One of the items they sold was cashmere sweaters. But these sweaters were special: The animals (and even the herd's people!) were treated extra super-duper carefully, and fed delicious things. We could feel good about wearing these cashmere sweaters, they were grown on such happy, healthy, ecologically sound goats. Scrawled across the page of the magazine, in huge, italic type, was "Sweaters with a conscious...." Once we picked ourselves up off the floor, we went around begging friends and neighbors for their copies of the catalogs, so we could each have a copy, and distribute them to a few key friends.
What led me to reminiscing about this story is a pretty good example of manic thought processes, so let's see if I can write my day out, so you can see what a disordered/disorganized thought process looks like.
Last night, I decided to record a three part series on a subject, that while often discussed on my blog and various places where I go by my real name, is still controversial. I am sure you can guess what about. I already recorded the three part series, a mini-course on medical cannabis for patients, and blue-toothed them over to my computer. I spent all morning working on them, arranging materials, thinking through what I was going to say, running rough dress rehearsals. I even changed my clothes, and made my hair look reasonably nice (one more day, tomorrow it needs to be washed). I had also looked over the third segment, and decided it needed to be redone, and started pondering what I felt could be improved upon.
I had awoken with a migraine, but that is almost par for the course these days, and this was SUCH A VERY GOOD IDEA! It pushed the pain into the background. In the first part, I discuss what medical cannabis is, why I use it, and how to go about getting a recommendation (nothing illegal). I also go over civil rights, going over a few different scenarios where knowing your rights is important. I even almost manage to hide my name while demonstrating what different documents looked like. Almost.
Not that it is would be hard to trace it back to me, the real person: Those of you coming from Facebook and Twitter either know me, or are following me because I use medical cannabis. And anyone randomly coming across the blog wouldn't be able to identify me without at least affirmatively searching. Plus, all my in laws are blocked on every social network to which I belong (nice, I know. I never said I was a sweet person).
Now, the second video goes over methods of ingestion. Yes, with full on display of paraphernalia. One accumulates a great deal of it when one has consumed cannabis for over two-thirds of her life (oh, yes). I actually demonstrate one type. Yes, with the real medication.
The third segment was showing different types of cannabis, some I have, some I have containers from when I had last had it, so I could explain types I didn't happen to have. And of course, the real stuff. Several strains, and some hash. All on tape.
I was excited about it. I planned to put it up right away, but decided to wait until tonight. I'd wait until DH went to sleep.
Then the duvet from Nordstrom, the one about which I had been so excited, arrived. I opened the first box, which was one of the shams. It was so beautiful! I excitedly opened the other box, but wait a second: That wasn't the duvet I ordered, was it? I hurried back to the bookmarked site. SHIT! What I had thought was the duvet was a coverlet, and I had assumed the actual duvet was a set of sheets; it was SO different than the shams and coverlet. I didn't even really like this duvet. Plus, it is ivory. I have a stinky little dog, who has light brown hair. We had already eliminated black as an option, just at the thought of her fur woven through each stitch of fabric. This would show dirt as well. I was back to square one, plus I was 100% in love with the shams. Shams! Who would think?
Now I had to have something as close to what I had expected as possible. Those shams, I wanted those shams. I started doing frantic google searches. I got angry, then furious. I was so angry at that stupid duvet, I felt personally affronted by it. Now I was too upset to re-tape the third part of my series, and my head was killing me, all the "pain relief" of focusing on my narration was gone. I had to go lie down, the continuity of the series was going to be totally fucked up. Maybe I should start the whole thing over tomorrow? I went to take a nap for a few hours.
DH called, and told me someone had been hit by a train, so he didn't know when he would be getting in. As morbid as that is, it gave me time to calm down. I woke up completely, and realized my head felt much better. Maybe I could tape the last part over after DH went to bed. I started to actually dress up, he had said at lunchtime that he would love to go out for dinner, if my head cleared up.
....DH wouldn't like that I was going to broadcast this at all, so better to tape it when he was out, or asleep, and post it, and never let him see it....
That was kind of weird. I don't really keep things secret from DH. Yes, I am hesitant about keeping him up to date about my spending, but frankly, he looks at our bank account every day, he sees what is going out (hence his recent expression of displeasure). I pushed my concern to the back of my mind, but it did niggle.
DH came home, and we spent about hour giggling and hanging out. I was having "outbursts" of silly, but also weirdly hostile. I genuinely thought I was joking as the words flew out of my mouth, but once they were out, I would think, "Geez, that was mean!" And I would apologize. But DH thought I was a laff-riot. Still, I felt uncomfortable, it was as if a filter were gone. I might still have made those jokes if I weren't all at sixes and sevens emotionally, but I would have had the extra two seconds to think about what was about to come barreling out of my mouth, and stop it, if I thought it was unwise.
Those of you who know DH knows he has a very bizarre sense of humor. I am lucky.
We went to dinner at an Italian restaurant as close to around the corner as you can get with a Jersey barrier down the center of our major thoroughfare. We had never been before, but Yelp said really good things pretty consistently. It was so close I couldn't believe we hadn't tried it, although I am picky about Italian. Amilia's is a lovely mid-range Italian restaurant, that also sells a rather extensive list of more American-style sandwiches.
We wanted wine with dinner, so we shared a platter of bruschetta to start. Now the reviews of their bruschetta had been raves, and I had thought, "Really? Bruschetta?" I mean, I have eaten a great deal of bruschetta in my day, inside Italy and out. But holy shit, this may have been some of the best bruschetta I have ever eaten! Nomnomnom. Then I had a chicken penne dish with a cream sauce, spinach, mushrooms, fresh tomato, crisp pancetta, cubes of chicken breast, and perfect al dente pasta. I was shocked at how good it was. DH had Chicken Parm, and was also very pleased. We each had a glass of Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc, from New Zealand. DH ate all his chicken, but couldn't eat the side of fettucine, or all his veggies. I got through less than half of mine, but brought it home. A yummy lunch (or more evilly, perhaps, a yummy midnight snack. Hell, a midnight gorge, there is a lot).
We came home, happy and full, and chattering away. DH was happy, because he could tell he was going to get lucky. I was happy because for once a migraine hadn't ruined a weekend evening out, for the first time in at least a month. Thing went as DH hoped. But I had a lot of trouble concentrating, and staying focused (you might not think that could even be an issue, but my mind is going a million miles an hour). It was actually somewhere mid-fuck (sorry) that I began to really start to think about what I was planning on posting on the Internet.
But it was informative and instructive! Everything I did was legal under California law, and de facto legal under Obama's administration! I want to be a cannabis activist! I have committed felonies on behalf of causes before (syringe exchange was a felony, can you believe it?)!
But this was all pre-Internet. Not to mention pre-DH. There is someone else to take into consideration.
No Fair. Why do I have to change my approach?
Wait a second. Haven't I been saying I am labile and manic? I have been cleaning a lot, but today I was so busy taping, I didn't get any cleaning done. In other words, I was still in a frenzy, it just didn't happen to involve cleaning.
And isn't one the classic symptoms of mania lack of self-awareness? Maybe I am being a little hasty. I can always post new, better, videos when I am feeling better, right? I am too embarrassed now to even run the idea by DH. I know it is the mania. This is mania, not hypo-mania. I don't know what to do.
So my conscious kicked in. Cashmere goats may be raised so you can wear a sweater in good conscience, but what really matters is I got my self-consciousness back.
Even crazy people can be conscious.
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