Last week I received an answer to a query. An agent I had contacted about my mystery novel had asked to review my complete manuscript.
My first thought was, “I have to tell Robbin about this!” But I couldn’t.
No, Robbin doesn’t have COVID and she isn’t dead. But she had a severe stroke last month and is in a nursing home. I can’t visit her or even call her on the phone.
Robbin has a limited range of motion on one side of her body. With the other hand, she keeps trying to pull out her trache tube, which…
You suddenly receive a chunk of money. What will you do with it? That’s a question that I have heard often. Not directed to me. I have no prospects of landing more than pocket change, unless my mystery gets published, hits the bestseller lists, and gets picked up for a television series.
But I watch a fair number of competition shows on TV, primarily on Food Network or The History Channel. I enter giveaways occasionally, when HGTV is offering a fabulous house in Rhode Island as a prize. But I never even buy lottery tickets, to which I have a…
I love plants and flowers. I really do. As long as they stay outdoors, where they belong, as nature intended. Or sit politely on windowsills, if indoors.
What I object to are plants and flowers that refuse to know their place.
I really shouldn’t blame the botanical specimens for this. What I object to is my husband putting them where they don’t belong. My husband brings home rescue plants.
(Both of us believe in adopting rescue animals. Adopt, don’t shop is our motto. We have adopted dogs and cats (mostly cats), all the way from Dumpster divers to pets that…
I’ve written before about emotional support animals and what a difference they can make in the life of a person with a mental illness such as bipolar disorder. And that’s still true. Emotional support animals and trained service animals can make a vast difference in helping a neurodivergent person cope with life and their disorder. (A thorough guide to emotional support and service animals can be found here: https://adata.org/guide/service-animals-and-emotional-support-animals.)
It’s unfortunate that misunderstanding and misuse of emotional support and service animals have made it more difficult for persons who really need them to have the comfort and utility of such…
Finding stability is difficult when you have bipolar disorder. The days seem to melt into one another, either life in dense fog or life on a tightrope. You can’t remember whether you’ve eaten that day or showered that week or when you need to pay that phone bill.
And forget those lists of self-care things you should do. Contemplating even one (“go for a walk outside”) leaves me feeling defeated. It involves too many steps — getting out of bed, finding clothes, getting dressed, and then the actual walking. …
Of course, since I now work at home, I wear pajamas. Or maybe scrubs, as my latest pair of pjs looks like I could walk into any doctor’s office and riffle through their files. I wouldn’t be caught unless someone noticed that the cute sheep in hats and scarves were saying Baaa Humbug.
But that’s not what I’m here to write about today. Once (or twice) I worked in a regular office where I wore regular clothes — skirts, blouses, sweaters, slacks. If I was lucky or awake that day, they even matched. I was also fond of drop-waist dresses…
Cozy mysteries are a thing, and I do not like them. As all my friends know, I am a mystery lover — I’ve even written one, which is now making the rounds of agents.
But cozy mysteries have gone too far. These are the kinds of mysteries that take place in bed and breakfasts or bookstores, that have chefs or weather forecasters as their sleuths, and exhibit little to no blood, despite the crimes. …
When my husband and I married, it was at an unusual time in both our lives. We were both out of work and on food stamps. We did not spend thousands of dollars on our wedding, as everyone on TV seems to do. Back then, weddings did not have themes, though they did have color palettes. Ours was off-white, rose, and rust. (The off-white was so that no one would snicker.) Back in the day, gentleman were able to wear tuxes of colors other than black, and such were available at tuxedo shops. As you can see from the photo…
Back in the day, all my friends were doing transcendental meditation. They claimed various effects from it, including lower blood pressure (which I believed) and levitation (which I didn’t). At the martial arts dojo, the sensei did lead a guided meditation which left me feeling energized and ready to train, so I think you would call that a success. Nowadays, I can’t get into a lotus position or even sit on the floor tailor-fashion, which is to say I might make it down, but I can’t get back up. Never mind the fancy kicks and rolls we used to do.
…
Most online therapy services cost less than face-to-face treatment
I will make a confession: I have never used distance therapy, except for when I couldn’t drive to my therapist’s office, my husband wasn’t available to drive me there, or when I had the last-minute I-just-can’t-go-today feelings or I’m having-a-crisis feelings. This was in the days before teleconferencing, texting, and other long-distance forms of therapy, so occasionally my therapist would agree to do a telephone session, which I appreciated greatly. In general, they didn’t last as long as the standard psychotherapy 50-minute hour, but at times they were lifesavers.
Now, when everything seems to be online, and especially during pandemic…
Janet Coburn
Author of Bipolar Me and Bipolar Us, Janet Coburn is a writer, editor, and blogger at butidigress.blog and bipolarme.blog.
