one face - foto by smithit’s become weirdville here. we went to an expensive restaurant on the zocalo. i asked lady if she needed to use the bathroom before we walked home.
she said “i don’t know, i have to ask.”
who?
“my grandfather.”
but your grandfather’s been dead 2 years now.
“i know, that’s why i was so surprised when he contacted me.”
after visiting a friend yesterday, i mentioned he gave her a couple really odd looks at some of her more non-reality based statements. she said “that’s alright, i wiped his mind before we left.”
step 1 - past clues:
lady inherited her grandmother’s worry gene, and has always been a worry machine. her worry sometimes creeps into paranoia. she has a compulsion to help and take care of others, and to try to pre-plan and order situations. she was bulimic for several years until me, and took prozac for a year for depression 5 years ago. to counter that, she has the kindest, gentlest, generous heart i know. she’s also as smart as she thinks she is. and extraordinarily talented in art, writing, photography, editing and publishing as well. she’s a perfect companion for a fellow artist - except for the fact that artists have the highest incidence of bipolar disorder, no one knows why. creation is dangerous.
step 2 - changing the bar:
lady’s 1st magic mushroom trip last month introduced her to the concept of oneness with the universe. she liked it. a lot. wanted to stay. wants to get back. wants to deal with cosmic reality daily on a one-on-one direct relationship.
step 3 - straw that broke camel back:
when they brought me back to my recovery bed after the hernia operation and lifted my spinal blocked dead flesh onto the bed, it took me over an hour just to sit upright, another hour to massage life back to my legs. lady saw me as old and helpless and her fears of me dying before her exploded. before we started, i explained our relationship was not a good idea due to our 27 year age gap, that i’d get old and feeble before she did and it wouldn’t be fair on her the price she’d have to pay. she poo-pooed this. you can never tell another a truth they haven’t learned on their own. youth has no conception of age. and age but dimly, imperfectly remembers youth.
step 4 - aftermath:
after the first week of her taking care of me, when i could move around on my own again, she withdrew from me. stopped eating and sleeping and drinking water. spent 24/7 on the internet. lost 10 pounds past two weeks. started getting instructions from her dead grandfather. she believed she moved the path of hurricane gustav away from new orleans with her mind. says she is a witch. feels possessed by an unpleasant ex girlfriend artist of mine who was shot to death 2 years ago for ordering someone to turn down their stereo. believes she’s the first mother, is fated to save the earth and must sacrifice herself to redeem us. mentions putting political bloggers under the protection of her psychic neural network. constantly rearranges the plants and objects around the house into totemic shrine charms to alter the flow of reality. turns on me if i point out any of the inconsistencies in her realital structure. she hears voices, has hallucinations. all the time sighs, moans, breaks out in laughter, yawns, or crying jags. she’s gone from trying to hide her body to walking around naked, from smoking twice a week to smoking every day, early morning on. she shut the plants away from the light, saying “i think those plants have to learn to respect us.”
when she insisted i had to have faith in her, that what she was experiencing was real, i said i loved her too much to do that, and she picked up one of my paintings and smashed it two handed into the wall. she raises her hand, wanting to hit me, but hits the bed or air instead. told her i was trying to help her and she said “fuck you.” she brings up all my past failings we documented in my memoir and says that’s what i am now - a woman hater, a woman leaver, sneaky, sly, that i’m not trying to help her, it’s my fault she stopped sleeping, eating, drinking water, that i should have protected and taken care of her. i haven’t shed tears like this since mom’s death.
she splashed up to 20 blogs a day on myspace these last two weeks, all written from within her higher realm. bizarre, cryptic, scary shit - although some of the earlier stuff is excellent writing. she definitely has oodles of talent.
yesterday morning i went to our general practitioner and explained these past two weeks. broke down bawling as i enumerated her symptoms. he said he’d find someone to help us that day one way or another. when i tried to pay him for the visit, he refused to take it, saying he doesn’t profit on human misery.
went to see the brain doc yesterday afternoon. he prescribed Ziprasidone aka Geodon, an antipsychotic prescribed for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (the old manic depressive). the pills are blue. i looked up the matrix movie red & blue pills and found the red pill will answer the question “what is the Matrix?” (by removing us from it), while the blue pill is simply to carry on life as before. if her blue pill brings back our before, i’ll be happy.
he says she’ll only have to take the pills for two months, then she should be healed. he’ll be seeing her regularly.
after two doses yesterday, she slept the night through for the first time. she experienced drastic stomach cramps through the night, and now is in bed with nausea. could be not sleeping or eating right for a month. donno.
today we have lady’s monthly scheduled 1st saturday poetry reading here in our apartment. looks like i’ll be hosting it while she sleeps. she usually makes snacks and food for the poet folk, but today they’ll have to be satisfied with my rough charm. this is the first poetry reading where i’ve chanted that no one shows up.
i suggested to lady she take her medicine for two months and then we’ll explore together her higher realm. i mean, she may be right, may be communicating with the dead, may need to save the world - the world surely does need saving. told her i’ll support any path she must walk, be it with or without me. i know this higher realm exists - i’ve interacted with it off and on my entire life. my sole concern is she be able to transverse this lower normal daily reality as well, that she be able to function and take care of herself while walking her higher world. after all, there is no one truth for all. there’s especially no one truth when you have two people.
or more others - foto by smith |
