Today is my "lay like broccoli" day. After 2 days of  lunches and dinners, I felt like I don't need to see people for the next 7 years. So today I didn't do anything except eat and read and sleep and eat and sleep. Tomorrow I will go jogging because I have another lunch to go to and then another lunch on Friday. My friends were starting to write me off as their enemy because I haven't agreed to meet with them since I got back. So I am meeting them one by one this week and next week---and then all the rest of the time until the day I leave will be solely for the redneck.

I am excited to see my friends back in the islands but ohmylanta just thinking about the flight time kills me. I wish I can just ride my broom and get there in Concorde speed or better yet, I wish I can just be sedated for the duration of the flight time and wake up in my bed in Cebu. Oh well, it could be worse, I could be walking on air.

God has granted me so much favor with people. Yesterday, out of the blue my former boss who has since retired called me and said that she found out I was in town, so she wants to arrange a dinner for me and my other former bosses from another company. Normally, I would try to get out of anything that requires me to have to socialize and do small talks, but this is different. My two other former bosses are busy running companies and yet they're taking the time to see me today. One even has to rearrange her schedule to make the date.

Here I am still sipping coffee at 10 a.m and just now realizing that I may be able to con one of them to give me a job. My ticket is booked to come back from the Philippines in November, but I always change booking anyway. I may come back sooner and work like a responsible adult, but then again, why? I don't need money, I have all the money I can spend in my lifetime. Assuming of course, my lifetime is until tomorrow.

Ok, time to count days again. Exactly 23 days and I get on that bus with wings again. I never liked the flying part of any trip, much more flying for more than an hour. It takes about 13.5 hours to Korea, then I get a 4 hour lay over--more than enough time to get Kimchi soup and a massage. Then another 4 hours flight to my island.

I don't know when I will stop flying --or "running" according to Chat.  But Chat is not complaining, in fact, she's very much aware that she's an enabler. I pay no rent, I eat her groceries and consume light and a/c and have free use of any of her vehicles. I need for this Lexapro to work so I can write again, because the only excuse I need for her to send me all over the world is just say: "I need to finish my book in....Germany or, I need to get out, I can't write here." It's been 7 days on Lexapro and I don't see any effect on my moods yet. I sleep good though, but my memory is still the same---I still can't remember why I have to wake up this morning.

I likened the redneck to Forest Gump (except he doesn't have the shrimp boats income) but this is not what endear me to him. What I love about him is that he knows me so well and accepts me and loves me as I am. Because of my restlessness and moodiness, he likens me to a spin top: "You're balanced only when you're spinning." He is right on target there.
At the beginning of the relationship, I warned him about my restlessness. "I don't leave people, I've never left a relationship, but you have to hold me with an open hand if you want to keep me." His answer was astounding: "Sweetie, I will let you fly like a kite, fly as far as you want away from me because I know you're like a homing pigeon."
A homing pigeon? "Yes" he said,  "birds that repeatedly found their way home even after travelling  long distances because they have an innate homing ability. And they generally returns to its nest and... mate." 

When he gave me a wink and emphasized the last word too much, I wasn't sure if it was a compliment or a command.

Ok, so I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription of Lexapro. I was ready and eager to take them little suckers, until the pharmacist said: "$335 dollars for a 90 day supply. Unless you have insurance."  I don't know, do I? My deceased husband left me with just enough annuity so I don't go hungry or without shelter and some medical coverage. But I've never really used the prescription side of the medical coverage because I didn't have to use it ---or maybe I did but I'm just too groggy to remember. I told the pharmacist, "then let me just have a 30 day supply, I can't afford this pill then."
I then went home and started ranting to myself about how expensive this brain pill is and there's no point taking it if only for 30 days.

I hate calling anybody, I even dread when I have to call my friends but out of curiosity I dialed the number at the back of my insurance card. "Oh yes ma'am, you have prescription benefits too and you should have your card for that." I do? She gave me my ID number and told me to go back to the pharmacy and get a refund. You bet I will.  "Ok, let's go ahead and fill the 90 day supply since that is what your doctor ordered. Total is 32.09" The pharmacist said it without any change in her facial expression, while I had to pick up my jaw from the floor. I went home and took the first half. (you're supposed to taper the dosage going in and going out) I told Chat I was feeling victorious over the big discount that I downed that sucker of a pill with a glass of wine. "Because that's what you do with an anti-depressant---down it with alcohol. That's what responsible adults would do, mom." Was Chat's sarcastic remark. Just so you know when you hear about the news of my death, you know what killed me----Chat's sarcastic remark.

When I pay someone to do something for me, I am normally the one who calls the shots. But not so with doctors. I just got back from my doctor's office and although I was able to convince him not to compress my breasts with concrete bookends (at least that's how a mammogram feels like) and stick some hose up my rear, I left his office second guessing myself: What if? But I am of the mindset that one can't live longer than what God has determined for one to have. We can live healthier but not longer, I'm saying.

I went to see my doctor to get him to prescribe me another round of anti-depressants. Yes. This time I will try to stay on it because I am sick of just coasting through life; I want to be able to look at the sun and describe it better than just saying it's a round thing the color of crème brulee'.
My doctor doesn't believe that I should take this meds for life but he told me that it takes 6-9 months for the brain to make a change, so "you need to discipline yourself and not quit it after a month or two. Then maybe, you'll be able to write again."  Well, just thinking that I am about to alter the chemical composition of my brain, makes me feel better already. Maybe I don't need to go buy the meds at all.

When I am sad or depressed about something, my default reaction is to isolate myself from people. With the death of my cat last week, I needed to be alone and away from everybody. The first 2 days, I stayed home and the redneck allowed me to have my space then as soon as I was ready to go out, we went to look for a hole in the wall kind of eating.

The food wasn't that great but it was edible enough.

My body needed grease more than ever. Loaded up on more grease on my way back to Dallas today.

This is one of those times when I just want to be left alone. One of the rare times when I don't want to wake up at all. My cat in Cebu has died yesterday. And one of the street boys was killed 2 days prior.

I don't watch "reality" shows on tv except for Duck Dynasty, and even that is flawed. My main complaint about television shows or movies  is that not only does it not make you intelligent, directors/producers think you're stupid. Or why would they show something like this: Couples in bed in the morning; comfortably sleeping while twisted around each other, wake up, look at each other with their googly eyes and kiss on the MOUTH? Who does that? Have you done that?

I sure haven't. And not planning to in my remaining senile years. I am very picky with my fluids, especially the ones that enters into any of my body opening. Come on, be serious now. Have you smelled someone's breath who's over the age of 3 months old? Oh well. I miss my single life and I'm not even married.....yet.

I've always wondered how it feels to have the experience of a "Marriage proposal" moment from someone you'd love to propose to you. Don't get me wrong, I don't want any of that bending the knee  nonsense in public. NO. But I'm talking about him gripping my shoulders,  pulling me close to him and gently looking me in the eye and asking: "How would you like to have my last name legally added to yours so you can have legal access to my millions." That kind, you know.

Why is it that I don't get those kind of men? Six years ago in a bus station in Malaysia, a Chinese guy who carries a British passport punctuated with a confused accent of the Brits and the Chinks asked me to marry him. He gave me all the reasons why we're right for each other. "After two weeks of knowing each other, you want to do that?" I asked. "Yes, so we can break the record of your second husband who married you after 7 days." I could not top the originality of that answer, but no, thanks.

The redneck says he "loves" me and  I doubt that I would be able to find anyone like him in my lifetime. ( I love the way them Southern boys love a woman, let's just put it that way. ) But when he said, "When you're ready, I want to marry you. You know I will marry you in a heartbeat" I wasn't sure if I wanted to cry over not getting the magical proposal (again) or feel relieved that I wasn't expected to answer his statement. But I said something anyway. "Well, here's how it is. I don't even do contracts with T-Mobile, I do the month to month thing because I don't want to sign any papers obligating me to anything. Unless it's the annuity papers from the Texas Lottery Commission."
"So would you marry me then when I get my first million?" Damn, he really wants to know. "Maybe your first 5 million I will." Now I wish I didn't make that promise because he said he buried some old collectible pennies in his backyard.

"You're always running." Chat says. Well, that's because someone's chasing me. I also run so I don't catch myself. Yesterday, I was happily watching the birds on the patio going through their bag of seeds like they paid for it,  when this sudden urge to "run" to break free, hit me. So I threw in a couple of clothes into my backpack and took off.

As soon as I hit highway 75, I realized I didn't really know where to run to or what I'm running from. My late husband used to tell me; when in doubt where to go, always choose East. So I did. The very thing I am running from subconsciously has also become the familiar thing I have come to embrace as my refuge. So am here in Louisiana with the redneck. Barely 36 hours and I'm ready to get back on the road again. I'm just grateful, because the redneck understands and simply shakes his head. "That's Ritchie, but I love her and all her weirdness." Not really expecting an answer, I ask myself: "Why do I still feel so lost, when I've already been found?"

It's 5 oclock somewhere

Today I turn 56. Compared to 50, 55 or 60 I think it's  a funny number but it goes well with my frame of mind. Lately, I have been entertaining the idea of  owning a Harley but yesterday after being lost trying to find parking in a fairly open parking lot (before I even had my first sip of fermented grape juice) I'm not sure anymore what I want to do when I grow up. Today I told the redneck  that I am dying and all he said was: "Then let's enjoy however many hours or minutes you got left, baby doll." I was hoping I'd get some kind of a horrified look on his face or rouse him to a state of shock. None.

But then again, after hearing the same threat for several weeks now, I think he'd simply written me off as a full pledged lunatic. I started celebrating my birthday since yesterday.

And then what?

To a lot of people I would seem to have an ideal life. And I do. But my brain says otherwise and this is where my life becomes harder to navigate and more complicated than it should be. I love being the "consultant" to someone's life; I could see the problem and I know how to fix it. And with very little prodding I can run someone's life too--even remotely. So why don't I manage my own dear life? Because I can't. Or maybe because I don't want to?

"There's a pill for it." A friend told me. I know that, don't you think I know that? There's Jesus, even.
"So what the  hell is the problem? You got too many issues, you analyze too much and gets nowhere with it." I think it's called the "will". The will to want to change something--good, bad or indifferent.
A pill would cut or unwind this "rubber band feeling" wrapped around my brain, it would clear the fog, it would open the window to see the sunflower, the bees, the birds and the truth about what life really is.  And then what? Ahah, there's the problem right there. But don't worry, I can change anytime.