Couch 212: The French Vanilla couch

We learn so much here! Plus those suckers are - well, they have a face only a mother cane toad could love!

I went hiking this morning in Tanque Verde Canyon, not far from my house. It's such a beautiful day here in the desert! Perfect hiking weather. We hiked down to the bottom. Coming back up was quite a workout! Whew! Here's a few pics:

Almost done with this ICU shift—only an hour and 45 minutes until the night shift shows up to take over.

Now i cant wait to see your paintings of these places! Do these look different from your earlier photos, or is it just me?

have I mentioned I'm exhausted? My chronic illness means my batteries just run out some days and I'm done, happened yesterday and today. All I want to do is curl up and sleep yet I am forced to engage in society and then asked why I am grumpy. Beceause my arm doesn't work or my leg and yet I have to smile and pretend to be fine while dying inside. UGH hopefully tomorrow is better

I was going to meal prep but OH will want me to watch something on TV and honestly I don't have the strenth for both. I barely have the energy for one.

Unexpected benefit of job search: need to cancel Info this week.

If you all want, I can rerun an old Info fashion report (Info's Greatest Hits) because I won't see her again for two more weeks, and I know you all are fans.

I can't paint real things haha my talent seems to lie in the abstract!

Hopefully these pics are better, I have a friend who's a professional photographer and his work has been inspiring me to take a little more time with my photos.

Then! I love the little reflecting pool in the center of the 5th picture, and the lively splash of water. And the yellow wildflowers form a picture. Its like, you used to take pictures like a report "i wuz here"; now youre showing us these specific things that you see.

Thanks! That's my photographer friend's influence. I took a bunch of shots of that 'lively splash of water' (so poetic!) before I got this one; the longer I looked at it the more I really saw it or something and finally captured how it made me feel. Or something. I'm not explaining myself too well tonight haha

eta: for example in the 5th picture I was rather entranced by the striping in that one rock out in the middle of the water.

Oh, i meant 5th. The shadow in the water just to the left of your rock. And the way your rock reflects in the water is amazing.

But yeah, you really captured the lively!

Are there photography classes at your college?

No they are not native and have no predators in my country though crows from up north have discovered they can eat them if the flip them on their backs and eat the bellys its taken a while but the crow net work has passed this info along around the coutry. The toads eat everything they come across i have seen them eat a firecracker.

Ugh. I think part of the circling around, peeling away the layers of this marriage is that when I get to a new point of separation, new things surface. I was in the shower earlier when all of a sudden a memory of something the ex said to me popped into my head as clearly as though he were in the room saying it. I ended up sitting on the floor of the shower trying to breathe.

Still happy though.

I never have to hear that again.

I hope you can say no to further meet ups. You might disappoint people, but you can't come if you're not well mentally too.

You're allowed to not have to watch the same stuff together. Give him a heads up that you need to rest and do it.

It makes sense to me.

Two weeks to go until my writing course. It's a life writing course, and I'm going to take the opportunity to write about my experience.
Unfortunately, it means that I will miss a session with R in the middle of it all.

I'm getting better at reaching out to her when I need to, but this time I'm worried I won't find the words.

Would it be weird to ask her to send a quick check-in email midweek, so all I have to do is reply?

I don't know, I should check into that! I'm always selecting "online" when I search classes that would be a fun one to take over the summer. I'm going to look now while I'm on my morning break.

Oh boy. Last night I dreamt about the "funny" story the ex used to tell about when we got into an argument and our Saudi exchange student told me he should hit me when I was a bad wife. Hahahahahaha. And how he couldn't hit me because I would call the police and he'd go to jail. Hahahahahaha. And when I objected, he insisted that it was perfectly fine to tell the story to people because it was true.

Still happy. I don't have to listen to that one either. To be fair, as he began to stabilize he stopped telling it. But I suspect he stopped because I told him to tell it any more, not because he truly understands how very very many things are wrong with that story.

Thanks Couchies, for "listening." It helps having a place to dump this stuff before I put on my people face and go to work.

I hope you enjoy it--I don't like writing memoir at all, so kudos.

(I just let my neuroses spill out in fiction instead. I seem to have a predilection for deeply unhappy and disappointed male characters.)

You see, I can't write fiction unless things are going well for me. It's the inverse of that Leonard Cohen quote.

'If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.'

For me, when my life is burning well, fiction is the ash.
I write poetry to help cope with the bad, bad burning.

Oh thats interesting. And so is Info a kind of pollyanna alter-ego, always in search of the holy grail? The, uh, great white whale? It'll come to me...

I joined a gym. This is a huge step for me. An even bigger step will be actually going to the gym. I'm only going on the days my therapist works for now, until I confirm whether she belongs to the same gym or not, because I want to work that out ahead of time and not just wing it. I don't intend to use the locker room or the showers...I'll do that at home... but I'm still haunted by someone's therapist saying hi while nekkid (I think it was @@'a T?). Ack.

I'm on sabbatical and bored, frankly, or I wouldn't be able to manage going to the gym. We'll see if i can maintain once i start back full time in the fall.

I am still trying to forget. I managed not to see anything except the C-section scar.

Don’t think that hasn’t occurred to me. Especially when she tells me I should write stories with happy endings.

Also the dressing sexxxy.

I'm depressed today. And thinking of the hospital. Bleh. See Pastor T tonight. I'm not sure I'm up for it but I didn't see him last week as he was sick so....I guess I shall go tonight.

I corrected my boss in a meeting this morning. Might not have been the best move. Whoops. But he was mis-stating financials. Um, that's my department. So I went to his boss and told him what happened and he was like, "You're fine. You were right, he was wrong." But still, probably shouldn't have done it in front of everyone. Exit foot from mouth.

Ha! I asked both of my therapists whether they belong to my gym. I don't really care if they see me naked, but the idea of seeing either of them naked would probably require me to recruit a third therapist to process my shock and dismay. Main T is not even allowed to leave her office, much less have a fully functioning human body...