Back after a long hiatus with big PTSD

Hi to the few people who read this blog, to which I have not posted for over a year. I am trying to come back to it again and gain from the therapeutic benefits of posting and getting helpful supportive comments. It's been almost two years, on june 8 it will be two years since elvis' death.
the latest thing that sent me into a swirling dissociated depression happened several weeks ago. i got completely swindled on the internet to the tune of about 2500 dollars. someone contacted me about reiki. i'm an advanced reiki practitioner and advertise on some websites so i often get emails from people. back in beginning april someone pretending to be a client from england contacted me about coming to the US for several reiki sessions and told me about a recent thing that happened to her that got her depressed. in that email she said she wanted to prepay with a cashiers check. to make a very long story short, i should have at that moment told her i only accept cash and not cashiers checks but i didn't spot it so began a long back and forth with this fake person including several missed sessions and fake reasons for not leaving the country and insisting on prepaying. anyway i got a check in the mail for almost three thousand dollars and still didnt suspect anything. i ended up spending a day taking cash to western union to send to her. the reason i did it was that i was stupid, but also that my bank lied to me. i asked the teller several times if the check was good and would not bounce and he told me yes. of course the next day friday the thirteenth of may, i was buying medication of all things and my bank card showed i had a minus balance. i rushed to the atm to look at my balance and realized the check had been fake and bounced.
what followed was a downspin into PTSD, self hatred, self blame, going over and over the events and what i could have done differently, crying every day about it and freaking out. my father is a lawyer and told me we could sue the bank in small claims court. but he was having terrible back pains and going into surgery soon after that. he is still healing from it and i have the papers i have to go on tuesday to file in person at the small claims court. then in about three weeks on a thursday night we get to pick an arbitrator or judge to hear our case against the bank. i stupidly looked up some things on the internet and started getting depressed that i would never win the case and get my money back from the stupid bank but my father is still optimistic that the bank won't show up for the court date and the arbitrator will rule in my favor.
whatever happens at least today was a big turn in a better direction for me. yesterday i left a desperate message with my psychiatrist that i was going to take extra wellbutrin because i was fantasizing about going to the hospital and things like that. for once he called back quickly which he doesn't usually do and we decided i would try that before trying new meds. i think the boost in meds really worked quickly because i went from feeling like a depressed zombie who didn't care about anything in my life and wanted to just die or have a lobotomy so i would never remember this awful event to functioning, doing some cleaning in our very messy apartment which had added to my depression and just yesterday i felt like i could never do any cleaning and would just spiral down into a mess in my head and in the apartment. somehow throughout this my daughter has been in my care a lot but hasn't seemed to catch on to too much of my negativity and terrible mood swing to downward downward downward. throughout the events in a kind of haze i was aware that nobody had harmed her or my husband or me although at times i wished someone had harmed me physically instead of financially.
i think i'm getting better. i hope the wellbutrin doesnt ware off. this is the second time i've taken the highest dose of 400 mg for a while. i'm really hoping it will work along with just trying to force myself to function better and be nicer to myself while being completely broke and dependent financially on others.

fear

i can't sleep. money worries create great fears. as does noise of dog and not having any way to do anything for him though he seems to have stopped. i tried just petting him. he's back on prednisone. the current vet (not his regular one) has not called me back proably is sick of me. so am i. i feel fearful of a lot of things. in one day a lot of scary possibilities happened. maybe the real fears are all in my head and its not that bad. i cant say more. i just wish practical aspects of life were in my range of abilities. why am i so unable to deal with real things? is it a gift to be able to deal with things that are not on this reality plane. i feel for other people with mental illness who are totally unable to care for themselves or anyone and live in residences and shelters. life is not made for sensitive dreamers. being good at making things that are not useful is a difficult gift to have -- it does not help you provide for anyoen and makes me a dependent. i have never been able to support myself by myself. i assume my other qualities have to make up for this but maybe not. sometimes i berate myself a ton for it. it's hard to not know how to be the way everyone else is but i cant seem to do it. at least i am taking carea of the baby most of the time but then we pay a nanny so i can work and it costs more.
there are more messes but i dont know. i maybe need to stop therapy as i cant afford it even with insurance. whatever. i need to sleep. is anyone out there at all who feels this way or reads my words?????

the "vatta" temperament

i don't know if you have heard of the ayervedic classifications of "dosha". anyway my friend who is studying it in depth did a consultation with me and it reinforced what i already knew, that i am very "vatta", air, nervous system imbalances, easily spiritual, disorganized, unable to do anything consistently, make friends easily with like minded people- trusting, moody, then the physical stuff: dry skin, fast metabolism, small bones etc. she said i was the most vatta person she'd come across, as most people are a bit of a mix.
anyway all this to say that my blog does not escape my vatta nature. i do it in an intense and genuine soulful way, but cannot keep it up in a disciplined consistent way at all. in fact due to this very nature, she did not give me a lot of instructions about diet, habits exercise etc. as she knew i would not be able to follow them. she sort of gave some gentle suggestions about ways to try to ground myself. we vattas are very much air, in our heads, need warm food, even oily heavy food to get us down to the ground. also even meals are inconsistent. some days i eat regular meals, other days i snack all day, other days i forget to eat, and some days i eat really only salty and sugary foods. it turns out ice cream for breakfast is not so bad for me.
that's what i like about this ancient system, it is all about how to balance one's intrinsic physical/spiritual/mental/emotional nature...
anyway so here i am, i guess it's about two months and a week later.

quick report:
two weeks ago i noticed the very moment my brain switched over adn went to manic mode, shortly followed by "mixed state", anxiety, paranoia, fear of getting psychotic etc. i took care of it pretty quickly with a heavier dose of seroquel, leaving three messages with my psychiatrist and of course telling denzel. it was very intense but i'm getting used to knowing that for now i am in a sort of "episode" or kind of fragile imbalance state where i take a more klonopin during day and sometiems extra seroquel in day and more seroquel at night too. the depression peeks its head through all this too so i'm continuing wellbutrin...
it has been mixed with baby. moments of delight and connecting with her and enjoying her laugh and smile, lots of physical contact and full of love for her. then also horrible moments of feeling resentful, bad, wanting not to have her around, or feeling kind of like a zombie or whatever the word is for feeling totally cut off and not responding to her at all and feeling bad about it but somehow locked off and incapable. other worse moments of bad thoughts that are too hard to write about. but feeling a little proud of myself that i'm livng through it and surviving...
a lot of this was triggered by our wonderful nanny having to leave due to the hours no longer suiting her for her family life. we now have a new nanny, but it was a terrible shock and loss. i still miss the old nanny. so does denzel. this ending somehow went to my nervous systema and triggered all kinds of abandonment stuff that went to my brain and started the bipolar imbalance going...
that's about all for now. i'm still quite paranoid around the new nanny, and a little paranoid in general. i should be asleep as i took my meds and usually make myself go to sleep earlier than this. bad sign. i'll take an extra seroquel now.
still attending the postpartem depression mother's group with baby. it's helpful but as it is a drop in group i find myself missing one of the mothers who left. she shared so much and then she was gone and now there are new moms there. i am such a creature of attachment and staying with people in my life that i am too sensitive to changes and people leaving... i hope the people who read my blog will come back... ok. i really will go take another seroquel...

self hatred

happy new year. i felt nothing hopeful about the year changing. this is the first year that i have ignored three holidays in a row, thanksgiving, chanuka/xmas, and new years eve. i did not even have a glss of wine on new year's eve. my bday's coming up, forty. i am not going to do anything for that either. my parents are forcing me and denzel to go out to dinner for both of our birthdays which are around the same time. i'd like to cancel the dinner but my parents would be too hurt. i'm not even feeling close to them anymore. ive never felt so isolated from everyone in my family.
i am really hating myself. i just took out my contact lenses and rubbed my eyes because they were bothering me. then i continued to rub them hard and now they are all red. i imagined sticking a knife in my eye. i dont do any kinds of self mutilation and i never would but i sometimes fantasize about doing things to myself out of self hatred.
i wish i could go somewhere and be completely anonymous and start a fake life and just have no friends and be alone and away from everybody in my life.
i know all this is just bad stuff in my head. it will go away. the people in my life who are not talking to me have told me i am self absorbed, imature, selfish, self involved and not a grown up. they are probably right. i dont think of them as models of the kind of people i want to be even the ones in my family who think this of me. i'm sick of everything about myself. if i didn't have denzel and a baby and a dog i probably would just go disappear.
i had always imagined i would have some big party that was really special when i turned forty. i used to enjoy my birthdays. if i could go away and not be around that's what i would do.
i thought i'd feel good about myself at forty. having the psychotic episode and being distant from everyone in my family and not talking to one of them and another person because of the episode makes me feel like a failure at relating well with people i'm close to. and being in debt and not making enough money to support myself, that was not soemthing i'd envisioned about being forty. not being in any way what i had hoped. i wonder how bad fifty will be. i guess i'm done with birthdays. now the only birthday worth celebrating will be my daughter's.
if i could go back in time and change one thing in my life i would do soemthing so i could erase the psychotic episode of two months ago. so many things in my life would be different. i would not be posting a negative depressive post like this if not for the episode, nor would i hate myself so much and have ruined relationships and fights that occured after the episode. i waste time fantasizing about going back to the birth of the baby and starting that over so i woldnt have to go back on meds and so i wouldnt feel so distant from my family and others. i could even change the bad stuff that happened in the hospital when i had the baby. if only i could go back, not even really far back. i'm sure if i went back to age 20 i could change all the things that led up to today that were shit. but life can only lived forward.

depression...

continues. i've had a lot of difficulties with some important relationships since the psychotic episode and it's been horribly distracting and upsetting. i had a terrible interchange with one of my siblings and it's pretty much over, any positive communication, so there is no communication. he was horribly cruel and judgmental about how i handled the episode, did not apologize, and said some awful things about me and denzel and how we handled the episode. he was not here during it. anyway, it's been a terrible loss as i thought we were close, and it's hard to avoid thinking about it and getting very sad and angry. i find myself crying every day at odd moments.
most of my friends have been super supportive so i'm truly appreciative of that and of denzel and elvis and the baby. i hope the new year brings a relief from emotional and financial stress and positive things for me and everyone who is positive in my life... i am grateful for people who read this blog and are so caring and supportive.
my psychiatrist said it takes six months to a year for the brain chemistry to totally get back to normal after a really intense episode like the one i had. i am still feeling the ramifications of it and it is almost two months later. i got stable really quickly but the emotional upheaval has been intense and difficult.

black hole

i just tried to post using safari adn its all messed up. i wrote a whole paragraph about how i hate this illness and feel so depressed i wish i could die.
i hate what happens after an episode. everything is messed up and i feel like a failure in many ways i'm too tired to list. i would like it all to be over with, i am tired of so many years, in fact my whole adult life about 20 years of living with this illness.
i even felt like i just can't do it, be a mother adn a good partner, but i will keep trying because i chose it and it would be much worse on all three beings that i live with to give up on myself.
if you make comments be nice as i have no ability to face anything difficult. i feel like there's nothing left in me. i know it's the depression talking adn i'll just wait it out like i always do. i wonder what the point of having this illness is. it would be good to know there was a reason, like if reincarnation was true and something happened in a past life so now i'm paying for it; it would make sense. human beings seem to be desperate to make up storeis so that things that dont make sense make sense. but they dont and all of that stuff is just things we make up to feel better. chaos is real. fabricated order like religion is just story and tool for power.
the way to get through depression is not to find a good story to get addicted to.
i guess it's just to accept what's there and not look for explanations. when i'm psychotic things all make sense but they are just things in my head that are more real to me than anything outside my head.
when i'm depressed there is nothing in my head to hold on to. only bad cruel voices telling me i'm a horrible person. not other people's voices. my own.

More Confessions...

the bigger confession I should have drawn a comic strip of was an earlier sin I committed today. (funny how as a jewish superstitious atheist i freely employ all this dramatic wording from other religions, esp. these days, the catholics with "confessions" and "sin"... one thing i've gotten even more comfortable with due to pregnancy is all my inconsistencies and total contradictions...)

anyway earlier today i purchase a pair of designer sunglasses on sale, still at a high cost though they were more than half price. there was no need for them. even if i eventually have money to turn them into prescription sunglasses and wear them as regular ones until them, i do not need them. but they were ultra cool looking and i enlisted a friend who has kids herself and is trying not to spend extra money to tell me they looked great on me and stand there while i bought them.

this is not a purchase to be making with only weeks left before baby girl arrives, when i am in debt and will need extra money in the first couple of months of motherhood. on the other hand i'm sure the baby will be happy to see me stroll her down the street in her new lightweight stroller wearing those sunglasses and the sandals i got a few weeks ago in bright colors to match her stroller. she will be delighted and thinking, this was a very necessary purchase. i was there when you made it and got a nice rush of excessive spending high from you, thanks mom... of course this is not something i will be doing when she is here outside my belly.

also getting ready to get rid of another major sin very soon. the tv! i grew up with no tv and we both want to get rid of our tv and bring up baby without tv. i'll stil want a screen of some sort to watch movies on as i do not consider my film interests to be bad influence on baby and they are easier to keep away from her. i returned my baby einstein dvd after reading that article that came out and realizing it's best of all to just read to her and have denzel play music and sing to her...

otherwise going through all kinds of ups and downs and emotions. yesterday i passed the vet elvis goes to and saw a vet tech walking a little cute doggie with one of those plastic shades on her head and practically burst into tears. not sure if it was seeing the elizabethan collar on the dog or somehow missing elvis' baby days or some kind of reminder of times elvis has been in the vet or sick. almost cried on the subway tonight after intense therapy session...

having weird dreams again like i did in the beginnign of being pregnant...

still no comic strip...

feeling ok now but earlier in the day i cried a few times... yesterday i cried on the way to the baby party with denzel. my friend and her husband and beautiful baby had a very nice party for us but i was not in a great mood at the beginning. everyone seemed to have a good time and i was glad in the end that i had decided to have a coed party rather than a typical shower. we've gotten some great and lovely gifts for the baby.
plus the ice cream cake! i splurged on a yummy ice cream cake that was great. i had two pieces and i know it was good because my picky gourmet mother had two pieces. my father also came to the party and they enjoyed hanging out with my friends. my sister brought her kids and husband.
by the time we got home i was feeling uncomfortable and sort of muscle pain from the fetus moving around and stretching.
i'm still anxious about everything and also money.
today i took elvis out for his late birthday special walk to the park by the water and he enjoyed it and had a lot of energy. i cried on the way there and on the way home and when i got home.
denzel and i took a long walk in the pouring rain and got soaked looking at dressers to possibly use for the baby. there was a bamboo type tray at a store that we joked about being the perfect baby changer. we'll probably just change her on the bed or the dining room table with a towel. i'm starting to get annoyed at all the ridiculous marketing geared at making new parents spend money they don't have.
i feel huge and can't believe how big i am and don't recognize myself anymore though friends say the nice thing about me looking the same except for the big belly. at least my face is not all puffy. i dont' understand how people say they love being pregnant. i am happy to have the baby moving inside me but i don't love being pregnant. i miss my meds and my old normal body and being able to bend over and cut my own toenails and do activities like exercise (which i was so not into before being pregnant but there's nothing like being unable to do something to make you want to do it) and having energy. and the crying feels weird, i feel like i'm a kid crying and scared and helpless.
tomorrow we go back to the doctor.

elvis back to his old self! me back to messier self...

the good new is that elvis is doing much better, back to his 14 year old puppy self, even doing some of his adorable puppy like things like getting enthusiastic puppy energy and bounding around before going downstairs to his walks. some of his slowness last week especially on wed. was due to the rabies shot which i found out makes you exhausted and stiff in the muscles.

he's now getting special beef pill pocket treats after meals to see if he can digest them ok and prepare him for getting cosequin, a glucosamine supplement for arthritis. of course i'm partly wondering if i should even give him the pill as he seems much better, but the vet noticed arthritis when she examined him even though he moved fine when i walked him around in front of her.

the main new stress about him is that i have to get his teeth cleaned this month and he has not had that done yet. it's bad to let it go further as his teeth are not in great condition but they have to put him out for it and of course i'm super worried about it.

in general i think my trip into the dark and familiar zone of the more crazy parts of my mind has ended for now with a return to better places, but i'm very anxious and tired, totally exhausted. i had fine plans to go through piles of things on my desk and try to do some cleaning as things are more disorderly than ever but i got home from an outing late afternoon and went straight to bed. i'm constantly tired and have no motivation. all the stereotypes about being pregnant and nesting are bullshit where i'm concerned.

i've been trying to resign myself to the baby arriving in a messy disorderly apartment and that plenty of slobs bring up happy children. it sucks that the media paints a picture of organized expectant parents happily painting special things on the walls of a sparkling baby room and a clean neat organized apartment or house. when i was growing up i used to feel trapped in a family of neat people and hated being told to clean my room. now i'm worried my poor baby will be trapped in a chaotic totally messy disorganized house. i've lost all hope of things getting pulled together. we only have a few more months left and i can barely keep my papers in order and pay bills on time, much less pick up clothing and keep the kitchen neat, a bare minimum. the idea that we can reorganize the apt. and build storage space and transform it in time for the baby seems hopeless. i'm realizing i'm still slightly depressed but in this case the feeling of resigning myself to the worst case scenario seems a lot more comforting than having grand ambitions for our place and making room for baby. you can't be disappointed when you resign yourself to the reality of your own limitations. it's also just too hard to motivate or imagine that i can motivate when i'm pregnant and constantly tired. just keeping up with the bare minimum of one day at a time is a huge challenge.

the idea of a baby shower is scary and daunting. more stuff to put in the middle of the apartment. there's no more room under the bed or under the big dining room table so anything we get or are given for the baby will just go in the middle of the loft.

i have rescue fantasies of some magic person coming over and fixing everything. i've watched too many reality tv show of makeovers. denzel would never let someone come and reorganize our place anyway. but i admit i've had fantasies of waving a wand and everything being organized and fixed in two seconds with no suffering of dealing with the worse chaos that occurs when you start moving things around to reorganize in a place that does not just feel like a big close/garbage dump but in fact is. tonight is indeed garbage night. it's usually my thing to take out the trash or make sure denzel does it but i don't really care. i know how far i've descended when i can't find favorite items of clothing and dont bother looking for them.

i woke up this morning with grand plans to have new energy and tackle my desk and area and clothing areas and closet but that was a fantasy. i'm back to not caring and feeling the ultimate lazy slothful feeling that is a big part of my personality. as i get older i only get worse as i get better at living in messier and messier and more disorganized environment. sometimes it seems to mirror my inner situation and gets me down even more. sometimes i think this is actually a strength. all the neat freaks out there with perfect and organized apartments are sitting on total fear of the real chaos that is life and their own emotions. at least i'm totally aware of and living in my chaos and lack of control or anything. but i'm wondering how great it is to bring up a baby in this kind of environment. i guess i'll just have to hope that the baby will see that life is messy and disorganized and uncertain and chaotic but love can be grown in very messy places and love is messy anyway...

any words of encouragement or support greatly appreciated. i''m not sure this post conveyed all my fear and anxiety and exhaustion with worrying about how to deal with the mess of the environment and the big fear of the bigger mess of figuring out how to manage my life when the baby is here and be a good enough mother. i had great hopes of drawing a fun comic about elvis but that went out the window with my big plans of getting organized. i'll probably walk him and make a bigger mess getting ready for bed. sometimes i notice i retreat to bed to hide from the rest of the mess. somehow the messy bed is a slight haven to hide from all the clutter and mess.

not getting better

more of the same. not getting better. feeling bad for denzel and elvis having to live with me like this. soon i'll have another person in the house to feel guilty about having to be around me and my illness. sometimes i feel like i should have moved somewhere away from everyone i know and just deal with it without infecting other people.

more anxiety...

just read too much on the internet about pregnancy, well specifically about delivery, actually about c sections as i decided quite a while ago to have an elective c section. there are some truly "crazy" judgmental people out there, i can't imagine that is good for their children. to tell people you do not know things like "you spread your legs to get pregnant, you should spread your legs to have the baby". this from a woman. it actually seems that the people with the most opinions about c sections are women, and the most intolerant and judgmental stuff comes from people who have had their child in whatever way they think is better. i just don't understand how people can complain about being given more choices.
who am i hurting by having a c section. one person actually made a mean comment about mothers choosing c sections as being selfish and not caring about their babies.

i can't say i'm completely comfortable with my decision but not because i might want to deliver the "natural" way, but because i'm not comfortable with getting the baby out either way. i wish honestly that i could just burp and she'd pop out. i'm scared totally of all of it, so the c section does not remove the fear. if i could be knocked out completely and wake up feeling ok with the baby there, i'd honestly choose that. i don't think that makes me a less fit mother. the things that could make me a shitty mother do not have much to do with getting the baby out. but it amazes me that there are women out there who think that way.

one of the reasons i chose the c section option besides the cowardly fear of labor aspect is the bipolar issues. i think the worst scenario would be long labor no sleep and then emergency c section because of complications, what could be more stressful, plus the huge stress leading up to labor of anxiety about it. i'm the type who carries stress around and then has an episode from all the collected stress, just like what happened this week. and lack of sleep for a prolonged period of time makes me manic. so i think choosing the c section option is actually also for the baby, so i can be more likely to be able to handle the first moments of motherhood without already being crazy and anxious and manic.

but at this point if i had to have the baby tomorrow i'd be frightened out of my wits. one of the reasons i never wanted to have a child until recently was that i really thought i could not handle the zero hour of getting the baby out of my body. i still feel that way.

it sure would have been nice to go on the internet and read some reassuring comments from other women. there was one reassuring comment from someone who said it was great and she had little pain and recovered quickly. and two friends of mine had no problem with the surgery. i guess i should focus on the real people i know and not the crazy comments from random things on the internet. plus i was born by c section myself and my mother said the experience was great. if i'm this freaked out now i can only imagine how i'll feel when it's time to deal with the reality...

of course i wonder why am i freaking myself out now. i could be just relaxing and trying to find that elusive bliss the media makes you think you're supposed to be feeling while pregnant. or i could be making a fun comic strip for this blog instead of another anxious rant... maybe soon, i hope.

mixed state, hello old friend...

thanks to everyone for the supportive comments on last post. it was the beginning of an "episode", what i think of now as a mixed state. i had my first mixed state about 9 years ago; up until then i had mostly had either manic or depressive episodes. anyway it took me some time to learn to recognize them on my own but i can say i have gotten pretty good at it. it only took until tuesday for it to really dawn on me that my mood and mind and thoughts and chemistry were not about hormones and pregnancy but that i was experiencing a bipolar episode, a mixed state of depression, anxiety, psychotic thinking and so on. not much mania in there that i could recognize at all to sweeten things up, although there may have been a little hypomania on fri. and sat. before my depressive sunday.

anyway i won't get into the "psychotic" thinking that i experienced as i need a break from it, but i was proud of myself for the most part as tues. when i truly realized this is what's going on, i called boyfriend, psychiatrist and therapist and took pretty good care of myself. since then it's been moments of calm followed by more thoughts and weird scary imagery, destructive stuff i have not acted upon, as well as regular depression and so on. i've just been coping with it by trying not to increase anxiety about it, accept it and go on with my day doing my regular things and work and walking doggie etc. trying to avoid too much stress.

a lot of the stuff of the last post continues to plague me. the only physical thing that's a real pain in the ass, is that i learned in the first trimester that big meals are really uncomfortable and lead to indigestion and all kinds of yucky sensations, but every time i go out to a restaurant for dinner, i end up eating too much and feeling truly horrible, wishing i could throw up. i did that tonight and it's really annoying me that i could not monitor myself and eat less knowing full well this would happen. and it coincides with an easing up of some of the worst mental episode stuff. so i'm annoyed with myself that i am feeling so uncomfortable when i have a lull in the "sickness" of bipolar stuff.

anyway i'm not at the point to take any meds. i'm just riding things out and tolerating the brain chemistry storm... i will try to look at some blogs and comment again soon. at the moment i have no mental energy for anything much. it is soothing to know that i'm still walking and feeding and taking care of elvis. even while feeling like a failure as a mother, i can comfort myself with the knowledge that i'm able to take care of my dog while dealing with bipolar illness, a big accomplishment for me. and denzel has been really a wonderful caring and supportive partner and i know it's not easy for him.

2 comics...

these comic strips reflect the two sides of my life at present. the more healthy support system of two healthy males in the house who express themselves freely and move on without dwelling and festering and obsessing and feeding on their own anxieties...
and me and myself and my crazy mind that gets me into all kinds of trouble...

post vacation blues...

wow. they have a term for it. did not know that. and with this "post" i even have a double meaning going on, ha ha. posting about my post vacation blues...
ok. resorting to silly puns.
one of the reasons that i avoid going away is that i dread the return. the good thing about this time at least, lookin on the bright side, is that by the end of our stay in new mexico, i was a little tired of travelling and missed just being at home, not to mention of course, missing the doggie.
last time we went away, we were in a little cabin in the woods and it was even worse coming back to the big city because i just wanted to stay away in the woods for the rest of my life.

so on the bright side, this is not the worst "pvb" i've experienced.

so we arrive home after flying on redeye and walk in the door at about 7am and i realize we left the fucking heat on all week. our coned bill is dreadful and horrible every month so this week would have been great to not pay for the fucking heat. especially after i spent too much money on all kinds of fun things in new mexico from gifts to little handmade peices and jewelry etc. and a wonderful hand made doll that was worth every penny spent on it.

i left feeling stressed about money and not having done my taxes yet and thinking i have to get my finances together and be a responsible parent soon and my money situation is not great at the moment. we stayed in very inexpensive lodgings and we're lucky there was a roach in the room of a more pricey place we stayed. denzel complained about it and the other things wrong with the place and we got that night free (a wonderful savings of $66 that i immediately blew at a bead store the next day...) that place had a hot tub, probably the best thing about the place. and it was not too hot for pregnant lady to soak in.

in fact the only time i felt wierd from the high altitude and pregnancy was in the bead store in taos. i had just picked out all kinds of wonderful things and was trying to figure out what not to buy so as not to spend too much money. denzel came in with coffee and i started feeling weak and dizzy and had to sit down. of course he, being the sweetie he is, insisted i just get all the stuff i had wanted and figured it out for me while i sat there feeling faint. i was fine a few minutes later and many dollars later with some water and that was that...

i am basically terrible with money. i am both very frugal and "cheap" in many ways. don't mind in fact enjoy cheap motels. love eating out and trying good restaurants while on this type of vacation (normally with better weather and no pregnancy we'd be camping, sleeping in tent and eating food cooked on the fire, totally low budget) but don't have to go to fancy expensive restaurants. this vacation was a funny combo of low budget fun and then me shopping a lot-- it just does not feel like shopping when you buy little handmade things ranging between 2$ and $40 in little galleries and pueblo shops etc. after having a delightful conversation wtiht the shopowner, artisan, gallerist or whoever, but it all adds up...

it was really a great vacation. we spent most of our time driving through the countryside and in the mountains and stopping in small towns. we saw the gila cliff dwellings and the carlsbad caverns. the caverns were awesome in every sense of the word. i would descibe myself as very spiritual but not too comfortable with organized religion and indoors type of worship in groups, so to me, going into these cavers just felt so much like being in a natural temple that took millions of years of time and absense of humans to create. it was intense. it felt great to walk through the caverns and sense the immensity of time and the timelessness at the same time. stone is the most evocative incredible material. the caves were just so awesome and beautiful and "created" that i felt like i could not look at any human made thing ever again... and it was so great to walk through with denzel and the little one growing inside, of course the metaphor of being inside a big stone womb came up, ha ha.

anyway now back down to earth and concrete and garbage adn no mountains, except mountains of bills and things i've been putting off doing and an extreme mess of an apartment.

but also the little elvis! he got super good care from my parents and he is definitely the best thing about the homecoming. home is not where the heart is, home is where the DOG is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

finally, a comic strip after a long dry spell...

head still in the trash...

my head is still in the trash, metaphorically speaking.
i was going to do a comic strip today. i had some ideas and denzel even had a funny idea based on a self-deprecating remark i made about how i'd even lose if i was a contestant in the depression olympics.
i managed to make it to yoga class but then spent the day napping on the couch.
then later tonight could not get to sleep of course, so now it's even later than last time i posted. it's 2:45 in the morning.

meanwhile the more often i post the less i feel like people read my blog. thanks to the few who do comment, i really do appreciate your support. i feel like ever since i've been pregnant and depressed and whiny, the men who used to visit and make comments have gotten sick of or bored with my blog. so i'm also trashing myself for not being popular and not doing a good enough blog...

i should just do a comic strip now but i have no creative energy.
just getting through each day, doing as little as possible as things i need to be doing pile up and everything gets messier and messier and more and more disorganized.

but i'm just trying to follow my psychiatrist's backup's advice to take it easy on myself and lower my stress. seems to involve doing very little whatsoever. i guess elvis is lucky he's getting his walks and my teeth are lucky i'm still brushing them.

trash head...

finally, it's up or, better late than never...

here it is... the comic strip i drew last week that i've been too lazy to color in or scan. note the ridiculous drawing skills, my tits are practically coming into my throat in the second frame... obviously not a realistic rendition. and i should have made my hair look better as the one great improvement to appearance i find in pregnancy is thicker hair (denzel would disagree with me here as he is constantly doing the good expectant father thing of telling me i'm looking super sexy.) anyway something comic strip wise is better than nothing. actually today denzel suggested i call the comic strip "the hourly catastrophe" as i guess my anxiety is up!