I am just saying goodnight

to a day that was not so crappy.  I realized that even though I write out, without filtering, just about anything that happens or happens to pop into my head and even though I am fully aware that I am the only person hanging out here, that there are some things that are not safe to write.  Not even here.  Not even in a place where there is no one except for me.

I am managing, but the past week or so nearly did me in again and I had to sleep with my door locked.  No one should have to live like this.  And, I am not even the victim, because it has been explained and made very clear to me that everything bad that happens is my fault, even the things that happen to me and come as a complete surprise.  Yeah.  It appears that I am still capable of surprise.  Never thought that would be a condition of this geography again.

Being as quiet as a mouse and doing your best is not enough.  Not even close.

A few things

I feel better, as in lots better today.  Not as much coughing.  Gosh, that is such a wonderful thing.  I conducted an interview today with a very interesting person.  It should make for an excellent article.  I went in for an extra session with one of my clients, and whilst she failed to show, I did get some work done and treated myself to lunch.  

On one of the car drives today I heard a story about a celebrity.  You know, if you want to do some particular kinds of work, celebrity comes along with it.  You do not have to like it, but that does not make any difference.  Then, when you are not doing that work that made you famous, you try to have a normal life.  With a family and friends, hobbies and maybe a faith community thrown in for good measure.  Having a normal life is what normal people have, well, most people, and being normal means being human, which means making mistakes.

Mistakes, even for normal people are not all that much fun.  Really. You normal people know what I am taking about.  But, if you are famous, making mistakes is not nearly the private thing that it is for the rest of us normal people.  When you are famous, everyone, the other famous people and the normal people all get to learn about your mistakes and all of the gory details along with their dinner during the evening news.

Then, after, or in the midst, those mistakes, you try to get away from all the media coverage and the country to which you flee makes it public that they want you to leave.  Just, for chrissakes, leave.  And, man, if you smoke, it is even worse.

What else?

Oh, yeah.  There is not enough money in the budget for someone to be able to go to the dentist, but there is plenty of money to replace large appliances that do not need replacing for no better reason than the person doing the replacing controls the money and how it is used.  And, the person who needs to go to the dentist is in trouble because there was insufficient praise for the new, unneeded, appliances.  Some days you just gotta shake your head and try not to cry.  Yeah.

Knees.  Everyone has them.  Struck with the notion of tacking one of the more physically strenuous divesting projects, I just did it.  For four days I culled, sorted for friends, charities and the trash, putting more in the garbage than necessary just to avoid having it stick around and be reabsorbed into the landscape here.

It felt great when it was finished, although the next day brought pain and trips to the pharmacy for stuff to help with the pain and two weeks, or so, later, x-rays and an MRI suggested but delayed after much begging, it appears that rubbing the bony parts of one's knees is not a good thing and a swollen and sore bursa is the result.  Heck, at least it is still there and still working.  

It will get better, just like I am getting better.  Although, I do have to admit that this getting older can be a caution.

Our quotidian lives.  Sometimes a small one is not so bad, even though mundane is not an equality opportunity employer.

Griping.  Just another method of divesting.  Loving it.

Still better

I am not the only person here who does not appreciate my coughing.  In some perverted way that comforts me, even though I do not like being chided..

I did manage to get nearly eleven hours of sleep in the past few days (six of it midday today) and, frankly, it feels great.  I know that you cannot ever catch up on missed sleep and that comforts me, too, because if you could, I would have to sleep round the clock for the better part of a week.  Yes, I am so desperate for something to do that I did the math.

I kind of scared myself just a bit before I dropped off to slumberland, when I could not catch my breath and the first part of the Cough That Would Not Die was a longish exhalation that was a wheeze, followed by a small gag/choke and then the staccato of hacking.  It still happens, but not as long.  Frankly, when it happened earlier today, I was then afraid to go to sleep, but I finally just passed out anyway.  I guess I am getting used to what seems to be the next phase in this fucking thing.

I had a lovely dinner of roasted chicken wings, but could not eat any potato or the pears that I had planned for dessert.  Hey, that sounds like I had actually done a meal plan!  Good on me!  Whatever.

In the heartfelt and do-or-die desire to sleep when normal people sleep and function during the daylight hours when normal people are functioning, I have a plan.  Tonight I am taking the maximum dose of a drowse-inducing, night-time cold medicine.  I am hoping to be asleep, or very close to it, by 11:00 tonight.

Gods, I hope that works.

It might, because just eating dinner and putting the left-overs away totally exhausted me.  That is just totally messed up. 

I am hot and sweaty because it is so blazing hot in here.  I swear, it is a good thing that I do not ever get to see any of the bills here, because I am certain that the heating/cooling/electric bills would give me a heart attack, and I absolutely do not need another health-related issue, although the heat alone might kill me yet.  

I tried keeping a door open, but that apparently is not allowed, which is nice in the aspect that doors and windows cannot be opened during the other three seasons, so I guess that makes for a nice pattern.  I asked, once again, if that person who is not me was too cold and was told that he was not.  So, what is the point?  I cannot figure any of it out.  Most of what happens here stymies me.  I simply do not understand any of it and I am apparently way too stupid to have any of my questions answered.  I few days ago I was informed that patience has run out in regards to my smart ass comments, which, honestly, are as benign and non-committal, non-confrontational and polite as it is possible to be.  I give enormous time and thought before I speak aloud about anything.

And, the comments are not really even comments, but answers to questions posed to me for which there are no safe answers.  So, I always try to be as mild and quiet as possible when I do answer, but that is not working any more.  If there is no safe way to speak or look or walk or do anything, then what is left?  What am I supposed to do?  There must be a way there, somewhere, but I am damned if I can find it.

Another sad thing is that one of my on-line friends (we follow each other's blogs, although hers is wonderful and not crappy like mine), and she took offense at something I wrote a few weeks back.  She left an angry comment, later deleted it and removed herself from my pathetic list of followers.  

Then, today, I found out that she has blocked me from viewing her blog.  

What the hell is that about?  

I mean, I offend practically everyone with what I write here.  

I am a all purpose offender.  This, the writing that I do here, is all about my inner process.  

I do not filter anything.  I just let it stream out through my fingertips and it is what it is.  That is it.  Nothing less, nothing more.  I have no sub-context.  I have no hidden agendas.  Hell, I do not even have any visible or apparent agendas.  This is where I spew, just get all of the crap out so that it does not fester or bother me or hurt me the way hidden crap does, you know, the kind of stuff we keep swallowing down, where it eats at us and fills us up with despair until we end up offing ourselves or going outside and beating the car into oblivion.  

Then, when the police show up, the neighbors say things like, "Oh, she was the quietest person on the block.  We never heard a peep out of her.  Golly, we hardly ever saw her.  Are you sure she was the one who threw that transmission into the street?"  

So, this is where I get rid of all of that stuff.  It is not my intention of offend anyone; I never even think or consider that anyone will read this stuff.  Why is she feeling singled out?  Why does she even care?  This is not about her.  She knows that, for chrissakes.

But, she is mad at me, like really, really mad.  Lordy.

Well, time for a few more Mah Jong games before I take my pharmaceuticals and sleep the sleep of the mucus hackers who are full of pharmaceuticals.

Dinner, however was wonderful and the cats loved it just as much as I did and there is plenty for the next few  days, especially the potatoes that no one ate, and we have fresh butter and sour cream for them.  Yum.  Now, that is something to dream about.

Lots better

Except for being up for the whole cycle of a day again.  I am so weary of coughing and not being able to take to my bed without my lungs getting all liquidy when I am prone..  

My head hurts.  So does my back.  I have pain in one of my eyes and my head really, really hurts.  The junk in my sinuses is greatly reduced, practically gone, gone, gone.  Until I lie down.

I am so tired and every time I doze off I cough myself awake.  

I am not getting anything done.

I just want it to stop.

More better

I was able, with the assist of a nap, to go two places today.  Coffee this morning and an early dinner with one of my older friends.  I am exhausted and had to cut short our after-dinner conversation, which is really difficult to do with this lovely woman.  Even talking during the time we were eating was almost more than I could handle.  Baby steps back to feeling well.  I am getting there.  I can feel that I am better every day.

So, I was looking through a week's worth of mail yesterday and there was one of those coupon magazines, the smallish ones that have coupons and special offers from businesses around town.  Well, not my town, but the big one near here.  There is a new fitness place that has a low monthly fee and no contracts.  I do not know what they offer or the price or anything, and will contact them tomorrow or, more likely, on Monday to find out if they will accept an ancient crone who is dying, literally, to be more fit.

I was listening to the radio whilst getting cat food and groceries and a ton more over the counter stuff at the pharmacy and some program was on and I heard that if you are sedentary, as in sitting for at least six hours a day that you exponentially increase your chances of dying and/or developing high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems or having a stroke.  Surely I must have heard these exact same things dozens of times.

But, yesterday was different.  And, then I sit down (yeah, an ontheroadtodying pun) to take a look at all of the mail that accumulated and there was the fitness place thing.  I could do that, whatever it is that they offer.  I am pretty sure that I could, not even knowing what it is about, because if their monthly fee is so low, it is likely that they do not beat you with a stick to make you keep going until you bleed or your knees crumble or  your head explodes.  Doncha think?  The advertisement makes a big deal about offering a free fitness assessment and instruction on their machines, but that is just a liability issue for them.

Yeah, I could do that as long as they let me go at my own pace.  My fucked up joints are going to be the major hurdle to fitness for me, but if I go as often as possible, like every other day, every time that I go I will be able to do whatever it is that they do there a little longer each time.

I am going to see if they are on-line and I am hoping ever so hard that this could work for me.  I have nothing to lose except for a few hours and a few dollars and if it is not a good match for me then know I can handle the guilt of yet another failure because I have more experience in that arena than anyone should have to bear.

Yeah.  I could do this.  I am willing to cough out a lung trying.  Yeah.

Better

I am.  

Most nights are filled with coughing, and the damn hack-hack-hack kept me up, totally up, two nights ago.  That has not happened to me, the not sleeping at all thing, for years.  I used to have insomnia and it was icky.  There would be times when I could not sleep for two or three nights, a few times four nights would pass without any slumber.  If you have never experienced that, well, it is a terrible thing.  You feel down-to-the-bone icky. You cannot nap and you do not feel much like doing anything, and you probably should not, especially operate tricky equipment and most certainly should not drive a vehicle.  Hell, by the fourth night without sleep it is probably too dangerous for you to be even a passenger in a vehicle.  Really.

But now, at my age, a single night not sleeping is terrible.  It is not the end of the world as I know it or anything, but when dawn broke and I had to consider getting ready for work, I began to feel drowsy and all I could think about was where the heck is the caffeine? 

I did, however, survive a very busy day that did not have room for lunch or any kind of break and I am thinking that a couple of eggs for breakfast and a double handful of raw vegetables and a couple of strawberries and a banana must have resulted in a bit of weight loss, at the very least.

Anyway, I would love to stop coughing.  I would like to have my voice back.  I actually do, once in a while.  Mostly it is all hoarse and hacky, sort of like manifesting my inner Lauren Bacall or maybe I just always wanted to be Humphrey Bogart's girlfriend and this is the closest I will get to that.  But, seriously, I sound like a boy's choir member entering puberty.  One minute the scratchy croaking, then a few squeaks, more Bacall and a few, scant moments of what might be close to my original voice.  

I hardly notice it anymore, but it must be a trial for my clients, trying to concentrate on our work when I sound like a cartoon gone horror film.  And, it is surely a trial for my housemate to try to sleep or even watch television with me and my crappy lungs caterwauling in the background all the damn time.  I mean, seriously, how is it possible for me to hardly notice that I am hacking all over the place?  

Anyway, I really am better.  I have only a week more of antibiotics and with luck this will all be over soon.  Five weeks of this is enough.  I am going to take my slightly more vigorous self out for groceries and cat food later.  I would love to treat myself to lunch at the diner, but think that I will settle for getting provisions and napping as much as possible.  Yeah, I like that plan much better.  I will stay home, make popcorn, play with the kitties, read, enjoy the rush that comes with the first Mah Jong game of the day, all in between naps, of course.  Mmmm, I am a good planner.

Hum. Ahum. Ah...

I am too sick to write or do much of anything but sleep and play Boggle.

I am well enough to take myself to the clinic, the pharmacy and the drive-through for an icy coffee drink.

That is all I can do.   Snore...cough...drool...cough...cough...cough...gag...gag...cough.

Oh, I have been taking the minimum of all of the over-the-counter stuff because I wanted to keep my mucus and all that stuff flowing so that I would get well sooner.  One particularly stupid thing is that I have not been taking the prescription cough medicine at night so that it would keep the mucus plugs in my lungs from getting too big and thick, and making it difficult to clear them out in the morning.  I was totally wrong.  My doc told me that the mucus thickens overnight because I am not constantly drinking fluids like I do during the day.  Plus, because I am, again, stupid, I am probably mouth-breathing, which further dehydrates you when you are sleeping.  I suck.

So.

Full decongestant meds tonight.

Full dose of cough med, and I will keep the bottle at bedside in case I need another swig in the middle of the night.

Breathe-Right strips (or whatever they are named) snugly on nose.

Bottle of water close at hand.

Full dose of all decongestant meds during the day.  Turns out that they might help reduce the swelling and allow the fluids in my ears to drain.  By the way, that hurts.  A lot.

Yeah, I really and truly suck.  Any normal person would have asked all of these questions weeks ago.

I have to wonder if I have made these mistakes at other times when I have pneumonia and assorted head-gunking-stuff.  I do not remember being this ill, so I am guessing that my stupidity is a newly acquired condition.

God, I hope so.

Oh...oh...nobody knows the mucus I haz.

10-10-10

My moon is in the tenth house.  Yep.

I felt well enough today to go out to lunch, conduct that interview, get groceries and make it home with out collapsing.  And, I ate regular food.  Cup of soup, half a sandwich and coffee.

Today's interview victim...um...subject was the nicest man I have met in a long time.  I hope that we run into one another once in a while.  It is a small town and now that we have met, that might just happen.  I think that this could be a new and good friend.  You know, sometimes you just have to get through the crap to the good stuff, and I am hoping that this is what has happened.

I am finished, I hope, with antibiotics tomorrow.  Only the doctor knows for sure.

I get to make $15.00 on Tuesday.  I am not allowed to say what I will be doing, confidentiality thing and all that, but it is legal and it is fifteen bucks and if I am finally feeling well enough to drive up to the city for coffee with my friends on Saturday, that will pay for breakfast and more.

What else.  Oh, my voice is mostly back.  Sort of.  I am feeling very Lauren Bacall-ish, but it would be nice to hear my real voice again sometime.

Well, I am exhausted and still have to finish writing the article before I head off to bed, so, that's all folks.