h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

thanx for your replies to my journal! i had the most annoying customer yesterday. she comes in to drop off a rug, and then her cell phone rings. she proceeds to ignore me while she blabs to her friend who, apparently, has locked her keys in her car and has absolutely no idea what to do!!! poor darling! so the lady in the office tells her to call pop-a-lock. the only time she talks to me is to ask if she can use our telephone book to look up pop-a-lock. it takes her a good five or ten minutes to do so, and she seems really bewildered at the idea of a phone book. so she gets the # for popalock and tells her friend "hold on, darling. i'm going to call them now." and proceeds to pull out another cell phone and call pop-a-lock!! so she's relaying messages from one cell phone to the other, talking to two people who aren't there and ignoring the one person who is physically in her presence and needs to interact with her in order to get a job done. i made sure she saw me shake my head, and hopefully she knows it was not because i felt sorry for her darling friend but because she was being absolutely ridiculous. my last day of work is tomorrow, and it's going to be really hard to keep my attitude in check knowing i'm not going to have to deal with any repurcussions of what i say to these self-centered wrinkle-bags cuz i'm gonna be in new york in a few short days.
and yeah, i don't like the bipolar word either. it makes me think of magnets, like you could make a compass out of a manic depressive. so, if you don't mind me asking, and it's totally okay if you do, what kinds of meds did they put you on? are you getting counseling too? just so you know, i am really opposed to the direction that the mental health profession is going in today- medicate first, ask questions later. for manic depressives, medication is important, but few doctors let patients know that counseling can be just as important. and how they treat people these days; if a close firend or family member dies, you can go to your physician (and never once see a mental health practitioner) and get yourself a script of prozac or some other drug. what people don't realize is that ssri's don't make you happy, they flatten out all emotion. so you get on this drug for a year for some kind of grief, and then when you get off, you haven't dealt with the issue at all or even worked to put it behind you. you've just put it off for a year. see- i'm prone to ranting too.
so i'm leaving in six days. i still have to pack and get my cat spayed and get her some kitty tranqs so she enjoys the trip. i don't think the turkey made her sick, but the next day she went into heat for the first time (which bewildered me until i called my sister and found out that that was the reason for her weird behavior) so maybe the turkey was a little too good!

My first mania was in 93, so I was on lithium from 93 until this year, when I had to get off it, because it was messing up my thyroid gland. We switched to Zyprexa, which seems to work better to control the manias, but also has more side effects I don't like. The Zyprexa makes me spacey, and makes it hard to concentrate and to read. I have gradually gotten more used to it. Also, I have been on a low dose of Prozac since 94. It has been a wonderful drug for me. I haven't noticed any flattening of emotions from it, it just makes me feel normal, which is a huge relief.

I have a shrink that oversees the meds, he's a really nice guy. And I have a therapist, Linda, whom I just adore. She and I met when I was first hospitalized in 93, and we really hit it off. Don't know what I would do without her.

There are some anecdotes you might enjoy that have to do with my mania on another thread. I'll go get the post number, and you can check it out if you have time.

Sounds like you were oh-so-ready to get out of the rug business. LOL I bet you're just so excited about New York. Have a safe move.

The other thread I mentioned is "howdy from Ellen" and the post of interest is number 34. See ya later.

Hey, Lord of the Rings was great! It was scary though! I'm going to have nightmares about ringriders and nasty orcs! You have to see it! The special effects were awesome, especially the way they made the Hobbits look small. It seemed very faithful to the books; have you read them? I've read bits and pieces of them. The only bad thing about the flick is that we have to wait a year for the sequel. I realize of course you are moving and thus not likely to be seeing movies about now, but I thought I would mention it while I'm still excited. Nasty orc >>> (I'm having a hard time writing this, my cat is attacking me. She thinks the computer mouse is a real one.)

finally, i'm back online!!! we got here on the 21st. i think it's the 29th now, but i really haven't gotten back with what day it is an all, what with being on the road for three days and then having the holidays come and go like the friggin blitzkreig. but now theyre over and i'm starting to put together a life that may, in time, resemble my old life. it's really difficult moving from my house, which was all mine (and ryan's, but really mine as far as i'm concerned) to being here and living with ryan's parents and his little sister. we're actually in the room that ryan grew up in. it's pretty wierd, but different is good, right. i was getting pretty tired of the same old thing anyway. his parents are great, the whole family is, except that ryan and his sister still fight like theyre 12 and 14, instead of 22 and 20. but i just think it's funny. oh, and i saw the lord of the rings- no cross country trip would keep me from seeing that! i read the books. they did a realy good job and were really really faithful to the way it was written. i liked it a lot. i was surprised that i hadn't heard anything about how abrupt the ending is. but the books aren't like that and i'm not too upset cuz i read the books and i know what happens. hehehe. well, i'm gonna go add to my journal now, mainly about what's making me homesick and what i really don't miss. and then i'm gonna finish unpacking. and then i'm gonna sleep cuz i've been really sick for the past three or so days and the only thing i get really excited about is being unconscoius. my nose hurts.

Hooray, you made it! I really liked Rings too, I wanna go see it again soon. Hope you get feeling better soon. I'm not surprised you're sick, moving is a strain.

hey. so now i'm all set up and will be online on a somewhat regular basis. so how was your christmas? mine was pretty nice. ryan bought me a lot of little kid toys, which was noce because i was away from my family and a little depressed but could occupy myself with my archery set or my ninja toys and stuff. he somehow knew that that was exactly what i needed. so i hear the south is gatting a cold snap. has it snowed in tennessee? wel, i gotta go now. i really did add to my journal so you can read it if you get the time. it was my first journal entry from the big N.Y. i plan to add more. jope you're having a good 2002!!!!!

p.s. have you seen amorres perros (i probably spelled it wrong)? it is a mexican film that centers around dogs. it's intense and somewhat depressing, but a good film. it's what they call 'cinema', and have you seen requiem for a dream? it's another one of those intense but really good films.

We had a nice Christmas, with two big parties and lots of yummy food. I got a cool cat necklace, and a Yellow Submarine DVD. Yellow Sub looks GREAT on DVD - so colorful. The tree was especially pretty this year. My Mom found some colorful paper ornaments I made years ago, and that I had actually forgotten about.

Two funny stories to tell, both about Allie Mae, she was our maid when I was a baby, and she helped raise me and all my siblings. (Six of us all together) Anyway, she was at our Christmas party and I had braced myself, because she always tells me I'm fat. But this year she didn't say anything. I kept waiting for her to make a comment about all the cookies I was eating, but she said nothing. Well, here's the kicker, I found out that my sister had warned her severely to stop telling people they were fat at the Christmas party. LOL I find that wildly funny, I'm not sure why. The other thing that happened is that Allie Mae accidently wore my neice's new coat home. She hadn't worn a coat, apparently, and my sister when she was handing out coats to guests just thought it was hers! And Allie Mae never said it wasn't, that's the funny part.

I'm taking an online class about Lord of the Rings, and I've been reading furiously, trying to catch up with my classmates. I just finished The Hobbit, and am about to start Fellowship.

I haven't seen either of the movies you mentioned. But speaking of intense movies, I saw Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. It's really powerful. Best flick I've seen about mental illness, very true to life. I'll be interested to see how it does at the Golden Globe awards, they're just around the corner. Crowe may well win best actor at the Oscars again. That would be something! But he has some stiff competition from Will Smith as Ali.

Later Gator.

No snow here so far. It's been quite mild.

I have a silly joke for you: Two peanuts were walking down the road. One was a salted.

I really enjoyed the Golden Globes. Did you see them? I've always thought the Globes were more fair than the Oscars, because they have seperate categories for comedies/musicals.

Hey Maggaroux, hope all is well with you. Haven't heard from you in a while. It's snowing here in Memphis, and it's really lovely.