More Things On My Mind

• Presents for friends. If you are a good friend of mine celebrating a birthday or engagement you might be on the receiving end of a Diamond Art coaster. I got a kit of four. They are designed to look like geodes and they are a swirl of different colors in a similar palette. I liked them so much I ordered a pack of eight online. These are sea animals which are obviously right up my alley. I have bibs on the turtle.

• Mia’s party. Previously it was a surprise party so I did not reveal that one of my favorite cousins, Steven was throwing a party for his girlfriend, Mia. Especially since, as I discovered that day, it was an engagement party. We (his family, her family and a healthy dose of all their friends) clustered in a restaurant shushing each other while he took her to an escape room where he surprised her with a ring. The second surprise was all of us in a room screaming (from some girls at unearthly decibels) for them when he ushered her into the room. I hung out with his other cousins girlfriends and Ana, who married my cousin several years ago. Looks like it’s time for wedding bells again.

• I read a rather lengthy book on Henry the Vill’s wives by Alison Weir. Now I love Phillippa Gregory (who has written a number of historical fiction on the Tudor era) especially since the ones I have read drip with scandal. But I was curious when I saw Alison had written a fictional series, one book for each queen. I had to read them! Since I’m listening to them on tape I am proceeding at a much slower pace but at least I am enjoying them and getting more out of  them.

• My psychiatrist, my therapist and my parents want me to receive a second opinion on my medications. I am not lying when I say I am on at least twelve medications. Every time we try to take me off them I get worse and we immediately have to correct. Or overcorrect? I am difficult to treat because I have OCD and bipolar type one. The pills treating my OCD trigger manic episodes. That is why I have to live with a certain amount of OCD because we have to keep the dose of my Prozac low. So yeah it’s a balancing act. Unfortunately there’s a good chance I may have to go into the hospital to be weaned off my medications and they gradually will be replaced (hopefully) with one or two medications instead of twelve.

• I’ve been getting mystery rashes all over my body. Most of them on my arms and wrists. But I did get a big one on my face. My parents sent a picture of it to the psychiatrist and he was baffled. They always go away in a few days. But we can never figure out where they come from. 

• My good friend just got back from South Carolina where she was in military training (she’s in the National Guard). Now she’s back and she’s married (hurrah). But she is going to be deployed to Texas in October….for a year. When I think about this I kind of want to cry which I guess is pathetic but I don’t like when people leave me even when it isn’t specifically me they are leaving. I mean if you’re going to lose to something might as well be the United States National Guard. But another problem is her husband will probably go with her and he is my best friend (that’s how I know her). To lose such great friends for a whole year….well, I don’t really want to think about it right now.

• This elimination diet (which my gastroenterologist put me on) is murdering my soul. It is what is called a fodmap diet which means not only is it gluten-free it also severely cuts down on my caffeine intake and for someone who was already off alcohol I would say limiting my options like this is cruel and unusual. Not to mention the one billion other things I can’t have. Onion. Garlic. Mushroom. Shit, just take the taste out of everything why don’t you?