Let's Talk

We need to talk.

I haven't posted for a very long time. Part of this is because I don't know how much 'me' I should talk about. I know many interesting people, but I am not certain that I am interesting enough to hold your interest.

Today: Fuck that. I'm talking about me.

I have the usual spells of depression, of course, and I have also taken on the responsibility for maintaining the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of Sisters in Crime's website. Then, there's the Strangely Funny series and the Three Snowbirds series I write with Gwen Mayo.

Plus, I work a job where I have a low hourly rate of pay, but get an incentive bonus based on how much I produce compared with the rest of my team. So, overtime.

Let's move on to the stellar disruption I'm dealing with now. My mother has suffered from moderate vascular dementia for the last couple of years. The way in which this differs from Alzheimer's Disease: portions of the brain are deprived of blood flow, and they die, creating the dementia. It is not a smooth gradual process, but stair steps into the basement. A 'new normal' happens each time.

In June, Mother took a steep step down. 

She does not know where she is. We can tell her, but that information doesn't really compute any more. She was calling the police in the middle of the night, saying she was lost. My wife and I have not lived with her since 2014 for Reasons I Will Not Go Into, but her actions made it impossible for us to cohabitate with her. That, and there is not enough Paxil in the world to help me deal with it.

The caretaking service had someone in the house for an 8 hour shift each day. She needed more care than that, and we (me, my spouse, and my POA sibling) soon realized she needed 24/7 care. The service said they could provide that for circa $19K a month (they pay their employees about half of what they charge, which is fucking criminal). None of us (including my mother) could afford that. 

After visiting several memory care units, we chose one and moved her there. It's not cheap, but is much more affordable than in-house care. It is near where we live, and my wife and I visit her on a daily basis. This is important for several reasons: 1) Even though she forgets we came, it does help keep her calmer, 2) The facility knows we are paying attention to her care, and 3) At some point, she will be gone and this is the time I have left with her.

Mother calls multiple times a day with the help of the staff at the facility. She claims that she doesn't live there and has never spent a night there (she's lived there since July), and wants to go home. Unfortunately, she didn't recognize her house when she was in it. We need to sell the house to pay for her care.

So, my brain space and time are more tied up than ever before, and the only thing I've thought about posting in a while is what I've said here. 

Personal Archetypes, 30+ Years Later

Public Domain, Link

Something you may not know about me is that I have a side interest in personal mythology. It goes way back, as in at least thirty years... probably more, since I was interested the moment I heard the term. I say thirty, though, because that's when I took an archetype quiz from Awakening the Heroes Within.

At that time, my strongest trait was Seeker. Some of the archetypes are set at specific ages, most notably Innocent and Orphan, the childlike archetypes.

When I first took the quiz, I was Orphan --> Seeker, with an undercurrent of Caregiver. I know that last is hard to believe, but the alternatives were Lover and Warrior.

Recently, I've been listening to K.M. Weiland's series on using character archetypes in writing. She refers to Pearson's work frequently, and I dug my copy out. I got it in 1991, and now it is 2021. I retook the test, with some surprises.

Still an Orphan - duh. I'm a pessimist who had bad experiences with other kids. Still strong with the Seeker archetype, but Caregiver dropped into the basement.

My strongest archetype now is the Destroyer. This the one where the Heroine confronts Death and must resolve her emotions towards Death. It's also an archetype that appears when a person has suffered great loss. Gave up job and house to move in with dying parent - check. Driven out later by other parent, check. Downsized, check. Bitter AF, double check. Okay, I'm a Destroyer. Where are my superpowers, other than overwhelming bitterness?

The book advises I think about my own death as an exercise. I spoke to my spouse about it, but she asked me to please not do that during our anniversary visit to Daytona. That's what I get for bringing a book to the car.

Other archetypes are also developing, though: the Creator, the Magician, and the Sage, now of equal rank to the Seeker. The Sage is similar to the Seeker in many ways, but has traveled further down the path. I hope this means that the Destroyer phase will end. If I can't smite my enemies into oblivion, what good is it?

Unhappy Anniversaries

Everyone knows about 9/11/01. Everyone wants to remind us of 9/11/12 today, too, although they seem more interested in talking about Hillary Clinton than honoring the dead.

9/11/12 is also the day my father died. Here we are in Homosassa, Florida. My father liked this restaurant because he could watch the water and the cavorting monkeys on the little island nearby. There were so many little pleasures he found in life.

Seven years later, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop--my mother's health is fading. I think a lot about death and dying these days. Despite his overflowing optimism, Dad had these thoughts, too. Starting in the 1990s, he mailed 'Open in the Event of My Death' envelopes to me, which he periodically updated. During his final illness, he had me open the most recent one so we could review the contents. He'd provided a list of people to notify, actions to take, and a personal message to the church congregation, which I read aloud at the memorial.

How I wish I had another envelope to prepare me now.

August

Ah, August. A time when my email boxes overflow... Strangely Funny submissions are pouring into the MAHLLC coffers, and my personal email has become a FEMA flood zone of politicians pleading for money. Volunteering is the gift that keeps on giving...
An update on the past few months:

• I began temping in a call center in April, mere days after posting how discouraged I felt. In July, the center hired me away from Randstad. I'm happy to be wanted, but I can't figure out why. My father was a great salesman of school textbooks, and all I picked up was a love of reading. This belligerent introvert is learning new skills.
• My ebullient sister-in-law is moving to Tampa Bay in the next few weeks. It will be good to have more family here, and I may develop a social life despite myself.
• Gwen and I have finished Murder at the Million Dollar Pier, the sequel to Murder on the Mullet Express. It's the second book in the Three Snowbirds series, and we'll be doing a cover reveal in the near future.

I'm glad that my life is coming back together. We'll see what these changes bring.

The Price of Fine Living

Not my mobile palace.

I mentioned some time back that we moved into a gated community with an HOA. Overall, it's a nice place, so I will not name it here. Unfortunately, it has appearance 'standards' we must maintain. This is a bit challenging, since we have enough trouble finding energy and time at home to maintain the interior (think dishes, laundry, etc.).

Anyway, we got one of the letters from the HOA. We need to clean the outside of our mobile palace. I suppose it's to be expected, since the people around us are very anal-retentive about their own properties, but I think it should be illegal to demand this sort of outside labor in Florida in late June.

So far, we have learned the following about cleaning the exterior of a mobile home:

1. Use a pressure washer. It's faster and more effective. Way more effective. I would use it to remove my freckles, but I think it would take the rest of the skin off, too.
2. Use something with bleach. Fuck the vegetation. If it worries you, remind yourself that it's going to get diluted fast when you turn the pressure washer on it.
3. Wear glasses or safety goggles. Also, be careful when edging a pathway with a pressure washer. There's blowback. Never mind how I know this.
4. Dawn works better at removing grime than laundry detergent does.
5. Your neighbors, the ones you thought were anal-retentive, will come and ask if you got a letter from the HOA, too.

The aftercare for this endeavor involves cortisone, Benadryl, and Advil. Lots of Advil. But at least we can see the original color of our awnings again.