swim, swim

This year has been a whirlwind of activity. Most good, some bad. I feel like I've been under water; water that is sometimes calm and peaceful, and other times turbulent and crushing. My new year will begin with a forceful current--pulling me into my first college course ever. Better late than never, right? So I am coming up for a full, deep breath of air, and off I will go for two-and-a-half weeks of what will be either an intriguing and thought provoking experience, or sheer torture. Maybe both.

Buying a house this year has us reeling. I am mostly filled with joy. There is something to be said for feeling rooted. I couldn't have imagined the relief that I live somewhere that has the potential to be so permanent. And then there is the weight that it is almost permanent, and anything that could go wrong is our responsibility to avoid, and if it does go wrong, we are in complete charge.  That said, it still feels good that our room is, in fact, our room. I'll concede that at the closing table I realized that we are really borrowing the house from the bank for 30 years. At which point I will be (with any luck), 68. Aye.

But home is where we will celebrate Christmas, with both of our families, and I couldn't be happier. Filling our house with the people who love us most, and making new memories here is exactly what the doctor ordered. Well, that and 15 mg of Paxil a day. But I feel good. Almost normal, but not in the boring, over-medicated way. Just right for a change.

We are considering adding a kitten to our pack. Because I'm still not convinced this old body can manage to pop out a child before it reaches 40. For the record, we aren't pursuing it. At least not now.

So much to think about, so little time.A deep breath, and under I go. My only hope for the first month of the new year is that I pass my course. One. Thing. At. A. Time.

Thanks, Hank. Take two.

It's been a long time since I wrote this, but once again, ol' Hank has given me the gift of inspiration. And yet another reminder that I do write. That it's part of me. I'm proud of the piece I wrote and submitted to a lovely little blog called, Bukowski On Wry. It looks like the start of a great page. I hope it's the start of a new chapter for me. Do check it out. I'm really excited that my poem was selected.

 http://bukowskionwry.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/i-love-you-an-alternate-ending-bukowski-erasure-poem-by-keyna-thomas/

how to be crazy.

Stigma, it's a bitch.

While I have a love/hate relationship with the healthcare system's way of managing mental illness, I have to say, lots of therapy and pinpointing (diagnosing) my issues has opened my eyes over the past three years. Yes, three years. It is, and will likely be a part of my life forever. As for the medicine, hopefully not. Today, I am relatively stable in and unstable world. And why is the world unstable? Because it is filled with mentally ill people that either refuse treatment, or don't know how to find it. Or just plain can't afford it. Hell, I can't afford it. Whatever. Generic mac and cheese is fine with me.

Back to stigma. Are we really "ill?" I would argue that in most cases we are not. We may be in a state of dis-ease. And who could blame anyone. I go to work. It triggers many chemicals that have no place showing up in the middle of my work day. But adrenaline runs high when the people around you take themselves so seriously, that if you haven't completed a task it is, in fact, the end of the fucking world. My (healthy) response is, "We aren't in an emergency room saving lives.We are drafting a budget to run a program, that if it does not run, people will not die. We would simply have to give back the money. Worst. Case. Scenario."

All that said, because someone has convinced my nervous system that it is the end of the world, I have too much adrenaline pulsing through my veins. Nowhere to go but down. But this is fine for all of the mentally fit, I suppose. For me and my generalized anxiety disorder, things are a little more complicated. And besides adrenaline, a shit-ton of hormones and other chemicals find their way into my body, which is really just a recipe for disaster. O.K., so not a disaster. Just a panic attack. Let me piece together the panic attack for you. It is the fucking end of the world. I am sure that I will die, because if a person can't breathe they die. If I can breathe, but my heart is beating 150 bpm, I am sure that I will have a heart attack. I tell myself that is fine, but it won't be. Because the biggest fear is that no one will help you if you are dying. Yet, I am not crazy. Nor am I ill. I am just a person that is highly affected by the stressors and difficulties I encounter in my daily life. Apparently, most other people are not. Who knew?

But this isn't even my problem today. Thanks to the past three years, all of the above is more manageable. I smoke too much, but so be it. I would still like to quit, and I haven't, which makes me incredibly sad some days. However, I don't have depression. What I have is a normal reaction to being frustrated that a carcinogenic drug has a grip on my life and my future. Even to the sane, this must be reasonable.

Moving on. I have made many, many mistakes in my life. Most of them were small. A few of them were very large, and made me very sorry for a long time. Today is the day that I must let go of that sorrow, because it can no longer help me be a better person. Instead it is dragging me down, and convincing me that somehow I am a lesser person. Today is the day that I must tell myself that I am not inhuman. I am not subhuman. That I do really have a do no harm attitude. I have been quiet, if not amputated of my voice, somehow thinking I could prevent damage, present or future. This has proved to be untrue, and an unhealthy assumption. The truth is that I am filled with love for my past, some regret for losing sight of the path I could have followed, and yet I am also filled with love and excitement for my present and future. This doesn't seem crazy to me. It seems healthy. That said, having carried the guilt for two for too long, I feel it's time I speak. Not about the past, but about the fact that good, crazy people, do crazy things sometimes. Secondly, about the fact that if you keep calling people crazy, or bad, or anything else the like, they will always be that to you. But it doesn't change their true heart. My true heart.

I have heard from various sources that many references to my name have been made with regard to how crazy I am (or, according to me and a small handful of dear friends, am not). I will speak to this only once, because you see, none of you are the first. I look different. I have looked different since birth. I have been and will be passionate about things that I believe in. To the point of ridicule. Starting in the first grade. So my experience with "crazy" is wide and varied. I'm crazy and smart enough to know that I will never, ever master it. I will however, vow to refine it in such a way that I lead my life in a way that becomes me, and at the same time helps the people I love, end even sometimes, the ones I can't or don't. Let me tell you, that last number is very low.

So at long last, here is my list of rules for being crazy. I think you'll find they aren't so crazy, after all.

DO:

• Be there for your friends no matter what the hour. Three in the morning is a good time to be crazy.
• Laugh at yourself when you do something like say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Hope that it's actually the wrong thing at the right time. Crazy people have difficulty discerning proper timing (see above).
• Should you make a mistake, forgive yourself as soon as possible. Crazy people know remorse more than anyone. Often enough they are living in their own prison. 
• Be kind, even when it's difficult. It's better to be good crazy than bad crazy.
• Don't be afraid to speak your mind when necessary. All bottles with too much pressure WILL explode. Too much pressure is a crazy person's worst enemy.
• Find reasons to be happy. If you are crazy, you will be insanely happy. On the converse, allow yourself to be sad, but don't seek out sadness in your daily life. If you are crazy, and you do this, you will also be insanely sad.
• Let go. By all fucking means, let go. Not of reality or self-control. Let go of that which you cannot control. It feels like you're floating if you do it right. Crazy, huh?
• Be a loose cannon. As in, make people laugh, jump in a lake with your clothes on, try new things...you know, a loose fucking cannon.  

DON'T

• Rely on a list of don'ts to tell you how to be crazy. Anything goes, so long as you're doing good. 

And last, but not least:

where there's a will.

Vacation log, day one: Woke up one hour later than usual. Drank coffee. Checked the week's weather. Almost checked work email, but was denied due to server being busy. End report.

The wait is over. Vacation is here and I'm feeling mostly well. There are days now that I don't hear ringing in my ears, and I no longer have the feeling that all sound is muffled. I still have swollen lymph nodes, but thanks to a tiny dose of Paxil, I don't worry about them much. Mind you, I don't love the idea of a medicated life. I hate the idea that the pharmaceutical companies are winning me over. I have exhausted all available resources, and frankly, this is the one that works, because this is the one thing that they make more readily available than any other treatment. So it goes.

However I'm getting there--I am finally over the hump. I am working almost full-time. To fill the space, I applied to college. This is a long-awaited move for me. It will be free, because I work for said college. I would be a moron to not take advantage of the opportunity. In fact, I had been applying for jobs here since the 90s, solely because it would afford me the education I could never afford otherwise. I am elated and terrified. But a life being neither of those things is not the life for me.

To add to the confusion, the other and I are house hunting. We are happy. And pre-approved. Go us.

Also, we started a band. Initially, we planned it as a one-time deal. Somehow it worked out better than could be expected, and so, we are banded. Maybe this is no big deal. It's not meant to be a big deal. It is fun, and undaunting, just how it should be. We don't need to be the best, and we don't need the money. Just a mutual understanding that we love music, and that we want it to sound better every day. I used to feel guilty that I'm a mediocre guitar player, and that sometimes I sing out of tune. As with most things, you don't have to be the best to try your best. 

In fact, I feel guilty a lot of the time. This is not something new. As my new psychiatrist mentioned, I pretty much exhibit the classic traits of a child born unto an alcoholic parent. I refuse to blame my problems on this unfortunate stroke of fate, but hey, I pretty much blame myself for everything. Been doing it since I was all of five years old. I realized that you don't have to know that your parent is an alcoholic to suffer the effects of their alcoholism. 

My sister crashed her bike once when we were little. I was sitting at home, probably watching TV, and she came home sobbing, mangled and bloodied. All I remember is standing upstairs in my bedroom dormer, looking at her on the front walk, crying and telling myself it was all my fault. To hear my mother tell it, I had been downstairs when she came home, and when she opened the door I was standing there in front of her. By her account, I looked her in the face, screamed, and ran up the stairs to my room. I don't remember that, and she didn't know that I was up there telling myself it was my fault. While this is a sad story, it's one that I use to remind myself that I am not to blame for everyone else's mistakes or downfalls. I have two years of regular therapy to thank for this. 

While the subject of mental illness, and general dis-ease may be uncomfortable for some, I've found that it's helpful to be mindful of it. Not just mindful of it for me, but for the rest of the people in the world that may be affected with it without even acknowledging it. It is true that an incredible stigma exists between the people who know they have a problem, be it anxiety, or depression, OCD, you name it, and the people who have any of these problems and are afraid to confront it. And of course, there's always the normal people. Wherever the fuck they are. 

Regardless, why be afraid to talk about it? To write about it. To be it. 

a little glimmer of something.

Like old times, a thought popped into my head yesterday, so I scribbled it down while I was sitting in my car. While I was doing that, another thought popped in, and another, and yet another. I was happy about this, because they were thoughts that I felt were worth putting into words. And then into action. I thought, "It's about fucking time."

My life has changed tremendously over the last couple of years. I think not just my life, but my mind. People don't intimidate me like they used to. I've loved, I've lost, and I'm ready to do it again. Having reconnected with old friends, and made peace with former enemies, in addition to having been dumped by my best friend who had been that since high school, I've had to do a whole lot of soul searching about how best to be a true friend. I've also had to assess what it takes to be my friend. In the end, the answers were too simple to waste time embellishing on the details--there just aren't many. 

The initial thought that prompted my pen moving was this: If you hold your friends to their faults and mistakes, they will never become to you any better. In fact, if you hold them to those things, they may never become better themselves. Why plant a weed if you want a flower to grow?

As for what I ask of my friends, and what I think I should do for you--accept help when it's offered. Sometimes taking an extended hand does more for the extender than it can for the extendee, but at least it leaves room for them (and me) to be a better person. A better friend. And in the end, assuming they want what's best for you, it will work out well for both parties. That's not to say accept it every time, but when a person really needs help and instead chooses to isolate regardless of an extended hand of friendship and love, nobody wins. 

What prompted this mostly, is that my former best friend said to my sister after she mentioned that I was feeling depressed about our disconnect, "I don't have time for people like that in my life." Instead of accepting and internalizing that I'm a person "like that," I chose to focus on the many things she thinks I am that I am not. The list of these things is long, and it took a lot of digging to determine whether or not I can overcome some of the things she was right about, and overcome the damage she did listing them off repeatedly over the course of our friendship. In the end, I've realized that I spent a long time trying to live up to an ideal that isn't my path. To define ideal, I would have been a mind-reader that when it came to her was entirely selfless. While I hate to be selfish, to be me I still have to walk the fine line between charity and stupidity. With her, I tried to be helpful, but also would occasionally find myself torn between tending to my own life, and helping her tend to hers. And on occasion, I'll admit I leaned more toward tending to my own. Those were the times I was bound to in her mind. What I've realized is that in order to redeem myself, I would in fact have to sacrifice more of myself than I'm willing to part with. In order to redeem myself, I would have to focus on un-doing everything I've ever done that she felt was hurtful. The problem is, she'd be holding me to those things so tightly, I could never be anything else. 

I'm happy to report that I wouldn't be the friend I am now without the friends I have, who are constantly encouraging me, without words to be a better human. I feel lucky to share my good (and bad) qualities with all of them. 

That said, on this perfect first day of summer, this is on the radio. I gotta go dance now.

shoulda, coulda...did

I'll be brief today. I'm just coming off a long couple of weeks of way highs and way lows. A distant acquaintance and I joined forces to save a stray, injured cat last week. We used Facebook as a tool, and it was effective. We set up a non-profit donation page overnight, and everything went off without a hitch. His vet bill is paid in full, both by us and the donations we received. I am thankful for this. We placed him in a new, caring home, and he is thriving after getting the full treatment at the vet, including a broken jaw repair. 

I swear I wasn't going to blog about this. After all, I only did it because his broken face broke my heart. To me, it was the only option. But now I'm pissed. As I was getting ready to put it all behind me, there came the thud. On a post that said how it was so great that people could pull things together and make an animal's life better, some jackass comments just this:

"Hurt animals in any town should be turned over to Animal Control."

Well, thank you for your input, lady. A little research, and it turns out the woman is the animal control officer for a town I will not name, except to say that I've worked there and this comment is just the type of response I'd expect from a town appointee. They don't like to mind their own business, and really, really like to tell other people how to do things, right or wrong. They also oppose a rail trail in their town. For why, I'll never know. Guess they like oily tracks better than a walking/biking path. 

In any case, it would make sense that she would advocate for her own job. I'm assuming she is paid for her work, and I'll concede that I may be wrong. Even so, people got together and did a great thing for one animal, and I can't imagine a reason so logical as to generate any negative/critical response. It's not like I took in a baby raccoon or something. I wouldn't. I would probably call Animal Control. But I refuse to "turn over" a domestic, abandoned, injured cat to someone who refers to it as "turning them over," as if I'm handing them a suspect. I feel in this case, I did a better job with him than most shelters are able to do given their overcrowding and lack of funding. I had funding of my own, and then I had funding from other people, so I committed myself to him for the time it required, and followed through. 

So thank you other people, who didn't fault me for trying to help. No, for actually helping.  Now my friend Jasper is in his new home, happy and healthy. I think I did the right thing. I hope you do, too. Otherwise, I may have to rant once more.

Sigh.

rolling on out.

Today could have been a long, lonely day. Instead, I've got a clean house, a devil's food cake baking in the oven, and a long anticipated cappuccino to sip on at this very moment. I ate Tikka Masala for dinner. A perfect afternoon.

After a week's long bout with whatever bug took up residence in my lungs, I'm finally on the mend. I feel like my broken heart is on the mend, too. Because even though I've met and moved in with one of my best friends to date, my battered psyche had been doing a number on the rest of me. Sometimes it still does.

Today, I am happy in the best way, in that I am also sad, but in the way you feel when you're lamenting something that was good, but isn't really anymore. In the way that you feel you can finally accept that everything has its day, however long or short or in between. I'm trying to avoid falling into a pit of nostalgia, as it really doesn't serve me well. 

Spring forthcoming (maybe), we're planning a trip to NYC, which I know won't be the same as any of my past trips. It can't be. I guess that means it can only be something new, which I hope is as good if not better. If nothing else, I now know better than to go in the heat of its sweaty-ass summer. 

That's not to say I'm not looking forward to summer here. Two things that I hope will stay the same are floating Fridays and weekends with my extended family by the pool. Both of those things are equally pleasant to me, save one thing. Having been gluten-free for a year now, one thing I certainly miss most is Guinness. Or decent beer in general. My new and improved medicated self should probably avoid most alcohol anyway. On the flip side, I'll be healthier and less dehydrated. 

In the meantime, I'm planning to play more music, write more stuff, and just take care of me for a while. It's been far too long since I was able to look at myself, at my life in a positive way. It's been far too long since I took care of me, not physically, but emotionally and mentally. So this week, I bought myself two plants. Because I need something else to love. It's what I do best, and it's what I'm happiest doing. That said, I was so relieved to learn last week that my elder kitty's thyroid levels are under control, and he is without any underlying kidney damage. Clean bill of health for him, even if he does have to take that stinky chicken flavor medicine for the rest of his hopefully very long and contented life. I never thought 13 years ago that I'd have had a friend that is so unquestionably loving and lovable all at the same time. Never mind that he's a bigger bed hog than even me. 

This is where I am, however mundane and boring it may seem. It's the only place I want to be. 

girl, unchained

This is not a blog about how things are going to change. I'm not going to go all, "Lookout, world," on your ass, because lately, I can't get out of my own way. My life is very average right now. I am happy. Not satisfied, but happy. I'm using this average time wisely. I'm learning how to be me when things aren't so great. I'm learning what I'll do when I have a blank canvas and very limited resources. I'm learning how to be a better person for me, and I'm learning how to be a better girlfriend for someone else. I'm learning how to be a better friend, in that I'm actually making friends occasionally. My phone's not ringing off the hook, but the friends I make have my back when I need it. That's all I'm saying. That's all except, thank goodness for them.

How do you lift yourself up, when there are so many reasons to be down? The beginning of this sentence is hopeful; the end, pessimistic. The thought that formed the sentence, and others like it, are the inner conflict that makes every day a struggle. For me. For a lot of people, some of whom I've met and known. Sometimes I'm sad for us. Sad that it's so difficult to stay afloat. That every obstacle hurts, and that having conquered them, we are scarred.

So now what? What happens after the disappointment, then the pain, and then the healing? The healing which I might add, is likely to take place for a good, long time. Do I stop doing the thing that I happened to be doing before I hit the wall? The thing that can cause me or anyone no harm at all, in fact, just the opposite? I like to play music. I almost love it, which might not seem like enough, but under the circumstances really works for me right now. And can finding the music in you ever be bad?

So music and I are meeting again, as I think we should. Just as I had mostly stopped playing, I had mostly stopped writing. Writing has always been my true love, but for whatever reason the fates crafted, the music came back first. For a lot of other reasons, some fateful and some self-designed, I couldn't write. Now, two years later, I'm still holding my tongue waiting for the right time to pick it back up. I was afraid. Afraid to write something that conjured hurt, even without intent. I was trying not to tread on anyone's healing process while trying to start mine. I was trying not to remind anyone that I'm here. I guess it's been hard to decide whether to keep on flying below the radar, or to finally start talking about how I feel. And I thought the latter would only fuel the terrible hate that I thought I'd overcome after high school. I thought wrong. The hate will always be lurking, if even in remote shadows. I guess the thing to do is fill the negative space with love, and hope that it crowds out the rest.

Having a teenage nephew (and being Facebook friended to him) reminded me that bullying is a nasty shape-shifter and comes in many forms. Exclusion, passive aggressive comments with an unnamed subject (doesn't matter who it is, because it's the people who already feel terrible about themselves who'll take it to heart), silence, and of course the ever popular plain old name calling. It's all out there, more than ever, no matter the age group.

This, and having had for a long time a job in insurance, where the customer is always right, and having said customers exhibit without remorse all of those behaviors made me question humanity. Having friends kill themselves over even very little experience with the above made me question whether we (I) can hack this mean old life. Hearing from my hairdresser and even relatives the things my best friend from high school now says in reference to our seemingly dead friendship made me question whether I have what it takes to even maintain the most shallow of friendships.

All that said, I can't see the function of chaining myself to one of very few terrible mistakes I've made, and in doing so, deny myself the freedom to be the best possible version of me. Isn't that all we can really aim for? I mean, I tried so hard not to end that last sentence with a preposition, but man alive, I'm not a perfect person. I am flawed, now medicated, still anxious, and by some miracle, still kicking. To quote my grandfather on his death bed, "I did the best I could." Now I'm gonna do it some more. 

Of all the things I feel sorry about, making loving, good people feel hate is top on the list. Yet, if me, writing about my struggle to feel good, to be good makes someone feel hate, then I guess there's nothing I can do. 

Yours truly,
Weena, Four-eyes, Ugly, Mekka-neck, Copy Cat, Sybil, and the ever confusing to all of us, Iguana.

it's a long story.

I started "cleaning" our computer-slash-music-slash-drawing- room the other day. It wasn't particularly messy. Slightly cluttered, perhaps (it's only 11 x 12), but fairly clean. It is, however, a treasure trove for the past--for both me and mine. 

I didn't know when I started that I would be traveling through time.  What I found was a decade's worth of stuff, then two, which became three and so forth until I arrived at (or descended to) 1857. The family history on my mom's side, courtesy of my Uncle Allen begins:

"1. Benjamin Smith was born in Vermont. He married Elizabeth (Eliza)." It continues, "Notes for Benjamin Smith: Benjamin Smith's occupation listed as Chair Maker."

Benjamin's first born son, Lorin, arrived on January 15, 1857.

Grampa, sometime in the 80s, weaving seats for our chairs

And so begins one half of my documented family history. That isn't to say we were a close family.  I barely knew my great grandmother, who had long been living in Florida. For years I was afraid of my Grampa. He worked a lot, was grumpy when he came home, and only had patience with us for the few hours we could sit quietly with him in his den watching television. This changed as we got older, particularly when I had reached my 20s, even more so after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. We built a coffee table together, stained it, it's been in my living room since.

When I was about six or seven, my grandmother had a benign tumor removed from her head, which caused some nerve damage and other complications. In the end, the somewhat botched surgery left her with only half of her hearing and an eye that would never open on its own again, but worse, it destroyed her zest for life. From that moment and for years afterward, she would sit on the couch and cry at the sight of me. All I could do is sit down by her and say, "Don't cry, Grammy." I wasn't old enough or wise enough to offer any other words. I did know that she was incredibly sad, because her life was upside down, and because it would never again be entirely right-side-up. I know now that she was also extraordinarily vain--I think maybe the change in her face and the closed eye really bothered her. She also developed a deepening sense of hatred. Especially for my mother--although this disdain had hatched long before the surgery--after she had a still-born birth. The distance between them only grew wider after my mother and father divorced. This hate she was growing inside her extended also to my grandfather, who took care of her and deflected her abuse for the rest of his life. Even during my grandfather's last days, my grandmother took special care to criticize my mother. After he died she took my mother out of the will my grandfather had drawn, save $1,000, and moved to New York state with my uncle. I never heard from her again. And no one knows exactly how they used the nearly $1 million he had saved for their retirement. She never went into a nursing home, and died three and a half years after my grandfather in a small bedroom he had sectioned off in his house. Curious.

Possibly taken at South Street, Fitchburg

My grandfather on the other hand, favored my mom. He was strict, and pretty stern with both of his kids. I'm pretty sure my mom lived with some fear, but he did love her. Unconditionally, and as well as he could. He worked hard, built the house they lived in, and tried to teach her everything he knew. My uncle never would accept any of it from him, but that's another story, and another family as far as I'm concerned anymore. He liked ham radio and computers. He was technologically savvy, and when he would finish with his computers he would give them to us. I've been using a computer since he gave us his Commodore 64 in the 80s. In the mid-90s he bought me my own computer with a modem, and so began my internet adventures. Thanks, Grampa!

Charles C. Smith

After my parents divorced, we moved back to Massachusetts with my father. My mother stayed in Louisiana with her boyfriend, and soon after that my father's girlfriend moved here from Louisiana to be with us. Both couples married a year later. We kept in touch with my maternal grandparents, but my sister and I had little contact with our mother until we grew old enough to keep in contact with her for ourselves. Sometimes I missed her, and other times I'm not sure what I felt for her. I didn't understand why she was gone, and I never liked the tension between my father and her when there was opportunity to talk to her or visit. My father hated her. He hates her less now. Sometimes I can't imagine being in her shoes; being so hated by the people who should hate you least, if not love you unconditionally. I'm a firm believer in loving the person who gave you your children, come hell or high water. I think I'm just a firm believer that love has a place in every interaction and relationship regardless of circumstances. Everyone has a dark side, and everyone carries a little torch of something wonderful inside of them. I always look for the latter. 

My mother, high school

I'm not that much like my mother, although my father would disagree. Like her, I can cook, as could my grandmother. My grandmother was a baker in the Townsend school system for 20 years, and retired in 1980. Back when they baked things for school lunches from scratch. Her baking was known all over town. I'd venture to say she was the best around. This talent passed on to my mother, and nowadays I find that I enjoy cooking more than I enjoy writing. I don't understand how something like cooking can be weaved into one's DNA, but it would seem that way with us. My step-mother can't cook, my father did because he had to (which means it tasted exactly like he was doing it because he had to), and I scarcely saw my mother until I was in my 20s. My mother is also creative, although more crafty than artsy. She has a very deep singing voice that carries. That's really where it ends. And in the end, I suppose that's a lot of what really counts. 

My mom, on the right. No, not the collie.

for good measure.

I missed laughter. I missed song. I think I missed out on an entire year of my life after "the sickness" came on. Slowly, but surely it's all coming back to me. Or I'm getting back to it. I don't really know which it is. Aside from the occasional near-return of the weird and random symptoms that to this day remain unattributed--the vertigo and dizziness being the worst of it--I'm getting by. Oh, and the face swelling. That one's pretty alarming and uncomfortable. 

There's a list of things I've been doing to 1. be happy, and 2. be healthy. The food, yeah that's a given. It feeds both of those things.  I haven't given up anything I can't live without. I gave up gluten, and I eat more vegetables via smoothie. I eat breakfast every day. I smoke less, and when I do it's not in the house. To be happy, I pause in my travels to get flavored iced coffees when I need a little boost, or a hot chocolate for the cold days. Sounds small, but I hadn't allowed myself even that little two-dollar luxury in a long, long time. I watch crappy television sometimes. I make chocolate cake every other week. And as of this week, I sing a little song with a friend. 

Soon, I hope to be making more music. Practice has been going better than it was in that the vibration in my ears stopped triggering the vertigo, and I don't feel quite so weak in the diaphragm. It may not be music to everyone's ears, but I love doing it and it makes me feel happier. 

Other things I'm appreciating in the new year--my cats, my boyfriend, and our new-ish apartment and living arrangements. None could be more perfect. Except for one of the cats, who recently was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. Recently, as in, today. I'm just glad we know, and that we have a shot at getting it under control before it got worse. So happy that I opted for the blood work now, rather than later, as there were no real symptoms except that he was farting a lot, which may not have had anything to do with his diagnosis.

And speaking of happier, I also hope Spring makes an early return this year. With two months to go, even the tiniest amount of sunshine has been invoking the fever in me. 

in with the good.

Phew. New job, new year. I hope that it's just the beginning of a long string of gratifying, and if I'm lucky, happy events. 

I've been incredibly busy, both at work and at home. Too busy to play around on this here internets. Sometimes I feel drained, but most of the time it's been satisfying. Speaking of satisfying, a conversation with a friend over some super nachos prompted me to pull my personal-size blender from the back of the shelf and start making "green" smoothies. Sure, I've made smoothies before, but never with the green stuff. With my new busy schedule, I figured I could use a good, healthy boost. 

I've always been able to cook without a recipe, so after browsing a few recipes online, I started planning my own. So far I have an apple crisp smoothie, and a simpler pineapple-banana recipe. As for the green, I've only tried spinach, but I have every intention of branching out. I haven't taken any pictures either, but describing them is easy. They're green and smoothie-like. Simple. And packed with vitamins and antioxidants. So instead of rambling on and on about the new year, change, and a bunch of crap about the holidays, I'll just go ahead and give y'all the recipes for said "green" smoothies. Trust me, they don't taste green at all.

Apple Crisp Smoothie
1/2 Macintosh apple
1/4 frozen banana
4 cubes pineapple
1 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp cinnamon
approx. 1 cup of raw spinach
1/2 cup rice milk (soy or almond would work, too)
1 1/2 tbsp instant oats

Pineapple-Banana Smoothie
1/2 frozen banana
6 cubes pineapple
2 strawberries
1 cup of raw spinach
1/2 cup rice milk


Pretty much, add all ingredients to blender in this order and blend until smooth. Next week, how to build a cat shack out of a cardboard box--special guest, my goofy boyfriend.