Meanwhile, In a Parallel Universe

I last spoke about resuming some semblance of a routine because I'd been offline more often than not due to illness. But I guess blaming it on flu gets pretty old after the fourth bout.

When I was massively overwhelmingly dissociative -- like, fifteen years ago -- I could be sick and sleepless for as long as it took because there were several someones inside who didn't believe they had any connection to/with the body. They got all kinds of things done because they had the will and the job description to perform their duties no matter what.

Now, when I am very much more completely together dissociatively, I find I am not there yet when it comes to routine functioning. If coughing all night renders my day into stupor, as it does, I need to figure out how to function anyway. If 10 inside people previously made my day successful, I need to change how I now look at my typical day -- because even on my best days I'm not getting the work of 10 people done.

So how do mono-minds manage to accomplish all the things the "normal" person gets done every day, seemingly without much stress or anxiety? For me, it's sort of like learning to tie my shoelaces all over again. In a million different ways. At my age now the process is often frustrating and depressing, and without the magical sense of accomplishment young children feel.

At least, so far.

Happy New Year and ... mea culpa

Happy 2006! May it be more peaceful, more full of good health, and personally powerful.

I know it's been a long time since my last post. Time is a relative concept to me, to anyone who is dissociative, but that only explains part of it. It all started with my flu shot ....

The next day, I woke up with the flu. Oh, I know my doctor will swear you cannot get the flu from a flu shot. I felt absolutely fine on the shot day. Next morning, I was down for the count, trying (literally) to breathe. I was sick for about 10 days, but the remnant cough and asthma symptoms are still with me today.

And that is a prime source of chaos for me. With a persistent cough stretching out over months, I don't sleep normally. Or consistently. Or restoratively. I barely sleep at all, and much of it is semi-upright in a recliner. I'm exhausted all the time. I don't feel like doing anything. Then I get depressed because I'm not doing anything.

But the good news is that the last two nights I've slept 6-7 unbroken hours in bed. Yeah! That hasn't happened since I don't know when. Anyone with chronic insomnia will resonate with that feeling of bliss and triumph when sleep finally takes hold.

I'm feeling energetic and much more alive this morning -- and it's high time I got back to a routine.

Thank you to those who wrote to me with care and concern. You have no idea how much that meant to me.

Happy New Year!

"With No Direction Home"

I was watching a news piece about PBS's documentary on Bob Dylan called "With No Direction Home". ("... How does it feel? ...")

I am a big fan of his poetry, but Bob Dylan's never been known for elocution. It's helpful to see the often quite complex lyrics in written form to comprehend what he is saying, and it's nearly always worth it to find those lyrics. But in watching the clips of a very young Dylan first hitting New York in 1961, I realized while cringing that the man also could never really carry a tune. Which is why we are all fortunate that people like Peter, Paul & Mary, Donovan Leitch, the Byrds, etc., were also doing covers of Dylan's work.

Then I got this picture of a young Dylan facing off with Simon Cowell. Yikes.

Probably my favorite Dylan line is from "Positively Fourth Street", circa 1965. The entire song is classic sarcastic acerbic -- and presumably honest -- Dylan. I'm sure somebody's figured out who he was targetting. I was an 11 year old impressionable aspiring poet, and did not realize till that moment I first heard it that poetry can be a powerful weapon:

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is
To see you

What A Single Man Did

CNN reports of a man, a former politician, who believed that the government response to Katrina was so inadequate that he quietly and personally arranged and paid to airlift two planeloads of 270 sick people from New Orleans on September 3rd and 4th.

This man is former Vice President Al Gore.

On September 1st, the third day after Katrina hit, Dr. David Kline, the neurosurgeon who saved Gore's son's life in 1989, called Gore stating that he and many others were trapped in New Orleans' Charity Hospital, and the situation was becoming dire. Gore was able to charter the planes from American Airlines for $50,000 each without a written contract or guarantee, based on his personal promise to pay; the flight crews volunteered their time.

Most critically, Gore worked to cut through government red tape, personally calling Gov. Phil Bredesen to get Tennessee's support and U.S. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta to secure landing rights in New Orleans.

The planes, loaded with the sick, landed in Knoxville and Chattanooga.

Gore criticized the Bush administration's slow response to Katrina in a speech Friday [September 9th] in San Francisco, but refused to be interviewed about the mercy missions he financed and flew on September 3 and 4.

Imagine. A politician who puts his money where his mouth is and refuses to be interviewed about it. The only reason this story came to light is because the doctor talked about it.

While Bush lackies were figuring out their best PR spins and how to stage them, and/or still on vacation (Cheney), and/or buying shoes and seeing Spamalot in Manhattan (Condi), and/or utterly clueless and detached (Bush) -- Gore was literally saving lives.

The stolen election of 2000 haunts all of us alongside every needlessly dead person in New Orleans.

Statement by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA)

If you saw Senator Landrieu's flyover of New Orleans with George Stephanopolis on ABC this morning, you saw and heard that she was articulate, mad as hell, and heartsick all at once. She also released the following statement via press release:

"Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.

"I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims - far more efficiently than buses - FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

"But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast - black and white, rich and poor, young and old - deserve far better from their national government.

"Mr. President, I'm imploring you once again to get a cabinet-level official stood up as soon as possible to get this entire operation moving forward regionwide with all the resources - military and otherwise - necessary to relieve the unmitigated suffering and economic damage that is unfolding."