WALKING ON THIN ICE

Omens, Portents

I am thinking of omens and portents. Like, I was thinking that if I had given a guy at the West Side Market a piece of blueberry pie like I’d promised last week, that our friend wouldn’t have been hurt. I am seeing everything as an omen. I told a friend Friday I thought something bad was just around the corner & then this bad thing happened so I’m thinking that I’m psychic. This could be a delusion but it is hard to say because I do believe in the spirit world. I met a female shaman last weekend and she says the spirits communicate to her via thought and touch. This seems intuitively real to me.

The other morning we both woke up with a sense of dread and I found out the cat I took care of in London died, hit by a car. I was thinking that it’s another bad omen because I am being bad by making puppet videos. I’m worrying that everyone is going to denounce me, that I’ll finally hit the last straw of the reservoir of good will. Or that my need for reassurance will be the last straw.

I worry, think I’m better, post something, and then worry about it. I want to post things. I want to put things on the Internet. I want to make puppet shows. But I am not sure if my puppet shows are ok. Then I think, yes, they’re OK. Then I think, no, they’re not OK, that I’m stretching the boundary of taste/references to my internal lexicon of worry/offense/ppl I could be offending, etc. Smith says they’re OK and I should continue making them but he says that anything is OK to post and he has taken pictures of his penis with dead fish & the amerikan flag, so he is probably not the best person to ask about appropriateness.

Some of the omens and portents don’t make sense, which is not good. Like I was trying to figure out which cloth bag was safe for Smith to carry when we went to the West Side Market. I gave him the Cleveland Clinic bag and I gave myself the Agent of Chaos tote bag and I thought, like, if he takes the Cleveland Clinic bag, am I indicating that he needs to go to the Cleveland Clinic, and if I give him the Agent of Chaos bag that would be safer. But that if I didn’t hold the Agent of Chaos bag, I would be indicating that I didn’t want to hold the bag, and it is emblematic of Smith, and I do want to hold Smith’s bag. This type of thinking pervades usually every day, actually, but I don’t usually recognize it, it doesn’t usually come out on a conscious level. I do carefully cook his food so that the minimum amount of, say, butter is on his bread, just enough so that it makes the toast taste good. And when I dole out portions I try to give him the bigger portion (if it is a healthy dish).

And I’m seeing little dots sometimes, some kind of artifact. Sometimes I think, no, I am just picking up some artifact and making a big deal about it, but I specifically remember lots of dots when I had a really bad time in Mexico. But I think that I’m like, lucid when I have these thoughts, that they are just thoughts and not beliefs, I think, but I did find myself trying to make this weird decision with the bags, just one of many dozens of calculations I make daily, I think.

I have a bottle of lithium orotate from a friend. I was reading that one should really consult with the doctor about lithium although orotate is supposed to be effective at a much lower dose with fewer side effects–I was worried about it interacting badly with Prozac. I think I’m going to have to see the doctor to try to get more free samples soon of this Seroquel that I take when it gets really bad. I’m also worried about gaining weight–my emotions cannot handle more weight gain–I’ve been running every day for three or more weeks, five miles a day, and eating like, a very light diet, and I still can’t seem to lose the weight I gained the last time I took a lot of Seroquel. I read that this type of substance can really modify the metabolism in a bad way.

I am thinking that if I am lucid and can get work done that I should be OK but then sometimes I am feeling very paranoid so I don’t know. Smith says I am doing a better job at regulating myself although the puppet videos really have me paranoid because I am doing a lot of expressing. I’ve apologized to three or four people about the videos already and they said there was no problem with the videos but then my mind gets to thinking that they just haven’t watched them thoroughly and if they really watched them they would disown me.

And I am having a problem working, at least from home. Everything seems to beckon or inhibit. Like I’ll start thinking that I have to think about something (not-work-related, and I can’t concentrate until I’ve taken some action on this worry.) But then I think, “No, it is that I am not tough enough. If I can type, I can focus on work.” But work seems hard to do. I have to read things repeatedly to understand them. Sometimes I can force myself to be lucid, and pay attention. But it seems hard. But the fact that I can force myself sometimes confuses me. Lucidity is something that waxes and wanes, like a signal. It’s not something that is constant, and then cut off completely, and then restored completely.

A big problem with work is this judgement thing–like I am not sure when to stop working on something or if something is good or not and how robustly I should program it–there are typically hundreds of decisions that need to be made daily in this type of work and decision-making is a big problem for me.

Even though my thoughts are very weird, I think I am just being candid and probably most people have these thoughts and just don’t express them. Albeit most people don’t make puppet videos.

I am really worried about offending someone and having to take the puppet videos down because I really am happy when I make them and when I take the puppets with me outside I feel very safe and not alone. I think I’ve attributed presences to my puppets.

Sometimes I am very certain of specific offenses committed and I try to talk with Smith about my fears but he ends up getting upset with my need for reassurance.

I went to the West Side Market and tried to find the blueberry guy but he wasn’t there so I couldn’t apologize. I couldn’t work up the courage to interview vendors with puppets this time but I did talk to some yams.

Lady