New strategies

So my new psychiatrist wears Crocs. Blue ones.

I'm pretty sure that's an important detail, but I have yet to decide what that means.

It seems that many of my past mental health professionals rocked questionable footwear. I wonder if that's something they learn in Crazy School. It might be a way to distract the patient from their $200 an hour rate.

He also stands the entire session. Right next to a giant, comfortable, reclining lounge chair in faux suede. At first, I felt like it was an interrogation method designed to keep me talking, but then I realized he's not a therapist so the questions were more medical than psychological, so then I was just confused all together.Why wouldn't he want to recline? I wanted to recline. The couch was ok, but it was covered by a blanket the same way I cover my dog-eaten couches with blankets when company comes over.

Somewhere between asking about my erratic behavior and my hospitalization, he blurted that he suffers from chronic back pain which is triggered by sitting for long periods of time, which explained the standing thing but did NOT explain why he wasted money on a perfectly comfortable recliner if he was just going to pace around the whole hour.

I've found that shrinks prefer when I avoid personal questions about their footwear and their personal choices, so I just nodded my approval of his vertical lifestyle.

He declared that I've been misdiagnosed for years. Apparently I don't suffer from depression, which kind of explains why my antidepressants don't really work very well.

Instead, he believes I'm bipolar, and have been misdiagnosed in the past because my manic phases are very short compared to textbook bipolar patients. The treatment for bipolar disorder (also called manic depression) is an entirely different class of drugs which are considered mood stabilizers, and which are supposed to level out both the lows and the highs, versus just fighting against the lows.

This sometimes manic diagnosis might explain why I decided to rip of the bathroom floor tile in 2011 and, by the next day, decided that floor rugs would be a perfect substitution for actual flooring. Laying in bed and ordering Chinese delivery for six months seemed like a much better use of my time and resources.

He also gave me something for anxiety, but that seems only to make me sleepy like an antihistamine, so I'm not sure if that particular option is going to work out. I've got a med check coming up in three weeks, so we'll have to discuss other options (XANAX) at that time.

Meanwhile, I'm getting closer to moving out of the weird All-Man household and into the new place. Just 12 days until I've got hardwood floors (which will make me feel more at home because my MN house is all hardwood floors), a big back yard with a garden (which will make me feel more at home because I have a big garden in MN), and cohabitors who WEAR SHIRTS (which is not true of my MN house, but it's different when the shirtless person also sleeps in your bed).

 So things are looking up at the moment. Hopefully this means I'll soon be blogging about Happy Things and Funny Things instead of just Crazy Things.

For example, I saw a chicken at a garage sale.

Fetishes have come up again, but in a very unexpected way.

Maybe you can help settle this for me.

Daylow and I cook. We cook a lot. It's wasteful, really. We need to open a soup kitchen or something, because even though we eat like pigs and feed our roommate sometimes, there are a lot of leftovers. I need to start taking them all to the neighbors.

Food waste doesn't seem to bother us as much as it should, though, because Daylow and I love to shop. At the grocery store. Basically, the grocery store IS my Bloomingdale's. If you ask me what kind of gift card I'd like, the answer is ALWAYS to the grocery store. Or the gas station, I guess. Or the liquor store.

We basically always shop for food together because it's more fun and also because our menu is very rarely pre-planned. We just kind of browse around and get an idea, trying to use whatever meat or produce looks best. And cheapest.

Anyway, here's the only difference between Daylow and I on the matter of grocery shopping:

• When I put fruit and veggies into a produce bag, I just kind of "twirl" the bag and plop the weight down on the loose bag end. It's quick, it's easy, and it leaves the produce bags in perfect condition to be re-used as dog poop bags. Sometimes, for stuff like garlic and limes, I don't use bags at all. I just throw produce in the cart and onto the checkout belt. Twist ties multiply like rabbits. I have a quart sized bag full of different sizes and types of twist ties, and I have another bag in my camping gear. I don't need more twist ties. I don't use them that often because, of course, I never re-seal the food once it's in my fridge. Bread doesn't need that stupid white contraption to keep it fresh. Just twirl the damn bag and lay the end of it underneath the bread. VOILA!

• Daylow...well, he not only ALWAYS uses a produce bag, but he also always uses twist ties to close the bags. No joke, there was a time when I ended up with an entire pocket full of  twist ties because he was worried I would keep forgetting to use them and, say, we'd be in the dairy aisle when Daylow would realize I didn't use a twist tie (even just one!), and of course we'd have to go back to the produce department to get a twist tie, and so my pocket being full of twist ties makes perfect sense. He's practically preventing my stupidity. PROACTIVELY. Amazing.

I was shopping for food by myself the other day and when I arrived at the check out, I realized I'd subconsciously tied ALL of the produce bags shut. No twist ties, no, but I'd done a loop knot to seal them.

First of all, WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO ME? I'm all of a sudden...tying produce bags for someone? He must be really good in bed or something. I don't like to compromise on my morals like that.

Secondly, I found an ideal compromise to our twist tie debate completely by accident. The loop knot is perfect because you just kind of...pull the knot out, and the bag stays poop-ready, but the produce stays properly...piled? Contained? What the hell is the purpose of using a twist tie? Maybe it's about vegetable safety or something.

Or perhaps Daylow has a twist tie fetish. I googled it, it's a real thing. Explains why he's got a twist tie cock ring.

I honestly have no idea why I'm compromising in this situation, but since I didn't realize I was doing it, I guess I'll let it pass.

This is why compromise is necessary.

I still don't understand how the Internet works

Every once in a while, I get curious about visitors to Zippy. What kind of freaks are you? Fortunately, there's a way to find out.

These are my Google Analytics scores going back to the beginning of this blog:

 

17,099 unique page views

2 mins 52 seconds average time on site
77.03% bounce rate

 

At first, it seems like a lot of page views, but then I look at the Content stats, which show that I've drawn lots of readers who had no interest in my blog, so they left right away.

 

The same is true when I check out the keyword search terms, because I'm pretty sure the guy who came to Zipbagofbones by googling, "Labia weights" didn't intend to find this post.

 

Naturally, I like to try to imagine which of my content pages got pegged by Google search to pull up a result which led a stranger to my blog. Labia was an easy guess, but what about "activia and anal fissures"? What about "how to break my arm"?

I MUST KNOW.

So now, we're going to play Let's Match That Google Search Keyword To A Post From This Blog!

To start us off, please welcome My Most Common Google Search Term:

• i want 18 (and other variations like iwant18, iwant 18, 1 want18.com, et. al.)

Variations of "i want 18" has been my number one search traffic generator for as long as I've had access to a computer. Which, if you read the post that started it all, makes you realize exactly how long and how often I irritate horny teenage-lovers everywhere. Awesome.

Here are some others. I literally searched these terms in my blog dashboard, and I had exact matches for all of these. I really should pay more attention to what I'm saying...

• eating feces
• kanye west toilet
• xxx
• kate gosselin pink cowboy hat
• midget joke
• christmas wedgie
• really sick shit This post also explains the search keywords "fursuit fetish, fursuit fetish story, and fursuit fetish gang bang.
• una's dwarf
• i smell bad
• "a mean meatball"
• i wear my sisters clothes
• scary bush baby (bush baby scary)

As I discovered last time, clearly, I am NOT what you people are looking for. And that makes me feel complete inside.

Because the idea of being "left out" makes my skin crawl almost as much as Percocet

Speaking of which, anyone have any Percocet?

Because apparently brain injury + concussion = migraines which arrive out of nowhere and are vomit-in-the-shower-crippling, and are also virtually unaffected by anything known to man (except an illegal substance of which I certainly have never partaken, I'm just assuming since weed is used medicinally for migraines, it must actually work. Which reminds me, I need to move to California, because I could get an Rx for weed for any number of my ridonk ailments, from migraines to anxiety to depression to boredom. What, boredom is TOTALLY a medical condition.)

What was I saying?

Ah yes, it's time for me to hop on the band wagon and write a year-end wrap-up post because we're about to begin The Year the Mayans Got Bored with Making Calendars.

I'm pretty sure they just ran out of weed, but when they called their dealer, his voice mail said he wasn't available to sell  because he was busy getting sacrificed on an alter or some shit.

There's something else we can thank weed for: Postponing the end of the world until 2012.

Anyway, I'm sitting here in my bedroom, surfing the interwebnet because I don't want to watch the UFC fight that's on my TV because EEW, blood is grody, and I'm thinking about how crazy this year has been in almost every way.

2011 was supposed to be my first full year of marriage to my best friend, and while *technically* that's true because no court papers have been filed, I'm pretty sure everyone would have an opinion on just exactly how "married" I am. Not only are we not really married, not really living together, and certainly not best friends any longer, I'm hard pressed to get Gray to speak to me these days.

It's completely understandable, of course, but sucks just the same.

So I lost our beloved Bampa, as well as my husband and friend, not to mention all the brutal alienation such a split inevitably causes. So many of our friends are mutual, and most of those have no interest in my life at this time (I assume) out of loyalty to my husband, which again is understandable, and again, sucks.

The few friends I called my own, mostly from work, I lost touch with when I quit my job, but I think really they were relieved because I was proving to be more exhausting than awesome to them. Also understandable, when our lunch chats morphed from my wedding plans to my dating plans.

I'm an acquired taste at my very best, so throw in a few impulsive mistakes, a few irrational behaviors, and more than a few drunk texts...folks seem to appreciate some space.

So, New Years.

I'm not so naive to believe that January 1st is some kind of magical date. It's not a re-set button. It's nothing but the end of a calendar year, a calendar which was determined thousands of years ago by people WHO SLAUGHTERED OTHER PEOPLE IN THE NAME OF GOD.

So, really, they were a lot like we are now.

But this is what we do, we Americans. We talk about our kids and our ailments and our jobs and our wardrobes, and then we speculate on how those things may change in the next 52 weeks. We make predictions, we make grand statements about our intentions, we set unattainable goals, we thank everyone for believing in our ability to attain those goals, and then we get hammered and watch an electric comet plummet into Times Square, half-way hoping something will go horribly wrong and the ball will go rolling down the sidewalk, taking out every single one of those paper hat-wearing revelers, half-way relieved when it doesn't happen.

And so, I'll jump on that train because it's what I do.

In 2012, I intend to Get My Shit Together, Financially Speaking. I'm starting a really wicked new job on the 9th, and it should more than be enough for me to catch up with my medical bills, et al. I hope to find a second roommate to rent out the other bedroom upstairs, which will help financially as well. I plan to keep my part-time job and work nights and weekends, depositing that chump change into a separate account that I will use for "fun money," leaving the rest of my accounts untouched except for necessities. I plan to start over with a 401K because retirement sounds better every moment I'm alive.

I'd like to grow a tail, but that one is up in the air.

I plan to quit smoking, preferably forEVER this time.

I also intend to train Ramsey and Lucky to bring me beer in bed, and possibly to clean the toilet.

As far as relationships go, I plan to get back in touch with many of my friends. I'd like to make new ones. And I want to be sure that my partnership with Daylow doesn't grow stagnant, predictable, or co-dependent. I have a history of all of those things, and they don't bode well for Happily Ever After.

I'd like to drink less.

I want to camp more.

Daylow and I are going to plant a big garden this year, hopefully saving a small fortune on vegetables and herbs.

I want to see my family more than I got to this year.

Finally, I plan to win the lottery. Sadly, this may be the most likely of all of my goals, although if I do win the lottery, I'll be able to buy toilet-cleaning rats and pay people to be my friends, so it would kill several birds all at once.

Erm.

So it's kind of late for dinner, but Daylow* is outside grilling the most bizarre, delicious looking chicken I've ever seen.

It's chicken breasts stuffed full of crushed pistachios wrapped in an entire package of bacon. The sides are just about every vegetable known to man, slathered in butter and grilled in tin foil.

He's a culinary pot head. This is either going to be completely devoured in less than five minutes, or it's going to be an epic, totally inedible FAIL.

Based on prior experiments of his, my money's on YUM YUM GIMME SOME.

And because we roll like this, our rats are hanging out on the kitchen counter while we prep the food. Super duper sanitary, I'm sure, but they fucking LOVE the pistachios and got dirty on them like it was their last meal.

We're kind of celebrating Daylow's decision to leave a super abusive job behind, an we're also stoked about my highly successful job interview this morning, which (PLEASE DEAR GOD) may land me the best job I've ever had with a company I am really digging so far working with people who were cool enough that I'd hang with them voluntarily, and hopefully will.

I quit my job with Canterbury Park in October, partly out of laziness, mostly out of frustration. Ever had a job where you get paid to do nothing? It sounds fucking sweet, right? And it totally was...for the first two years. After that, I decided I was being treated like a wasted commodity, and with no hope of change, I gave my dad (and most of my friends) a stroke when I quit with no alternate position lined up.

There are only so many videos of baby monkeys riding on tiny pigs, you know?

Why would anyone think I'm nuts for ending my marriage, getting three new tattoos (one of which is a GIANT profanity, stamped across my upper back), quitting my job, ripping out my bathroom floor, adopting (then un-adopting) a third dog, and falling in love right away?

It all seems perfectly rational to me.

Which is why I'm not allowed in 23 of the United States without supervision.

And now I'm off to eat some really bizarre food with my new love and probably practice some clicker training with the rats (we found a new home for Rachel Ray) and then maybe watch the first installment of Bag of Bones on demand.

I'll probably also drink a liter of Jag and remove a few of my ribs with my jumbo toenail clipper.

You know...for self-sufficiency reasons.

If you don't hear from me soon, I'm either dead from eating weird food, or I'm unable to type because I accidentally removed my hand instead of my ribs.

*In case you're wondering the extent to which my life has changed in he last four months, Daylow is the man I am engaged to marry, but not until after Gray and I are no longer married, which (in my [sadly] extensive experience) will take quite a while.

The party you are trying to reach is playing with unicorns

I'm here, I'm here.

It's just...well...it's probably good that I'm not in school this year because it turns out I have a lot of shit going on.

Since last weekend:

• Somebody gave me a dog. Another one. No joke.
• Somebody else gave me a flooded basement. Twice.
• Somebody tormented me with pictures of SPIDERS RIDING ON SNAKES, and gave me a stroke. I have to say, if I'm going to see any animal riding on any other animal, it has to be baby monkey. That video? Never gets old.
• Somebody gave me a new tattoo. More on that later. Fair warning, Dad. YOU WILL HATE IT.
• Somebody else gave me a unicorn. A Webkinz unicorn. I don't know what that means, but my mother-type friend says that means it's alive. I named her Galdalf because I'm reading The Hobbit for the millionth time.
• Somebody gave me the keys to her house. And permission to carry her dogs in my pocket.
• Somebody else gave me Halloween Dots that look like black licorice flavor but are really blood orange flavor, and I know this BECAUSE I CAN FEEL CITRUS. Winning.
• Somebody gave Klout perks, which I don't understand exactly, but they are sending me things in the mail, so I don't really care. Unless I open the box and it turns out to be a cobra. Then I'll probably file a Klout Komplaint.

In addition to all of these new acquisitions, I'm also trying to edit a bunch of videos of me playing Beatles Rock Band - POORLY, I might add - for a really ridonk vlog to post here. Because there isn't enough ridonk in the world.

So as you can see, it's been a busy week. In fact, I missed my 3rd Blogaversary on Sunday. This time, I didn't even post about how I didn't post about it.

(My first real post in 2008. My first blogiversary post in 2009. My second blogiversary post in 2010.)

Clearly, I'm regressing back to my teenage years. When you see my new tattoo, you'll agree. I'm about 14. And I'm a boy.

I'll be back here when I feel like it.