Things!

I washed my hair, got dressed, walked Tyke, took the dry laundry of the rack in the bathroom, put a load of laundry in the machine, then realized I didn´t feel very good and thought very hard and realized that I had forgotten to take my Welbutrin, so I did that and now I am waiting for it to start working. Actually, It is all a plot to sit here and write this post, because I don´t want to deal with the reality of the day, but that´s not so strange if you´ve forgotten to take your pills. I really feel like I´m going to fall apart a little bit, though, and this is keeping me from doing so. I keep telling myself to stay focused on one thing and to not let my mind scatter into ten different directions, but I really think I´m hopelessly lost.

No wait, just let me have the time to let my pills work and I´ll be alright. I mustn´t be so scared, so intimidated by what happens in my head. Yet I´m so often afraid and so scared about how I will manage everything and if I will be okay in the end. It´s just the lack of pills speaking now. I will be alright in a while. Yet it´s hard to be me and to be so fragile and unsteady. Oh, I´m just imagining that. I´m a tough cookie, really. I´m a tough broad. If you say that often enough, you start believing it yourself.

I´m unable to do the dishes. They stand there on the counter, not many of them, and look at me accusingly. Wash us, they say, and I imagine making hot soapy water and cleaning each cup and glass until it sparkles, but somehow I don´t get excited about it at all. It will just be another one of those mind numbing chores that I have done so often in my life and that I want a dishwasher for, even though that means buying many more glasses and cups. Glasses especially, as I seem to break those quite easily when I do the dishes, but then again, maybe they are inferior glasses. Cheap glasses that you buy at the Action store for a dime a dozen. I need to go to a proper household goods store and buy some decent glasses. I think I have already stated that once, haven´t I? The vet bill had to be paid instead. For that little stinker.

A friend of mine just called. She calls me twice a week and always wants to know if I have any news. I very rarely do, because I don´t have time for anything new to happen. She means well, she just doesn´t have a very interesting life. It´s even less interesting than mine. At least I have drama in mine, where she doesn´t or hardly ever. Every once in a while she takes a few too many pills, but that´s it. Nothing too dramatic. Just a few to make her sleep well.

In the meantime the Welbutrin is working and it has made me feel a little bit sleepy, which is not the normal effect you get from it, but so be it. Anything is better than feeling like a haunted animal. I feel reasonably calm now, although there is an undertow of anxiety, but that is probably because I have to go out this afternoon on my bike and I never look forward to that. Still, it is better than walking all that way with that sore toe of mine. Those hiking boots are really the culprits, but now my toe will hurt until the summertime, when I can wear sandals.

I hope by everything that is holy to me that the domestic help doesn´t show up today, because her timing would be very bad. You see how I´ve come to dislike the domestic help with their silent disapproval and their not so guarded remarks. I´m not very fond of them obviously and I´m sure they all live in spotless houses. It may be just my mood that is making me say that, so don´t pay too much attention to it.

My friend, who I talked to on the phone, said her psychiatrist would not give her Welbutrin because it destabilizes your moods. That´s an interesting bit of information, because that´s exactly what´s been happening to me. It makes me not be so fond of the Welbutrin and feel very uncomfortable on it. I could get so severely depressed that I could harm myself. I think I´m going to argue my case very strongly this afternoon.

I also found out last month, that the vitamins and minerals capsule that I had been taking for 3 months, severely interfered with the working of my medicines and rendered them almost completely useless, so I immediately stopped taking them. So for 3 months it had been as if I had taken no medicines at all when I took the capsules with the medicines in the morning. No wonder I was doing so badly. Andyou think you can just take anything and it isn´t true.

Well, I have to stop writing now and get ready to go. Wish me luck.

Have a nice day!

Ciao,

Nora

It didn't quite work out...

Well, I tried to publish my second to last Wordpress post over here, but it wouldn't let me copy and paste it, so that didn't work out at all. It was an important post, so I would really appreciate it if you went over and read it anyway, even though I am back here in Blogger country. Then you would at least know what happened to me over the last 4 days and I would hope that you would gain some understanding from it. I need for as many people as possible to know what happens to me, so that everyone will be aware and can warn me if they see a certain kind of behavior. I was extremely hypo manic for 2 days, then I was very depressed and anxious for a day and a half, and now I am okay again, close to what's normal for me. I didn't work this out until early this afternoon.

I just got back from walking Tyke and we ran into a woman with two French bulldogs. Tyke thought that was great and wanted to follow them home. He doesn't care about beauty, he only cares about friendship and these girls were friendly and very interested in him. He wants to be friends with every dog he sees, but often owners are neurotic about their dog getting close to another dog. I don't know what they think is going to happen.

Hey, I should be happy now. I'm back at Blogger and I've got that fairly nice template and I'm over the worst of my weekend. But I liked my last template at Wordpress too and am now convinced that with something very simple you can make quite an impression. It's all about the lay out and the colors and the balance between things and I'm going to look into that some more, but not stay up all night. Save me from staying up a whole night.

Well, this is just a little "hello, I'm back post." I've written all I could in that Wordpress post. I gave it my all. I hope you're happy that I'm here again.

Ciao,

Nora

I spoke too soon.

Well, when I told you Tyke had not been naughty for three days, he was probably already planning his next move in his screwy little brain. While I was asleep on the sofa last night, he tore apart my leather cigarette case and left it in pieces, so I had to throw it away. As I was picking it up, he thought I was also playing and he was darting around me trying to get the pieces of leather out of my hand, so I had to give him a good scolding. I don't think I impressed him very much. Luckily, there was only one cigarette in it and he left that untouched, so he's not going to die of nicotine poisoning.

This morning he came into the living room dragging Jesker's pillow with him and he was about to have a good chew on it. I prevented that from happening and told him to go lie down on it and petted him when he did and told him he was a good boy and that was what the pillow was for. He seems to have gotten the message, because he's left the pillow alone for now. So I guess now we are going to have three days of naughtiness, which means that I'll have to be one step ahead of him all the time.

He's behaved well the rest of the day and seems to want to make a good impression on me now. As I write this, he is lying by my feet sound asleep.

He has figured out that when I speak on the intercom, it means that someone will come to the door, but he doesn't bark yet. This morning the Exfactor came by and was greeted with much joy by him. He just really likes company and when it is a man, he is on his best behavior. I do have to sit on him when it's a woman. His male hormones make him misbehave.

Tyke's fur is cut short and it is very curly, so today I decided to brush it to get the kinks out. He thought it was very strange at first, but after a while he decided he liked it and let me get on with it. I got to brush all of him and got some tangles out. He looked very nice once I was done and I will do this more often as his hair grows longer and he gets the coat of a real cocker spaniel. I will have to trim the fur by his paws and hopefully he will be patient enough for me to do that. I can't wait to see what he will look like. If he allows me to brush him regularly, he should look great. Jesker always disliked getting brushed, so we always kept him trimmed short, but Tyke will get used to it from the beginning.

I'm still spending the least amount of time behind the computer and turning it off the minute I have any kind of unpleasant feelings such as stress or anxiety. No matter what I'm doing, the computer goes off. I'm learning that the computer is not my best buddy, but just a tool that needs to be used sparingly when I really need to do something. It's not a thing to linger over like a good meal or a cup of coffee with a friend. The computer is not my friend.

Having said that, I'm going to turn it off and spend some time with my four legged friend. It's very good for my mental health, as long as he doesn't do anything destructive.

Have a good rest of the day!

Ciao,
Nora

After seven years...

After about seven years of having a purely platonic relationship without any flirtation or any other innuendos whatsoever, J. and I became lovers this past weekend, out of the blue, with no forewarning whatsoever. I must say, it felt good to feel the arms of a man around me and to be kissed and caressed and to smell another human being from that up close. I relished it over the weekend several times and even though I had a nagging little voice in the back of my head warning me of the potential danger, I chose to ignore it and enjoyed myself.

After J. left late Sunday afternoon, I managed to get my feet closer to the ground and think about what had happened and what the implications could be. Was I ready for an intimate relationship like this and if yes, then who not better to have it with than with your best friend? I thought if I was willing to give up any of my autonomy and I thought that under certain circumstances I might be. J. was a lone wolf like myself and attached to his way of life like I was to mine and would not want to give it up, which I would not want him to. Nor would I be willing to give up my way of life for him, but he had not asked me to. As a matter of fact, we had not discussed one detail.

The next morning, I felt just a bit uncomfortable with the whole situation and decided to ask for clarity, which I did in an email. I asked him what his intentions were. If I was his girlfriend now and if we were in a relationship and if we were going to see each other more often. I knew he had the day off and expected an answer within a reasonable amount of time.

When it did not come, I started to get irritated and realized that I did not want these sort of complications in my life at all. I did not want to have to worry about what my meaning was in somebody's life and where I fit in. I did not want to wait for an answer and sit on pins and needles. I did not want to be dependent on someone else's feelings and actions and timing. I wanted to be free of all that and be an autonomous human being who was solely in charge of her life herself. In the evening I made up my mind to write an email to call the whole thing off, but I wanted to give him a chance to explain himself, so I called him and asked him to please respond to the email I had sent him, which he did shortly thereafter.

He wrote that he loved me as a friend, but was not in love with me, and did not see me as a partner but as a friend with extras and that he was not planning on seeing me more often. That was very clear to me then and I wrote him the email calling the whole thing off and at the same time making an end to our friendship, though it hurt me to do that.

We exchanged a few emails telling each other what fools we had been and how this had ruined a good friendship and his last one to me said that he hoped that when the storm was over maybe we could be friends again. I did not answer that one, because by now I was feeling so very bad and embarrassed for assuming so much. I have been miserable ever since.

Everything in my apartment reminds me of this past weekend and I can't put it out of my mind. I talked about it with my SPN this morning and she thought the solution was to blog about it, although J. had asked me not to do it. I didn't make a promise not to and he doesn't read my blog, so I've done it anyway. I had to get this out in the open. I can't walk around with this and not talk about it.

J. said I made an innuendo at an earlier meeting and it is true. I said I never wanted to be with another man again except if it were someone like him, because he would be perfect, but I didn't mean just for a roll in the hay and that is how he interpreted it. I guess that is what men do. I should have asked what his meaning was right away and not have assumed so much. I was caught up in the moment and the sweetness of it. I haven't been cuddled by anyone for a long time.

I have to get over this and I will do with enough rest and peace and quiet. Sleep will heal me, as it always does. I'm glad I wrote this down, it was important. I got it off my chest and that was necessary. It doesn't do me any good to speak in riddles and vagueness.

Ciao,
Nora

Very early in the morning.

Well, I'm up and about again while J. sleeps in the bedroom in my little single bed. I slept on the sofa again, as usual, because it's just impossible for two people to sleep in that little bed together. One of them will fall out during the night and J. is too tall to sleep on the sofa and I'm used to it. I think I may have to get a double bed at the recycle store.

I did a massive cleaning job in an hour's worth of time yesterday afternoon. I worked my butt off and didn't get everything quite done before J. got here. I thought, "Oh, what the heck," and just left undone whatever I didn't get around to. The major stuff got done and I finished some small things while he was already here, like watering the plants and drying the dishes. I mopped the bathroom floor, but the other floors didn't get done, although they really needed it too.

Of course, J. doesn't come here to check if I'm a good housewife, but I do have enough sense of pride that I want the place to look halfway decent. He's known me for so long now that I don't have to make a big impression on him. I think we've been friends now for at least 7 years. That's a long time, isn't it, to get to know each other well?

Toby and Gandhi have decided that they like him very much and both laid on his lap together and would have stayed there all day and night if we had let them. They were so happy. That's because J. doesn't have a bad bone in his body and the animals sense that. It is the same way with Jesker who is always happy to see him and not the least bit insecure. He just accepts J. as someone who belongs here.

Yes, what the heart is full of, the mouth flows over with. That's an old Dutch saying that applies well now.

Anyway, yesterday was a very blustery day and the wind just about whipped the clothes of your body, although it was not cold. Every time I walked Jesker, I geared myself for some strong gusts of wind and I didn't bother about my hair, because it blew any which way, which was alright, because it was easy to fix with a few rubs over my head with both my hands. Sometimes short hair is very umcomplicated, especially if it's cut right and you don't have a lot of wax and hairspray in it, which I don't have now since I colored it.

Oh, by the way, I used that shampoo and conditioner I bought and it's great stuff. You know how normally when you wash your colored hair it gets that dull look? Well, it didn't this time. You have to leave the conditioner in your hair for two minutes and then rinse it out well and your hair comes out looking great. They should ask me to advertise that stuff. I could be their spokeswoman. And get paid for it, yeah! I should be so lucky. I would be happy if they gave me free products. Do you hear me Andrelon?

The animals are awake and are expecting unknown things of me. They all sit in my close vicinity and I'm supposed to figure it out. I will have to do a quick inspection of all the food bowls and turn the cold water faucet on for Toby. It seems that running water is the only kind of water he wants to drink.

Well, that's all I've got to report without going into the details, really. I hope you'll all have a wonderful Sunday with loudly chiming church bells and lots of sunshine. It's going to rain here, but they said that yesterday too and it hardly did.

Ciao,
Nora

On my own again.

Well, I am alone again after enjoying Joost's company for 2 days and I have to say that it did me a lot of good and that suddenly The Exfactor has shrunk a bit in dignity and respect in comparison to Joost's good and upright character. The man who would literally not hurt a fly. I was very tempted to proposition Joost to have a 'living apart together relationship', but then I was worried about destroying our good friendship, so I did no such thing. We have such an easy camaraderie that I would hate to loose that by propositioning him with an idea that could not be further from his mind.

But being around him opened my eyes to some thing. Basically what it is to be with a good and decent human being who does not play a game and who is completely upright and honest, almost innocent in his approach to the world and the people in it. And who is so gentle and careful around other people and so respectful of them, it amazes me. No matter what kind of dysfunctional person you turn out to be, he keeps on giving you friendship and respect.

Well, I'm impressed, more so than other times when I had to share him with The Exfactor and had less time to spend alone with him. The Exfactor is so dominantly present that other people don't get noticed as much.

I shouldn't speak ill of the Exfactor, but only speak positively of Joost. I suppose I saw him through new eyes this weekend. That's good, that's eye opening to me and it makes me a stronger person than I was before, because I know something now.

Anyway, Joost said he would be back at Christmas time, so that won't be too long.

We spent half the day in our pajamas talking politics and didn't get dressed until noon, when we had to walk the Überhund. It wasn't cold out and there was a brisk wind blowing the last of the leaves off the trees. The Überhund skipped and jumped around as if he was on an outing. He plum wore himself out. I made grilled cheese sandwiches when we got back, but was only able to eat half of one, much to my chagrin. I made them with young aged cheese and they were the best.

I got another dip in the afternoon, but this time at 2 PM, because of the time change. I told Joost about it and he helped me through it in his unobtrusive way. I didn't have to outperform myself, but could just be my downcast self and partake of the conversation that way. What I really wanted to do was go to sleep, but I felt I couldn't do that.

On another note, our marriage and divorce had to be registered in The Hague, because we had been married overseas and that was the last obstacle to make it all legal. I got notice in the mail yesterday that this has been done now, so all the legalities have been taken care of and I am now truly an unmarried woman.

I am going to put my pajamas on now and my bathrobe and curl up on the sofa and watch some dumb TV. That's what I am in the mood for. Maybe I'll eat something nice, if I can find it.

Ciao...

Peace and Serenity

I have made my peace with the Exfactor and told him so in an email I sent him late last night. I would much rather have him as a very good friend, than as an ex-husband I harbor lingering feelings of love for and therefor can not have in my life. I would miss him tremendously as a person I can talk to about whatever plays in my head and the short to the point answers he gives me to help me resolve issues.

I think I found myself in a bit of a quandary because of my reaction to the divorce decree. I had not quite expected to be that emotional about it and take it to heart so. It was a bitter pill I had to swallow, but I have swallowed it now and have tasted the bitter aftermath and now I am ready to move on. As the only adult in the apartment, I do have to keep my wits about me.

As a result of my email, and to show his obvious relief, the Exfactor was here early this morning to bring me the 6 soup bowls that he did not like, but which I have use for. We got all straightened out over several cups of coffee and are on comfortable footing again. It is a great relief to me too. I would miss his cheerful presence in my life.

In the meantime, the cats are slowly learning to like their new cat food, although I catch Nouri eating the best bits out of the Überhund's dog food. Any minute now she is going to start barking and that will get her on the regional TV channel.

There is a cat two streets over who looks exactly like Nouri, with the exact same coloring and the same blue eyes. When I saw her first, I thought it was Nouri who had gone wandering, but it was not. Those people must have gotten their cat from the exact same place where we got Nouri, since Nouri is such an unusual cat. She is half Siamese. We got her at a pet shop in Belgium, which is the worst kind of place to get a pet and which I will never do again, because the animals there come from bad breeding places and are sick when you buy them, but you don't know that until you get them home.

If I ever were to get a cat again, I wouldn't get a kitten, but adopt a fully grown cat from the animal shelter. There are enough of them sitting there needing a good home.

I have to go grocery shopping, which I never got around to doing yesterday and even now I am putting it off. It is going to be busy there, because it is Saturday and lots of working people will be doing their weekly shopping. Leave it to me to wait until today to do mine. Bad timing.

I have been feeling like staying snugly at home and only going out to walk the Überhund and I think that is because Autumn is in the air and I feel like hunkering down and being cozy inside, but the weather has been beautiful these past few days and it feels like an Indian Summer and I should go out as much as possible and enjoy the warmth of the sunshine.

Would anyone care to come over and vacuum? It is such a chore and I so do not feel like doing it. Sometimes I really don't like the sound of the vacuum cleaner. It feels very intrusive and loud and I think I ought not to be making so much noise. I keep putting it off and doing other important things, such as sitting by the dining table and looking out the window while I drink my coffee and smoke my cigarettes and ponder little and big questions. Mostly about not very important things, because I am much too lazy to.

I feel my whole being slowing down for wintertime. Not in unhappiness, but in laziness and I only want to do things that are pleasant and comforting. The only things I still enjoy doing are the dishes and the laundry, because I get such satisfaction out of them and they are relatively soothing activities. Especially hanging up the laundry to dry and seeing that it got really clean. Oh yes, and changing the bed, I like that too. Sleeping under a clean duvet cover, mmm...good.

I must be very connected to the earth and the seasons, because I always seem to react to them very strongly. I hibernate along with nature. I go down when the sun goes down, or just about. When everything disappears under the ground, that's where I want to disappear also. Which Goddess is it who goes to the underworld in the wintertime? Persephone, that's right, and her mother Demeter allows the world to become barren. Well, barren I am then, what do you say? Barren of thought and action? Or is it really not that bad?

It is no wonder that our ancient ancestors revered he evergreen, the tree that stayed green during the winter. When I decorate a Christmas tree during that season, I always do it with that thought in mind and not the Christian idea of the birth of Christ, because the one thing has nothing to do with the other. I also like mistletoe and once lived in a place where it could be found in abundance and I decorated the whole house with it, so lots of kisses for me.

I do enjoy the odd pagan ritual, although I only know a few of them, but could find out more about them if I tried. It's just a shame that paganism is associated with witchcraft nowadays and not with humanism as it should be, because they were the rituals of the ordinary people and not some mysterious hocus pocus that was inaccessible to them. In the North East of the country, in the Saxon areas, you still find some pagan customs that are considered very ordinary today. There's no witchcraft involved, it's the people themselves who keep the traditions going.

You see how I go from one subject to the next and you get some idea of how my mind works, I have a broad base of interests and subjects to think about. There is never a dull moment in my head. Which reminds me of the fact that I really do need to get a library card.

Well, I think I will slowly get the show on the road. I must walk the Überhund and write a shopping list, so as to not fall into temptation when I visit the store. The main things I am going to get are low fat milk and nonfat yogurt with fruit in it.

Right, have yourself a good day on this lovely weekend and please feel free to come over and vacuum.

Ciao...

La dee dah

I am so totally unconcerned with anything today. It must be because it is Saturday and I know that the big gears of bureaucracy and banking lie still and nothing in my life is going to change by me doing any sort of worrying or fretting or mind screwing, to put it nicely.

So, I fill my day with pleasant and useful and not so useful activities and do them as they come to me in no particular order and at whatever speed I deem necessary, with how ever much joy I feel at the moment and that is all very pleasant. I wile away the hours catching up on blogs and doing laundry and walking the Überhund and then I sit and barely eat the one slice of raisinbread that I manage to get down and burp a lot.

The Exfactor was here this morning, because the washing machine at his place is broken and he had been paying 4 Euros to get his laundry badly washed at the laundromat down the street. So I kindly offered him the use of my old but well functioning washing machine and his clothes were washed while he ran errands.

He was here yesterday in his capacity as 'caretaker' over me and that went well. I discussed my recent moods with him and my financial situation and the kind of scrapes I had gotten myself into and we put our heads together and made some sense of it. I think this arrangement will work, as I feel I can be quite honest and not beat around the bush or be embarrassed about how I have been dealing with things, or have not been dealing with them. The Exfactor is primarily a kind person and I have to tell him not to mollycoddle me. I need a firm hand.

It is ridiculous to think or imagine that this arangement is going to lead to a propitiation. All the reasons for our marriage to fail are still there and nothing has changed there. I still need my freedom of thought and movement and I don't want to give up what I have now gained. The Exfactor is still very much in love with the Paramount and I think under the conditions of their arrangement, he will stay that way for quite some time. He also needs his alone time and his freedom of thought and movement. We certainly don't want to go back to stifling each other. Seeing him once or twce a week as a friend and as someone I care for is more than enough. I think that suits us both. We just need a legitimate reason for it and we have that now.

The Überhund is quite funny when the Exfactor comes over. He starts to behave like a puppy who needs all the attention. All his dignity goes out the door and he begs for love and wants to be petted and fussed over and not share the Exfactor with the cats. Luckily, he returns to normal afterwards, because I like him much better then. I do like him to behave like a grown up dog with some amount of common sense and self respect. I hate to see him all humble and pleading for attention.

I saw my sister yesterday when I was out waking the Überhund and when I asked her how she was she said that she was great and that everything was fine again and that her very somber mood had passed. Does that sound familiar to you?

I have discovered a burn hole in one of my favorite dresses and I wonder how long I've been walking around with it? I must remedy the situation and sew the hole closed as well as I can. If you run fast, you won't notice it, my mother always said.

I must end this epistle, because the Überhund needs to go out very badly and is making very desperate noises. I think I must hurry before his bladder bursts.

Ciao....

Tough Broad Boots.

I couldn't find an exact image of my boots, but this one comes close. I have a bit more metal decoration on the straps, making them look a little bit tougher, I think, but either way, you get an idea of what they look like. They are very comfortable and I put them on in the morning and don't even bother taking them off when I get home like I usually do with my shoes to slip on something more comfortable. They sound tough too when I walk in them and I am even thinking of having the heels reinforced with a little bit of metal, so they won't wear down so quickly.

Anyway, you see how between the spiky hair and the tough boots, I just need to have a leather jacket for my whole image. Someone told me about several second hand clothing stores today where I may find one and they can also be found on the open air market. Wouldn't it be really cool if I got one? It would be so awesome. I need one with a lot of pockets. I am full of excitement.

Today was another ordinary day in the life of this 54 year old. I slept until 7 AM. Can you believe it? That is late for me and didn't give me much time to contemplate my navel, because I had to make cigarettes and walk the Überhund and get dressed and ready to go to my ergo therapy.

I thought about being late and contemplating my navel longer, but I really like to be there on time and spend some time out on the roof deck with the other smokers and drink espressos. It gets me in the proper mood and there is always somebody with a story that is interesting to listen to and you wouldn't believe how normal these people are. If you met them in the street or at a party, you wouldn't know that they were receiving intense therapy and taking medication. They're just an ordinary average slice of the human population. They could be anybody.

Today, 4 of us sat around a large sheet of paper with watercolor crayons and all of us had to draw whatever, but one of us had to try and control our act of drawing and we took turns doing that without speaking. It was very interesting what came out of that and how people interpreted what control is and how to implement it and how you decide to let yourself be controlled by another person. My interpretation of control is total dominance and to rule completely or to not let myself be controlled at all by not even giving the controlling person the chance to do that. So, it is all or nothing with me. Other people have no control over anybody, they just get waltzed over. They are too nice to do it. I am not too nice. Thank goodness, but I am not subtle, I have to learn that. I'm like a Tasmanian Devil and just scrawl that crayon all over the place regardless of who is doing what where.

We talk about these things afterwards and stop and pay attention to how we go about applying those 'skills' in our lives. Survival techniques. We are asked to look at them and see if we can do it differently. Huge lessons are learned.

I think we are way ahead in the game compared to a lot of people in the outside world who just go stumbling along, oblivious of their motivations and their limitations, constantly caught in the same traps. You see some people going through enormous changes.

The Exfactor was here this afternoon and I see him struggling with the same issues at his work year after year and never reaching any sort of resolution, but always getting upset about them and having them be a big subject of his conversations with me. Unresolved issues will gnaw away at you and leave you very frustrated and stressed, especially if they dominate your thoughts and you seem to have no ability to change them.

The Exfactor did bring his camera and take my picture, even though the light wasn't all that great, but you do get some impression of what I look like now. I must get a camera of my own, it is one of the first things I want to get as soon as I am financially more comfortable. I haven't quite decided what I want to get, but it has to be affordablle, of course. I like the camera that the Exfactor has, but I think I want to get something else. Something a little heftier.

I think it is fine if the Exfactor comes here once a week or so to drink a cup of coffee or two and have a talk with me. It gives me a realistic picture of how he is and not some idealized remebered one that doesn't exist anymore. It's good to see the real Exfactor and to listen to him talk and to know that that is not the person I want to spend my life with ever again. The Exfactor I fell in love with 15 years ago is gone and even the friendship that we had then is not there anymore. We've really grown apart and there is no use crying over spilled milk.

He did think that the idea of the party was a good one, as I invited him too and I said the Paramount could come, but he thought that she would not be comfotable with that, so he would come on his own. I have some people in mind to invite and the idea is slowly taking shape in my head. Maybe we can make it a happy divorce party, because it may just be possible that we will be divorced shortly. I am expecting to get the papers in the mail any day now.

The thing is, that I feel so very much divorced already and I am in all ways except by a formality. I think having my own name back was the clinger and using that on all paperwork now makes it very real and tangible. I really am this person named Irene Sieders and glad of it.

Wel, now I need to go check my bank account balance and see if my subsidies have been deposited yet and if they have, I can go grocery shopping. Luckily, it is almost pay day, but that is always such a fickle event that I never know when exactly to expect it. Don't let anybody ever convince you that it is easy to live on a governmental handout. There is a lot of stress involved. It would be much better to have a fair paying job.

Well, kiddos, make the best of what is left of the day. I think I will grab something to eat and get ready to watch the news after I see if I have any money.

Ciao...