Axolotl

Axolotl

Did not sleep well. I kept dreaming about an axolotl. I can't remember specifically what I was dreaming about in regard to an axolotl--I can only remember I kept saying, "Axolotl axolotl axolotl" and kept seeing its face and knowing there was something wrong. I woke up about 3:30 and did not go back to sleep until I went across the hall, where it was cooler, and fell asleep in Lauren's room around 6. I got up at 8:45. Very stopped up. Afraid to blow my nose for fear it will start bleeding again.  I feel like I haven't gotten any rest at all.  I don't want to walk today.  Just don't have the desire.  I may do it, but I am not feeling like it right now (10:31).

Watched Fire At Sea last night. It is a powerful and gripping documentary about the African migrant crisis situation.  I want to say more about it as I found it profoundly moving and well done, but I don't have the gift of description in me this morning.  I'll share this excerpt from a review:

"There is a type of documentary — one of the most prevalent varieties these days — that earnestly acquaints its audience with a terrible problem and rewards our attention with a gold star of virtue...."

"...But there are, thank goodness, exceptions. And everything I’ve said so far is a long way of explaining what Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire at Sea” is not. Mr. Rosi, an intrepid Italian documentarian whose previous work has taken him to the Ganges River, the California desert and inside the Mexican drug trade, is certainly a filmmaker with an active social conscience. “Fire at Sea” is the fruit of an extended sojourn on Lampedusa, an island that, while part of Italy, is closer to Tunisia than to Sicily. Recently, it has become the landing spot for boatloads of refugees and other migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East."

Malaise

ma·laise

Dictionary result for malaise

1. a general feeling of discomfort, illness, or uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify.

   "a general air of malaise"

   
   

I would venture to say the word I was searching for this morning to describe how I felt comes closer to malaise than discontent or discontented. This passage I just read from the Naked and the Dead speaks to me:"Stanley was feeling a diffused rebellion at the things that made him worried and envious, made him always ferret for some advantage.  He did not know what caused it in himself, but without putting it into words he was brooding that there would be many nights through all the rest of his life when he would lie sweating and restive, prey to all the latest torments of his mind." 

I did manage to get my walk in today. I struggled.  I wanted to stop after about 10 minutes, but I kept going.  I walked for 32 minutes--21, rested 2, and then 11. I walked at a much slower pace. As I said this morning, I'm having an off day.  It happens. i just feel tired now, but I've been lying down talking on the phone, then playing Solitaire, and then I moved to my chaise lounge and started reading my book again. I want to watch a movie, but I am still stuck in work mentality mode, so I have a hard time turning on the TV before 5:00. 

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The Winter Of My Discontent

Discontent. That is how I feel this morning.  One of the reasons I decided to deactivate my Facebook account is because I grew weary of seeing all of the happy people doing happy people things like traveling with friends, traveling with their spouses, celebrating their anniversaries in style, talking about how these are the best years of their lives, sharing their adventures, talking about their contentment with their lives, taking pleasure in the simple and the adventurous alike.  I know it is ridiculous to assume they are ALL as happy as they look on their FB pages, but what I can see is that they are DOING things with other people. They are visiting friends or going somewhere with friends. They are doing things with their husbands--sharing time together as a couple and seemingly enjoying that time together even if they are just visiting a park.  I feel so envious and bitter.  I am in a marriage that is joyless. There is no laughter here. There is no conversation.  There is no mutual interest in anything other than the love of our children and grandchildren.  There is such unhappiness. It is pervasive.  I say to him at times that I feel like I am in a tomb.  Suffocating.  Our differences became much more pronounced after the youngest left home, but they were manageable. Since I retired, they are magnified to an extent that I feel the weight of it on me most every day.  How can I make any changes?  How can I just leave him after 42 years?  I think and say that if he would take care of financial matters and help me with the house and yard that we would have a chance to make this work. He says give him time.  I am tired of giving him time. He still has not settled his mother's estate nor tried to sell his business or race car. If he did those things, we could live much more comfortably. Not wealthy by any means, but we could at least have the bathroom renovated (it's been needing to be retiled since some of the tiles fell off 10 years ago).  He would never, and still won't, sign for a home equity line of credit, and I never have the cash flow to pay for the labor of having the bathroom gutted. I could charge all of the materials, but I can't use a credit card to pay for the labor. It is ridiculous that we have not repaired it.  The roof continues to leak in places, but he refuses to call anyone about it.  I can repaint places where the water has seeped through, but it will just keep happening until we get if fixed correctly.

I really needed to vent this morning.  I went to bed early and woke many times in the night and finally got up around 6:30.  I am just having a really off day.  I'm in a sour and discontent mood.  I need to walk today to start off my second week of walking.  I want to just feel good for a moment knowing that I met my goal for last week (I actually exceeded it--I walked 4 days).  I want to stay committed to walking, but I get very discouraged. I ordered a top and some pants to wear when I walk, and neither of them fit. They are far too tight. I am so large. I feel, at times, like there is no point in trying to lose weight.  What does it matter?  If I got this way this time, I can just as easily get fat again like so many fat people I know who go on Keto and Atkins and Weight Watcher's plans, lose weight, and gain it back plus some extra weight. That would be me.  Why did I let this happen to me?  I feel so utterly disgusting. I feel like people look at me and think what a fat slob I am.  I feel so negative about myself and how I look.  It's truly embarrassing.  Another reason I didn't want to be on FB any longer.  I would see pictures of former classmates or people I went to high school with, and most of them look really wonderful. They are not overweight, they have aged well, and they are active. I couldn't bear seeing them anymore and comparing myself to them.

Whew.  Okay.  I have vented, bashed myself, and said something positive about myself.  I guess that's about it for now.

In The Deep Freeze

Winter decided to show up the first of March. She's been absent all season, but that's good considering out heat has gone out twice this winter and was out for a week the last time. If it had been this cold then, we would have left here and gone to a hotel. The heat is working today, but it's cold enough in this study to need an electric heater as well. 

Watched The Hurt Locker last night and was discussing it and the novel The Naked and The Dead, and I started crying. Then my nose started bleeding. That's two nights in a row of nosebleeds. I usually have one every winter, most likely from the dry heat in the house, but I'm not sure. They are terrifying!  I don't care how many times I've had one, I get so scared. That blood just keeps coming, and then the clots, and then I think I'm stroking out or something horrible is wrong.  Today, I'm still all stopped up (like always), and I want to blow my nose, but I am not going to. If I have any more nosebleeds this winter, I am calling my doctor.  I don't know if my blood pressure is up, but from what I have read, there is no conclusive proof that high blood pressure (outside of a hypertensive crisis situation) causes a nosebleed.  I just get so freaked out!

I did take a few beautiful pics at sunset last night. I shared one on Instagram and will share it here. I need to go walk, but I am concerned that my nose will start bleeding. I'll just take it slow and take some paper towels. Walking is not vigorous physical activity, so it should be fine.

That's it for now.

The Be Good Tanyas - Waiting Around to Die

Snow

I took these from inside looking out the back window, so the quality is poor, but I'm posting anyway.