I’ll just let you have a moment to visualise that…. ever so attractive image.  I see them as snails, like those giant African land snails…

EATING my brain.  Really. That’s what I’m imagining my depression and anxiety as.  It’s not good.

Nibble nibble nibble nibble sluuuuurp.

All the stuff I THOUGHT I understood (especially about ontological metaphors) just seems to be GONE.  It’s like there’s just a big gap where the brain bit that’s even meant to understand it lives, so even though I’ve spent days trying to go back over past notes and lectures and readings it’s JUST NOT GOING IN.

Rhetoric, rhetorical terms, media modes, sure, I can find you a laundry list of those.  Unfortunately I need more than that for the essay.

Speaking of which  – the essay overall SUX. I’ve forgotten how to write.  Nothing flows.  It’s as stilted as Baba Yaga’s hut.

(yes, I know Baba Yaga’s hut had chicken legs.  Work with me here.)

Oh dear.  Yes, I know, it’s the first essay for uni, after a break of 20+ years, and I should (whoops, there’s one of the trigger words the psychologists love to pounce on – “be kind to yourself, Caity,” they say!  “There are no shoulds!”  Yeah, well, I’m stressing out here because there ARE bloody SHOULDS and one of them is I SHOULD be able to do this damn thing!

(Mr Beloved went and got me one of the special p1lls.  Oh dear. All the Little Books Of Calm and Acceptance Commitment Therapy tricks in the world don’t work once I get to this point.)  I was supposed to see my lovely mental health nurse today but she had to cancel so I’m stuck here unloading on the blog and Mr Beloved.  Woooot.

Doesn’t help that I feel I have to live up to the ridiculous mark of the stupid library assignment, which was basically a paint by numbers quiz.  ARRRRGH!

You know what?  The whole thing is only meant to be FIFTEEN HUNDRED WORDS.  And I’m tearing my hair out!   It’s worth 40% of the semester’s mark. WHY am I going to uni again? Anyone? Anyone? (Bueller?)

I’ve made an appointment to see the tutor during office hours this week (Thursday), and I’m going to keep trying to work on the essay but – arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!  Feels like banging my head on a wall.  ( And I just know I’m going to embarrass myself by being all teary in the office, oh GREAT.)

WHY CAN’T I SEE THESE DAMN METAPHORS? I know they’re hiding there.  I think I’ve almost got one by the tail. Ontological metaphors are the ones where  our brains very sneakily decide to deal with something ABSTRACT as something PHYSICAL so we can understand them better.  Makes sense, right? EXCEPT It’s like trying to catch wet frogs.

I don’t think I’m going to sign myself in as a day patient at the ward tomorrow.  I probably should. But those sessions are so EXHAUSTING and I really need to work on this damn essay some more.

This morning’s lecture was interesting… I had been looking forward to it – This week’s module is all about Narrative! YAY!  Narrative!  I can do this!  Only THE THING that makes story WORK, right, only one of THE most important tools if you’ve been foolish enough to enrol in the Writing and Society major (Yep, it’s really Creative Writing, whatever you call it) and plan on getting on with it… instead I rolled out of bed late after not enough sleep (gee, could I have been fretting about The Essay?) and then sat in the lecture theatre feeling STUPID and dribbling my hot chocolate down my front.  The words just didn’t go IN.  We got half a lecture and a trailer from a film.  I am disappointed. I mean, of course I’ll still complete all the readings and go back over the websites in the powerpoint links once they’re on the uni site, but – meh.

Feel like I am falling ever more behinderer again.

Maybe I should eat some snail pellets on toast?

Yup.

The problem being that this particular tooth is more (old, amalgam) filling than tooth and the small piece of tooth that is left had cracked, and was flexing and hurting.  A LOT.  Which was greatly contributing to my pain, misery, and general grumpiness.  And anxiety.  Because I have a well earned terror of dentists, reinforced by many traumatic experiences from Dubbo to  Wagga Wagga, from Canberra to Toowoomba.  (Hint: if EVER a dentist suggests you get your wisdom teeth taken out “in the chair”, unstrap yourself AND RUN.)

And tooth horror stores are everywhere – once you start, people just can’t WAIT to share them  – a long time ago I had 3 long, slow, painful root canals on a tooth on the other side of my mouth, then the tooth had to be pulled out anyway.   “Oh yeah, my husband paid $3000 for a crown, had to have 4 root canals to get it done, then it came off the next year and he had to pay another $500 to get it glued back on!”  “Yeah, No, my Aunty Rita, she had a crown put on and then got an abscess under it, they had to take it all off again,  and her whole jaw swelled right up and she had to have months of antibiotics and she could only eat soup ’til it healed!

(Oh, and if you have teeth issues, probably don’t read Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which is a really good fantasy read, set in Prague, and elsewhere, but with teeth as a powerful magical metaphor… you can watch the trailer for the book here on Amazon …)

SO: the interesting things: apart from the OUCH $400 for just over half an hour consult (not sure how much I get back from heath fund yet because the paperwork got messed up and I have to go back tomorrow to get it fixed) *headdesk* And my answering the question on the form “Any other medical issues?” with “Extremely anxious patient (I AM REALLY NOT KIDDING ABOUT THIS)”  and noting “There is not enough room to list all medicati0ns (Please see over for rest of medicat1ons) (And yes, I took an anx1olytic in the car on the way there so I wouldn’t freak out in the chair); it turns out that most of my teeth are CRACKED.  The endodontist asked “Have you ever been in a car crash?”  Ummmm… no… could it be from grinding my teeth?  No, apparently this sort of cracking is more from a forceful coming together of the teeth.  So possibly when I got hit in the jaw?  Maybe. (Domestic Violence, the gift that just keeps on giving, 20 + years later…) The endodontist showed me with a special light and mirror that every single one of my teeth has these vertical impact cracks. EVERY ONE.  So I’m likely to keeping having odd problems with my teeth as a result.

Next interesting thing – the endodontist was also surprised that I manage to grind my teeth while wearing a full face CPAP mask.   Says that’s quite a feat. Shouldn’t be able to do it.  Not sure it’s something the judges on Australia’s Got Talent would be all that thrilled to see, but there ya go.  My own special thing.  I’m such a snowflake.

And I have exceptionally good oral hygiene (preen, preen.)  Given that I have such a range of mouth drying med1cations, and the CPAP machine, and asthma meds on top of that, I really am very pleased to hear that.  Not a scrap of plaque or tartar anywhere.  Go me!  He has recommended that I use a special mouthwash three times a week to help with the dry mouth (I already use a toothpaste formulated for dry mouth, and my electric toothbrush has made a big difference, I think) and yep, I will give in and chew the dreaded chewing gum to help with saliva production.  I don’t like chewing gum, which is weird -my Dad is always chewing it to help his teeth (and he is a mad keen flosser, too)  but my Nana, his Mum, said something to me one day when I was staying with her about chewing gum being vulgar and it’s just stuck (ugh! sticky chewing gum!) in my head (UGH! CHEWING GUM IN HAIR!) ever since.  You know when you see a “celebrity” photo and they’ve got visible gum in their mouth?  VULGAR.  UGH UGH UGH!!!  That endless chomping like ruminants on their cud, round and around and side to side and it’s just…. UGH!!!!  But If I have to use chewing gum I will.  Just… discreetly.  For the sake of my saliva production.

And now to the tooth.  THE TOOTH.  THE DREADED TOOTH that the whole of the last few weeks have been about, that my psychiatrist was trying to find a way to get me special Medicare funding for if it turned out it needed a crown, the tooth I wept about in group therapy, the tooth that I had been worrying about because my own dentist had said that it might need all that work and I was panicking about how on earth I would afford root canals and crowns and what’s more, maintenance on a crown further down the track (short answer  – I wouldn’t have been able to, the only option would have been for the tooth to come out).

And guess what? After all that: the simplest solution for now (it’s not a long term fix) was to actually take away some more of the tooth so that I can’t actually grind the cusp and make it flex open and hurt.   After an x-ray (that’s about the 6th?  dental x-ray this year?  Oh, goody) and the endodontist looking at it with his magic high powered microscope, he could see the fracture but the tooth was alive with no infection and he reckons if we can just stop the flexing then it should stop hurting and settle down … so the short answer is: hope it settles.  Keep doing a good job with the dental hygiene.  Try not to grind my teeth (even though the endodontist very truthfully and realistically admitted that if you’re a tooth grinder, you just are,  and until you’re not as stressed, you won’t stop.)  And he won’t do any drastic interventions unless they’re needed – the less he can do the better, which would be FINE if it didn’t cost quite so much but is still a policy agree with in principle.

So now we wait…

The problem with b1polar depress1on, as the HP acknowledged today, is that sometimes  a placebo can be just as effective as anything she can offer.  I have had periods of utterly horrible depress10n where one morning I have just woken up and things have suddenly been okay again.

I have also had periods of b1polar depress1on where nothing – NOTHING – has helped for a year or more.

And there’s no way of telling which one will be which.

Still no result for the first uni assignment, although the lecturer reckons they should be up this week… we’ve just finished two weeks break and the lecture tomorrow morning is on Rhetoric.  I have been enjoying this book:

A very readable book on rhetoric

and let’s hope tomorrow’s lecture is more useful than this:

although I have my doubts….

The bottom of our street, January 10, 2011

North Street bridge over Gowrie Creek, January 10, 2010

February: Clean-up from floods, plus:

Yarrow, 3 Feb, 2011 - a cheeky baby

And we found termite damage. Which meant that: (with HUGE thanks to Mum and Dad for their generous help)

March:

The house, midway through stump replacement

And April:

New roof

Also new gutters, new water tank, repairs to the solar hot water, new ceilings in two rooms…

May:

Before and after(ish - it's ongoing...)

Painted.

June:

New CPAP machine (with very cool glyph to RTFM)

July:

We were all sick and sooky

August:

We sacked the Bad Psychiatrist

September:

The bandicoot loves cat food

October:

And we had the red bellied black snake near the house *shudder*

November:

We have a new stove - and a working oven!

Mr Beloved tangled with some of the local wildlife.

December:

More local wildlife

I also did some online art classes; caught some variety of cold or flu every time we went to the doctors, went to the psychologist and psychiatrist and group therapy, had facet joint injections in my spine but then found out I have neuropathic pain (which needs different treatment), and read 174 books (not counting most of the cookbooks and picture books I read and a few that weren’t already in the Shelfari system that I couldn’t be bothered adding.)

Our region turned off the analogue TV signal at the start of December.  We bought a new DVD player somewhere around May but haven’t plugged it in yet (!) so I haven’t watched any DVDs for most of the year.  I didn’t go to the movies at all.  I didn’t sew anything.

Plans for 2012: get the sewing room and front room cleared out and operational; more therapy; walking as much as I can; eating less processed food (and cutting out bought sweets altogether – far better to bake things and know exactly what’s gone into them); and possibly – maybe – enrolling in a uni course (major in creative writing with a minor in history, or possible the other way around.)

Whew!

BUT – and I really should have thought about this – now we are SICK.  With charming head colds.  I am Snuffley, Phlegmy and Achey (Attorneys at Law. Or three of the Dwarves Disney dropped.)

It’s not just confirmation bias * (or hindsight bias)- we can go plenty of other places where there are people and NOT get sick – but one lousy trip to the !@&*^!@% waiting room at the doctors and BAM!  We get the Latest Lurgey.  Oh, thank you ever so much, you diseased and wretched people.   Especially you, unobserving parent, who continues to browse “CELEBRITIES DOING STUFF!” Weekly while your small child wipes its nasal secretions along every hard surface.  And you, Mr Coughs Into The Room, oh, thank YOU for our LOVERLY Christmas gifts.  That’s sharing the Ferkin’ Spirit of The Season, isn’t it?

*headdesk*

So we have spent most of the last few days looking like this:

(Even unto the small pointy nosed dog on the bed, oh yes.  I have no idea where I stole this image from but isn’t it great?)

On the other hand, I have LOOK! Pretty nails! (although my nails seems to grow so quickly that there’s always a gap…)

This is the Sally Hansen stick on polish in “Girl Flower” that I mentioned the other day, with (freehand therefore wonky!) french tips in Hello Kitty blue – awwww! I wear out the tips of nail polish very quickly – too much typing and forgetting to wear the dishwashing gloves that are pegged above the sink, quietly perishing in the sun…)

I am drinking lots of water. And lots of hot tea.  And eating the occasional slice of Boiled Fruit Cake (mine is always a tweaked version of the recipe in Geoff Slattery’s wonderful 1991 book “Simple Flavours: Australian Home Cooking”.  This is the same book which taught me that making puff pastry isn’t hard, and in fact times perfectly with the quarters in an Aussie Rules football match.  He was a sports writer for the Melbourne Age before he was a cook…)

And shortly I shall head to the house to make zucchini slice (yes, again) and while the oven is on, the Strawberry Lime and Coconut Cheesecake from last month’s Good Taste magazine (but without the strawberries because they all looked a bit nasty when I hit the shops yesterday.  I might use some frozen raspberries instead or just go with the lime syrup as enough flavour.)

Happy Season to those who celebrate. And a hearty BAH HUMBUG to the infectious masses.

* If you haven’t yet grabbed/asked Santa/cajoled your library to order this book, you should.  Bloody brilliant.  The blog of the same name has some of what’s in the book, so read that first to get an idea, but it’s really worth the $Au 19 (or however much you want to pay – booko.com.au is showing this as the lowest price including postage.)

Well, I didn’t go to group therapy yesterday.  I had a m1graine instead. Niiiiice.  The new med1cat10n I’m starting after I see the nice psychiatrist in January is supposed to help, but I can’t start taking it yet. Second migra1ne this week. Usually I know what my triggers are but I have no idea why I’m getting them at the moment.

Also, I didn’t want to go to group because I am so over being the only atheist in the village (I don’t much like “Little Britain” but that particular character is hilarious.) It’s all very well relating whatever lyrics “back to the model” (this is part of what happens in group, we go over the hexaflex model of ACT – over and over, in the hope that it will stick…)but I am SO OVER HEARING CHRISTIAN SONGS exhorting me to “have faith” etc.  SO. OVER. IT.  Not a useful tool for me, can we please move on? ARRRRGH!

(Other things that happen in group therapy ARE useful.  I am definitely a convert to “open” groups where there are people at all different stages of wellness.  It is helpful to see people with the same illness who are making real progress towards having a better life.)

I did go and see my psychologist today. New rules mean that Medicare only pays for 10 visits in a calendar year, and that many only if you have a Mental Health Care Plan jumped through flaming hoops written for you by your GP.  Actually, nobody REALLY can get any clarification on how the new system will work, everyone I speak to has conflicting info – you get 6 visits then have to apply for more, no, you can only have ONE Mental Health Care Plan per 12 months, no, I heard it’s……  ARRRRRGH!

All that aside, I think I’ve made real progress this year in understanding my issues… learning more about the neurology underlying the psychology has helped.  (FACTS!  I like FACTS!  Give me SCIENCE, not woo!) I even have *gasp* a possibly life changing idea that *might* start sometime in 2012.  (Stay tuned to this EXCITING blog for an EXCITING update! SOON! *insert sarcasm here*)

Other things: I made a banana and raspberry cake last night (to use up bananas that were about to go black, and some raspberries with freezer burn) very similar to this recipe but with rice bran oil instead of butter.  Not bad.  I’m still getting used to the new oven and I under-baked it slightly, but never mind.  It’s still (mostly!) good.

And I put these silly stick on nail polish thingummys on my nails.  They seem to be wearing off rather quickly at the tips (even though I put a topcoat over them) and certainly wouldn’t buy them regularly, but… fun for a change.

Since we don’t really “do” Christmas, I don’t have any Christmas shopping to worry about (YAY!) and can now AVOID the shops except for a quick run for milk and bacon (mmmm, bacon!) tomorrow night.

I’ve been reading: the newest one from Jasper Fforde, “The Last Dragonslayer” – Fforde’s inventiveness reminds me of a childhood favourite, Norman Hunter’s “Professor Branestawm” series. This is a new series from Fforde, aimed at the YA market.  Lovely writing and a sequel has just been published – “Song of the Quarkbeast”.

According to my Shelfari list, I’ve read 170 books this year. I was a late comer to The Hunger Games Trilogy, but I’d certainly rate that as the most haunting series I’ve read in 2011.  And along with half the planet, I loved Erin Morgenstern’s “Night Circus”.  I’ve just started reading Christopher Fowler’s “Bryant and May” series (police procedurals with quirky twists, set in London) – don’t you love it when you find a series new to you with LOTS of books already written?

Upcoming reading: I’m really looking forward to David Finch’s memoir “The Journal Of Best Practices: a Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband” – for reasons that will become obvious later in the song.  (Now does *that* reference date me!! Hands up anyone who is now suffering from a Bob Hudson earworm?!)

And now it’s almost time to go and heat up some leftover (homemade, we don’t get takeaway or eat out…) Thai Red chicken curry for tea.

So what have I been doing instead?  Ummm…

Well, today we went to the doctor – our GP is BRILLIANT and if she ever leaves her current practice we may have to follow her (ewwww, that sounded kinda stalky, didn’t it?)  She is so helpful and sensible and even like the same tv programmes we do (we joked about needing the ‘traditionally built” blood pressure cuff, since we are fans of the books and now the wonderful TV version of Alexander McCall Smith’s “Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”) and what an utter perfectly played bastard the neurosurgeon Monroe is.

Jill Scott and Desmond Dube in a scene from The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency... I covet her teaset!

(I LOVE the dresses Jill Scott wears as Precious Ramotswe – and I desperately want her tea set, if anyone knows the pattern! I’ve left the photo HUGE so we can all admire the tea set – the cups are different colours, there’s a pink, blue, and yellow one as well as the green in this picture. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)

In other news: I’m walking!  As the pain management specialist wanted me to.  At a pace where I get puffed but can still talk (just!) I am now up to 24 minutes every day. (My last post I was doing 10 minutes – so a big improvement there!)  WOOOOT!  I’m not actually *enjoying* it yet, but I do know that I am coping with the back pain much better – and if I don’t walk, the pain is worse.

Our local library here has just started lending e-audio books!  I’ve “borrowed” (downloaded onto my little MP3 player) Kerry Greenwood’s “Away With The Fairies” to listen to while I walk – BEING VERY CONSCIOUS of keeping the volume low enough to still hear traffic and also BEING AWARE as I cross roads – no “iPod Oblivion” for me – sadly, a young girl was killed in Melbourne just this week while listening to her iPod – didn’t hear the train.

And now it’s time for my walk – arrrgh, where did the day go?

Learning that coloured pencils don't like to blend on rough gesso!

(one side of the face is deliberately left unblended to show the difference.  This blending was done using a cream prismacolor pencil -  I have yet to try blending colour pencils with the other choices: Gamsol,  Blender Marker pens, and “Zest It“.)

This one was on plain paper, but wrinkled due to glue on back of the page...

Getting better, but started too small to work on the details...

The next two pictures were for Week 2 Mixed Media homework – we were learning to draw backs and bums (I’m not good at arms yet, LOL!) and the assignment was to include coloured pencil with watercolour and acrylic, plus play with stencils.

Mostly 'armless...

Again, wonky arms, arrgh!

I don’t think either of those pages are finished yet – more paint needed on both.

I’m trying to catch up with the classes (haven’t watched the videos from Suzi’s class yet) but again, my back has been bothering me. Boring and whiny, yep.

We haven’t been to anything for the Carnival of Flowers – I’m hoping to see at least Queen’s Park and Laurel Bank Park next week, while they still look good.  It’s a busy week though – Monday I see the pain management specialist, and Wednesday could be the hospital procedure to help my back; Tuesday I (finally!) see the new psychiatrist, and Friday is my appointment with the Helpful Psychologist.  Thursday is my regular day for our little scrapbooking group, where I usually draw or do stuff in my art journal, but if I have the facet joint injections on Wednesday I might not be up to sitting on Thursday.

I’m REALLY hoping that the specialist agrees that I need the injections – now that the weather is nicer I would love to be able to go for walks – but right now it’s a struggle to walk between the house and the studio.  Fingers crossed that he’ll agree!

What I’ve been reading: a very well written paranormal, from a male author  - Hounded (Book 1 of the Iron Druid Chronicles) by Kevin Hearne.  Very clever and funny.  Now I’m waiting for the library to get the next two books in the series.

Stork Raving Mad - Book 12 in the series

Stork Raving Mad by Donna Andrews: I’ve been a fan of her Meg Langslow series since the first book (Murder with Peacocks) = they’re cozy mysteries (which means that even though there are murders, you don’t have to read about gore) and each book really does have something to do with the punny bird in the title.

Art and Max by David Wiesner came in to the library, too – and it more than lived up to my expectations!  Definitely on the wish list.

So that’s the week…

[as always, clicky for biggy]

in 2002, I lived in a PO Box in Canberra..., (not really!)

It was from a secret Valentine Swap in 2002!  COOOL!

Postcards and yarn and things, oh my!

(Including a postcard of the New York skyline back when the twin towers were still there…)

The included card

I have NO IDEA who sent it to me – that info has been lost.  It was someone in the NY/ New Jersey area, though, going by the postcards and little goodies…

Yesterday as I was going through the envelope, I noticed a bookplate:

which I have stuck in the front of one of my current art journals.  And I thought to myself “Hmmm, I recognise that illustration!”  and this made me Very Happy.

Yep, in teeeeeeny little writing on the bookplate is  “Tuesday ©1991 David Wiesner Clarion Books”.  AHA!  It’s from another kid’s book I own – another Caldecott Medal winner , no less.

(In 1992.  He also won the Caldecott in 2007 for Flotsam, which I want to get. He’s the only person to win the Caldecott THREE times!)

And then I looked up David Wiesner’s web site and  YAY he has a new book out!!  It’s called Art and Max and I really really want it *sigh*… maybe when it comes out in paperback.  How could you not love a story about a lizard learning to paint?! Be sure to watch the video (click on the book picture to get the link) where David Wiesner explains the ideas he had in exploring various media to get to the characters – brilliant!

Art and Max

Anyway, if by some remote chance the person who sent me the Secret Valentines Swap in 2002 happens to be reading this – thank you for the goodies and for prompting me to look at David Wiesner’s work again!

A Sick Day For Amos McGee

I answered a question in one of the mailing list competitions Allen and Unwin send via email.

“But wait!” you might be saying to yourself “Caity, you don’t have kids!  You don’t even particularly LIKE kids!”  and this is true.  And often I have been verbally bashed about the head for expressing that opinion.  Child, singular, or even children, when under the supervision of their parent, and behaving reasonably, I can just about manage but kids, on the loose, unsupervised? NO THANKS! And that last includes the (now departed) tribe of Shouty Neighbours whose children galumphed up and down their wooden hallway not three metres from my bedroom window before 6 am EVERY DAMN MORNING and… wait, take a breath, where was I??

Ah yes!  Why am I so excited about a children’s book?  Well, to start with it’s a Caldecott Medal Winner – a sure guide to bloody excellent kid’s books since 1938 (this link will take you to a full listing).  The illustration style is just beeeeeyoootiful – “created using wood blocks for color work and pencil lines for detailing” according to her Wiki page. And if you go to the Dread Amazon’s link you can see some more of the pages.   The story is enchanting, too.

So suck it up – I don’t like kids, but I DO like kid’s picture books – they’re inspiring and their economical use of words (or not) is much harder than it looks.

Thanks, Allen and Unwin – you made my day!