High Chapperal.

It's rained nonstop all afternoon. The Überhund and I finally just had to go out in it and not wait any longer, because he did have to go, so there we went, I not in proper rain gear and he huddling close to the houses in effort to try and stay dry. He piddled against everybody's walls. Nobody saw him do it. He did finally have to go out on the field and do a poop and he was quite miserable out there in the rain. We walked as quickly as we could in order to get home faster. He was as relieved as I was when we got to the front door. Now he is sound asleep on his blanket again, which is his normal state of being.

Then a huge weariness fell over me and I cuddled up on the sofa and slept for two hours and I tell you, I felt like a reborn human being when I woke up, because before I was just starting to slide down a slippery slope a bit, feeling a little sorry for myself and being ever so slightly moody, but that nap restored me completely, so that's all it took. The alarm clock woke me up, because it was time for my 6 o'clock medication, otherwise I might still have been asleep.

Thank goodness I remembered to go to sleep and to not stubbornly hang on and make things difficult for myself, for I easily could have mistaken it for a rapid cycle and be very far away from home in a pit of despair that I couldn't see my way out off, which is what happened regularly in the past and brought me all sorts of troubles.

Of course, there is no one here to argue my irrational point of view with and I only have myself to consult and that does simplify things. No one gets in the way of the actions that I need to undertake to make conditions better for myself and I don't owe anyone an apology when I do and no drama is made of it. It's all very simple. I feel bad and go to sleep and wake up and feel better. No arguments, no explanations, no dramas, no aftermath, no discussions. And I don't feel crazy.

I have just taken the Überhund out again and it was windy and cold and wet. Shivering kind of weather that makes you long for a fireplace. Unluckily, I have no such thing in the apartment, but you can buy electric ones that look like it, alas, I have no room for one. Instead, I have put on my pajamas and bathrobe and slippers and made myself cozy that way.

I see that I have to go to the store for some things that I am running out of. I am eating more mackerel and sardines than I anticipated and I have to buy more crackers. I buy the fish in olive oil and don't drain the tins before I eat the fish, figuring the oil is good for me and makes the fish less dry to eat. So I will have to get more of them.

I want to buy breakfast crackers called Cracottes which are long rectangular shaped airy crackers on which you can put any kind of sandwich topping. You eat them instead of bread, but they are easier for me to eat. I should have bought them right away instead of the rusk toast, which is too tempting to eat a lot of, because they go down so very easy and the dog likes them too, so we have rusk toast eating parties.

I went to the volunteer network on line and registered and then found what I thought was a challenging volunteer job, so I sent away for information on it. Soon I was contacted by the coordinators with the details and who to get in touch with, but when I got to that stage, I got stage fright and realized that I was not nearly ready for the amount of responsibility that the job required and I got every worried about it and saw myself failing before I had even started. I know I'm not ready for anything as big as this and it will get me into trouble, so I bowed out gracefully and will try for something very simple. I did take an aptitude test and it showed that I should do administrative work.

I am very worried about what I am going to do once my therapies end and I hope I can find something that suits me and that will not scare the living daylights out of me, like that training I started a year and a half ago and I started rapid cycling something awful. I went from one extreme mood to another in one day every day and it was scary and exhausting.

I am not at all suited for regular participation in this world. My stress threshold is very low and I react to it by becoming very chaotic and instable. I can't handle the demands that are put on me in what other people would consider normal situations. I may seem very calm and competent to people on the outside under good conditions, but when things get tough, I fall apart. It takes a lot of medicine to keep me up and going then. Until just recently, I took sleep medication during the day along with my tranquilizers to keep me calm and stress free.

That's why I get so upset when allusions are made to the therapies ending one day, because I know what hangs over my head. It's like the sword of Damocles ready to cleave me in half.

Well, on to happier thoughts. Tomorrow is creative therapy and I get to work on my third clay clay sculpture, which will be partly my own design. I'm quite excited about this and can't wait to get a proper start on it. The clay I'm using is very good and soft and malleable and goes every which way I push it. That wasn't the case with the clay for the second sculpture and I hope it bakes okay. I'd hate to see it shatter.

The Exfactor is coming over for coffee tomorrow afternoon and I will make sure I'm not exuberant and kiss him on his nose. God forbid! I'm afraid that with this kind of weather, I will not be able to meet my friend Von downtown, which is a shame. There is no way we can sit on a café terrace now for a cappuccino.

I am going to try and go downtown this weekend, though. I am so unhappy with my new glasses that I want the lenses of my new glasses put in my old original titanium frame. Those were the first glasses I had and I was the most happy with them, so that's what I've decided. Maybe then I'll wear them and be less vain about it.

Okay, it's time to put this baby to bed.

Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.

Ciao...