The book I just finished reading...

Before I take it back to the library, I wanted to mention the book I just finished reading. It is simply called, Manic: A Memoir and was written by Terri Cheney. I found it totally engrossing and nowadays it takes a lot to keep my attention. The author writes well. She is brutally honest about what it is like for her to have bi-polar disorder and provides great detail about her experiences.

There was much of her experience which I could not relate to such as being a high powered lawyer and using lots of different medications and making multiple suicide attempts. Again, I am reminded that there is a continuum of mental health and while some aspects of one person to another may be similar...you just never can predict how things will manifest from one person to the next. Although I have not many of the author's experiences, I could definitely relate to many of her feelings.

I was appalled by how the system and particularly doctors and hospitals treated her. Having witnessed my mother's institutionalization many times, some of her stories brought back memories for me...not of being a patient myself, but of when I was a child and teenager waiting in a mental ward waiting room for my mother.

I applaud the author for her honesty. This book does not make her look like a saint but rather a very vulnerable human being who is constantly at battle with her moods. She must have had a guardian angel because each time she tried to kill herself, she was brought back to life. Some folk don't get the second chance.

Anyways...great book.

Here is a passage from it which illustrates her remarkable talent as a writer. She talks about her stay in a mental hospital and being forced to do puzzles as occupational therapy:

"Little things like a missing puzzle piece matter when you're no longer in control of your environment, when every decision is made for you, from what you eat to what you wear to when you sleep to whom you are allowed to associate with. I found myself jealously guarding my work in progress. It was my own little sphere of autonomy, however flawed and unfinished. In fact, despite all my efforts to be the perfect mental patient, I nearly lost my composure one day when I walked into the puzzle room and discovered one of the schizophrenics eating an ice cap off my Mt. McKinley. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" I demanded, forgetting that one should never confront a schizophrenic directly. It activated all his well-oiled alarms. "I was thirsty," he said, and I was so charmed by the Alice in Wonderland logic of that, I smiled and broke him off another piece.

Brilliant isn't it? Who needs to read fiction when true life gives you so much more.

More of this and that to come!

old farts

"By 2015, those aged 50 and older will represent 45% of the U.S. population" (AARP).

Guess who will be exactly 50 by then?

How many of you will be 50 or older by the year 2015?

For any bibliophiles

For my Odds & Ends feature today I present you with two links.

I don't know about you but I love books. My goodness I have soooo many books. And when moving time comes...believe you me I know I have books.

Found these two cool links in a magazine I was reading recently.

Let's see here...the first one is a site where you can connect with others through your virtual bookshelf display. I went to the site...haven't signed up yet but it says that you can show your bookshelf on your blog somehow. It sounds cool to me. Anyhow...here is the link for Shelfari.

The second link I want to give you is for renting paperbacks and audio books. It is like the netflix of books they say. It seems you pay a monthly fee and then you can get the books or audio books on CD through the mail. They send you a pre-paid envelope to send your stuff back with no late fees. I suppose one advantage is that you can save space in your house without having to store books long term but...hello there is this place in most communities called the LIBRARY. But nonetheless it may be worth looking into for the most recent paperback selections.

The site is called Books Free.

Enjoy!

Odds & Ends

well...i am feeling better physically only to have my mood plummet. go figure. riding the rollercoaster all the time....not fun.

while i was sick i had some time to do some things i normally don't give in to...like reading the stack of magazines by my bed. and i thought that whenever i do read something good...i will save it...here. i have labeled this as odds and ends. you never know what you might find...kinda like a favorite drawer of trinkets.

i actually used an "odds and end" from a magazine i haphazardly was reading over the holidays. there was a christmas snippet which said to write to someone you normally don't write to. and so i did! i had lost contact with a childhood friend for some years now but did find her parents old address from years and years ago. i had low hopes of ever finding my friend again but thankfully her parents still live in the same house as when we were twelve year olds. imagine that! i just got her letter today.

so who knows...maybe the information i post will be useful to someone...perhaps even me. i just think it is a shame to waste a magazine...why not write down a few good ideas from it.

Here is a little snippet from an article by Stephanie Losee entitled, The Willpower Myth: " Alan Deutscman in his book Change or Die: The three keys to change at work and at at life, out this month in paperback from Collins, Deutschman, executive director of the Atlanta consulting firm Unboundary, decided to get to the bottom of whatever it is that makes people and corporations change-especially after they have tried and failed.

What he found was that people get unstuck not through willpower but through a relationship with a person or a group who shows them the way. Not just any relationship will do. It has to be an emotional relationship who inspires hope and belief, who makes you say, if she can do it, I can too."
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This really hit home for me especially here in the blog world. The things you do and say here could potentially really help someone. Anyone can look up a quote or spout off cliches. But only *you* can share elements of your life which have meaning far beyond your experience. Integrity is very critical here. This is why I am very choosy about who I give my respect and admiration to.

I really do feel strongly as well that it is the connection we find with others...relationships...which ultimately help us to change and grow. None of us grow in a vacuum. We need help along the way.

My second Odds and End is a quote (lol...secretly I do love quotes) from Richard Bausch from Off the Page: Writers talk about beginnings, endings, and everything in between, edited by Carole Burns:

"I don't teach writing, I teach patience. Toughness. Stubborness, the willingness to fail. I teach the life. The odd thing is most of the things that stop an inexperienced writer are so far from the truth as to be nearly beside the point. When you feel global doubt about your talent, that is your talent. People who have no talent don't have any doubt."

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I love that quote because...it is so true. Nobody has all the answers. Don't let anyone fool you to think otherwise. So many "experts" have no clue how to write, live their own life, connect with others, etc. I love this quote because it says to me...it is okay not to know. It is okay to feel doubt about one's talents. From that point...you proceed.