Anybody have a calculator?

Note: Alternative Title: "Lori the Whiner"


I've settled into a routine of sorts.

Flat in bed X number of days, in and out of bed for Y numbers of days trying to catch up on everything I avoided, delayed, diverted, swept under the carpet on the X days ...

THEN, well, usually I had Z number of days that I would call "Lori" Days. Not fantastic days. From the outside looking in you would see a level of incompetence that is deplorable, barely rating in the 'functioning' range. When, in reality, that level of incompetence is not so much incompetence on my part, per se, but rather me pacing myself ... Z's are good days! They vertical days - and we do like our vertical days!

Over this past year and a half I have noticed a disturbing trend: my numbers have slowly been changing. More X's, more Y's and not enough Z's. Not near enough Z's.


Not to fear! Eventually this break-neck pace of living on two continents will end and I will slowly begin to recharge (dang old battery ...) and one day will be back to ... well, whatever I was before. Content and happy with more Z's than X's (since I really don't have a choice) in all their blazing glorious incompetent dysfunctionality ...


But ...



I've left out a MAJOR part of my equation!



MAJOR.



HUGE!



GINORMOUS:



Variable "C".



I seemed to, somehow, have forgotten the "CRAZY".


HOW COULD I FORGET THE CRAZY?!?

Well, for one thing - Gary has been 'accessible'. Even though he is in Australia - I can call and talk to him - he can 'talk me down' and other such talents he has built up in his bag of tricks. A conversation with Gary is like a deep muscle massage (if I didn't have that fibromylagia thingy and massages didn't hurt so bad ....). It has been a long time since we have been in a 'radio silence' type of situation. So ... sort of easy to forget - to stash it in the back of some dark closet somewhere ... and forget all about the fallout.

And here I was annoyed - just a teny, tiny bit, because Gary was spending the night in Morro - the last place he could call me from for two weeks. (Update: while taking 1/2 the freaking day to type this, Gary called and said his chopper is fogged in so he might be spending tomorrow in Morrow ...)


It occurs to me that we are now in radio silence for I think for 2 weeks more or less ...

Trouble ahead - and me out of days to deal with it. That it snuck up on me without my thinking it through is not a good sign. Just arrived in Austin to go apartment hunting with Ryan. Three to four days in a hotel with Ryan, no clue what I should be looking for, where I should be looking - and feeling like I am smack dab in the middle of Y's squared or some such nonsense.

We will see how it goes.




A confession: Crazy is just code. Crazy = Pain (with a little genuine crazy thrown in on top). Crazy is the grumpy from being in pain. Crazy is the panic that sets in for no apparent reason because things are getting too painful and my brain at that moment in time has lost all ability to control the pain - spiralling down and down - a wicked cycle that is very hard to pull up and out of ...

On X, Y or Z days things are somewhat OK - manageable is the word that comes to mind. I have been doing this for 18 years - I have a routine ... sort of ... if combining 'flying by the seat of your pants' and 'whatever works' is a routine - but it has, until recently set me on a path of nothing but Z days ahead.

Mix C into any of my days: X, Y or Z and what falls out is generally not pretty - like an old chemistry experiment gone bad ... just some worse than others.

Best I know what to do with these is hunker down and ride them out (and never let that morphine bottle get too far away ...). The trick is - how to ride them out and not say, do or threaten do do something incredibly stupid. As near as I can tell it is an impossibility.

So be forewarned ... acid rain clouds are predicted in the near future ... with a 90% chance for stupidity by sunrise ...