Me vs. Giant Piles of Stuff Everywhere = Disaster

Life lesson #1 learned in the past two months: moving four times in two months is a Bad Plan. Let me chart this out for you:

Step 1: Rental house in Iowa to RV park in Minnesota in order to escape sewage leak making us ill (half of houseful of stuff into RV, half into parents' house in Wisconsin). Two humans, two cats, two dogs, six potted plants.

Step 2: After job ends, drive RV back to Wisconsin, thinking we can live in the driveway until we can move into the downstairs of the house (which involves major work because we have to move my in-laws upstairs so we can be downstairs and I can therefore vaguely function in theory without expending all of my energy going up and down stairs).

Step 3: We find out there isn't enough power for air conditioning in the RV, and it's 95. I attempt to live in the RV anyway. but keep having to use the guest room upstairs because my dogs are overheating. The cats had to move inside immediately. Meanwhile, my fiance is driving a friend around the country for an entire week, which means it's me going up and down stairs trying to keep everyone alive and quickly burning out.

Step 4: While living with my dogs in the RV when it finally cools off enough, I find myself getting really sick with cold-like symptoms. My fiance gets back, roadtrip done, and it occurs to me that I feel worst while in the RV, which, because of lack of running water, we haven't been able to clean or empty the tanks of for two weeks. And so we move completely into the upstairs guest room, severely limiting what I can do.

The Result: I only have two or three roundtrips every day on the stairs before I'm unable to muster the energy to go up or down anymore, which means I have to think carefully to plan everything and my fiance has to do almost all the work taking dogs outside or cooking (formerly jobs I was proud I could do). Meanwhile, when we're upstairs the dogs are unhappy and have to be crated because we're living in a maze of box piles and it isn't safe for them to roam. When we're downstairs, the cats stand on the stairs and meow piteously the entire time we aren't up with them until everyone in the house wants to commit kitty murder. The result of this is two constantly stressed out and puking cats, my dachshund having diarrhea and needing no less than four bathroom breaks during the night, which my fiance has to do because I can't go up or down at all at night or I will fall on my face. I keep running out of food because I can't keep track of what we have since I can't go in the kitchen whenever I want to, I can't keep anything clean because a) everyone's throwing up and b) there are piles of laundry everywhere and boxes and everything I need is always on the other goddamned floor. When I'm downstairs, there's access to the outside for dogs so I can actually take care of my dachshund's needs, but there's nowhere for me to lie down. Meanwhile, I'm ill, my fiance is having a tough period and is emotionally a wreck (he hates them more and more as time goes by), we're discussing hormone treatment and arranging lots of doctor's appointments as we're trying to help my mother-in-law very slowly move ten years worth of stuff upstairs while trying to get my father-in-law to at least think about moving the furniture sometime this century, and it's still like everyone except me is dragging their feet. Which, if switching the house around had been my idea, I could understand- I never would have asked to take over the master bedroom because even if I need it, it's their house, they get first dibs, no question from me. But my in-laws, the ones dragging their feet because something is always coming up, were the ones who convinced me that it would be good to live on the first floor, leaving me in this ungodly in-between state. And over all I'm glad they did, because it will make my life possible instead of physically impossible. In theory, even the animals will like it better. If, you know, they can keep any food down for the next month as nothing continues to happen, I keep getting stuck on floors, my fiance has to do everything and I have to try to live in a giant forest of boxes with all of my stuff spread out over three different floors, waiting.

Somehow Surviving a Week of Total Insanity

Too tired to write... in... sentences...

1) Moved out of house to escape sewage leak and into a Super 8
2) Accomplished above at 10 PM with four animals
3) And with tons of GF frozen food and leftovers
4) Which ran out after 3 days and required me to eat steadily stranger things and rely almost entirely on a loaf of GF bread and lunchmeat from Walmart
5) Checked house every day to drop off laundry and were subjected to the horrible smell increasing until the cleanup people got there finally
6) Watched my fiance come down with horrible flu-like withdrawal symptoms from getting off of his anti-depressant too quickly
7) Nursed fiance back to health over three days while taking care of 4 animals in a hotel, one of which is a dachshund having serious back problems that require extra work
8) Drove to Walmart for emergency supplies and to the house for similar
9) Accomplished the above without crashing into anything despite sleep attacks and being exhausted, not having driven at all in months
10) Moved everyone and everything back into the still slightly off-smelling house to get away from the hotel
11) Had disappointing therapy appointment over the phone
12) Did three loads of laundry and washed giant pile of dishes (using water boiled on the stove because the water heater is still off)
13) Hoping we don't have to move out again while they bleach the basement
14) Called Mom to vent about above and started crying because it's just that insane
15) Now only awake because of blasting Britney Spears

Grandparents' Glass Maze House

Last night, I was visiting my grandparents at their house in small town Texas. In real life, they have a back room that they basically use to store stuff and when I was little it kind of creeped me out back there. So, of course, for as long as I've been having nightmares, some of them have taken place in there.

In the dream I was having seriously crazy drama with my cousins for awhile when we finally decided to go back into that room. It was dark and we were enjoying creeping each other out. Each time we found a new doorway, we would go through to see what was there. At first, the rooms looked like the rest of the house and formed hallways in an almost maze-like fashion, but then we passed this huge floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on a small courtyard. There was furniture piled outside in the rain with grass growing all around it.

Of course, I was like, "we should go try to get in there!" because my fiance an I have been talking about needing a couch for some time, lol. So then my cousin spots a door leading out there, but it's coming from a different direction, so we start heading that way to see if we can find it.

We emerge from the dark, cramped hallway of dark wood and wallpaper into this giant ballroom with walls and ceiling made out of glass. Looking through the walls, we see other glass rooms receding into the distance in every direction, most of them piled up with old furniture or figurines on shelves. There's a lot of stuff but it's pretty spread out between the rooms, leaving lots of empty floorspace. We spread out individually to see what's around, and I spot the door into the courtyard off to my right. I start heading over there, but I run smack into a glass wall because I'm so focused on what's behind it that I don't see it in time, which makes everybody (including me) laugh.

I look around and find the way around the wall, which happens to be a wheelchair ramp with old hotel brass railings and ugly red patterned carpet. So I run up it and around the wall and reach the glass door.

I look outside and see the courtyard more clearly. Against the wall to my left is the furniture and the small grassy space is otherwise overgrown. The blue couch I was so excited about has a big hole in it and is next to this hilariously 70s chair with a giant light blue and puke orange plaid pattern on it. My cousins have come over and we're laughing at how ugly the chair is.

Suddenly I hear barking and realize that there are three boxers (all of them brown and white) in the yard, two of them chained up next to the door and the third roaming free. My cousin opens the door and starts to step outside and the dogs go nuts. Just then, my grandmother finds us, telling us off for going so far back into the house. She goes out and gives the dogs chunks of steak to quiet them down.

And then I woke up, still wondering if that couch can be repaired.

The Gender Therapist Adventure

A couple of entries ago, I explained how my girlfriend discovered the root cause of her depression problems (being trans) and will now be referred to using male pronouns or the initial J. Well, we've talked about it a lot, thought a lot, discussed and considered what to do about it. The whole time, he's been experimenting with wearing male clothing when not at work and so far seems to be doing a lot better. We decided, having read a lot of advice online, that maybe we should look for a gender therapist.

Various trans-oriented resource sites stress the importance of getting a therapist who specifically specializes in gender issues. Apparently, if you get one who doesn't, they're a lot less likely to understand your life issues if you're a transperson. Depression and body issues for transpeople are very different than most therapists are trained to deal with. So after finding this type of advice all over the internet, we decided that if we wanted to work on J's depression with professional help, a gender therapist was the way to go.

So we searched and (unsurprisingly) found that there aren't any in Iowa and the closest one that looked promising is in the Twin Cities, three and a half hours away. And so we made an appointment two weeks ago, J took off work, and we figured that even if it was a disaster or unhelpful, at least we would be near the closest Whole Foods for an afternoon. Yesterday arrived and we threw the dogs in the car in the morning, made sure our cats had extra food, grabbed some Larabars and started driving.

The weather was pretty terrible. It was windy and snow-raining and foggy and the roads were really wet. As we got farther north, the mix turned into snow, which started to show up piled everywhere. Our appointment had been rescheduled for later in the day, 3 PM, and we were glad because it took awhile to get there and the roads in St. Paul were pretty bad. To top it off, we kept getting lost because our maps weren't as helpful as we had hoped. We ate at Whole Foods (sushi!) and rushed through the store to pick up a few things (gluten-free PIE!), running out of time.

We got lost again between Whole Foods and the therapist's office, but we made it there at exactly 3. We rushed upstairs. The office was dark- not a good sign. It was only then when we looked at our messages that we found out that the therapist had called us hours before to tell us she couldn't make it. She was snowed in at her house. We were both pretty frustrated and annoyed. I mean, if we could make it to her office from three hours away and navigate the snowy streets in my dinky little Saturn (which doesn't even have anti-lock brakes), surely she could get there that late in the day from half an hour away.

So we left her a message back and headed back to my car, feeling disappointed. J is probably going to have job interviews that will require him to take days off soon, so we can't really do it again. This therapist won't take appointments at all on the weekend, and we don't really want drive that far again anyway, especially when she already didn't show up once. To console ourselves, we backtracked to a Borders we saw while we were lost, which was plastered with Store Closing sale signs, and went on a cheap book spree. Then the dogs were looking bored, so we took them to a Petsmart and they thought that was pretty interesting. We were feeling like at least the trip hadn't been a total waste.

We had picked up a few fliers in the dark and empty (but mysteriously unlocked) therapist's office. One of them was advertising a trans support group that happened to be meeting on Wednesday evenings. We decided to go, since we had nothing to lose. I mean, our main objective in going to the therapist was to talk to somebody about this. Someone who knew about it, understood, and that was detached from our family, and might know more about it than we do now. We figured we should at least try it out.

After getting lost two more times, getting stuck in the snow and having my narcoleptic self at the wheel while we extracted our car, which resulted in me driving in deep and slushy snow for a few blocks around lots of stuck parked cars, we found the right building. There were only two other people there- apparently a slow night- but they were very friendly and sympathetic. We felt so much better after talking to them for awhile and we got tons of really good information. The best thing about it was just feeling less alone. Being trans and dealing with trans problems is so incredibly isolating. Even when people are supportive, they can't quite understand if they're too far removed from these experiences, and most of the people we know we're a bit afraid to tell because we don't know how they will react. We walked out of there feeling so much better, with lots of fliers and resources and access to an entire community of people in The Cities, and even a binder to try out. My fiance had the biggest smile on his face all the way home.

Night fell as we found our way back to 35. The drive home was long, but we spent the whole way talking and singing and laughing, with our dogs asleep in the back.

25 Is The New 60

Yesterday it got up to the twenties and I was so incredibly happy. It's a sad day when the native Texan is happy to see 20 degrees F. I took our big dog on a long walk that completely flattened me because I kept walking instead of coming back inside. I had to take advantage of not freezing to death in five minutes.

Last week it was cold, and it was a hard week. The dogs had been getting really bored. I was playing with them a lot on Wednesday while my fiancee was at work, throwing squeaky toys and getting cute videos of them. My dachshund got really riled up. He seemed fine, if a little bit extra bratty, but he's got a lot of personality for a little guy so I didn't think much of it.

Then he started throwing up. I'll spare you the details, but it was very very strange. The texture and smell were really off. He also went to the bathroom in the house, like he couldn't hold it. And he went from overly-boisterous to really quiet and curled in on himself. He looked really miserable. I got worried; I thought maybe he'd eaten something off the floor. My girlfriend called the vet and luckily he could meet us at the office (by then it was after hours).

Usually it takes me a good ten minutes to bundle up enough to go outside, especially when it's below zero like it was that night. But I wasn't going to take up precious time with my dog so miserable; I was scared for his life. I threw on a jacket and my double hats, leaving gloves, scarf and warm under layers behind, and ran out with him to the car.

I was in pain by the time I reached it. My face, neck and hands felt like they were going to come off, then went numb. By the time we had driven the five minutes to the vet's office, I was shaking and my teeth were chattering. Lesson learned: at least grab the gloves, you moron!

We were glad we took him in- he has a slipped disk, which is super-common in dachshunds. He was in a lot of pain (hence the vomiting), but it wasn't a serious case; he won't even need surgery, he's just on pain pills and stuck in his crate for two weeks. He got a shot that helped him feel much better that night.

On the way home, I was even colder. The temperature had dropped while we were inside the vet's office, I still had not nearly enough on, and I was crying the whole way home from relief. He was going to be okay; I wasn't going to lose my best friend, my little micro-manager, my first dog. The tears froze to my face on the way into the house. I sat by the fire and shivered and cradled my dog in my arms with a cold pack pressed against his back.

It took me two days to recover from the fear and cold shock and relief I had felt so overwhelmingly that night. I was worn out completely for days, and it was made more difficult by all the new things I needed to do to help my dog recover- special feedings, carrying him outside and back in, not letting him walk; the cold pack and then its replacement, the heating pad.

Sure enough, he improved drastically that first 48 hours. He's still healing fine, though he thinks being stuck in his crate is lame. A couple of days ago, the weeks of below zero ended at least temporarily. My dog can actually have time to go to the bathroom without getting too cold even under three sweaters and a windbreaker! Yesterday he got to smell in the yard for the first time since his back got hurt, and his brother, our big dog, has been getting good walks again.

I want it to be March, but that always happens to me in Midwestern January. We Southerners have this weird conception that below zero windchill is completely overrated. No idea where we would get such a crazy idea. Maybe someday we'll live somewhere sane...

The F. Family Traveling Circus

For Thanksgiving, we had driven seven hours to my girlfriend's parents' house in Wisconsin to visit them and our horses. We brought our dogs and cats with us and it worked out really great. Getting out of Iowa was awesome and the animals were really well-behaved for the drive and the visit and all seemed happy for the adventuring. We had a relaxing four days or whatever it was and were sad to leave. So we figured, why not do the same thing again for Christmas? And since it's much easier to fly down to my relatives in Texas from there than it is from middle of nowhere, Iowa (three hours from the nearest airport with direct flights to our destination), why not visit my parents, too? Our animals could stay in Wisconsin and be cared for by people we trust who had taken care of them before and we'd get to see my family, too.

So it sounded a bit intense, but fun, and let's face it- adventuring outside of our small town for two weeks seemed appealing. Then we found out our mutual best friend and former college roommate, who is at least as much family as the rest of these people, was going to be visiting St. Paul around when we planned to leave for our trip. So naturally we decided to go visit her and her parents for a night or two on the way after they agreed to hosting us and our two cats and two dogs. We had been missing her like crazy.

And so, last Tuesday after my girlfriend got off work, we all piled into the car. It took longer than we had intended to get going because it takes a lot of stuff to sustain two humans on special diets, two cats and two dogs for ridiculous amounts of driving and when they are going to be away from home for almost two weeks straight. We left about an hour later than we had been hoping, but at least it was still light out and we still had a good chance of making it to our first stop for dinner.

Three and a half hours later, we got into St. Paul, tired but not completely exhausted. Having been to this specific house many times each, we just called to double-check the exit off the highway, which was the right one in fact. But after that we passed our turn, then turned the wrong way in an attempt to double back, which landed us on snowy and icy roads going the wrong direction. We dodged a couple of careening vehicles, called our friend back for help getting back to her neighborhood, and spent an hour finding our way there. All the way, our cat was letting us know that he had had enough of this nonsense, and we were stressed out so our dogs were whining. To this rather aggravating chorus, we finally found where we were going, hungry, exhausted and ready to get out of the car.

We had a really good time visiting our friend. The dogs stayed in the laundry room, which we baby-gated off to prevent allergy attacks. They were left to themselves for most of the two nights except for two walks and one bathroom break a day, and of course, being fed. All in all they didn't seem to mind- they were very polite and mostly quiet. My dachshund was a little frustrated by being separated from his humans (he's a clingy little guy), but both dogs seemed to just sleep. The cats were shut into the bedroom we were all sharing and hanging out in to keep them separated from the somewhat antisocial cat of the house, but they did very well also and got plenty of attention. Mostly it was a quiet visit with lots of resting (good for both of us). We caught up, cooked GF lasagna and finished a puzzle.

After our second night it was time to go and make our way to Wisconsin just ahead of a storm. Otherwise we might have stayed longer, it was so nice and relaxing. I took advantage of being in civilization to get three packages of grocery store sushi and that kept me fed for the six hour drive. Even so, we were all exhausted (and bored) by the time we made it to my girlfriend's parents' house. Just sitting in the car tires me out pretty thoroughly (I don't drive at all anymore) and both dogs were whining at the end. Friday (our more vocal cat) was meowing indignantly along with them. It was at that point we decided "Traveling Circus" was a pretty good description of our trip so far.

We spent Christmas there, with a house full of people: six humans, three cats, five dogs, four horses and the miniature donkey. My girl's rather talkative brother and his girlfriend were there and we spent a lot of time with them and the parents. I met more of her family at a Christmas Eve party and (mostly) managed to retain who was related to whom for the evening at least. I also got way more exercise than I'm used to, between walking our dogs around the property and riding horses. I'm still working on just balancing and staying upright on a horse, but for me that's a difficult task, takes lots of concentration, and is therefore draining. I did well and was really proud of myself, but in hindsight it might have been better to save at least some of that energy.

Her family does Christmas a lot more than mine does- there was shopping, gifts (I got lots, which surprised me) and eating lots of meals together. My future mother-in-law is a good cook and mostly eats gluten-free anyway, so she knows how to make safe food and we let her keep us fed. Even though I've been pretty happy to cook lately, it was a nice break to have someone else in charge of it for once. But she doesn't cook quite as many fresh vegetables as we've been eating, or as insanely healthy. That was probably the beginning of us feeling exhausted and sapped of energy, between the food and the constant socializing.

By the day after Christmas and time for our flight south, we were both really tired. Her dad was nice enough to drive us to the airport, almost two hours away, which we were very grateful for. Our flight was delayed an hour but we didn't really mind. Neither of us was able to nap on the three-hour flight, so we were still really tired when we got there. My dad picked us up, so we talked to him all the way back to my parents' house, and then my grandparents were there, so by the time we went to bed that night we were both asleep at the table (me less obviously because I'm way better at faking). We way overate the enchiladas, and the next day there was a party with a bunch of my relatives and a big turkey dinner, so we stayed full of protein-rich, mostly vegetableless and sugar-containing food. My mom had made my two all-time favorite desserts- cheese cake and pumpkin pie- which I was not going to resist. They were delicious, but a far cry from the healthy diet we had been maintaining at home (we hadn't had any but tiny amounts of cane sugar in more than a month before the trip started). During the next two days we saw four of my friends at various meals (at restaurants, so again with the less strict diet), I had a gluten reaction to contaminated fudge, accidentally drank soy-containing tea (someone please explain to me why there needs to be SOY in TEA for Gods' sake), and didn't get a ton of sleep because of the loud city noise outside.

And so, by the time it was approaching New Year's Eve and we were waiting at the airport to fly back up, we both felt like we'd been run over by a steamroller. Of course, that was when storms were delaying everything coming through O'Hare and our flight ended up being delayed for three hours. Eventually we got back after a windy and foggy landing, her dad came and got us, and we collapsed in her parents' guest room at like seven in the evening.

The next day we spent collapsed in a state of no energy. I retrained the dogs (after they had destroyed a few things out of boredom and acquired a couple of other naughty habits from being without my strict rules for several days), convinced the cats that we were not abandoning them forever and ever, and mostly just attempted to recover. Neither of us had it in us to cook, so we ate frozen food, which didn't really help our energy levels. And the next day we packed the car, stuffing it completely with all of our presents, and drove all seven hours back to Iowa.

We chased the sunset for around an hour, and reached our town just as full dark came on. We both caffeinated in order to stay awake long enough to get everyone and everything inside. Then we slept. Yesterday we both woke up sick, our weakened state inviting a cold in. She went to get food because we had nothing in the fridge and we knew that was the key. We cooked three different really healthy vegetable dishes and ate way more than usual, and felt better afterward.

We're still recovering. It was a crazy trip, but it was great to see everyone. The more I'm away from most of my people, the more I realize how important it is to keep in touch with them. Plus, sometimes you have to leave for awhile to understand how nice it is to have your own place somewhere isolated and quiet. Boy are we glad to be back.

RV Living

Want a new way to save energy? Try downsizing your floor space. :D

Before we relocated for my girlfriend's job in August, we were living at her parents' place, a lovely two story house with a pretty large upstairs that we had completely to ourselves. When I moved in, I put myself in charge of keeping the two large bedrooms, connecting bathroom, two walk-in closets, stairs and loft area clean. Being a genetic neat-freak who actually enjoys things like sweeping and dusting made this part of my life fun rather than a chore, so most of the time I didn't actually mind. That doesn't mean it wasn't a challenge however- we had two dogs and two cats upstairs with us, constantly shedding hair, plus my girlfriend who is like a tornado on the weekends. She likes to collect her things in what we refer to as "chaos piles", and anything within ten feet of one is in danger of getting sucked into the vortex, to disappear for days or weeks until I have time to go in and put things away. So while cleaning that place was fun, it wasn't easy, and sometimes it would get nasty if I was sick or busy or just plain tired for a couple of days in a row.

Then, in the span of a week, the whole situation changed. She interviewed and got an offer a week before the school year was going to start and we found ourselves scrambling, trying to find someplace to live in a state neither of us had ever even directly visited, in a small town with nothing posted online. We ended up borrowing the family RV and living at a campground for the first month while we looked for a place to rent via word of mouth. We took the dogs with us but had to leave the cats in the care of the in-laws for lack of space.

I have to admit I was skeptical of the whole RV thing at first. After all, the last experience I had had with an RV was camping on the beach with grandparents when I was little in a very cramped, old and only partially functional one (if I remember correctly, the shower didn't work at all). But this thing was pretty fancy, with a separate bedroom, a pretty nice little kitchen and comfortable furniture. And I came to appreciate the lack of space- I got so much more art and relaxing done, simply because I had hardly anything I was supposed to keep clean. Because of the close quarters I got to know my girlfriend's dog a lot better and we really developed a bond. The dogs also liked the campground because there was always so much to smell, and walks were positive challenges for both of them because of other dogs and children. I gained so much confidence walking them there. It was so easy to just go outside with only three stairs instead of a whole flight in my way.

It was pretty interesting to watch our neighbors come and go, even after just a night sometimes. I thought having so many people parked so close would be harrowing, but instead it was just fun to watch their interactions. Everyone was really relaxed for the most part- after all, they were on vacation- and just having a good time. There were a couple of boisterous weekends around Labor Day that were a bit much, but expected. Once I even saw an RV hotel. o.O I didn't even know those existed. It was like a bus and had a bus full of people inside it.

I also really liked having a ridiculously tiny kitchen. I didn't have to walk to get to anything, lol- you just reach up and there it is. And I loved the fact that we could easily open the place up- it was mostly windows- and we were practically outside. In August the weather was right up my alley, even though in September it got a tad chilly sometimes, but the RV's air conitioning and heating worked really well and quickly. Another advantage to small living spaces.

Even so, we were all getting ready for a change when the time came to move out. The weather was turning chilly and the campground was going to close for the year by the time we had arranged to rent our house. The dogs played victory fetch in our new large living room and celebrated having a yard all their own to claim. We humans were excited by the prospect of having the ability to actually fit a whole meal's worth of pots on the stove at once. A couple of months after we moved in, my in-laws came to visit and brought the cats with them, so our family was reunited. And I do like our house. Sometimes, though, I miss the RV (like when the entire house needs vacuuming XD), and I would live in one again without hesitation.

Because You Asked...

Now I think it's time that I give y'all an update on my health, since (you know) that's the purpose of this blog, lol :P. And a lot has changed since my long hiatus began.

So, before we moved in August (or, indeed, even knew we would be moving so soon), I went to a new doctor on the outskirts of Chicago. I picked her, for the most part, because she is female and I have a long history of older, male doctors who I've had pretty serious communication issues with. That stipulation didn't give me a lot of neurologists within two hours to choose from, and she was the only one who seemed to have Narcolepsy on her resume. Indeed, she did seem to listen to me and understood my need to get off of Xyrem. She was a little skeptical that I would be alright without trying stimulants, but agreed I should get off of Xyrem first and see how it went. So she told me I could just stop taking it, and that it would wear off pretty fast, which seemed a little contradictory to what I've heard. We agreed I should stay on Remeron because of my family and personal history of depression and the fact that it should aid my sleep as well.

So I left the appointment pretty happy with what I'd learned, but not terribly attached to this particular neurologist. Which is probably good, now that I live a day's drive from there anyway.

I got off of Xyrem several days after the appointment, and I was really glad that I did. Even now that I'm not really sleeping I don't regret it. My stomach was instantly doing a happy victory dance. I could immediately eat breakfast again, not having to wait until the nausea wore off late in the morning before putting anything in there. I could eat anything (gluten-free/soy-free) that I wanted, whenever I wanted. I could feel hunger again before getting really fuzzy headed or dizzy. In short it is awesome. I can eat again!!!!!!

In two months I went from ten pounds underweight (with my hip bones prominent and ribs visible) to having a little bit of a tummy and the proper curves. I went from a size 2 to a size 6. It's not the numbers that I care about so much though- it's the fact that I feel healthy again. My body feels like it actually has some substance to it. I feel like I'm the right weight now, and it's been years since I felt this good physically. I have to be careful, now, though- I don't want to keep on climbing until it's unhealthy, and that takes some work on my part because increased appetite is a side effect of Remeron that I definitely feel. I'm careful to control how much I eat at once and I limit how much snacking I'm allowed to do between meals. I actually usually just eat one large meal a day because with our healthy, vegetable-rich diet, more than that is too much. I eat a small breakfast, a large lunch, and a snack for dinner. I'm finding that this works really well for me and my girlfriend, too.

So, that's the good news. The bad news is that I'm not sleeping- as you might expect. I used to write down my dreams, but now I have too many to bother. The other day I jerked awake, full of terror at 2 AM, because I heard an excruciatingly loud and frightened scream right next to my ear. I haven't had much in the way of sleep paralysis, which is good if mysterious. Mostly it's just been the dreams. I've had tornado dreams, dog training dreams, beautiful scenery dreams, Harry Potter meets Stargate Atlantis dreams, car crash dreams, even a dream in which I was bicycling along a partially submerged wall through a field of swimming pools. It goes on and on and I wake up to find that it's still 3 something. I go back under, and then it's maybe 4 something. Eventually at like 7 I give up, which has me ready for bed the next night at about 8. I've mostly been sleeping in long naps on the couch in the mid-afternoon with my cat asleep on my stomach, and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I'm (more or less) conscious the rest of the time.

When we had just moved I was walking the dogs at least once during the day while my fiancee is teaching, and sometimes twice, but as I've been steadily going down in energy level I might be able to do it once if I'm lucky. I'm also pretty frustrated at the fact that I have so much art I want to do but it happens slowly and in short stretches if at all. This is even more maddening because we're so low on money and there isn't anything I can do to contribute directly. The real world is just too demanding for me to keep up. We're doing fine because we have two sets of parents helping us in various ways. It should be better next year when my girlfriend is working full time at the school rather than the current part time (we have reason to hope), but for now we run out of our own funds before the month is out and have no way of saving up for the future. It's hard for me to watch that knowing that I can't earn any extra; I can barely take care of the chores that I enjoy doing and keep the place reasonably clean. I know that my most important job is taking care of the family (two cats, two dogs and the girl) and that even on my worst days I'm a huge help in that regard. I try to remember that and to know that I'm contributing a lot just by existing (our especially needy cat thinks so, too).

But I have to say my symptoms aren't as bad as they used to be in high school before I was diagnosed. I think the Remeron is definitely part of it, but also it's the lack of stress in my life now- the lack of unreasonable expectations. I do what I physically can and for once, it's enough. In fact, it's appreciated greatly by everybody. And to be honest I'm not in any hurry to try adding other meds. My stomach has in some way rejected everything else I've tried, including other antidepressants, Nuvigil, Provigil, and Ritalin. And I like my new-found ability to eat food, thank you very much. :D

Creepy Nights

I've officially started having nightmares again... I think it's three nights in a row now. At least there has only been one each night so far. I can remember a time when it was every night, all night, and I'm hoping it won't come to that.

I was in one of the upstairs bedrooms of where I'm living now, and the layout was more or less accurate (not a good sign). I couldn't sleep, so I got up and was walking around the room. I started to get scared because the other bedroom (on the other side of the bathroom) was pitch black and I kept hearing creepy noises. Eventually I went in the bathroom to peer in the other room, and saw minotaurs and a werewolf with glowing red eyes, beckoning me. I ran back into our room, totally freaked out. The creatures followed me and stood in the bathroom, staring. I wanted my girlfriend to wake up and reassure me, but she was so asleep that shaking her didn't work.

In another, I was in the same upstairs, only our bedroom was huge- three or four times the size it really is- so that my lamp didn't even begin to reach the corners. Again, I had gotten up to go to the bathroom. I was extremely creeped out because I kept seeing twisted monsters and rotting dead things in the corners, all staring at me. I figured I was hallucinating, so I went into the bathroom (now the one from our college apartment) and started splashing water on my face. It didn't really help- I was still seeing creepy things twitching and moving around every time I passed a patch of darkness. So I hurried back to bed, with my eyelids trying to close the whole way. I sat up in bed and just waited, and turned on the overhead light. After awhile my girlfriend woke up and I talked to her for a minute. Then she got up and started moving around and put on some really creepy music. I asked her to turn it off because it was making me more freaked out, but she didn't seem to hear me. Then our other college roommate was there, talking about how awesome the music was (which is funny, because she hates creepy music ten times more than I do). Eventually they took it downstairs and I tried to go back to sleep, but I could still hear the music a little because the room suddenly had a balcony over the living room.

And then last night it was tornados. For some reason I've always had lots of tornado dreams. This time I was at my grandparents' house, only of course it was suddenly three stories instead of one and had sliding glass doors, because that makes sense, and there were stairs everywhere. I basically spent the entire dream trying to corral our two dogs into a safe downstairs bedroom as multiple tornados came within inches of various parts of the house without actually doing anything. The dogs were constantly getting away from me and ending up in the backyard, or next to windows with a tornado on the other side of them, or dancing circles around me as I got more and more exhausted trying to capture them. Or the room I was taking them would suddenly sprout glass doors or giant windows, and I would get really scared that it wasn't safe, and suddenly there would be three tornados outside coming closer. Meanwhile my grandparents and girlfriend were going on like we weren't all about to be torn to pieces, standing around chatting or making lunch, lol.

Accidental Buddhist

It might have been coming to terms with Narcolepsy that did it, or maybe moving to the country. It might have been partly a result of living in Tokyo for ten months during a time when I was feeling very vulnerable and looking for a new direction. It might have been various books I read out of my girlfriend's library when I was trying to figure out how to deal with life away from my parents making me plan everything. But one thing is certain: it snuck up on me.

I started out stressed out about the future. Like, really stressed out-- how was I going to make it in the real world, being so tired I can't see straight? How was I going to afford health insurance and my medication? Was I ever going to move out of my parents' house? During that time, part of me was annoyed at how stressed out I was. I would yell at my dog and feel terrible, but if I didn't yell it got pent up. I was also an anxious mess in a lot of ways, because there were no easy answers to my questions. I was more or less trapped. I didn't know what to do with myself. Then I found that my parents leaving for two weeks allowed me to relax a bit, and it felt right. I tried to carry it over to when they returned, but it was impossible. The tv was always blaring; someone was always complaining about work. The city outside was so loud that being in our tiny yard wasn't restful. Everything was too fast-paced for me and so even running errands was something that was supposed to be rushed. Only then, I would be back home again, still with nowhere to escape the tension.

I did find one place I could go to relax: I would take my dog to the park. The main areas were usually crowded and I'd end up having to talk to people, but there was a Japanese garden that had quiet benches where my dog and I could sit and soak up the trees and grass and sunshine. It was heavenly, but I had to drive there, so by the time we got home again I was a tense mess. There was nowhere like that within walking distance of my house.

Then I had an incredibly huge stroke of luck and found out that my best friend was, in fact, in love with me, too. So I left that place and came here, to the middle of nowhere, to live with my girlfriend and her parents. This place is not perfect, of course. It gets very cold here and there are stairs between me and the dogs and the outside world. But it was this place that taught me how to be still and quiet and relaxed. Here, I can step outside and come across no one who I don't know well- no pressure. The background noise is the sound of birds, ground squirrels, and horses, plus very distant traffic. Here you can really listen. It's the perfect place for meditating- though it took me awhile to figure out that's what I was doing.

Living here, life is determined by what the animals need- our dogs, cats, horses and donkey have various chores attached to them that happen throughout the day. Animals live firmly in the present and it rubs off on you as you care for them. It certainly rubbed off on me. So I ended up not planning my day out. Instead, I wait and see how I feel and what needs to be done, and then I do what feels right. I went from the "tomorrow at 2 PM" mentality to the "maybe we'll do it on Thursday" mentality, if that makes sense. And as I became more firmly rooted in the present, the past and future began to bother me less. I started to recognize their importance without attaching so much fear to them. I started to think calmly about what needed to happen that specific day instead of freaking out about how I'm going to be feeling in ten years. I'm still slowly thinking over what I'm going to do about health insurance when I'm no longer covered by my parents, but it's far enough away that I'm not afraid when I think about it- I'm just calm and thoughtful and able to think clearly.

And this is how I ended up accidentally a Buddhist.

Corpse Ghost New Apartment Foster Family

It's been awhile since the last time I didn't have some sort of vivid dream interrupting my sleep, but last night was crazy.

The first one was a nightmare. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before now that dead bodies, especially rotting ones, seriously freak me out- it's like some bizarre phobia I have. In this dream I was still living with my parents, indefinitely, with no hope of moving out, which was an awful feeling I had for the year and a half after college. That feeling made the dream that much worse. So my parents had just moved into a different new house and I had come with them. It was a bit of an improvement- there was more space for me and my room had better lighting. Everything was kind of weird though. The walls were all painted red and had East Asian style details- including a really cool dragon statue attached to the wall between two rooms. The layout was very confusing and didn't make sense, so I kept getting lost even though it was a small house. In the middle of it there was a tiny courtyard with a young tree and a small patch of grass where my dachshund could do his business. At first I really like it out there- a small enclosed bit of the outdoors where I could be outside without being in public. I started spending more and more time out there and thinking this house really wasn't so bad. That's when the visions started- it felt exactly how it does when I'm hallucinating while asleep (which I'm sure I was), only inside the dream it would happen when I was awake and I would have to stop and wait for it to finish before I could see anything again. The flashes of images would come as I entered the courtyard. I started to get really scared because I realized a ghost was sending me memories and I suspected there was a body buried in the courtyard. The patch of grassy area was exactly the right size, and my dog liked to sniff it a lot- it was hard to get him to leave. This totally freaked me out because of my phobia. I started to avoid the courtyard and take my dog to a park instead. This worked for awhile until he started to dig tunnels. I would turn my back for a second and he would disappear underground and it would take yelling to get him to come back out. It's kind of hilarious because the tunnels were perfectly round, as if made by a giant worm, even though it was a dog supposedly digging them. Meanwhile, as the visions started getting stronger, my fears were confirmed- the ghost wanted me to dig up the body so that its murderer could be found, and I kept telling it that I couldn't because I was terrified. It started to get angrier and angrier and my terror got overpowering. I was afraid to let the dog go anywhere near the courtyard now that he was digging so much. It was getting harder to come up with excuses to my parents and they started to wonder what was going on. The dream ended with me trying to get ready to leave to go somewhere with my parents while having a vision showing me the rotting bones while I kept having to run outside and grab my dog because he had somehow escaped out there and was digging. I started to panic and that woke me up.

In the next dream I had, my girlfriend and I had just reached our new apartment with all of our stuff- in the dream we didn't have dogs- and were figuring out where to put our furniture. Our apartment had one room and was a really strange layout- there was a fireplace and chimney in the middle, and so many cabinets on the walls it was hard to figure out where to put furniture. We were really happy to be there and enjoying figuring it out though. I looked out the window at the view- it was really high up over a city at night- and it was amazing so I walked over to the sliding glass doors to see how the porch was. It was a tiny porch with really flimsy-looking railing. I made the mistake of looking down over it to discover we were about 100 floors up. I got serious vertigo and a stab of fear. That's what woke me up.

The last dream was interesting- I was a teenage boy (lol) who was meeting his foster parents for the first time. They were a really nice couple with a very strange house and really cool furniture. The man was big and gangly and bald, and really sweet. His wife was short and incredibly smart and had flowing reddish-brown hair. They were very welcoming and my thoughts (as the kid) were that this really might not be so bad. The house was really weird- there were windows (without glass) in the inside walls, including my bedroom, so even if I locked the door I didn't really have privacy- but neither did anybody else. The bathrooms were both really bizarre; one of them had a giant marble tub raised up in it, with a toilet literally hidden underneath a lid next to it. The other bathroom had two toilets and two sinks randomly without stalls or anything- just in the middle of the room. The main room of the house had random stairs everywhere and was a crazy shape- the walls were at weird angles and were varying sizes. The place was filled with ornately carved furniture from all over the world. I spent awhile admiring everything. There was a glass case full of shiny little statues and a mobile made of origami cranes, several really old-looking round tables, and tons of chairs (no two were the same). I ate dinner with my new parents and several of their relatives and then went to bed watching the tv in my bedroom. That's when I woke up. What a night.

Totally Drained

What a crazy weekend. My girlfriend and I flew to my home state of Texas so she could go to a job fair for teachers there. I don't know if I've mentioned on here (since I've been neglecting my blog horribly) that we've decided to move there in July. We made that decision based on a number of things, including the fact that if we stayed up north for another winter I might freeze into a human popsicle, but also because she's ready for somewhere new and different to live. And my hometown has the advantage of lots of connections (I have a huge extended family), parental support, and lots of school districts for her to apply to. So far we've found one summer school and five full time job openings there and she's applied to all of them. We were a little worried about when we could start apartment hunting since we may not know if she's hired until the summer, until we looked things up and crunched some numbers and realized that actually she could support us by being a substitute teacher if she doesn't get any of the other jobs. We would still rather for sure be okay, however, so we went down for the job fair, figuring it might give her an edge on her first choice full time position.

We left on Friday and said goodbye to our cats, dogs and horses. My girlfriend's mom looked after them while we were gone. The trip there went fine and we got to catch up with my parents (who I hadn't seen since January). It was really, really good to see them. On Saturday my girlfriend went to the job fair, which was pretty intimidating but went well. Apparently it was packed with people. She left her resume with a bunch of schools, even though only one in that district was hiring for English, so if something opens up they might remember her.

Right after that we went to look at an apartment complex that we found online. It's affordable but really nice and has great outdoor spaces for the dogs- and us- to enjoy. We liked it a lot and found out they had the perfect apartment available. It's exactly the right size for us and the perfect layout- it even has a well-lit space for my art desk. Plus it's on the ground floor, which was important because stairs are exhausting for me. They only allow two pets, which at first made me unhappy. But my girlfriend made the point that our cats could stay with her mom until our third college roommate could take them. She's their favorite person on the planet, and loves cats more than anything. So I think it will work out. The more I think about it, the more I realize that being in charge of two cats and two dogs during the day has been pretty exhausting. As much as I love them, I think our friend could take better care of our cats, leaving me with more energy to enjoy being with the dogs. The apartment has been put on hold for us and we're filling out the application tonight. It's very exciting and takes a load of my mind that we have someplace to live lined up.

After that we went and visited one of my high school friends briefly, then went out to dinner with my parents. By the time we got back to their house we were both flattened. Even though I slept in during the job fair, I still way overdid it on Saturday. But it was worth it for how much we got to do and it was our only day there after all.

On Sunday I woke up with no energy whatsoever. My mom drove us to the airport in the morning. I spent the wait for our flight in a total daze, and my girlfriend wasn't any better off- she had eaten something at the restaurant that bothered her stomach and felt nasty the whole way home. Even after sitting on the plane and napping for most of the three hour flight, I was so tired I was having trouble putting one foot in front of the other when we got off the plane. Then, to make things even better, we got lost looking for the train. It took most of a Starbucks tea to wake me up enough just to walk. Eventually we found the train. I slept. We got on a bus to the parking lot where our car was. When we finally reached it we still had over another hour of driving to do to get to the middle of nowhere where we live. My girlfriend needed caffeine in order to drive because she was so tired. We made it back after a stop at the grocery store (since we had no food at home). The dogs were in the front yard and very happy to see us. We went to bed early.

Yesterday I didn't feel any better. I was so tired I couldn't do any cleaning- I just read a book all day, or slept. I didn't feel up to doing the stairs, but my girlfriend's mom helped me by putting the dogs outside. I fell asleep on the table several times. The cats didn't mind; they were very clingy because they were happy I was back. I stayed upstairs all day.

Today I'm definitely still recovering. I've been able to do some cleaning, though, and I haven't been falling asleep when I'm concentrating on staying awake. I can do the stairs again, just not quite as much as usual. I'm looking forward to living somewhere without stairs. Hopefully I'll be back to my normal amount of lack of energy tomorrow.

Grocery Store Fiasco

I had a very amusing dream last night. Not amusing in a ha-ha-funny kind of way; more like amusing in an oh-that-just-figures kind of way.

I had just arrived at one of the local grocery stores after being in a class apparently, and I was completely exhausted. I felt like I was going to fall over, so I was holding onto the cart for dear life. As I grabbed the few things I had come to get, my eyelids kept closing and then I would wake up suddenly, still clutching the cart, with no idea how much time had passed or what I had been doing. This was happening more and more and I was beginning to feel panicked, so I took my cart over to check out, figuring I'd better just get home. I put my purchases on the belt and was looking at them. I blinked and examined a box of tea more closely to find that it was clearly labeled "soy tea" (I'm sensitive to gluten and soy and can't eat them in any amount without feeling awful). I shrugged and figured my girlfriend would drink it, but then I noticed that it had "now with meat!!" written on the front (my girlfriend is a vegetarian). So I told the cashier that I didn't want the tea and she took it out for me. I looked back at the things I was buying and suddenly spotted some chicken kabobs that were clearly breaded. I took those out and examined everything else, but kept finding things neither of us could eat. Then after awhile it was time to pay, and the total was $10.45 (cheap haha). I pulled out my wallet but couldn't find my card- I was having a really hard time focusing and every time I dug in there things changed around and I found somewhere else to check, but it wasn't anywhere. So I got out my cash- I had two tens and two ones, and my mind was moving so slowly that I couldn't figure out what to give the cashier. By now I was explaining to her how tired I was and that I was sorry this was taking so long and generally feeling like a total moron. She was pretty nice about it, but I could see that she thought I was really strange. I gave her the two ones, but then realized that wasn't it, so I just handed her all of my cash and she gave me change. Then I ran out of there.

There was a time jump and I was at the vet's office instead of going home. I was still so exhausted I was having trouble walking straight and reading the signs telling me where to go. The place looked way more like a hospital than a vet's office- it was huge. Eventually I found where my girlfriend was with our dachshund. The vet was saying they needed to do an x-ray of his liver, but apparently this involved poking a scope around inside it to feel the lump that was next to it better. It literally made no sense and I was just really worried about my dog. I woke up before anything else happened and grossed out my girlfriend with the meat-and-soy tea thing, hahaha.

Itching to Clean

Well, the double cold ended up looking more like the flu- we were both feeling pretty awful for four days each. My girlfriend didn't go back to work until yesterday (she was still recovering even then) and I was still feeling really miserable. Today was my last day of feeling sick I think, or at least the first day I've really felt like I was starting to recover. Mostly today I was just wiped out. I thought I was exhausted before, but getting sick has given me a new perspective on things. I didn't venture down the stairs for several days, and when I did it this morning- to take Noodle outside to go to the bathroom- it completely flattened me. By the afternoon I felt better, and then the challenge was to avoid doing too much. With both of us out of commission since last weekend started, and with four pets up here in addition to us, things have gotten pretty filthy. My girlfriend recovered first, but she's had a lot to do with work, tutoring and pets; besides that she's really not the cleaning type. Now, my girlfriend and I are agreed on one thing- I'm a little bit crazy. I love cleaning. It's not that I'm obsessive about it being clean all the time or something, though if I'm honest with myself I may have inherited a little of that from my dad (who is a total neatfreak). It's more just something that gives me satisfaction, that I enjoy doing and that I think is fun. Yes, I think sweeping is really entertaining, lol. So today it was pretty difficult to keep myself in check. There's a nice layer of fur on the floor everywhere and the surfaces have food gunk or crumbs on them from having our food near us. Things- like books, DVDs, and empty kleenex boxes, have been migrating around the upstairs. I even found an uneaten clementine in a bag somewhere, forgotten because we didn't bring it when we went into the other room a couple days ago. So I let myself move a few things around and sweep a tiny bit in the worst room. I did a few dishes and cleaned a couple of counters and felt much better about life. I was careful, though, and tired quickly as expected. I think I'll end up doing a lot tomorrow- hopefully feeling even better than I did today- and I can start to get caught up. Did I mention the laundry? We've got about six loads at this point, since we were sick when we usually do it.

And here's a dream I've been meaning to record. I got up in the night to take more Xyrem and go use the bathroom. I was at the house I grew up in, which for some reason didn't tip me off- I was convinced it was real life. I get to the bathroom to find that, once again, the toilet is obviously not working. I sigh and decide I'd better use the other bathroom, so I head in that direction. I reach out and open the door. Bright light shines on me and suddenly I see that there's this teenage girl standing on the inside of the door, looking straight at me with this huge smile on her face. I jump about a foot in the air since I wasn't expecting anyone, especially somebody I'd never seen before, to be in there. She starts laughing and I try to laugh it off but I'm pretty creeped out by the whole thing. Her grin is so big that it's stretching her face unnaturally. I figured out it was a dream at that point, and instead of searching for a bathroom I started trying to figure out how to wake up. I just wandered around the house hoping to snap out of it, figuring I would feel different if I actually woke up. Which I did after awhile, very confused about which house I was in, but also quite relieved.

The Double Cold

Last week my girlfriend had a series of epiphanies about herself and teaching and the difficulties she was having in the classroom, which resulted in her feeling much better about life by the time Friday came along. Friday was an inservice day, so she had to show up but didn't have to teach. Instead she spent the day in activities with other teachers, who kept offering her various kinds of sugary food. Neither of us eats much sugar these days- she cooks us super-healthy gluten-free, soy-free, vegetarian dishes every night. So we're both completely unused to sugar and react to it pretty strongly. She only took enough to be polite, but by the time she got home she was feeling pretty awful. That night she started to get a sore throat. We aren't sure if it was connected to the sugar or the walk we took that evening, or if she just caught it from students and would have gotten sick anyway.

She was feeling pretty bad on Saturday while we were running errands, and by the time we got back I had started to feel a little bit under the weather myself. Usually one of us is sick at a time, but by Sunday morning we were a very sad and stuffy couple of people. We've been basically stumbling around ever since, taking care of whatever is needed either together or one at a time, but mostly lying around trying not to get too bored. She stayed home today and I'm glad. Besides wanting her to feel better, it's nice to have company, even when the company is almost as stuffy and gunky as you are. We both have fevers, though mine is worse at this point. We figure she's almost done while I started a little later so I still have awhile of feeling nasty ahead of me. The poor dogs haven't had a walk in days and the place is getting a little gross since the cleaning one- me- has been out of commission. We were surviving on leftovers but tonight she'll have to come up with something. I've decided one at a time is much easier to deal with, even though it's admittedly kind of nice to not suffer alone.

Old World Community Center

I had a pretty good night last night until about the middle of my third dose. Then it was crazy dream time.

I think it started off with me standing on the sidewalk next to a quiet city street. It was a pretty typical neighborhood with street lamps and small houses that looked like they were old but well-kept. I walked down the street and turned toward a small apartment building. Up a flight of stairs and down a hallway that was also a balcony I pulled out my key, unlocked a door and went in. My roommate was there- only she wasn't anything like any roommate I've had in real life. She was this artist woman in her 50s who was pretty sick but still smoking cigarettes anyway. She had the living room of our apartment as her art studio. There were paintings and paint and rags and brushes and sculpting stuff lying around everywhere. I was apparently quite a bit younger than I am in real life and she had taken me in. It was interesting because I wasn't really into art at all, it was just something this roommate did.

She had an exhibition of her work at this fancy building and we were there for the next part of the dream. I ran around exploring because the building was really cool. It looked like it had been decorated in England in the 1700s or something, and there was crazy detailed wallpaper, gilded details on the walls and ceiling, and all the wood was dark and old-looking. It had been a manor house at one point and was now converted into a community center of sorts. There were several auditoriums with things going on the same night as the exhibition, including a lecture on autism and a fancy opera. I tried to stand in the back of both to watch for awhile, but you needed a ticket and I didn't have any money, so I just ended up wandering hallways and admiring the decoration.

After awhile it was getting late and my roommate wasn't done with her art event, so I went to the bathrooms and found luxurious bathtubs and showers with lots of plush towels. I decided I might as well take a shower there, and I was mostly done and just drying off when I heard my dachshund barking outside the bathroom. Pretty sure he was getting into trouble, I grabbed a big towel, wrapped it around me and ran out of the bathroom. He was being all bossy at one of the visitors who had come in the door, so I went to grab him. He tried to run away and turned into a very old man, who fell over as I tried to catch his ankle. People were watching us now and I was explaining how it was actually my dog and this was his tactic for avoiding getting in trouble when I woke up. Talk about strange.

Dog Wars

Life with four dogs in the house is definitely an adventure.

I know I've mentioned before that we have two dogs who live with us upstairs- a fluffy hotdog dog who moved in here with me (referred to in this post as Noodle) and a great big puppy who I've been referring to as Fang, who is generally big and goofy and was adopted by my girlfriend a couple of months ago. Noodle and Fang get along just fine, especially now that Noodle is over his fear issues and Fang is feeling more part of the family through our efforts of the past several weeks. If only there was only an upstairs to the house, but no, downstairs with my girlfriend's parents live no less than two more dogs: a massive but sweet-natured dog who weighs as much as I do (Hero) and a little, fuzzy teddy bear dog, his faithful Sidekick.

When Fang came to live in the house (before I did), my girlfriend and her mom tried (carefully) to introduce Fang to Hero. They met on leash a couple of times without too much drama, but then during the last attempt, ended up in a fight. No one was too physically damaged, fortunately. But ever since, Hero and Fang have not gotten along. No one wants another fight, so Hero and Sidekick have to be put in the back room anytime Fang needs to go outside (and therefore pass through the downstairs). It used to be just Hero who would be put away, until Sidekick tried to attack Fang seemingly unprovoked by anything other than the fact that he witnessed the earlier fight and wanted to support his Hero. So now both of them have to be lured into the back room with treats to be temporarily shut in. Any time Hero and Sidekick smell Fang being led through their downstairs territory, they let it be known what they think of the situation, as loudly as possible. As a matter of fact, Hero and Sidekick have been getting louder and louder in general since Fang came to live upstairs.

Another thing is that big dogs have a lot of energy, and gigantic puppies especially require a lot of walking. Fang came to my girlfriend (rescued from being tied out in a barn with only occasional food and water) completely untrained. She has a natural gift for getting animals to do what she wants, and has no trouble getting horses to listen to her, much less a naturally submissive dog. So he heels very well and is good on leash. The problem is that he's still a puppy, and he's big and strong and constantly wants to wrestle. Therefore, walking him is a physically demanding job. I haven't tried, but I'm pretty much positive it isn't something I should attempt. I learned my lesson during my very short-lived attempt to volunteer at my local shelter by walking the big dogs. I'm not very strong on a good day and run out of energy quickly. So this is why my girlfriend was the only one walking Fang since he got here a couple of months ago.

My girlfriend has carpal tunnel, which occasionally flares up at the least convenient times possible and renders her hands more or less useless. When she started her student teaching a few weeks ago, she was already having some problems which stress made ten times worse. It culminated in her staying home, completely drugged on pain medication, for two days last week. This was a bit difficult from the dog angle because poor Fang couldn't get any of his usual walks without my girlfriend's mom doing it for us. She doesn't have the same health problems I do, but hers also render her tired and weak a lot of the time, so it wasn't an arrangement that could last. We ended up pretty much convinced that we were going to have to find him a new home if walking him was too hard on my girlfriend's hands. We both got very sad about it because things were going so well with Noodle and Fang's relationship, plus Fang's relationship with me was getting stronger every day.

My girlfriend's mom got a good idea to try to come up with a way to walk the dogs without using hands. She got us a bungee cord, which didn't work, but we modified the idea. It took some fiddling, but we managed to rig a belt with two leashes so that my girlfriend can actually walk both Noodle and Fang at the same time without using her hands at all. She turns slightly to give corrections, and there is a dog on either side of her so that she can correct one without confusing the other. We were so relieved when we found a solution because both of us love Fang to death and didn't want to give him up.

So now the challenge we have is to try to smooth out the relationship between Fang and Hero, at least to the point of less barking and no more marking of territory (which Hero has done in the house since Fang moved in, more often at first but still occasionally now). Having watched a ton of Dog Whisperer episodes, I'm trying to get my girlfriend to walk Hero and Fang together because she's the natural leader of the household and I think that will help. She wants to work with Hero by himself first to remind him who's boss which is totally the first thing to do. I wish I could do it, being the one with time and functional hands, but I can't physically control a 60-pound dog on leash, much less one 60-pound dog and one that weighs just slightly less than I do, at the same time and when they may want to fight each other. So we're waiting until her hands recover a bit more. They are already a lot better this week- thanks to the belt contraption and me being her typist- so hopefully we can start working towards peace between the two packs of the house sometime soon.

General Imploding

Well, today was... one of those days.

It started out with an especially sticky dream. It was pointless drama with various friends from the past, and it was basically frustrating and lonely and very vivid. I remember I could tell it was a dream by the end, but it took me a long time to escape. I tried thinking about waking up. I tried to open my eyes. I tried waving my arms around. I tried changing the setting of the dream because that usually wakes me up right away, but instead the setting just changed. I started to panic a little and wonder if it wasn't really a dream because I was having so much trouble getting out of it. Finally I decided if I fell off of something, I would probably wake up the second I would have hit the ground in my dream. So I climbed a bookcase and deliberately fell off. The stab of fear as I was falling did in fact jar me enough. I sat up, suddenly in the real world again. I had a nasty headache and the inside of my head felt like it was still glued to the dream. My eyelids kept trying to close and I was still half asleep. I got up feeling like I was tired enough to go straight back to bed.

Thinking didn't work particularly well. I quickly realized I couldn't retain information. Now, I'm really lucky. This didn't get me in too much trouble. I don't have kids to try to keep up with or a job to completely mess up when I'm way out of it. I just have pets.

The timing was pretty unfortunate for a bad day though. My girlfriend started her student teaching yesterday, so it was only my second day holding down the fort and the animals haven't quite figured it all out yet. Especially the big dog, who I'm going to start referring to as Fang because his canines stick out over his lower lip when he's upside down and in play mode, making him look hilarious. He's one, and definitely still a puppy, even if he is a 60+ pound puppy. Now, you might imagine I wasn't the one to fall madly in love with his rather large, fanged face lol, given the fact that I can barely carry my 15 pound dachshund down the stairs. Dogs are very much into physical contact and I know from my own little dog that it works way better to enforce the rules by gentle pushing. Of course, with him it's a breeze. His legs are super short and he's so small that despite my lack of physical strength I can still put him in a sit or lay down position if he won't do it on command. With Fang it's different because it takes literally my whole body to pull him an inch and I seriously can't put him in a sit.

So knowing this, I was a little intimidated by him at first. After all, the only dog I've ever actually trained is maybe a foot off the ground. Because of my unsure state of mind we were mutually distrustful for awhile, though we've been working on it and our relationship has improved a lot.

Well, today my girlfriend forgot to feed him before she left in the morning, but it took me awhile to figure this out. This was a difficult situation because he's only recently started taking food from me (and we have to feed him by hand because he gets overprotective otherwise as a result of his hungry past). I eventually got a message from her and tried to feed him, but he wouldn't eat and was generally depressed. I got pretty upset, because I'm extra sensitive and weepy when I'm feeling especially crappy. When she called me to check up I must have sounded pretty bad because she came home for lunch, took care of the fang-face and even heated lunch up for me. And I spent the rest of the day in bed watching movies while she was at work.

Days like today are frustrating because I literally can't accomplish anything. I'm so completely brain-dead that daily life decisions become difficult. All I can do is hope I sleep better tonight and thank my lucky stars that my life situation is so incredible and allows for a day of just resting.

High Rise Dog Crash

Last night was full of vivid and crazy but mostly not disturbing dreams. The one I remember was pretty interesting. I was living in an apartment in a high rise on a narrow street in downtown somewhere. I was sitting at a desk in my mostly dark room, and it was night outside my street-facing windows- I was high up, so you could see a spectacular night skyline out there. I was working on things on my laptop. I was getting frustrated because I was trying to set up a business site for my artwork, but I kept running into strange problems, like buttons I was supposed to push randomly disappearing and forms I was supposed to fill out not making any sense whatsoever. I finally thought I had it working, and I was uploading art to it when I looked out the window and saw a small dog leap off of someone else's rooftop right across the street and right in through my windows, smashing a small part of them. The dog was surprised and very angry, and immediately lashed out at my leg. It was a little, springy, ferocious dog with a long nose. I immediately stood up and turned dog whisperer, haha. The dog sat down and stopped attacking me. Thinking fast I grabbed some treats out of the cabinet and we started practicing sit and stay and lie down, which the dog figured out really fast. I knew I just needed to stall until the owner came to pick him up, as I assumed they would do soon since they saw which window the dog jumped into. We had fun doing that, and then we worked on manners a little bit. Suddenly I spotted this huge, red worm on my table- it looked and felt like it was made of jello, but it was definitely alive. I grabbed it with one hand and threw it out into my backyard that I suddenly had, and my hand got all slimy in the process. I offered my slimy hand to the dog, figuring it would gain me points. The dog was a little too eager and bit my hand, but I didn't have time to survey the damage because the owner- and haughty young woman, who didn't even apologize- came in and picked him up. She looked surprised at how calmly he was lying on the floor when she came in. She took him away, and just then two of my friends came in. It was weird because they were both totally made up and didn't look or act quite like any of my actual friends. I told them what had happened and then looked down at my hand to find that my left thumb was chopped off, very cleanly, at the first joint. There was no blood and it looked like something out of a cartoon- a wobbly circle in the center that was white like it was the bone, inside a pink circle inside a thin circle where the skin was. At that point I totally realized it was a dream, and talked to my friends about it and how dreams can be really weird, and then I totally regrew it on the spot. Then we were suddenly at one of the friends' houses at a classy party and I was trying to explain narcolepsy to people because they kept asking me what I'm doing for my career and I didn't feel like making something up. And then I woke up.

Nuvigil Adventures Again

On Monday I went back to my neurologist, which I had been putting off. I wanted a break from having my medications tweaked this way and that, added and subtracted, and the resulting side effects. So I scheduled my appointment for as late as I could while still making it before my next move across the country, this time to be with my girlfriend. My doctor didn't particularly appreciate that, which I really can't blame him for. I come in doing the worst I have in the last year and a half, to announce that I'm leaving and no, can't come back in two weeks for him to mess with my medications some more. He's a good guy and it's obviously frustrating when he can't help me as much as he wants to.

I talked to him about my growing anxiety problem, and he said we could try a different antidepressant instead of Remeron, which isn't really designed to control anxiety, but that would come later. After the appointment I felt really dumb- or rather, really amused with myself, because the anxiety went away as soon as I walked out of there. Apparently I was anxious about the appointment, and thinking of it as an OMG Anxiety Problem!! just made it worse. This happens to me just infrequently enough that I forget to watch for it, lol. I'm going to keep an eye on it, but I suspect I'll have less issues once the move is complete and my quality of life is improved just by being with my girlfriend.

I also talked to my doctor about how exhausted I've been and the fact that I haven't been sleeping very well. I mean, my standards are pretty low, but dreaming for half the night with all this disturbing crap is really a bit much. We talked about Nuvigil again, and I decided to try a different sample pack instead of the one that gave me a gluten reaction. So I got that. He said we could try Adderal if I react to Nuvigil again, but he can't prescribe it across state lines so it would have to wait until the summer. And you know, that's fine with me.

So I started the Nuvigil again yesterday. So far the results are mixed. I had more energy yesterday and I didn't have a gluten reaction. I had a bad headache for awhile- not surprising as that's the main side effect people tend to have. It made me a little bit wonky. Like, I was kind of spaced out in a drugged sort of way. This is also something I tend to do when starting a new medication, so it's not a big deal. It might go away if I give it a chance. I was hopeful by the time I went to sleep.

Last night I was nauseated every time I took Xyrem, but it didn't keep me up. I slept very deeply for most of the night and only dreamed (comparatively) a little in the last third of the night.

I had moved into this dorm/office- complete with both desks and bunkbeds- and I was unsure as to how I'd ended up there in the first place. I had gone to visit someone there, maybe, and had somehow ended up working there and getting my own bunk. I didn't mind so much; it was an interesting place and the other people there were also students at the art institute. Our group's job was to work on this magazine. Everyone was really nice and it seemed fun, but it took me awhile to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. There were clues everywhere, right in front of my face, but I can be pretty slow sometimes. The magazine was called Freism, complete with this fancy logo, and I have no idea what it was about exactly. There were seven people assigned to work on it each year, and I had been hired because the seventh person had stopped showing up. There was a heirarchy, which I eventually figured out because it was posted on the wall, with the rankings as chess pieces. My job was to draw anything they needed for the magazine. I don't think any of us were getting paid, or else it just wasn't important. It seemed to be a volunteer position. The office was pretty cool. The bunkbeds were brightly colored like they were for kids, and there was art everywhere, hanging on walls and piled on the desks, which were arranged near each other so we could socialize while working. It was all very laid back and I didn't do much of anything other than chat with people and make up a new story. The story was about an angel and one of my characters that usually represents me falling in love with him. I don't really remember it now, except that I had wings too. I was telling the people in the office about it while we sat next to the giant wall of windows on one side that looked out on this huge and awesome oak tree. And after that, the second in command guy wanted me to draw something to show what I could do. All I had was this gigantic black marker and he wanted me to draw a machine that would convert moon rocks into gold coins, so I did. It wasn't too bad even though I kept messing up, lol.

I woke up really nauseated. It was after ten before I braved breakfast, which turned out okay because I needed to take my dog to the vet to get a health certificate for our flight and his appointment was at lunchtime. I took Nuvigil again after breakfast. The nausea went away but now my stomach is unhappy. I'm also still feeling really spaced out. I'm a little bit suspicious because it could be brain fog, which is a symptom of a gluten reaction, but I can't be sure yet. Luckily everything is pretty much arranged for our flight, so the ability to think isn't too important for a few days. So basically I'm still on the fence on this one. I need to see what happens tomorrow. If there is a tiny amount of gluten I'll start to react more and more if I keep taking it, so I'll know about it pretty soon. If not I'll have to see if the spaciness goes away, and decide about the headaches. We'll see.