never forgotten

photo with permission of Kenton Elliot

I Spy with My Little Eye...

SPRING!!!

Red tulips will be dotting my desolate garden bed in just a few more warm days.

"Pulling a Clavin"

Hello, my name is nina and I am a pseudo-know-it-all. It has been almost 2 hours since I last pulled a Clavin. I am already seeking my next Clavin when my partner returns home from work. I am armed with the condensed version of rigor mortis and will force her to sit, over dinner or perhaps a rerun of House, and act intensely interested.

I.CANT.STOP.MYSELF


It started innocently enough, I made the decision to go back to school, then friends and family began to encourage me, plying me with various and sundry stationery items. I got my first taste of Clavinism when I presented my first paper in Ethics class. By the time I left my General Ed behind I was shamelessly telling anecdotal stories about the previous presenter's topic on my way to the podium.

It has spread to my blog, message boards and even facebook has not escaped my sickness. I don't know if there is any help for me. I am destined to become an old boorish woman.

Alligation Alternative

I think I am slinking into Pharmaceutical Geekdom.

Its that Time of Year Again

Odd orange lawn circles are appearing in my yard. UFO? No, FGP. (femme with gardening plans) It beckons with the promise of a beautiful blooming paradise. Soon, a butch carrying a shovel and a very good nature will appear. A femme, bringing up the rear, huffing peat moss and flipping through mail order bulb catalogs.

Sudden spring,
small and shy,
peeking out of it's winter clothing.
Fickle with her promise,
I believe her anyway.

Mnemonics

As I head into my second set of 60 Brand/Generic drugs I am learning that besides flash cards, we students are using very inventive ways to remember drug names. I have my own personal set of mnemonics. For instance, Seroquel is Quetipine. I had a friend who was taking Seroquel and she said it helped her stay calm and quiet. So I think of my friend slumbering quietly in the pine trees. lopressor/toprol is Metroprolol which sounds in my head as Metro LOL!

Its fun to hear what other people use to help themselves remember but mostly I try not to listen to their explanations too closely because it will mess with my own pharmaceutical Ch'i. For instance, my table mate began to tell me how she remembered one drug as "a firefighter named jose works in the heat". Half way through that explanation I wanted to stand with my hands over my ears and scream "la la la la la la! I'm not listening to my table mate!", instead I just zoned out the way a mother of four children learns to do to save her sanity. I smiled politely though and she never suspected a thing. However, from across the room a student adds that she has the sure fire way to remember Viagra's generic name. "Slide in and fill!" she says. Dear sweet jesus, I reeeeeally didn't need that visual. But by God, I bet I will remember sildenafil for the rest of my life.

Bath Night

Since Gina and I began our life together, we established Wednesday as our bath night. Regardless of what else is going on that night, we set aside a few hours to draw a hot bath, lace it with bubbles, light a few candles and quiet ourselves. Its a haven. A constant. It keeps us physically connected and deepens our level of intimacy. To spend time washing your woman's back, listening to her sigh with pleasure at the simple act of washing her hair and to be on the receiving end of same is such a wonderful, basic way to caretake.

We have spent time laughing and talking, crying and love making. We have yet to play Battleship although I did buy Gina the game and expect it will happen soon. I highly recommend taking a bath with the one you love.

I recommend this for the bubbles:
Now go forth and bathe with the one you love!

There is Always a Reason to Take Meds

or Better Living Through Chemicals

Panexa

thus is part 3 of everything you wanted to know about pharmaceuticals but didn't know who to ask.

pt one
pt two

thanks GG!

Ennui

I am bored and restless and lacking anything the least bit interesting to say so I thought I would share a few random pictures.



Red sky at night.


Our Yorkie Satchie


Our other Yorkie "Who's yer Daddy" Dexter




Wild life in the living room



My three favorite girls



and a neked woman...

Everything You Wanted to Know... pt 2

Antidepressants are a wonderful thing. Antidepressants have saved my life, over and over and over... One could say I am pro-antidepressant or an anti-depressionist. I say that with a clear conscience even though I battled my way through withdrawl from the devil himself last summer.

They all have their side effects. Tricyclics are extremely sedating. I was put on Amitriptyline during my first bout of postpartum depression in '92. I remember feeling like my brain was freezing over every night. Every day I would walk like I had weights on my ankles. But the side effects lessened with time and I pulled out of the dark place.

Then there are SSRI's. (The devil being one of them) I currently take paroextine (Paxil) . It was supposed to help me sleep and manage the panic attacks I get in the middle of the night. My sleep still sucks but the PA's are better. I have heard rumors though that brain zaps are in my future if I choose to discontinue. Yay!

Then there are the MAOI's. I have an issue with MAOI's. They react badly with foods containing tyramine. Reactions like hypertension, profuse sweating, pallor, palpitations and.... occasional death. DEATH? Yep.

Now you may say,

"Well that's easy to avoid."

But I have to ask you, do you know what foods have tyramine in it? A partial list includes:

imported beer, Chianti, vermouth, and whiskey. And don't think going non-alcoholic is an option. Yes folks, non-alcohol beer and wines may contain tyramine. (Anon, 1989; Stockley, 1993). Lets see, back to the list...

aged cheese and banana peels. Now I doubt giving up banana peels would be difficult for most people but to tell you the truth, if I had to give up cheese I would be more depressed than what I was before the MAOI was prescribed. If you add bologna, salami, pepperoni and sausage, well I might as well jump off a bridge.

Brewer's Yeast. Gina just introduced me to this treat. I guess Gina and I would have separate popcorn buckets.

Ginseng. There goes my sex drive.

Anything that is pickled, including... pickles.

Liver is a no-no.

Broad bean pods (Fava beans). It would be a good bet, me thinks, to say that prescribing MAOI's to Hannibal Lector would be contraindicated.

There you have it blog friends, everything you ever wanted to know about antidepressants but didn't know who to ask.

EYWtK part one: here

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

I am fascinated/haunted by the definition of Self Actualization. I equate SA to "know thy self". Being the best you can be. My professor used the Dalai Lama as an example of someone who has reached SA. But I am unsure about the way one reaches it. Does reaching SA involve trials and mistakes one must go through in order to learn to accept personal responsibility and eventual self forgiveness and reconciliation for all your fuck ups? One can "know thy self" and not be happy about it. It seems its easier to get others to forgive us than it is to forgive ourselves.

Or am I on the wrong track? Perhaps it has nothing to do with growing into a better person through mistakes, forgiveness and reconciliation of oneself. If the Dalai Lama is an example of a self actualized person then perhaps a flake like me, no matter my trials and possible resolution, will never be self actualized. That is not to say that the Dalai Lama has not faced trials, being taken from one's family at the age of 3, being exiled from one's own country and uninvited to the Special Olympics is not nothin'. But he was BORN the Dalai Lama for pete's sake. I was born ready to make the least of my possibilities.

In later years, Maslow revealed that there was another level in his theory, Self Transcendence. "Transcenders" are said to be much more aware of the realm of "Being", to be living at the level of Being, to have unitive consciousness and “plateau experiences” (serene and contemplative cognitions rather than climactic ones) … and to have or to have had peak experience (mystic, sacral, ecstatic) with illuminations or insights. Analysis of reality or cognitions which changed their view of the world and of themselves, perhaps occasionally, perhaps as a usual thing.

Yeah right... I'm not even going to try to go there.

I just want to be self actualized. I imagine it a fine place to be. No ghosts or self recriminations. Perhaps there is melancholia but it is soft and sweet and full of understanding. There is strength and bravery. Compassion and hope. Creativity and humor.

I want to be self actualized. I want to forgive myself before I die. I don't want to be perfect but rather comfortable in my imperfection. Graceful.

I am weary of the screaming crazy lady in my head.

Josie's Cabin and My Father's Fireplace

First let me tell you that I am crazy about my Dad. He has an affinity for story telling. I could listen to him talk about his life all day and never be bored.

My dad grew up in Vernal, Utah. When I was little, I remember asking him if he was alive when all the dinosaurs were there. Now that I am older what really interests me is that he was alive when the likes of Butch Cassidy was around and personally knew a woman who reportedly was more than friendly with Mr. Cassidy. Josie Bassett Morris. Here is the story as given to me by my father. (thanks dad)

*I have also inserted pieces of a personal interview done by Kerry Ross Boren and some pictures of Josie as well as some of mine I took while visiting my dad "on the mountain" a few years ago when he took me to see his fireplace in person.

I was asked by my daughter to relate an experience I had some sixty years ago with a notorious lady named Josie Morris.

She was raised in the Browns Park Area in North Eastern Utah. Her name then was Josie Basset and the Basset family had close associations with the outlaws such as Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid, and others of that era. Many ranchers in the remote sections of the country gave comfort and safety to wanted men. The outlaws often helped the ranchers in return for good home cooked meals and shelter. Such was the Basset Family.

Josie recalled that she was fifteen or sixteen when she first met Butch Cassidy (he was known as George Cassidy at that time). Butch rode Charley Crouse's champion bay mare to victory at the Beaver Creek races, and Josie was impressed.

I thought he was the most dashing and handsome man I had ever seen. I was such a young thing, and giddy as most teenagers are, and I looked upon Butch as my knight in shining armor. But he was more interested in his horse that he was in me, and I remember being very put out by that. I went home after being snubbed by him and stamped my foot on the floor in frustration. My mother said, 'For goodness sakes, Josie, whatever are you doing?' I just blushed and said, 'Ants.'"

In later years, Butch spent a great deal of time around the Bassett Ranch, and at herb's library, which, together with the post office, was kept in building apart from the ranch house. During these years, Butch and Josie were lovers. She was reluctant to admit this fact at first, but neither did she deny it.

"After one of Butch's rich uncles died (i.e., following a bank or train robbery), he was being pursued, and we put him up, hiding him in the hay loft. He used to say, 'Josie, I'm lonely up here. Come out and keep me company...' He asked me to go get him one of my father's books to read, because he was bored. I told him he couldn't read it, because it was dark, and it was too dangerous to light a lantern. He said, 'What am I going to do to keep from being bored?' Well, all I can say is, I didn't let him get bored..."

After her husband died, she lived alone in a little log cabin for the rest of her life.

Certain witnesses testified that Josie and her husband had been arguing heavily on the night in question. Josie readily admitted it, saying that "Wells" had become drunk and she had argued with him about going to bed. She had seen the brown bottle, she said, but had assumed it was medicine he was taking for his recent illness. Whether it was because of her brace of arms, or for some other reason, Josie was acquitted. I was brazen enough to ask Josie whether she had placed the poison in Wells's coffee. She responded with a wry grin:

"I drove my first husband, Jim McKnight, out of the house at the point of a gun and told him never to come back. Let's just say that some men are harder to get rid of than others."

It wasn't an easy life. Raising her own garden, milking her own cow, tending the other animals for food. For many years her only heat was a wood cook stove. She decided she would like a fireplace and that's when I entered the story. I'm guessing the year was 1959. That would make me 16 years old. My father owned a hardware store and he was a very generous man. Josie came to him wanting credit for the building materials for the fireplace.

Now Josie was a dual personality lady. She was very tough from the hard life she had lived. Many who knew her had claimed she could use language that would shame the men. Yet when she wanted something, she could sweet talk the same men out of their last dollar. And so she did with my father. Knowing full well he may never see a dollar from her, he gave her the material and told me to load it on the truck and deliver it to Josie.

I loaded the bricks, the blocks and the liner for the chimney, the fire place liner and the bags of mortar. Every thing to build her fireplace with. When I arrived, she met me with the most gracious greeting and praised me for driving that big truck down a very narrow and dangerous road. Being only 16 years old and being sweet talked by what i knew as an outlaw lady, I came away feeling a bit special. For a moment I forgot all the stories I had heard about how she rustled cattle from nearby ranchers.

Lastly, I spoke to Josie about a famous trial for cattle rustling, after she homesteaded at Jensen. Neighboring ranchers, discovering some of their cattle missing, searched the willows along the river bottoms where they discovered a buried cache of hides on Josie's property. Charges were brought against her, and she came to trial.

"I put on a frilly print dress, and sensible shoes, and had my hair done in a domestic rool on the top of my head. I looked like a petite little middle-aged housewife as I stood before the judge. Putting on my best serious face, I said to him, 'Your Honor, do you seriously believe that a little old lady weighing only 100 pounds could kill and butcher out even one beef cow by herself, let alone a dozen or more? If you can believe that, then I guess you will have to find me guilty.'"

Josie was exonerated.

Once one rancher bought a lot of cedar fence posts to build fences with and when they came in the spring to get them, they found she had burned then in her new fireplace. She was never arrested for any of her dealings. What can you do to a little old lady? She never had any money and no one wanted to see her in jail.

Now long after her death, she is celebrated in Vernal's Outlaw Days. They have Josie Morris Day. Her cabin is now a historical monument.

I enjoy telling this story every chance I get. I told the guard at the entrance that I was going to visit my fireplace. When she questioned me I told her that the fireplace was never paid for and I inherited the debt from my father. The guard worriedly told me that I just couldn't "take it". To which I replied, "I don't want to repossess it. I just want you to know who owns it."

-Lewis LeOwn Timothy-

Happy Anniversary Honey!

It was pointed out to me (shame on me) that today is the one year mark that Gina and I met each other face to face. I went back in blog time and found this little haiku I wrote:

Life's little surprise
Love and desire
born of tea and sympathy

~nina~







Thank you honey for the year you gave me. Thank you for the year to come. I love you.

Just Dabbling With My Art Again

Coming to an Artomat near you...

A friend of mine had a psychological breakdown last year. They put her in a lock-up mental health facility. I visited her every day and every day the guard would make me wear a "visitor" tag. I would sit with her and we would talk. We would talk about her therapy, we would talk about her concerns, and sometimes we would just watch people in the visitor room trying to guess who was more crazy than she was. I went home one evening and wrote down everything that might have put me in her place had I been the one to snap. I came to realize the only difference between my friend and me was the "visitor" tag I was allowed to take off when I walked out the door. I think there are many of us who share that very small difference.

and here I thought I was happy...

NOPE!

Its just serotonin...



5-hydroxytryptamine/H-5T

Serotonin is also found in mushrooms, fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, it doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier so ingesting a big honkin' salad will not affect our serotonin levels.

The drug LSD and mescaline mimic the action of serotonin primarily at 5-HT2A receptor. MDMA (ecstasy) releases serotonin from synaptic vesicles of neurons. So, turn on, tune in and drop your antidepressants!

Serotonin can be found in insects, toad venom and Brazilian Wandering spiders. And it is a trigger for swarm behavior in locusts and possibly Monday Night Football fanatics.

All you, dear blog reader, wanted to know about serotonin but didn't know who to ask.

Happy Sunday

AA shared this video with me and I wanted to share it with you. The first time I saw it, ToD came to mind. Thinking of her as she makes her way to work in the cold.

What do you imagine her hair smells like? Not ToD, the redhead? I keep getting a little lavendar/vanilla and really expensive hair product, yummy!

Come to think of it ToD, what does your hair smell like? I hugged you two years ago and I forgot to sniff!