bad mental health week...or two

So it wasn't just one of those little stressy recurrences of depression. Not only was it bad, but I had my first experience of delusions, albeit minor. A few times this weekend, waking up or falling asleep, I found myself worrying about mind control of children, accompanied by an image of upside-down red and purple tulips falling like a rainstorm - I suppose this was the delivery system for the mind control agent. Those thoughts showed up about three or four times.

That shit is fairly scary, and told me that it was high time to get my meds managed. I haven't seen a doctor in the year-plus I've been on this health plan because it's a $30 co-pay to see the primary doctor, and then a $50 co-pay to see a specialist. Plus my long-time primary doctor is not in the network. But I picked a new primary doctor today, made an appointment for Monday, and called my old doctor to arrange to get my records.

I need a psych consult, a consult for what seem to be two trigger fingers, and a new set of labs, since my body chemistry is no doubt a mess.

Luckily, work gets slightly easier after tonight. Classes are over until September, so no more late Monday nights. There'll be a lot of work through the end of June, three kinds of end-of-term evals to collect and some fundraising stuff, but July and half of August should be dead. I have ten vacation days coming to me and I'd like to take a full week in July and maybe a few other days. I do need some serious stress relief.

Part of the bad stuff was triggered by another horrible money squeeze last week. Barry was under the impression he would be paid in the middle of last week (when actually it's this Friday), and Verizon suddenly decided that no one can carry any back bill at all, did not notify us, and cut off our TV and internet (and would not reinstate it without full payment). We had zero money and no TV or internet, and really no resources to raise what we needed. So we ended up borrowing from my uncle and aunt, which I loathe doing, although they are very kind and generous and non-judgmental. We asked for $300 (Verizon needed $165), and they sent $500.

This kind of thing kicks up more shit than I can even start to get into. My issues with parental generosity/lack thereof are deep and broad and are making me cry right now.

Needless to say, I found I had no interest in reading riddles by an insecure wealthy actor.  SO not into Big B.

I also found some of my weird self-comforting behavior kicking up, the easiest one to mention being excessive playing of computer games (the really dinky puzzle ones). Another one is sleeping most of the weekend. One other I'm too flat-out embarrassed to mention, but I'll simply say it's been a few years since it kicked up.

Oh, and I pretty much ran out of lorazepam in the middle of this, which is what I take as-needed for anxiety, up to two 2-mg pills per day (this is the generic name of Atavan). Since I'm not seeing a psychiatrist now, it's a bit of a hassle to get it, though I don't do it illegally.

It sucks, it sucks, it sucks. But we had back-to-back functions at work today, and I am off to eat some leftover cheese.

Bad news and good news: Jannah's dog Sasha died last week, one of her two little Yorkies. I don't generally like small dogs, but hers are very sweet. Were. Max still is. The upside is that I'm going to visit over Memorial Day weekend.

I also had lunch last week with a friend from Penguin who doesn't want her name in this blog. Can't blame her. I'll just call her Liz, and say I haven't seen her in nearly a year. We ate Thai food at Qi, and I gave her some raspberry sours in a Hello Kitty tin that I bought at Dylan's Candy Bar.  That Dylan's sure is one dangerous spot if you don't want to be eating candy.

things that dance on my head

Money (lack thereof) is dancing on my head, and depression is dancing on my head, and I'm sure they're in some way related.  I keep ending up in these situations a week or a week and a half before payday where I have $100 to last 10 days, or $45 to last a week, and none of it is due to carelessness.  We just don't have enough coming in.  So the least little pressure in any part of my life makes me cry -- or sometimes it doesn't have to be pressure.  I cry when I leave home in the morning, and I cry when I get home at night.  I cry at work.

Work is fine but crazy-busy coming up to the first day of class (Monday), and my fall intern punked out on me, isn't coming.  But I'm also worrying about what kind of health insurance they'll be able to provide, since the clock is ticking on our Medicaid (we only have it until September 30).  Any kind of co-pay is simply going to murder us.  Barry is already going to food pantries a few times a month.

Then again, I sometimes stop eating almost entirely when things get like this.  My appetite just vanishes, although I do eat well maybe once every couple of days.

I saw the GYN last night (boys, you may want to stop reading here), hoping to finally get hormone replacement therapy to help my lichen schlerosis, among other things.  Girls who have joined since I last wrote about this (boys, I repeat:  you really don't want to read this) is a condition frequently found in post-menopausal women when the vaginal skin gets dry and thin, there is often pain and bleeding, and the skin turns whitish (the "lichen" part).  This is now the fourth GYN I've seen in this practice (mostly because of scheduling, not because any of them was bad).  I've had one cream that didn't do anything, another that helped symptoms, and the last doctor recommended hormone replacement therapy.  HRT appealed to me a lot because I figured it would either help or slow things like dry skin and thinning hair.  But my regular doctor said that my liver enzyme counts were high and he didn't want me to start the drug.  So I lost ten pounds, took another blood test, and was pronounced good to go.  (My liver enzymes tend to go up when my weight is high.)  So the doctor last night gave me a prescription for the HRT -- YAY!  He did, however, say, "They told you that you shouldn't be eating tomatoes or spicy foods, right?"  no, none of the other three doctors had told me that.  Suck-o.  Just when the good tomatoes are out, too.  There's another fine excuse to cry.  And believe me, I'll be crying a lot of Medicaid won't cover the HRT.

I'm having dinner with Robin tomorrow night -- I tried to cancel earlier in the week because I didn't have the money, but she said she'd pick up the tab.  I don't have money to eat out.  I don't have money to buy The Herbal Remedy, which I think I'm giving up anyway -- or at least cutting down to weekends only.

Even though Barry does quite a lot around the house, I'd gladly take on half of those chores if he got a job.  I'm really sick of him not bringing any money in.  It puts a huge burden on me, and I always have to be the bad guy, saying he can't buy soda, or chips, or ice cream.  He still doesn't get the food-isn't-entertainment thing.  Food is to sustain you, if you can get it.  We can get enough food to live, but not for fun.

bad health shit

What I really would like to be writing about is Sexy Jewish Men -- and that was before re-watching Catfish, whose subject, Nev Schulman, is a prime example.

But Sexy Jewish Men will have to wait a bit, since they're rather eternal and Bad Health Shit happened last
week.

Basically, I'd gone to see a new psychiatrist, since my old one took no insurance.  I felt that my lamotrigine (Lamictal) was working really well except for a few days every couple of months, when I would experience a depressive "dip."  So he increased my lamotrigine -- doubled it.  After about four days, I felt a little dizzy, but I looked it up and found it was a common but harmless side effect.  Then, a few days after, I started to feel extremely dizzy and disoriented, couldn't type straight, couldn't talk straight...bad.  This was exactly a week ago, and my husband met me downstairs and took me to the ER at Maimonides (we could have gone nearby to Beth Israel, but we're both pretty attached to Maimonides and my general doctor is also attached there).  They did tests and it didn't seem to be anything more wrong than the higher dose of meds, so I was told to reduce it to the old level and sent home.  I was told an appointment had been made for me with my psychiatrist for the next day, but when Barry called the psychiatrist's office, it seemed the appointment was for Friday, not Wednesday, and I made a huge fuss, etc etc.  I mostly recovered on Wednesday, and on Thursday decided to see my regular doctor , partly because I had what seemed to be a rash, which can be a serious side effect of lamotrigine.  So he sent me to a dermatologist, who said it was bug bites.  Back to work Friday.

It doesn't really sound so bad now, but it was horrendous on me and on Barry.  I'm not used to that sort of loss of control, or being on the receiving end of hospital care.  (The hospital thing actually went pretty well until there was some discussion of keeping me overnight, and the idea of being kept overnight in psych scared the hell out of me.)  But the whole thing also made me feel pretty leery about medications, especially psych meds.  No one even really knows exactly why or how most of them work, which is why they always try out different ones on different patients. 

My plan now is to see a new doctor and perhaps go back on Prozac, which "pooped out" on me after around nine years (believe it or not, that's the actual term psychiatrists use), but worked well until then and never had any bad side effects.  I'm taking the low dose of lamotrigine now, but I'm not happy about it.  It's some dangerous shit.  And considering that I take something like 10 prescription meds (antidepressives, antianxiety, blood pressure, diabetes), I'm not liking the whole prescription meds thing at all.

We'll get to Sexy Jewish Men soon, I promise.  Meanwhile, look at some of the pictures of Yaniv Schulman at IMDB.  And look up Oded Fehr, while you're at it.  That should get you all ready for that topic.

publicly assisted 2: electric boogaloo

I got a little lucky last week.  On Thursday, I (finally) saw my job counselor and job developer.  Since those titles are very confusing, I'll expound:  the job counselor helps with "life problems":  childcare, health issues, etc.  The job developer actually helps in your job search, one-on-one.  So I got to see my job counselor the other day, mainly because I wanted to ask about emergency Medicaid and emergency food stamps.  I wanted the Medicaid so I could get Januvia right away (more about this in a moment), and the food stamps so we could begin conserving our limited amount of cash.  No go on either, but the counselor was so impressed with my resume and my person that she grabbed my developer and I got to spend a few minutes with her.

The developer said that I ought to focus a little more on a career and not just on a job.  She said I should shoot for a creative company where I can learn and move up.  She's very sold on Google.

Later that say, I was grabbed by a second job developer, although each person is only supposed to have one.



Let me back up and explain about FEGS:  FEGS is a Jewish non-profit that has a number of programs, including a career development program called Connect to Care.  Barry's gone there some for job-hunting and resume workshops. I went to their orientation before we got into the public assistance stuff.  FEGS also administers (for the NYC Human Resources Administration, the HRA) the Back to Work program we're attending as part of the public assistance process.

So this second job developer works two days at BTW and three days at CTC, and basically wanted to hijack me, at least in part, to CTC.  (Let me be super-nice about this:  BTW is geared to less skilled, often blue-collar folk, and CTC is a lot more white-collar.)  So Ms. Garber "calendared" me for "independent job search" on Friday and I went to see her at CTC. 

CTC is way closer to where I live, nothing close to the overcrowding they have at BTW, and a lot more civilized overall.  Ms. Garber signed me up for seven software classes at CTC in March (she assured me they were much better than the ones at BTW), and will see me again at BTW tomorrow afternoon.

Januvia:  my doctor recently took me off of one of my diabetic meds, Metformin, since it seemed to be causing "elevated liver enzyme readings."  Unfortunately, the replacement, Januvia, costs over $200 a month, even with our pharmacy insurance  The pharmacy insurance, which runs us $55 a month, makes our generics very cheap, and is all of the health insurance we have.  My dad, in fact, sent me a check for $250 for the Januvia, but I am embarrassed to say that we had to spend it on rent.

My doctor didn't like the idea of my going without Januvia, but said that for the time being, I should be careful with diet and monitoring.  I being being OK but not great with diet and monitoring, and the weekend I was at Jannah's, I started to have dreadful foot pain.  This basically scared the shit out of me.  (It was partly because I've been in the habit of creaming and massaging my feet nightly, and I missed a couple of days, plus I was walking quite a big with a heavy overnight bag.)

So I put myself on a *really* strict diet and doing more testing, and finally got my numbers where they should be, plus I lost several pounds.  The reason I wanted Medicaid right away (we're due to get it through our regular application in about a month) is I wanted to start right away seeing my doctor once a month, my podiatrist once a month, and getting an eye checkup and getting the Januvia etc etc. 

Apparently there's no emergency Medicaid unless you end up in the emergency room, so I contacted Merck, which does indeed have a problem to supply meds if you can't afford them.  I'm seeing the doctor today and I'll have him complete his portion of the application.  My doctor is good about waiting for his money (plus he only charges $40 for a visit with no insurance coverage).

Another mitzvah (Yiddish for good deed) -- my wife-in-law Harriet had a pile of test strips and lancets that she got for free, and sent them to me -- nearly a years' supply.  (Those test strips cost a mint.)  They don't fit the meter I have now, but luckily, I found an online deal to get the correct meter for free.

Right before I got the materials from Harriet, I had reordered strips for my current meter from an online place where I'd bought my last meter -- I'd particularly chosen a meter that takes relatively inexpensive strips ($18 for 50, as opposed to the $40-60 per 50 that others cost).  I had run out of strips pretty suddenly, since I'd been testing a lot more, and had to have them overnighted at a truly stupid cost.  So they arrived...except instead of a box of 50 strips, they sent me a whole new starter unit, which includes 10 strips.  I sent a scathing e-mail, and told them that they WOULD overnight me the proper order at no cost to me, and if they wanted the starter pack back, they had to send me a prepaid mailer, but what I would prefer is that they let me keep the starter kit so I could use the ten strips there until the new ones arrived.  The squeaky wheel got her way.

We have our "home visit" today, which I understand is simply a formality and they just glance into the apartment.  But it excuses us for the whole day, which is why I'm seeing the doctor later.  I used my excused time on Friday (Ms. Garber only kept me 20 minutes) applying for jobs from home.  Then I had a call from another developer at FEGS who wanted me to interview tomorrow morning for one of two HR jobs at Luna Park in Coney Island.  I'm a little underqualified for one (it involves a lot of accounting), and the other pays crap ($12-14 an hour), but I'm taking the interview anyway.  After all...well, I guess we know how I feel about Coney Island.  And I do indeed love the new Luna Park, although I'm having my doubts about what Zamperla's doing with some of the other spaces it's developing.

I've now applied to Google, of course, and also to a few more universities.  I'm still looking at Craigslist but I'm being a little pickier; I'm actually looking for a job I'd like to keep.  Also, I've taken the advice of my classroom instructor, the wonderful Ms. Munchez, and have been writing much peppier cover letters (I had been using a very formal letter which was essential a form letter tinkered for each instance).

I also seem to have volunteered myself to edit Rafael's novel.  I will certainly start, and then see how much work it is and how much time it will take, since I hope I'll be employed before it's done.

I'm certainly feeling less depressed and more hopeful...honestly, I was feeling a bit like a sheep after a couple of weeks at BTW.

Well, on to job-hunting!

some women's health stuff (men, you so do not want to read this)

I was recently diagnosed with something called lichen sclerosis.  Never heard of it before, but I can tell you, it sucks.  It sucks on toast.  It's a skin condition, primarily affecting post-menopausal women and primarily occurring in the vaginal area.  The skin gets a white bloom and then becomes very thin and sensitive, and itches like you could die from.  If you rub or scratch in any way, it gets more inflamed and can bleed.  Sometimes you get scare tissue, which can even narrow the vagina, making intercourse painful if not impossible.  And there's no cure, gang.

I've now seen three different gynecologists about this.  It ended up being three mostly because of scheduling -- the first was my regular GYN (though I hadn't seen her for some time).  When I needed to go back I was working and couldn't work with her hours, so I saw a second doctor in the practice.  Same thing again, and I saw a third.

The first doctor didn't even tell me what it was.  I had initially thought it was simply irritation from wearing pads for stress incontinence.  (Any men who have gotten this far -- I told you so!)  So the first doctor gave me some cream -- actually two.  One was for inside my vagina (I still don't know what was wrong there), and one for the sore outer area.  I should have asked more questions but I actually spent more time talking to her about the stress incontinence.  (I never did do the test for that, where they fill your bladder with water, but I've actually diminished the problem a great deal by doing kegel exercises.)

When I went back some months later, the second doctor told me the name of what I had (whatever the internal problem was must have been cured), and prescribed two creams.  One was the same cream the first doctor had prescribed, and the second was a cortisone cream.  She gave me directions very quickly and in a heavy accent, and when I got the creams, those directions were not there.  So I called to ask about it, left a message that I was calling with a question about my medications, and she never called back.  Each one just said to use twice a day, so I just kind of switched back and forth.  I since learned, on my own, that you're supposed to use the first one twice a day for a couple of weeks, to clear up the symptoms, and then the cortisone one twice a day to prevent them from coming back.

Third doctor, the one I saw this past Thursday, explained things to me a little better.  Hormones are involved.  The hormones that dropping off after menopause contribute to this condition.  That's a big factor.  So she said to use the cortisone cream twice a day, and in-between, use OTC Vagisil for itching.  And she's prescribed hormones.

I had never thought about hormone replacement therapy, or rather, I only thought about it in terms of something was was used for menopause symptoms, like hot flashes.  I didn't even think about it recently, when I realized that my hair is getting thinner and my skin is getting a lot drier.  But now I'm getting to understand this whole post-menopause thing, feminine itching and all, and if estrogen and progestin are the magic bullet, bring it on.  I'm going to check in with my GP about drug interactions and such, since I have high blood pressure and Type II diabetes and am on anti-depressants to boot.

This is the age where you start to see the results of how well you did or didn't take care of yourself.  I haven't been good about my weight, went through a period where I did exercise, and periods where I walked a good deal, but I haven't been consistent about exercise.  I did stop drinking (24 years ago) and smoking cigarettes (about 6 or 7 years ago), and I feel really good about both of those.  My liver pulled through without a scar, and my upper respiratory system is great.

I'm actually kind of excited about taking the hormones.  I've been very bummed out about some of these age-related changes...I've always had great skin and thick hair.  I'd love to see that stuff improve if not reverse, or even just stop progressing.  Because I never had children, I didn't react much to the end of my childbearing ability, because when the time came to decide about children, I chose not to.  So I didn't feel too bad about no longer being fertile-- I was already used to the idea of not being a mother.  And I had sexual activity in my life for a few years after, so I wasn't feeling any lack of female-ness.

It's hard to explain this...I think I don't mind being older, but I do mind not being younger.  Does that make any sense?

One more very interesting thing, which does not involve sore genitals.  I have tried on and off to learn meditation techniques, and never even got close.  For a while, when I was with Penguin, I worked with people who were involved in the TM organization, and I was very impressed with them as people.  One fairly high-up member promised me free training and then reneged.  (I made this mistake a couple of times when I was in book publicity, of thinking that a few authors actually liked me as a friend, beyond what I could do for them and their books.)  TM was very attractive but the $3,500 price tag was a problem.

I did, however, get to meet Donovan, who was my huge favorite musician/crush when I was around 11 and 12.

So last night, I was trying to go to sleep, it actually happened, just for a moment.  As is often the case, a lot of shit was rushing around in my head, very distracting.  All of a sudden, it became silent -- and the floor fell out from under me.  That's exactly what it felt like.  My author had described it like being in an elevator and having the cable cut.  I had just that short, lovely moment -- and have absolutely no clue how I got there.  I suppose I've got to get some for-real instruction, because I definitely want that again.

chicken soup

We discovered yesterday that our oven isn't working. When the electronic ignition stopped working on the stove burners over time, we could light them with matches, but it now seems to have stopped working on the oven as well, but there's no way to hand-light it that either of us could see. And since I'm really trying to cook most or all of our dinners, for health & economy reasons, this is a big drag. We have to go to the landlord about it since, unlike the fridge, we don't own it, and it wasn't new when we moved in here five or so years ago. It would be fine to have it fixed, better to have it replaced, and best of all if it doesn't cost us anything, including grief from the landlord. He's a good guy, but can be fussy, and we went through this recently with him when we had a bad U-pipe under our bathroom sink that was leaking *and* clogged. Landlord had a plumber come after he;d looked at it himself, and we didn't have to pay, but we got an earful about tidiness and the last few lingering cartons from our move. Barry dislikes this as much as I do, so he's going to wait a few days and let the landlord know just a day or two before he comes to get the rent, which means one landlord visit, not two.

So I've been planning meals that don't require the oven. Since Barry wasn't feeling well today, and the weather was a bit raw, I figured chicken soup would do it. (Tomorrow will be poached salmon and spinach salad.) I went to the kosher butcher next store to Ouri's (the amazing produce store), where I'd seen chicken necks the other day. They didn't have them today, but they had hefty packages of what they called "chicken bones," so I bought two for about three bucks. I was amazed when I opened them: the two packages yielded the bones from five chickens, everything but the legs and breast cutlets, still intact, next to that little bumpy thing at the butt. (Does it have a name, that weird little fatty thing?)

I am usually a kitchen-sink variety soup maker -- that is, I simmer some kind of bones for a couple of hours, take them out and throw in some sorts of vegetables, and cook it some more. Usually any soup I make turns out to be vegetable soup, and is rarely the same twice. When it comes to soup, I'm not about recipes -- except the time I made, it was either lentil or split pea soup, I can't remember which, but it was my stepfather's favorite soup. He bitched and bitched about the smell of the ham bone wafting around the apartment. I know, real nice.

But I really wanted to do a very classic type of chicken soup. I had read recently that a lot of cooks roast bones before simmering them for soup, to get a deeper flavor. Since I have no oven, I browned up the chicken bones with a touch of canola oil, put them in the soup pot with some boiling water, and used a bit more boiling water to deglaze the browning pan. Then I threw in a little kosher salt and black pepper, half a big onion (cut into but not apart), and two smashed (but not cut up) cloves of garlic, and let it go for two hours. Then I strained it and added a couple of handfuls of barley, some sliced carrots, and some fresh dill, and simmered it until the barley was done, maybe 40 minutes more. (I only put in the barley because Barry doesn't cope well with no starch at a meal. I can sympathize -- I used to think I didn't feel full w/o serious carbs.)

The whole house smelled like chicken soup. It was heavenly. He ate two bowls and I ate a bowl and a half. The best part was that I've started testing my blood sugar again, and my postprandial (two hours after starting to eat the meal) reading was 95, first one I've had under 100 this week. I started to get a little more serious about my eating last week, and I'm checking myself by monitoring my weight and blood sugar. The first reading I took in many months was scary-high, around 250, but I've been getting it down day by day.

I'm also proud of myself for not giving in to the urge to make kneidlach (matzoh balls) with the soup. They're homey and traditional for real "Jewish penicillin," but the truth is, they're mostly white flour, not as acceptable to me as a little bit of barley.

But I just don't know what the fuck to do about my husband's eating, since he just heated up a slice of pizza from the freezer, I guess for the 10:45 PM snack. At least I stopped him from eating the second sugar-sweetened yogurt. He often thinks that if something is relative low fat or low calorie, like a Frozefruit, for instance, that this means he can eat two or three at once. I want to knock my head against the wall sometimes. He isn't diabetic (yet) but he's maybe 30 pounds overweight, dead set against ever exercising in his lifetime, and at 58, his health is not going to correct itself. I hate to bitch about him because he is extremely wonderful, but he's also one of these people who thinks he can do exactly as he pleases, and then get the doctor to fix it with a pill. I do get a little bit of mileage out of prohibiting certain foods from the house because they are bad for me and too tempting, so there's no ice cream or cookies or pastry around here. He will usually buy himself a couple of Frozefruits or some sherbet, which does have sugar but isn't hard for me to pass up. Lately, I've been keeping the place very well-stocked with fruit -- he likes oranges and bananas. But at times he will eat those in *addition* to the white-sugar desserts. If I don't make him feel a little guilty, he will graze all night between dinner and bed: crackers, peanut butter (not natural, of course), dry breakfast cereal, and on and on. I occasionally pull out the line, "You know, dessert is only one course." Every so often I get into the you're-killing-yourself-and-I'll-be-all-alone thing, which is more about me being unhappy than trying to guilt him...and although it makes him unhappy, nothing changes.

Last weekend, 10 days ago or so, I had a very down weekend, and woke up Monday morning thinking, "these shitty pills are doing nothing," and stopped taking my venlafaxine and depakote cold. Not smart, I know, and the venlafaxine withdrawal was awful for the first couple of days. Chills, sweats, and brain zaps. I did join a website for discussions for psychiatric meds, which was very helpful and I got some good support. I did also call my general doctor and got a referral to a new psychiatrist, since I'd had some concerns about the one I'd been seeing for a while (he's the only one I'd ever seen, and had been treating me since 1997). I saw the new doctor on Sunday, and am very pleased with him. Apart from being two blocks away from me and having Sunday hours, he listened, he talked, and he diagnosed me instead of my having to do it myself. He said he thought I was *not* Bipolar II but did have a mood disorder, and prescribed the generic of Lamictal (I haven't learned the long name yet -- hell, I was just getting the hang of "venlafaxine"). He also gave me lorazapam for panic attacks instead of clonazapam, explaining that this was not really the best way to use clonazepam and lorazapam was more appropiate for this. (Not only did the old doctor never tell me this, but he pretty much let me decide to use it. That is, we had some at home prescribed for my husband, and I started to take them when I got anxious, and when I told this to the old doctor, he said, "OK, I'll write you your own prescription." This may sound dumb but I was kind of appalled that he didn't say anything to me about taking another person's prescription meds.

I've been on the new meds only two days now, but I can tell you this: I found out yesterday that I have exhausted all of my unemployment benefits, all 99 weeks, and I didn't lose my mind over it. I'm seeing the new doctor again two weeks from this coming Sunday for a followup (he only has Sunday hours at this office). And tomorrow I'm doing a double-header: GYN and regular doctor in one day. (They're right down the block from each other.)

I'm definitely thinking about what to do now that my unemployment insurance is tapped out. I may try to find something part-time nearby, or do a long-term temp assignment (I'm thinking about something like a month or less to start). Although I'd lost the electronic version my my resume, and couldn't put my hands on a hard copy, my friend Lily, bless her heart, still had a couple of versions in her e-mail from when I'd asked her to take a look at it. And hopefully the new printer will arrive within a week. The old printer almost never worked properly, paper wouldn't feed right. HP. I'd had one once before, and the problem wasn't with the machine but with the customer service. My hard drive crashed, I couldn't find the disc, and although the HP website had a lot of drivers for free download, they didn't have one for mine, since it was about two years old and I guess they'd much rather have you buy a new one. No help at all. I ended up having to get it at some weird bootleg drivers website. No more HP for me. New new one coming is a lightly used Lexmark 3-in-1: printer, fax, and scanner. $39 on eBay.

Also coming from eBay: a big covered nonstick skillet ($31), and an immersion blender ($17).

sorry for the wait

It's been a while since I posted, which I guess is not the best way to develop a readership. Still, everything seems so difficult lately. I was depressed all summer, and went right into those sad short days of winter.

I've been having trouble for several days with my bad tooth, one which has had a low-grade abcess under it for many years, and which was root-canaled about eight years ago. The abcess generally drains itself, and only once about fifteen years ago did I have a problem with it, where it stopped draining and swelled and hurt. Got some antibiotics and a mouth rinse and was fine until now. And any time I've had to take antibiotics for something else, it's helped the abcess. Well, I gotta go see an oral surgeon next month to see if he can dissect the gum and clean the thing out, or if it has to be pulled. (Not the worst thing in the world if it has to be pulled: there's a missing molar on the bottom left and I can get a bridge made.)

We are very lucky to have found a cheap dentist nearly. Our downstairs neighbor recommended him. Dr. Kadaa charges only $650 for a root canal, which is about what you pay at NYU Dental Clinic minus all of the waiting and being treated by a student. Dr. Kadaa rocks.

And though I've been using ibuprofin for the pain, which was been considerable, he offered to write me script for Tylenol and codeine; Barry said yes for me. I didn't want to seem to eager, but the truth is that I love that stuff when I need it.

I heard from an old friend on Facebook, who told me the usual about himself: hometown, profession, number of wives and kids, and added, "And you?" Me? I am one of the greatest underachievers on the face of this earth. I have parlayed a 168 IQ and an expensive education into nothing. I can't drive a car; I don't own property. I had a great two-and-a-half year career in public radio and TV (in an upstate city, not here), and a great two-year career in publishing. Other than that, I had a lot of shit jobs, the cheap ones that paid my way through NYU and the pricier ones in private industry where I learned both about insane bosses and about the ways in which my mental illness makes me a terrible employee.

I'm thinking more and more, lately, about actually writing a novel or memoir, and was encouraged to do so by a former history teacher. My best professors at NYU would probably say the same thing.

I wish -- gotta say it -- that a certain person I worked with in my publishing job, who held a high position in the Transcendental Meditation world, had made good on his offer of free TM training for my husband and me, or even just me. (He wasn't someone from my company, but someone who worked with one of my authors.) I have a feeling it would have done me a lot of good in the past months. I hate how much medication I have to take for things like cholesterol and high blood pressure and diabetes; I hate how much I have to take for my mental health, and it doesn't exactly work right. I'm OK with the medication model for mental health at this point, though I was raised a Freudian and think a lot of Jungian thoughts. But they don't even know exactly how and why the meds work so they're just throwing stuff at us and seeing what sticks. I'd like to see how much of this stuff I'd really need if I meditated twice a day.

Did I mention it was 4 degrees out today when I went to see the cheap dentist? 4 degrees and windy. My husband announced that we were taking a car service. He has been so wonderful to me that I truly can't complain about a thing...except that I'm not sure if I can get any better until he's back to work. I may be too tired to explain this now.