Win some, lose some

I had been getting a bit more sleep in the past few days and was feeling cocky about it, but last night reminded me that there will always be good days and not so good days in every aspect of this.  I was surprised to be tired enough last night that I had the light off before 11 and don't remember much after that, so probably fell right to sleep.  And then was awake before 5 this morning and unable to fall back to sleep for over an hour, my mind circling around the memory of Jerry's body lying in that room after he'd died.  I tried a few times to concentrate on my breath and clear my mind, and eventually, at some point, I did drift back to sleep for a while until the bongs of the Zen clock started.

Most of the work on the house is done - Steve was here yesterday building new outdoor steps to the screened-in porch, as the old ones had rotted.  A job Jerry would have easily and skillfully done, so it made me sad that someone else had to do it, of course - the other jobs didn't bring out quite that same feeling, and I know it's because this was woodworking, which means it was something Jerry should have been doing.  Steve added an extra step.  He also discovered a huge cache of lumber and no doubt other construction materials shoved in under the porch, as well as an animal skull (and I wouldn't be surprised if there are more of those behind and among the lumber).  Skunk, possibly?  I know in the summer there'd always be nights when we'd have the window open and I'd find myself awake at 3 a.m. closing the window and running for the air freshener because a skunk had sprayed somewhere close to the house (Jerry never seemed bothered by it).  Jerry had put wire fencing all along the base of the porch, but it wasn't entirely keeping the animals out, clearly.

I had a haircut yesterday.

It's even shorter than the last one, and I have to admit, I feel more like myself with shorter hair.  Which is unexpected, given that I still, all these years since I had long hair, think of myself as essentially a long-haired woman, as if I'm just biding my time until I get back to having waist-length hair again.  But this feels good, and I like this cut.  I got a new flat iron on the way home, too, having discussed it with Lindsey and determined that, yes, a better one would work better than the cheap hot pink one with the rhinestones that I got when I was first experimenting with straightening and wasn't sure I would stick with it and didn't want to invest a lot in it.  Sale at Ulta plus discount card made it less painful.  And I tried it last night and yeah, vast improvement.

I've been getting very girly, I notice, in the past few months - indulging the girly parts of me that are always there, but in the past decade have often been tamped down due to things like working in the cabinet shop and being covered in dust and and stain and lacquer every day and wearing masks and respirators... and having a husband who thought I was beautiful no matter what I wore or how my hair was fixed.  Not that I think differently about my appearance now that I'm a widow - I've always looked in the mirror and wanted to make the most of what I saw, but I've been wearing lipstick again - no more dust masks to smudge it onto, no more Enright lips to not want to smear with it (we'd always make sure to do lots of kissing in the mornings of singing weekends because I'd be wearing lipstick to singings and that would result in lots of air kisses - to avoid him being all lipsticky.  And going all day without lots of kisses always made both of us cranky).  And today I have another manicure and pedicure appointment, which will take me to and past the end of the spa gift certificate.  And yesterday I actually did something I'd wanted to do for years - had my eyebrows shaped by a pro.  There was a Benefit "Brow Bar" at the Ulta store - I was sure it had just popped up there, but Tiara, the woman working at it, said it had been there for a year.  Glad I've made an appointment for an eye exam - clearly my eyes need checking.  Anyway, no one was being served at the moment I walked by, and I saw they offered tweezing as an option - and I can't have waxing because I use Retin-A, and I rarely see tweezing on the menu at salons.  So I went for it, and I'm beyond thrilled with the results.  Have another appointment there in 5 weeks, which I'll use if I can't keep the shape myself.

Little things.

Steve has a few things left to finish up, which he said he'll be back to do either this morning or at the end of the day.  After the mani-pedi, I'll come back here and be able to check in for tomorrow's flight to Providence, and then go off and see the counselor.  Every time the appointment with her is approaching, I think "This'll be the last one - I'm basically just repeating what I spew into the blog," and then after each appointment I feel like it was a good thing to talk for an hour.  So today is another wait-and-see on that score.

32

32 is the age Gloria Stuart, the Titanic actress, as most of us under the age of 70 probably know her, was when Jerry was born (if I'm doing my math right).  Stuart died yesterday at the age of 100.  Yes, my brain is still doing that.

[Just deleted a screed about how bad the screenplay of Titanic is.]

Tired, although I think I'm sleeping a bit better in the past few days.  And an added plus, no foot cramp today - I've decided that's what the foot pain probably was.  And whether or not it was Prozac-related, I don't know.  I'd say "knock wood" it doesn't come back, but since Jerry died, I've been weaning myself off of saying things like that, or crossing fingers, or wishing on stars.  I never seriously believed in any of that, but now I even find the saying of them or the thinking of them repulsive.  I wished on every star in the damn sky and crossed every digit and hoped with every fiber of my being, and Jerry still suffered, and Jerry still died.  I can't get angry over wishing on stars not working - well, I can, but that would be listed in the "insane" column - but I can stop myself from doing that sort of thing.

Speaking of things that would be listed in the "insane" column, I've got to stop saying "I miss my honey, I miss my honey" out loud when I'm out in public - I do it at home alone all the time, but sometimes I forget and realize I've said it at, say, the mall today, where I was in search of a black blazer, having tried on the black jacket from a suit I own and realized that the fact that I got it at least 17 years ago is the reason for the huge shoulder pads in it (skirt still fits, somehow, amazingly).  Luckily I don't think anyone was near at the time.  (Blazer is on order - found it at a store aimed at people less than half my age, the sales clerk was wearing it in large, so I was able to try hers on, and I'm having it shipped to Lynne so I can wear it this weekend if I feel like it.  If it gets there on time.  Which they say it will.)

Apparently still not 100% sure

As I was falling asleep last night, my mind drifted for some reason to a lotion that Jerry was prescribed, just before the beginning of the end of the world, for pre-cancerous spots on his face.  And I remembered I had thrown it out, along with every other medication I could find that he had taken, after he died.  And then my brain, for a split second, told me "You shouldn't have thrown it out, he's going to need it when he comes back."

So apparently there's still some denial going on.

Yesterday was 15 weeks since the death that part of my mind is still not accepting.

Anyway.

Three days and a wakeup until my next trip: this time to Rhode Island, where I'll visit with friends and family, go off for facials on Friday with Lynne at an Aveda spa, and sing at the New England Sacred Harp Singing Convention.  First time in the Northeast since our last trip to New York this past New Year's.  Not sure when I'll be able to face New York again, for the first time without Jerry in 11 years... small steps.

It's All About Me

People who have posted comments to this blog in recent weeks have learned that I've moved comments from unmoderated to moderated - instead of comments going straight through to the blog, they come to me first by e-mail and I'm given the option of whether or not to let them through to the blog.

Some of the commenters I know; some I don't.  Some I am able to get in touch with personally; some I am not.  I rarely respond to comments directly on this blog, because, to be honest, this blog is not a dialogue - it's my space for venting the feelings and thoughts that build up and need to be released somewhere, as well as the things I might in previous days and years have been able to share with Jerry, but now no longer can.  If there are readers who find my posts interesting, either because they know and care about me or because something in them has drawn their attention, that's a wonderful bonus for me.  And for some of you this blog is my way of keeping you up to date on what's happening with me without my having to repeat it many times, which right now, in my current state, is a good thing for me.  And if things come up in the comments that I feel the need or desire to respond to, most often, as most commenters will probably know, I do it in a personal e-mail.  If you're an anonymous poster with no way of being contacted, obviously you won't be receiving a response from me.

Some of the comments that have been posted in recent weeks have ended up in my spam folder (possibly my spam filters know me better than I would have guessed) and I only just found them.  And I'd like to point out some of the types of things that will generally prevent a comment from going through to the blog:

1) "Advice" that comes in the form of prescription.

2) "Advice" that is based on the assumption that my entire way of looking at the world (or what a commenter can glean of it through what I write on this blog) is fundamentally flawed and incorrect and must be changed.

3) Obnoxiousness.  As defined by me.  Possibly the commenter doesn't mean to be obnoxious, but in general, if I find the comment obnoxious, if my reaction is anger, it's not going through.

4) Condescension.  Again, as defined by me.  Because of the following:

5) Failure to understand that THIS BLOG IS ABOUT ME.  I make no apologies for the fact that this blog is fundamentally, oh, what's that word that I always have to look up because I can never remember what it means - solipsistic?  I think the word means what I think it means.  I.e., it's ALL ABOUT ME.  I understand, I really do, that being entirely self-focused and paying more attention to your own concerns than to anyone else's isn't generally considered a good way to be in the world.  And I like to hope that in most circumstances, that's not the way I am.  But in these circumstances?  Yeah, that's the way I am.  In this past year I have watched the love of my life suffer through hell and then die.  And now, where my happy life of the past 11 years was, there's a huge empty Jerry-shaped hole and an overwhelming tidal wave of decisions to be made and changes to occur.  My entire existence has been uprooted emotionally, and soon enough it will be physically too.  And that's an awful lot to handle.  This blog is the place where I dump all the things I'm feeling, no matter how selfish, no matter how inappropriate, no matter how... solipsistic.  (I think I mean that.)

6) Prescriptive, condescending, obnoxious advice that makes assumptions about me, my actions, my feelings, my way of looking at and being in the world.  And that doesn't strike me as kind.  And/or is way, way, way too personal.  (I know: this is a blog in which I've talked about my uterus.  Still, I decide what personal stuff I want posted here.)

That's pretty much all I want to say about this for now.  If you're reading this and thinking I'm referring to you, whoever you are, and thinking I'm ungrateful or misunderstanding or taking something the wrong way or in denial or missing the point or just totally fucking wrong, well... sorry.  Here's the thing, though: this blog?  It's all about me.

Oh, and by the way, thanks.  Fury has made a nice change from desolation and sorrow this afternoon.

Another sad photo, another sad day

I already posted the saddest photo - the last one ever taken of Jerry, in the hospital.  This is another sad one: it's the last of our self-portraits, taken at the beginning of April after we'd had haircuts.  (His last haircut.)  I already posted this on the CaringBridge blog, I guess, but hadn't put it up here before, I don't think.  The last photo of the two of us together.  Ever.

Today was a day of lots of crying.  For some reason, Bend It Like Beckham kept setting me off - not a clue why.  IFC was showing it several times today and every so often I'd tune in, and not long into whatever scene it was I'd start crying.  I know Jerry and I watched it together, and he enjoyed it, but it's not like it was a special favorite of his (it is one of mine, though), and Lord knows he hadn't seen it anywhere near as many times as I have.  And it's not like it's a sad movie.  But I was crying at other times during the day as well.  Just that kind of day.  Like every other day, but more so today, it seemed like.

In the evening things moved into a more insane (for me) realm: I had the Auburn game on, and at some point, I think in the 4th quarter, Lynne appeared on Google chat, and didn't have ESPN, so I kept giving her updates on how the game was going.  Lynne and I met 30 years ago in first-year Russian at the beginning of freshman year in college, and in all the years we've known each other, and all the weird places and things we've experienced together, me giving her updates on a college football game in an online chat might be the strangest thing of all.  As I posted on Facebook, Jerry would no doubt think the grief has finally driven me insane if he could see the chat:

me: TD Auburn - no, wait, flag on the play
me:  Nope, 4th down.
5-yd penalty
They'll kick
 Lynne:  For a field goal?
 me:  Yeah, and they missed

I still basically don't know about 3/4 of what's going on in a football game (plus: Roll Crimson War Tigers! Rammer Weagle! - and to get myself out of the latest Auburn-Alabama jam on Facebook, I had to resort quickly to "Let's Go, Yankees!" which I know will unite all the Alabamians... in opposition!).  But there you have it.  Karen watching football.  Karen and Lynne watching football.   Very oddly.

Woke up this morning (what time is it... okay, yesterday - Saturday - morning) with pain in both my feet, a sort of arthritic feeling on the top of both of them that hurt when I moved them or tried to walk.  Feeling oddly, as Jerry would say.  I called the doctor's office to ask if that's a possible Prozac side effect; she wasn't in until Monday, and whoever I was talking to suggested calling the pharmacy, so I did that, and the pharmacist had never heard of it as a possible side effect.  Over the course of the day the pain mostly subsided.  If it's still here on Monday, I'll call the doctor back.  Very strang.  (Hard g: as Jerry would pronounce it.)  But still no drowsiness.  I did take a Xanax last night (although the doctor had told me to stop taking it, but I think she thought I'd been taking it all along) to help me sleep, which it actually did do.  But I don't think I'll take one tonight, in case that also might have had something to do with it, and see how I'm doing tomorrow morning.

JME in our front yard

Between the aviator glasses and the darkness of Jerry's beard and hair, I'm going to say this was earlier in our marriage.

I miss him.

Dröm

Had a strange dream last night that involved a huge party at a mansion somewhere in Scandinavia - lots of people in various rooms, talking, interacting, lots of books on the walls.  I suspect a late-night dose of Alexander Skarsgård before bed is responsible for the Scandinavian part.

In an unrelated... or maybe not, maybe my subconscious remembered the dream while I was deciding this... I just got, as Jerry might put it, sucked into the Vortex of Larsson.  I was placing an order with Powell's in Portland, with which I still have credit from having sold them lots of books, and ordering a book on widowhood (this one will make the difference!!!!  No????).  Wanted to get free shipping (they're so devious, these marketers who set a threshold for free shipping - but effective) so I added a couple of vegan cookbooks, not that I'm sticking to vegan right now, but anyway, then, to get up to the threshold, I threw in a used copy of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  Which the two unrelated people sitting in my row on my flight back from BNA in August were both reading.  As Jerry liked to say, "It's everywhere, it's everywhere..."

Triumph of optimism over current reality: thinking I'll be cooking again someday, and thinking I'll have the concentration to be able to enjoy reading again someday.  Prozac?

Up to code

The pipes in my house are now up to code, and are getting a workout from first the washing machine and now the dishwasher (it takes days to fill the dishwasher enough to run when you're on your own and mostly microwaving, not cooking).  The plumbers were here until after 5, I think.  No idea what the final cost will be - they'll bill Steve and Steve will bill me.

Still to do: stairs to the porch, landscape timber, and removal of the panel between the two "rooms" in the basement.  But really, most stuff is done... and I have precious little excuse not to clean in the basement.  Then again, I've had precious little excuse not to clean everywhere in this house, and except for the bathroom, I haven't done it since Jerry died.  Which I guess is an understandable enough excuse.  I have to actually care first.  Maybe a Prozac-taking Karen will care what her house looks like.  To be seen, once the Prozac has had time to kick in.

I want to show Jerry all the up-to-code pipes, the fact that the washing machine hose now drains into a proper pipe rather than into the laundry tub.  I want to show him that the dirt foundation isn't tumbling onto the floor in that room anymore, that there's a solid concrete wall there now.

But it's pretty silly to say those things, because I want to share everything with him, just as I used to do.  I want to share my life with him, just as I used to do.  I want him back.  If he were here, tonight he'd be getting ready for the new season of the show he called "Fring" (hard g at the end).  We'd sit on the couch, holding hands, watching it - we always held hands when we watched television.  We also held hands every night as we fell asleep, until we were almost asleep, and then we'd kiss goodnight again, say "Sweet dreams," "Sleep well" (one of us would say one, the other would say the other), and each flip over.  Only to snuggle up (that would be "shnoogle" in Jerryspeak) again when the alarm clock began its Zen "bong" sounds at 5:15 a.m.

This is hell.

Cliffs of Mohair

It's possible I've already posted this photo - I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that Jerry enjoyed calling what's in the background of this photo the "Cliffs of Mohair."  Anyway, Jerry in the west of Ireland, 2003.

Plumbing

Oh, I'm just so pleased with myself for that title - referring both to my ultrasound and to the work that's currently taking place in my basement.  Ultrasound is done, results in about a week.  Looks to be exactly what we thought, i.e. fibroid and uterus are larger.  I'm hoping I escape again with the doctor just wanting to keep an eye on it, and won't need surgery.  More extensive (and no doubt more expensive... although given the US healthcare industry, possibly not) is the work that's going on in the basement.  A plumber arrived just before I left for the ultrasound, and Steve was already here - when I got back, there was another truck outside and another plumber inside, and the stone concrete laundry tub had been broken into pieces (and a bunch of spice jars had fallen out of my spice cabinet and were on the floor in the kitchen, so I'm glad I wasn't here for the rattling that must have gone on while they were breaking up that sink), and lots of jerry-rigged (and totally blocked) pipe was sitting outside.  Not unlike much of what had been done in this house prior to our buying it, the pipe was a do-it-yourself job by someone who didn't quite know what he was doing - the plumber said wrong types of pipes were used, wrong types of traps, etc.  (Anyone picturing Vincent Gardenia just about now?)  So they're doing what needs to be done.  And I'll have a new plastic laundry tub that doesn't leak - I'm sorry, Jerry, I know you wanted to keep that old sturdy one that they don't make anymore... but it leaked.  And while you probably meant to work on it someday   - you never got the chance, there was always so much else to be done.  And I have to do what I have to do.  I wish you were here to consult with about all this.  I wish you were here.

(Probably should have asked a price for all this work beforehand... but I'm having it done either way, and I trust Steve's judgment in picking tradesmen, so I'll just gird my loins and wait to hear the damage.)

The ultrasound technician was very nice - her husband died 6 years ago of throat cancer (he had 2 weeks from diagnosis), so she was very sympathetic and understanding.  Because, of course, I mentioned Jerry's death - because I still can't stop telling everyone about it (well, mostly.  Haven't told the plumbers!).

So far, no drowsiness with the Prozac.  In fact, I took half of one before bed and had a horrible time trying to sleep all night.  I don't know if the Prozac was part of it, but the literature that came with it says it can either make you drowsy or keep you awake.  So I've switched to taking it in the morning.  Hoping for better sleep tonight.  As ever.

TMI

Yeah, it's the fibroid.  And my enlarged uterus, due to the fibroid.  Nothing to panic about.  But of course they want me to have an ultrasound to check it out and make sure things are okay, so, bleah, 32 ounces of liquid to be drunk at 9:15 tomorrow morning for an appointment at 10:30.  I hate this drill.  I also hate that I'm paying for this out of pocket because the insurance policy I pay several hundred dollars a month for has that rider on it.  [Insert rant about US health insurance industry and healthcare industry in general here.]

I'm guessing the fact that the scale in the gynecologist's office registered at 2 pounds less than the scale at the internist's office last week is due to scales being wonky, not a 2-pound weight loss in less than a week.  On the other hand, considering how far the bingeing had gone, I suppose it's possible given that I've been sticking with my Weight Watchers point allotment since Friday... anyway, I just feel so much better physically not bingeing.  Surprise, surprise.  And I'm successfully resisting the rest of that bag of Peanut M&Ms.  But I know where it is.  In case I have FIVE POINTS to spare on 1/4 of a cup.

New gutters are up on the house.  Steve and the plumber will be here tomorrow.

Tired.  Eyes still hurt.  I think I slept all right, once I went to bed at 11:30, but woke up too early, and these days once I wake up, I can't fall asleep again.

Time to go find Jerry's pill splitter.

Lights off, lights on

Thunderstorms rolled through here at 6 this evening and knocked the power out.  Last time that happened was the Friday after Jerry died - I remember sitting at the kitchen table reading books on widowhood by candlelight and then getting candlewax all over the books.  I was better prepared this time, since I knew to be more careful in blowing the candles out (and to watch them to make sure they didn't spill molten wax all over, and to put paper under them in case they did), and I had also picked up an LED flashlight/lantern at Target after the previous outage.  So I tried to read some of the latest Sookie Stackhouse novel - but concentrating on reading still doesn't work very well - plus I slept badly last night, and my eyes hurt - so then I listened to some of the episodes from the huge backlog of podcast downloads of The Archers that are on my iPod.  (I used to listen to them while I worked.  Now I've got a backlog reaching back a month.  Was wondering why Pip wasn't in college until I remembered it was still August in Ambridge.)

Spent part of this morning hooking up the VCR/DVD combo Jerry got as part of a plan to transfer VCR tapes to DVD - a process that, using that combo plus another gadget, turned out to be so slow and cumbersome, he never actually got far with it.  My 13-year-old VCR is in its death throes, so I brought the combo downstairs from the Buddha bedroom and managed to get it hooked up to the TV and the satellite receiver.  Now if only I could figure out why I get no picture from the satellite receiver on my screen unless the combo is turned on.  I still haven't figured out if I'll be able to record things successfully, but at least I can now watch tapes without a fuzzy picture and/or a high whiny sound.

Before that, the concrete guys came and took away the forms.  So now there's a very solid wall in those two basement rooms (which are now more like one basement room with a partial wooden divider between them) instead of the dirt of the foundation in one and some wooden paneling in the other.  I wish Jerry could see it.

Had a nice lunch with Erin, and she gave me back the urn, which she and Seamus have put mementos in.  I started adding my own by putting the mistletoe in.  I keep patting the urn as I go by it, as if somehow I'm touching Jerry.  Which leads me to...

... Prozac.  That's going to be the next thing we try.  The doctor doesn't want me to keep taking Xanax (although I took one half an hour ago in the hopes that it'll help me sleep tonight - I slept badly again last night, even though I was still zonked, which I finally am not now... just wiped out.  I tried to go to sleep before 9 while the power was still off, and had no luck - my brain was whirring, and being in such darkness, without the sounds of the refrigerator or other electric things in the house, just made me want Jerry there even more, if it's possible to want him there more than I always completely do).  Anyway, her nurse told me Xanax can be habit-forming.  OK... can't say I've ever experienced any kind of substance habit, unless you count Peanut M&Ms, so I wouldn't know about that, but whatever.  I complained a lot about things that make you drowsy, and how I can't tolerate those, but the doctor wants to start me out on half a pill a day (5 mg) for two weeks, saying I can't know about side effects unless I give it a try, and if I do tolerate it well, have me move up to an entire pill.  Will pick that up tomorrow en route back from the gynecologist appointment.  And I'll have to find Jerry's pill splitter, which I'm pretty sure I kept... somewhere.

So okay.  Another couple of days of being zonked, or something that actually helps.  We'll see.  I hear Prozac can take away a person's sex drive.  Not worried about that... you can't take away something a person doesn't have, can you?  And I have no use or desire for one of those anyway.  Meanwhile it turns out my cholesterol is slightly elevated.  Now why could that be?  Could it have anything to do with gaining 10 pounds in 3 months?  Nah...

Power outage was just in time to prevent me from watching the season premiere of Glee.  Hmmmph.  Will have to catch it online.

Hope I sleep tonight.

Wham! When you don't expect it...

Was in the kitchen just now, rooting around in the cabinet Jerry made to store Tupperware, and looked at the window above the cabinet - thought about the fact that before we know it, there'll be snow on the trees outside the window, but it'll be warm and cozy in the kitchen, like on Sundays when Jerry makes breakfast - and it suddenly hit me like a mallet to the chest that he won't be there.

It hurts.

Coming up on 48 hours

I don't think doctors realize what I mean when I say I cannot take drugs that cause "drowsiness" (or even some that claim not to, like Claritin) - then again, Jerry's time in the hospital certainly made it clear that people in the medical professions have a different idea of what qualifies as "acceptable" side effects than I do.  But I'm coming up on 48 hours since I took that second Paxil, and I'm still zonked.  I also have bloodshot, sore eyes, and had a bit of nausea the other day - no, this will not do.  The doctor wasn't in today, but I spoke to her nurse and let her know what's going on, and the doctor will call me tomorrow.  At this point I'm ready to stick with just the Xanax (which I haven't taken since Saturday morning, to see if it was the combination that was zonking me out - but no, I'm sure it's just the Paxil) and just try to deal with the rest of it as I can.  But I'll see what the doctor has to say.

Concrete walls were poured in the basement today; tomorrow the forms will be removed, and other things (basement plumbing? gutters? stairs to the screened-in porch?) will happen.  Turns out the roofers did finish their job on Friday, which is good.

Mostly gloomy day.  Mostly didn't do much, as it took an effort to get off the couch... but I couldn't sleep.

Where's my honey?  He should be here.

ETA: But no!  Gutters now Wednesday, plumber Thursday.  Maybe.

Robins

Looked out the window this morning and noticed lots of robins - I think it was only last year that I noticed robins flocking together before leaving.  So I guess they're on their way south.  (I had just been wondering the other day if they'd already gone.  I always get so happy when I see robins in the spring.  Or I used to.)  But first they've stopped off here and are feeding and fighting over the water in the birdbath (one was fending off two or three others that wanted at the water).

Makes me think of Sandy Denny, but how inapt most of the lyrics of that song are now.  Yes, "Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving"... but "I am not alone while my love is near me"?  But when he's not... and never will be...

Zonked again, after a bad night (asleep around 11:30, awake at 3, lay there for 2 hours or more unable to fall back to sleep, then finally did for a while).  It's been over 24 hours since I took the Xanax, and I'm not taking the Paxil tonight: I'll call the doctor's office tomorrow and discuss things first.  I can't go through my days feeling this way.

Zonked (as this post will show...)

(Pronounced, always, in the Freund/Enright home, as two distinct syllables: zon-ked.)

Since the Xanax alone wasn't doing this to me, I have the bad feeling that it's the Paxil I took 22 hours ago that's still got me feeling zonked.  The only hope is that it's a combination of the Paxil plus the Xanax I took this morning, since the doctor suggested I keep taking the Xanax once a day to tide me over until the Paxil was effective, and that not taking the Xanax will stop the zonked feeling.  But I doubt it.  I'll give the Paxil another day and then call the doctor Monday if it's still doing this to me.  I want to deal with the depression, if that's what we're calling the way I feel, but I can't spend every day feeling the way I do now or I'll do nothing but lie around, blink my way through TV shows, and nap... I even took a nap this afternoon, which I hardly ever do unless I can't keep my eyes open.  (Jerry was the big napper in the family - he could nap and then get up and be alert and then go to sleep in the evening and sleep through the night.  I always envied him the ability to be refreshed by a nap - me, I just feel even more zonked after a nap.)

About to risk my extremely fledgling Weagle credentials by watching the last three episodes of season 2 of Being Human while the Auburn-Clemson game is airing on ESPN.  I'll switch to the game during commercials, I promise... but I have to see how the end of season 2 of Being Human plays out, and I missed the last two episodes while traveling, so I have to catch up now during the marathon...!

Assuming I can stay awake for any of it...

Sweater

I took up knitting something like six years ago, I think it was - saw a book on knitting in a catalogue and thought, Hmmm, maybe I should teach myself to knit.  So I basically did, with some false starts, using books and websites.  I never got to the point of doing intricate stitches, and I can't seam things to save my life, but four years ago I managed to make a sweater for Jerry.  And here he is modeling it.  (Those doors lead out to a screened-in porch.  This spring I went to Sears and bought a couple of chaises for the porch so Jerry and I could sit out there comfortably as he dealt with the side effects of the cancer and the treatments, so he could enjoy the fresh air while still reclining and resting and regaining his strength.  He got to sit out on a chaise exactly once.  I think I've posted the picture I took of him that day already and already told this story.)

I don't know if I'll go back to knitting.  Right now I can't bring myself to.  I have pieces of a hoodie that need to be seamed, and the hood needs to be knitted onto it, but I was starting that sweater in February 2009.  I remember sitting in the waiting room at St. Alexius, knitting the beginnings of that sweater, while Jerry was having a colonoscopy.  A colonoscopy that told him he was fine.  Just like the sigmoidoscopy 8 months after that that also told him he was fine.  Unlike the sigmoidoscopy three months after that that told him he had what turned out to be stage IV cancer.

So yeah... not much wanting to knit now.  I just associate it too much with my life with Jerry, that life I would give anything to have back again (I was going to make him another pair of slippers, since the first pair I made him came out kind of wonky.  I was such a slow, distractable knitter that I never did it.  The yarn for those is still upstairs in a bin).  Maybe someday I'll go back to it.  But not now.

A bit of TV, I think, and then to bed.  Blood draw in the morning.  Don't like them, never have... but after all that Jerry endured this year, don't much care what they do to me.

Paroxetine HCl

Reading the potential side effects of drugs just reinforces what my father said when Jerry was in the hospital - that 100 years from now (if they're lucky), people will look back at medicine as practiced in the early 21st century and be amazed at how barbaric it was.  We can only hope so, for their sake, those future people.

Saw the new internist today, and so far I like her - she seemed alert to details, smart and careful.  Er... possibly too careful.  At least, that's my hope with regard to the fact that she wanted me to make an appointment with my gynecologist immediately to look into something she felt while pressing on my pelvis when doing a general physical exam this afternoon.  I told her there's a uterine fibroid in there, and I hope that's all it is - possibly it's larger since whenever I had the last ultrasound, but I'm not noticing any new symptoms, so I hope she's just being extra careful and the appointment with another doctor in my gynecologist's office (my actual gynecologist being booked up through December already!!!!) next Wednesday will reveal nothing new to deal with.  Better not... considering the permanent exclusionary rider on my insurance that means they will pay for NOTHING having to do with the fibroid (that's as it should be, though, right?  Mike Huckabee would just say I'm a house that's already burned down, since I have a pre-existing condition, and you don't insure something that's already burned down.  Might as well just bring out the bulldozers and knock me down and take me off to the landfill already.  Frak yourself, Huckabee).  So I'm hoping, if there is something that needs to be done, there will be some creative paperwork on the part of the doctor's office.  But mainly I'm hoping there's nothing new to worry about.  Although I have to say, in the mental state I'm in, the only thing I'm concerned about is the money - I can't honestly say I care about any of the rest of it right now.  And as an added fun moment, when I got in the car and got out the cellphone to call the gynecologist's office to make an appointment, I had the thought "I suppose it could be cancer of some sort - now our roles will be reversed and Jerry will take care of me for a while..."

... which leads me back to the Paxil, which is what Paroxetine HCl is, an antidepressant.  Based on what I told her, Dr. Monje decided that's the thing to try.  I'll be taking it at night and hoping that none of the many, many potential side effects ends up being a problem for me.  10 mg to start off with.  Tomorrow morning I'll go back to the medical building and have a blood draw, to establish baseline levels (presumably Paxil can mess with something that shows up in blood levels?  No idea...).  I'll also stay with the Xanax for a while until the Paxil has time to build up.  And call the doctor in two weeks to check in, and see her again in a month, unless something bad - or nothing at all - has happened earlier than that, and then we'll take things from there.

Talk about vicious circles - I got out of the doctor's office and wanted immediately to tell Jerry about what's going on.  Which made me feel worse, the fact that I couldn't.  (And of course, I wouldn't be dealing with these issues right now if he were here for me to tell.)

Tired.

The roofers came today - I left while they were still here, and they were gone when I got back, and I have no clue if they finished the job or not (Steve said they would be finishing it today, but that was before they discovered some configuration of crown moulding and roof tiles and gutters that was going to change something about how the job was going to be done).  No plumber today - he got hung up at some other job, so he and Steve will be here some time next week.

I have to fast for 12 hours before the blood draw, and the lab opens at 8 a.m. and I want to get this over with as early as I can, so I only have 2 1/4 hours left for bingeing tonight!  But aha!  Not today!  So far I've done well with the Weight Watchers points - a light bagel with spray butter plus mint tea for breakfast, a late lunch when I got back from the doctor of Muenster on light bread plus a piece of string cheese, supper of Shirataki noodles with broccoli and cauliflower (antique frozen broccoli and cauliflower that I retrieved from the freezer at the cabinet shop, so I have no clue how old it is... but the bag hadn't been opened yet) mixed with a melted Laughing Cow wedge and some fake Parm (from the green can, yup) and a sprinkling of Baco bits.  No, this is not exactly gourmet cooking, but it's a low pointage kick-start.  And I still have points to play with for dessert in a little bit.  (And not to worry, I don't plan to record everything I eat in this blog.  Just today's kickoff of the latest go-round with points.)

ETA: And a banana.  I forgot to mention the banana.  An actual piece of fruit.  Go me.

Ten in three

Since I know it's coming later today at the doctor's office, I thought I'd gird my loins and go ahead and get on our bathroom scale this morning... and it's exactly as I thought: I've gained ten pounds in the three months since Jerry died.  It got to the point last night where I had eaten so much all day that I was feeling slightly ill, definitely sluggish and icky... and then I went and got some ice cream... and after that I went and got the bag of peanut M&Ms.  And after that I decided, that's it - this is coming to a stop now.

So as of today, I am going back to counting Weight Watchers points - I've said that I'm doing that several times since Jerry's death, probably, but this time it's going to happen.  I figure, if it stick with it religiously, I can lose a couple of pounds before I go to Rhode Island, which would be a good start.  I just want to get back to where I was three months ago, when all my pants fit.  I have so much that feels bad going on in my life right now - I don't have to add to it myself with this out-of-control binge eating.  It stops now.

(Let's see if this strategy of putting this out there for all and sundry to read will be the motivation I need to stick with this resolution.  Right now the way my clothes feel and what I see when I look in the mirror are pretty good motivation themselves.)

Why?

That's a rhetorical "why" in the post title.  I just am wondering why tonight is turning out to be one of the harder nights.  It started when I went down to the basement after the concrete guys had left to see what they'd done (dug out lots of dirt and built forms - concrete should be poured on Monday).  Maybe it's because I'm having big things done in the house without Jerry here to make decisions about them with me?  Because all day I heard what I assume was a miter saw being used in the basement, and I associate that sound with the shop and with Jerry?  Because most of today was gloomy and rainy?

Or maybe it's simply because the love of my life is dead and I will never, ever see him again.  And that's my reality.  And I can't do anything, anything to make it different.

This sounds familiar.  I'll bet I've written this before.  And I'll probably write variations on it again and again.  I just want this not to be true.  I just want him to come home to me.

Small step

I took down the mistletoe today.  Somewhere back in an earlier post in this blog, I mentioned that one December a bunch of years ago we'd put mistletoe on the doorframe between the kitchen and what would be the dining room if it didn't have a couple of desks, a credenza and bookshelves in it instead of a dining table and chairs, and just never thought it was worth taking it down - as I said before, why would the wife of Jerry Enright want to take down the mistletoe in a doorway we both walked through every single day?  That would have been silly.  Today I was in the kitchen, looked up, saw it there, and boom, took it down - no drama, no wailing, it's just not up there anymore.  I think I'll keep it, maybe put it in the urn with other keepsakes when Seamus and Erin are done with it and it comes back to me.

Second "counseling" session today.  It's basically, still, an hour of me just talking, and I'm still not sure in this particular situation it's making any difference.  (I did get to go on about my tendency to overanalyze almost everything that happens to me, even as it's happening.  And came to the thought that one of the few times I'm not doing that, but am able just to experience the feelings without watching me experience them, is when I'm crying at Sacred Harp singings.  So chalk up another huge point in favor of Sacred Harp singings, because getting out of my damn head and the barriers it wants to put up between me and my feelings is a definitely positive thing.)

Picked up some groceries on the way home and felt panic rising in my chest when I came out of the grocery store and saw the minivan.  So again, I never know what's going to do it.  It's not like seeing the minivan is something new, after all - it should have been more upsetting not to see it there, all things considered.  But for some reason at that instant my mind went to the knowledge that Jerry is never going to be driving that minivan again, that I'll never see him again anywhere, and, as ol' Jack reminds us, grief feels so much like fear.  Came home to my new friend Xanax.

(I was so proud of myself for staying asleep this morning until 7:30, until I remembered I hadn't turned the light out last night until almost 2 a.m.  Still, there've been times when I've been awake until 1:30 or so and then woke up for good at 5:30, so this is possibly a bit of progress.)

Wonder what time the concrete guy will be here tomorrow.  "Will be" - oh, I'm more of an optimist than I realized.

Late night rhetorical questions

I was looking at photos in iPhoto earlier to find one to post today (that's Jerry in our bedroom, not sure what year - somewhere between the aviator glasses and the last, smaller pair he had when he died, there was the pair he's wearing in that shot, but I don't remember when that would have been exactly).  I look at the pictures of the two of us together and I see such joy on my face at being with Jerry that I now can't imagine - I can't even guess what it felt like to be that happy.  Pictures have been taken since Jerry died in which I'm smiling, and I've laughed at things and smiled at things, but behind every smile, beneath every moment of better humor I get to have, there is such a vast abyss of grief, and I just cannot remember what it was like to feel as happy as I know I did when I was Jerry's wife and not his widow.

"You won't always feel the way you do now."  But how will I feel when I don't feel the way I do now?  Jerry was so special, made such a huge and beautiful difference in my life, gave it such a foundation of happiness and love and contentment.  Every time I saw him it felt like I was getting to fall in love with him all over again - I never got over the excitement of being with him, the joy of my life with him, the joy of being loved by Jerry Enright.  How will I get through however many days, months, years I may have left on this earth without him?  Without that joy?

That man o' mine

I just really liked taking pictures of that man o' mine.  Here's another one.

Spanx or sanity?

A beautiful sunny and cool morning in Algonquin, not a cloud in the sky, and the Mac dashboard says it'll be in the mid 70s today.  And here I am, back in Illinois again after another weekend down south, feeling the warmth of friendship and song, and basking again in the knowledge of the love so many people feel for Jerry.  I don't know what it is about knowing this, knowing that Jerry was so well loved and respected, that I find so comforting - confirmation of my own good taste?  But almost every single person I know of who ever met Jerry knew what a treasure he was, and I've had so many people tell me things he did that made an impression on them, helped them in some way, encouraged them, made them feel good.  And that was the man I love, absolutely.  So if anyone is afraid that hearing stories and reminiscences about Jerry would be painful to me - well, yes, of course, there is pain, of course - but please never think you should keep it to yourself.  I know I'm talking people's ears off about Jerry, including people I've only just met (sorry again, shop clerk at that Godiva store in Nashville a few weeks back...). But I love to hear people talk about him, add things I didn't necessarily know before, repeat things I do already know but love to hear again, tell me how that man of mine made them happy in some way, just by being who he was.

The weekend was exhausting because of scheduling, but worth every second of sleep deprivation!  (And I even slept an entire 7 hours last night without waking up, still only taking the Xanax, which is still not zonking me out during the day, so that was a good thing too.)  Jenna and Karen and David, thank you again so much for your hospitality!

This was the first time I actually wrote Jerry's name on a memorial list.  Incredibly, on Saturday I completely forgot to do it, but on Sunday morning when I found the list there were only a few names on it so far, and so I was the one who put Jerry's name on it.  Deep breath.  Another "first" gotten past.  John and Karen R. did a beautiful job with the memorial lesson, but I missed a lot of what was actually said, because I started crying, I think, the minute Karen said Jerry's name, and even when the portion for the deceased was done and John moved into the section for the sick and shut-in, I remembered sitting by Jerry's bed in the hospital and reading him the cards we were receiving and the e-mails and the comments on the CaringBridge site, and I just cried on until the entire lesson was done.

I used to see people at singings, when I first started attending them, and I'd be so intrigued that they'd seem fine all day until we got to the memorial lesson, and then they'd weep as if a switch had been flipped, and weep until the memorial was over, and then stop, and pull themselves together - switch flipped back again - and seem fine the rest of the day.  And yesterday that happened to me.  It's hard to figure out - some have suggested the memorial becomes a sort of safe space to let go and let the emotions do what they will, and I guess that's true, although I don't seem to be the kind of person who holds in those emotions at all other times, and why I recovered after the memorial and was "fine" the rest of the day, I don't know.  (Xanax?)  But then again, this is one of those things that isn't so important for me to understand - Sacred Harp singings are, by and large, a place where I can fall apart and know it's okay - and as one of you kindly told me, when I do cry and am seen to be crying, it also lets others grieve Jerry as well and remember the pain of his absence themselves.  So it's all a good thing, for, as Seamus would say, "a given value of 'good.'"

77t on Saturday: new variation.  When it was called, my heart started pounding before the singing of it even began.  I actually felt like I wasn't going to cry - my heart pounded through the entire thing, I couldn't sing much of it, my body did start shaking - but it wasn't until we were singing the song after it that I realized I was going to start crying, left the room after that song and went to the bathroom and sobbed.

But it's good.  Feeling panicky and upset isn't good, but going through those things and coming out the other side, that's good.

On to other things.  Such as, Spanx or sanity?  Right now the answer is Spanx, but at some point I really am going to have to start being sane about eating again.  I will not go out and buy larger-sized pants (or live in elastic waistbands).

And speaking of eating: fresh lima beans: a revelation.  Karen had gotten them at the farmers' market, and I guess Lynne and I had never had fresh lima beans before, because we both were astonished that lima beans, of all things, could taste so amazing.

Also, excellent BBQ tofu burrito (seriously!) at Raging Burrito in Decatur, and Thai food in Atlanta.  And I loved the fabulous frozen yogurt place Jenna took us to, the Yogurt Tap (self-serve soft-serve, and on tap, with a self-serve toppings bar.  Plain frozen yogurt to die for).  Although this circles back to the Spanx or sanity question.  I can't believe the amount of food I consumed this weekend.  (The burrito was pretty much the size of my head.  And I ate the entire thing.)  If I were being analytical about things, I'd guess I was trying to fill a huge Jerry-shaped hole with food, but that would be too simple, wouldn't it?

MARTA to the airport yesterday was a piece of cake.  Add it to the list of subways I've been on in my life (NYC, Washington - this is how old I am, folks, when we lived in Maryland, construction on the DC Metro was just being started - Moscow, London, Paris, Chicago, Toronto I think, Montreal I think, Madrid, Leningr...oh man, sorry, I mean St. Peterburg, but actually, no, it was Leningrad when I was on it... that might be it).  I liked it.  Then again, I don't have to commute on it.

Beginning to ramble here.  Counting the weeks until I head off to Rhode Island for the New England Sacred Harp Convention, first one I'll have been at since the last time it was in Rhode Island, in 2006.  At that singing, I called 300, and I had Jerry come up to lead it with me.  Now Jerry definitely modeled his leading of 300 on Barrett Ashley, which you can see if you look at the videos I've posted on YouTube, both the ones of Jerry leading 300 and the one of Mr. Ashley, and that kind of leading - energetic, moving confidently and fast towards each section to bring them in on the fugue - is not really a two-person thing, and Jerry practically ran me down as "we" led the song.  Just the memory of it makes me want to throw my arms around him and kiss him.  But I always want to do that.

Concrete guy supposedly coming now on Thursday.  Counselor tomorrow.  New internist Friday.

And here's the thing.  I keep telling people I "should" do this, I'm "considering" this, I'm "thinking about" this, but really, I'm pretty sure by now: I'm going to move south.  I don't know exactly when this will happen, or how - oh, the house, oh, the sorting of Jerry's things, oh, the parting with our home, our beautiful home, the silk purse Jerry really did create out of the ugly sow's ear the inside of this place was, with his vision and creativity and talent and hard, hard work, and with such love.  And oh the housing market now!  And uprooting myself from a place I've never actually felt rooted, but that I'm used to - change is never something I embrace happily.  But I can't stay here without him.  My home was here because Jerry was here, and Jerry was my home. I have to make a different kind of home for myself somewhere else now.  I think it's going to be where I'm finding the most solace right now.  As people have said, nothing is set in stone - I could try it out and decide it's not the place I'm meant to be and then try somewhere else.  But I think it's right, the right thing to try.  I still don't know how I'm going to do this or when exactly, but I'm thinking.

(My computer sits on a little wooden stand Jerry made, on the rolltop desk in the dining room.  Big, heavy rolltop desk.  One of the many things that make me want to lie down and weep at the thought of the logistics of moving.)

Weagle Weagle

First of all: I took my first (generic) Xanax four hours ago, and I'm still awake - not zonked, I mean - and I don't know if it's doing anything or not.  A bit of crying earlier when I discovered a pen in the pocket of one of Jerry's shirts in the closet while I was trying to figure out singing outfits for the weekend was just a bit of crying, didn't turn into the deep-seated wailing of yesterday.  That's something.  How I sleep tonight will be another test (slept horribly last night - awake on and off most of the night).

Anyway: starting off my weekend in Alabama early by having ESPN on, waiting for kickoff of the Auburn-Mississippi State football game.  Jerry and I were not huge sports fans - if we watched anything, it was baseball (Jerry was a White Sox fan who didn't actually care much about them and became a Yankees fan by marriage), occasionally putting on a football game to see how it was going or to look for people we knew in the stands (pretty sure I saw Stuart with the Auburn band once).

I told part of this story in a thread on Facebook earlier today: in November 1998, Jerry, Lynne and I were meeting up in Birmingham for the Alabama State Sacred Harp Convention.  My flight from New York to Memphis, where I was to change planes, was delayed and I missed my connection, so I spent that night at Northwest Airlines' expense in a hotel near the airport in Memphis.  The next morning, my flight to Birmingham was sent back to the Memphis airport after takeoff because of possible trouble with the landing gear - that wasn't a fun few minutes - so I got to Birmingham fairly late in the morning, flying in over Legion Field where the tailgating was in full swing for the last Iron Bowl played in Birmingham, and I got my first sense of what the Alabama-Auburn rivalry means down there.

On that trip we stayed with lifelong Sacred Harp singer Willie (pronounced "Willa") Mae Moon, whom Jerry knew, and who must have been in her 80s at that point.  At some point she asked us who we supported, Alabama or Auburn.  We looked around at all her sports paraphernalia and gave her the polite answer for Yankee guests in her home for whom all this was pretty new, and she was pleased to hear "Alabama." (Would we have been pointed to the nearest hotel if we'd said "Auburn"?  Good question!)

(Auburn first on the board.)

I've now spent over a decade getting to know people on both sides of this rivalry, sometimes members of the same family divided.  And my response now to the question?  I plead the Northerner's option of a cone of silence!  However... I have promised Karen to cheer for the Tigers tonight... so... WAR DAMN EAGLE!

I can just picture the smile that would have been on Jerry's face about all this.

So, the Xanax.  My endocrinologist called this morning to figure out with me what would make the most sense to tide me over until I see the new doctor in a week.  Of the three choices - something for sleep like Ambien, something for anxiety like Xanax, or antidepressants, I thought the Xanax would make the most sense - a sleeping pill would be helpful at night, if it worked, but wouldn't help with the feelings that I still haven't found a good way to describe, when everything crashes in on me and the sobbing feels like it's tearing my chest apart - but I don't feel like that all the time, and I don't think I'm depressed in a way that isn't "normal," whatever that means, for someone who's just lost her best friend, her soulmate, the love of her life, the life we had together, and the happy future we thought we'd have for decades to come, oh, and also her job, and has the stress of making huge important life decisions while in no condition to deal with those things.

(Tied at 7-7.)

(Oops.  Interception in the endzone.)

Manicure and pedicure at the Aveda salon this morning.  And weather.com says it'll be in the low 90s in Alabama this weekend, so I'll still have a chance to wear sandals and show off the Royal Rajah Ruby on my toenails.

All checked in for tomorrow's flight to Atlanta, just need to pack, get through the night (asleep, I hope), and get myself to Midway again.  Having done it already last month, I at least know I've... done it already last month.   I'm never going to like doing that drive.  But I'll be glad to be going.

All I want

No miracle cure yet

What?  An entire one-hour session with a counselor and I'm still feeling worse than ever?  How's that possible?

This happens to me every so often, and I know it does.  I'll just finish reading The Year of Magical Thinking and suddenly everything will be better.  I'll talk to a counselor, and suddenly everything will be better.  And yet... it's not.  I just got in from taking out the compost, and I looked around at the huge number of small buckthorn stalks sprouting in the yard, and thought about all Jerry's work in the yard (including his never-ending struggle to pull up the buckthorn), and his plan for the native grasses and flowers, and thought about him coming outside in his robe in April (was it?) while I was digging up dandelions, and watching for a short time, and being too weak to stay on his feet for long, and thought about how many times we'd stood together in the yard looking at the house and agreeing about how much we loved the house and how much we loved our life, and I just started wailing.  It hurts so much.  I miss him so much.  I miss that life we loved so much.

The session with the counselor went fine - I guess.  (He's still dead.  So as one of you wisely put it today, no matter how right what I do is, in the end I'm never going to have what I want.)  She was easy to talk to, and mostly that's what happened, I talked.  I repeated what I keep repeating in this blog.  It's not that I don't have faith in the "talking cure" - it did well by me before.  I just wonder if this kind of therapy, unlike the analysis from years ago, will include anything else than me talking.  Anyway, I'll go back next week and see how it goes.

What it won't include is anything pharmaceutical, since Stella, the counselor, is not a doctor.  So on the way home I stopped at the office where I see my endocrinologist and talked to the receptionists and a nurse about options.  Ended up with an appointment with an internist a week from Friday, which is good, since having a primary care doctor will be a good thing (I've been living in fear of getting one of those sinus infections I had two years ago, or was it three? - and not having a doctor to see) - but the receptionist said she'd also leave word with the endocrinologist's nurse and see if they can do something in the interim - she'll be in tomorrow, so maybe I'll hear something then.  Given my susceptibility to anything that induces drowsiness, I'm not sure what they can do for me - the whole point is that I need to be able to get good sleep at night so I'm not exhausted every day, but if I take something that then leaves me zonked during the day as well, I don't see that that's an improvement.  I don't suppose there's something they can give me to make it all hurt less?  Well, I'll find out, anyway, sooner or later.

And they can't give me something that'll bring Jerry back.

Just in time?

I have an appointment with a "counselor" tomorrow afternoon.  I put that in quotation marks because I'm not exactly sure what a counselor is as opposed to other forms of therapists, i.e. I'm guessing she isn't able to write prescriptions, which might be a problem.  If that's the case, and if I need to find someone else to take care of that, I may try my endocrinologist and see if she'd be able to give me something even though it has nothing to do with the reasons I see her (my last primary care doctor was the previous endocrinologist, the one who didn't take credit cards or call in prescriptions or even use computers much, and the last straw with whom was when I saw him, had a blood draw to have my blood levels checked, was called back to come in again the next week, went in, paid another co-pay - just to have him write a new prescription, and nothing more.  That's when I found the new endo, but she's not a primary care doctor, I was told, and currently I don't have one.  End of digression).

I think this is just in time, at any rate: today I've been too tired to function, but when I lay down and tried to take a nap, my brain kept buzzing, and, oh fun, decided it was time yet again to revisit specifics of Jerry's hospitalization (I have got to stop reading Theresa Brown's posts to the Well Blog in the New York Times - they invariably remind me of things about Jerry's time in the hospital that end up making me despondent and furious at the same time.  The other day I was commenting to Erin that I don't seem to be angry, just desolate and sad, and she mentioned things like all the colonoscopies that showed nothing was wrong, and I realized that yeah, I am angry.  Whenever the writings on grieving mention anger, I always think they mean getting angry at the person who died for some reason, and since I haven't had a shred of anger towards Jerry - about his illness and death, I mean - I'm not saying I was never angry at him during our marriage - we had an amazing marriage, not a fictitious one! -  I forget that there are lots of other people I am angry at.  I keep writing a letter in my mind to Jerry's original gastroenterologist, asking him if a lot of his patients end up dying when he doesn't see stage IV tumors in the colonoscopies and sigmoidoscopies he performs, or if Jerry was just a special case).  But anyway, yeah, napping didn't happen, but neither did much of anything else today, other than talking to various people associated with the mental health practice I contacted (the one that got back to me in less than 8 hours, that is), finally coming up with someone in the town just north of here.

(Not sure why I bothered going through the Blue Cross website for this after all - turns out, with the high deductible on my policy, I'd be paying large fees out of pocket for a long time before the insurance kicked in at all - so the counselor suggested not going through the insurance and having me pay directly a smaller fee, which makes sense, is much more reasonable, and is what I'm doing.)

In addition to being exhausted, I'm crying noticeably more, and when I do, it feels deeper, if that's the word I'm looking for - I can't think of a good word.  Like it's going deeper, that's what I keep coming up with, like previously the sorrow was somehow on the surface, but now it's... deeper.  No, I can't figure out how else to describe it.  Maybe more real.  Maybe more of that feeling that Jerry really isn't coming back, ever.  I even feel like I'm sometimes watching myself back away from it, like my mind is saying "No. No. NO," and trying somehow to come up with another explanation for his absence, his being missing for coming on three months now.  Some other reason that no one has worn those sneakers next to his nightstand in so long, or that his glasses are sitting there on that stand, or that his hearing aids are in the drawer.

So, yeah.  A good time for this appointment.

The Get-Karen-Out-Of-The-House plans for the rest of the week are: counselor tomorrow, manicure and pedicure on Thursday (thanks to more of the gift certificate from Laura and Lynne for our anniversary, and with any luck this time without the technician claiming to be channeling Jerry from the Great Beyond), and off to Atlanta on Friday, thence to Alabama for the United Sacred Harp
Musical Association.  The United used to be one of the conventions we never missed, until the state of the finances of Wood Bros. and its owners/employees intervened.  Jerry had a long association with it, having chaired it in 1994 when it was at Emmaus in Carrollton, GA (I think I've written this already...).  He told me that attendance at the United had been waning, and leading up to that year's convention he mailed a flyer to every single singer listed in the directory as living in Georgia and Alabama.  In 1998, the United was held in Huntsville, and it was the next singing Jerry and I attended after meeting at Lookout Mountain a few weeks before - we had started e-mailing each other and Jerry had suggested I go to the United.  Lynne, who hadn't been at Lookout Mountain, was at the United, and after watching Jerry walk up behind me during a break and put his hands on my shoulders and give them a rub, she later told me it was completely obvious that he "liked" me (I wasn't sure at that point) (another clue was that at that singing Jerry spent time sitting in the treble section, near to where I was in the alto section, and I had no idea until much later that he hardly ever, if ever, sang treble, and that the only reason he was sitting there was to be near me.  In retrospect, I wonder if people he usually sang with saw him in the treble and thought "What in the world is he doing over there?").

There are so many parenthetical sentences in this post, I'm losing track of things.  Sorry!  My writing used to be a lot more scattered, like this post, so it's pretty amazing more of my posts don't come out this way.

By the way - I don't mean to sound disingenuous, but I continue to be amazed, hearing from people who are reading this blog - I appreciate your comments about it, both in the blog comments themselves and in your messages and the cards I'm even now still receiving, and the fact that you're sticking with it.  I go through periods in my life when writing is absolutely vital to my mental health - and I think it's interesting that during my marriage to Jerry, I didn't feel that drive to write in the same way.  Marriage to Jerry was really, really good for my mental health, among all the other things it was really good for.  Without it - well, there's another thing.  My last go-round with psychotherapy came to an end when I moved to Illinois to be with Jerry (and also, I firmly believe, made meeting and being with Jerry possible), and although there are issues some ongoing therapy probably would have been helpful with - namely, that of jobs and careers - until my happiness came crashing to an end with Jerry's death, I was muddling along okay without it.  Now, to come around full circle in this long and scattered post, I think I'm coming back to it just in time.

P.S. about a marauder

I forgot to say, last night I was sure someone was trying to break into the house.  I mean, intellectually I knew it wasn't likely, but the thumping, pounding sounds were so loud.  But I knew what it probably really was, so I got a flashlight and shone it out the windows upstairs in the two bedrooms, until eventually the marauder, as Jerry and I called them, came into view - a raccoon, there on the roof, right by the window.  And not that enormous a raccoon, but man, did he make a bunch of noise.

Wanted to tell Jerry about it.  Of course.

A question

Does not getting out of your pajamas all day count as not getting out of your pajamas all day if your pajamas last night happened to be sweatpants and a henley, and you did get out of bed and clear out two entire rooms full of tools plus do laundry, clean part of the bathroom, and bake a peach cobbler?

(First thing I've baked since before Jerry died.  Another first taken care of.  Yup, cried while preparing the cobbler.)

I've been looking up counselors on the Blue Cross website.  If nothing else, I need to figure out how to sleep decently.  Plus I'm beginning to wonder if my ongoing stomachache of the past several days isn't actually stress-related IBS symptoms reappearing.

It sure seems like I'm on schedule, according to a bunch of things I've read.  They all say there's no predicting an individual's journey through bereavement, but then they give generalizations for what often happens, and a quick Google brings up this, as an example: "As the death becomes real, people tend to fall apart. Everything feels out of control, disorganized and unpredictable. People feel like they must be going crazy especially if they think they should be feeling better. Nothing is as it was and it feels like it's getting worse instead of better. This typically kicks in 3-6 months following a death. For some it will be getting better toward the end of the first year, but for others it will last much longer." (From http://stagesofgrief.weebly.com/)

Going by dates, it's a week until the three-month mark since Jerry died.  So yeah, right on schedule for everything to start being harder and more painful.  Oh hooray.

Holidays

Jerry and I weren't huge celebrators of holidays.  We had the tree and the menorah in December, but we didn't exchange gifts then.  We gave each other gifts on our birthdays, but not on our anniversary, which was instead the occasion for homemade cards (usually involving penguins - like the card from our 10th anniversary this past St. Patrick's Day, which is sitting on my nightstand, and is signed "the Luckiest Hubs Ever!").  We usually got chocolate around Valentine's Day, but it wasn't a surprise and we usually discussed where to get it from (I still have most of two bags of Cowgirl Chocolates truffles, one of them the spicy ones Jerry liked, from this past February, when, by Valentine's Day, we were only two weeks past Jerry's diagnosis and probably into his radiation treatments, and he had no appetite).

Now, when holidays come, they're just unhappy days like all the rest.  Memorial Day was spent at the hospital, over two weeks since Jerry had been admitted.  If I remember right, it was very dark and there was a heavy downpour that day.  The 4th of July was only a few weeks after Jerry died.  And today is just another day that he's not here.  But also the end of summer, in many ways, and the gateway to darker, colder, bleaker days.

I cleared out those two rooms in the basement that had had tools and supplies in them, crying a lot through the whole process.  I have no idea what most of the tools are for (an answer to the question "Why won't Karen be looking for a job as a cabinet finisher?" - because I didn't learn near enough about cabinetmaking to work with anyone other than Jerry), and I don't know what Jerry meant to do with so many tins of nails, except that I guess carpenters keep nails just in case.  (Upsetting is the fact that a lot of nails are in tobacco tins - Jerry quit smoking long before I met him, but there's no way of knowing whether or not the years of smoking had anything to do with the cancer that killed him.  It's possible.)  I don't know why he was keeping a lot of what was down there.  And I even found boxes of unused vinyl tiles from previous owners of the house - I can't even remember which floors had vinyl tiles on them, the kitchen?  The downstairs bathroom?  What on earth am I going to do with all this stuff?  Eventually I'll post some of it on Freecycle, I guess.  And someday, if it doesn't all get taken away one way or another, I may have to rent a dumpster.

I found a small pile of samples of tiles and surfaces that we used in the kitchen - the red ceramic floor tile, the accent tile on the wall and the sand-colored backsplash behind the stove, a piece of the brick-colored Fountainhead countertop we used in both the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom.  Lots of tears over that.  I still remember deciding on what we'd use, I still remember late nights in the kitchen, before we moved in, helping Jerry in the backbreaking work of laying the floor tiles.  How did I get from there, a happy new wife, to here, a shell-shocked new widow?  How did the time between rush by?

Anyway, the rooms are cleared out, there are piles of things in other parts of the basement, and somehow that I can't imagine, the guy with the big mixer truck will pour the walls down there.  My fond hope is that it'll get done while I'm away next weekend in Atlanta and Alabama.

Laundry is mostly done, too, so it's been a productive day.  I do hate to mention how long it's been since I gave any of the rooms of the house a good cleaning.  Someday...

Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling

Nothing new or meaningful about this video... just posting it because for some reason, right now this song is one of the not very many things in the world that make me feel happy...  so every once in a while I just have to listen to it.

Public weeping... yet again

I hadn't originally planned to go to the short Sacred Harp workshop they do at the Fox Valley Folk Festival this year, but given that the alternative was going to be me alone in the house all day, I decided to be brave and go for the second session this afternoon.  I've never been to that festival without Jerry before, and it hurt as much as everything else without him does, but I thought I'd be okay as long as I fled if anyone called 77t.  No one did, but when Debbie and David led 163b for a number of local singers who have died, and Jerry was the last of the four people they named, the crying began and lasted through the entire song.  I didn't mean to upset anyone - it was so unexpected for me to be there that they never even thought about it until they caught sight of me halfway through the song, and I felt bad that they felt bad about it.  And I don't really mind it happening - I know it's going to keep happening for a long time yet.  It's really only the complete breakdown that happens with 77t that's unnerving.

But look at the photo I posted yesterday, of Jerry at that singing workshop four years ago.  How can a world without that face in it not be a cause for tears?

My handsome husband

Jerry at a Sacred Harp singing workshop at the Fox Valley Folk Festival in Geneva, IL, September 2006.  Photo from my parents (my mother sent it to me three weeks ago, but I only just saw it now).

Batteries

Awake at 5 a.m.  Back to sleep.  Awake at 6 a.m. to the sound of that loud chirping that lets you know the battery in your smoke detector is dying.  In this case, the new battery I put in the smoke detector last month.

Between this and the garage door opener, I might think the batteries are out to get me.  Or I might think that possibly Jerry took out old batteries but then didn't put them in the bag o' batteries we kept around until we got the chance to recycle them?  Or maybe they're just too old?  Anyway, will go and get more today.  In general we use... I use... rechargeables, but I do need 9-volts for the smoke detectors.

Having taken the sleep aid tablets last night, I did keep going back to sleep again and again as I kept waking up this morning - and kept looking at the clock, out of ongoing guilt about not getting up and getting moving bright and early.  If I ever get to the point where I feel like I can't bring myself to crawl out of bed, guilt about it might be my saving grace.

Dashboard says it's 59 degrees, with a high today only of 67.  Fall is coming.  Frightening.

Pounding

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."  That's the first line of the C.S. Lewis book I read a few weeks back, A Grief Observed.  That line comes back to me again and again, and particularly now because my heart is pounding too fast at the moment.  Panic?  Fear?  (Thyroid going out of whack again?)  Whatever it is, it's happening.  I move through this house, I go through the motions of everyday life, I shower, I eat, I do errands, I sleep (some), I look at the job listings on Craig's List, I watch things on the 13-year-old TV (halfway through an episode of Judge John Deed at the moment, and to go off on a tangent for a moment, if you don't know Martin Shaw, I recommend getting acquainted with him - Jerry and I really liked his incarnation of Dalgliesh, and George Gently as well), and I'm never, ever not thinking about Jerry, about the fact that he's not here, about his illness and death - but when the fact that this is all true, that he really has died and is not coming back, not ever, and that I'm going to have to learn how to live with that truth, when all that comes crashing through every so often and seems for a moment or two to be Real - then my heart starts its faster beating, then it feels like panic, then it feels like fear, even as Lewis put it.  Then it feels like something I can't do.  I just can't.  I can't live without him.  It feels like I can't, anyway.  Monday will be a week away from three months since he died, and I'm still breathing, I'm still writing, I'm still existing, so "I can't live without him" so far isn't actually true.

But it feels true.  And it still feels like I don't want to, anyway.  It's still hard to believe that life will ever be something that isn't just too painful to want to hang onto.

Boiled over

Tired... and this sounds familiar as the first word of a blog post.  Bet it's come up before.  I may have to resort back to the hangover-inducing sleep aid tablets tonight.  I just don't seem able to stay asleep in the morning, no matter how late I've gone to bed the night before.  And if I go to sleep too early, I lie there awake, thinking, which isn't a good thing these days (Exercise to wear me out has been suggested - there are so many reasons that would be a good idea...).

Not a very productive day.  Changed the batteries in the garage door opener again and got it working... for now.  Gave Steve the contractor a deposit check and keys to the house (work might begin next week - some time this weekend I'll clear the stuff out of the two rooms in the basement that'll be having a concrete wall poured in them).  Went out and got the shades of eye shadow Karen lent me last weekend (I've gotten past not wearing any makeup, which I did from this past New Year's until Lookout Mountain, really), plus a teeny tiny travel hair dryer.  And I'm now cooking the purple hull peas I got at the farmers' market in Huntsville.  Waaaay out of practice cooking anything other than what will heat up in a microwave within 5 minutes: the water in the pot of peas boiled over onto the stove top, even with me sitting right here next to it to keep an eye on it.

Not very exciting, but I'm just finding it so hard to be motivated to do anything.  I just want to crawl into bed and curl up there, except now I'm afraid I'm going to have more nightmares.  Fabulous.  Awake, asleep, it doesn't stop.

I tried to upload video of Jerry's last singing that Bill gave me over the weekend, but for some reason it uploaded without audio.  A quick Google search showed that that can happen and that there are apps to deal with it, but I haven't explored further to figure out what I need to do.  The original DVD isn't divided into chapters, so it took forever just to get it onto the computer, and forever again to convert it to the proper format for uploading... and then to find out the audio wouldn't play was just too annoying.

Friday conclusions

Conclusion #1: The melatonin-valerian combo tablets I got at Earth Fare do not help keep me asleep, as waking up this morning at 5:30 a.m. and having trouble sleeping anymore after that showed.  The sleep tablets from the grocery store do, but leave me with that dopey hangover feeling.  Staying up really late doesn't do it either.

Conclusion #2: Nightmares that Jerry is dead but still walking around and not knowing it yet, while in the dream I do know it and am trying somehow to let him know he should do everything he wants to do immediately because his time is short - these also do not help keep me asleep.

In other news, someone called from DirecTV last night - a tech will be here Saturday evening - no charge either for that or for a new really basic receiver, assuming that's what happens.  They really do want to keep my business, still.

Satellite signal, garage door opener

Post title: things that are causing problems at the moment.  Got home last night, opened the garage door with the opener in the car, no problem - but the one on the wall of the garage isn't working again.  I wonder if it's damp - the batteries in it felt a bit damp.  Maybe tomorrow I'll be motivated to deal with it.  This evening I turned on the TV for the first time since I left for Alabama last week and discovered I have problems with the receiver, no picture at all.  Not a total shock, since I've had that receiver since 2004.  After a lot of discussion with DirecTV, I was told someone would have to call me from another department tomorrow.  News for them: if anything about fixing this problem is going to cost me anything, I'll be canceling my service - it's just not worth it to me.  After that, there was an emergency call to my parents asking them to tape the latest episode of Mad Men, the last showings of which are early tomorrow morning, plus the next one as well, in case I end up without TV service.  They don't get BBC America, so the last two episodes of the other current show I'm watching that doesn't show up on Hulu, Being Human, will have to wait until it's on DVD on Fletnix if the TV situation isn't solved by next week.

Stuff done: insurance updated at pharmacy, real estate tax checks written and mailed off, hairspray purchased to deal with new hairstyle (today my hair is a mess o' frizz and some waves, since I decided to give it a break from the hairdryer).  Also found a fabulous color of nail polish that I couldn't resist ("Royal Rajah Ruby" from OPI, if anyone's curious) - I'm hopeless at applying nail polish, but after the pedicure on Tuesday, and given the fact that I'm not working in the cabinet shop anymore, I might start wearing it.  If I have the patience.  Not that essential tremor makes applying nail polish easy.  If nothing else, I intend to get pedicures a little more often.

And... I'm back in Illinois, and back to spending a lot of time on the verge of tears.  It feels horribly out of control to be walking around a grocery store and feeling like I'm going to start sobbing at any moment.  Turning a corner and catching sight of the nutrition drinks is a sure-fire way to bring that feeling on.  But really, I don't even need a trigger - I just miss Jerry so much, I just ache to have him come home to me, and there is nothing I can do but exist through this, try to breathe my way through the feeling of panic that hits me every so often, this panicky fear that he really isn't going to come back ever again.  I've forgotten what it's like to have an everyday conversation with him - I can't bring our everyday interactions to mind.  I hope the memories come back someday.  This is just so hard.  It hurts so much.

Somewhere in Pasadena

We never could remember which museum in Pasadena this was taken at - either the Norton Simon or the Pacific Asia, probably.  But Jerry really liked this photo and used it a lot for profile pictures.  It's the one that's permanently on Facebook, because it's the one that was there the last time he updated Facebook. 

Gloom in Illinois

The title refers to the weather, not necessarily my mood, although of course there's always some gloom in my mood - it's a matter of how much at any given moment.  The rain gauge says there was a quarter inch of rain here yesterday, but by the time I arrived at the house at just before 8 p.m., it wasn't raining (most of the heavy rain I went through was north of Indianapolis).  I'm hearing thunder out west of me right now.

The house seems to have done okay while I was gone.  One little rivulet of water in the basement from the area of the water softener, which happens when the dehumidifiers haven't been running, and they hadn't been since last Thursday.

The drive back here yesterday went fine (as ever, crying while driving on Chicago expressways - not a good combination of actions.  Managed to stifle the tears and soldier on.  It was yet another moment of "He should be here").  My report after the trip is that Kentucky has really good rest areas on I-65 and Tennessee's one rest area on I-65, at least the only one I noticed, is closed, I'm going to bet for budgetary reasons, a sheer guess.  I can also report that the McDonald's in Lebanon, IN Smith's Grove, KY offering fruit smoothies is all well and good, but if the customer can't help herself and also gets medium fries with the smoothie, it doesn't add up to a healthy alternative.

I'm meeting with Steve the contractor tomorrow to go over things (and give him a deposit, which is the main thing).  The price he quoted me has got to include a major Widow of Enright discount - it's much less than I expected.  At any rate, I appreciate it.  Work could start next week some time.  With any luck, I don't need to be here for all of it because...

... I'm off south again a week from tomorrow.  I had thought I couldn't swing the United Sacred Harp Musical Association because of airfare, but when I got home last night Lynne told me she'd found a cheapish fare on AirTran, and she was right - if I go on the Friday and come back on the Monday morning, it'll work out.  And I used the last of the PayPal money from the sale of Jerry's Droid to pay for half the ticket.  Given that Jerry had such a strong affiliation with the United, working so hard to get people to attend it in 1994 when he chaired it at Emmaus PB Church in Carrollton, GA, it's a nice thing that the United is what part of that Droid money is going for.  Staying with Jenna Friday night and Sunday night in Atlanta and with David and Karen in Huntsville on Saturday will be a treat, too.  I'm just so grateful, so grateful, to have found that Sacred Harp singing is providing this quantum of solace, to coin a phrase.  As I said before and after Lookout Mountain, I wasn't sure if singing would be something I could face without Jerry - and I've discovered that it's absolutely vital to me.

The added sting, though, is that Jerry isn't there.  That's always the added sting to everything, of course.  But in the past few years we hadn't been going to as many singings as we'd been previously, missing some we never used to miss (including the United), because financial matters with the business were so scary and we were trying to be more frugal about things.  And now here I am, going to more singings in these few months than we did together all last year, and possibly the previous year as well.  I hate it that we missed so many, I hate it that I'm getting to enjoy them now and he isn't.  I hate it that I'm getting to enjoy anything and he isn't.  And I hate that my enjoyment of anything is always, always tempered with pain and incredible sadness.  I hate that he's not here.  I want him back.  I miss him.

Nothing new there.  Onward.  I've got some errands to deal with today, including bringing my new insurance card to the pharmacy so they can input the info into their system.  I want to sweep the walkways and maybe trim some plants back, my small attempt at dealing with the overgrown yard (it makes me - oops, interruption: just had to go out on the front porch in the rain and stick the gutter downspout back together - bet it was a squirrel that knocked it out - anyway, as I was saying, it makes me quail to think of the amount of work Jerry did in the yard that I'm not doing now - pretty soon all the land that isn't occupied by house or garage is going to be jungle).  Too wet to do any work outside though.  Maybe it'll dry up in the next few days.