I haven’t found our wedding pictures yet, so I may have to write about our wedding tomorrow or later — if I can find them by then. In the meantime, I was finally able to take a close-up shot of a cat pendant I made for my sister. I still need practice with the zoom lens and flash and stuff, but compared to how the old pictures turned out, this is like, 100% difference.
The ears, paws, and part of the tail are made of copper, while the head and body are made of nickel, as are the jump rings that connect all of the separate pieces together. I even made the coiled neck myself! It’s supposed to look like Basil, who’s a Siamese-tabby mix.
(@) Angelo says: More pet pics are available for your viewing pleasure at this week?s
Friday Ark. If you post your own pets? photos, leave them a trackback or comment and you?ll be listed there, too. And remember — they don’t limit pictures just to cats! (p)
We picked up our film from Walgreens yesterday and the roll that I took of my jewelry projects did not turn out at all. Not one frickin’ picture! 
Brian said he’d buy another roll of film and try taking them himself. Probably a better idea.
I was supposed to start the four-week, winter interim metalsmithing class last Friday. Actually, it’s the intro course, but you can take it as many times as you want. In fact, I believe you have to take the longer (eight- to ten-week) beginning course twice before you can move on to intermediate. For obvious reasons, I couldn’t sign up for the class, so I’m bummed about that.
In other news, we found out today that if Brian qualifies for unemployment, he’ll get $400 a week, which isn’t bad. Certainly better than nothing. A recruiter also contacted him today about a possible job opportunity, so he may have an interview coming up later this week or next. Still waiting to hear about public aid.
recently, i bought a big tool box in which to store all of my tools, metals, etc. for my metalsmithing class. apparently, it has a dual purpose:
but how could i resist the Hopper girl?
(@) Angelo says: more pet pics are available for your viewing pleasure at this week?s
Friday Ark. if you post your own pets? photos, leave them a trackback or comment and you?ll be listed there, too.
WARNING: this is a really long post. things have been bad the past few days, but before i go into that, and because this has something to do with it, i’ll preface it with this:
there are so many things i’ve wanted to blog about since this past summer. what’s kept me from posting is my inability to put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboard); the inability to write complete sentences; the inability to organize paragraphs; the inability to articulate what i want to say in a coherent manner. obviously i’ve improved, but i’m not at the level i’d like to be.
another part of this is my reading level, which like my memory, was impacted by the ECTs. both are much poorer than before the treatments. i’m sure you’ve noticed i’ve been reading and sometimes reviewing mainly Star Wars comics and books lately. now you know why. granted, i’ve always read these, even the juvenile novel series, but lately, it’s what i’m most comfortable reading because i’m already familiar with most of the characters, settings, and situations. plus, i absolutely love them. (y)
The Black Dahlia,
the selection for yesterday’s Book/Movie Club meeting (to which we didn’t make it), took a while for me to get into, but i’ll explain that when i write the review. and it has nothing to do with reading levels.
about a month ago we were going to join a literary book club, the selection for which was Love in the Time of Cholera by Garc?a M?rquez. i could barely read the first page, and not because of the translation. rather, i had difficulty because of the “literary” style of writing. it’s what some might consider a “snob” book, but so the fuck what? i used to eat those types of books for breakfast.
along with my diminished reading level and atrophied writing skills, i’ve lost a great portion of my vocabulary. a great portion. fortunately, some of it is returning, but nowhere near to the level it was when i was studying for the GRE. heh.
one other thing i can think of is that, although i haven’t lost my informal writing voice, i no longer have as much control over a formal/academic or even semi-formal voice. and that’s a big part of why i’ve been writing these damn book reviews. they double as a writing exercise within a casual forum. plus they’re super-informative, right? 
so now you know–the source of my frustration and parts of my anxiety, anger, and bitterness. here’s the rest of the entry:
as for the past few days, well, i haven’t been doing so well: i took several trazodone and Ativan over the weekend because of my anxiety and irritability–i just wanted to sleep off the moods. at some point i was so frustrated that i used our dull paring and steak knives to cut. i didn’t draw blood, exactly, but i do have ugly red scratches on my arm that were clearly
not inflicted by one of the cats, and i feel the need to cover them with long sleeves.
i was too distraught to see my therapist on Saturday, and Brian canceled the appointment because i didn’t want to call her. i still haven’t called her. i’m thinking that Saturday appointments don’t work for me, but her schedule has really changed.
Brian did call our couples counselor and had me talk to her. unfortunately, i don’t remember any of the conversation except that i agreed to page her the next evening. i didn’t.
i fell asleep at 9 last night but still had a hard time getting up this morning. so did Brian, so we agreed to go to the gym after he got off work. besides, i had my metals class later in the morning. i made it to that because working on jewelry always makes me feel good. i even finished my first project (for this term), and it’s called “Dancing Star.” i’d attempt to post a picture, except the camera fucking died.
oh, but we just sold our Ohio State-Penn State game tickets on eBay and made enough to cover the face value with enough left over so we could maybe buy a new digital camera. not like we can afford to actually go to the game. we’ve seen this match-up before, but not while the Bucks were ranked #1! (u)
as the rest of this afternoon wore on, i grew more and more agitated and ended up taking an Ativan and working on this entry, longhand. we didn’t go work out.
on the bright side, i went to my first hockey practice last Thursday. even though i haven’t tended goal since 2001, i did well enough to impress some of my teammates when they saw me going one-on-one against the White team.
we’re planning to work out tomorrow morning, but now it seems that Brian is really sick with either the cold from which i just recovered or a different one. either way, i’m planning to go to noon skate.
one of my two current landladies, Miss Britt (the other one is Adventures in Everyday Life), has prodded me to post! well, i can’t blame her, and if there are any new readers or surf-bys out there, just so you know, i normally don’t post only Star Wars book reviews.
i’ve been sick for a week, and i can’t believe it’s been this long, so all i’ve done is read Star Wars comics! 
i’m about to read James Ellroy’s The Black Dahlia, which is the current book selection of a Book and Movie Club that Brian and i are going to join. this club sounds cool because on the days they meet, they see the movie of the current book. or if it’s an older movie, i think each member rents the DVD to watch beforehand. lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll (sorry–that was Hopper’s contribution.) after the showing, the book and movie are discussed over dinner.
my head isn’t as stuffy, but my nose is still running, like non-stop. and i feel physically exhausted. i’ve only left the house twice in the past week: on Saturday to see my therapist, who i haven’t seen in two weeks, and yesterday, which was the first day of the Beginning Metalsmithing class i’ve been wanting to take at the nearby Art Center. (yes, we managed to scrape up the tuition in spite of our financial setback–thanks a motherfuckin’ lot, IOP.) the intro class i took over the summer was only 4 weeks long, but this one is for 10 weeks and i’m very excited about it!
i can actually saw several pieces of metal at a time now, without breaking a blade more than once! woohoo! i’m currently working on a brass pendant in the shape of a star, but it’ll be made up of 6 pieces, not just one. each of the star’s legs will be connected to the body with brass jump rings that i make myself and then hammer flat so the legs don’t flop around.
it’ll be easier to post a picture, and i know i promised to post pictures of my last projects, but no matter how many i take, they all come out blurry because of the zoom. if i don’t use zoom, though, you can’t see the details. it’s been really frustrating. so i figured i’d just go ahead and give the pendant to my sister and the ring to my aunt as planned, and hopefully they’ll be able to take decent pictures. i’m pretty sure their cameras are way better than mine. but if anyone’s just dying to see the pendant (photos of the ring just wouldn’t come out), i’ll be happy to post one. or two.
well, off i go to lie on the couch reading SW comics–i mean, The Black Dahlia. heehee.
after working out this morning, Brian and i parked the car by the SSvcA and he caught the bus downtown to go to work. i had about 20 minutes before the workshop i wanted to go to started, so i was able to kill some of that by checking e-mail. as it turns out, the workshop was canceled for today because they’re looking to hire a new facilitator.
i felt uncomfortable just hanging out there, but i made myself stay and actually write in my journal, which is one of the goals i had set in the Goal Setting group last week. to journal more, that is. that’s when i realized part of the reason i feel uncomfortable there: because many of the other members think that i work there. also, i felt that it was important for me to go to the Self-Esteem group later in the afternoon, which was another reason to stick around.
there’s other stuff bothering me, which i also journaled about and which brought me to tears. i almost started bawling, but i held it together, especially because lunch was about to be served. so i get in line and this guy asks me if i’m a new staff member. i couldn’t take it anymore, so i left.
i signed out and as soon as i walked out the door, i was bawling. i called Brian and he said maybe people think i work there because i dress nice, and that just makes me feel worse. why? because i feel like i don’t belong there, like i don’t deserve to be there. like i should be working. that my problems are so trivial compared to the other members’ problems. some of them don’t have homes of their own. some of them have to get clothes from the SSvcA. and me? oh, boo hoo–i didn’t get to have a wedding. boo hoo–because IOP screwed us, we may not have enough money now for me to sign up for my metalsmithing class this fall. and so forth.
i’ve gone from M-F to M-Th at IOP because i have once again signed up for the intro metalsmithing class i started taking in the spring but had to stop because of the hospitalizations. it’s also a way for me to start getting myself places on my own besides just to the therapist and pdoc. i must admit that i almost blew the class off today for the sake of blowing it off–i’m still in somewhat of a withdrawal mode, but i made myself go. yay, me!
i’m having a very hard time writing. every time i finish reading a book i usually write an informal review that i post here and on All Consuming. well, i finished my book a few days ago and have yet to do the writing. i’ve started it, just bullet points and notes and stuff. thing that sucks is that i can’t start reading another book because it’ll make concentrating on the writing worse, and will probably make it hard to remember what i read in the other book. it’s been a real struggle.
Hemingway’s words haunt me: “Well, what is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business? It was a brilliant cure but we lost the patient…”.
although i have a lot on my mind, i haven’t posted any of it because, just like a few weeks ago, i’m having trouble articulating my thoughts into any sort of coherent order. just writing the review preceding this post took a lot of effort.
anyway, things seem to have gotten worse. i stopped showering again, quit hockey (until the fall), and missed my jewelry class. i agree that i tried to do way too much too quickly. but it just felt so good to want to do things! this past week i haven’t wanted to (and didn’t) do a damn thing.
so, the pdoc is consulting with the shock doc and i may be going in for more treatments tomorrow or later this week.
I have now been to the pdoc, therapist, and our couples counselor, all of who say that I’m so much better. It feels that way, mainly physically. I have tons more energy now, spend less time at home, and sleep a lot less. Emotionally, I’m still kind of blah, but now that I’m getting a life a lot more active, I should start to feel better about myself. Though it’s still there, my anxiety has decreased tremendously and I don’t completely freak out and shut down if something goes wrong. I also have a small degree of my old self-confidence back.
However, I’m saddened now that I realize how much was on Brian’s shoulders. He had to do pretty much everything because I could barely get out of the house. He says he really feels like a weight has been lifted. I imagine so, because now he doesn’t have to work full time and do all the chores and errands. It’s amazing to me how easy it is to run to the bank, pick up prescriptions, buy cat food — when just a few weeks ago I remember wondering how it is that people can do all of those things and not be run down. Well, if you’re depressed, I guess it really is hard to do all that. I’ve been depressed for so long that I’d forgotten how easy those things really are.
I’ve taken a lot of big steps in the past week:
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