Thursday, July 31, 2014

Present Day: Restaurant Roulette

Today, Mom and I attempted to eat at a new Bollywood restaurant in a strip-mall across from the actual mall. It is strange how these things go. You sit down in a booth in what appears to be the set of an Indian village. Your mother attempts to order tea, but they apparently don't have any in India. We are informed it is a buffet only restaurant. I go to see less of a buffet than you find in a Indian American owned motel breakfast bar, and the pans are nearly empty. Baffled as usual at a new restaurant experience, I scrape the little bit of rice stuck to the bottom of the chaffing dish (trying to imagine it is like paella) and not sure what to do walk back to my seat. Mom comes to find me. I laugh, take out a 5 dollar bill and place it on the table, and walk out. "How Hattiesburg," I think. We are much in need of a good Indian restaurant, but I received a Bollywood type of experience.

So, on to the Southern-Italian fusion restaurant. I walk in to the sound of Dead or Alive spinning me around. We start with fried-green tomato with Creole seasoning made into a Southern take on a caprese salad. I enjoy the garlic green beans. I was absolutely amused by the European tartar sauce, and yes, this is absolutely the intention of the chef. My only wish is that the pasta had been more al dente. I prefer an extra chew to my pasta.

So, I'm always toying with ideas in my head of what would be a successful venture for someone who had the money to buy a building, put in a commercial kitchen, and invest in Hattiesburg. One of my favorites is the Permanent Pop-Up Restaurant. We would import someone once a week or month from New Orleans or India or Jackson or Mobile or the local university to actually give us the food experience we all crave. Hattiesburgers absolutely rush-out in droves to try newly opened restaurants giving the new owners a false sense of success and the rest of town something new to discuss. I have now sworn off eating anywhere that hasn't been open for a few months, which is easy for someone who is poor and cooks. I will try again to teach myself Indian cuisine from the couple of cookbooks I bought years ago only to realize I had to go to New Orleans to find the exotic ingredients - Garam Marsala, anyone?

Visit Chef Robert St. John's Website.

Monday, July 14, 2014

Colored Capsules

"One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" Dr. Seuss

Compound pharmacy staffed by nurses

Capsules remind me of Fahrenheit 451, especially with my empty stomach

Large and white one day

blue and blue

blue and red

red and blue

blue and white

white and red, too

The colors of flags

Does this make any sense?

Same medication in a different wrapping today

Through the window, I see them back there making this stuff

The same ones who monitor us

Is this all the same as they tell me?

At least the largest capsules feel half-empty

Trying to find reality, in a land where nurses choose to live chaotically

Medication Time, people line-up

I stand in my doorway watching

Over-drugged, stumbling about men

The herd of cattle soon to be released to the pasture

I see people stay a few days, as I remain to watch the shuffle

What is wrong with him?

What is wrong with her?

Is she bi-polar or hormonal?

Must be the anti-anxiety medication that gives a woman the look of pregnancy

She cries like a teenager

He gazes off into the distance; did anyone even try to give him medical treatment?

I can't say they are necessarily psychopathic or cray-cray, but they are doing the opposite of well-respected pharmacies

Friday, July 11, 2014

Daymares

The daymares occurred over a couple of days: November 20 and 21, 2012. It was such a bizarre experience that I didn't even realize was humanly possible. They first occurred in the French Quarter, of all places. My brother, who was visiting, wanted to weave in and out of old bookstores that day. I took photos the whole time I was walking around like a zombie. Everything in the world was as it is normally, but for brief periods all of the beings (humans and cats) were transformed into broken versions of themselves. The people in the French Quarter had skewed, asymmetrical bodies (think a daylight, normal version of Thriller zombies without the zombie aspect and normal clothes). Nothing I saw was not there. I wasn't hallucinating random things; only the people were affected. The version with the cats the next day was truly terrifying because one of my greatest fears is for the cats to be hurt.

Photos taken in the French Quarter whilst I was experiencing daymares:

http://southerngothicyogini.blogspot.com/2014/06/posting-from-november-22-2012-photos.html

http://southerngothicyogini.blogspot.com/2014/06/posting-from-november-22-2012-in-french.html

The day in the French Quarter, November 2012, was the first day that I had trouble with food. I lost my appetite, food tasted off, and I could only stomach beignets at Café du Monde.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Clear Memory

West Pier (burnt down), Brighton, U.K., September 8, 1995

When I was home in November 2012 and experiencing what I kindly referred to as my near-enlightenment, my mind rushed back through all of my timeline unlocking all of my memories. Then, it rushed forward to the strangeness of the present. I don't wish for anyone to ever have to relive their life in that way, but it did flood back a lot of the great memories in crystal clear detail, complete with sound and smell memories. I was literally there, in my mind, with a friend in his old car with the glass of ice water on the dashboard. I was there on the pebble beach of Brighton perplexed by the strange swimming pool. I was walking the pedestrian path through Bournemouth to Boscombe, walking past the Salvation Army Hall.

Now, some of the memories have been rearranged and refiled and are not just like yesterday, as I think they should be. But, do you remember a golden Buddha at a closed drive-thru restaurant in Gainesville?

Debbie, age 20, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, England, September 8, 1995

BT Phonebox, Brighton, September 8, 1995 - Quite a contrast to the phoneboxes of Bournemouth.

Saturday, July 5, 2014

Chaos of Sound and Sound of Mind

crispy, dry leaves

Over a year and half later, and my mind often revolves around the events of late 2012: strange feelings of unwell, couple of days in and out of daymares, hand-balances and arm balances and my near-enlightenment, imprisonment and the Alliance Health Center.

I returned home with a lot of hope. I came home to a world that was changed and chaotic.

My parents argued over placing Christmas tree lights on the tree. So, in the hope of silencing them, I volunteered to untangle and place Christmas lights on a Christmas tree for the first time in my life. I was thin and unsteady, but decided it did not matter. I could not explain how hard it is to dangle upon a ladder with an aorta pulse swaying your whole body off balance. I wanted to make the world better. I wanted to be better. I knew I could not explain how unstable my body was; it might be mistook for my brain.

This was to be the first Christmas with the first grandchild for my parents. But, my youngest sister and her family had become estranged from our piece of the family.

Christmas Tree 2012

Baking Christmas treats to try to prove my cognitive function and to regain my patience and composure. The whole world is more frustrating; I'm absolutely overwhelmed by everything. Sound is the most disturbing. It is all amplified beyond my belief. I just want to hear the natural world as it was. I cry that I am lost in this loud place. The subtlety of tree leaves moving in the wind, of crickets, of cats trudging gingerly through fallen dry leaves, are lost when all of them become exaggerated. I hear electricity for the first time in my life. I must be crazy, but I test my reality. I plug the portable DVD player in, and I unplug the portable DVD player. I hear the static, the charge. I do this again. I confirm it. I am overwhelmed. I jump at a sound that's too loud. It is truly terrifying. It is nearly impossible to tell where sound is coming from when it is all louder. Is there someone in the garden or across the street? I don't know what is wrong with me, but this is not something anyone should ever have to manage. You can learn coping skills, but you cannot manage or control the modern or natural worlds.

To see is not to hear, but we know what sound belongs with what image.

When you live in survival mode for weeks as I did, it is a great challenge to be patient and understanding with other people. I just can't put up with squabbling over little things. I can't deal with people who catastrophize everyday events. I hold myself to a higher standard. I want to embody la petite yogini, who honors the yamas and niyamas. I struggle with my own bitterness and wonder what went wrong with my karma. Discovering and experiencing a darker side of humanity and a new level of ignorance is very difficult to come to terms with as my reality/our reality.

Friday, July 4, 2014

The Thyroid and the Mind

I spent 3 weeks of my life, the maximum amount the health insurance company Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi would pay for psychiatric hospitalization, in a psychiatric hospital with a toilet that would not flush properly. The labs my mother convinced them to do showed hyperthyroidism, but I was only given anti-psychotic medication which did nothing other than make my pee smell of cream-of-wheat.

The Thyroid and the Mind and Emotions/Thyroid Dysfunction and Mental Disorders

Please learn the symptoms of thyroid problems; hopefully, you will not have the catastrophic mind/body event I experienced at the end of 2012.

Signs and Symptoms

To find a qualified doctor: ThyroidChange.org

I'm still waiting for my appointment and hoping my mind and body will naturally balance in the meantime. I know problems need to be diagnosed when they are most acute.