Hodgepodge (Or Is It Potpourri?)

Here’s another stream-of-consciousness post, if you want it. The weather is MARVELOUS and I’m having trouble stringing thoughts together, so please pardon the mess.

I read on Facebook yesterday that Patty Duke died. She was a great actress and human being who succeeded in life in spite—or maybe because—of having bipolar disorder. She will be missed by the BP community, as well as by her fans from all walks of life.

Speaking of bipolar…today, March 30, 2016, is the third annual World Bipolar Day. It’s a day to raise awareness of the condition and those who live with it. The date was chosen because it’s the birthday of the artist Vincent Van Gogh, who allegedly suffered from manic-depressive illness. (No, I don’t know how they diagnose people posthumously, but as tortured as that poor man was, he had to have had a severe mental illness.) It’s also a day to stand up and speak out against the stigma that still surrounds bipolar, and indeed all mental disorders.

And speaking of campaigns…can Donald Trump’s GET any tackier than it already is? Apparently so, because his campaign manager was just charged with battery and protesters at his rallies are getting pepper-sprayed. What’s next—a goon squad? This is not presidential. This is not a dignified political process. This is what happens when you appeal to peoples’ baser instincts and go out of your way to attract the uninformed and disaffected. The dude is a junkyard dog, and the fact that he’s gotten this far is proof that something is VERY wrong with this country.

That’s not to say I’m voting for one of the other two front-runners; as I’ve said before, I wouldn’t elect either Sanders or Clinton to a town council, let alone the highest office in the land. Where, oh where, is another Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater when you need them?

Will has been doing better of late. He’s having more good days than bad (“good” meaning he only throws up once or not at all) and is a little more active, although he spends a lot of days lounging in his pajamas. I say nothing. Why shouldn’t he be in his jammies if he’s not going anywhere? Hell, young people wear the damn things EVERYWHERE. Which I think is the ultimate laziness, but that’s only because I am old and grew up in a time when that just wasn’t done, unless you were deathly ill and on your way to the ER. The last time I went anywhere in PJs was when I was admitted to the psych hospital…I honestly didn’t give two shits about who saw me or what was going to happen to me.

So, this weekend and next week are still looking pretty wild, and it doesn’t really settle down until mid-month. I don’t think I’m as squirrelly as I was a couple of weeks ago, but being the mother of the groom and dealing with a bunch of people I don’t know is going to be only the start of the festivities. In addition, it’s going to be sunny and warm for the next several days, and who knows how high I could soar if I weren’t on a shit-ton of medication. A good friend of mine calls this sort of thing a “medicated mania”. I call it a welcome relief from the winter blahs with a teensy bit of hypomania thrown in for fun.

But I won’t complain about attending my son’s wedding…in a public park…in early April…in western Oregon. (Unless it rains, in which case I will bitch and moan because my hair will frizz.) At least I get to go to this wedding—between the four kids there have been five marriages, and I didn’t witness a single one of them because they didn’t get hitched in a location I could get to. Mandy and Mike wed in a spontaneious ceremony way up in the mountains. Mindy was married to her two (ex-)husbands by justices of the peace, in two different parts of the country, neither of which was within a thousand miles of her Dad and me. William also went the JP route in his first marriage. I didn’t even get to go to Ethan and Clark’s wedding…they got married at Disneyland. I was beginning to develop a complex about it. Guess the sixth time is the charm, eh?