130 Days: Shelter from the storm

The song that’s with me for the night.  Relish the master poet:

I’m in Haifa.  It’s a stormy night.  I’m with my lovely artist friend D, and we shared a dinner, tired as we both were, and then went to a nude modeling session to draw.  I feel safe here in her studio apartment, late as it is, with our makeshift mosquito netting hung quickly as an attempt to ward off these horrific offenders.

I am dying to blog about my first wine gig last Friday, but I can’t seem to concentrate.  Too tired.  Too wired.  Too much chemical craziness inside.  I’ve been having meds issues.  Yup.  The Lexapro (or Cipralex, as we call it here in Israel) hasn’t felt like it’s been doing much for the past couple months.  It was a pretty rotten February.  That or I really do suffer from seasonal depression, as last February was the pits as well.  But Israel’s not cold, really.  Or grey at all.  Anyway, my psychiatrist suggested we double my dose from 10 to 20 (I think it’s mg) per day.  Basically, I was taking one pill per day, and we were going up to two.  Sure, great, fine.  No, not fine.  Day one involved my sleeping for the whole day, and dragging myself off the couch only because I had an appointment I couldn’t not cancel, and I spent the entire meeting high off my ass like I had smoked a couple of joints on my own.  Ya, that’s progress.  I decided, no way, I’m going down by half a pill.  Better, but I’ve been sleepy all week.  Two to three hour naps at weird hours every day.  And I feel groggy all the time.  All the time.  Like in a kind of emotion-less, slow, silent, creepy kind of high-numbness.

And now, all I want is to get off the drugs completely.  Easier said than done.  If I do it, I’m going to endure some pretty bad withdrawal.  Worse than I’ve ever experienced before.  Worse than cigarettes, I imagine.  I had a sneak preview today because I was out of pills and had to run to the pharmacy to refill.  Not something anyone should do with Lexapro.  I’m supposed to take it around the same time every day.  Well, a four-hour delay gave me a physical preview of the jonez-ing I will endure soon, or when, I go off this stuff.  Even a few hours afterward, the balance must not have been struck, as I would have killed for a shot of whisky or a xanax or a cigarette or all three at once.  Yup.  Why?  So, great, I’ve got a slight bipolar problem.  I’ve got depression issues.  One little pill can help immediately.  But temporarily.  And at the end of the day, a drug is a drug is a drug.  Perhaps if I go all-natural, get acupuncture, take homeopathic remedies, eat all organic, spend lots of time doing talk therapy, draw pictures, be positive, positive, positive, and enjoy a glass of wine or scotch every once in a while to dilute life’s shit every once in a while, it would be a decent replacement for psychiatric drugs.  Because I hate to think what this is doing to my liver, to boot.  I might as well enjoy my liquor, as right now, it’s not safe for me to indulge very much at all.  Imagine that I went to a whiskey tasting, had eight lovely glasses before me, and took a miniscule sip of each one, leaving them virtually untouched.  Like, a hundred bucks work of booze down the drain instead of down my hatch.  Pisses me off.

Drugs are not the answer.  I’m not psychotic, and my bipolar diagnosis isn’t all that bad.  It’s a blip.  A minor thing.  I hope.  So, what’s the answer?  Who the hell knows.  Drugs are a temporary shelter.  The roof wears thin pretty damned fast these days.  And it’s astormin’.  Maybe I should just learn to enjoy the rain.

271 Days: Jitters, jittery jittery jitters

Jewish Americans for Obama

Caffein?  Work woes?  My drug rollercoaster?  Being away, being away, being away from America for the first time in my life (!) for a presidential election?  I’m in a cafe, just finished chowing down on a very satisfying shakshuka I’d been craving, and I’m almost shaking, almost crying.  I want this day to be over, and I want this day to last forever.  I feel so strongly about this election, about Obama, about him being so right, so right, so right on, right now.  I feel like I know him, his family, his politics, his education, his background.  And I used to care so much.  Before the 2000 debaucle.  And I’ve been so complacent, so depressed, so self-loathing about being American these last 8 years.  I just want the day to pass smoothly.  I wish I had done more.  Always.  But in the most fundamental way – my vote, my personal relationships, my talking about Obama to strangers in Israel, I may have made a small difference.

I’ll be going to Mike’s Place tonight.  It will undoubtedly be mobbed.  I wonder if I should call for a reservation (a reservation!, geez, what am I thinking, it’s a dive expat bar!).

Good luck getting through the day, all.  Get out the vote.  Much love.

271 Days: One Thing at a Time

I am back in trouble-land again.  Indeed I am.

Last week was a good week.  Ish.  And now.  And now.

I woke up this morning with a headache so bad that I could hardly move.  It was major dehydration.  It seems for the past four or five days or so, I just stopped drinking much.  Mix a bit of alcohol (OK, a lot on the horrid date night), and a couple shots of Bailey’s last night, just for kicks.  I am a zombie.  Might as well change my name.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have gone off the Lamictal.  I am always tired.  Always.

The Pitiful Shameful List of my life this week?

• No Friends seen in a long while, don’t even feel like calling anyone.
• No dates in longer, even though I’m back on Jdate (hurrah!-not).
• No writing – even though I went to a great workshop, was really revved, wrote a decent article for a magazine last week, and all.  And all.  And I am a zombie.
• No gym – never crossed my mind to go, not even any guilt – which is shameful.
• No resumes sent – even though I’m miserable at work, and the light at the end of my tunnel (other than publishing the book one day soon or getting picked up by the food network) is that I can always get another boring desk job that will be more tolerable than this one.  Yet!  I haven’t sent them out.

So.  What to do?  Another doctor appointment to get yet another second opinion.  Force myself to the gym.  Contact any old loser on Jdate and just go out.  Get out of the house.  Call my supposed friends.  Force myself to go out.  Plan something for the near/medium future.  Like a big Thanksgiving dinner (I went to a hotel last year…ugh, what a sin!).  And write.  Even though it’s scary.  And it’s easier to watch Youtube and keep up with the election and watch House and Start Trek Voyager and Coupling.  Even reading a book, in my situation, does not help me get out of the rut.  Books are just as bad if not worse than television and the internet.  Why?  Books are my ultimate in living vicariously.  Shit.  I love books.

So.  Knock on wood a million times over for tomorrow.  Please be well Mr Obama.  Get some sleep, yourself.  Drink some water.  Try not to freak out.  Take care of yourself.  You can do this.  You can be an adult.  You can clean the kitchen and sweep the floor and mop the floor and scrub the bathroom and do the laundry.  You can find a place to watch the elections tomorrow night.  You can do this.  You are not hopeless.  You are not alone.  Even though it seems that way.  Even though you spend almost all your time alone.  It will be OK.  It is OK.

And just so you don’t all think I’m going off the deep end, here is a link to a fantastically great poem that a friend back in Chicago introduced me to.  Here is William Carlos Williams and Danse Russe.  Who’s to say I can’t be the happy genius of my household, too?

277 Days: Voting, Drugs, Iran, and That Darned Cat!

I voted!  Yes, siree Bob, I voted!  It was a total off-the-wall chance that I learned about the polling place at all (The Dancing Camel Brewery in an industrial area of Tel Aviv), it took me ages to find it (after I had been sure I knew where I was going…gotta love second-guessing yourself, wearing the worst shoes, and walking about 2 kilometers the wrong way and having to back track).  And then I got half-off beer for voting.  And, boy, what a beer.  A unique, sweet, tangy, lovely pomegranite beer.  Ah, moral center, moral center, when I do the right thing, it’s so funny to be so quickly and directly rewarded.  Beautiful beer.  Dear, dear, Barack Obama, one (unfortunately, pretty solitary) vote coming atcha from all the way in Israel…

Micro Brew from the Holy Land

(Note: The Americans here in Israel are predominantly religious [not ultra-orthodox all, like the ones you picture in movies...no, these are ordinary folks who wear the ordinary little hat, and that's all]…and I find them to be annoyingly closed minded…folks who only vote with Israel in mind and will not sway from their belief that a Republican will always be a better friend and protector to Israel and in opposition to Arabs…how an intelligent Jew can reasonably and conscientiously vote for a ticket with Sarah Palin on it, is completely beyond me…but then again, if you only vote with one issue in mind – lord knows, if the candidate advocated dumping garbage into the oceans, starting wars in every corner of the globe, and slashing civil liberties, but still was a “friend to Israel,” I bet these yahoos would still vote for him or her…)

Iran.  A friend in the States asked me for some insight on Iran because she couldn’t quite wrap her head around why it was an important campaign issue for Jews and in relation to Israel.  Are they really such a huge threat.  Well, she really liked my email response, and she thought I should send it to American blogs in a more developed form.  Let me know what you think about this, too.  I’m all ears.  So, without further ado, a secular American-Israeli’s 2-minute explanation of what she sees as the situation with Iran (taken verbatim from the email):

Today, I saw an article on Yahoo to this effect: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081027/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_arms;_ylt=Ah7GNGG2H3PouYITvC25vqhvaA8F.  Iran is widely thought to be one of the biggest threat to Israel right now.  They not only provide weapons and funding to the terrorists who reside most closely to us (Hezbollah), but their nuclear program, you can imagine should it come into fruition, would have one very easy, very close target.  Their rhetoric is disgusting.  Ahmadinijad hosted conferences about denying the holocaust, which brought together revisionist historians and neo-nazis from all over the world, claiming evidence that it never happened.  I heard of anti-Israel, anti-holocaust political cartoon contests.  The works.  It’s scary.  It’s a lot of what Israelis think about when it comes to foreign threats.  The funny thing, in my view, is that I have nothing against the Iranian people.  They are Persians, ethnically.  They aren’t Arabs.  Yes, the Islam that they practice is Shiite, a much more radical (and mystical) variety.  But a huge percentage of the population are secular.  And they’ve been suffering for decades under this dictatorial theocratic rule.  We know plenty of Persians in the US, and several are close friends of my family.  It’s the weirdest thing in the world to me, as the country is so hateful a presence, but I have always found the people to be ridiculously nice and peaceful and welcoming.  Another funny thing, Ahmadinijad himself has said he has nothing against the Jews.  Only against Israel.  Which…sucks…as it pins Jew against Jew in the world.  And ultimately, he’s being a sneaky fox indeed.  Because tons of Jews come from Persia.  Most had to flee in the recent decades because of how hard it is to be a Jew in Muslim countries.  After 1948, Jewish communities in Arab countries were ritualistically attacked, thousands murdered, as retribution for Israel having been declared a state.  So…they fled to Israel…which is why there are so few Jews in Muslim countries.  There used to be.  Tons.  We have huge Iraqi, Irani, Yemeni, Moroccan, and Egyptian communities here.  Jewish communities.  Where the first language used to be Arabic.

The new psychiatrist gave me more Xanax to deal with the Lamictal withdrawal.  Yipee!  What a world, right?  Throwing medicine at a problem caused by medicine you are trying to get off of.  I try not to think about it too much.  I like Xanax.  A lot.  It helped me quit smoking.  How, you ask?  When the pain got bad, the jonesing for a cigarette, I took a Xanax, and then drank a glass of wine.  An extraordinary feeling.  And I’m told extremely dangerous (don’t do that at home…).  But lord knows, I’m grateful.  I haven’t picked up a cigarette since January 17, 2002.  And I’m told they’re not addictive.  I’ve only ever been given a small handful for emergencies…so having so many on me is a very weird luxury.  I am going to try to take them only when I really need them.

My cat(s), don’t know which one, chewed through an Apple cable.  Thankfully not an important one.  Actually, the least important one.  A spare USB port extension.  But geez, I don’t know what to do now…move my computer to the only other room I have, the bedroom?  Uh uh.  But how do you discipline a cat?  And I’m pretty sure it was a sign or else retribution for something.  They’re getting picky about having their litter box being ultra clean.  I mean, I do clean it.  I don’t leave it for more than 2 days.  But come on, they wake me up at 5 am, and the only thing I can think that they want is a clean litter box.  What else, when they have plenty of food, plenty of clean water, tons of toys, and lots of room to play, and soft areas to sleep?  What else?  Will my technology survive?  Can I hide every single cord and cable?  Do I need to?

One of my favorite Disney films… Watch Haley Mills kibbitz with the FBI…

298 Days: In Her Jeans

I just discovered a tiny echo whilst typing.  Interesting.  Mac keyboards are far more fun to use, and the pleasant clicking is even more pleasant as a tiny tinkle bouncing off the wall.  Funny I never heard it before.

My Irish friend has gone.  I now have to go back to life as it was.  And I don’t want to.  I really have to apply to other jobs.  I am so overqualified.  I must be able to get a job that either has far less stress and responsibility (that will still pay a decent salary) or find a job that is far more meaningful and interesting (that will still pay a decent salary).  There’s something unique about being on vacation vicariously.  Within five minutes, I have to be back to myself.  Pick the cats back up from my sister’s.  Clean the house.  Be alone.  Be alone.  With my fears.

I fit into her jeans.  My Irish friend’s.  My grandmother came over yesterday, and said she couldn’t leave her clothes where she had put them, and she started to clear them away.  Well, when she left, I put them back…but her jeans were right on top.  And they were exactly my size!   I couldn’t believe it.  I suppose it’s always been that way.  When we were roommates back in Thailand I borrowed some of her things, and they fit then.  But she’s the kind of person that when you see her you see a petite gorgeous thin thing.  She has curves, yes, and she is very small on top.  But knowing she and I have the same size, that I can fit into her trousers.  This is something.  It made me feel very happy knowing this.  I usually feel so dowdy.  And in comparison to her, I feel so ignored in a room.  Men just stare at her gorgeous self.  I’m far more plain.  But I could be more attractive.  I have potential.  I’m not as fat as I think, if I can fit into her jeans.

Funny, the relativity of productivity.  I tried so hard to work today, and despite the fact that I sat in front of a computer for many hours, I just didn’t get much done.  Yesterday was similar.  But I force myself to accomplish things.  Force is the only word, and thankfully the best word, for it.  List making, brooding, waiting, procrastinating…  I got up yesterday, bought manilla envelopes, wrote on my special stationery with my initials, wrote addresses, and got to the post office right on time to send these packages away.  I sent my first magazine article to my parents, my sister, my best friend, and a chef who helped me out here in Tel Aviv.  Amazing.  And, I paid my phone bill.  It was a huge thing for me, this.  But it’s not real work for anyone else.

I’m still quite spaced out.  It’s probably the drugs.  I should go get the cats.  But I don’t want to.  I want to sleep and watch star trek.

299: Drugs, psychiatric drugs, that is

Escitalopram

I thought I’d share some pretty pictures of the drugs I’m on.  The Cipralex (Lexapro) is new.  Funky side effects the last couple weeks that I’m hoping will end soon.  Nausa, weird swirly head feeling, anxiety actually much higher than usual.  And I’m weaning myself off of Lamictal.  Not sure it’s the best thing, but the new psychiatrist thinks it’s probably OK.  Can’t remember things well, especially words I’ve always known (which for a writer is bad news).  So, increasing the Cipralex while decreasing Lamictal slowly.  And a roller coaster inside while all this is happening.  Jolly fun, this.

Lamotrigine