My arms feel like they're about to fall off. I spent the whole of today fixing, eating, and cleaning up from today's Thanksgiving Day festivities and there is simply no way I'm ever going to manage as thorough an entry as I wanted to do tonight, particularly since I've been afforded slightly more time today to devote to one of these. I think it's a sympathy "I know what you did and am thankful for it so you just go ahead and rest" type thing from the parental unit, though I think she's also expecting me to help her take a shower in about half an hour.

We attempted to eat our Thanksgiving dinner with some wine I'd purchased earlier in the week but just couldn't -- well, I mean, I was able to sip from it, but it burned and clashed with what we were eating, so I reverted back to water so I could more thoroughly enjoy what I was eating and not feel like I'd have to limit myself with what I was drinking. I can't remember what else I was going to say I attempted to do today but just couldn't (and no, before you suggest it it ISN'T "writing a cohesive LJ entry"), which really sucks because I thought I had a really interesting thing going on -- oh! I know what I was going to suggest! I remembered that this morning I was going to fix my mom and I some of the tamales that were left from when I purchased them yesterday, but Mom decided instead to eat a single one she couldn't eat at the time, while I had some toast and a Nutella-like spread. I'm glad we did that because there would've been no way for us to appreciate our dinner without us being as hungry as we were when we ate.

I'm currently overhearing a Martha Stewart holiday special on FLN just because I like looking down upon her and because I have no idea what else is on TV right now. She's such an elitist snobby bitch and it's no wonder that her daughter Alexis has turned out so fucked up -- if I'd had the misfortune of having her for a mom I don't know if I'd have become that well adjusted. And if you think this has anything to do with her ill-informed flaming of Sarah Palin then you're partly right -- Palin is for the people, whereas Stewart is for all the hoi polloi disconnected from reality. Meow.

Oh good, Calendar Girls is on BBC America. Now that movie shows what real proper grace looks like in the visage of its stars, who carry it off in spades. Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie -- proper British ladies who carry off a certain aura that I would tend to associate with all British women "of a certain age" that shows they have class both inside and out. [..] And if you think that ("[..]") means that I took some time between this link and that, then you're right, because now it's after 9:00 PM and Calendar Girls is over and I'm trying to keep alert and awake even though I feel really bombed out and my limbs ache from having spent so much time cooking and cleaning earlier in the day. And now I'm having to help Mom shower and clean up and that just wipes me out even more, the thought of having to do all that at this time when I've already had such a long day. Ok, enough whining and back to my point -- my point is that even the British do proper better, and one figures that a British Martha Stewart wouldn't think themselves in quite the elevated level of egotism that our own original does.

I'm just rambling right now, I'm sorry. I spent about four hours making the turkey, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, steamed carrots, and yams with pecans for today's Thanksgiving feast, I also stuck in some biscuits from a bag, made gravy from powder using some of the leftover giblet juice from stewing them in a crock pot (for the cornbread dressing), I made pumpkin pie last night, and Mom and I spent a long time cleaning up from it all. The kitchen looks lovely again, but it took a good couple of hours to get it that way and to put all the leftovers away.

[..]

I think I'll end this entry now.

It's amazing to me how much our society worries over not fitting into a certain prescribed, narrow definition of physical beauty. People will judge you against it, jobs are potentially lost or "won" while quietly based upon it, relationship anxieties are developed because of a seeming lack of it, etc. It truly affects the entirety of one's life, and all because we as humans are too stubborn as a whole to recognize that what we define as "beauty" has been predefined for us and is based on a highly regimented and codified series of "requirements" that aren't but rather are what the hive mind has determined it is, or rather should be. I've just started wondering about this as it's come to my attention that this is so only within the past month at most. Perhaps I've been too blind or naive to see it, or maybe I've never really focused in on such a thing until recently. Hm.

I'm also trying not to worry about the state of our nation at this time, even though I know we're in a lot of shit and it'll take a great deal of work to put our country back together after the ones who are currently running it are through with dismantling its basic components bit by bit and draining us of the resources necessary to keep this country running. And I'm particularly perturbed by our media's mass inability to report what's truly been going on, choosing instead to deflect all such criticisms by critizing those who have well reasoned, intelligent reasons for wanting to alert everyone else to the destruction those in power today are doing to the Union. Other countries' press are all over the stories that our own press (with the exception of one with a reputation tarnished by other press outlets) has been unwilling to report on; heck, even with a particularly urgent crisis moment that's recently arisen, BBC has crafted an hour-long news report about said event, while none of the major media outlets here in the U.S. has even given one minute to said scandal. We no longer have free press anymore and are going to have to be forced to have all our stories reported on by such countries as Australia and Britain, just like how it is in openly repressive countries such as Iran and North Korea.

On a much lighter note, I'm noticing how much more prepared I am for this year's Thanksgiving Day feast than I've been previous years. I have all the core ingredients at the ready for the cornbread dressing, the turkey's busily thawing away, I have all the spices premeasured for both the turkey and dressing, I have the carrots peeled, the potatoes I'm going to peel tomorrow morning, the biscuits I bought as premade and in a bag so I just have to stick them in the oven for about 25 minutes before we want any, I'll be chilling the wine we purchased just to see what it's like to dine with wine at home, the pumpkin pie's done, etc. I've even done a test run of the dishwasher and it appears to work absolutely perfectly. And I know already what we'll be eating for breakfast so that I don't have to do any real cooking aside from that which I'll be doing for the day itself.

And finally, I'm noticing that I'm not censoring myself as much as I used to be, nor am I as bothered as I used to be regarding my spouting off my opinions. I've always been as opinionated as I am right now, but before I always used to either try to hide my opinions or cloak them in overdiplomatic phrases so as not to make people react viscerally against me for what I've opined. I used to be so terrified of people's potentially negative reactions and wanted to preserve whatever acquaintanceships or friendships I'd developed with others and was really desperate not to fall into anybody's bad graces, so I didn't want people to truly know what was going on in my head. But now I find that I'm not as bothered by people potentially thinking negatively of me because of what I've said, not because I don't care anymore but because I know that it's not worth all that worrying, that life is simply too short for me to fret the whole of my life over how my own personal opinions will be taken by others. Not that I don't care about others' feelings -- it's just that when it comes to that which I illustrated in the second paragraph, there will be some disparity of opinion and thought and even if I myself think someone else's opinion is "wrong", I have to let the other have it, so they may more willingly have my own.

I don't know if that made any lick of sense at all. I've given up on even thinking over what it is that I'm putting into this anymore because I realized how much it was paralyzing me and my ability to write something of substance here, so I'm just letting the words fall where they may and not really bothering to check for whether it makes sense or not. And thus ends another edition in my innermost personal life.

(I know, I know, the subject title doesn't even make any sense....)

Two local news personalities are celebrating their 20th anniversaries with being with the local affiliate they're both on, and another local news personality is retiring after more than 30 years with being at another local affiliate. I keep on thinking about how things were 20 years ago and how different those times were, even though back in 1989 I'm sure I thought it was absolutely as modern and advanced as things could get and couldn't think of how things might end up being like even 10 years in the future; now, those 10 years in the future is in fact in the past and I've noticed how much has changed even since that point in time....

Look, I was going to say something poignant here but I'm trying to update this amidst all these different interruptions and my mind's being forced to scatter all over the place instead of being focused here. Which is too bad because I really wish I could elaborate more on what it feels like to clearly remember such a seemingly long period of time back as 20 years ago and how weirded out I am that there'll come a time when I'll be able to clearly remember THIRTY years back. Though it is an eventuality of the aging process and some of the greatest stories people have to tell involve their recollections 40 or more years back, and I remember World War II veterans making news for telling their stories to digital historians back when 1945 (the year often thought of as the end of WWII, even though it didn't officially end until 1991 with the reunification of Germany) was 50 years ago.

God, I already forgot the point I was trying to make with this whole post! I hate when I don't get enough time to update my blog during the day because it makes it impossible for me to focus my attentions on what I'm trying to say with this blog and its individual entries when my attentions are being pulled in so many directions at once. It's just really, really difficult for me to make even well thought out observations and comments when I can't get it all out at once. I think I'm going to have to end this right now. Maybe start over again in the middle of the night.

(a.k.a. I'm not a "Dr. Strangelove" so don't call me one.)

I was going to craft a well thought out blog post for today's blog entry, but for some unknown reason I don't really feel like I'm of the right mind to do one of those, so I think I'm just going to follow the advice of one of the authors who's published a "how to become an author" book -- she said that it's absolutely vital to occasionally delve into free association writing, where you're just writing about whatever comes to mind,e ven if it's just endless riffings on "I'm not thinking of anything right now". She actually recommends this this for people going through writers' block, but I'm just going to extend that to this particular usage, i.e. my blogging while absolutely dead of mind.

I was going to make an elaborate connection between the awe that I feel when walking outside when the sun's gone down and being able to gaze up at the sky without being blinded by the extremely bright sunlight, and witnessing the grandness of the sky in relation to how small I end up feeling, but I lost the plot about halfway through. I should explore this connection further in additional posts in the future, if I can remember to explore this that is. I keep forgetting what precisely I committed myself to do or think about or what have you. I wonder if aging or exhaustion has anything to do with my inability to really be able to stay mentally committed to thoughts and ideas, and how it may perhaps affect me outside of this silly little excursion into thought and personal philosophizing, because there are all sorts of ways this could affect me negatively. I don't know, maybe I shouldn't worry about this as much as I do, though I also feel like it should worry me because my brain has been my life for the whole of my life and if I can't get my brain to be as super-powered as it used to be then that'd be pretty much the end of me, the only me I've ever known.

There's also a worry that this general feeling of overwhelming exhaustion won't subside, that I'll never come out of this state of extreme tiredness. I can't even seem to do well if I sleep for adequate periods of time. Every night I find myself anticipating a revival of strength from a decent night's rest and every morning I find myself starting over in the same position as always. Before I could live on just a few hours' sleep and do a great many things. Now I can't live on little rest as I used to and it seems to me that I'm basically only doing that which will help me survive. Even the seemingly non-energy sapping activity of typing things on the computer will really take a great deal of effort out of me. And it's such an overbearing kind of exhaustion too -- my head and eyelids feel like they weight an incredible lot, the neck feels like it's just not strong enough to hold up my heavy head, my eyes feel like they're burning, my limbs feel incredibly sore, as if they were expected to lift heavy weights all day, and my back feels as though it cannot hold me up for another moment.

I think that's as accurate an assessment of what's going on with my body right now. It's difficult for me to describe this sort of thing at this time -- I'm too closely associated with everything in order to give an accurate assessment of everything. Which is why I think I'm having so much trouble fictionalizing my own experiences in an order to craft a novel -- I'm simply too close to the proceedings in order to transform them into something readable. Every instance I've heard of regarding an author fictionalizing experiences from their formative or earlier years has included an explanation that they weren't able to truly give themselves to the committment of writing it all until they were detached from the situation. Noel Coward write Private Lives while staying in a Chinese hotel room and... I can't remember any other examples like that, but I can recall that other authors will write stories set in the same rural environs they were reared in while living in a big city, or will write about cold climate adventures while holed up in a tropical paradise. The point is, all of these past authors write about what they know only when they're apart from what they know about, because they've been given the adequate distance from what they've experienced. Which person can accurately depict what it was like to experience the whole of a TV show episode taping, one of the main actors of said TV show or an audience member who is observing the proceedings?

Thing is, I don't know if I'll ever be able to "write what I know" until I'm far away from what I know. I've committed myself to moving away from this state in January 2013. Depending on what happens in the world, I could be moving to another part of the country or I could be moving to another part of the world. I don't want to be tied down to this city for the whole of my life because there are just too many things that this city requires to improve and develop upon in order to become a true, world class city, and I feel that I've already outgrown this city. It's too small and parochial for my sensibilities, but I have to wait a few more years before I can take the leap. At that time I might be able to enjoy a better life and then settle down to write some things that might gain for myself a notoriety that can ensure for me a legacy in case I'm not able to fulfill the usual way most people leave a legacy for themselves, i.e. have a family and become a "beloved wife and mother". I think I'm terrified of the great big Texas sky because I'm terrified of being rendered insignificant, and see leaving a legacy as my only solution for finding significance for myself.

(Wow, I did all this while free writing? Gee, I think I might actually be overthinking this whole writing thing.....)

I did a lot of pre-prep work on the run-up to Thanksgiving today, so I won't feel as pressured on the day itself. I made three different cast iron skillets' full of cornbread and chopped a whole stalk of celery and two bunches of green onions for our cornbread dressing and took out the turkey from the freezer and triple bagged it so it wouldn't leak when the turkey defrosted. I also helped my mom take a shower and went out for breakfast tacos in the morning, as well as keeping the kitchen clean all that time and making sure to do whatever else needed to be done around the house. I also finally got to the roasting tray that was wedged to one corner of our garage so I could get that over and done with as early into the proceedings as possible. Mom remarked about how fortunate it was that I didn't need to visit the supermarket today and I felt that she made a point, because I've done Turkey Day shopping the weekend before back when I didn't know better and it was utter and complete madness trying to wade through the crowds and purchase everything I needed to purchase without skipping out on anything, and I'd inevitably have to make some compromises about what I usually get versus what's actually available on the shelves by the time I reach them.

The rest of my schedule appears to be pretty much cut and dry on the road to Thanksgiving. I'm still maintaining an 8:00 AM - 1:00 PM work day and so will have enough time at the end of each day to help run errands and do other preparations as Thanksgiving gets closer. Mom's still requiring a lot of attention but I anticipate this slowly going away over the course of the next month. I hope to fit in some time for a doctor's visit at least, as was implied in a previous post. And hopefully the entire week will be wholly a success, as I expect the week following will be considerably more complicated as I add some more time to my schedule; I'm still not planning on going back full time, but am hoping on slowly phasing myself in to a full time schedule so I can get reacclimated to a more "normal" work week.

As for my internal life -- I hope on that front I can eventually regain my energies and abilities. I feel so bereft of *something* for not being able to philosophize the way I used to. I always used to figure that a life left unexplored is a life not worth living, yet at the same time I can't remember the last time I really explored some new, fresh thoughts and ideas that came to mind that day or week. I suppose I've indulged in a little bit of it over the past couple of weeks, but it's nothing akin to the open wondering that used to occur at least on my own time, away from the computer. I have mentioned to someone else the peculiar kind of exhaustion I've felt, and he's the one who brought it to my attention that residual exhaustion that's been accumulating through a period of weeks or months will often be so overwhelming that it will in fact take the same amount of weeks or months in order to rest up enough to return to normal energy levels. This is where I stand at the moment, except I don't really have that kind of time at present to return myself to the energy level I experienced two years ago at this time. I figure that I might possibly begin to have the opportunity to begin the rebounding process when Mom is as back to normal as she'll ever become, which is anticipated for roughly March of next year.

During my typing of last night's post I was reminded of something that was said during that evening's Mass; the sermon the priest delivered had a bit relating to Thanksgiving, where he challenged every single one of us to think back throughout the past year to a difficult or trying incident we weren't thankful for and to find a way to be thankful for having experienced it. I haven't yet mulled over this, but once I do I'll have to figure out a way to incorporate that with the next post I make. (What a refreshing thing to be challenged in that way, i.e. cerebrally, by a priest! That's what a Real Church should be like, and a Real Priest should speak up to his audience in that way instead of treating us all like mentally challenged little children as is the case in a Fake Church.)

Speaking of being disgruntled -- I'm becoming increasingly more disgrunted with my city and am finding increasingly more elements of said city that I'm ill at ease about. I find myself missing previous mayors more and more -- not all of them, but certainly even Howard Peak would be an improvement over the sleazy-looking, oily Julian Castro. And it can't be based on sociocultural factors because I remember very well when Henry Cisneros was mayor and he did not even remotely give off any kind of sleaze factor back then, and he certainly didn't appear to make up his mind about issues before the facts revolving around said issues were presented the way Castro appears to do. I also remember the time when I thought it was embarrassing that we had a mayor such as Phil Hardberger and cringing whenever I heard his broad twang and folksy expressions, but now I appreciate that his slower, more deliberate style of mayoring did help him deliberate what was the best action to take on whatever issue he addressed and to go with situational-dependent instead of ideological-dependent solutions for whatever comes across. One can easily see that a city craving wiser and healthier growth would actually need that kind of leadership, instead of leadership by ideological fiat, which produced more inflexible -- and thus brittle -- leadership.

I should muse over whatever else I could add to my rantings about what's wrong with this city, but leave the rest of that for other future posts. Perhaps it might even comprise one whole one! But as for now I believe it's time to give this a rest for the evening so I can, in turn, rest for the evening. When the mind is strained by having to operate on a survival basis throughout the day, even pleasurable thought can become a chore instead of a joy. This goes back to my prior thoughts about "mindless" living, I believe. Until later....

I've come to the conclusion that my writing sucks because I don't know how to describe, I just indicate a series of events that happened. Which is all well and good for a blog setting but is absolutely anathema when it comes to fiction. No matter how groundbreaking you're attempting to be as a writer of fiction, you do have to make it easier on the reader to imagine what's going on, to paint mental pictures that indicate precisely what journey you want the reader to go on. And I simply don't do that, or if I do then I do it horribly. So I suppose I'm going to have to practice describing things to the point where anyone at all can imagine what kind of mental movie I'm trying to direct in the readers' heads. Ooh, going to be a bit of a challenge but if I attempt to practice it, maybe it'll get barely easy enough to where I might be able to attempt it successfully every now and then.

And as I was going about my business earlier in the day I realized that I didn't actually get to one of the points I wanted to make with the writing I wanted to attempt early in the month, i.e. I wanted to work in real life anecdotes and suggestions into the main body of a fictionalized account. So I think I should try to write down what suggestions I thought would be most useful for the relatives outside the innermost circle of someone who is experiencing a debilitating illness/recovering from major surgery:

1. If you already know the person you're inquiring about is in the hospital and (s)he hasn't notified you yet that (s)he's out of the hospital, please please PLEASE only call that person's main phone number from 8:00 - 10:00 in the morning or 8:00 - 10:00 at night. If you catch someone in the morning during that time, they'll probably be doing the morning preparations for going to the hospital, and if you catch them in the evening during that time, they'll probably be just settling in from spending their day visiting their more immediate family member at the hospital. Don't call up at 2:30 in the afternoon if you already know the patient is in the hospital, expecting any kind of response because unless you have absolutely no idea what's going on, you are being either willfully idiotic or insensitive to the whole idea of when people usually visit their closest relatives, and no, you don't really deserve to have your phone call returned.

2. Don't expect the closest inner circle relatives to pick you up if you're wanting to visit the patient in the hospital, because their energy's probably spent from the stressful and draining process of having to spend the bulk of their days visiting the patient, going around hospital staff, fetching stuff for the patient, trying to figure out what and when to eat, taking care of things back at the house, etc. The last thing you want to do is add to that stress and strain by making them drive any further than maybe a mile out of their way to pick your ass up. There are buses and taxis and other people -- rely on THEM.

3. If you don't know about the patient's hospitalization and you happen to call the home/main phone # in the middle of the day, that's cool; eventually someone will get back with you. Don't go leaving multiple messages that all say the same thing, especially if you haven't given the main relative in charge of the patient 48 hours at most to respond. I guarantee, 48 hours is enough time to respond to all messages, but if you're leaving three or four "Just wondering what you're doing"s in a row, I'm not going to be inclined to respond to you as quickly.

4. Take everyone's personality and disposition into consideration. Not everyone is going to appreciate any kind of hovering you might attempt, though there are those who will. If someone tells you that they're fine, not to worry about them, then take it at face value -- they're fine and don't want you to worry about them. Don't push it with three or four "Are you sure?"s because it stops becoming something sweet and charitable at the first asking and starts getting into "I'm going to force you to accept whatever it is I'm going to give you because I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart but out of obligation and a sense of fulfilling some arbitrary community service need" territory. OTOH, the patient might need help regardless of what the main caregiver responds -- you will be a huge help if you pitch in there and then, as the caregiver might want someone else to do the fetching and running around for awhile.

5. Likewise, take the inner circle relative caregiver's personality into consideration when it comes to waiting with them during any surgical procedure. If the caregiver isn't naturally a chatty, gregarious sort during "normal" experiences, they're not going to appreciate your attempting to constantly chat with them; OTOH, if the caregiver is usually outgoing and talkative, they might appreciate the opportunity to take their minds off what's going on by talking. This is also why it'd be good to have several people in the waiting room per patient, so others can converse with each other and leave the exhausted caregiver be if that's what needs to happen.

That's pretty much it as far as what I can think of right now. I might think of more later on, but I did mean to cover all of the above throughout the narrative of what I was going to attempt as far as a story went, early this month. Maybe I will if I think I could get away with it, or maybe I'll leave it as this. I'd be satisfied either way. And I'll be satisfied when I wrap this up and click on the submit button, as I'm fading fast. Hope I have enough energy for AIMing tonight!

I'm writing the following under the influence of Theanine. After a long day of at-home drudgery, I've sipped a cup of PG Tips (a bit of Splenda and a splash of 1%) and feel somehow energized mentally. Which is a miracle because before my cuppa I thought for sure I was going to collapse in a heap of exhaustion and take a long, long nap earlier in the evening. It's tough work being someone's live-in nurse but I think if I do it enough it'll start to gel.

I really want to go to Walgreens to purchase some more DVD-Rs; I've found torrent uploads of all the series of "As Time Goes By", a program I find is a real internal salve for me when my days are long and tough and hard. I downloaded series (season) 1 on regular .avi format, but if I want series (seasons) 2 and beyond, I'll have to burn the disc images onto a DVD-compatible disc. I had one DVD-R at hand and burned season 2; I'm now proceeding to rewatch the entire run after watching it the whole way through over the past three or so days. It's been a real comfort to me in the mornings as I munch my toast and prepare myself for the day. Some days it's precisely the sole reason why I'm able to get through my day without having some kind of outburst. It calms me down and provides me a bit of inspiration for the future -- I want to be a Jean Pargetter with my very own Lionel Hardcastle. To me that love story is the grandest one of all time, more romantic than anything Danielle Steele could ever concoct in her silly little soap oprified mind.

It's just occurred to me, BTW, that I'm probably going to end up beginning all my paragraphs with the same letter. I remember my senior year HS English teacher's admonitions about that sort of thing. She's also the reason why I keep tabs on how long each paragraph is and attempt not to make each paragraph of equal or similar size. She's also the reason why I'm as verbose as I am; all of her essay assignments required so much verbal real estate to be worked over that I learned how to stretch a simple statement out to almost distorted proportions. So that's that.

I did find it refreshing in a way that I spent most of today cloistered at home. The only time I spent running errands was the hour I devoted to picking up a prescription for Mom, withdrawing a small sum of money from the ATM, and making a quick supermarket run to pick up the very last of the things I'm going to need to have for Thanksgiving Day week. It's funny how much one has to prepare for even if the number of diners anticipated that day is somewhere around the vicinity of two persons. I don't know why I bought a whole turkey aside from the fact that sometimes it's nice to have dark meat as well as light and the turkey breasts I'm accustomed to getting for my mom and I have just the white meat available there; I'm sure Mom would prefer to have a selection and even I would like to choose between dark and white. And then there are the other things we'll need to keep on hand at home throughout the rest of the week, which I needed to fetch before the stores go completely crazy with last-minute holiday shoppers. I want to avoid that madness as much as humanly possible, so I'll want to be able to have to have zero reason at all to go to the supermarket.

It's now just occurred to me that I'm running out of ways to start every paragraph with the same letter, as well as running out of things to say here. I fear the Theanine is waning as far as my writing energies go. Which, BTW, are still pretty much running on fumes, which I suspect will have to remain until I have enough time to enjoy life more, which I'm hoping is sometime before I'm considered "middle aged". I also need to make a doctor's appointment sometime before the Thanksgiving holidays, for a presently censored reason (which may be revealed if it turns out the doctor's not wasted her time).

So. That's that. Enough typing in this for today. Maybe tomorrow will be more inspired.

I feel energized now. Weirdly and oddly. I believe it's because I chatted for a spell with the Sweetest Guy Ever (SGE for short) and whenever he and I converse I get a surge of enthusiasm and energy that courses through my body for at least a good hour after our chat ends. So I decided I was going to make use of this renewed energy to type up this entry right now just in case I don't make it to type up an entry later on "today" (in quotation marks because I'm still operating on Wednesday's schedule).

The way I know I'm doing well with maintaining my weight is how my dad's old wedding ring fits on my right hand's middle finger. Ever since he passed away I've been wearing it on that finger almost completely nonstop. The only time I remove it is when I slather on my morning dose of SPF 50 sunscreen and that's only because I don't want it to get filled with the greasy oiliness of said sunscreen. Which, BTW, is doing an amazing job of keeping my skin's natural tanning abilities (mostly) at bay. Otherwise I'd develop a tan altogether entirely too easily and I hate how tans look (does anyone else not see how hideous those things are?), and I already have enough body image issues to deal with without hating the color of my complexion as well.

(Yes I know that's erratic thinking, but that's how I feel.) So! I believe my plans for the future entail my staying put in Texas until the beginning of 2013 at the earliest or the beginning of 2017 at the latest. I'm going to want to move to a bigger and better cultural hot spot, a place where classic and art house cinemas dot the urban landscape alongside decent art galleries, museums, and other places of cultural importance. I'd like to have the experience of living in a place where my synapses are overstimulated instead of having to dumb myself down and suppress my more esoteric cultural interests and pursuits like how it is down here in this cultural black hole of a city. I don't want to live in a place where I feel like I've already outgrown the locale for much longer after the realization that I am in fact too big for this place. I want to go where the youth culture is a melange of various tribes and groupings and entails a wider variety of favored pursuits than is present down here, where partying and getting drunk on a regular basis predominate. But I'll wait for a few years before I do that, for a variety of reasons.

Earlier in the evening I was noticing my computer acting erratically, so I just shut things down bit by bit before I came to the realization that I hadn't shut the computer off in months. Whoops. I usually tend to leave the computer on as long as possible, and apparently I left mine on a bit too long. So before I did the last of my evening chores I shut the computer off, then returned to said chores before going back and turning the computer back on. Works like a dream. I need to remind myself to turn off the computer at a set time and date each month.

I really appreciate the comments I receive on this LJ, even if I don't respond to them. And if I don't respond to them, please don't think that I'm not processing and internalizing what you've been leaving. It's just that at the end of a very long, very difficult day, the most I'll have energy for is to type up a quick post and submit it before doing my final unwinding for the evening prior to going to sleep. Sometimes when I type up an entry I'll be experiencing a terrible headache or will be distracted by whatever else I'll need to do before finally securing some "me" time toward the close of my day. And then there's the pressure of having to think up something to post even if my brain isn't being forthcoming with any ideas, particularly in the pursuit of a challenge (i.e. posting at least one item every day for a month). So please don't feel that I take any comments for granted -- I remember a period of time where I wasn't getting any and thus truly appreciate that people have made the time and effor to read through one of my LJ entries as well as posting a comment to one of them.

Ok, enough about comments and other stuff. I really should be thinking about securing some sleep time so tomorrow may not be the challenge today was.

I haven't found any time at all to put anything down for today's blog entry. I was hoping on getting some time but Mom's been capitalizing more and more of any free time I've been able to secure. Even when I think I've settled in I don't really get a rest. So long as she's up and awake there'll be some reason for her to call me over for some reason or another. I need to find a way to make it to where I can return home later so I can fit something in that I want to do in that interim, instead of returning home immediately and facing all of those things that I usually have to do while I'm at home. BTW, I've washed my hands so many times today that my hands feel a bit on the raw side, because of how many times I've had to wash them after doctoring Mom up for some reason or another.

And now my brain is so empty and drained of ideas and thoughts that I can't really think of anything creative or important or insightful to put onto this blog. I guess this is why there are so many seemingly brainless androids going about their daily business without a thought to anything -- it's only when you have a reserve of energy and a not-that-draining day that you're able to devote the end of these days to heavy contemplation. But if you're faced with constant trials throughout the day where the predominant thought in your mind is, "I really wish I could just sit down," it becomes easy to have a mindset so drained that the easiest solution for that is just not to think at all. Even now, in order to become this contemplative, I have to close my eyes so I'm not wasting that little bit of energy devoted to seeing and keeping my eyes open. (It's a good thing I had a superlative keyboarding/typing class my sophomore year of high school.)

I just don't know how to get rid of this exhaustion, though. No matter how many naps I take, no matter how easy I try to make each day, no matter how straightforward the days are, I still feel this overwhelming feeling of deepest exhaustion that devastates me and makes it impossible for me to do anything for myself, including this LJ. I want to do so much with the end of my days, so much that would enrich and better my own life. But I find that I am finding it increasingly more difficult to find the time for that. I want to have enough energy to be motivated to go out and absorb the art at my favorite local museum, or perhaps even just look up a good art house film on the Interweb and watch it streaming while consuming vast quantities of popcorn. But inevitably the only things I find I have energy for at the end of the day are vegging out in front of the computer, listening to uncomplicated TV and discussing uncomplicated things on IM.

Ok, whinefest over.

1. I find that writing in lists is infinitely easier than writing in straight prose format. I wonder what this means, aside from the more obvious fact that I enjoy making lists.

2. Speaking of enjoying making lists, I find great enjoyment making grocery shopping lists; since I do all the cooking around the house, I know pretty much the entire layout of the kitchen and what's necessary in terms of household necessities and wants. But when it comes to actually shopping, I find that unless I hit the store at about 2:00 in the morning, I'm not going to have a very pleasant shopping experience.

3. Especially so around this time of year, where everyone's trying to gather up items for Thanksgiving. Last year I missed out on getting our favorite brand of cornbread for our dressing, but this year I didn't.

4. I don't know why I felt so overwhelmed with exhaustion earlier in the evening. I was going to wash up from dinner earlier when I became overwhelmed with the need to collapse on my bed. I slept for about an hour and a half before waking and rushing to wash dishes before logging onto AIM. There's a feeling of satisfaction I get when looking at a drying rack filled with clean, wet dishes and a sink that's both clean and empty. Ahh, boring domesicity.

5. I realize that a lot of things I watch aren't from the joy of watching but rather due to the joy of snarking. It seems there are few (American) programs out there with no snarking opportunities.

6. Don't know why I made that observation in #5. I guess I'm just getting to the point that it can be incredibly valuable to have a membership to a couple of British TV torrenting sites, as it appears the British haven't forgotten the art of creating a good TV program. I suppose the threat of an angry public hanging the guilt factor of a paid license necessary to watch TV and an ability to write devastating letters will motivate most TV execs to create good TV.

7. On a different note -- a musical one, actually -- I'm afflicted with the need to repeat again and again and again a song or songs that have grabbed me completely from the inside and move the parts of me that normally can't be moved. I've noticed that these songs continue to have a hold on me, long after I thought it'd stopped having a hold on me. In other words, hello again, Tavares's "It Only Takes a Minute".

8. I honestly have no idea what else to put on here. Argh, burnout.

1. So Mom had a little medical emergency happen upon her to where she had, um, complications with a particularly sensitive part of the human anatomy. It may or may not be gender-dependent. So my afternoon was pretty much preoccupied with *that*. But at least I know now that where Mom's GP is located has changed its parking situation around to where we could in fact actually get a halfway decent parking spot and I didn't have to push a wheelchair about a mile before reaching the entrance.

2. This adds complications to my already omnipresent exhaustion. I think I've been worked so hard throughout the past few years that I don't think I'll be able to get rid of this exhaustion for a long time to come. I really need to be enabled to just leave it all and luxuriate for several months before I'm sufficiently recharged, but since that's highly dubious at this time I would settle for a decent two-week vacation somewhere where I wouldn't have to worry every moment of every day of every week of every month.

3. Oh well. I am glad that the weather has turned colder because it enabled me to have a warm bowl of chicken & sausage gumbo for dinner and a later-evening cap of PG Tips, sweetened with Splenda and with a little splash of milk added at the very end. YUM. Since I've not been able to stomach a lot of coffee or caffeinated beverages lately, tea and its "go down smooth" properties make an excellent caffeine source and I do find that there's something in there that makes the little synapses of my brain work a little bit faster.

4. Still dealing with fly trouble. Short of completely fumigating the inside of our house, I would really like to know how to handle this situation aside from hoping on getting a few at a time by the use of my Handy Dandy Blue Fly Killer (aka a surprisingly effective flying insect spray I recently purchased). Ahhh, domesticity -- and stupid, crappy flies.

5. Also still dealing with writing trouble. I don't believe I'm at the proper point in my life to where I can effectively write, even though that's what I want most of all to do. I mean, I know I'm doing this, which could be construed as "writing", but I want to create fantastic stories from the works of my imagination and that's just not happening for me. Oh well, gotta think of the suggestion that I'm trying too hard and perhaps figure out a way that I can just make it happen. Because it's got to happen someday.

Oh, and I'm finally publishing this because now is actually when my day's ended. It's been ridiculous that way.

1. I've forgotten what it's like not to be consumed with exhaustion at the end of each day. I can no longer remember what it's like to have arms and legs that aren't completely floppy from tiredness and a time when a headache was an extremely rare occurrence for me.

2. There's something to this super-complicated life that's made me see the value of classical and smooth pop music. Because the world outside is so violent, the music helps calms the world inside and makes it peaceful, not the battle the daily struggle can be.

3. I'm going to have to completely abandon the writing project, which makes me feel glad in the sense that I never signed up to join in the first place but... damn it, I would love to do this just once! But I can never find the time or opportunity to. I guess I'm just never meant to do it.

4. That thought makes me sad because I really wish I could publish some novels or books, and I have some pretty good story ideas either way. But every time I transfer that idea over to print, it just falls flat, or I'm so tired by the time I can get to a computer that I... simply can't.

5. I'm trying very hard to find time in my life for mindless fun, but every time I think I have any I find it's being preoccupied by some obligation or errand or chore or what have you. I'm starting to think that I'm not meant to have that, either, not even now that I've snatched some time away for myself. And that's pretty much the only way I can get any time for "me" stuff, is to wrest it away and claim it forcefully. And even then it has to be for some purpose or obligation or need. I can't simply get away just for fun stuff, stuff that would assuage my tempestuous soul.

6. Why can't I have had two healthy, living parents? Life would be so much easier for me if I did. I would have loved to have moved away and carved my own life when I was supposed to. But now I have to spend it taking care of Mom, being shackled to her as a slave.

7. No, I can't drop her or just go off on my own. If my guilt at that wouldn't get me, the cackles of the family gossips flapping their gums about my "irresponsible" behavior would. So no, abandoning her would not at all be feasable. Not for awhile, it seems.

8. I hate that we have these family gossip fiends. They got on Mom's case for putting Grandma in a nursing home for the last year of her life in spite of the fact that we'd been trying to take care of her for years and her Alzheimer's was worsening by the day. We (Mom, Dad, and I) simply could not do it any longer, and those vultures couldn't spend one moment dropping their soaps and other trivialities and helping us for just one day, just to see what we were going through. I bitterly resent their presence in my family's life. BITTERLY. RESENT.

9. My God I've needed to get that out for such a long time. These people also make up the most ridiculous, over the top lies about others. They are familial poison and do this only because they've never known what it's like to live productive lives. I hope they rot in hell.

10. So that's my little list entry for the day, all done up and packaged in a pretty little blue bow and sent out for another day's worth of journaling. Hopefully I can steal enough time away for another one of these tomorrow. It's been incredibly helpful for me.

I am so exhausted I can't even see straight. I feel like I have literally been dragged around outside for days and days and I've been actively fighting all that time to avoid getting my skin burned off. Or like I've stayed up for days and days and am trynig to hang on for another day. I cannot sand for this. I feel like I'm barely clinging onto consciousness. I haven't had a truly restful day in so long, I can't even remember it. I also haven't been able to go on vacation or step away from worries in many, many years. I'm coming up on 14 straight months of an extremely hectic schedule and I can't recall a day therein when I didn't have to hustle throughout the day. I feel as though if I were to fall asleep for enough of a period of time to make me feel rested again, I might never wake up. I'm at my wits' end; I can't do this anymore if I want to keep sane. Help.

Today I had to wake up early so I could take Mom to a 9:00 AM doctor's appointment, then I had to pick up some prescriptions of mine before we ate an Arby's to-go meal in the car because Mom's still not that comfortable with going inside very many places, then we came home and I started cooking a pot roast for tomorrow's dinner while I went back and forth with the PT and OT specialists who dropped by this afternoon, made mashed potatoes and carrots, washed innumerable dishes, had to apply some ointment on a wound on Mom's leg, fetched the mail, sat down for a brief spell, finished the pot roast meal up, put everything away for tomorrow, made oatmeal and a piece of toast for Mom's dinner, warmed up a couple of frozen waffles and topped them off with a chocolate hazlenut spread for my own dinner, washed up a final time from all of that, had to be going back and forth between everything and whatever Mom had me fetch or do for her, killed some flies with this new flying insect spray I purchased at the supermarket a couple of weeks back, and have just now settled down to truly relax for the first time since waking up at about 6:30 this morning, a long, tough, endless, relentless day. FML.

But I did finally get to search for the theme tune alluded to in the previous LJ entry title on YT and viewed said program's opening titles a few times during a spare few moments I managed to catch while the pot roast was simmering away on the stove. So, well, you know. And now if you will, I must retire to my bedchamber because I'm starting to feel like the room's spinning and it feels like my neck is having to support a thousand pound boulder.

Dear brain, please work normally for me again.

Dear digestive system, please stop kicking my ass.

Dear head, please stop throbbing.

Dear time, please stop moving so gosh-darned fast so I can do more in a day.

Dear hands, please stop drinking the Hateorade.

Dear right arm, please stop cramping so I can type more.

Dear neck, please don't be so tense.

Dear me, please stop aging so I don't have to feel like my body's going to break down.

Dear world, please stop spinning -- I want to get off.

No love, me.

Hello, this is D_____ the Introverted Extrovert.  (Or is it the Extroverted Introvert?  Same difference?)  Sorry I can't come to the LJ right now, but if you'll leave your name, number, and a brief message (you don't really have to leave your number) I'll get back to you as soon as I can.  Thanks!

BTW, have busy life, will cogitate.  I don't even know if "cogitate" is the right word here but I'm just going to cast it out to the open skies and cross my fingers that I'm remembering properly from my vocabulary lessons of old.

(I had an exceptionally long day today, not even enough to leave me with enough time to jot down anything for this LJ.  Sorry.)

(Oh, and ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble ramble apple and bramble crumble.)

I think I was meant for the 1970s.  I'd like to think I was supposed to be born 20 years before I actually was; the '70s suits me far more than the '90s or today do or did.  I've been listening almost exclusively to '70s pop music for the past few months, in a move one might consider a regression to early childhood but which just fits me so well, like a warm and cozy glove.



Doesn't THIS look like a lovely mall hallway to be strolling through?  And don't the people have a more dignified air than the shoppers you normally encounter these days?



This hallway has such a warm feel to it; the white signifies cleanliness and orderlines and there are plenty of earth tones on view.  Doesn't it look like a great place to pass one's time?  I should be here.

(all photos courtesy the Penn Can Mall website)

One of the little benefits of the Internet as it's presented today is the fact that one can conceivably lose oneself in a particular era.  One could listen to an era-specific streaming online radio station, look up era-specific footage and music (as well as select home movies/videos) on YouTube, peruse nostalgic websites dating to the era, gaze at photos taken by regular people and professionals during the period, and gaze upon period-specific advertising.  That's as close as I can get to the 1970s until someone figures out how to travel across the third dimension and move through time and space.  And if that happens before I'm too old to enjoy said period, I'll be right there to take a time travel journey!

I really feel I was meant for the 1970s.  I'm not going to fight it anymore -- *that* is my true decade.

(This is my little attempt at not overthinking anything.  Hi!)

(btw, if you want to check out my '70s and other favorites on YT, feel free to check out my profile!)

I've been thinking of a lot of things ever since I've been reconnecting with my inner self in an attempt to be creative.  This reconnection has dredged up a lot of thoughts that I've not addressed for many, many years, and some of them are a bit disturbing.

I do wish I could have had a different life.  A less complicated, much happier one that worked in my favor.  I would have been able to cope with an emergency or two and am aware of what I've faced has built my character up and made me stronger, but there are times when I don't want to have this character and I would actually appreciate being weaker.  I don't know why I had to have all that character built up inside me in the first place; for what purpose?  Why was I chosen to have to cope with all the things I've coped with throughout my life?

Also, I do wonder why I haven't had quite the level of fun and excitement in my life that most people seem to have been blessed with.  My entire life seems to have been preoccupied with worry and I think my inability to fully relax has something to do with that, and has hindered me from being able to decompress enough to where I wouldn't be able to let other stressors affect me as much.  I do wish I had been shown from early on that it was okay to have fun and be a kid, that I could be a bookworm and "fit in" in the playground as well.  I wish I hadn't had eyeglasses at such a young age, because I worried so much about the damage a potential fracture of said glasses would inflict upon said glasses, my parents' budget, and my face, that I wasn't as willing to take physical risks as most other children, so I couldn't fully enjoy playtime or other physical pursuits, e.g. rollerskating.

There's also a drawback to being considered smarter than one's peers.  You automatically become disconnected from them, and if that happens when you're very young it messes up your sociability pretty much for life.  I tend to practice my socialization skills online now because they were so lacking pre-online days that I simply could not converse with other people.  I would shut down or tend to think of their queries as oral examinations, answering in complete sentences as would be appropriate.  If I hadn't been considered "odd" or "different" at the age I became such (around 4 or 5 years old), I imagine I might've been able to learn a little bit about how to make friends and had some happy childhood memories playing with some of my peers before being locked away in the gilded cage that my brain forced me into.  Also, I always have this panicked attitude about my own intellect in the sense that if I ever felt like I'd lose it, I would lose my whole identity.  It's like how a model might feel about losing his or her "looks" -- that's what you bank on and what you base your whole identity upon, so to lose that would be to lose your whole self.  I think I would become incredibly depressed should I sustain a massive injury that would render me less able to process information.

Sometimes I do dearly wish I could have had at least one point in my life where I could have just cut loose and been irresponsible.  I would have loved to have behaved as if I wasn't worried about the consequences and filled my inner self with pure adrenaline and exhiliration.  But I suppose at my age I'm too old for that; I'm supposed to be responsible and grown up.  Thing is, I've always been responsible and grown up.  I'd like to be allowed to go back in time and relive my childhood so I could learn to be a child and then approach my adulthood committed to maturity.

Ok, that's it from me.  Writers' block as far as fiction goes is still ongoing.  I don't think I'll pull out of it anytime soon.  Sad panda time.  (But thanks, Syldath; I did read your comment.)

Why has writing become the hardest thing I can possibly do?  Why can't I seem to get any words out?  What is wrong with me?  I want to write so terribly bad but I try to think of the words to write concerning a particular subject/topic and they just fail me.  The only reason I'm doing even this is because this is just rambling stream of consciousness stuff lamenting my inability to write, and I can express myself there because it's been truly bedeviling me over the past several days.  I would love to have the entirety of my days open to where I could simply write myself out of these holes, but every time I think I'm going to have a decent block of time to work with it turns out that there's some committment I have to meet up with or some chore I have to do or errand I have to run or what have you.  I think I need to acknowledge that writing just isn't for me.  I'm not talented enough to be creative.  I try writing song lyrics and they come across as crap or half-arsed.  I've lost my ability to express myself through visual art, and I'm not extroverted enough to do any performance art.  The only saving grace I had when I was doing choral singing was that I could kinda use the hymnal as a sort of shield to block me from the other people out there.  I desperately want to be creative and artistic because that's the only way I'm going to be able to achieve immortality but I just can't.  No matter how hard I try, I just can't.

So sorry about this, but I just can't seem to be write-happy today.  I think I'm seriously burnt out.  So in place, I'll copy and paste this list that I made a short while back (maybe a month ago) that was inspired by going to one particular message board community and combing/poring through the posts therein.

Words of wisdom from an older person to the younger people out there:

Teenagers think they know everything because in all actuality, they know nothing.  The more you know, the more you know you DON'T know.  The most educated minds are often the least self-assured about what they do know, or don't feel what they know is worth bragging about.

It's never worth it to try to be something/someone you're not.  Eventually people will find out you're not who you claim to be, or you'll grow weary of keeping up a façade, and you'll either give up and become who you truly are or you'll wear yourself out from the inside, to where you'll become just a hollow shell.

You need to keep most of your twenties free to figure out who you are on the inside.  This is absolutely vital.  If you don't spend until at least your 26th birthday sorting yourself out and figuring who you are as an individual, you are going to be prone to identity crises later on.

Being popular in your youth never counts for anything.  Nor does being prom king/queen, the varsity quarterback (unless you plan on a pro football career)/head cheerleader (unless you're a serious gymnast), etc.  What counts in your life is what's happening in it NOW.

Attending your senior prom may not matter for much, but at least make a deal out of the evening.  Even if you stay at home and throw an anti-prom event (one where people show up in pajamas, say), at least make it a fun and memorable event for yourself/your friends.

Learn how to make all the dishes your parents/grandparents make that you really enjoy eating while they're still around to teach you how.  There are few sadder things than recalling a dish you grew up adoring and having to guess at how to make it because you never learned how to make it while your mom or dad was still around.

Enjoy the simple pleasures in life.  Take the time to engage your mind in imaginative play and be a voracious reader.  Enjoy a warm bowl of soup in the winter and a cool salad in the summer.  Laugh heartily and often.  Don't be afraid to cry.  Live each day as it comes.

Adulthood will last for many, many decades.  You only get a limited time to be a child.  When you're a child, it's perfectly acceptable to play and engage in other childish behavior.  When you're an adult you have to be serious and responsible.  Don't wish for that when your time as a child is so precious and limited!

There are fewer things more rewarding and lasting than appreciating the joy of learning.  True learning goes beyond the boundaries of school and lasts a lifetime.  The truly wise person learns throughout his/her life.  Don't be satisfied with what you already know but be on a quest to learn more.

The idea of becoming "older" is so feared in this youth-obsessed society that it ignores the reality that almost all of us will grow older.  Become comfortable with that idea and seek inspiration in it and relish the wisdom of your favored elders.  If not, you will become one of those bitter, angry old cranks you avoid today in your youth.

I say all these because these are things I would like to pass on to my own children, but I fear I may never have the ability to have any.  So I share these with you so others might learn from what I've learned throughout the years.