I Really Am For Real Still Here

I haven't posted in a while, but I'm still here. Planning to try to get back into it soon. I wanted to thank you guys for checking into the blog every once and a while.

I CANNOT Stop Watching This . . .

Stephen Fry's Public Service Announcement

This is a clip from actor Stephen Fry's two-part documentary "The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive." Fry interviews a woman who has been using an ingenious "map" to track her moods. And Fry goes shopping with his emotions.

I believe that I'm on the lower end of the bipolar parallel. I become more agitated than manic. For instance, when I feel "high," I might spend too much money, maybe a hundred dollars over what I should. That's because I Need This Thing. It's only after I've spent this money that I realize that I've gone a bit overboard. Sure, it hasn't been a thousand dollars on a new appliance, but it's just enough to get the uh-oh signal once I review my monthly spending. While my emotional "status" might be simply a whisper of full-blown bipolar disorder, while I might be just on the cusp of where the "ups" begin, I can relate to how the neurological plug gets pulled and the world becomes exaggerated. Or it spins around and crashes.

Here's how Fry describes his own bipolar disorder:

"I approach it from the point of view of one who suffers, according to a psychiatrist at least, from cyclothymia which is sometimes called 'bipolar light'.

I take that to mean I have most of the benefits of hypomania, a slightly less psychotic form of energy, vitality and exuberance and some, one hopes, creativity.There are certainly spending sprees but happily very little promiscuity. That's just my good fortune in this regard. "

Personally, I Like to Keep My Jewelry in the Toilet

This is too good to be true. Everybody, it's a preview of a video made by an '80s soap star. Apparently, the video is being re-released. Had I not posted this, you would've missed out on all the fun and information.

Poor Grouchy

Well, we've lost one of our gerbils. Grouchy, whose name fit his personality, had to be euthanized on Friday. He had some kind of a tumor or infection that looked like it wasn't getting better. I cried for most of the wee hours of Friday morning, convinced that he'd have to be put to sleep. Actually, I cried a little on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. When I took him to the vet, he still had energy, making me wonder if euthanasia was the way to go. One option was to give him an antibiotic and then, if that treatment didn't work, bring him back to the office in about a week to make the final decision. The other option was to go for euthanasia right away. I kept watching him hop around his plastic carrier, proud that he was still, at times, grouchy. But the vet and I got the picture when he didn't take a cookie he was offered. I signed the "put-to-sleep" paperwork and he was taken to the back of the office, quietly led to the Wild Blue Yonder. Grouchy was a great guy and, during our vet visit, he laid his head down on his bedding a few times and let me pet him. This was unusual for him because he wasn't a touchy-feely kind of gerbil. I guess this was just a strange day.

For Kenneth Anger

The fall of Dionysus triggers an apocalypse,
a theater of sublime ectoderm,
atria mezmerized.
Once annihilated, now godlike,
Lucifer consummates an exquisite rebirth,
a perfect, red muscle,
ravenous and holy under the drone of an eclipse,
transfigures into pulsating eye,
as bloody lotus,
reaches ground swell
at the moment of rapture.

Just a Little Intermission

I had to show this to you people out there. I hope that I'll be back up soon.

Matt and I were watching the following video:





We recently did some kitty sitting for family. This kitty's name is Max. Here's a photo of our rotund squatter watching the video: