A tin of mini joints! yay mmj!

I went to “my” dispensary, Harborside Health Center, in Oakland, CA this morning and the 45 minute drive from where I live (Fremont) was really easy. Sometimes it’s awful.  I drive up 880N on the east San Francisco Bay area going up to the Bay Bridge to “the City.” The freeway leads to a zillion other places, too.

The drive can be a bitch. I wouldn’t go near it during rush hour! But it can develop big problems at any time. I think all of this is like any other big city and it’s surroundings.

The freeway (what do you call it? Highway? Motorway? Autobahn?) I pretty scary in places there are very narrow lanes, and lots of places that have no shoulder, some epically bad merges, and more trucks than you can shake a stick at! For a long time it terrified me to drive up there. Now I know it inside out. I actually enjoy it. It clears my head. It’s also probably the most exciting place I ever go!

Today I bought a lot of mini joints.

Big joints or cones or blunts are just too much for me and since it’s medicine, I don’t share it with anyone. nobody wants to light up something you were smoking before and put out. Yuck! I came across these mini joints are perfect for me or anyone wants to smoke a joint by themselves. The cute tin is great for carrying them somewhere else you need to take your medicine. They’re also a really good deal. They’re 1/4g. The tins cost $40 and hold 12 mini joints.

So! Time to talk about movies. Last weekend my huz and I went to see Valerian. The eye candy was gorgeous. It was very creative and the best special effects I’ve seen in a long time. The girl who plays Loreline is Thea from Arrow. That was a surprise. I like her character on Arrow, so I liked her right away. She’s hotter than hot and loves to show it off. I was very surprised that Valerian was male! For some reason I thought he was a girl. Doh!

I’m only talking about surface things because it’s still me and I won’t give you any spoilers.

Atomic Blonde is out now. I adore Charlize Theron and slick action films are hardly deep, but they’re fun to watch. I have a feeling I’ll be going to that alone next week!

This weekend we are celebrating our 23rd wedding anniversary! One of the things we’re going to do to celebrate is to see Dunkirk. It got great reviews and it’s my very favorite subjects! (I have a b.a. in British history.

Tonight, as a beginning of our celebration, my husband brought me a s’mores sundae. It had real toasted marshmallows on top, they were even kind of burnt, as they should be! We’re going to have a special dinner, but I dunno what. We don’t exchange gifts, he has everything he could ever want, I just got a new phone from my dad, I don’t really need anything. We share the money so what’s the point? We do fun stuff instead!

On the upcoming Tuesday I scheduled 3 doctor’s appointments! Is that mind-blowing or what?? Who has that many doctor’s appointments?? I had to postpone one and I’m going to the other two because they are both psychiatric. I’m seeing my therapist and going to group. The third appointment was in the same department, but it was just getting started with a doctor who runs an acupuncture and meditation group. I can’t wait to start that, though!

I will be seeing my psychiatrist sometime next week, too! Can you tell I’m feeling crazier than crazy? I’m trying to keep myself out of the hospital.

On that jolly note I shall say gooodnight, at least for the moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social anxiety and more

It’s time for a chatty blog about my life and thoughts. This sounds funny but I’m trying to reach myself to type with both of my thumbs. if I was 30 years younger I would be very good at it!  

I’m having a lot of trouble with my health insurance. They say my psychiatrist is out of network, though they,’ve counted her as in network for over a decade. so they are charging me full price for a whole lot of visits. They say I owe $3,500! The doctor is having her assistant work on it and my husband has done a lot of work on it and so have i.

I see my therapist tomorrow. Yay!

I have been in an especially large amount of pain. My medical marijuana has been extremely helpful, it always is!

These days I’ve been smoking pre rolled joints. It’s an expensive way to take my medicine. I’m taking the capsules sometimes; depending how how I feel.

I used to hate smoking, because of my mother who smoked 2-3 packs a day for 50 years. I didn’t smoke pot until I met my husband who wasn’t a stoner, (it makes laugh to think of it) but smoked a lot of weed. That was the beginning of my stoned life. It was 1994.

Losing weight is still on a plateau, but that’s ok because I’m maintaining at my best weight. My fingers got small enough for me to wear my wedding ring set. yay!

 

Depression depression depression.

Pain pain pain

Anxiety Anxiety Anxiety

 

I got new phone, thanks dad! I bought the LG 6G, unlocked. it’s_ lovely. My old one died the very same day.

I suspect I’ll be up late tonight. I wanna watch Deadpool. This afternoon I sort of watched it…I saw the very beginning and the very end. I slept through pretty much all of it. Doh! I’m glad I didn’t see it in the theater! I’m going to give it another chance tonight.

I haven’t been to the comic book store in a couple of months. I used go every Tuesday to talk to the owner who works there sometimes. We became friends because I often came into the store, buying lots and lots of comics for a couple years. He suggested so many great books for me to read and introduced me to his favorite author, who soon became my favorite, too. Scott Snyder has written books that are favorites of both of ours.

I stopped going there because once I went there when I was very depressed and was barely holding it together. A couple tears escaped and I walked out without saying goodbye. I promised myself that I wouldn’t go see him anymore. I guess I felt ashamed. I was punishing both of us because of my mental illness. He knew about it and was very understanding.

I let myself go there today, partly because I really wanted to see him and I just want to hang out in the store. All those comics, perfectly organized. It was also was because after I thought my decision to never go back was kind of over the top and silly, I guess.

Maybe it wasn’t so silly after all. Today he was glad to see me and didn’t asked where I’d been. It was thoughtful. But my social anxiety kicked in and instead of being able to see him and have a nice talk, I froze. I couldn’t say a thing. I bought something and left. I cried on the way home.

It makes me cringe. I feel like a coward ditching one of my real life friends, someone really that was so good to talk to is ironic that it’s ending because I can’t talk. I’m going to try not to go there anymore. Or should I go back and be honest? I dunno. It really made me feel shitty since I was hoping it would cheer me up.

I went to group today. It was good, which is a strange thing to say since 2 people decided they would check themselves into a mental hospital.

My diabetes still isn’t under control, which is causing me a great of stress. I’m not eating g badly. I just have trouble taking my shots, I forget and sometimes i just don’t take it. I’m not sure why.

A lot of things in my life are areas that I’m not sure about and that sucks.

Ending on a lighter note, for years u thought it would be awesome if you could go to the store and but a pack of joints. In this case the dispensary is the store but with that in mind,my fantasy came true!

Good morning!

 

 

spontaneous blog post

I’m laying on the couch all propped up with pillows with a heating pad behind me. I took an mmj edible and a prescription NSAID.

My back is a bitch. My spine problems are acting up. I can just hear L4 and L5 screaming. Sometimes it’s like needles poking inside or sometimes an intense ache or a feeling of extreme tightness or it can be something that feels like a great deal of pressure.  It occurs to me that I should check out things specifically for lumbar support.

Low back pain is the most common medical ailment. That’s what a doctor told me when I saw him a few years ago, for….low back pain. He told me to take Ibuprofen. If he had paid a little more attention, maybe he would have been able to see that I needed more than to just take Ibuprofen. I’m sure he was right about his statistic, but he never even asked questions about my pain or any specifics. Doctors probably see a few people a day who say they have low back pain. I can see how they have an automatic answer for the problem, but that doesn’t keep me from feeling some measure of bitterness

I got the feeling that he thought all the low back potential patients were drug seekers. I have to admit that I would have been glad if he had given me painkillers but that’s not why I went to see him and I didn’t ask for them.

ANYWAY, lol, I didn’t go to the movies this week because there was nothing to see. I was very disappointed; I love going to the movies, it’s such a treat! Maybe if I have a couple of weeks (there’s nothing good showing this week either) without going, it will keep it a treat. Wow, though–July and August are going to be fab movie months!

Netflix has become a really close friend. I think most chronically ill people would agree. I’ve been having a fibromyagia flare, a spinal stenosis flare, and my newly coined term, a depression flare. So I’ve been watching anything that seems mildly interesting.

I was able to keep creating through everything. That’s a sanity saver. I painted every day! Lately I am using my Japanese watercolors on watercolor paper. For the last two years when I painted with watercolors, which was a lot, I used Yupo, a synthetic paper that isn’t pourous.

I need to start working in my watercolor journal with watercolor pens again. It turned out that I liked the first set of those pens, which I bought spontaneously when I was in the art store for some paint, enough to get another set a couple of weeks ago. I’m going to finish this watercolor journal and get another. I like making these as epic gifts or to sell.

I’m on a plateau in my weightloss journey. I’m mostly 57 pounds (26kg) down but right now I’m going up a pound or two and down a pound or two. I’m eating sparsely to try to getting back to losing weight. Basically I’m maintaining my weight which is enough for me to feel ok, in the short term.

Saying how much I have lost and that there is more to go, is really really hard because saying that shows that I was pretty damn big and I’m not small in the least now. I’ve never said that on the interwebz before.

That’s enough for now.
Happy weekend!

No More Wire Hangers 2

i have cut myself off from my maternal extended family entirely. i stopped talking to them before i stopped having a relationship with my mother. all my blood relatives there are as crazy or crazier than me. we’ve all been in mental hospitals, we’re all on long lists of meds. we all get really psychotic from time to time and we’re all full of rage because each one of us, including the adults, are victims of child abuse and are mentally ill. they are toxic and every word they say is a trigger.

i decided early on that i was not going to have children because   i want to break the evil chain that has been passed down for generations. my great grandmother came here from ireland. her last name is my middle name. she and my great grand father abused my grandfather who abused my mother and her three sisters. all four are very mentally ill and the three that have children abused their kids.

i knew from childhood that i didn’t want to have children. in the end it’s kind of ironic because i was always so super careful about not getting pregnant because i didn’t want to carry on the tradition. the ironic thing is that i had endometriosis (i had a hysterectomy and it’s gone now) so i probably couldn’t have gotten pregnant regardless. it was an epic case of better safe than sorry! i was very safe! but i couldn’t have been sorry!

thus  far it’s gone down through my cousins, the mental illness, but i don’t think any of them abuse their children, but who knows.

i had a psychiatrist to said my mother was “crazy making.” i knew he’d really hit the spot. in the previous post about child abuse, i talked about how my mother lied to me all my life, about huge important things and that she told me things that were the opposite of what they were.  she told me my father still loved her, she told me what a great relationship she and i had. i didn’t know what to think. i knew, or thought i knew, or suspected that it was a lie or a delusion on her part. i was a confused kid, bipolar coming on and even though she was mean and manipulative, she was my mom, so i believed her.

along the same lines, she preceded every criticism or rant she made about my father by saying, your father is a wonderful man and he loves you so much. i would never say anything to make you feel bad about him. then she would launch into a speech about something he had done or said wrong. she did that about a lot of people, people i loved or liked–sneakily try to turn me against whoever had made her angry.

later, as i figured out more about her  through therapy and learned more about her life from my father i began to realize that some of the people i thought i “should” hate were really nice people with nothing wrong with them. she was twisted and the way she twisted me up made me  scared about everything.

nothing i knew was solid. there was no one i could trust.  sometimes even now i stop myself from thinking about something because i can’t forget that she told me she could read my mind.

and now because of that birthday card she sent me, i am thinking about it a lot lately.

no fun.

bipolar and fibromyalgia are kicking my ass

i’m feeling glum today. down, blue, bummed, out of sorts.  i want to write and i get up and down from my desk and start to write and delete it.

so this is bipolar. i’m manic; but right this moment i’m feeling depressed. i’ll get back to feeling manic again. i spent all my money on a LOT of stuff, i just bought anything i wanted. ugh. now i’m left with a whole lot of things, a  zillion of them and no money for anything else. typical mania. i’m hardly sleeping. i ate a huge dinner last night when of my husband’s friend came over, she’s Chinese, so she cooked real Chinese food for us. it was wonderful. but other than that, i’m not eating much.

being manic is a lot better than depressed, in my opinion. if mania lasts too long it can lead to big problems. i’ve been manic for about three weeks, it’s very low grade but can flare up or fall back into depression easily.  it’s good for weight loss! mmj helps a lot, kind of evens me out, gently. it lifts my mood and dampens my constant pain. yay cannabis!

my new glasses are coming today! i’m so excited about being able to see at last. for the longest time eye doctors kept telling me that my prescription hadn’t changed, but i knew it had. finally it’s gotten so bad that the doctor was shocked there was such difference. duh! so hopefully these new glasses will be like new eyes! maybe i’ll be able to drive at night again. that would be really nice.

i am so incredibly cold. i’ve have gotten so much colder since i got fibromyalgia. right now i hurt because i’m cold. putting on lots of extra clothes doesn’t really cut it. it’s from the inside out. i want gloves. spring can be as cold as winter here i want to go get coffee, but i can’t get myself to leave the house. 😦 that’s a product of both bipolar and chronic illness. imagine never ever feeling safe, not safe in your body and not safe in the outside world. maybe it’s anxiety, which seems to go along with bipolar or depression, or on it’s own.

maybe it’s agoraphobia, i suffered from that for a few years. it got to the point that i could only be in one room of the house, the computer/art room. i stayed there all the time, except for sleeping, at night i could go to the bedroom. we even ate our meals in there. my husband was so kind and thoughtful. he takes everything in stride. we’ve had hard times, what  marriages don’t? but he’s a good one, no doubt about it!

Fibromyalgia Life

i have fibromyalgia. it has an insane number of symptoms. i’m not here to educate you about fibro, i just want to tell you about my experience.

yesterday i was so sick. i had a toothache, totally not related to fibro, i’m having a lot of dental work done right now, but the pain from that and from the pain in my joints and muscles and skin. those are all from fibro.  they all contributed to making me feel like i had the flu. i might as well have.

i had the chills and a fever. the chills are just awful. i rapidly switch from boiling hot to freezing. i kept having to wash my face because i was pouring sweat, both hot and cold. i was shaking and shaking. i got dehydrated because i was distracted from drinking water and eating food.

i was nauseated and exhausted. my  husband comforted me and my online friends gave me support.

this lasted from about 10am to midnight. mostly i was  wrapped  in a long sleeve shirt, a thick hoody and a big down comforter, and pillows! i threw it all off when i got hot. i sat in my nest on the couch and smoked medical marijuana which helped a lot. it made me more comfortable, mainly relaxing my muscles which were so tense from the chills.

i took my temperature and i had a low grade fever. i had a headache that was starting to turn  into a migraine. luckily it didn’t. my joints hurt a lot because i have arthritis but also because it started raining again in Northern California. Ouch! and swelling!  my poor ankles.

i managed to eat dinner because the warm food felt so good on my teeth, i guess because it was warm and of course cold air or water, ice cream, whatever, make them hurt like hell.i ate salmon and rice. it was good! Food is so good when you haven’t eaten for 12 hours!

today i woke up  to my normal pain level (about 5ish to 6ish). i got up and got ready. i felt like i was going to collapse. fatigue!  i’ve started taking the ritalin my psychiatrist wants me to take so i don’t sleep all day everyday. that’s partly from the depression and also an escape from my daily pain. so here i am writing my second post today!

hopefully i’ll have some energy to read comic books and if i could get past my art block and my tv block, things would be a lot easier. sleeping all day so frequently, you get get to feeling like your life is just slipping away. i don’t want to give into that, so i take the ritatalin even though i don’t want to, i want to sleep all day!  i’m awake and doing something productive. i’m listening to the groovy rock by The Small Faces.

expect more posts!

art block and life with chronic illness

i have an art block! these are always scary because as soon as it happens you worry that you ‘ll never paint or draw again. my days are so fickle, between the pain, which is different every day and my moods (i am bipolar)swinging.. thanks fibromyaia and thanks to my stupid spine not to mention my  ! since it’s nerve pain, accentuated by one’s emotions and stress levels, how much sleep you get, your anxiety, everything you can think of can cause a flare (an increased amount of pain and other symptoms of fibro, lasting for a few minutes to a few days. some days aren’t too bad and others are miserable.i’m sad to say my diabetes is out of control; i’m doing my best to  get it down, but i can’t seem to do it. i’m trying and i won’t give up.

the art block really sucks because i rely upon art therapy as part of what i need everyday. i see the art supplies and i feel a panicky need to get going on  painting. i sit down at the table  with all my painting supplies around me.

it’s useless. total fail. i get up from the table and got to the living room to read comics. i have a lot of new ones, so it’s pretty exciting. i went to the comic book store 3x this week!  i’ve been buying single issues rather than trade paperbacks, which are collect quite a few issues and are considered graphic novels. i’m trying to figure out what series i want to follow. there are so many different batman series going on and they’re all based on the batman story, tons of variations.

i’m so tired, i’m going back to bed. 😦 fatigue. so much more than  being tired. it feels like your limbs are lead and you have to sleep or you will have a panic attack.

art history of me!

i think think i should write more in this blog. i know seeing pictures of my art is nice, but it’s kind of impersonal if i just post the pictures without any descriptions or explaining my technique, etc.

let’s start out with a little bit about my “art history.”

when i was 11 i found out that i was bipolar I, OCD, anxiety and panic disorder, i have eating disorder symptoms. PTSD was always there in there underneath. my mother was abusive, had almost all the symptoms. can you imagine two people (my dad left) like that, and filled with rage trying to cope.

everybody in my maternal extended family was an artist, professional or as a  hobby. my mother taught me a lot about art. art’s in my blood. so is mental illness. all those artistic people in the family are mentally ill. most of them are in treatment.

my tough childhood, and my physical illnesses caused me to move out of the city i grew up in (st. louis–horrible place.) and move to the  Bay Area to go to university–Santa Clara University. i started taking art classes, for fun, most of what i did was photography. i loved it. i started learning about composition, something i think i do well. i started to doodle.

i graduated from university at 23 and got married immediately. i was very depressed at the time. my dad knew that i was stagnating and falling deeper into my misery. he gave me money to buy painting supplies. i started out with oils, got brushes and canvases, linseed oil. the canvases i bought were huge. i had one that was $100. i knew  nothing about painting so i was just going along with my instincts.i knew immediately that i wanted to  paint abstract works. my paintings were decent, looking back.

i floated away from painting and didn’t make any art for a while.  i started to make jewelry  that i sold on etsy. i made weird jewelry, very mixed media. i even had custom beads made for me by etsy artists i made friends with. they taught me a lot, especially about photographing  jewery. all my creative energy went into making jewelry. i figured a lot out on my own. at this point i realized that it was therapy, art therapy.  i spent more money on the materials my jewelry to expensive for people  to buy and if i priced them lower i’d be losing money big time. i quit, sadly.

shortly after that my husband suggested i join deviantArt. it was so exciting! so much to see, so many people that were friendly and eager to teach out and help others. i had two accounts and disappeared for long periods of time. over the six  years learning to draw and paint. i still can’t draw very well. i can make trippy drawings with sharpies, thought. i think a lot of my paintings are pretty good. i’m always trying new things. it’s exciting every time i sit down to make a piece of artwork.

i don’t sell my art. i trade it and give it away.

now art is a huge part of my life.it is wonderful therapy.  it’s accumulating all over my house! i post it on various social media sites. not fb though. i get bad vibes from that site.

 

anyway, hope this was interesting, and i’ll  try to write if  anybody is interested. maybe i’ll do it simply for the sake of it.

 

 

Some writing and a silly painting

I got stuck in a rut, so I decided to paint something silly. The painting is called “Birdie”

Does anyone know what it’s named or what sex it is? Any suggestions?

I spent the last 5 days in bed. I hurt too much to be anywhere else. Yesterday my right leg was numb. It was dead weight. It’s still sort of like that.

My husband went to find lunch a little while ago.

This is boring! I’m going to pretend that I got tagged and tell ten things about myself.

1. Love dogs and am a strong advocate of adopting rescue animals instead of getting them from breeders.

2.i love to eat! Carbs are my favorite. I like veggies and fruit a lot,too. Dairy is right out, except for ice cream. Who doesn’t love ice cream, or even better, gelato!

3.i am bipolar

4.i have been married for 22 years. Of course there are ups and downs, but husband is my soulmate; we’ll be together til death do us part.

5. I am chronically ill. That causes chronic pain.

6. I am an artist.

7.i love the internet.

8.i have a B.A. in history.

9. I live in the San Francisco. Bay Area

10. I keep a journal, in a Moleskine notebook, that I write and every day. I fill several notebooks a year.

……now for the silly painting……..

 

Bipolar steps to the front of my mental line of thoughts…

we ate dinner…pasta with broccoli and cut up pieces of grilled chicken breast, left over from yesterday’s BBQ. nom

after the table was cleared off, I was left, almost panicking, sitting there, freaking out. what the hell was I going to do with my evening???????

I thought of so many things but they all seemed empty and annoying. I felt like crying. It seemed so bleak.

I told my husband about my feelings. he said, what difference does it make? he was right, I was making such a big deal about it in my mind. he told me I didn’t have to commit to do anything. and whatever I do, it doesn’t matter.

my bipolar has taken a back seat to my chronic pain and ongoing attempts to sort out a real diagnosis. I have another procedure coming up; it is on the upcoming friday. I’m getting an epidural steroid injection. this one is going to be further down my spine than the last 3. grrr…

today bipolar feelings have been at the front of my mind. everything makes me feel panicky, worried, weary and depressed.

I’m going to see if I can distract myself. I’m not going to sit here and cry, I’m not going to have a panic attack and I am not going to give up and just go to sleep (that sounds so tempting!).

maybe I’ll paint or doodle or write in my journal, watch something on my tablet, I could start a new comic, go to Starbucks, shop online, read blogs, surf YouTube, get stoned and listen to music, etc!

It really doesn’t matter.😎