Pictures of Matchstick Men and You

Dear World,

First, apologies for my self-absorbed negative posting of yesterday. But actually, I think it cleared out the rubbish for some positive energy to come in. Seriously. This morning I woke up with just a glimmer of something different. Like my own energy. I only slept for about three hours but even so, I didn't have quite as dark of an outlook. That is amazing. I am so freakin' grateful for that. There is a crack in the door at the end of the tunnel and there's little bit of light coming through and I am going towards it. (Wait, the light's a good thing, right? The movie "Poltergeist" confused me. "Carol Ann! Stay away from the light!!!!")

If you are not into God, this will be annoying, but I swear God has reached out and touched me today. Yeah, I'm still crying a lot, but now there's a possibility that I will think something normal again and I'm feeling joy.

My friend Janet is doing this thing with Oprah on this book by Eckhart Tolle "A New Earth". I'm not much into the Oprah books that millions are reading or the flash in the pan like "The Secret" and all that. However, this felt like something of interest so I am reading it. It's pretty slow going because reading is really hard when my brain is MS'ed up. Anyhow, the first three or so pages are about flowers and joy and it made me cry. (Big deal, you say. You cry at everything.) Janet took this picture of a flower in Central Park yesterday and emailed it to me.

So here's what is going on in my head today.

I am so amazed by my son's soccer coach this season. He really sits down and teaches the kids about the game. I wrote him a thank you note today. It's so wonderful that someone would donate their time to teach a group of herding-cat-like-9-year-old-boys soccer. The practices are hi-larious. I've watched 6 or 7 other coaches over the years at this point, but this guy is going the extra mile. I was thinking that Alberto the soccer coach is a lot like Eckhart Tolle's flower.

I love the house we live in. A few years ago we moved from Boulder to Lafayette, CO. We felt in over our heads with our mortgage in Boulder, and felt like we needed to bailout of Boulder because you pay such a premium to be there. Our house in Lafayette is in a neighborhood built in the 70's . I like to affectionately call it "upper white trash". We fit right in. It's a great layout house for us - not huge, but just right. It's real neighborhood with neighbors and everything. We know people, they know us, we watch their dogs, the kids have sleepovers. It has worked out really well and I really appreciate that.

I went 48 years without trying Nutella. I love hazelnuts, I love chocolate. How did I miss it? My daughter asked to buy it one day at the grocery store, I thought sure. Of course, the downside to Nutella, to me, is the hydrogenated oil/trans fat stuff. There's no way that kind of thing can be good for anything inside my body. So I'm at Vitamin Cottage (Colorado healthy food store) and I find this stuff called "Rapunzel's Organic Chocolate Hazelnut Butter". It's Nutella without the crap!!! It tastes great!!! It uses cane juice and not refined sugar!! There's no trans fats!! I feel like Magellan. I need to tell the world.


There is a new episode of "The Office" tonight. Feels like a long time coming, after the strike and all. There are some things that just make life worth living, comedy-wise, and The Office is one of them, to me. I was thinking today of starting a blog site where people could post comedy video, audio or writing that they think is just 5 star or some rating like that. Everyone has different tastes, but that might be a fun project. Of course, I bet there is already one like it out there somewhere. But why not have two. Or, 40.

The PA at my MS clinic talked to John Corboy, celebrity neurologist!, today about me. I kid Dr. Corboy. I asked them yesterday, basically, is this shit normal?? The response was yeah, pretty much, honey. Take a few more nights of sleeping pills and a few more Prozac and you'll get through. And that's fine. I just needed to know. What really helped me today was hearing from a few very wonderful "MS bloggers" out there. It is pretty cool hearing from other people that they know what you are talking about. The funny thing about it was, when she said "I talked to Dr. Corboy", I felt like she talked to Pete Townshend or something. That's a funny feeling to have about your doctor. Maybe he's the Pete Townshend of MS doctors to me. He is my favorite of the 4 neurologists that I've seen, and is a researcher, which I like. He has been very influential in my choice to take MS meds, when I have taken them :-) Also, he's got a cd.

My husband Ozzie has been really wonderful to be with during this lil crisis. It gives me a peace that I didn't know was possible earlier in our marriage.

My alloted energy has been used. Here's hoping tomorrow brings me a notch closer.