I am home alone and I have figured how to use Private Browsing on Internet Explorer, my bff's only browser, so I am logging on for a sec.

-- I had the easiest flight ever. I took Zyprexa on the plane and was sleeping for a few hours then waking up for a bit and then going back to sleep. Time literally flew. I had in the past always felt stir crazy on long flights but this time I did not, not at all! It is probably an uncommon way to use Zyprexa but boy am I glad that I decided to try it. Much recommended.

-- I am staying with my bff, her H and her son and daughter. I first stayed with D. but he cannot NOT smoke in his small apartment and I got a migraine that required two applications of Imitex (two is max in a 24 hour period) and second hand smoke is a typical migraine trigger. So I decided that I will go live with my bff who has a smoke-free household. Now I know why I had so many migraines as a kid - my father smoked in the apartment (he is a chain-smoker). D. was upset but I did not want to endure it and he is afraid to go outside for a smoke because he thinks that he would get a cold. My former teacher and bff both tried to tell me that he really cannot abstain, but it is hard for me to imagine that because I do not have any first hand experience with chemical dependency.

-- Bff's children are delightful and she is constantly unhappy with them. More on it later.

-- I wanted to be a helpful guest so I cooked soup and did the dishes and the kids liked the soup and the next soup I will make having polled the little girl on her preferences is split pea.

-- Almost right away I got a bug, something viral, after being completely fine in California for well over a year. Maybe some new local viruses attacked me and my immune system was not prepared. It is not too bad during the day but the congestion makes it really difficult to sleep at night, so Amitriptyline stopped working for sleep and I have to take up to 15 mg Zyprexa to make my brain go to sleep despite breathing difficulties

-- I got over the jet lag faster than before, also thanks to being able to force sleep on the local schedule by taking 10 mg Zyprexa.

-- I am still off Geodon with no hallucinations, no mania, no nothing, but this can hardly be my achievement because after taking so much Zyprexa, anyone would be expected to be free of psychosis - it is stronger than Geodon. So basically I have not had a chance to really see how I manage on Lithium alone.

-- People here are really weird with respect to distances. D. was trying to explain how to use buses to go from his place to the subway station. In the end he said that the station is three stops away. I went "really, and you take a bus for such a short distance?" - I walked it and was where I needed to be in no time flat. Then, bff's apartment is farther from her subway station but still I walked and she NEVER has walked. I understand that it is too far a walk for when she is with the children but she has never walked alone (her husband has). I think things must have changed because I remember growing up here I, with my mother, often walked instead of waiting for a bus.

-- Tonight I will go see a comedy play, if I am lucky enough to get tickets - the box office has no more tickets but bff says if I come half an hour earlier they will seat me somehow.

-- I had to do something at the local branch of my bank here - something that cannot be done online - and I completed it yesterday so I am productive despite the cold. But still, the cold is so annoying, especially at night.

-- I have piercing back pain below my left shoulder - that is an indirect consequence of taking Topamax. I used to have this pain a lot, then I started standing at work and eliminated almost all sitting and the pain completely and miraculously went away - without massage or physical therapy or medications. Then I started Topamax, became dizzy, resumed sitting at my desk and after a month of sitting here it goes - my pain is back. I am not at all looking forward to relearning how to stand at work but I will have to bite the bullet because I do not like pain.

-- If I get better I will go see my former teacher tomorrow and will visit the cemetery where my mom and other relatives were buried. I will also visit two close gfs, one of whom I have known since adolescence and the other, all the way since elementary school. And, D. and I will go to a still life art exhibition.

-- I must admit that I was relieved when I decided to stay with bff, and I know why - not just because bff has no tobacco smoke in her apartment. D. lives with his elderly mom, and it was depressing to me to see her. She must have been a cheerful woman, an artist, in the past - her paintings, mostly still life and landscapes, are everywhere in the apartment and they are quite wonderful and cheerful. She no longer paints. I noticed hand tremor which happens at her age. He is upset that she does not attempt painting. I said that perhaps she cannot hold the brush - you need a steady hand for painting and tremor does not allow it. He responded with "that, too, but she also is no longer able to paint due to cognitive deficiencies - you have to think through a plan of painting each picture, you have to use your brain to decide how to mix paints, and she is no longer able to do that". So when he is not with her in her room, she is alone on her bed and the TV is always on and she often falls asleep. I do not know what exactly was so depressing. Maybe my realization that when I am her age (which will likely happen because I have taken care of the suicide risk and absent that, I have a long lifespan before me because all my grandparents and greatgrandparents lived a long life), none of my children would treat me the way D. treats his mother - and what he does is really heroic. Maybe it was depressing because witnessing decline is just depressing per se. Maybe it was depressing because I saw that he does not touch her on a daily basis - he feeds her, bathes her, manages all her medications and gives the medications to her, but he does it without touch, except for bathing. When he works, she is alone all day long with the TV on. I do not think I would want to live like that - if I am unable to care for myself, I would prefer to live in an assisted living facility with some activities during and just plainly other people around me, but for that I need to be saving money and I cannot. So maybe that depressed me... at any rate, bff's angelic looking 4 year old daughter (blonde locks, blue eyes, full red lips) who complimented my cooking is a much more cheerful and uplifting companion than the old woman. I sort of feel bad because it is almost as if I had fled the gloomy reality of old age in favor of bright optimistic kids and am ashamed of myself. Am I making sense with all that?