More clues.

If it weren't for the rain it would have been an uneventful afternoon.

I was a bit on edge.

The elephant in the room was fucking huge.

"Hold onto me or I'll punch myself until my face is blue. Cater to me or I'll punch my eyelids blue."

I had a spring in my step.

I doubt life could have been any better than I felt that night.

What do all these things have in common?

-Trumpet of the Swan
-Professional Wrestling
-Asphalt Wars
-Owen Wilson
-Photography
-Charlie Brown

The answer will be clear next week...

This is Fucking Ecstasy

It comes at night and it can hit me even when I am at my most optimistic.

“I think I am going to bed.” She said.

“Me too. I am actually just finishing up typing the last thing I have to work on tonight and then I think I am going to call it an early night, myself.” This was at eleven at night and by my standards anything before one is an early night.

I finished my typing and immediately fell into a hole. I was literally happy and smiling less than ten minutes ago.

“What do you think you have accomplished? What do you think you have done?”

My face soured and I knew it was going to be one of those nights. The kind of night where my brain keeps telling me I am fucking everything up. Not in some sort of voice other than my own. It’s my own and no one knows how to better kick myself when I am down. All my supports had either gone out for the night, gone to bed, gone on vacation, or were just plain missing in action. I just kept telling myself not to get desperate and not to let things get out of control. Remember what your therapist said.

“Centre yourself. Place one hand on your stomach and the other over your chest. Close your eyes and tilt your head back. Allow you mind to go blan...”

“What have you accomplished?”

“...k. Slowly begin to bl...”

“So fucking proud of yourself, aren’t you? Look at what you have done.”

“...ock out anything that could possibly ha...”

“You are such a fuck up. Pathetic. You should just give up.”

“..rm you. Remind yourself that you are within your own...”

“You only hurt everyone around you. No one reads this shit anyway.”

“...mind. You make the rules and nothing c...”

“Boo-fucking-hoo, my life sucks, I can’t do anything about it. Waaaaaaa.”

“...an harm you there. Then focus on your bre...”

“Remember the shakes you had? Those pills came so close that one time.”

“...athing. Short, slow breaths, focusing on the in...”

“Remember how everyone felt? Oh boy no one will let you forget that one.”

“...haling and then the exhal...”

“You have put everyone you loved through hell.”

“...ing. Just keep repeating this until you are able to focus on no...”

“Look at what you have lost. LOOK AT IT!”

“...thing else other than the sound of your breathing...”

“And here you write all these things and for what? For healing? You are fucking useless.”

“...and how your chest feels as it rises...”

“You aren’t even that good. Resign yourself to your fate and just walk around like the fucking bum you are. You had your chance and you fucked it up.”

“And falls.”

“I fucked it up because of you. Stupid fucking brain.”

I woke up from my mini-meditation on the couch. The thoughts were gone and my head felt a thousand times lighter. The problem is that no matter how hard you silence it, the harder it wants to try and attack again. It will change its tone to the fantastic aspects of life.

“Hey, do you know how cool it would be if you had fifty billion dollars? Like, that is a good amount so that you would never run out. And just think of all the good you could do with it! Everyone would love you again!”

“I’m not falling for that one.”

“You are fucking useless and always will be.”

“Whatever.”

One of the drugs I had suggested for me was Ativan. “This is only to be used in case of an emergency. The way you make it sound you seem to be prone to some pretty crippling anxiety attacks and I want you to have something strong in case you need it. I warn you, though. Ativan is habit forming. You will only get 10 pills and no refills. You should never need more than that. Consider it something that you would break the glass in front of in case of an emergency. If things are crazy enough to break the glass, you probably need it.”

Needless to say, I haven’t been able to either pick up the prescription or even been able to get in touch with her since she left for a family funeral. I could call whoever is standing in for here, but by this point I am already sitting up at 1 in the morning trying to watch “Crank” to better appreciate how shitty it is, but I can’t stop thinking about everything.

All that I have ever done comes flooding over me like tidal waves. Some of the memories are even happy ones, but they only exist at times like these as a form of psychological torture to provide context for further self flagellation. Some are of things that were simple mistakes on my part that I paid dearly for or put someone else through grief. Then, like coming upon the final circle of hell, everything that I have ever done while I am surrounded by hundreds of disappointed faces.

I stop thinking that I am capable of being loved yet that is all that I yearn for. At times like these I pray for some sort of interaction that ultimately never comes. I shut down and begin to almost babble in the event that someone witnesses one of these episodes (which in truth can be staved off by the drugs I can’t fucking afford). Tonight, I took off my sweatshirt, freshly laundered and pleasing to smell, and clutched it as tight as I could as if it were a security blanket.

I got off the couch and shut the movie off; my train of thought was gone. I gripped the sweatshirt tightly and curled up in the foetal position on the part of the floor that was exposed hardwood. The intention was to have the cold wood caressing my arms and shoulders so I could snap back to the now, but it wasn’t happening.

Should I wake anyone up and tell them how I am feeling?

“None of them care, and besides waking them up is just an inconvenience to everyone anyway. It just further proves you are a fuck up.”

I rushed to the computer and turned it back on. I signed onto MSN and no one was online to talk to about anything.

“Because they are either sleeping. Or they are well adjusted and have social lives you dumb fuck.”

I quickly ran through the bookmarks for the number to the 24-Crisis Helpline that I haven’t needed to call in months. I fear this means my body might be getting too used to the depakote already. I tried several times to dial the number, but I am oh so tired that my vision is going blurry and I keep punching in the wrong numbers. I am now on my knees with the phone in hand listening to the busy signal drone on and on and on and on and on.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. Actually, only once after midnight had I ever gotten through and not had a busy signal. The woman I talked to last night said it wasn’t uncommon to not get through. She had her “regulars” that seemed to call every night for everything from suicidal thoughts to just being afraid of the dark.

Every sound in the house from the phone to the ticking clock in the kitchen two rooms away was amplified. As was the voice:

“Typical. Just fucking typical. You can’t catch a break can you? Take a hint. Everyone hates you and could give a fuck less whether you lived or died. Fucking pathetic piece of fucking shit.”

As corny as it sounds I ran upstairs for my childhood teddy bear, Matilda, but not even she could help me now. I had gone too far and the only options left were to act on the impulses to harm myself, give in to a delusional fantasy to make it all go away, or ride it out like a junkie in the first stages of trying to go clean.

It is now almost three and I am exhausted. I have ridden it out yet again. I think I am going to be OK. I know that what I just wrote is sort of tough to read, but I didn’t want to let this feeling go. I wanted everyone to know exactly what it is like. And more importantly, I wanted to put it into words once and for all.

Wishlist (Drug Money)

I was supposed to have a therapist appointment today, but it was cancelled due to a death in her family. My heart goes out to her, but part of me is still relieved that it has been postponed until later in the week. I could have seen someone else in the office since the meeting was ostensibly just to get some more prescriptions and not even a real session. Once I found out how much medication my doctors wanted to put me on, I was taken aback and filled with anxiety and conflicting feelings.

The laundry list of drugs (6 that they say I should definitely take in addition to my shot every two weeks, 2 that are in case of emergency, 2 that are interchangeable depending on the length and severity of any manic episodes I might have and 1 that isn’t even really a prescription since I can buy it for eight dollars over the counter at any pharmacy or health food store) is extensive, but the doctors did an excellent job explaining how they fit together and what each of them does. My problem isn’t with the vastness of the treatment prescribed since much of it has to do with the fact that there is so little choice in what I can take because of my depakote shots.

My problem is that it will ultimately cost me $447.25 to have all the prescriptions filled... each month and eliminating the 2 emergency drugs and the one drug I can get an infinite amount of sample refills for will still only save me about $120. That’s just Canadian pricing, too. In the states, I can expect that to increase to five times as much in the case of some drugs and I won’t be covered by any sort of prescription assistance programmes. I have never even had to pay that much money in rent in a given month let alone on medications I am told I need to stay sane and happy.

The price of such medications and treatment could be a huge part of why a majority of people with bipolar disorder do not receive proper treatment. These people, like me, are simply priced out of the market completely. Mental problems aren’t seen as a life or death situation even though depression can lead to a litany of heath problems from diabetes to cancer to heart disease to unhealthy weight gain and so on and so on. No one really pays attention to mental disorders unless it leads to some sort of an addiction or a suicide attempt. Even then it seems like help only seems to go as far as getting someone stabilised in an emergency situation and then letting them figure shit out on their own. Therapy can help, but it can only go so far. Once drugs are prescribed it is up to the individual to put themselves through even more stress in trying to figure out how the hell they are going to get everything covered.

My agent said originally that she would help me out with money for prescriptions if I needed it, and I do since I am now totally broke after not having any steady work in the past month (not for lack of trying every single day) and having to pay $45 every time I get my shot. I was even $4 short last week for my shot when I forgot the price was going up and neglected to include the hospital fee itself into my budgeting. I still got the shot since my doctor said she would cover the extra money. My agent, however, politely told me that there was no way she was going to shell out close to $450 for drugs, especially since she is already giving me a place to stay this summer and because nothing I have sent out over the past two weeks has sold yet and probably won’t for a few months at least. Even then, all the money I make would just go back to paying back everyone I already owe money to and then I would have to buy more drugs. In a severely fucked up way, it almost makes perfect business sense for me to become a drug dealer by selling my first supply of pills so I could afford two more sets just for myself. I would never do that because that is the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas, but it is still frustrating.

So now I have a decision to make before next Thursday as to what I can afford to take and what I don’t need. My agent said she really can’t afford to spot me more than $250 without having any steady work, and it seems like a pretty achievable goal. I’m just not a huge fan of having to make such decisions, especially when I am deadly serious about making this treatment work any way that I can.

Despite the lack of heavy medication, I do feel better these days. I just find myself slightly distracted and wondering where all the hours in the day are going. I took Thursday night through Sunday off to visit Jenna and partake in Toronto’s Doors Open festivities (reviews and thoughts on Doors Open can be found over at my other blog). Monday was kind of a blur and other than some heavy bathroom cleaning I can’t think of a single progressive thing I did other than reading books due back at the library the end of this week and making a to-do list that I did nothing with. Tuesday I attempted to write but was thwarted by both internal and external distractions. The new kitten at the house is pregnant and her constant whining for food during the day was bugging the crap out of me. I took off to the library where there was a brigade of small children running rampant through the stacks so I ended up just reading the newspaper and leaving. I attempted to write by the gazebo outside the library (oddly enough funded and sponsored by the Optimists Club) but other than writing outlines for this and my Doors Open entries I was distracted by watching about ten skateboarders enjoying the nice weather and one man chugging Listerine as he emerged from the pharmacy next door before hopping into his brand new pick up truck.

Doors Open was well worth the trip, and has been both times I have attended. I kind of needed the break, but lately more and more I keep feeling like I almost need more of a break; not out of laziness but out of need for some sort of cathartic release. Our first stop on Sunday morning, which we were slightly late for due to Sunday morning bus schedules, was a tour of a wall surrounding Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. I find it both sad and amusing that I identify with these people and that I understand the subtle nuances of how these people act after having been hospitalised along side many of the same types of people. A woman carried her two packs of cigarettes in a plastic bag with her name on it while waiting for the streetcar; the name to show the doctors and nurses behind the desk whose cigarettes they are since you can’t smoke anywhere in the building. Several people shuffled their way around the hospital grounds staring into space and trying desperately to go unnoticed. Some slept on the lawns of the grounds because they either don’t have any place to go or just because they don’t have the wont to do anything. A man who had suffered a head injury waited for a bus while wearing one of those things that looks like a cross between a bike helmet and a rugby helmet. I don’t know what they are called exactly.

The wall itself is the earliest example of patient/inmate labour in Ontario, built by patients to help keep them confined and away from the public eye. Portions of the wall were bricked up where windows clearly used to be because patrons of the CNE behind the asylum used to stop and gawk at the patients with disdain and morbid curiosity. The wall has interesting symbols and writing in places, including “born to be murdered” carved into the side of a maintenance shed incorporated into the design of the wall. We were told that the poorer and crazier patients were relegated to the back of the building where they were pretty much forced to look at the wall and the more well-to-do patients were located at the front of the building and sometimes had their families buy their way out of the hard labour required to build and maintain the wall.

Needless to say, the wall is now more symbolic than anything, but it is still a stunning piece of work when you consider how well put together it is. The wall has stood since the mid-1800s and with only minor damage to the western section of the wall because of adjacent buildings. It didn’t hit me until after we had left that had I lived in that time, I would have been in such an institution. I wouldn’t have had any freedom at all whatsoever except for maybe parole of the grounds since I was white and male, but that would only even come when I was old, feeble, and no longer a flight risk. It helped put things into perspective. Things could always be worse.

It didn’t depress me at the time thinking about it, but now as I struggle to create some semblance of a normal life for myself, one free of the dependence of others merely for survival, it all feels bigger than me. I can tell myself to keep fighting on no matter what happens, but at times it is hard for me to see them on anything more than just words in my head or on a piece of loose-leaf. I have come too far and fallen too hard before to give up now. There are so many things in this life that I want to be before I die. I just hope that one day, life will let me.

Untitled

In the past week I have written my heart out. I have written 118 pages of new material; original stories, essays, one poem, and criticism. I have written query letters and proposals in hopes of earning an advance from an interested publisher or at least getting some work from someone who doesn't accept unsolicited manuscripts. I proofread everything as closely as anything I had ever edited before. I looked at each individual word no matter how slight or necessary that might have been; making sure each punctuation stop sounded the way I wanted it to sound.

I finished the last of it today and sent it all off to my agent to attach cover letters to them and send them on their way.

I cleaned the house over the past to weeks to a point that I haven't seen it in a long time. That was a lot of work in itself.

I have a stack of blog posts in various degrees of completion. Most need quite a lot of work.

I have posted ads on craigslist for work every day to keep them fresh and current, making sure that they don't get lost in the shuffle under the hundreds of other ads that get posted when I don't seem to be looking. I don't know why I still try; I haven't gotten any offers or found any work on there in over a month. It is all I really have right now that even seems to connect me to the outside world other than these blogs. I am almost broke and after my medication session this week, I pretty much will be. That isn't even taking into account that I am probably going to be given prescriptions for more medication I won't readily be able to purchase.

When I finished all that I had been working on this afternoon, the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction was fleeting. I wanted to try to write about how proud I was that I had accomplished a massive to-do list just to see if I still had it in me.

I sat down to work on a blog where I happily recounted what I had done and to work on another entertainment related one that I got bored working on. I sat blankly staring into space and the words just didn't come to me. I proceeded to lay my head on the pillow and cry for two hours without realising how much time had passed.

I wanted so badly to be proud of myself. I want to be the best I can. Sadly, I won't believe I am worth much of anything until I see some results.

I took a long walk. Still nothing.
I took a shower. Nothing.
I am sitting here now and this is the best I could come up with

Artsarama

Yesterday I had an episode; an extremely prolonged one that lasted from the first waking minutes when I didn’t want to get out of bed until a mere matter of hours before I went to sleep, by which point I was too tired to be depressed or anxious. Despite it being the rare type of day where nothing at all went wrong, I still couldn’t shake how glum I felt. It was also the very rare day where I had nothing to be depressed about and I fucked it all up by busying myself all day to try and put my racing mind at ease but I ended up making myself numb and burnt out before shunning almost everyone entirely.

But I am happy to say that last night for a few shining hours I found comfort and joy. For a few hours I was able to lose myself in a room full of people and just simply be. I enjoyed one of life’s secret (and to some guiltiest) pleasures: the high school band concert.

My ex-girlfriend’s brother, Daniel, is in his final year of high school, thusly ending his tuba playing career. Over the course of the school year Daniel’s band only have two proper shows outside of competitions: a Christmas concert and the end of the year Artsarama shindig in the high school gym. I quit my high school band well before my senior year, but for the thirty or so students recognized for their achievements before their impending graduation I can imagine it felt a lot like how a student athlete feels at the end of their final game senior year. They truly loved what they did to stick with it for so long and they would probably never feel that way again.

I knew I was going to attend regardless of my mood or how awkward I still feel sometimes around Jenna’s family. Her father was going to be attending as well, making it the first time I had seen him since I broke up with his daughter. I wasn’t afraid he was going to chew me out in public or punch me in the face; he seems far too relaxed to become physically violent over something everyone is essentially trying to move past. I was mostly afraid of the potential for awkwardness and its accompanying silence, but as I said earlier, it was a good day where nothing even remotely off putting happened with the exception of a brownie-like abomination of a baked good that I ate during the show’s intermission that was 70% flour, 25% grease, and 5% miscellany.

Artsarama hadn’t changed all that much in the years since Jenna’s graduation. The individual letters on the wall behind the band were the same ones she had cut by hand years prior. There were technically 9 musical acts performing; ranging in age from a children’s choir with boundless energy that turned in a sweet and well sung rendition of “Hey Jude” to the various different sects of the high school band and choir. In addition to playing tuba, Dan decided to join the choir in his final year. On top of his musical double duty, he also remained after school to help set up for the concert and seemingly followed in the footsteps of his big sister.

Minus the brownie, the slightly annoying logjam of people trying to cram into the hallways during intermission, the brief power outage that the band managed to play through without missing a single note, and the ungodly awful version of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” delivered by the least enthusiastic junior high school choir I had ever seen, the show was a great success.

I doubt anyone other than Jenna noticed that I was out of sorts, and even if she did she was kind enough not to bring it up in public. If we had time to talk privately later in the evening she probably would have asked how I was feeling. The doldrums really didn’t begin to lift until after the intermission.

Daniel always had a slight flare for the dramatic; especially when it came to concerts. Last year during the closing number, which is the same thing every year, Dan danced around with his tuba in the back. This year along with the help of some friends he took it to another level. First, in the middle of “YMCA”, Daniel became the native from the Village People with the rest of the tubas making up the remainder of the 70s disco fiends. The conductor, Mr. Sharpe, honestly did not see that one coming. And later, he contributed one final moment to cement his legacy in the annals of Clarke High School music history. Dan in the one in the white fedora:

It was a moment of pure unbridled joy. No matter how rotten of a mood you might be in, once you see a friend lead a dance along of small children, you just can’t stay upset.

It has been the high point of my week thus far.

Crossing Lines

My work hasn’t been on par with my own personal set of standards this past week. It’s funny how one little phrase can change your entire outlook if you let it get to you. Today was the first day I felt comfortable talking about it despite the fact that it happened almost a week ago.

This afternoon I wrote something scathing; a rant about what was said that offended me so greatly and on such a personal level that it left me in a state of shock that someone could have sunk so low. It was a thinly veiled reference inside of a snide comment that not only attacked people that I love and care about, but it was accompanied with a sneer you only see on the face of the most violent abusers; the kind of glare that tries to let you know where the power lies. It was said directly in front of someone who should have put a stop to it, but didn’t, and at no point did anyone mentioned in the statement that was made, myself included, deserve it. This wasn’t like having sand kicked in my face; it was like being bludgeoned with a bat and having my wallet stolen.

When I was done writing the four pages explaining why I was so upset I knew I couldn’t post it. It was far too personal and fresh for me to air here. Only four people know the whole story and three were there for it. I intend to keep it that way. It’s not a memory I am trying to repress. I can’t stop thinking about it long enough to forget it, which makes forgiveness impossible. The person who said it sure isn’t sorry about it in any way and probably doesn’t even think it was all that bad. No amount of ranting to anyone will change anything, either.

So if my writing this week is below your usual expectations for me please understand that not only am I super busy every day this week, but my ego and my heart have suffered crushing blows that only therapy and time will heal.

You know who you are, but I am still not entirely sold that you know what you said while you were talking out of your ass from inside your glass house But do know that you have won if it makes you happy to hear that. I’m through fighting with you. I don’t have the time, strength, nor patience to do so. I just hope that some day when you suffer real, true loss that the giant black hole in your chest where your heart should be still has the capacity to feel something, or else it is your loss and not mine.

72 Degrees with Thundershowers

It is rare for me to wake up in the morning and be stopped dead in my tracks by something. I usually go through the motions on a sort of autopilot: I wake up, clean up whatever messes the pets have made, go to the bathroom, make coffee, load the dishwasher, and get down to business at the computer. That is pretty much standard operating procedure around these parts and there is little to no variation unless I have to go somewhere or do something.

I have a feed reader that links me to the blogs that usually interest me. I go through each morning and cherry pick the stories I want to read or anything that seems to be slightly important. The stories pop up in several tabs and windows and I am usually done in less than half an hour. Today I woke up at 9. It is now quarter after twelve as I write this and I still have 15 tabs that have gone unread and chores that don't look like they are getting done any time soon.

I have been glued to my chair in awe and admiration for what I believe is the finest piece of journalism I have ever read. I am admittedly biased based on the subject matter, but I believe in my heart of hearts that every word I speak is true.

This past Sunday in the Cleveland Ohio Plains Dealer, they published a story called Beyond Rape: A Survivor's Jorney. The story was so long and complex, it had an entire special section in the newspaper devoted to it. The entire section was written and prepared (save for the editor-in-chief's introduction) by The Plains Dealer's former Arts and Entertainment reporter and critic Joanna Connors, but this is not a story of the film and theatre that she reviewed over the years and that I would normally gravitate towards in my other blog. This is a brutally unflinching look at rape and the recovery process.

I think the reason why it struck me so hard, other than it being well written, researched, and more powerful than any book I have read recently, is because I am going through something very similar to what Joanna has been through. This past weekend was the first time I admitted to someone I love that as a child I was sexually assaulted. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life and I am still shaking over it and doubting myself for having done it.

I have alluded to it in previous entries, but I had dare not speak its name. I tiptoed around it in hopes that my saying something yet remaining ambiguous, I would find some comfort, solace, and piece of mind. It was on the tip of my tongue ever since I told my therapist. I wanted to shout it out to anyone who might care, but to this day I still live in fear of what others will think of me as I replay the memories of that afternoon in a dirty basement when I was seven years old and constantly remind myself of the unspeakable acts committed by a friend of the family whose face my mind has blanked out but my memory has narrowed down to two suspects. My father was the only man who knew who did it. After the incident it was never talked about, but I know it angered him. Now my father is dead and all I am left with are fractured memories of what happened coupled with severe pain and anguish that I have relived every day of my life without ever confronting it head on.

I beg and implore each and every one of you to read this story, even if you have read nothing I have ever written and never will again. This is an important story and an important topic that no one seems to cover anymore. Given the alarming rate at which women are raped people should be more outraged. This story will stand as a testament to people like Connors and myself that survival is harder than it looks for victims of sexual assault and how the crime doesn't just affect the victim, but everyone the victim knows and loves.

After reading the piece, I emailed the Plains Dealer and thanked them for all they have done. I encourage everyone who reads this to do the same.

Ways I am Becoming My Mother

-I love to cook, even when the results are terrible.

-I am always there to listen to a friend and offer a shoulder to cry on.

-I read voraciously.

-I am becoming a huge fan of James Brown and Frank Sinatra.

-I remember very little from childhood karate lessons now that I am older.

-I can turn anything into a joke be it appropriate or not.

-I worry about everything even if it is irrational to do so.

-I can break down in tears on the kitchen floor at a moment's notice.

-I am a liar.

-I am dealing with issues from my childhood that have crippled me today.

-I live with the constant fear that no one loves me and I will never be loved again.

-I know I have a huge heart with a lot of love to give.

Ways I am Becoming My Father

-I have become adept at fixing car troubles provided that they have nothing to do with a computer chip of any sort.

-I am unemployed (at the moment)

-I tend to drink cheap beer because I often can’t afford anything more expensive than Coors.

-I watch a lot more sports.

-I watched a political debate on television concerning campaign finance reform and I found it riveting.

-I routinely do the crossword in the newspaper.

-Every minor set back pisses me off.

-I am bipolar.

-I fear for the future.

-I feel cynical and cold.

-I am ashamed of what I have become.

-I have tried to kill myself.

Famous Unpublished Works #2

-Just once I want to wake up and not have something either (a) break or (b) go terribly wrong. It is almost a constant thing around here. Today it wasn’t much. The computer screen has gone inexplicably dark and the brightness control on the monitor has stopped working. For some reason it made me realize that every morning seems to breed some sort of crisis that causes me to have to go and practice breathing exercises to calm myself down. I don’t deal well with things going wrong immediately after I wake up. Luckily, today was a pretty easy morning because I had things to do.

-I had blood-work this morning. I should have remembered from all the times I tried giving blood that I should have had something to eat before I went. I didn’t and I nearly passed out. The only thing that didn’t, oddly enough, was my high blood pressure. It was so high I managed to fill up almost all six vials in front of me in near record time. I waited for close to an hour in the waiting room, mostly because I was early, but was out of the office only half an hour after my scheduled appointment time.

-I haven’t posted anything really serious in either blog this week, but it doesn’t mean I have only been writing frivolous pop-culture related columns. I have been writing serious things, but they have been of a more private nature; nothing that I really care to share with anyone outside of my most intimate friends and acquaintances. The story about planning trees was originally going to be posted here because it ended up being an incident that I was really angry about. The tone of the piece itself became so jocular, however, that I really had no choice but to post it in the other blog. I’m still as proud of it as I could be since most of the memories of the events have faded.

-In my last entry when I was explaining to everyone about the extent of my P!TSD. I said that my PTSD was rarely triggered by things that are media related. I think now that I am more cognisant of my problems, that is about to change. While at the library on Wednesday night I had two things trigger my feelings of despair. I looked at the back of a book on display as one of the library’s recent arrivals. I forgot the name and author of the book, but it had a shadowy figure on the cover in the crosshairs of a snipers scope. The first two words of the title were “Who is...” and was about an assassin. I looked briefly at the description on the back of the thin paperback and my eyes zeroed in on one sentence:

“(Insert titular name here) is a victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and is getting over the murder of his girlfriend ten years prior. He is sought after by governments for the way he coldly and emotionlessly kills...”

My heart sank reading that but when I saw the picture of the author I wasn’t surprised. He looked like an asshole; standing in front of an enormous swimming pool, wearing sunglasses with a fauxhawk and making a gun out of his fingers and pointing them at the camera with the sneer of a frat boy. I moved on from there and decided to kill some time reading the newspaper and read a story even more disturbing and triggering; especially the pictures that accompanied it. The story wasn’t wholly relevant, but the pictures told a thousand words; reminding me of the secret I am trying so desperately to forget and come to grips with from my childhood.

-The weekend should be a lot better than the past week. At least I have something to do over the weekend other than sit in my room and read a lot.

No Use for a Title (Education)

The examination room was filled for its size. Four different kinds of doctors and a nutritionist all crammed into a room not really designed to fit all of them and myself. Luckily I was sitting on the stock, uncomfortable hospital bed in the centre of the room; pantless and feeling the wax paper that had been placed over the fake leather sticking to the back of my slightly sweaty legs. If I had known I was going to have to be naked except for my boxers for another examination today, I would have worn a pair that weren’t as tight as I had on.

A few official diagnoses were handed down to me after much debate amongst the doctors: Bipolar II Disorder (the less serious form, the kind free of psychotic delusions and visions) with severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that is so bad it could very well render me as being legally handicapped, but more on that in a moment.

I was naked mostly because I was going to have to get a shot in the ass, but the medical doctor in the room who was administering it, the same one who examined me previously, wanted to make sure all my vitals were somewhat normal when I got it. None of the doctors wanted to put me on lithium. Given my record for consistency and lack of funds I will be given a shot every two weeks (which I will from now on refer to as pantless Thursdays) of Depakote. Once the doctors have been assured that I can keep up with this, and once my blood pressure has dropped from its dangerously unhealthy levels, I will be placed on a morning, noon, and night regiment of medication, most of which has nothing to do with my bipolar disorder. All the psych doctors and therapists are in agreement that my bipolar is most likely hereditary, explaining quite a bit, but my PTSD is where the real problem lies. I can admit that I am bipolar, and therefore are well equipped to fight it. What I don’t do is acknowledge that I have been through so much bad shit in my life that it has stunted my growth as a person.

On top of all that, not only will the Depakote probably cause my thyroid to become hypoactive, but it is more than likely already fucked to begin with. I am going to have blood work done next week to check on this, as it seems like a problem that has gone undetected for quite a long time and is more likely than not connected to the annoying throat clearing tic that I have insisted to doctors has been a problem for years. Astoundingly, and in the only bit of good news to be found from the appointment other than the relief of finally getting treatment, it appears as if my ulcer is actually healing slightly thanks in part to a (mostly) healthier diet.

My blood pressure is a major concern to the medical staff. If I am going to be prescribed other drugs to stave off depression, the effects of bipolar, the effects of other medications, help my thyroid, and help me sleep, I need to de-stress and fast. I was told that if I wasn’t in good health I could have very well had a heart attack. Even though it means I will become a pretty mean person from the withdrawal, I have to cut back drastically on my caffeine intake. One cup of coffee or one can of soda a day. That is all. I can exercise, but I can’t over do it. Rest was recommended and given the fact that I am not exactly living the high life right now, that shouldn’t be a problem. Can’t drink beer or hard liquor, but wine is apparently good for me. Since I abhor wine, it simply means I am just not going to drink. This is going to have to extend longer than my pre-medication period. That is more or less permanent.

After my shot and the other doctors had left, I got dressed and headed upstairs to my therapist’s office for an unscheduled session. She told me the more that she looked into my case history she was far more concerned with my PTSD than my bipolar disorder. She gave me a test of 20 yes, no, or maybe questions and out of that 18.5 of them showed that I had such severe PTSD that it was essentially crippling. I only lost out on the other one and a half points because it is very weird that any kind of media can trigger my anxiety and because I have never in my life had paranormal visions. She said that while some of the symptoms could be compounded my bipolar disorder, most of them were probably actually making the bipolar itself worse than it really should be. She went over the symptoms with me in great detail as I took notes so not to forget any of it. I like to have something I can refer to that can keep me grounded.

-I am constantly suspicious of the motives of everyone around me. I am always thinking about what people are talking about me when I am not around. It shouldn’t affect me, but it is sometimes consumes me. When people have secret conversations in my presence, I get pissed off and angry; constantly thinking that everyone is talking about me behind my back.

-I am easily startled, and this is one that has been getting worse. Sometimes the slightest unexpected noise can trigger me, be it a door closing or even the creak of my mattress springs.

-I have irregular sleeping patterns that seem to fly in the face of attempts to rectify them. This will most likely be the last thing to get better after treatment, and no experts can really explain why. It also, might never get better, and it might be the one thing in the long run that I will just have to find a way to deal with in my own way. Sleeping pills can only do so much and the kinds I would need to be effective are more than likely habit forming.

-I have frequent and merciless replays of traumatic events either while awake or asleep. In the interest of full disclosure, I am actually having one right now as I am writing this. They are a lot more frequent than I would ever care to let on.

-I have an irrational fear of abandonment by loved ones. I hate to be alone. Hearing that one put a lump and my throat and tears in my eyes; my heart sank to its lowest point for many, many reasons.

-I am unable to and sometimes avoid properly conveying traumatic events to others. Despite all the things I have written about in my past, most works that go unfinished do so mostly because I am a perfectionist (almost to a fault) about what I write and I often feel like I am not doing justice to the material. There are, however, memories from my childhood so dark that until I can properly reconcile them that I will never speak of them to another human being. To put into context how bad they are, I can talk about watching my mother getting raped and beaten and I can do it openly. Things that... I need to omit the rest. All I will say is that it involves me being very young and a man whose face my brain won’t allow me to remember.

-I feel a full spectrum of emotions throughout a given day sometimes up to and including persistent suicidal thoughts. Persistent here should be read as weekly.

-I often feel in a state of shock and alienated from the world around me. Sometimes it feels like I am watching the world through a thick glass window. I am there, but if I screamed no one would ever be able to hear it. I put up a wall around me, but it is completely transparent.

-This next whole group is all lumped together and is the part that is made worse by my bipolar disorder more than the other symptoms: daydreaming, lying, impulsive and often ridiculous behaviour, loss of attention span, loss of confidence, feeling stupid, and constantly being distracted.

-I often feel completely misunderstood. I understand that sympathy is fleeting by nature but I also know that understanding shouldn’t be. While others might feel like I am “milking it,” I’m really not. I just haven’t been able to heal properly for a very long time; especially given the amount of stress I have gone through in the past eight years.

-Even though this ties into the previous one and the first one on this list, I constantly live in fear of the rejection of others.

-I am constantly frustrated and impatient with the healing time frame. Such healing only can only be assisted and can’t be rushed. I often stumble over this one because I always find myself surround by people who think I need a swift kick in the ass and that I need to get over what is bothering me as fast as possible. This includes friends, lovers, co-workers, bosses, and even past hospital staff and doctors. With PTSD there is no room for impatience, so from here on out if you tell me I need to get over something you will be greeted either with a stink-eye, a slap, or a “fuck you.”

-External and internal stressors have left absolutely no room for me to grieve or healthily reflect on everything that I have loved and lost in my life.

-Even writing this, I fear not only my own feelings, but the thoughts of everyone around me regarding treatment. I look at the stigma of treatment sometimes like I feel I have lost my mind completely. I also fear that instead of understanding and support, this will be greeted by people trying to stay as far away from me as possible out of the fear that they might inadvertently make things worse or say something that will offend or trigger me.

My therapist told me that part of the reason she put me on a writing schedule was not only because it will teach me consistency, but because it is imperative that anyone with bipolar disorder and PTSD educates how they feel to the people around them. Understanding and education are keys to the healing process, and in a way everything I have written over the past few months has lead to this entry.

She then said something to me that despite my dark and depressing thoughts, gave me some hope: “Anyone unwilling to understand you either because they don’t want to or because they think you are full of crap is a bigger jerk than you could ever hope to be.”

That one statement alleviated a lot in the paranoia department, but sadly not in the flashback department.

A treatment plan was finalized. On the days I came in for my shot, I would also have a therapy session for two hours at first then lessening the more I opened up in therapy. Group therapy could be helpful in the long run for my bipolar disorder, but not until I can resolve the serious PTSD issues. It was also suggested since my bipolar also exhibits some of the characteristics of Seasonal Affective Disorder that I consider phototherapy in the fall and winter.

She asked me to bring what I had been writing on, mostly just to make sure I had been doing what she asked of me. I showed her everything that I had written since the start of therapy. It nearly filled two notebooks, one journal, and a lot of loose-leaf paper. I also showed her the websites, and she asked if I had read anything from the reading list she gave me. I told her I had and wondered if she didn’t have anything better to recommend by Virginia Woolf. She laughed and said she honestly hadn’t read anything else by her.

I left the office with a better understanding and aching joints. The aching was a side effect of the Depakote and was probably going to last a few days. The crying on the way home, however, was not. I was still far too emotional and I really didn’t want to leave the office. I was terrified about how everyone would react to this. I calmed down after centering myself and realizing it needed to be done.

Letters to a non-existant editor #3- A lockdown on lockdown

There are many words in the English language that while not offensive, still have the ability to make me cringe. One that has been in the news quite a bit recently is lockdown.

Every time something bad happens in a school (like the recent random gang violence in Sydney, Australia) or near one (like numerous crimes occurring in the vicinity of a school in Toronto) a lockdown occurs where no one can leave or get into the school.

I don't think I have to remind everyone about how much high school sucks, but do we really need to start referring to incidents as lockdowns? Do we need to alienate kids more than they already are by making school feel even more like a prison? What is next, are we going to start herding them into the gym and hosing them all down to keep them in check? Many schools already have security, metal detectors, random drug searches from the K-9 unit, and now when things go terribly wrong, we enact something akin to what would be used to quell a prison riot.

Does anyone know anything about simple psychology anymore? The more you treat kids like they are prisoners the more they will start to feel hopeless and begin to act like that. All these tactics do is breed fear and mistrust; they do not increase safety at all. We all know that people who live in fear can be driven to extremes; for better or worse.

Why I Could Never Own a Dog

It wasn’t all that unusual that I couldn’t get Perdy to eat, but her stubbornness and depression definitely contributed to my anxiety over the weekend. It was clear that Perdy suffered from a pretty severe case of separation anxiety that affected her appetite. If her owner, my ex-girlfriend’s mother, wasn’t home she wouldn’t eat. Even though Perdy’s standard suppertime was at five, unless Marilyn was home she quite often wouldn’t touch her food until the moment Marilyn walked in the door from work. Sometimes she would eat when her son Daniel hot home from school or rugby or band practice, but those occasions were rare.

Perdy’s separation anxiety also manifested itself in the form of destructive behaviour when no one is home or paying attention. After Marilyn and Daniel leave for work and school in the morning and I wake up an hour or so later, Perdy has often already pooped and peed on the dining room carpet, opened all the kitchen cabinets she can reach, eaten all of the cat poop out of the litter box, opened the oven door for no real good reason since there is never anything in there, and if someone forgot to hide the trash, it is strewn all over the kitchen and dining room floors. But Perdy is a good dog; sweet, affectionate, and playful. She simply can’t be left alone for long periods of time.

Since I live with Marilyn and Daniel, it was no trouble at all for me to watch Perdy and to a lesser extent the cat, Neil, who is pretty self sufficient and who’s only real outbursts come in the form of peeing near the front door when she demands her litter be changed and whining for milk every time the fridge is opened. I simply cleared my already nonexistent and empty schedule so Perdy could have someone to hang out and play with while Marilyn and family went to Niagara Falls for a couple of days.

I generally am able to walk Perdy at least once but usually twice every day. Even though I don’t plan on being around that much longer, I have found that routine generally eases Perdy’s anxiety. The shakes and tremors she had as a result of no one being home that I noticed when I first met her had gone away until late Saturday night.

The first part of the day had gone rather smoothly. Perdy and I continued with our normal daily routine despite it being a day when her owners were usually home. We went for our normal walk about the same time we always did. Perdy even said hello to the dogs next door for what seemed like the first time since she had a run in with the leader of their pack.

There are a lot of dogs that live on the farm here, and if one is out they are usually all out. There is Cassie, a large black Newfie looking girl with a Lab-ish face, who has become the leader of the pack since the former alpha dog dies about a year ago. Cassie is so bushy that petting her is like running your hand over thick shag carpeting, Rocky was just as big as Cassie, but older and therefore a lot lower key. I have never seen Rock, who looks like a black, white, and grey version of Lassie, get worked up over anything. Stormy looks just how she is named, bright grey and with a face that gives her a wolf like appearance. Stormy occasionally gets high strung and starts barking and snarling like crazy before Cassie gets involved, says a few words, and shuts Stormy up.

And then there was Vegas, the youngest of the group and Molly’s replacement. Vegas was named after the town in New York she was adopted from and not from any love of gambling on the owner’s part. Vegas was a hound dog and probably judging from her features had a little Rottweiler and Doberman in her. I was never good, as you can probably tell, with eyeballing the lineage of any dogs taller than my knee in height. Vegas was always getting into something and was often admonished for it. All Vegas ever wanted to do was play and she made sure everyone around her knew it. Vegas had a tail like a helicopter that would often whirl around and slap the other dogs in the face so hard it would hurt them if they got too close. Additionally, Vegas was so fast and quiet that she could spring into view at a moments notice and without warning. This always made pulling into the driveway an unnecessary adventure since she could often dart across the lawn and be in front of your car before your could react; even if you started applying the brake when you first saw her, Vegas would be in front of or beside the car before you even had the chance to stop safely.

Perdy, a Border collie and whippet mix that looks kind of like a Dalmatian if you squint, was no slouch in the speed department herself, but could be just as erratic in her behaviour as Vegas, and as such had to remain on a leash or a tether while the other dogs roamed free. The main fear being that since the farm is located between two major highways (the 115 and the 401), Perdy could feasibly run away from us and into traffic without thinking twice.

While Perdy is almost four years old now and traffic seems to scare her more now than it entices her, she still needs to be kept on a leash to keep her from getting into trouble with the other dogs. Quite simply, she is too timid and skittish to play nicely with the big dogs. The incident that led to Perdy having a falling out with the other dogs on the property was a direct result of Vegas not being able to take no for an answer when Perdy didn’t want to play one night while out for a bathroom walk with Marilyn. Vegas bounded over to Perdy and started sniffing and pouncing all over her, and Perdy, who is also terrified of being out in the dark, just wanted to pee and go inside. Vegas was never one to listen to anyone other than her owner and when she wouldn’t leave Perdy alone, she began to snarl and get defensive. This snarling garnered the attention of Stormy, who was insanely protective of Vegas and seemed to be her best friend on the farm. Storm began to race over to Perdy and Marilyn with teeth bared; snarling herself and thinking she had finally found the fight she had been looking for. But before Stormy could reach Perdy, the usually slow and lumbering Cassie was already on the attack. Being twice Perdy’s size, Cassie easily flipped Perdy onto her back and placed her in a choke hold of sorts. Cassie was effectively cutting off Perdy’s air supply by biting her windpipe as hard as she could without breaking skin or drawing blood. Marilyn pulling tautly on Perdy’s leash out of fear probably didn’t help either.

I heard the screaming outside and immediately ran to the door to see what was going on. I froze in the doorway for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably only a few seconds. Marilyn and Cassie’s owner, Carol, trying to pry the two of them apart while screaming and crying. Vegas and Stormy circling the fight, teeth bared and at the ready. Rocky had made his way over as well, but being the oblivious, peace lover he always was appeared to be content with eating the hummus and pit off the lawn that Carol had dropped when rushing over to break up the fight.

I froze because since I was twelve any sign of aggression in any dog terrifies me. I always flash back to the day (three days after my birthday) when I was on my way to the supermarket with my mother when a neighbour’s Rottweiler charged at me and without warning latched onto my kneecap and refused to let go, nearly severing it in the process. I never saw it coming and the way it had me I couldn’t even fall backwards or defend myself in any way. I could only watch. It was the only time I ever passed out from the combination of pain and the sight of my own blood.

I snapped out of it and sprang quickly to action once I heard Marilyn scream for me to get a bucket of cold water. Not wanting to wait for a bucket to fill, I ripped the electric kettle that had gone unused that day despite being full from its socket and ran out the front door to douse the dogs. When that didn’t work, Carol took the cord from the kettle and wrapped it around Cassie’s neck to get her to release the grip. Carol didn’t need to apply that much pressure at all to get Cassie to let go.

Once separated, I stood there with the kettle acting like a lion tamer and trying to keep Vegas and Stormy away. Perdy rolled over, shat herself, and panted like a marathon runner. Cassie sauntered away like nothing just happened. I went inside and promptly got as drunk as the last two beers would get me to shake off the shock that nearly paralyzed me outside.

From that point on we all realized that with Vegas in the neighbourhood we needed to keep Perdy on a shorter leash than usual. Seldom would we bring Perdy out during the day if the other dogs were out, and if they were out after dark there was almost no way she would be let out short of a five alarm bladder emergency. It was the start of winter when the incident happened, so the plan was relatively easy to stick to.

It was now officially in both date and temperance spring, and as such keeping Perdy separated was a luxury we could ill afford. Perdy has always liked to laze about in the sun and the warm weather meant that she would have to co-exist with the other dogs if she wanted to keep that up.

The weekend Marilyn and Daniel left was a mixed bag weather wise. Saturday started off with downpours, before giving way to general gloominess around late afternoon when I decided to take Perdy for a walk, and then a hazy sort of sunshine just in time for dusk. The other dogs were out during the gloomy period and for what seemed and felt like one of the first times since the attack, Cassie and Rocky came to partake in a mutual sniff with Perdy while Stormy sat on the porch completely nonplussed. I couldn’t see Vegas anywhere.

By the time we returned from out walk, down the rural road running parallel to Highway 2 as far as the mailbox and back again, it was time for dinner for the both of us. I put the food in Perdy’s dish; she sniffed it and walked away. This didn’t surprise me. Since Marilyn got home from work a little bit after five, I tended to set out food for the pets at about quarter to. Mostly because Neil will meow incessantly to anyone within earshot if she feels her dinner is not being served in a timely and orderly fashion. Perdy would always come when you mention treats or walks, but rarely any other time. She would come, acknowledge dinner was served, and then promptly go back to staring out the window and waiting for Marilyn to come home.

After letting a few hours go by and devouring almost an entire platter of buffalo wings that Perdy shockingly wanted no part of, I began to become concerned. I contacted Jenna, my ex-girlfriend who was the only member of her family to not go on the trip to Niagara Falls because not only is she at university but also harboured a complete lack of interest, as I usually did with my pet related questions after I found I couldn’t get any information from the local vet if I wasn’t technically the owner of the pet in question. When Jenna didn’t have a clear answer for me she said she would see if anyone on one of her message boards that a lot of pet savvy people frequent had any ideas. Jenna suggested that I try to get her to play which I always tried to do, but when I am alone with her Perdy often seems too depressed to do anything other than sit on the stairs, looking out the window and sulking. I did get her to play but for probably less that two minutes. I continually offered her room on the couch next to me while I watched a few hours of the Stanley Cup playoffs, but there she remained; on the windowsill or the stairs curled up in a ball.

Later that night I made my way to the kitchen to do the dishes, bribing Perdy with a Milkbone to hope she followed. Perdy followed and I broke up the treat inside her dish, mixing it amongst the food Neil had been eyeballing for the past few hours with hope that it would trick Perdy into eating dinner. Perdy picked out the cookie bits, ate them, left the rest of the food, and went back to sulking.

While doing the dishes, I could hear Carol screaming at Vegas in the backyard. It was pretty dark out, but I could see Carol had put Vegas on a leash and was leading her back from the fence that separated the property from the 401. Carol never believed in leashes and seeing one around Vegas’ neck led me to think she had done something pretty bad. I wondered if Vegas had tried to jump the fence and make a break for the highway or Lake Ontario just beyond that. I shrugged it off as being pretty unlikely. Vegas was agile and while it wasn’t much of a fence it was still three times taller than she was. Plus, once she got over the fence there was some thick underbrush that led to a fairly deep ravine for a dog of Vegas’ size, and more brush coming up the other side.

In an effort to get Perdy to at least eat something, I filled one of her chew toys with peanut butter. It worked at first, but she only lasted a few licks before losing interest and returning to her perch on the windowsill. If she would have understood me at all I would have begged her to eat at this point. I wanted to say to her “Perdy we have known each other for a year now. I have walked you almost every day. I have fed you before. You need to get over this before I start feeling like a failure because I can’t do something as simple as watch a dog for one night.”

Shortly before (or possibly after) midnight and after I had abandoned almost all hope and had just placed the food and water dishes in the living room with hopes that just being in proximity to them would prompt Perdy to eat, Jenna got back to me with a pretty sound solution from someone on one of the message boards. Jenna asked me if I had any chicken broth, which I thought we did, but in reality I had to use beef instead. Jenna told me to sweeten the deal by adding the broth to the food. I opened the can and allowed Perdy to sample the broth as if it were a wine tasting. Once Perdy seemed to approve, I began to pour the consommé onto the dog chow. At first, Perdy just began to lick the broth from the bits of kibble, but it wasn’t long before her hunger gave in and she slowly and methodically made her way though a very late dinner.

I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Now that she had just eaten straight beef broth she would need to be walked again and it had started raining quite heavily once again. She also hadn’t touched her water all day which was also of no small concern to me. Plus, I feared her separation anxiety would only get worse once I went to bed since Perdy normally slept with Marilyn every night. I tricked Perdy into drinking some water by putting it in a human bowl and making her think it was a treat of some sort. Despite it lasting over 20 minutes my late night walk in the rain with her was uneventful, but at least she went to the bathroom. I went to bed to read at about two in the morning and Perdy came up to my room an hour later; not to sleep on the bed like she does with Marilyn and Daniel, but to curl up under the desk and continue sulking in my presence.

When I awoke at 5:58 in the morning it was apparent that Perdy had come to join me since she barked and yelped and ran out of the room for no discernable reason. I attempted to go back to sleep, but shortly after that Neil came upstairs kneading at my covers and begging for breakfast.

Only ten minutes had elapsed between Perdy running from the room and me making my way down the stairs, but she had already done her usual morning routine. There was poop on the rug, the cat poop had been eaten, and the mostly empty (except for a coffee filter) garbage bag was torn to shreds. And yet there she was; curled up on the stairs like nothing happened. I could have punished her by sending her to her carrier crate, but that would mean I would have had to stay up after I fed the cat and the pointless fish that no one seems to notice and I sometimes forget exists. Besides, part of Perdy’s problem is that her discipline is inconsistent. Marilyn gave up long ago mostly out of frustration and general apathy. After all, punishment only works on a dog if you catch them in the act of doing something. Daniel won’t discipline at all he finds it tantamount to abuse. That is, he won’t unless he’s in a shitty mood. It got to the point where unless Perdy seriously screwed up (which wasn’t very often) we would just kind of shrug it off and clean up whatever mess was made in silence.

I set out breakfast for Perdy while I was up, but when I reawakened at ten it remained untouched. I once again tried to use the remainder of the broth (which had no congealed slightly in the refrigerator) to coax Perdy into eating, but this time she had wised up to my ruse. She licked the bowl clean of all the broth and left the food behind. At least the water dish trick, still worked, but she still refused to touch her own water.

Despite not having anything to eat, I took Perdy for a walk in the early afternoon. It was a complete improvement over Saturday: bright, sunny, and the only chill in the air came from an infrequent breeze. The dogs were all out, as usual. Vegas came bounding over wanting to play. I patted her on the head and she was quickly called into the house by Carol. If Carol had expected a repeat of the ugly incident last time, she shouldn’t have worried. None of the other dogs so much as batted an eyelash; all perfectly content with soaking up the April sunshine.

I had never been on a walk with Perdy before where she seemed as completely disinterested as she did on Sunday. She usually walks nose to the ground sniffing everything around her. She went through our walk as if it were a formality, with her head in the air and her ears pinned back, stopping only when a train whistle in the distance spooked her. On the walk, I began to wonder if we had made our comings and goings too much of an event. When we leave the house we tend to give Perdy a treat of some sort if we are going someplace dogs aren’t allowed. It seems counterintuitive now since it doesn’t stop her from causing mischief or alleviate her anxiety in any way. Perdy doesn’t even really expect anything unless we call her over and make a scene out of it. When we return, Perdy is often waiting for us and we shower her with affection causing her to piss herself with excitement; literally and often next to my shoes which I should really stop leaving right next to the door.

When we returned to the house I noticed Vegas was tied to the banister that leads up to the porch, This was something I hadn’t seen Carol do before with any of the dogs and it honestly didn’t bode well.

The rest of the afternoon passed as it normally would. With me on the computer fruitlessly trying to do research for and write future blogs. Perdy sat and pined for her owners. I went to reheat the remainder of last night’s wings around five. I fed Neil and put out a full serving of food that I was certain Perdy would devour once everyone came home later that night. When I pulled the wings from the microwave, I looked out the window and down onto the highway. Five cars had stopped on the shoulder of the road. There didn’t appear to be an accident, and one of the cars had a mattress dangerously strapped to its roof. Since this was the most action I had seen all week, I rushed to the computer to tell everyone I was chatting with that I would be right back. When I returned to the window, I saw several people hopping the fence and rushing to Carol’s house.

My cynical heart sank at the thoughts I hoped were wrong. I questioned if I really wanted to see a dead dog, especially one that I had seen earlier. As Carol made her way over the fence, I prayed I had been mistaken. I have had two cats in my lifetime and I hadn’t seen either of them die. I have seen dead birds and fish up close, but I had never seen an actual four legged animal that I had touched earlier in the day dead in front of me.

I watched as the people who stopped help Carol lift Vegas’ body over the fence. I still have no idea how she could have ever gotten over or even under it. No one does. Cassie and Rocky were howling and crying. Vegas was carried by her back, with all four paws sticking straight up in the air. Her helicopter tail that used to be straight as a rail hung beneath her as limp as a shoelace. Once I saw that I looked away and cried for a pet that wasn’t even mine.

Within twenty minutes of her death, Vegas’ body was wrapped in a blanket and placed into the front of a tractor; destined to take the grave next to Molly. The three of us watched from Perdy’s spot: Perdy on the windowsill and Neil on my lap as I sat on the stairs. I wondered if Perdy knew what was under the blanket. I didn’t feel much like doing anything anymore. I didn’t even want to go outside for the burial. I just couldn’t do it.

As the tractor pulled away towards what was becoming a makeshift pet cemetery, Perdy got up from her perch, stretched her legs, and made her way to the kitchen where she devoured her already late dinner in less than five minutes. I like to think Perdy can tell when I am upset. Even if just to pacify me, it was enough to make me smile.

I took Perdy for an after dinner walk and things seemed to be back to normal. All the dogs were inside except for Stormy who was lying at the foot of the driveway on her side and whimpering. I knelt down beside her and gave her a good petting; something I had never done before with Stormy. When Storm rolled over onto her stomach looking sad and listless, I began to sob openly. I knew this really wasn’t like Stormy. She was hurting and just wanted some attention and someone to tell her everything was going to be OK. Perdy sat perfectly still and didn’t come between us, but clearly wanted to continue the walk.

Perdy and I made a detour on the way back to the house so we could stop at Vegas’ grave and pay our respects. The ground where the dogs are buried at the end of the street was extremely muddy from the rain and melted snow. You could see spots where the tractor sunk trying to pull in next to Molly’s grave that is marked simply with a sapling. Once the ground dries a bit more Vegas will also be remembered with a tree. Two trees will be side by side in a completely open field. Because of the mud, we didn’t get too close and since neither of us had anything to say other than “I’m going to miss you. I always liked your tail and your energy.” and “bark” we moved on fairly quickly out of fear of sinking into the ground ourselves.

When we returned home the sunset had turned the horizon a brilliant orange against a cloudless light blue sky. Perdy resumed her spot at the window, awaiting the return of her loved ones. It wasn’t going to be much longer now. I grabbed a beer, sat beside her, and I too, waited.

Isaiah 44:18

The first thing I did upon my release from the hospital was to grab a bite to eat from that new roast beef sandwich shop who’s name escapes me now but I remember being very good and served the biggest sandwiches known to man alongside the best onion rings I have ever tasted. The food in the hospital was positively ghastly, and while all I had really been eating was beef (as it was the safest choice when compared to the odd and off-putting gelatinous fruits and vegetables they served), I have always used good meals to reward myself. If I have gone through something hellish, I treated myself to the unhealthiest, greasiest, and delicious comfort food I could find.

Eric met me in his station wagon. I was hoping he would have brought my car so I could have gone to my mother’s grave after lunch and I could just drop him off at his house. I didn’t think anything of it at first. I was mostly just content with seeing a friendly face and eating some onion rings that didn’t taste like shoelaces fried in cardboard breading. It was on my mind, but I waited until after we ordered to ask where my car was.

“Yeah. I don’t know how to tell you this, but they repo’d your car, dude.”

I had a pretty good idea why and who they were. My inspection sticker had lapsed while I was in the hospital and before I went init wasn’t exactly at the top of my to-do list with the parents funerals, shitty job, school starting, debts, and having my girlfriend cheat on me. I was still wondering, however, why my car was impounded from a private dead end street with only one house on it that belonged to Eric’s family.

“First, let me also say that your windshield is busted. Not badly, just really cracked. A tree limb fell on it during a storm last week, but I pulled it off. Point is, the neighbours called the police department and said it was an eyesore.”

“Eric, you don’t have any neighbours, and the two houses across the street from you have ten foot high hedges they couldn’t see over without a ladder.”

“Yeah, but they walk their dogs there all the time.”

Maybe it was the Effexor talking, but I wasn’t mad or upset. It just continued my feelings of being completely under whelmed by humanity. Eric lived in one of the richer sections of Worcester and those hedges essentially were the dividing line between the wealthy and the merely well off. It was legally parked, but a Pontiac Sunfire with a busted windshield that is parked for more than a week clearly didn’t fit the neighbourhood aesthetic and was visually disturbing to the dogs that come to shit on Eric’s lawn.

“I tried to stop them. I ran out of the house screaming ‘Wait! Wait! Stop! He’s in the mental hospital!’ but it was too late.” Eric really did scream the part he said he screamed when retelling the story causing the whole restaurant to turn to me as I just snickered. I told Eric not to worry about it and I would go get it tomorrow. Eric also agreed to drive me to the cemetery once we were done and offered me his car for the night provided that I drive him to work in a few hours and pick him up. I accepted the offer mostly just to say hello to my coworkers and tell the management that I would be back to work soon.

I asked Eric if he told anyone else I was out of the hospital other that Julie and Tina who I had called myself. That was when they usually exuberant Eric looked uncomfortably awkward.

“Yeah, I told lots of people you were getting out today and that includes Kerrilynn. I hope you aren’t mad at me.”

“I’m not mad, I’m just not going to talk to her.”

“She wants you to call.”

“I’m not fucking calling.” My Boston accent flares up when I get flustered despite it rarely making an appearance outside of a heated conversation.

“She feels terrible, Andy, and she’s my friend, too. I don’t agree with what she did, but she needs to hear you say it wasn’t her fault.”

I dropped my sandwich onto the platter and watched the lettuce explode outward onto the serving tray and all over my jeans. “But part of it is her fault, Eric. Don’t you see that? I know from that fucking story you spout off all the time that you know what heart break feels like.”

“But she feels bad...”

“Fucking good. I’m glad she does.”

“Don’t you think you are holding just a bit of a grudge?” Eric also had the annoying knack of coming off as pandering and patronising when I don’t think he really meant to be as was evidenced by the use of the finger pinching gesture with accompanying inflection when he reached the “just a bit” part.

“Come to me in a few years and ask me that again. Right now it is all too fresh for me to give a flying fuck about anything she wants from me.”

The short version of the story, because I don’t remember exactly what was said, is that Kerrilynn was my girlfriend shortly before my hospitalization. Technically speaking she was the fourth girlfriend I ever had, but she was the first I truly loved with all my heart. At times, she seemed to feel the same way.

Kerrilynn went to university in New Hampshire weeks before I had to go back in Boston. We talked almost nightly and even though she couldn’t attend my mother’s funeral that night she stayed on the phone with me from some time after midnight until some time after eight in the morning.

Kerrilynn was very impressive and more than a little crazy; certifiably so, but that is a story for another time. She always liked to show up unannounced, so a few days after the funeral I decided to pay her a visit like she had done to me so many times before. Apparently it wasn’t a good time since I caught her in the middle of having sex with her best friend who had previously sworn to everyone around him that he was gay. It would later turn out that he wasn’t gay or even bi, but just an asshole who liked to lie to girls about his sexuality in order to gain enough of their trust to get them to sleep with him, but that’s not the real point. That’s merely a bonus. It turned out they had been hooking up for years and never told anyone about it. It was going on before I was in the picture and it went only long after I wasn’t.

The night following my discovery, she dumped me on instant messenger. I had left without saying anything, but her saying plenty about how needy I was over the past week. I was in too much shock to even come back with “Sorry my mom died this week and it led to me walking in on you fucking another guy,” but I was in too much shock. I don’t even remember going home. I couldn’t break up with her then and there. I was too confused by everything going on and I was about to explode. It was just making matters worse that she so disingenuously robbed me of my right to be angry with her by beating me to the punch. I don’t remember the conversation save for “we are just in different places right now in more ways than one,” but I do know if it weren’t for Eric and Megan calming me down and the strange fixation I had developed on the Shell gas card next to the computer, I probably would have taken my life that night.

“All the times that she said she needed me and she just showed up, I showed unquestionable loyalty, Eric. I never once turned her away. The one time I showed her that I needed her because everything in my life was legitimately shit and she fucks me.”

“Actually...”

“Don’t you fucking joke right now. You know what the fuck I meant. I would calm her down from her hysteric fucking fits that she got if someone looked at her the wrong fucking way, and the one time I really needed her support, announced or unannounced because I know what the fuck you are thinking right now, she betrays me and I get dumped for catching her in a fucking lie.”

“You have no idea what I am thinking right now because what I am thinking is that you need to get down off your cross Jesus. You want to talk about lies? How’s this for a lie? ‘Andy are you doing OK? Do you want to talk about it?’ What was my answer a week later? You half passed out and shaking while I drive you to the ER.”

I backed off from expressing my anger outwardly, but on the inside I was still seething. “She cheated on me. I loved her.” I said it as calmly as possible.

“I know and she is sorry. I’m not telling you to take her back. I’m telling you to forgive her. You don’t have to forget what happened, but if you don’t let it go neither of you will move on. Alright? Now we are going to change the subject because I am sorry I brought it up in the first place.”

The conversation moved on to more pleasing topics like sports, school, hospital food, and 9/11 since it was still fresh in everyone’s memory at the time. Kerrilynn’s name wasn’t uttered by either of us for the next few weeks.

We made our way to the graveyard two hours and a few more rounds of onion rings later. The sun seemed pretty high overhead despite it being almost five o’clock in mid-September. Eric waited in the car since I wanted some privacy while I replaced my mother’s flowers and talked to her for a bit.

It had rained almost every day since the last time I visited and as such I got lost finding the place marker denoting where she was buried. I had to brush away the dirt from several of them since it appeared my flowers from last time had blown away or been stolen. When I found her I didn’t say anything profound or even cry. I just let her know her son was doing fine and that he hoped she was doing the same. I scheduled an appointment with her for roughly the same time next week. She didn’t reply, but I knew she was free. I could always drop in on her unannounced.

On the way to the pauper’s graves where my mother was buried you have to pass through something at turns brilliant, beautiful, eerie, and sad: a children’s only graveyard. I walked through briefly on my previous visit and the sight of it all left me crushed. Instead of flowers there were rusting Tonka dump trucks and faded, dirty stuffed animals that seemed to take on the inherent sadness of the area around them. No one over the age of eighteen was buried in this section of the cemetery, as stated in the copy of the by-laws I had been given. Out of all the graves I saw, however, I was hard pressed to find anyone who had grown older than a toddler.

Once row of newly laid stones had always caught my eye; four children all from the same family who died on the same day only three months prior. Two were twins as they had the same birth date and never made it past the age of six. One was an eight month old infant and the other a twelve year old boy. I had wondered before what could have happened to cause them to pass away all at once. I further wondered why the same bible verse was inscribed on every stone: Isaiah 44:18

On the way back to the car I saw a woman this day, kneeling and sobbing in front of the graves with a cane beside her. A much older man stood watching at a safe distance, gently wiping the tears that rolled down his cheek through his bright white beards that seemed to be closely cut at some point in the recent past, but had fallen into a state of disrepair.

Morbid curiosity led me to ask the man quite sheepishly if he knew the woman who I assumed quite correctly was the mother of the children. The old man was her father-in-law and he was giving her space to grieve. It was the first visit she has had to the graves of her children and her husband who was buried in the same section of the graveyard as my mother.

The old man fought back tears as he told me what happened. Once he began telling me the story, I had remembered reading about it in the newspaper. The family was on their way from Grafton to Hyannis when the father, who was at the wheel, slipped into a diabetic coma almost instantly. Everything happened so quickly that the mother was powerless to stop it. The steering wheel jerked and their van spun sideways before rolling and flipping over the median into oncoming traffic.

All but one of the children were pronounced dead at the scene. The father died waiting for the Life Flight helicopter and the last remaining child (one of the twins) passed away later in the day from haemorrhaging that the doctors were powerless to stop. This was the mother’s first day out of the hospital; only a week after emerging from a coma.

Her father-in-law asked if I was here for someone I loved and without going into too much detail I told him both my parents were there and died within weeks of each other.

He bit his lip and seemed to be holding back hysteria that desperately wanted to come out. “At least you are young. You can find solace in the fact that things should be that way. A child should always out live their parents...” The hysteria took over as the old man bit his lip and let himself go. “...you should never outlive your grandchildren.”

And for the first time in my life a stranger had made me cry. It was also the first and only time I ever hugged a relative stranger when I wasn’t dressed in a mascot suit for work and the stranger was a young child. We calmed down and wished each other well, but before I left I had to know what Isaiah 44:18 meant. The old man shrugged a little.

“That was my wife’s idea. You should probably look it up yourself because I would cock it all up. I will say that if you are in this place for someone you love that you will understand.”

The Great Presidential Bake-off

When I stop to consider who I want to vote for in a presidential election, culinary prowess is not something I generally look for in a candidate, yet somehow over the past week both Republicans and Democrats have decided to make various food related faux pas and scandals that I found both amusing and disturbing.

Originally, I had supported Barack Obama. I liked that he had sort of an outsider feel to him and I liked his stance on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over time, however, I realized that Obama doesn’t have a single concrete or realistic plan to fix anything that doesn’t pertain to the military. The man is an eloquent speaker and a convincing figurehead for the “hope and change” platform he seems to be running on, but his policies on anything other than the war in Iraq are either non-existent or hopelessly vague.

I never fully warmed up to Hillary Clinton, and I still haven’t. Having lived in a state where she was a senator, I know her track record well enough to know that her saying something and her actually following through with her statements rarely go hand in hand, but she still generally makes the right decisions. I also had a huge mental problem that I didn’t want all the presidents in my lifetime to be so closely connected. It went from Regan to his vice president Bush, to Clinton, then to Bush’s son, and then it could go to another Clinton. That shows little to no progress at all and makes Clinton and Bush almost sound more like brand names than they already are.

While I don’t agree with all her policies (her stance on the role of the military being the biggest disagreement), in my heart I know she is the best person for the job. While she might not stick to the policies she has outline in part or even in full, at least she has taken the time to craft a legitimate answer and seems to be ready to go right to work the moment she is elected. If you ask Hillary a question, you get an answer. If you ask Barack a question, you get a wonderful sounding sound bite that, if you are lucky, has a fragment of an answer.

It is now more than ever clear that Barack really only tells people what they want to hear. Despite swearing up and down that he is not an elitist, this very conceit shows how woefully out of touch he is with common working class Americans. You can shout from the heavens all you want about hope and change, but without any plans for me to see, you are just a person with a pretty face that people have thrown a lot of money behind in order to further the cause of not only the patriarchy but the aristocracy as well.

In a debate this past week, the first question posed to Obama was regarding a statement he made the week prior where he made the assumption that small town voters were bitter. ABC’s Sam Donaldson noted that such a statement could be considered as being filled with elitist sentiment.

Obama defended the charge in typical sound bite fashion by bringing up a statement Hillary Clinton made almost in passing in 1992. During Bill’s first term Hillary said that she had no plans to “stay home and bake cookies.” Obama said that such a statement could also be considered elitist. And it could be considered as such, but only by someone very ignorant.

Hillary’s statement was feminist if anything, and I dare say even humanist and completely realistic. Besides, when in the past century has the first lady even stayed home long enough to bake cookies? The first lady is technically a foreign dignitary and is perfectly capable in helping to shape policies. Even in the joking context Clinton used, it was clear to all but a select few people who heard it as being colloquial in nature. If Hillary had said “I am so busy that I am hiring someone to make cookies,” then that would be an elitist statement.

While what Hillary said could not in any way be considered elitist and offended only a few asshats, Obama’s statement was as elitist as you can get. Obama has effectively offended half of the population of the United States by calling them out on their voting habits. In my eyes, all the negative press Obama has been getting on the subject is deserved and no one’s fault but his own. Also, unlike John Kerry who could blame his “if you are poor and uneducated you get shipped to Iraq” slip up on a speech writer, Obama made this statement up on the fly. He clearly can’t fire himself, so he is stuck having to back pedal.

Also, Hillary actually does make cookies. They aren’t anything special, but they are certainly delicious.

The Republicans on the other hand have created what might be one of the most ridiculous recipe related scandals in years. It is also a strange case of plagiarism involving someone I dislike almost as much as the Republican Party: Rachel Ray.

On John McCain’s website, an intern posted recipes that were lauded as being family favourites and created by McCain’s wife. Within a week of the posting, the creators of McCain’s website were slapped with a cease and desist order from Food Network claiming plagiarism and copyright infringement. Three of the recipes were either in part or in whole taken from the Food Network website and the celebrity chefs who created them.

Although they contained slight variations, McCain’s recipes for Passion Fruit Moose and Ahi Tuna with Cabbage Slaw, Pasta, and Turkey Sausage had their cooking instructions and ingredients mostly copied from Giada DeLaurantis and Mario Batali, respectively. A third recipe for Rosemary Chicken Breasts was copied word for word from Rachel Ray.

Within 48 hours of receiving the notification, the intern was fired and the recipes pulled, which further begs the question, if you want to prove you are a common person, why not just flat out provide links to recipes you like rather than lie about it? Oh, right. You are a Republican politician running for the presidency. McCain’s knowledge of these recipes is admittedly debatable, but whoever thought it was a good idea to run these as originals was deservedly fired.

I do have it on good authority, however, that McCain does make excellent frozen dinners, pizzas, and French fries that are available in grocery stores everywhere.