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Am I?

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Here on the Life As I Know It blog, I'm going to be honest about myself.  Starkly honest.   I feel like I've moved beyond the self-loathing for the most part, but it'll always be there.  But isn't it there for everyone too, just varying degrees?  Maybe where it's different for me is because that grey jello in my head got knocked around one too many times.  An enlightening conversation with AI revealed a lot of things that doctors never did that made lots of sense.  I actually felt validated. But anyway, outside of that; coming to terms with shortcomings of mine in an honest and constructive manner has been sort of freeing to me.   Am I a control freak? Probably.  Again, I think we all love to be in control.  But to control others is where that gets dicey.  A lot of people think they can make other people's lives better by getting them to change more to the controller's liking.  I remember back in my band days when I playe...
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Going Up

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Things are going good with the Belmont chapter of the Cook clan these days.  Not perfect by any stretch, but good.  We are very grateful.  Janice and Lexy are both doing great.  Lex's partner is poised to join the military soon, should all things keep going in the right direction, and Alexandra herself is doing quite well with Janice's post office kiosk, acting as manager when Janice isn't around and handling everything equally, if not better as Janice would tell you.  I think there are better, brighter things in Lex's future, though - work that she doesn't find so stressful every day like that p.o.  It looks like we live in a neighborhood that's a high-crime area when it comes to the crazy stuff that goes on at that store, like Alexandra being physically assaulted a couple of years ago.  Dealing with aggressive clientele on a daily basis is something that will harden any person.  In my opinion, neither of them get their due for the services they ...
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My MSD

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I am number seven of seven.   Born in the mid '60s in the midst of Beatlemania and Bill Cosby, before it became known decades later that he... well, you know.   But I was a big fan of things like Johnny Cash's TV show, Ed Allen's Morning Workout ("...and don't forget your homework!"), The Six Million Dollar Man, Spiderman cartoons, Nutchos chocolates, a faux chocolate bar named Danish, chocolate peanut butter marshmallow squares, playing baseball with my friends in the Dud James Arena parking lot along with makeshift squash with a tennis racket and tennis ball against that building, chasing baseballs for two bucks a game which would buy me a pop, bar, comic book and chips, going to Dominion grocery store with Mom or Dad, riding my bike, watching kids play in Kiwanis Pool which I became deathly afraid of - but I still liked to see other kids having fun.  I even gained an appreciation for Englebert Humperdinck, who was Mom's favorite.  I think her listening ...
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Gem & I

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Full disclosure here, being my rather ultra-personal blog.... That last post, simply saying "Au revoir, mon amis", is a timestamp for me .   I had another breakdown about a week ago.  I will not get into details of it like I used to, because these things will not define me anymore.  I have an illness; a disability that hinders how I process things.  And I think it's important to recognize that for myself, but even greater, how I didn't just get knocked down hard, but I got up long before the ten count to fight another day.  This is another day. Something that I'm making myself realize now is, that after a lifetime of dealing with my own unique circumstances, I have to recognize the signs along the way of what I am dealing with.  My current conclusion, if that's even the appropriate description, is that this illness is something that needs to be negotiated with, not necessarily fought.  My condition is like an old dying tree - it might appear to be...
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