted learned helplessness. Right now, as of today, I forgive myself and feel the need to protect and respect others. I get the sense that my role is going to change in the coming years and I will quite possibly go back to school for some kind of therapy degree.

The Jesus and Mary Chain lyrics come into my head now, for the song "Just Like Honey": "Look at the girl/As she takes on half the world." Those Brits were my favorite band in the 1980s. I'd listen to their album, Psychocandy, on vinyl at midnight in my bedroom, when everyone else was out of the house and I could listen to the music, really listen, as if it held the secret to life.

I salute anyone who dares take on half the world. And now I salute the ones who take on their recovery in whatever way they feel works. As I rode the train home, a space started to free up where I could allow everyone in.

Again I'm reminded of the woman with the shocking blue eyeshadow. I'm pulled to see beyond the surface, to wonder what's going on in someone's head, in her life. Who is that stranger on the train and where is he going, where has he been? Curiosity can be a good thing. Certainly having a healthy imagination allows us to envision possibilities, weather the doldrums. [As long as it doesn't run wild.]

Can you imagine a day just like honey dripping goodness? My friend couldn't go to IKEA, so treated me to lunch in the Asian place. I was direct with her; I didn't dice it up. My tears flowed over the grilled lobster. She told me, "You're a rock star, honey." I didn't protest, though when you look up the word hot mama in the dictionary, you see a picture of her. She has done great things and I respect and admire her for taking those risks.

No, no, no, I couldn't judge someone who wanted to accomplish something and set out to do that not knowing whether she would succeed or fail, would fall flat on her face. The wounds another person tries to inflict on us because he's insecure we don't have to let cut into our skin. Years later I can forgive "Tony Rome": the guy who baited me because I told him I wanted to move to Brooklyn, and he said I was "a yuppie that got fumbled out by a waiter in a restaurant so popped into the meeting to blast everyone with her feelings." I call him Tony Rome because he was this suave guy in a navy jacket and casual slacks, and there was something very Frank Sinatra about how he looked. Didn't Ol' Blue Eyes play Tony Rome in the movie of the same name?

Watch out. Listen up: Mercury is in retrograde; what the astrologer woman I met called a "review period." The feeling that everything is sliding backwards is doubly felt with Mercury retrograde. In two weeks Mercury turns direct. You could feel differently; however, I feel there's something to astrology that can't be discounted. Of course, I wouldn't do something or not do something because the stars foretold it would be a lucky or unlucky day.

Thus the subtle philosophical bent to what I've been writing lately, this kind of reflective mood, going within to draw strength in a time of uncertainty. M. rang late last night and we talked on the phone about how people are getting depressed in this economy,. "Some people are turning to alcohol," he knew. It's not a good scene. Everyone gets the blues. Everyone hurts sometime.

This isn't how I intended JM to take off today: down a dark road. So I'll switch gears and tell you what absolutely lifted me after lunch in the Asian place. Shopping. Yes, retail therapy. It's called retail therapy for a reason. After I left the store with a cheap yet beautiful camisole and another gorgeous blouse [for warm weather], I felt good. Real good. I exchanged the pants for a different pair in a smaller size. Ana said, "Cheer up. Do you know how many people would be happy if they were tiny?" Of course. Yet she knew I worked it; my fitness didn't come naturally to me. Oh, I can't have a tub of Ben & Jerry's every week like I used to in my thirties, when I first moved here. I'm 43, and a cupcake every now and then is pushing it, the most I can do.

It's true: when you turn 40, you have to reduce what you eat, and exercise more, to maintain a healthy weight. Kate Moss isn't someone to idolize unless it's only her fashion sense you covet. To have legs as skinny as measuring tape isn't healthy. To be a hostage to the number on the scale isn't healthy, either. Yet I know how it is to feel sh*tty about your weight because I was once 20 lbs overweight when I first began taking the Stelazine in 1987. It took me six years [yes, six years] to lost that weight and in the long-term, I kept it off.

It's a struggle to get up everyday and fight the good fight. You could be a good soldier and feel nothing's going to come of it. Yet I urge you to soldier on. These are soul-testing times, more so for people diagnosed with SZ or other MIs who have to fight harder. I urge you not to give up. In this review period, take stock of where you've been and how far you've come.

Better days lie head.

And if you want to treat yourself and you like Loft, I recommend you go. They're having some good sales. "You gotta love a sale," Ana chimed as I pulled things off the rack.

Keep up a positive spirit.

As I wrote in here recently, sometimes the detours are necessary.

So why not look smashing as you wait for the tide to turn? Run errands in that cute top or abolish your sweatpants as you sit typing at the computer.

Here's looking at you, kid!

Gentlemen's LSD

You heard it here first: "Gentlemen's LSD" is all the rage in the New York City area, according to a Channel 7 news report on the TV I saw while at the gym earlier. It comes from the root of a plant and causes the men who use it on their lunch hour to see things, hear voices and see dead people. Funny, so-called normals want to get psychotic. Will wonders never cease, it's now cool. I don't mean to sound glib, though of course this is how it sounds. What's the appeal? I'll never know.

Scrambled

Again, I'm tempted to come back because the bait is so appealing:

I would rather have 10 good years on the drugs, instead of 50 psychotic years.

Chances are, if you don't take the drugs, you could die of suicide [10 percent of those with SZ do] or have a greatly reduced life quality.

Besides, irrespective of the atypical I'm on, I'm at an elevated risk for heart disease that I had long before going on the Geodon. My grandmother died of a heart attack, too. I'm willing to take this risk. Life holds no guarantees. You could get killed in a car accident.

You have to recognize the statistical odds of getting a heart attack from taking an atypical, and if that's related to a side effect such as weight gain. Do you feel as I do that outsiders have no idea what it's like to live with SZ every day? It's so easy for them to suggest we stop taking our meds.

Sue, the psychic, told me I was going to live a "long, long time" in this lifetime. She obviously had the inside track. A woman in my writing workshop suggested that creative people live longer because they're involved in the things they love. This is undoubtedly true.

It's not about the number of years in your life, but the life in your years.

The truly alarming reality is that people with SZ die much earlier than other people do, and the side effects of the drugs, such as weight gain, can't be pleasant to live with.

So what do you do? Choose psychosis? I'd rather be dead.

Good Eggs

There's a guy, a good egg, remember that expression, "a good egg?" He calls up every so often and I invited him to my New Year's Eve party. Last night he wondered why I don't crack and I told him the medication works. It's one way to keep the sensitivity in check, yet I failed to mention the other facet: maturity. With the years, you develop a backbone or otherwise you're reacting to the real and imagined slights other people hurl at you instead of coping with it.

You're human, you were given tender feelings, and maybe with the SZ the feelings are in full bloom all the time, you're sensitive to what goes on. This is all the more reason to take the meds every day as prescribed. To seek balance. I take with a grain of salt when others [usually outsiders] criticize us for taking the SZ drugs because of the harm they do. Given the chance to achieve my goals in life versus not being able to function, the choice is clear, right? I'll risk my heart health. Isn't that the insensitive thing, to suggest we should choose psychosis as a way of life?

If our critics had a choice, would they choose psychosis? So why do they expect us to be OK with being barely able to function? It's our right to be healthy. Some critics believe it's a person's right not to take meds and live life as he chooses, even if that means the voices return or the delusions take over. Do these people really think there's something wrong with wanting optimal mental health? They should only know what it's like to have to choose.

Wow, listen to where this blog entry has gone so early in the morning.

I'm a good judge of character and I can tell a "good egg" from a rotten one. My intuition is solid. Of course I'll get revved up when someone implies, even in a subtle way, that sickness is an acceptable alternative to taking the medications. Or maybe I'll read into things because I'm so passionate about the benefits of the SZ meds.

Hey now, nobody criticizes people for taking diabetes drugs that cause heart attacks, do they? All drugs carry risks, it depends on what risk you're willing to take. The reality is, someone with diabetes has a ton of drugs she can take as alternatives, and people with SZ have a limited handful of good medications.

More drugs are coming on the market for us every year and so there is hope if one drug you take now causes weight gain or has a side effect. Change has come slowly yet it is coming here soon. Corlux is being investigated as a drug that can prevent and reduce the weight gain associated with Zyprexa. New drugs in the pipeline aim to reduce the cognitive deficits associated with SZ.

So there, I switched back to SZ and that goes against my better wishes yet sometimes it's possible it will benefit you. Analyzing things rather than getting worked up about them is what I strive to do when I devote air time to SZ in JM.

My intent with the Blog Roll is to give you the ability to listen in to other voices.

Sometimes, my words will blow like a weathervane in the direction of the wind.

Thus I hope you get some benefit. OK, I'm going on the record: I'm only human, I'm going to break my vow every now and again. Besides, computer text is in itself flat and each person reading it will interpret it in her own way. So when you see me go to the loom and weave in elements such as the SZ, feel free to chuckle and say, "There she goes again." La, la, la.

In one of the other blogs I link to, the blogger suggested people with SZ are expected to identify themselves with their symptoms as the automatic response to what happened to them.

Folks, that's the only thing I'm trying to say: if you are true to yourself, you will recover. You are not a schizophrenic, you are a person with traits and quirks, a personality all your own, with hopes and goals and dreams, and failures as well as successes, just like anyone, just like any human being who doesn't have SZ.

Just sayin'.

The blogs I link to are written by people who have the courage to be themselves, who get up every day and fight the good fight to live the kind of life they'd like to have.

Besides, a journal is a journey of days, and as such, one's sentiment can change day-by-day.

So please understand sometimes I will write something on Tuesday that I contradict on Saturday.

Now I will gracefully segue into the quotidian:

The pants will be returned tomorrow as I don't want to take the train into the City today. Instead, I run to the bank and do my laundry, and go to the gym later.

In New York City, we've had North Dakota weather all this week. It's supposed to be only 20 degrees today, so I'll dress in layers to keep warm. Tonight it goes down to 6 degrees. Brrh.

A good egg gave me the recipe for perfect scrambled eggs: keep beating the eggs in a bowl to fluff them up before pouring them in the skillet. A favorite dinner I used to cook a couple years ago was something I called an "egg scramble": an egg omelette mixed with cheese that always came out a scrambled mess, yet tasted so good.

Today I will cook an egg scramble for lunch in honor of the guy who is a good egg. I'm not as good a cook as he is. Heck, I tell people I can't cook, yet I do, even if I consider cooking chicken and brown rice and a vegetable to be hardly anything. Some people are truly challenged in the kitchen and consider bringing home sushi a culinary event. More power to them. I will always profess I can't cook, but who am I kidding?

My mother could've opened up an Italian restaurant, she is such a good cook. Alas, I didn't inherit her love of cooking. I cook dinner only because it's necessary in order to stay healthy. I do what's easy instead of using recipes with 10 ingredients. I hyperventilate when I read cookbooks because they're overwhelming. The only one I loved, which is long out of print, is Verdure, a slim Italian vegetables recipe book with fresh, simple offerings.

In my hands, a whisk is a weapon of kitchen destruction. I once bought a whisk thinking I would use it [wishful thinking] and finally donated it to Sal's years later when I realized I would never bake a cake, or do anything remotely needing a whisk.

OK, I'm writing in here to delay going outside. Must buckle down and get ready to brave another day of frightful cold. Luckily it's sunny outside, without a breeze.

Warm wishes,
Chris

D'Lightful

"The weather outside is frightful."

I leave in an hour to travel to see Dr. Altman.

I'm going to make this a D'Lightful day because what else can I do?

"The reality is . . ."

You get up each day and do what you have to do.

Would like to request that if you know of any good blogs written by people with schizophrenia [they could be schizophrenia blogs, though they don't have to be] I'm interested in getting the URLs so that I can read them and possibly link to them.

I feel like you absolutely don't care that I'm buying a pair of petite dark jeans or using a salad spinner to create crisp, fresh salad. I would love to branch out and make Joyful Music a truly memorable blog you come back to again and again for comfort like a cashmere sweater.

So because I'm one person with her own slant, I want to read, and I'm sure you'd like to read, people with other perspectives. One blog I can't link to because of my involvement with the Connection, otherwise I would link to her in a heartbeat.

If you write an independent blog, however, I'd love to consider you or someone else who keeps their own private blog to include in my list of links. Key word in that sentence: independent. I've just finished creating a Blog Roll for you to enjoy of links to other blogs. A new one is Ashley's who I link to because I want her to be included. She's a good soul, so surf on over and read her blog, Overcoming Schizophrenia.

Yes, I want to spice it up. Give you a multiplex of options to choose from. I will review the latest blogs and post the ones that could be of benefit or good humor.

______________________________


Dr. Altman doesn't mince words, or do the soft shoe. He told me: "People are moving back home to their parents, losing their jobs, their homes. People who have a rent stabilized apartment like you would stay there forever."

He urged, "You don't want to get depressed. Paint your living room a color to cheer yourself up, as long as you're going to be there even just six months or a year." And so I have it painted in February.

That was all we talked about. My last words were a zinger of a quote I've written in JM. We barely focused on the SZ.

It was so cold that my fingers are still stiff even now that I'm in my apartment.

Last night I decided how I wanted to apply my makeup after seeing Eva Longoria Parker in the November Allure. She is the most beautiful woman in that picture. So I copied the dark brown and beige eyeshadow she wore, with my pink lipstick, the Clinique Pink Chocolate. Eva wore a L'Oreal lipstick called Dune which was more of a beige yet I got a similar effect so worked it to go see Dr. Altman. It is a point of pride to show up to his office looking pulled-together.

Where I was the other day a young woman had that theater makeup on that I used to wear imitatinig Siouxsie Sioux, the iconic goth lead singer of the Banshees. It was this counter girl's look and I accepted her as she is and didn't consider it hurtful, because I pegged her as a Trendy who was pulled to express herself that way, much as I did in the 1980s. Though I wasn't a Trendy, I was displaced, cut off from my true self, a lot sicker and in the grip of SZ.

Today I can accept people as they are without expecting them to change to conform to my view of how they "should" act or look. At best I'm an arbiter of positive change and I'm not a judger; I respect others and feel everyone needs to be given the latitude to express themselves.

So, I see the dainty woman with the scary face, and remember the girl I was, hiding behind the Siouxsie mask because I was hurt, and it was the only way I knew to get attention. Having a breakdown pretty much signals to others that they can't act like nothing's wrong forever and had better take action right now.

I find it fascinating that women use their faces not only as a canvas but as a diary of their feelings; at least, I did this. Siouxsie subverted convention and her beauty was only magnified: those violet eyes! that alabaster skin! How dramatic and appealing to young women who felt less than beautiful compared to others, as I felt compared to the other girls who seemed to have life at their feet.

It truly is a D-Lightful day when I can write like this, show you a facet of a young woman who had SZ, early on in her life. It was 1995 when I stopped wearing theater makeup. Years before that, a woman I hoped was my friend, who I orbited around, told me, "How can you expect to get a professional job if you wear that garish makeup?" It was then I understood what I had to give up. The loss of this loss close to 20 years later is a victory.

Once a month I travel into the City to Dr. Altman, and he observes me, his hazel eyes a mirror. I told him what I wrote in here applies to my life as well as my recovery. I accept this with grace and am aware that each day I have to earn this good fortune. I seek to be impeccable with my words and actions, to give to you and others my best self.

It was like a test three nights ago when I was applying my makeup: I wanted to see how far I could go, and I couldn't go beyond the pale. Blue eyeshadow should absolutely be illegal, girls. Paula Begoun got that right. Don't go to the cosmetics counter if you have the urge to buy Proenza Schouler blue. I don't care if Dick Page created that color, it has no place on any woman's face.

It seems like Trendys own the world, or at least determine what you'll be wearing or doing next. I'm not keen to adopt every new fashion, like those peasant tops I abhorred when they flooded the racks in stores years ago, or the boring sweater coats Mom bought me because they were on sale for $9.99 at the end of the trend.

Acrylic: No. Cotton: Yes.

Mustard: No. Red: Yes.

Sneakers: No. Loafers: Yes.

And so on. And so on.

Such are the "rules" I have for fashion. I understand that to most women wearing jeans and sneakers is perfectly acceptable, and that's their right. It doesn't mean they don't care, it just means they don't see anything wrong with it. Whereas I feel better if I dress better. It's a personal thing. To each her own. So be it.

This is where I get the idea that the StatCounter is dropping fast.

You know I'm fascinated with fashion. It gives me great cheer to dress stylishly. "Less" is the way to go in makeup and jewelry It's like a hobby to invent new outfits from the clothes I already own. "Shopping in your closet" is indeed the prescription image consultants like Mary Lou Andre write for spicing up your look.

Hey, maybe in my fifties I'll make good on my goal of obtaining a diploma in image consulting. Maybe not. Either way, you can see it's a refrain I've come back to time and again in JM.

Wow. An hour spent writing in this blog has distracted me from the SZ. Now you see why I'm a big fan of "living your joy" or talking about your passion.

I'm going to sign off before I skirt too dangerously close to the edge of reason.

It's Rosa's birthday today.

Time to call her on the phone and sing "Happy Birthday."

Beautiful Disaster

Alas, the senior woman on the first floor who signs for my packages has made friends with the UPS guy and she'll be sorry I'm not having anything delivered again any time soon.

That's real life in the big City. I've seen the UPS guy; she tipped him the money I gave her when he carried the jewelry mirror up two flights of stairs to my door. It was an extravagant tip.

The pants that arrived are loose and don't fit properly; I return them on Friday to a Loft store in the City. Instead, when I get the credit, I buy the J.Jill petite dark jeans.

I titled this blog entry "beautiful disaster" as a hook, because those evocative words came to me as I was writing in the spiral-bound notebook last night. The economy is a disaster and my living situation is status quo, yet I felt it was time to accept that my life is moving along like a turtle.

How much slower can it go? I feel the urge to fill up my days with activity again to counter the doldrums. The Chills, a New Zealand band, had a song, "Doldrums," whose lyrics were, "The benefits arrive and life goes on." When will the benefits arrive and why do I have to wait?

The economy is in the toilet and I see no upswing any time soon. Painting the living room seems like it would be an acknowledgment of defeat. I've been in the same place 10 years, and to live here another three years is stretching my patience.

This feels entirely too much to reveal, and so I'll keep other sentiments to myself, as well. Except to say I realize that the situation is far worse for far too many people in America today. And that is a crying shame when Wall Street hasn't been accountable for its excesses and ordinary Americans are losing their shirts and their retirement savings. We entrusted others with our money, and they went out and bought $6,000 shower curtains, and our stocks plummeted.

Maddening. Whatever happens, I refuse to work retail. Shortly I'll sign a book deal, and that should give me some peace of mind to make the leap out of this apartment when the time is right.

The reality is [and I begin a lot of my writing in the notebook with this expression, the reality is] it could be a lot worse. I'm here today because of the courageous action my mother took. Tomorrow I see Dr. Altman and I'm honest about the subtle shift. Although it's hard for me to admit that things are better and could continue this way indefinitely.

You get only one life to live and then in the next lifetime you're someone else, so as hard as it gets while you're here, I suggest you find pockets of hope to contain your expectations. It really can turn around. You just have to believe, even when taking it on faith is the biggest leap.

I'm a skeptic who needs things signed, sealed and written in stone.

I've wandered away from crediting God in any of this. It doesn't sit well with me that he doles out our fortunes or suffering. "He gives us only what we can carry," a woman told me last night. I don't doubt that. You must remember that as an outsider looking in you have no proof that other people have it easier, it only looks like they have it easy. I aspire to carry my cross in private yet that could do a disservice to you, to others, to the ones I'm here to help. Jesus accepted his cross, and I accept mine. I'm not going to go creeping to that cross. I will bear it with dignity.

Will continue in this vein for a little bit and then segue into something light and bubbly, like champagne for the soul. For now, I hope I'm giving lyrics you enjoy listening to tonight as you surf through JM. Am I skipping in a groove? Is it too much? Do you wonder at the fairness of things? I go back and forth between wondering about this and not giving it any credence.

Sure, life isn't fair yet it doesn't matter to me that it isn't. That's just the way it is, and so I deal with it. You can't change what happened, you can't go back to the way life was before. What did I have? Nothing. It wasn't until I returned to school that my recovery took off.

As I've said before, the tide could turn at any moment. I'm telling you this yet really I'm convincing myself it's true as I type it out in here. One thing you can't do is write the ending of the story before the story's even begun. You have to give it time.

Open your heart to yourself and be kind to yourself. It isn't over by a longshot, so keep the faith. You don't have to believe in God to believe in yourself and that things can change. There, I've said it: if you believe in yourself, that's all that matters: if you believe you will have a good life because of the actions you take, if you feel it's in your control.

So chances are it's goiong to happen: I'll publish my memoir, you'll recover to the best of your ability, life will go on and you will find joy in living.

On that note, it's time to carry on.

______________________________


Flash: Mazzy Star's on the radio on Sophie with "Fade Into You," an old classic. I'm surprised the station revived the song yet it sounds good even today. I used to play Mazzy Star on the radio and I bought their albums on vinyl. Their lead singer Hope Sandoval has a haunting voice.

I also like Nelly Furtado.

Had wanted to continue the music and now I have no energy, the bubbles have fizzed in my brain and I feel like snoozing.

Must go to bed.

Goodnight.

Bird Alone, or A Votre Sante

The salad spinner works like a charm, so I'll fix a salad with the chicken for dinner. It's well worth the $20 I spent to have crisp, fresh salad.

I'm reminded that life is measured out in coffee spoons, to quote the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the classic T.S. Eliot poem you can Google and read on the Internet. Today before I saw Dr. L, I ducked into Starbucks for a Signature hot chocolate and a duet of mini black-and-white cookies. I had arrived early to the Island. She is a true professional.

It's a Tuesday I just want to be alone. I wrote tomorrow's Connection blog entry, so surf on over in the late morning and enjoy it. For now I reach out and type in here, telegraphing the day's mood.

Yesterday I was in tears in the therapist's room, sitting on the beige couch, as I voiced my regret that I can't have children. Oh, I could. I choose not to because of the risk my kids would develop SZ, a genetic trait that runs in my family.

My grandmother's cousin had a break after she gave birth to twins, and her husband took the babies and left her, claiming she would be an unfit mother. My Mom's cousin has full-blown paranoia and he lacks the awareness that he has an illness, so he believes his delusions are real.

Aunt Millie, my grandmother's sister, wouldn't take elevators and was afraid to ride the subway. She lived in the same first-floor studio in Flatbush for 50 years. Shortly before she died, my cousin drove her home from a holiday gathering and said, "When you go inside, turn on the lights so I know you're okay." Aunt Millie replied, "I can't turn on the lights. They'll know I'm home."

That is the legacy that was handed down to me.

So I take comfort in my niece and nephew, glancing at their photos often when I'm at the computer, their pictures right in front of me on my desk.

I've chosen not to tell them unless it becomes imperative that I do so because their life depends on it. I want them to see me, their aunt, and not a sick person. I love them more than life itself, I love them the best.

This is going to be a short blog entry as I don't feel outgoing tonight, able to compose something sparkly and punchy. Sometimes all of us have to go within, or go to the wall, or wherever we go to retreat in solitude with our feelings.

One thing I want to end with. The last words my therapist told me last night: "You have a gift."

We all have gifts, and that is what matters: to use them wisely, and for the benefit of the world.

It's been said, "The life that is unexamined is not worth living."

I have a different take on things: "The self that is not expressed is the root of most unhappiness."

Be jubiliant. Live glorious.

A votre sante.

Indeed.

Jingle Jangle Morning

The radiator jingles like a tambourine this morning.

OK, folks, I bought a salad spinner so I can make salads at home and bring them to work instead of buying $8 salads every day from the tossed place. This in an effort to slim down my spending.

Also, luckily, I simply can't buy any more clothes because I don't have room for anything new in my drawers. The armoire I've dubbed my "casual closet" because it contains the jeans, capris, tee shirts and hoodies, and yoga pants.

My love of organizing energizes and calms me at once. Would love to be a professional organizer when I retire, just one of the things I'm passionate about.

I've settled on Old Pickup Blue to paint the living room, hopefully I can do this in February or March.

Just three full months until I know whether I'm staying here another three years or moving out. All roads lead to staying here and painting the living room.

A friend came over yesterday and I cooked us tilapia with lemon herb sauce. It was a good dinner. We explored the shops and I confess I bought a great pair of athletic pants to wear when I run errands or go to the gym. They were cropped and I wouldn't have to hem them, so I felt I'd better snap them up, plus they were attractive.

So after this, no more purchases, I aim to conserve cash like I'm sure everyone wants to do in this economy. I hear we may get another tax rebate and if so, I use it to travel in June or pay the literary attorney when I sign the book contract.

Really can't consider moving out of this apartment in July, even though I want to. Staying here would allow me to save up more money towards the down payment on a co-op in three years.

You take it as it comes and roll with the punches, lie low until the opportunity is right to make a change. I told my friend life could change on a dime though right now, as of January 12, 2009, I can't see anything different happening to enable me to move out of here.

"You have a beautiful apartment," she reminded me.

And so I paint the living room Old Pickup Blue to enjoy the space while I'm here.

What does it matter? It matters to me.

I've begun working on my second book. I would also like to write a third book.

Yet now I want to walk away from it all, from the advocacy, from the endless focus on SZ, I want to be recognized and given credit for my other talents, like decorating an apartment, like organizing, like doing board work, having a job. Because I want to talk about my passions, about real life, not about the hell, not about the pain.

At my New Year's Eve party, I lifted my champagne glass to toast K, telling her that her forties would be the best years of her life. The tide could turn at any moment for all of us. Wasn't there a book titled, "How Much Joy Can You Stand?" What would happen if we had ongoing, unadulterated joy?

It would make the hell that much more bearable.

This is my ultimate goal: to give you joy, as much happiness as I can infect others with, too much joy to counteract the sorrow. Because who am I kidding, I'm well-known in the mental health field and I'm not going to walk away, tempting as it is.

Do you see what I'm getting at? The idea that there's more to life than the diagnosis. It's true "the only way out is through" yet I'd rather talk about music and fashion and the things and people I love.

A woman told me I have a refreshing point of view. It is a world view filtered through the lens of my recovery because my ethic is also that between me and the SZ, I'm going to be the last one standing. So because I'm willing to cheerfully duke it out that's how I've come about this tendency to look on the bright side.

Would you like me to tell you exactly what happened on that night in 1987? You'll have to read my memoir, Left of the Dial, for details.

Yesterday my friend and I sat at the dining table, with the good dinnerware and the stemless wine glasses, and the intricate flatware, eating the tilapia and talking. And I told her, "How many people cross over and come back? Don't you feel grateful that you came back?" And she understood I couldn't minimize what we'd gone through, what any of us go through, what you went through or anyone struggled with.

Yet because I'm here, still standing, it is a victory to live just for today where I am, relatively free of the worry, an ordinary person going about her life.

You get only one life in which to please your soul, only this one, so make it a good one before the next life comes around and you're somebody else with other blues.

Katherine Hepburn is quoted, "You cannot change the music of your soul." My soul's music is a song of better days, always hopeful. Though right now things are in a holding pattern, I'm determined to maintain a positive spirit because keeping the faith lightens one's load and being pessimistic is a negative, burdensome energy.

You can choose to see the glass as half full even when you're not convinced it is, and that will determine how feel about your situation, and it will give you hope when there's no evidence that things will turn out for the best.

Do you see what I'm getting at? I don't doubt it's hard, each of us takes The Hardest Walk every day when she wakes up in the morning and goes outside to greet the new day. The Hardest Walk yields the greatest benefits. You place one foot in front of the other, you walk down the road in your blue shoes, and every day you get halfway there, and the getting there is the reward, because when the end of the road comes, that's the end. Am I saying that life is a road we walk that has no destination?

Yes, recovery is a process, not an endpoint, as it's often said, and recovery is the journey down life's road to self-acceptance and happiness and peace. You recover when you're true to yourself, that is, you discover yourself through recovery and you recover by discovering yourself.

I would rather read about the person, what she likes and dislikes, his goals and dreams, if red is her favorite color, if his violet eyes turn gray when he wears a certain color shirt, and so on. Now you get the picture.

For the record:

Green is my favorite color.

I drank three beers and danced on the kitchen table at my friend's house when I was in my twenties.

A third pile of books is stacking up on the floor in my living room in front of the bookcase. I love books, books, books.

Cheers.

Traveling Shoes

The blues are a pair of shoes you travel in, down roads in your life.

Sometimes you go down one road only to find out you've taken a detour.

Yet in life it is often the detours that are worth the trip. Only in retrospect do you realize they were necessary.

The rhythm of the blues is the beat of a drum now.

All kinds of blue weather: the economy, my living situation, other things.

On May 1st, I'll know if I'm moving out of this apartment or I'll remain here.

The closet project is underway. The under bed box arrived. I placed the box with the hangers on the highest shelf of the bedroom closet, which I want to paint a sky blue inside.

The next step is to buy the light-color pants to wear instead of jeans.

You see, this apartment isn't a hovel by any standards except my own. It's a lovely apartment and it would be nice if the landlord would make the needed repairs, so I risk her response when I ask her to fix things at the end of January. Right now I'm on vacation and don't want to talk to her about this, which is fine. The last resort is to contact the housing agency to see if they can strong-arm the landlord if she refuses. It's to her benefit to get the repairs taken care of, even if she doesn't see it that way because she tells me, "I cut you a break on the rent."

So it's all what it is, I wouldn't have been able to live here in the lean years unless she habitually went lower on the rent increase, as she has done. Now it's different, because if push comes to shove, I could move out, and she'd have to make the repairs before the next tenant comes in, so she's screwed either way.

The reality is, there's no bug problem, I have heat, the walls have cracks but no gaping holes, no rats, roaches or mice, and so the housing department will probably tell me to thank my stars I have an apartment under $900 in this economy. They'll laugh at me and send me on my way.

Would love to travel in June, far from this place, take a vacation, slip on my traveling shoes and beat the habitat blues.

The apartment could be so much nicer, really, if the landlord did things like replace the faucets in the kitchen and bath, re-glaze the tub, plaster the walls so they're smooth when I paint. That's the truth.

When my friend comes over on Sunday, I show her the closet and ask her if she thinks someone could paint it, would $100 cover that and then I'd buy the primer and the paint? I'll see, I'll ask around, I could possibly use the painter who painted a co-worker's apartment. To paint the closet is no big deal, one can of paint should do the trick, and I could have it done in early February. Why not?

The clothes themselves are another matter. As I wear out items, I'll replace them with Loft and Ann Taylor, and J.Jill for casual wear, like jeans. I'm tempted to buy a pair of dark jeans from J. Jill next week, so I'll wait and see how things go by the time I'm paid on Friday. I've spent $60 on vitamins and supplements, and $45 on drug co-pays, and these costs are out of my control.

At this point you'll tell me to look on the bright side, and so I will, of course.

Over 500,000 people lost their jobs in December. The unemployment rate is 7 percent. I heard Barack Obama speak on TV today, and he's the right person for the job. When he speaks, you can listen to him for more than five minutes because he's intelligent and articulate. I'm certain he won't let us down. He'll chart a course from which the next president has to steer.

We can't go back to business as usual.

Even I can't go back to the way things were in my life. My faith is my compass as I journey through these dark woods.

The landlord would be able to rent this apartment in a heartbeat to someone who doesn't care about the tub or the ceiling, as long as the rent is OK.

Well, I can't complain: I have a large kitchen with six cabinet doors behind which are three cabinets with three shelves, so I can store the dinnerware [two sets] and the glassware [martini glasses, fiesta glasses, champagne flutes, stemless wine glasses]. I also have space for the bowls and the Tupperware containers of rice and couscous.

So, you see, I have that along with a dining room as well as a living room, so that's not shabby, right? Exactly. How many people have all the housewares items I have? As a Taurus, I like to collect beautiful things for the home.

There, you know something new about me: I'm a Taurus, and I like to entertain.

So much to tell you. It's a distraction from everything else. That is a good thing, because on Thursday I see Dr. Altman. It's been too months on the higher dose. So far, so good.

Things can be changed if at first you decide to change them. It's been revealed to me what's not working. Life holds no guarantees. The tide could turn at any minute, in any area of our lives. It has gone out for me now. These are austere times, as they are for everyone.

I accept what I can't change, and change the things I can, and I'm wise enough to know the difference, as the saying goes.

Life goes on. Always, you do the best you can with what you're given. You have all the traits you need to succeed, right inside you.

Has this blog entry gone on and on? Would rather talk about my passions than about the emotional weather. I live for the day when I own my own co-op and can paint the walls and decorate and host dinner parties.

For now, I change my perceptions of this apartment because it really is OK to live here, all my friends love it. "And how many people in the City have a dining room?" Ana reminded me. And a kitchen with tons of cabinets.

You are amused by all this, perhaps.

You shake your head and wonder why it matters to me when I have a roof over my head and a job that won't go away.

Go on, laugh.

Love. Live. Laugh

That's all you can do. That's all anyone can do.

As we weather this financial storm, I hope you are OK, really, I hope you are OK.

All I can do is give you some joy. Open the front door to my life and welcome you to a bright spot in your day.

So I hope Joyful Music is truly a joy to read.

Cheers,
Chris

Let Go, Let Life

This is all I have to give you: my story, my books. I have nothing else. That would be a lie. So I talk about recovery as if it's something possible for you, because of my experiences living well with the SZ.

A frightening word, a scary diagnosis. And in the end what matters is how you approach life, with the courage to fight stigma by being true to yourself.

We are not our symptoms. The reality is, if someone gets help immediately, it's possible the symptoms will go away and not return.

So how can I preach to those people outside the choir? Ordinary folk watching clothes go round in a laundry center. Lonely people waiting at a bus stop or on a train platform. Your three-hour airplane buddy.

R. feels, as I do, that it's our duty as recovered individuals to educate others. I have only this to give: a message of hope, a positive tale of what happens when psychiatry gets it right.

To act like I can barely roll out of bed, to deny that luck played a part, to discount these things, would be disingenuous.

Yet this year, in 2009, I want the focus to be on other people, meeting people of all stripes, to be active out in the world. Also, I risk painting the living room so that when I do come home, my soul is rejuvenated, my outlook brightened.

It's hard for me to take it on faith, all of this, especially the downturn, yet it's not rational, just something felt as true. You take it on faith when you don't believe. Faith is almost irrational. You're going out on a limb when there's no objective evidence that things will get better.

It's a hunch, an intuition.

Yet it's the best way I know to deal with the uncertainty, to let go of the need to be in control at all times. Faith. I like the sound of that even though I'm the kind of person who wants things signed and sealed and written in stone, I'm a doubting Thomas, a real skeptic.

This blog entry touches on my year of faith, because I'm going to "Let go, [and not necessarily Let God]" and embrace the possibilities, and Let Life guide me.

Let Go, Let Life.

_____________________________


Hallelujah, I'm cured. A quick trip to the podiatrist and I can walk again, whereas for two weeks I was limping. He did his thing, and now I can walk.

In what instance does waiting a long time to take action ever result in a favorable outcome when it comes to your health? Hmm? Hmm?

Now I can return to the gym and pound the treadmills, because it no longer hurts to bear down on my right foot. I will go on Saturday after work.

Imagine, a lot of people wait forever before seeking help or treatment. A lot of people also take their meds or vitamins or supplements whenever they remember, or whenever they feel like it. It's hard for some professionals to believe I take my meds every day, as prescribed, and haven't missed a single dose in 17 years. The reality is, most people engage in partial compliance or else stop taking their meds entirely.

_____________________________


The book title "Let Go and Let Life" exists, so I'd like to read it sometime.

I dreamed up the expression, "Let go, Let Life" and it's not original, boo-hoo. Oh, well.

I can't wrap my head around Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. It's presumptuous of him to assume most people are ego-centered and need to be told how to live, and that we have to go outside ourselves to seek fulfillment.

My take is that more people would benefit from being kind to themselves as well as others, and forgiving of themselves.

Tolle says what other people have already been saying, but he's rambling and unfocused and all over the place. It's been said before in a clearer, more direct way. I don't get what the fuss is about Tolle. I have my ideas, and I'll keep them to myself.

Lastly, who is he to tell us how to live our lives? To give up the self is one thing, to be self-centered is another, and it sounds like a judgment to tell us we're all universally self-centered and need to let go of our bodies, our connection to the earth.

So what is A New Earth about? Darned if I know. I couldn't get past the first paragraph, and skimming other parts of the book left me wondering, "And his point is? And when will he get to the point?"

Oprah's star-making talent could turn a pet rock into a warm-and-fuzzy love guru. I take with a healthy dose of skepticism anything she professes.

In the O magazine, a freelance writer proclaimed, "The atypicals appear to be weight-neutral," and I hit the floor, I wrote a letter to the editor stating that all atypicals cause weight gain except Abilify and Geodon, and that Zyprexa caused people to gain 80, 90, 100 pounds or more and thus caused diabetes. A retraction of the writer's comment was published a month later, stating that only Abilify and Geodon are weight-neutral.

As you can see, sloppy copy editing abounds at some magazines.

So it eludes me as to why Tolle is being touted as a spiritual leader or guide.

That's all I'll say on the topic.

______________________________________


We had a holiday lunch at work, and I ate so much that I'm still full at seven o'clock in the evening even though we finished eating lunch at noon. I simply can't eat anything else, and will wait until nine o'clock when I'll pour a bowl of cereal and take the Geodon.

One sweet woman saw me eating the chocolates and she said, "You're skinny, you can eat chocolates," so I left it at that though I don't consider myself to be thin, not at all. To me, Kate Moss is thin. Everyone else tells me, "You're skinny," and I don't know why.

I'm going to the gym tomorrow to pound the treadmill, so I'll burn off the calories.

I can't eat one more bite tonight, so I wait until later.

______________________________________


Already, there's been an improvement: I dressed well at work this week except for Monday when I wore the faded Loft jeans [though with a black turtleneck and black jacket]. Today I wore a skirt I bought three years ago and hadn't worn until now, with black tights and a black wool sweater; the skirt is a nubby weave.

I want to be taken seriously, and I feel better when I dress better.

That's how it is, plain and simple.

You get treated better when you're dressed sharp. It's also a sign of respect for the person you're talking with or interacting with if you're well-groomed. Sometimes, a person doesn't have control over how they look, and people are supposed to accept them anyway, yet the truth is, shabby clothing conveys the wrong impression. It also gives the idea that you're shabby towards yourself.

Ah, I've skirted this in here.

Please forgive me if this sounds a certain way.

I admit I'm envious of those "living museum" women I see on the streets of Manhattan. I secretly wish I could be dressed like that all the time. Yet the truth is, I have a Trendy accent style and traditional clothes bore me, and I don't have the kind of lifestyle that requires I go outside looking like an executive 24/7.

I can dream, can't I?

Oh, well.

Philosophy, diet, fashion: I've covered across the divide today in Joyful Music.

So I'll leave you now and turn on Sophie radio, and give equal time to my spiral-bound notebook.

Cheers.