Not Sad or Happy

So since I have been taking Paxil I find I begin to blog and get about 1/3 way through and then I stop. It is this point I tend to lose interest and the subject seems pointless and before I know a few months have past and I have not written about anything.

Generally I feel better when writing regularly. I find this particular drug has placed me somewhere in the middle of not happy nor sad. It feels like basic existence, somewhere in the middle of not good nor bad.

I'm not complaining. I don't have the moderate to severe anxiety I was suffering, so this is is relief. Although today I found myself thinking I really wasn't worrying over things I had legitimate reason to worry, translated I began to worry I wasn't worried enough. Just like my blogging as I processed the thought I lost interest about 1/3 of the way in, and then it was gone.

One thing I will say I do like about this emotional venue, is I don't have any real depth of pain.

In fact, presently I can only think of two events which could occur in my life in which I would be emotionally shattered, everything else seems psychologically doable.

Now I can see orphans in Haiti, and although I'm able to recognize it as tragic and terrible, I don't absorb it the way I used to. There is a bottom to sadness that didn't seem to exist to me before.

So I suppose this means the shattering events medicated, would be obliterating events non-medicated. I can count the loses I can't absorb on one hand, and in that I find comfort...yet those loses would be unimaginable. There are now people I simply can't live without...

I find I have now lost interest in this subject...but it didn't make me cry.

Troy Shelly

In high school my cousin Erin dated this guy named Troy Shelly.

I know very little about Troy Shelly other than 1. my cousin was really crazy over this guy and after they broke up, no matter who she was dating Troy Shelly kept a little piece of her heart and 2.Troy Shelly may have or may not have been in some type of law enforcement the last time my cousin spoke to him.

So...one time when we were talking about this woman I was dating who dumped me, and how although I was aware of the inevitability, she held this little piece of me.

"She's your Troy Shelly," she said. And she was right.

I think everyone has their Troy Shelly somewhere along the way, someone you REALLY like but just doesn't quite fit into the puzzle of your life, the shape is sort of there and if forced it could fit- but it just doesn't...and you and Troy both know it and when Troy breaks up with you...and he will break up with you, it takes a while to really let Troy Shelly go...

So, I let my Troy Shelly go about 9 years ago, but it took a while. We haven't seen each other in a few years and so this last week my Troy Shelly sent me an e-mail asking for some legal advice.

And I happily gave it...because she was my Troy Shelly after all.

So today at this second birthday party I had Camille on my lap and Camille put her hand on another persons leg thinking it was my leg and then reached for the ladies hand. Upon seeing red nail polish Camille realizes she is not holding my hand and she recoiled a little bit because it freaked her out.

And so it reminded me of this time when I was about three or four while I was at my Grandparents I climbed into the lap of a man I thought was my Grandfather and it was really a visiting friend who I didn't know at all, and I was horrified.

I'm not what I would describe as a hugger, I would say overall I do my best to really limit the physical contact I have with most people, I trace it back to this moment.

One time a friend told me she would absolutely never forget the embarrassment of when she was a child finding out the woman she was hugging in the grocery store wasn't her mother but some other woman whose hair sort of looked like her mother's...

In every fully lived life there is a Troy Shelly...as there is a a moment of stark realization you reached for a person you thought was someone else...

Movies

So I have this thing that I am able to begin watching any movie at any point.

Gioconda has to watch everything from the absolute beginning to the end, and in sequence, whereas I can literally miss the first 3/4 and pick it up later on.

It usually takes me about 8 viewings to watch a whole movie, I may pick it up in the middle, see the end, then the first or second half- in whatever order... and then I have it. The order of it has no meaning to me whatsoever.

I do enjoy this aspect of my personality as it does not seem incongruous to the basic person i am.

I love order, and when the right thing is done at the right time, and I'm easily thrown off by even the lightest deviation from routine, but while watching anything- and I really mean anything (as I tend to watch only the last five minutes of any sport), I can come in any any point in time.

I know there is a crescendo in any story, but I'll get to it at some point.

There are some movies which are harder than others, like Memento (its backwards), and those movies that even if I did watch it in order I still wouldn't get it like Blue Velvet- really anything by David Lynch... Muholland Dr, I don't think you can watch that movie at any point and understand it- and if you say you do- you are a complete wing nut.

All romantic comedies are the same- so I really don't need to know that when the couple finally gets together that they hated each other in the beginning.

There are some parts of movies I love to watch over and over- like the last scene of The Killing Fields when Cambodian Dith Pran, tells American Sydney Schanberg "There is nothing to forgive.", when asked for forgiveness for Schanberg's failure to get him out of the country prior to suffering years of atrocities under the the Khmer Rouge regime.

It makes me cry every single time.

So in the movie the actor who plays Dith Pran is a guy named Haing S. Ngor , who was not a professional actor but was cast in the part. And in 1985 he wins a bunch of awards including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Apparently this guy actually lived through "the killing fields" so was it really acting? Not so sure- yet if you ensure something like that in a life time I think you deserve some sort of trophy- right?

So anyway in 1996 this dude is outside his house and he gets robbed and murdered right here in LA- so there's that...

Last night I watched a moved called "How Do You Know?" from beginning to end.

Basically it comes down to the main character (Paul Rudd) choosing to either allow his father ( Jack Nicholson) to go to jail the rest of his life or have a romance with Reese Witherspoon...who is currently involved with Owen ( what the fuck happened to your nose) Wilson...and he chooses Reese because Reese chooses him over Owen ( how the fuck are you a movie star with that face) Wilson.

The ending sucked so i wished I would have watched that part first, just to get it over with. I made a vow to never watch a movie in sequence again...

Fat and Then Thin

Tonight as I was shoving another pistachio down my pie hole I thought about getting fat.

Don't get me wrong, it wont deter me from eating, but now I think about gaining weight, and this is something I never- and I honestly mean never have contemplated.

About a year ago I lost about 30 pounds. I didn't try to lose the weight, it just happened. It was around this time the girls started walking and I found my anxiety level going up, and as a result I was eating less, and moving more.

Before I lost weight I didn't think I was fat, but now I realize I was. I have the opposite problem of an anorexic, instead of looking in the mirror and seeing myself as fat, I would look in the mirror and think I was thin...and I wasn't.

Honestly I don't think I look all that different, but everyone notices.

When people tell me I have lost weight I typically say the same thing, " Ya, I didn't know I was so pudgy."

And then they look at me - like- ya you sort of were....

So now I don't want to go back to the land of chub, but I just don't have it in me to do anything about it.

I know nothing about nutrition, and honestly- I don't want to know. I know I am a mother and I should be making sure my babies have a balanced diet, but I have decided this really isn't my job. I am the fun parent they will share skittles with.

What I know about fat content is that the more fat the better the flavor- and calories- what is that exactly?

I will put butter on buttered popcorn, I would eat ranch on an aspirin, to me a sweet tart is a fruit.

I have never been on a diet, and I can safely say I always-- and I do mean always eat whatever I want, whenever I want.

This is why I was fat.

And then I wasn't , and I didn't even try not to be. Although I would definitely be rich rather than skinny, being thin is way better than being fat.

It was after throwing a few handfuls of M & Ms in my mouth tonight I decided my weight loss was both a blessing and a curse

I now know what its like to be thin...but now I also know what it's like to be fat...

Ice and Starbucks

So I stayed in a hotel on Friday night and on Saturday morning I decided I needed some ice, and so I got the ice bucket- that is in every room- and found the ice machine on my floor- that is always there...and it occurred to me, I never considered ice something mandatory in my life- in fact I've considered it more of a luxury.

Yet in the world of hotels- and motels- apparently it is mandatory.

I have stayed at a few places that I actually had to pay for the ice, yet the machine was still there- available....and for whatever reason, where ever I am staying I do find myself with the ice bucket in my hand. Sometimes its one of the first things I do, and I don't know why. Sure its nice to have in your water, but certainly not imperative.

Down in the lobby I found the Starbucks, which apparently has also become mandatory in most sectors...as while shopping at Target, or going to the bank, or at the grocery store, I am always able to find a Starbucks. Each and every time I find one I have a little sense of relief, as if things will go more smoothly now that I know where the Starbucks is located.

When we were in London a few years back we went to Starbucks every day...and it did feel as though it was something we NEEDED to do, and I don't even drink coffee.

So- it got me to thinking about the things I personally find to be a "requirement" .

Basically it comes down to a few simple things.

1. Comfortable shoes and tagless, underwear- are in a tie.
2. I can't drink anything out of a can or consume food off anything but a ceramic or plastic plate.
3. I have to be warm, others may call hot, when I sleep.
4. No techno music when I'm eating.
6. I find having a fan blowing on me from any angle intolerable.
7. Starbucks- which I do struggle to understand completely.

Thats about it. Ice isn't on the list...yet apparently to many it is