Talking with Cricket, we faced my future.  I have been walking her dog Griffin, as she's on a movie right now.  In the dog park, I talked with a man who knows about service dogs for the blind.  Apparently, they are short of people to foster them before they go into training.  Another Bush deal.

He told me that one fosters the beastie for eighteen months and if the dog fails out, you can keep him.   I was catching Cricket up with the dog park/Griffin news when I told her what Jack said.  Cricket came right out and said I'd be doing that within the year!  Hot poop on a Pringle!  That my life would be about animals, not house-painting.  That is so beyond my scope of joy right now.  It seems like that would be Nirvana.

Okay, Nirvana with dog owners, abandonment, cruelty and shelters.  But, Hell, Bells 'n' Smells, I am on the receiving end of an amazing gift.  My best friend Cricket.  She has been there for me when my family was not.  She has supported me in every way:  Emotionally, physically and financially.

My goal right now is to keep my brains together.  In the long term?  I'll be dancing with wolves.

I know, I've been a bit behind in my new series of helpful hints and solutions.  So I just wanted to give you a lovely idea that helped me handle those pesky telemarketers.  I don't have any trouble with them, as I have no "real life".  However, my best friend Cricket is inundated with 'em.

Now, I know that there are "Do not call" numbers that you can ring to fight these tedious folk, but that is not so much fun.  For example, I picked up Cricket's phone at the shore, to the lovely call from a stranger wanting to sell.  Now, I hate to leave a good opportunity to lie.  So I did.

I explained that I wasn't the home owner, didn't know them and in fact, I'd just broken in to this empty house.  I waited, but none of the local police force came.  Shame.  I love a man in a uniform.

Next unsolicited call you get, look at it as a chance to let your imagination free.  These people need to know that their calls are valued, for the great improv ground that they supply.  Let me know how it goes.

I just got done holding a 12-Step meeting in prison.   Thank you all so much for your kind support, compassion and understanding.  (D.M., you have my special gratitude).  Cricket has been incredible, as well as Lori from Oasis.  No, silly, not the "Gentleman's Club" Oasis!  The Oasis Arts Center that put together the portrait project.

Stepping back from the abyss, I tread softly.  I don't want the edge to crumble beneath me.

You may have noticed that I've been a tad tiresome of late.  I have been struggling with an ongoing low, which I really didn't want to face or own up to.  It has secretly alarmed me, injured me and fecked with my mind.  In particular, my humour, something I rely on heavily.

On Tuesday I told my p-doc that I failed to see the point of continuing medication, as I end up feeling this way.  Typical of my depressions, I cannot recall being happy or content.  He reminded me that I have felt better and that we'd wanted to see me stable for a while before I start to come off the meds.

To that end, he has prescribed a dopamine medication, as the Ritalin worked so well back when.  As it is not usually a p-med, the fecking insurance refused to pay for the $160 it took to fill the script.  I am so sick of the way I feel, that after I walked Griffin, I called CVS back and said I'd pay for it.

Which right now means that Cricket will pay for it.  She has shelled out the money to pay for me to go back to school, and more stuff than my pee-brain can handle right now.  Yet she is insisting I make sure I am well myself, first, before paying her back.

I hate myself right now.  I wish I were done.  I am too exhausted and overwhelmed.  I would leave this mortal coil, were it just me.  This sea of crashing depression is cold, harsh, relentless, with rip-tides and strong currents.  Even if I find a life-raft, it will be a short respite before I am tossed into the sucking, dark waters of despair again.  How can I continue and why?

For now I have to live.  I have no option.  My mess is something I would not wish on anyone.  I have cats that I have chosen to care for.  I have an incalculable debt to Cricket, which has nothing to do with money.  In short, for now I am living for her and my beasties, because I cannot bear to live for myself.

I'll try and write, but please understand if I am not answering emails, comments and calls.  Thank you.

Cricket is the perfect present.

My neighbour Junior has some issues.  I could list them, but I don't want to bring you down his passive-aggressive/aggressive-aggressive path.  Even if we have never met, I wish to spare you of his histrionic dramas and manipulations.

Lucky for Cricket and me, we will be spending my birthday evening with Junior, somewhere in Chinatown.

My day was off to a bad start.  Junior left a message about our dinner plans, with gentle threats.  He claimed to have come by when he knew we were home, yesterday.  I'd spent most of the day 12-Stepping some one, so I may have missed his knock.  When Junior knocks, it is clear it's him.  It often follows unanswered calls.

He knows that I have mental health issues and takes umbrage if I cannot appear at a time set earlier.   In fact, we were supposed to go out for Cricket's birthday last September, but I got sick.  Angered, he told Cricket that he hadn't eaten all day.  Nice.  Today, I ran into him as I went to walk Griffin.  He kindly threatened me, saying if I wasn't up to it, he'd come and get me.  That I'd just need to get over it.

Lovely.  I'd spent the day enjoying a feast of panic attacks.  Now tomorrow, the one day where you get to celebrate being you, I'll be with Junior, making sue he's happy.

Thank god Cricket will be there.  Saves me from myself.  She also said that this is our last time with Junior.  We have brought him to the shore for Christmas, taken care of him during his prostate cancer issues, moved his furniture up and down his house.  In fact, Cricket pointed out that I have done all this.  The man can smell a sucker!  But we'd both agreed to invite him for Christmas.

This year, we had a wedding the Saturday after Christmas.  Junior wanted Cricket to drive him down on Friday.  She has no fear.  She told him we were leaving on Wednesday and returning on Sunday, having a wedding on Saturday, so no way.

Junior works me.   We move furniture within his house; large pieces.  I've spent hours stripping church candle stands.   We've shared food; he thinks I've missed my calling.  I haven't.  The man likes to eat.  He also cooks up some fierce food himself.  His country ribs are to die for.

All this went on but got worse.  He had prostrate cancer.  I even brokered a family reunion when his estranged relatives came to his bedside.  One aunt thought we had something going on, from the way I whispered to him, caressed and kissed him.  I just wanted to let him know he was not alone.

So, tomorrow, I will go out to dinner with the woman who has supported me regardless.  We will be joined with the man who threatened to find me, if I were too ill to attend.  Nice.  Gets it off to an easy start, right?

Yep, you read the previous post right.  I am going to be a dog trainer, an animal behaviorist, a service-dog person and hopefully in the end, build a small business.  Where did this come from, you ask?  The same question I answered earlier in my screening process, along with many others.  I grew up with cats, specifically Siamese cats.  My father stated that cats were for poets and dogs were for soldiers.  I suppose he confused his kids with dogs and his job for battle.

I have been supremely blessed with knowing my best friend Cricket.  Along with her friendship came her dogs.  Her last, Nimrod, was insanely devoted to her.  I came as an extra, something to be tolerated.  He was a naughty young dog, found roaming at large, and came into his own at about seven years old.

Cricket's new dog Griffin, jumped up from his pen like Zebedee of The Magic Roundabout.  As if on a spring, this black Lab/Pitt mix bounced higher and higher each time Cricket visited.  Smart owner that she is, she knew to not take the first cute dog.  (That's how I ended up with a pride of stray cats).  Later, she was astounded that she waited so long for Griffin.  Also, the K-9 guy running the first behavior class she went to was miffed.  He'd asked the shelter to keep an eye out for him for dogs like Griffin.   Perhaps they thought he'd be better with some one like Cricket.

Mostly Black Lab with a dash of Pitt, we call him a Pittadore when he's good and a Plab when he's bad.  Cricket didn't like the K-9 guy's approach and went to a second class.  When she tore her ACL last year, I had to walk Griff, a half hour in the morning, an hour or so at five-ish and a last walk, whenever.  I quickly used the few tools I had.

I channeled Ceasar Milan, the fierce Barbara Woodhouse, my mother and Temple Grandin.  I was no longer pulled, he sat before I released for crossing, stopped reacting to skateboards, bikes,  motor-bikes and other dogs on leashes.  He was far from perfect, but he wasn't dragging me where he wanted to go.

This is a tough time now.  He is going to be the dog that I train for my school, yet he is the loony, happy, silly dog that Cricket and I love.  It's a tough line to walk and one that I hope helps us all.  But I can always call the school back.  I have many neighbours with crazy dogs.

Cricket is the most amazing person in my life.  Without her, I'd be lost, homeless, in jail, in State Hospital.  With her I am.  How could you ever repay this?  My best friend of more than twenty years, so close that people assume we are sisters, lovers.  My god, what have I done to deserve her?

Due to her, I start this school.  Due to her I may use Griffin as a "project".  Due to her I will give animals new beginnings after being kicked out.  Due to Cricket I will rehab sick animals so that they will find loving homes.  Due to Cricket I have learned many things.  But I doubt my size ten shoes will fit her size seven feet.  Small as she is, she will always be a large in my mind and heart, a woman allergic to cats, who has loved and embraced mine.  A woman who has taught me, in so many ways.

Sometimes I have to stop listening to NPR.  The constant in-depth reporting of the endless maladies of our world lose their charm.  I have to give up for a bit, knowing that in amongst the doom there are many gems I've missed.

Tonight, I drove out to the Cannery, a medium security women's facility of the Philadelphia Prisons System.  I hold Monday night 12-Step meetings there.  After I'd signed in at ASD, I waited in the parking lot of the Cannery, listening to NPR interview my hero Temple Grandin.  Sad to miss the last half of the program, I went up to the gates at the appointed time.

It was a good meeting, ebbing and flowing between hope and despair, in a way an outside meeting does.  Only it's more so inside, in my experience.  We all suffer the mood swings of addiction, the women inside suffering lost freedoms, children, partners, yet expressing hope that this will be their last bid.  I may be glad to leave, but sometimes I succumb to hopelessness, thinking that the message of experience, strength and hope that I carry will only live behind the razor wire.

That really isn't my problem though.  If I trust the greater spirit, then my part is done.  I only wish I did trust more.  I see amazing women, who have humour and grace in an untenable position.  But when they walk out into the chaotic world, they are sorely under duress, lacking funds, life skills; the list goes on.

Anyway, as I drove home, NPR was playing the music of an African man on their PRI program that you can listen to here.  Until recently Victor Deme has been largely ignored.  Not because his music was bad.  Rather, it did not conform to the music of his country.  You may also like to see a video of Msr. Deme, which I offer you also:

Also, I would like to say that I am sorry for being away for a bit.  I've been loony-tunes with a bit of barking mad recently.  Awful, actually.  That said, I've been working on killing my computer with heavy doses of cat hair, relentless saving of useless info, a dash of liquid and bloody felines that see it as a great way to get attention.  To the point where I may open the first ever "My Cat on Keyboard" blog. (@2009)!

So for my birthday, Cricket is going to have this puppy tuned up, bless her.  Guess I'll have to pull out all that porn I've been down-, or is it up-loading when it's sexy?  Which means, boys 'n' girls, my berloody computer is going away.  As of tomorrow.  So I'll see you in the next decade.  Have fun, enjoy the Mad Tree Party we set up but have yet to invite anyone to and throw some Marlins on the grill.

Cricket will lend me her fancy-pants computer whilst mine's gone.  But you know how this is.  See you in a week or so, sweeties!

Well, how did you spend the OHMYGODITSCHRISTMASNEXTWEEK weekend?  I mean, after all, this is the holiday season, right?  In fact, the holiday season is the polar opposite.  Think about it.  At any other time of the year, the word "holiday" has a completely different interpretation.

For eleven months out of the year, a holiday is a concept that is treasured.  It brings forth fantasies of escape, relaxation, avoidance and fun.  A holiday finds us free of the daily grind and releases us from our tiny corner of our world, in many forms.  We indulge in activities, fashion and frivolity that our regular lives prohibit.  We go to other places, in order to make sure that we are far from our daily demands and requirements.  We eat unusual foods, bask in the elements of different climates, leave our cel phones at home and dream of living this life in perpetuity.

However, the month of December has in effect, closed down the holidays.  It doesn't matter what faith, creed or colour you are: this is not a holiday time for you.  To wit:

1)  You have to see people you might otherwise not, in large batches, or close quarters, or both.

2)  You have to cook food for the people you might otherwise not see, using unfamiliar recipies and utentials.

3)  You have to get out of your comfy PJs and dress up for (see 1 and 2).  Unless you live in the Fishtown/Kensington/Port Richmond areas of Philadelphia, where PJs are Haute Couture on the shtreet.

4)  You have to travel to a place buried even deeper in the snow than your place, in order to (see 3).

5)  You spend too much money buying dreck for the people you have to visit (see 4)

6)  You begin to dream of being a foundling, with no history, no guilt, no obligations and a livelihood in the place you would normally stay.  If this was a holiday, and all.

Luckily for me, my family wants nothing to do with me, so I'm off Scott free!  I'm going down to Long Beach Island with my best friend Cricket.  We'll be entertaining Griffin, Nigel Nancyboy and Zebedee Minky Star.


A holiday is not a holiday if it creates stress.  This is a difficult time for many people.  The winter blues should not be taken lightly.  Please reach out to others, if you are feeling overwhelmed, depressed, stressed or in pain.  There are many people who know what you are going through and understand.  Please check into the Hotlines and resources link on the right, to find a bridge to your help.

I saw my p-doc today.  As I watched him looking at my shaky, restless hands I tried to slow the stream of words.  I told him that I was much better than the last time we'd met, but that I was rapid cycling.  My speech rushes along to push the relentless patter of my mind out, while I handle my anxiety by tearing at the skin of my feet.  Waves of depression swell over me, leaving me achingly sad.

He took me off Pristiq, which we'd added last month as I was at the outside level of Effexor that SSDI insurance covers; 300mgs.  I have done well on 450mgs, but can't afford it.  Pristiq works better at lower doses and Doctor Z said that my rapid cycling was a result of too much anti-depressants.  I have been unable to work, because of my stressed mind, which is not great, in light of the expense of life, this season and the on-going debt that I owe Cricket.

Cricket is my best friend, who has sometimes been confused, by some, like my doctors on lock-down wards as my imaginary friend, or when they meet her, my life paramour.  She stood by me when my sister shut me out, when my father refused to see me ever again, when I should have been put in a State Hospital.  Which, without her, would have been my lot in life.

Anyway, I was over at Liz Spikol's site, where she had a link to an article about Holiday Depression Busters.  I haven't read the whole piece, because of relentless pop-up ads, one of which gave me pause.  The ad was for Pristiq, which along with being annoying, was a little offensive to me.

The ad features a woman of no particular ethnicity.  (Having studied voice-over as well as on-camera acting, I know that is now highly desirable, after decades of Caucasion persuasion).  But my problem lay not with the woman, but with her wardrobe and pose, which revealed a plunging cleavage.  It may just be me, but if I, as a heterosexual woman, finds my eyes looking at the decolletage, then what does it say about me, the ad and the message therein?

I couldn't shake it, you know?  That sick, cloying, self-ignited smell of sadness, of burn-out, of defeat and depression.  Waking from a tortured sleep, drifts of the last nightmare still smudged my mind, I realized dully that a life had been lost, again, to the power of addiction.

Despair and grief took a firm grip on me.  I was shaken and exhausted by the efforts that I'd made for the past week, in a losing battle.  The woman who had fought so hard to overcome her addiction, in part through me, had succumbed.  I only knew this because she never called me back after we split, nor her girlfriend, nor the old neighbour who'd put her up, temporarily.

I was supposed to go with Cricket to the shore today.  But the concept of even making words come out of my mouth was daunting.  I wanted nothing to do with people.  Nothing to do with the excitement of a holiday that isn't even mine.  I wanted nothing, but to be alone and lick my psychic wounds.  I wanted that ephemeral space that is not granted to those in need.  I wanted hope.

I went and had a terrible meal at the Mexican Post.  I should have stayed in my neighbourhood, where the food is authentic, cheap and great.  I next went and spent mad money at Head House Books, because this brand of escapism seems reasonable right now.  I moved onto Atlantic Books next, relentless in my persuit of other people's lives, other people's visions, other people's perfection.

I have an obscene ability to read.  I devour works on paper as a starving creature eats.  I've tried to curb my reading appetite by reading books of volume, complex concepts and even "quitting".  Of the latter, I would say that this was instrumental in creating this blog.  A frustrated reader attempting to write.

Speaking the truth is a quality that I have learned over the years.  It's a value that I have embraced, maybe to the discomfit of others.  The problem is, is that though the truth may set you free, some still are wrapped in the false promise that addiction states.

Addiction, like a mental illness, wants you to believe that you are well, regardless.  It, like mental illness, bares the odd fruit of desire, for it's effects.  It makes you believe that even though it has made you depraved, it is your best friend.  I believe that it induces that most confusing of diagnoses: Stockholm Syndrome.  How can one not help but fall for the drug or alcohol that at first made us feel everything that we had longed for?

The problem is, of course, ourselves.  Our mind and body have been usurped by a silent predator:  Desire.  The wish to be normal, fit in, feel O.K. about ourselves, to be beautiful, be happy, accepted, loved and painless.  For the addict, alcohol/drugs become a gateway to these desires, but ultimately backstabbing, lethal and relentlessly violent, the alcohol/drugs slam doors shut.  The only option left is surprisingly hard.

Death, or a sober life?

I believe that my first Major Depressive Episode happened when I was in High School. I woke up one beautiful day, the sun was shining as I looked out of the window. But I felt dry, hollow, dead inside. I eventually was diagnosed as having Bipolar II Disorder, but my journey there was long and hard. Even then, it took me years of spiraling downward, ever more crazed, my illness gaining some sort of incredible force each episode, until I finally sought the kind of help that I'd needed decades before.

My parents had been told by the British School of Brussels, that if I were to remain enrolled, I would be required to see a psychologist. Being the sensible Brits that they were, they offered me the choice of that, or attending a boarding school, then named Wadhurst College for Young Ladies. I was ten and opted for the latter.

It took them until the third time that I was institutionalized to visit me in the hospital. By this point, I was undergoing Electro-Shock-Therapy, which I'd elected whilst in a mental ward suffering from suicidal depression. It was not a choice I would make normally. After twenty-two "treatments" I was still a mess. Only I couldn't remember anything, which took many months of hard work to repair.  To this day, there are massive holes in my memory. This would be the only visit my parents would make, despite many stays over the next eight years.

I know two young women who are fighting mental illness with everything that they can bring to it. In their case, they are blessed to have their deeply concerned families along to help them.

My friend "Nola" was 302'ed (involuntarily committed) recently and ended up in what I can only say was a fabulous ward at Pennsylvania Hospital. When I went to visit her, I met her parents, who'd driven in from Chicago to be by her side. She's been released, and went to stay with them until she's stable enough to return to Philadelphia.

My other friend, "Ellen", left Philadelphia to be in the care of her family. Her illness is dark, complex and twists her mind into hearing and believing things that aren't of this reality. Right now, this has created too much stress for her to be able to function without support.

My path to wellness was only possible because I have incredible friends in Cricket and Betty the Siggi. Betty once gave me a corny plaque, which stated, "Friends are our chosen family". In my case, this is bittersweet and so very true.

I'm mentally quite well, which is a nice change from, say, the beginning of the month.  I am not so great, physically.  In fact, I'm in a fair amount of pain.  But after the initial E.R. diagnoses of "ruptured ovarian cyst" about a year and a half ago, I'd always thought that the mild to downright knife-like stabbing pain was, I dunno, scar tissue?  Lucky for me, I live with my best friend of twenty years, Cricket.

Now, she may present as a well balanced, well adjusted woman of the world, but there are some tell-tale signs that may give a hint to the twisted, I'm Not A Normal:  Piss Off Ya Mainstream Twit woman that has saved my arse, my life, my sanity and often, my cats.  She is whom I learned the ability to speak honestly with about my feelings, (with the help of my Cognitive Therapist Doctor Ruth Greenberg), because she has always been able to handle me at my most psychotic, depraved, self-mutilating, depressed and self-loathing self.  She has also rejoiced in my small steps toward mental health and well-being, without any pressure on me, except that I try.  Sometimes, that meant that she asked me to get out of bed, for just one hour of the day.

But.  She's got four tattoos, which include one on the back of each hand.  A nose piercing, smallish ear-plugs and a seriously funky sense of fashion.  Her pick-up, which I'll be driving at the end of the month, as she has a new Prius, has a sticker on the side window, which is shaped in a black heart, with the legend (same script as the "I Love Lucy" show), stating "I Love Lucifer."  Some people fail to see the humour in it.  What's most telling, is her choice of best friends.  There's me.  And then there's Betty the Siggi who is a brilliant, but seriously crazy woman in her own right.

Betty is who you want on your side.   A Social Worker, with degrees in everything from psychiatry, EMDS, massage and the application of paranormal insight, she is a bloody terrier.  When I had flown the mental coop, back at the end of the last century, she was the one who moved my SSDI file from the wrong desk, to the top of the right desk.  By phone.  And think how hard it is for you to get anyone on the phone.  She's a formidable advocate of the children driven to psychotic states by their fuck-wit families.

But.  She was actually able to tell me how to make Shit Soup.  Yep.  She's a "Siggi"!  Now that's a word that I'd never heard, but from her.  She grew up in Trenton, in a rough neighbourhood.  Apparently, it's in reference to her Scicilian parents. I digress. She was pissed off at her neighbours in the lovely suburb where she lives, whom she thought had wronged her. Her idea of a good return on that, was to make Shit Soup and pour it all over their yard.

She'd kind of lost me here, on a couple of points, like how she knew which neighbour did what and why she wouldn't just talk to them, (after all, she's got degrees in that kind of stuff)! But what confused me the most, was why on earth would you wreck a good pot, stink up your kitchen and concoct Shit Soup on your stove, just for the sake of revenge? So, naturally, I had to ask, "How do you make this Shit Soup?"

I won't give you the knowledge, but it doesn't involve bringing loads of crap into your kitchen. You may wreck a garbage can, but hey, a small price to pay compared to scatting up your La Creuset copper bottomed soup pot. She never got out of bed long enough to do it though, which worked out. About a month or so later, she ended up chit-chatting over vin rose with the evil neighbours. They made great friends, and she discovered that they weren't the folks who'd done her wrong!

Where's this going? Beats me. My father, Snidley Senior once remarked that trying to get me together, was like trying to herd cats. Silly man! Herding's for cattle and pride is for cats. Anyway, Cricket and Betty persuaded me to get the consistent pain checked out. I think maybe when you're used to so much mental pain, the physical stuff seems like just one more thing that you have to live with. Which right now, after many tests, may be right.

Except. Cricket doesn't believe that I should give up.