The Freeway Overpass

Such is my current mood.  My nurse practitioner has modified my medication to include Lamictal.  It’s used as a mood stabilizer in psychiatric circles, but is more widely known for seizures, much like Dilantin.

The more I go to therapy, I find that I have a longing to know my father.  I meditate, play chess and other things; I don’t know my father.  I wish I did.

Writing and sitting here with nothing but a candle glowing in the dark seem to be my guides.  I should jot down my feelings, is what has been suggested.  I feel ‘left of center’.  I can only do so much.  The medication has really toned down my aggrevation and mood swings.  Sometimes they still surface, and when they do, it’s time for another adjustment, because I am getting too tolerant to my medication.

My mother stated that I never should have went off of them.  15 years of mental illness has come back to bite me later.  I was diagnosed in high school.  I quit the medication shortly after I started it, because I felt like I didn’t need it; that I could manage the manic and depressive cycles on my own.

I really should have listened back then.  I look at the course of my life as being both a Godsend and a curse.  It’s not that I am greedy, or selfish.  I am just striving to find a balance in myself that only two partners can provide.

Maybe someday it will happen.

Beginning of Rant

Have you ever heard of getting a cookie when you learn to count to 100, or when you complete your homework assignments?  This is what is happening at the school my daughter is going to.  They have a horrible breakfast menu, and yet, they continue to give nothing but sugar to the youngest kids for ‘work well done’.

This will eventually lead to increased longing for sugar by the kids, and will also eventually given them possible reception of Diabetes Type II.

It’s no wonder why Men’s Health is trying to find schools to  retrofit for healthier activities.  It’s because they see all the same crap that I do.  The school has sausage pizza for breakfast on their menu for heaven’s sake (I took my dfaughter to school one day)!

It was stated by the US government that we should be working to be thin (or at least moderately fit) by the year 2010.  I can’t recall the exact page, but it was on CNN a few years back.

When you have the schools of young kids giving them stuff like that, it becomes a perpetual cycle.  Our daughter does not eat the good stuff that we give her, like small cuts of meat, and green beans, or salad with chicken.  She gets what she wants at school:  sugar.

She asks us for nothing but sugar laden garbage when she gets home.  We tell her that we are giving her good food, and yet, she eats hardly anything.  She says that her stomach hurts, and eats very little, but within 15 minutes, she asks for something sweet and sugary.

We tell her to eat her dinner first, but she whines and acts like we are not being fair to her, because she can’t get the sweet stuff.  How sad, she may get diabetes later in life, because of the neglegen t attitude the school district has.

And then there will be another generation of sick people to treat, but I guess that is alright for the US government.  Whatever keeps the money coming in.  Just remember… yiou are only worth 255 dollars in death benefits to the US.  Meanwhile you slave paying taxes for those places that have been negligent of you in the first place.

End of Rant

<begin rant> 

The apparent looking of things through rose colored glasses has happened.  Bush states that we are a democracy, and states that we have a say.

 However, there is a gross misrepresentation in what he is saying.  Look at the definitions for ‘democracy’ and ‘republic’ (courtesy of dictionary.com - thanks all):

de·moc·ra·cy /dɪˈmɒkrəsi/

re·pub·lic /rɪˈpʌblɪk/

4.	(initial capital letter) any of the five periods of republican government in France. Compare First Republic, Second Republic, Third Republic, Fourth Republic, Fifth Republic.

5.	(initial capital letter, italics) a philosophical dialogue (4th century b.c.) by Plato dealing with the composition and structure of the ideal state.

If we really had a democracy, women would have been entitled to vote; slaves would of had equal rights; those of alternative lifestyles (which includes me) would not have to worry about whether we will be verbally or otherwise abused.

We live in a republic, and no matter what the ‘pubbies’ or ‘dems’ state, we are not in a democracy.  It’s no more apparent than what you see in the Pledge of Alligence.  People tend to forget that.

You think that you are voting for the candidates, when in fact you are only securing electoral votes for the state you represent.  You call this a democracy?  The concept of democracy is so far removed from the American people that no wonder why the evangelicals, and other religious persons want a theocractic dictator.

If we were handed a real democracy, no one would really know how to really handle the power given to them, because, heaven forbid, that anyone be equal to anyone else.

<end rant>

He’s finally dead.  Not to be unsympathetic, but can you imagine the depth of damage control the new president - Tommy Gun Monson - is going to have to do in order to reverse the negative outlook on the LDS Church?  It’ll never work.  The damage is already done.  Of course there’s the living prophet vs. dead prophet doctrine.  Hmm.

As a sidenote, I bought a BoM in order to see if they made the change about principal ancestors, and then I braved the Salt Lake Distribution Center in order to see if the change was complete there.  It wasn’t.  It still showed the ‘principal ancestors’ statement in the Doubleday version there.

According to some at the ExMo board, it was changed to ‘among the principal ancestors’.  This means that the Morg has two versions floating around.  One for general public consumption, and the other one for faithful TBM’s.

Unless I am mistaken.  Could somebody point out if the versions are the same?  I haven’t actually seen the ‘among’ statement.  It could be a red herring for all I know.  Maybe I will brave the airport here (since that’s the location that was mentioned) just to see if the new ‘2nd’ Doubleday version is out there.

I was admitted to a local psych unit over the weekend for depression.  I admitted myself, because I needed to slow down.  I was released three days later with some new medication that seems to be helping quite a bit.

The doc said that it seemed I was in a manic phase for the past year, and that it’s the longest he’s ever seen for a manic phase.  He suggested that was the reason that I was becoming increasingly agitated and combative.

I was nervous in coming home, because that meant that life would speed back up again.  It’s really laid back, even though the house is a complete disaster.  I would like to clean, but the meds are still helping me adjust to things.

I like going slow.  It doesn’t cause me too much anxiety.

In memory of Robert “Bobby” James Fischer (9 Mar 1943 - 18 Jan 2008)

 The chess world was rocked by the news of Fischer’s death in an Icelandic hospital from kidney failure.  He had been granted amnesty there by the government since he would have been brought up on charges stemming from tax evasion.

There was a one minute silence before the games at Wijk aan Zee commenced.

 Bobby has been ill for some time.  According to Garry Kasparov, this was befitting of Fischer.  He died at the age of 64, denoting the number of squares on the board.

 Rest in Peace Bobby.  Chess has been revived because of your contribution.

That’s all I’ve been told over the past month.  But I can’t.  Now that I am out, I can’t go back to sleep.  If I do, I will have compromised my integrity, my life, and a need to question everything.

“But there is silence there…. You can think, you can focus.”

If not questioning gives me that, I would rather bear being in a chaotic loud noisy world.  I can’t go back there.  My hatred for the place; the fact that they convince everyone that goes in, with their eyes closed is beyond anything I can bear.

Look at what that place has done to me.  You will see a mirror image of what it can do to you.

If I have a testimony at all of that place, I can only say “Don’t go there.”

Almost two years of separation, and I still have a need to sleep.  Everyone around me is sleeping.  It is peaceful there.  But I’ve been awake for two years.  Learning more about myself as I lean over a chess board.  Understanding that I am not perfect, and can only calculate so much.

But with learning comes growth.  Growth brings strength, and experience.

And all everyone wants me to do is sleep….

I feel that’s all I’ve been doing lately.  But that is alright.  I’m glad for it, even though most of the customers just piss me off.  As most of you know, I work in customer service, and do technical support for a wide variety of products.  I hate it, and it drives me up as wall as much as other things.  There are wonderful people that I have talked to, and I will always remember them.  Some even view this blog.

My boy Jerec was at the hospital this morning for a ton of reflux, and we had a CT scan done on him just to make sure he was alright.  Everything came out just fine.

Needless to say, I am still awake, and it doesn’t help too much.  I have to get yet another cat declawed and everything, so we are able to increase our family size.  The new little cat’s name is Smokey, and he has been taken in by one of our other cats.  She treats him like her son.  She even bathes him sometimes.  It’s quite cute.  She has the mother instinct written all over her face now.

I just wanted to drop a line and let everyone know that things are OK.  Things were up in the air for a while, and I am glad things are settling.  It was a rough patch for a while there.

On a side note, I have entered a correspondence chess match with an opponent in Texas.  We are on move 2, and we have until April 2010 in order to complete our six-game match.  I am currently playing Black.  Check out the Chess Archives blog for more information.   I will update it later today when I decide on the second move.

TTFN!

That room haunted me again.  As you may recall, I visited the exhibit that was held in ZCMI again.  I only had to utter the word ‘Titanic’, and I was back in there again.

It’s almost surreal.  I remember stepping out of the boiler room into that nigth sky, and there it is.  The iceberg (or a lookalike of it rather.) looms in front of me as three distinct screens to my left show the navigation course of the ship, and the phases of the sinking after striking the iceberg.

I remember the fine set of glasses that were housed in one of the casings before the guestbooks were found at the tail end of the  exhibit.  It’s cold.  I start to shiver.  As I finish signing the guestbook, I turn to my left and see on the wall a roster of the passengers of the Titanic.

I recall saying that my passenger (that was placed on the entry card into the exhibit) did not survive.  I felt that keen pang of regret that I had not known him.  To hear his devastating cries as people jumped off the side of the ship.  However, my passenger was in third class steerage.  He was a dead man once the iceberg hit.

I still recall that room as freshly as if I had visited it yesterday.  The handprints on the ‘iceberg’ in the final room.  The bathtub from first class as you enter.  The intricate tiling from first class.  the bunk beds that were set up just before hitting the boiler room.

Why does this scene continue to haunt me from time to time.  We will never know.

I am currently reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  It is supurb.  However, there is a reason why I ask the question.  Jezebel left after a feud, and is not returning.  In fact, she has already moved onto another relationship (it’s been one week).

I cried for days, but then I realized how much of a farce it was.  It’s doom was prevailent for a while now, ever since I mentioned it on the ExMo board.

I went into pysch therapy, and am now on Paxil, and I am doing alright.  Loke and I have been playing some pretty impressive games of chess, since she is much stronger than she used to be.

And so it is just us.  It’s quiet, and things have been nice for us and our sons.  But in the end, I ask the question…

‘Who is John Galt?’

It’s the despair I feel around the loss…. the loss of an object, and I was wrong for making Jezebel into one.