The best things in life are

Today's thanksgiving and my thirty-first birthday. I began my special day by taking my first dose of prozac.

It's not a secret. I'm depressed, and I haven't been able to shake it since my Grandfather got sick and passed away in the Fall of 2006.

The thing about depression is that it can take a depressed person a long time to work up the motivation to get help. I made it to that point. I endured apathy to find out what psychologists took my insurance and made an appointment with one. I've been going to her once a month since April. That's for forty-five minutes every four weeks. Forty dollars for forty-five minutes every four weeks.

And I'm worse than I've been in months. So today, at the prompting of my good friends, I went to my regular physician for anti-depressants. I told him I was quitting my psychologist, and we talked about how I should be going at least once a week....he preferred twice a week. He gave me prozac (as Dad says: "Yay prozac.")

I feel like I've done well with the process, and things are finally beginning to move back in the upwards direction. Getting drugs, talking to supportive friends...it's very much helped me in initiating improvements.

However, I've hit a road block. While my former counselor suggested I find a way to stick with my psychologist, I find it really ironic that someone who's suffering from a deep debilitating depression can't afford to get real help. I can't afford to go four times a month ($160). I'm a simple person...I have nothing else to cut out of my budget to accommodate that. On top of all this, my insurance is going up next year, meaning I'll be making $30-$80 less on my paycheck every month. And finally, my co-pay is going up to $45. I'm finding myself slipping through a loophole again.

I'm searching for a counseling clinic with a sliding scale payment plan. I'm terribly nervous that I'll make too much money to qualify for their sliding scale (yet, too little to be able to pay for services at regular cost). It doesn't make me feel any better about myself that I can't afford help. Somehow I can't help but feel like it says something about my personal worth.

And I hope that this birthday day isn't foreshadowing of what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life. However, my prozac prescription? It's free!!

In FY09, I am going on a debt diet.

I realized that I may *need* a new car in FY09 since I have 96K miles on my car and I need to see what I can afford. In accordance with my calculations, I should have an excess of $439.00 per month to spend on a car payment however, it seems I am always dipping into my saving account to pay off a bill….or whipping out the Old Visa to put gas in my car. SO, from this day on, I will give myself a $25 luxury item a pay period and see if I can save a car payment a month and deal in cash only. No more Amazon.Com purchases, no more new shoes, no more antique furniture, no more trips to Hasting’s, no more Made In China Wal-Mart crap…only the library from now on and wear what I have and get rid of the Made in China crap from Wal-Mart! I am tired of RED!!!! I want to operate in the BLACK AGAIN!

Juicy Bits!

So um.....I've been reading The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. First time, too. It's fascinating! And it reminds me of this book I read for a class when I was getting my masters. We were supposed to read a romance novel. I don't like the Harlequin paperbacks (not because I'm a snob, but because I just can't get into the stories), so I picked up another book. I can't remember what it's called (DANGIT!), but I remember it took place in a medieval history of a land where the women were dominant and the men submissive. And the women WERE dominant. My professor asked me to read some of the more juicy passages to the class (we were a class full of women).

If I remember it, I'll let you know. And I want to check it out again :)

I feel like, since things haven't turned out the way I thought they would, I should invest some time in helping people less fortunate than me in material or educational ways. But for some reason I can't bring myself to do a damned thing to help anyone. I can't even help myself. I just want to sit here and drink. I'm thinking that I might pull out of it some when spring gets here (because winter's the devil), but I'm pretty certain I'll never be able to transcend my resentment toward certain disappointments.

I think I just need to leave this place as soon as I can. Sure circumstance is close on my heals wherever I go, but at least I'll be able to fight it in a new place. Like maybe a with a white sand beach! And I'll bring all the poor homeless people with me, and we'll have a big party.

Phoenix Rising

The Phoenix is a mythical bird who burns up and then is reborn from it’s ashes. How beautiful is that?. Myself and at least one other Vixen, have burned up and are in the process of re-creating ourselves from our ashes. The burning is not so pleasant, but it helps to know that you can rebuild. And the rebuilding isn’t easy either, but knowing that you’re starting your life again, fresh and renewed, it is quite empowering.

We find this cycle of ending and beginning again often in nature; our cells shed and regenerate so that we have a completely new epidermis from the one we were born with. Nature is well aware of the importance of shedding the old and exposing the new. I’m happy to say that my fellow Vixen and I are not fighting our rebirth, but are embracing it. I hope that others can recognized this pattern in their lives and embrace it, if for no other reason then to know you are not trapped and the power of change lies in all of us.

Ok, I’m done being totally gay.
(Peace, love and happiness ya’ll.)

[Yeah, I couldn’t help it, LOL]

The Original Political Blog

So riding through podunk towns through East Texas, I discovered something shocking: while there have not always been political blogs, there have been certain venues for such discussions.

I found one such think tank in the restroom of a gas station in a town of roughly 3000 people. I got the outsider stare as I came in, but I think they were just protecting the valuable information contained within.

As I sat on the stall, I was confronted with such gems as "Jesus Loves You" and "Obama is a cunt." Stunningly reasoned. I was impressed the the wide scope and depth of thinking to be found. Bathroom wall punditry: a lost art.

Burglery and Pawn Shops

I did not know there was a connection until my friend was burglarized last weekend.

It scared me because I would feel violated as well as losing my stuff.

She asked if I would go to a few Pawn shops with her...I said sure...because I am always up to go to a store....

The first one we pulled up, we walked in our work clothes in a Mercedes Benz...I guess they don't see a lot of those at pawn shops because they wouldn't leave us alone. It was very crazy. So, if you are shopping in pawn shops, don't go in good clothes or in fancy car...they want to sell you something! LOL! We couldn't look for her stuff on the down low!

I asked someone what the weirdest thing that someone tried to pawn...it was their gold tooth filling...you must be on hard times to do something like that....