What do you do?

What do you do if you wake up from a nap on the sofa and your first thought is that you don't want to be there any more? And what do you do if nearly an hour later you still feel that way, despite the fact that you've taken your medicines and smoked a cigarette and petted the dog?

Well, you make yourself a large mug of strong coffee and drink it as rapidly as you can and very quickly you will start to feel better, because the caffeine does something to the chemistry in your brain. It is an added value and because it is, you make another mug and drink it with the same eagerness you drank the first and just generally start to feel good. Wasn't that a wonderful invention of the people who first started to brew coffee and discovered the stimulating qualities of it? Little did they know that they would save the life and sanity of a woman in the 21st century on the European continent.

After you drink your coffee, you feel fit enough to deal with your dog, who needs to be walked and you cheerfully do so. All that caffeine in your head is making your synapses fire properly and your thought processes move smoothly and easily as if they were the products of a well oiled machine. There's something to be said for little cups of espresso too. They are downed easily and quickly and give fast results. An espresso machine may be in order. Something worth looking into, since the Senseo coffee maker is starting to leak. A creative solution must be thought of.

I'm wearing a brand new outfit today. I got it ready during the night when I was up and wide awake and not nearly ready to go to sleep. The only same things I'm wearing are my cowboy boots, but you can't get those off my feet nowadays. I'm completely hooked on them and they are comfortable, except for where my little toe hurts from my hiking boots, but I would have that in any kind of shoe now. A new outfit was easily put together, because I do have enough clothes to choose from, although I need to clean out my closet to get a better idea of what is there and what fits and what doesn't. I need to sort through the whole collection. That's a good job for a rainy day, which we are not going to have for a while. It's supposed to be nice weather this weekend with pleasant temperatures.

I also found all the rings I was looking for. Most of them are very nice with pretty stones, but the prettiest ones were too big. I'm wearing a mother of pearl and a red translucent stone of which I don't know the name. They are both set in silver, which is a metal that I can be allergic to, so we will hope the best. The other ones have prettier stones, but like I said, they are too big, although it must be possible to make them smaller. I'll see if I want to go through the trouble of that.

I think I went to sleep a little after 6 o'clock in the morning and woke up at 9:30, just before the phone rang. It was the Exfactor who said he would be over in about an hour, which left me time to get dressed and walk Tyke. I was till very sleepy when the Exfactor got here and couldn't engage in a too animated conversation, because I still needed my coffee. He did do the groceries for me, which was very sweet and now I've got enough milk and cheese to last me for the week. I've also still got porridge and since I haven't eaten it in awhile I think I will have a bowl of it tonight. That will be simply delicious.

An air plane just flew over and I'm disgusted by the sound of it. It has been so nice not to have the sound of it and now it is slowly returning to the every day noises we hear. For a while it was really silent and only if the wind was coming from the right direction, you could hear the traffic on the highway or the trains at the station. I find the noise of air planes very intrusive and am indignant that they can just fly over populated areas, which is hard not to do in the Netherlands or anywhere else I suppose, the airports being built near highly populated areas. I feel sorry for the people who live near Schiphol, which is a very busy airport and they must go mad with all the noise. We have it relatively easy compared to them.

My personal helper called this afternoon and she is coming over on Monday for an introductory meeting and will start to work on Thursday. That is amazingly fast, because I thought I would have to wait a few weeks. She sounded very nice on the phone, although she did address me in dialect, which luckily I understand. Everybody automatically speaks dialect to each other until they realize that you speak Dutch.

My psychiatrist called also and I could tell him that I was having a fairly good day, which he says is something that is very typical of me, that one day I can be completely in the lowest valley and the next day be out of it again and he said that that's why it's so important that I stick to a strict schedule, although he understands my desire to stay up when I feel good. It's hard to let go of that feeling, but it does take all day to recuperate from a long night up. I told him that what he had said about guilt and wanting to be dead had made a lot of sense to me and that I had given it a lot of thought, and he said that was half the work, that an idea made sense to you and that you recognized yourself in it.

Well, I've rambled on long enough now and I don't want to bore you, so I'll bring this to an end. I'm also coming to the end of "The Stone Diaries" and am enjoying it very much. I hope I have another book by Carol Shields on the bookcase, but I'm not sure. If I don't, I'll have to order one. She has such a nice writing voice and it all flows so naturally and you don't get the feeling that she's writing according to some standard formula.

All right, have a nice day and a nice evening Drink some coffee if it's not going well. Don't drown your sorrows in beer.

Ciao,

Nora