Same Stupid Brain Causing new Danger.

This has been a progressively shitty few weeks. My brain has just swirled its way into the toilet bowl of shit thoughts, painful brain grenades, and a constant and repetitive thought that ending my life would just be easier.  

It culminated in being written up today at work.  For a valid reason.  I was angry and yelled “Get the fuck away from me” to a manager who was acting like an ass, leaning into my desk, 2 feet from my face, to tell me I was right to point out that he wasn’t social distancing.  It’s was a mocking dickweed move and I reacted badly.  

I spent today crying at my desk. And consequently feeling ashamed of that.   I’m feeling quite a bit better at home, but I’m still on the verge of tears.  

I’m going to lose this job.  A job I desperately need.  A job that when I took it 7 years ago, I was grateful to get - very aware I was scraping the bottom of my particular barrel of job options.  It was the one and only job,.  it wasn’t a great job. It was at minimum wage. My previous job I was director of call center, making 70K a year.   But I was deeply grateful to have it, being homeless at the time, and was determined to make them not regret the choice.

I’m not a great employee, as the above incident indicates.  My anger issues boil over way too often.  This is symptom of my lack of mental health.  Quite often, my depression/anxiety causes me to implode and I end up calling into work.  Which makes my absenteeism problematic.  But when I overcome the stillness caused by depression and force myself to go into work anyway - I end up doing this shit.

I try hard to provide value outside the normal parameters.  And I think I do provide it sometimes.  It’s a small company, so learning skills that can benefit them and using them in their interest does at least mitigate my complete lack of traditional “good employee” criteria.  

But eventually they will and and indeed have already gotten tired of my angry outbursts.  Because I’m not offering that much to them.  It just feels like I offer anything of value because they mostly don’t hire people with skills.   But even my skills are offering the most marginal of benefit.  

I need to figure it out.  I’ve been trying to figure out this anger thing for 7 years and really haven’t found a solution that works.  

I wish I knew a path out of this brain. The obvious solution will leave my obligations to my cats in terrible void.  I would again like to thank these amazing cats for just existing as my responsibility.  Because I cannot even think without pain on what could potentially happen to them if I just jumped off one of many convenient bridges in the area. It’s honestly the only thing that makes me stop long enough to be rational about suicide.  

I worry about that though.  Many people with spouses and children and parents lose all sense of loving obligation  and are swirled into the suicide thinking. I see how much it offers a simple and less painful path.  But I’m still very easily derailed from it’s path by my cats.  It’s a terrifying contemplation:.  My thoughts are fairly easily arrested.  Presumably at some point their’s were too...  I cannot be complacent with thinking I will always be able to redirect my thinking.  

Have I ever told you about Matt Brown?

Matt Brown died the other day from ALS.  I was gut punched by the news, although I hadn’t seen or talked to him in 20+ years.  When I think of Matt the word that leaps to mind is Laughing.  Not snickers or giggles or chuckles – screaming laughter.  When Matt was around the world’s absurdity was clear because he showed it to you.  And when Matt laughed, everyone laughed.

Matt was my first openly gay friend.  Mind you he never came out to me. I’m not sure he came out to anyone.  He was flamboyant but it was more than that.  He just lived his life openly and honestly and never curbed himself for anyone.  He talked about his romantic interests like anyone would, he wore the occasional dress on campus (no make up or glamour just the the dress and sneakers), was a very active participant in the campus LGBT groups.  And he did that on a very conservative college campus in the 80s during the un-treatable AIDS epidemic.

How unfair it is that he survived the AIDS epidemic unscathed and was killed by ALS.  It feels like he should have won the medal of survival to 100 for making it out of that nightmare alive.

When Matt graduated he fell in love with Dick, a man nearly twice his age.  They moved in together, had a commitment ceremony, signed all the various contracts that were needed to provide the sort of legal rights that just come part and parcel with marriage.  I was lucky enough to be part of their circle of friendship.  They took me with them on vacation to Maine, rented me one of their apartments, took me to ridiculously priced restaurants and had me over for Lasagna and TV.

When we were in Maine, Matt and I made a daily tortuous and joyful ritual out of going into the Ocean.  It was barely into June and the Atlantic Ocean was ice cold.  It hurt to go into the water.  We would hold hands and scream as each step exposed another part of us to icy water until we finally gathered up the courage to just dunk our entire bodies under the water.  That is the only water I’ve been in, where my body never acclimated itself to the temperature.  It continued to bite the entire time.  So we would try to see who could stand it the longest, generally agreeing to leave together.  We weren’t good at competition.  Dick would watch us from the deck and I’m sure thought we were just insane children.  And I guess we were.

When Matt and Dick broke up, I was heartbroken for both of them.  Looking back from my current age, I can see that a generation gap is a very hard thing to overcome.  They did it with grace and remained friends.  Matt told me he still loved Dick and didn’t think he would ever find anyone else to be that committed to.  I hope he did.  But I don’t know.  His obituary did not mention a husband or partner.  But it did list a whole host of friends who helped him during his illness.  Matt never lacked friends.

He went back to school after the breakup and got his PhD.  He moved to Colorado and taught college.  The last time I saw him he came back to visit and tried to talk me out of getting the gastric bypass I had scheduled.  He had done his research – in a time before the internet was omnipresent – by going to the library.  He explained all the risks and most likely outcomes.  He was worried about me.  But I was determined. Being 400 lbs is miserable in all the ways.   He was right by the way.  On every bit of it.  Not that I regret my choice but it was a far more informed one because he talked to me.  That was who he was.  He challenged my decision with facts that it took effort to find and took on an emotionally risky conversation to do it.  He wasn’t in our friendship just for the laughter.  He was there for the hard things too.

Matt lived a life of integrity.  If he believed something, he acted on it.  In a society where most of us are content to just feel right, Matt lived it.  He used to be a Planned Parenthood escort.  Because he believed women had the right to healthcare and choice.  So he volunteered once a week to escort women from their car to the door in order to ward off the assholes who hung around to hurl insults and worse at the women who came to the clinic.  He did this despite the fact that he had NO DOG IN THAT FIGHT.  Because he knew it was right.

I wonder why I feel so lonely now that he has died.  I hadn’t spoken to him in 20 years.  I think the knowledge that I could pick up the phone and reach him has been stolen and in it’s place is just the void.  Time and space separated us, but Death made the chasm unbreachable.

Oh My Fucking God.

I just spent an hour writing my memories of a dear friend that died and the goddamn cat just walked over the laptop and deleted it.  

You know what.  He can just go back outside and freeze and starve.  

Why do I have cats????!!!  

Grouchy Inappropriateness

I’m a very grouchy person.  it’s like I’m trying to drive away the people around me.  

On Friday, I was ridiculous to the  young man who is one of the heir apparents of the business.  He is just out of college, very fresh and eager and just a good kid. I like him.  I think he has a lot of potential as a human.

But Friday he said he doesn’t vote.  It makes no difference, he said.  And I just flipped out.  The statement just tapped into all the barely contained anxiety I have about the country and the world generally.  The feeling that the apathy of the young is the reason the Orange Mold is in the white house.  So I just got in his face and would not let it go.  It was very inappropriate and foolish.  

It’s none of my business how he lives his life and what his personal beliefs about voting are.

I was an idiot.  I have to apologize on Monday.  I want to do b email because writing is how I communicate best, but I didn’t act inappropriately by email, so I have apologize in person.  sigh.

Timmy is Home!!!!

Timmy’s Big Adventure is over.  And I’m so grateful.  He’s thinner and dirty and has managed to grow a thick coat in just under 3 weeks, but he’s safe.

He’s walking around the apartment crying like he’s still lost though.  And Bijou is WAY over him.  She was very worried in the first few days.  Looking out the window constantly.  But I think she quite liked being the center of my attention.

Anyway about midnight last night, my downstairs neighbor called me to say Timmy was eating the food I left out.  I ran down stairs and was told he’d run into the back.  I went there and called and he immediately answered with pitiful cries.  He was under a box truck and just cried and cried like an abandoned baby but wouldn’t come out.

I finally had to sit on the ground next to the truck until he came out and let me grab him.  Well.  I wasn’t going to let him go, but I was sitting on the ground.  An unfit, fat middle aged woman needs all her limbs to get up from the floor but I had my arms full of Timmy.  I’m still not sure how we accomplished it.  Hopefully there aren’t any cameras in the area filming that moment.

Once inside, Bijou began to spit and growl and he just could not have cared less.  He was home and he knew it.  He ate like a little pig and drank a whole lot of water.

I will make an appointment with the vet on Monday.  He’s probably got worms.  Possibly fleas, but I’ve combed him for them and didn’t find any active ones.  But that is easy to manage and I already have the drops.  His asthma is bothering him.  He’s walking around with his mouth just a bit open.

He doesn’t look as thin as I would have expected but when you pet him, he’s just bones now.  Poor thing.  He’s home.  If I ever let him out on the balcony again it will be with a GPS collar.  But i think we will just never go out on the balcony again.  Period.

The Not Tim Rollercoaster

I have gotten responses to my various efforts to find Timmy.  Thursday a woman called and said she had several times seen a cat that looked like Timmy around her houses and her neighbor’s houses.  It was one street over and about 1/2 a long block down, but I ran over immediately. 

A lot of people were out and about that I could talk to and give flyers to. All were kind and supportive.  One said she thought she saw a similar cat on her porch the night before but it ran when she turned on the light. So I plastered as many flyers around as I could.  I paid the  money to the PawsBoost people to get a 2 day Facebook blast and I walked the neighborhood calling and leaving more flyers.. 

And then while walking someone called and said that a cat had slept on their deck the last two nights and had run when they left for work at 630am.  I was so excited.  I got up at 5am went to the house and deck and there was a cat.  I was convinced at first that it was Timmy.  But it wasn’t.  It was black and white.  Timmy is a dark grey and white. Exceptionally similar markings but the face was very different. 

I was more or less devastated.  I did another walk up and down the neighborhood calling with no luck. 

Then my neighbor knocked.  “I’ve seen your cat.  10 houses down”.  As I’m hurrying to the location another neighbor says :I saw the cat - just down there.” And I arrive and it’s not Timmy.  It’s another black and white cat. 

I walk back to the apartment and do yet another ugly cry. And then yet another walk around calling. 

Then this afternoon I got a call from a woman who lives 2 houses down from the lady with the deck cat - I” have your cat!”  I was euphoric for a full second and then I asked - Is it grey and white or black and white.  It was black and white. I hope she adopts that cat.  It’s a really nice cat. 

Tonight as I was doing my rounds of calling Timmy, the cat that lives in our yard followed me the entire time.  She’s adopted me because i gave her the can of cat food I had opened to entice Timmy with it’s smell.  It felt like a kind thing to do at the time.  But now it feels like I’ve inadvertently adopted this feral cat.  She never lets me get close but she is always around.  Now I’m finding myself worried about her.  I think I may have to make sure she is fixed and has some vaccines.  Damn.  That. Timmy. 

This morning at 4am I was prowling in people’s backyards looking for him.  I’m surprised no one called the police. A woman arrived home while I was looking and told me the cat was a couple of yards behind me.  It was the feral cat following me.  Sigh.

The across the hall neighbor knocked today and said Timmy was in the back yard.  Feral Cat.  I call her FC now. 

Got a call from oen street over.  Cat is in the drive way.  Went over.  Black and White cat again.  

Where is he???  Why doesn’t he save me from the horror show that is my life since he left.  If there was a God this would not be happening.  No one benefits from this horror.  People at work tell me he is having a grand old time.  But I know him, they don’t.  Everyone one of the Near Timmy moments have had a serious “non-Timmy” element.  Lost of people say - he was just casually walking or sitting in the open.  What?  That’s not Timmy.  He has to be beyond comfortable to be casual.  He can be jump with anxiety because I turn around, mid walk to the kitchen, to get the water mug I forgot. it’s not what he expected.  He’s very anxious.  When he’s comfy he’s a hyper pest.  When he’s not - he’s anxious.  

He’s never casual.  Not his MO.But I have to check every sighting.  It’s just so worrisome that no one seems to see Timmy.  

Cats In Therapy

My little Tim Cat is lost

He jumped off the balcony yesterday morning.  And he won’t come when I call.  I hope and honestly believe he is still within 2 houses of this building.  I don’t think he will head toward the busy road.  He’s an anxious cat and doesn’t like loud noises.  

I’m sure he’s terrified out there and has been in deep regret, but no matter how much I either call or sit quietly he is not showing up.  

I’ve been up all night - going out every couple of hours to walk around and call. 

I can’t stop crying.  It’s awful. 

Even Her Calico Highness is worried and looking for him. 

I’ve posted flyers and put them on the doors of the homes for half a block.  I posted it on Reddit and my friend put it on Facebook.  I also put him on Pawboost.  I don’t know if any of it matters.  

He has no skills to be outside.  And worse this yard and the one behind belong to a feral cat and I don’t think she’s going to be nice to him.  And might scare him farther away.  

I just want him to come to me when I call.  I’m an idiot for not teaching that.  

Why don’t we yet live in an age where the microchip comes with GPS?  It could use body heat for power.  If only I could track him.  If I knew where he is in all the damn brush and debris around here I could catch him.  

He’s such a dumb little bastard.  I’m sure he jumped because the damn squirrel who lives on the building was taunting him.  Fucking squirrel.  

Day of Yuck

So today I got to work early because it was a morning where I walk with my friend.  When I got there there were 3 police cars, lights on, but not feeling very emergency / danger  / threatening.  The officers were out the of the cars, apparently explaining something to a few people, none of whom I knew. No one seemed like they were criminal or suspected to be one.

But they all were definitely blocking my access, so I went to get lunch. 

It turns out that someone hit a dog but didn’t kill it.  It ran into our garage and into van, then under a bus.  It’s guts were hanging out and it was in so much pain that it was pulling them out more.  It was horrific.  

The police were finally able to pull it in a position where they could shoot it out of it’s deep misery.  This was obviously a kindness but very unfortunately the owner arrived just at that moment.  So.  Horrible.  

I spent most of the day worrying that this poor dog was the glorious mischief maker Titan, who is a Pitt Bull who escapes periodically from up the street and ends up being pulled into our office to be protected until his owner can come and get him. 

Titan is pure happiness.  Just so excited to be in mischief and meeting new friends and just running with joy around the office. 

It was always wonderful when we had to catch him and bring him in.  Because he did bring so much happy.  But the fact that he was running free on a busy US route was the reason we did it.  And of course that is how this dog died.  

People kept saying it was a bull dog, but none of them saw it.  It’s awful that this dog died so horribly.  But the idea that the bundle of joy that is/was Titan died so horrifically makes me hurt so much.  Maybe it wasn’t him?

It seems easy to blame the owner for not taking better care.  But I saw Titan in action.  He was so willing to please if you were paying attention, but his interest in pleasing you ended when you weren’t.  He had adventures and curiosities to explore.  I had to recapture him 2x when he went into our garage when his many office minders were busy.  

Titan deserved to live a long life providing joy to everyone he met..  If he died as a result of his mischief it feels like the universe has taken a bad turn indeed. 

Heeeey!  Wassup?

I’ve been away.  Nothing in my life is all that different.  

Under improvements: 

I’m continuing to take walks 3x a weeks with a friend.  Don’t get the wrong idea.  We walk about 2/3 of a mile and we aren’t speed walking.  It’s a stroll.  But I’m moving.  And my doctor said move.  

I’m texting on the regular with C, one of my bestest friends that I shut out when my life imploded!  I am sooo happy about about that.  I need to make an effort to reconnect with B and things will be nearly back to par.  :-)

Under Unimpovements: 

I’m probably drinking too often.  It started when I couldn’t sleep, so I would have a drink to relax.  And now it’s several times a week.  I’m not sure where my fear of alcoholism went?  I used to have very strict standards for myself because I was so afraid of becoming an alcoholic.  Now I’m drinking a nightcap, alone, several times a week.  I know - it’s not a tragic amount of alcohol.  But it is a major change and that’s worrisome.  But the worrisome part is not making me stop it.  Also worrisome.  Plus, I;m pretty sure the alcohol leads to brain grenades the day after.  

Under still the same old thing: 

The depression continues to whip my ass on the regular.  It’s been a particularly hard year for it.  I think my job change fed it too much.  Feeling like I am not good at a job, which is how any new job feels, makes me far more vulnerable to stillness and brain grenades.  Now that I get the job, I’m still not feeling like accounting is my wheelhouse. I’m not good at it.  I’m adequate at best.   I do customer service well.  It’s my thing.  I’m still getting used to this weird numbers thing.  I can’t believe I work in accounting. Only my college friends can truly understand the irony of it.  I nearly flunked accounting in college.  Changed majors because I sucked so badly at it.  

So.  What did I miss while I was away?  Anything thing new in the dump? 

MRI - The Results

I finally had the MRI after a series of delays that crossed the line to ridiculous.  And I don't have the brain tumor we were doing the MRI to rule out.  

It's mini-stroke most likely.  Lets discuss the way radiologists write up results.  I mean it's so non specific as to be nearly pointless.

Each area that is non-normal has a waffling point.  It's a "small vessel ischemic changes vs non specific white matter disease."   ie - small stroke or I don't know.

Or "a prior chronic ischemic event versus prior trauma."  This one is at least helpful.  I have never had a head injury.  So.  Stroke.

Don't google white matter disease.  It will start you down a rabbit hole of terror and confusion and too many options.  But suffice to say that my depression could show under non specific white matter disease.

I'm relieved that it's not a tumor.  

I'm going to start walking with my fiend Ruth.  That will help I think.  

And I'm supposed to take a baby aspirin every day.  

I had a stroke, probably, but I don’t have syphilis, so I got that going for me.

I thought I would update you on my weird health stuff. 

I have Iritis.  I was diagnosed with it in 2016.  It made my eye hurt and when the doctor gave me steroid drops it got better.  And so I ignored it.

It came back in February and so I went back and he scolded me for not doing the follow up tests he wanted.  He gave me drops and I went back last Monday.. During one of the tests he suddenly decided I should a field of vision test.  It tests how well you see in peripheral parts of you vision.  I don't see at all in upper right quadrant of both eyes.  This is a sign of a previous stroke.  No idea when.  

That was disturbing to hear.  It feels like if you have a stroke, you would know about it.  But I guess not if you have small ones.  And the vision thing isn't an issue in my life.  I don't notice it and it won't make me flunk the DMV eye test. So he sent the info to my primary care doc and she wanted me to get an MRI.  And I was like - if this is just to confirm that I had a stroke and there is no actionable data, I would rather not spend the money.  She said.  Well.  It's only most likely a stroke.  The most common cause (about 70%) is stroke followed by trauma (13%) and tumor (11%), then prior brain surgery (2%), and rarely demyelinating lesions.   Nice.  So I'm getting the MRI on Wednesday to see if I have a brain tumor.

I'm sure it's all fine.  I mean it's not great if I had a stroke, but as outcomes go - losing vision in a way that doesn't impact my life isn't bad.  The worst part of it is the anxiety about the possible tumor.  But, I am better about the anxiety now that there is appointment for the MRI.  If it's a tumor I will probably fall into a puddle of uselessness.  But odds are against it.  

I wanted to blame the stroke on a night of tequila shots that ended with me vomiting violently about 12-15 years ago, but my doc is doubtful that one night of heavy drinking would cause a stroke.  I guess chronic drinking is more likely to cause stroke than individual incidents.  Which is kind of too bad, because binge drinking is an easy thing to avoid. 

Under good news - I had a battery of blood tests for the cause of the iritis, and I don't have Syphilis.  So.  Nice to know, I guess.    Also an odd experience.  Pulling up my tests on MyChart and seeing Syphilis Test.  Didn't know it was being tested for. 

In summary, I need to take better care of myself.

Drug Recall. Again.

I do NOT have time to deal with this too. 

I’ve been taking prescriptions for 20 years and until the last 6 months have never had a drug recalled on me.  Now it’s happened 2x in the last 6 months.  Is ANYONE paying attention to these fuckers?  

Anyone?  At all? 

I think the FDA is damn near useless.  

I mean the country is drowning under a narcotic addiction that the fucking pharmaceutical companies DELIBERATELY created.  Wasn’t the FDA’s job to prevent that kind of shit??? 

I’m teetering on an edge.

I’m very stressed and very excited about a new system we are installing.

I’m stressed because it has no project management and it feels like it’s headed toward airplane propellers.

I’m excited because the software will SOLVE so many of our problems. 

But right now, 3 days before it goes live, I’m primarily STRESSED by the fact that it’s all happening and we aren’t prepared. That many of the things I am trying to do to try to get this thing on a good course, I REALLY DO NOT HAVE TIME TO DO.  

I feel like I’m failing constantly.  That I’m going to let down my bosses. That everything is going to go belly up and it will be at least in part, my fault. 

This makes me want to climb in bed and stay there.  Obviously that is NOT a rational response.  

Also, I’m not the sole person responsible for this. 

Also, I am human.  I live in normal time.  I cannot do every goddamn thing. I just feel like I should. 

Well.  I need to let it go.  My boss let it go months ago.  He’s totally chill about the impending chaos.  

I will never believe in Ghosts because I have cats.

Come home to objects in weird places? Chaos caused by Cats Being Cats. 

Hear a noise in the other room?  Cats are into mischief.

Hear a noise in the other room while cats are sitting next to you?  Cats moved something close to the edge of a table and now a draft or vibration caused by passing car has caused it to fall. 

Cats staring at walls for minutes on end?  Cats are variously inscrutable and assholes. I’ve been dealing with that shit for 54 years. NOT falling for it. 

I think any ghost attempting to catch my attention would give up in frustration.