est

Years ago, for the sake of love, I took an est seminar.  est was an acronym for Eberhard Seminar Training and not the Latin verb to be.  Werner Eberhard was a con artist  who developed this training which was based on sleep deprivation and two weekends of concentrated personal self annihilation wherein one would emerge late the second Sunday evening as a new person.   What I got out of it, other than nothing, was the concept that moment by moment this is as good as it gets.  I laughed my ass off for an hour contemplating this, my navel and the two wasted weekends, while others gave testimony to Werner for turning their shallow lives around.  It has been likened to a cult experience and I do tend to agree with that assessment.   See:  est

But, for the sake of argument, let us assume that, indeed, moment by moment, this IS as good as it gets.  One moment depressed as hell...that's as good as it gets.  The next moment full of confidence and oneness and that is as good as it gets.  I don't think I got what I was supposed to have received from the training, that being losing myself and a beloved.  At one break during the training I called my parents and told them I loved them which gave them great concern for my well-being.  I was drinking myself out of graduate school and lost in the early stages of being bipolar, throwing money away on an expensive and worthless self-improvement cults for the sake of a love that would only be mine transitionally.  But that was the essence of est.  You got what you gave and the more you gave the more you would get to the point that the whole nonsense was that this is as good as it gets and it gets better the more you give.  As testament to this the last est training was in 1984.  It came, it saw profit, it profited and it died.  It imploded on the personality cult of Werner, aka John Rosenberg.  It actually did some good but the MAN became more important than the message.  Actually, getting the massage/message that this is as good as it gets is useful, in a Zen-like way, but personalities of the organization got in the way and the more Werner/John tried to transform himself the further away from its utilitarian purpose it grew. 

But I digress.  Or do I?  After almost sixty hours of training I was no closer to my goal than I am now.  Still in therapy, denying the love of my life, the life of my love and my family.  Grieve no more my lady, as it were.  But did I ever grieve?  I think Zen is a powerful idea and message.  And the Zen in est was a strong influence in my nascent life at that point.  But looking back I have lost the Zen and Tao of life.  The then and now. 

Oh, well, baby, this is as good as it gets. 

Blabity, blabity, blabity, blah...

So, I might have had a nice day yesterday save for the fact that I had a very intense therapy session, followed by a very expensive afternoon.  Ask not how much money went out on the house, just know that it was quite a chunk of change.  The kitchen cabinets came in and I paid off the balance and paid the contractor for work done and supplies.  So more than half the money I  received Wednesday has been spent.  That said, the  cabinets go in Monday and Tuesday they get the templates for the granite countertops.  I should move, hold your breath, within a month.  End of March. This weekend we do some running around and then I will start to work on getting the bedroom/music room organized and packed up.  The armoire is a bloody mess and it would.be easier to sort and pack rather than to rearrange and stuff back in the armoire

Feels like Ursula the Ulcer is back.  This stress is taking its toll.   Hyphen goes away for two weeks in March.  That will be hard on me and everyone else who knows me as we have entered a critical point in therapy.  I guess I'll just blog about everything.  Ah, my friends, you shall pay the price for Hyphen's abandonment.  So, it's spring break,  BFD!  Once she is back I have to make sure I am not moving big time on a Monday.  And Brad is leaving for Florida the second week of April. So things will be settled by then, in terms of completion of the house and the move.  So it is crunch time.

The wind is in, last night I couldn't sleep. You know it sure is hard to live here but this is no longer my home.  Maybe its been too long a time since I have been living but I miss my bed and clean white linens, one thousand thread count sheets.  Yes the house is coming along.  Should be the floors getting tended to next and then the walls get painted.  Move, move, move.  The boys are marching.

Okay, so I am channeling Lois/Leah and dealing with loss.  Moving will also bring a certain closure to a chapter of my life.  I need a lot of closure.  Yesterday would have been my buddy Jerry's 78th birthday.  Yesterday I would have been late to therapy save for JB, who also had an actual birthday yesterday.  I remember when I sold the family manse in Detroit.  My realtor buddy took me by the empty house to say goodbye to my childhood home.  It was sad.  I wonder if I will feel as sad as that.  But, as Hyphen knows, I just want the next few weeks to be over and the move to be done with.  No exploding mother coming into my room and emptying my closet of its contents.  No waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Suck it up, Czarina.  Stay calm and move on.

A woman walks into a bar...

Sophie and her friend Clementine are out walking their respective dogs.  Clementine says "Soph, why don't we go into that bar down the street and have a drink"  Sophie replies "Clementine, what about the dogs?  They'll never let us into the bar with these dogs!"  Clementine replies, "Just follow my lead" to wit she pulls out a pair of sunglasses, puts them on and approaches the bouncer at the door.  "Ma'am", says the bouncer "You can't come into the bar with the dog"  "Why" says Clementine "This is my seeing eye dog!"  To wit the bouncer replies "I have never seen an Afghan Hound as a guide dog, but I guess it takes all kinds" and he lets her in.  Sophie is right behind her with her dog, dark glasses on.  She approaches the bouncer.  The bouncer repeats his remark about not allowing dogs in the bar.  Sophie responds "Why this is my trusty seeing eye dog".  The bouncer replies "Ma'am, I have seen all sorts of seeing eye dogs but I have never seen a chihuahua as one".  To wit Sophie responds "They gave me a fucking chihuahua!?!?"

So a woman walks into her therapist office and says "Hyphen, will I even feel like a grown up or will I die as childlike as I entered this world?  I just feel once I come into my own and feel grown up and in control of my life I am going to drop dead"  To wit Hyphen responds "They gave you a fucking chihuahua?"

Blast from the past

I was able to, through Face Book, catch up with an old friend who now resides and works in the Windy City.  I felt like singing "still crazy after all these years".  Old friend who I had the biggest crush on years ago.  Now, basically, I am so happy being single I can't imagine the work it must take to maintain a relationship.  I mean I have trouble seeing a good outcome in anything. One of my first thoughts about the new house was a sad one and I just can't help going there.  We humans are the only animal that has a conscious knowledge of our own death.  That is a certainty.  Death, that is, as well as taxes. Although I would rather deal with the latter then the former.  So saying I am happy I really mean to say I am as happy as I can be in the face of mortality.  I recall Mickey Mantle's line "if I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself". There are days I feel like that.  Approaching sixty one yars I can look back and see what I have squandered.  But, I have time left, time to and for myself.  Now this is serious folks.  I intend to make it all count, all of it.  No more fuxing around.  Time to take it all in and put the best face on it.  There may be very sad things I will experience in my new home but by the same token there will be many happy occasions and, yes, some meaningless ones.  Maybe the best that can be said is to make the most of the meaningless experiences and make your own meaning.  I wonder who I am channelling now?  The family I no longer have?  The friends I have loved and lost?  My mother is still hovering over my right shoulder like a demon whispering in my ear her venomous meanderingx.  And that, my friends, is something for me and Hyphen to deal with co e Monday.

A tropical heat wave

It's a balmy -3 degrees up from -12.  Sun is kinda out.  I had a very long day into night yesterday, including having an ear impaction removed.  Still aches.  Leaving early today.  Stayed up late last night and started moving stuff out of the bedroom into the living room.  The fish tanks are gone, thanks to Captain Nemo.  I was able to get all three cat carriers down so they can have hidey holes until and post move for their peace of minds.  I did my once a year oversleep this morning and I am just running on empty.

Session with Hyphen was good.  I'd like to have two more sessions next week.  She will be off the 9th and 16th of March so I want to get my shot in now before she deserts  me.  Looks like I will be moving the week of the 23rd of March or the 30th (more likely).  I am just getting more and more agitated as the move impends.  I am very much like a cat...any type of change is awkward.  And this is the worse of changes, moving.  I have steeled my mind to that.

Toni is coming over Sunday to sort clothes and kitchen stuff.  I have loads to donate.  Weather permitting we can drop some stuff to the house.  Going to pick up paint on Saturday.  Things are just percolating along.

Leaving early today and I believe a nap will be in order.

[time passes and we have warmed to +7, the warmest it has been in a week]

Lunch was better than it has been of late.  Now that I know we are leaving at 2:30 the next two hours will past like molasses on a well digger's ass in the Yukon.  I so love mixing metaphors.

La la land awaits.

Hyphen redux

Heading out to see Hyphen in a few.  Second session this week.  I have some real issues I have managed to focus on since the last session.  Also, after my lunch with the mortgage broker I was so sick at work I could hardly keep my head up and very oogie.  Five Dramamines later I was home and feeling less so.  Went to Sans Souci and saw the progress was being made and did not have a panic attack like I did three weeks ago.  That's my progress.

Today with Hyphen I will discuss the oogies and the issues I have with some people in terms of mommy issues and me ending up being The Mommy again for so many people.  I don't think it is a matter of being anal or a control freak but we will let Hyphen weigh in on this.

Sans Souci Redux

Heard from Brad last night the bathroom is almost complete save for some tile work and the kitchen floor has been put in place.  The cabinets will be in at the end of the month and the work on the counter tops will complete the kitchen on the 17th of March.   Last to be done will be the floors to be refinished and the painting.   We are going paint shopping Saturday to get enough for the house and the condo to be done.  Sherwin Williams is having a paint sale.  YAHOO!  30% off.  That should help.

Last night I managed to not eat dinner and work on the computer until almost midnight.  Woke up again at 3:00 a.m. and couldn't get back to sleep.  Today I am having lunch with Steve the Mortgage Broker and then after work Brad will stop by and get some more money to put into Sans Souci.  In my glee about the progress at the house I failed to remember it is party day at work and I brought naught.  Well, once settled in the new house I will make glorious snacks to bring to my co-workers.  A warm artichoke dip used to be my specialty.  I think I can make something sweet with all the new kitchen gadgets I have acquired.  Time will tell.

But what of the life of the mind (or mime)?  I have another session with Hyphen this week and then I think I can go back to once a week.  But that depends on the next session.  So much is going on and when I was in the shade of depression I seemed to focus more solidly on issues.  Now I am feeling lighter and better and the session yesterday was not as meaningful as I had hoped.

Oh, well.  Excelsior.

Oh merde

I was hoping upon hope that Malvolia would not be in today due to the frigid weather, but apparently two frigids don't cancel each other out and she strolled in about 10:00 and has done nothing so far today but clear her throat.  And each time she clears it she hums a little hum which is as annoying as the throat clearing.

Yikes.  I just received a phone call.  The wrath of Mal is upon me.  Oh, my, was I too loud?  Or was I?  Almost time for me to get an icky email from her.  Maybe I can arouse her ire in spades by making a phone call.  Maybe I can channel the hamsters and put her away.

Oh, well.  Brad is coming tonight to get a check.  Also the accountant is coming before 5:00   Be a hard day to retreat into my post therapy cocoon  until 6:00.  I think this calls for dinner to be delivered.  Yee Haw.  I am in a better mood already.

It bodes well

The medication has kicked in and Sir Churchill's Black Dog of depression has lifted its leg and piddled at last.  But not before I ran a nice case of  fever and chills for a day and managed to lose another Saturday to the sleep monster.  Woke up bright and refreshed, albeit cold, Sunday morning and regained some of my lost spirit.  Just glad the fever and the depression both broke.

I think Churchill acquired his Black Dog from the French, as in bete noir.  Of course spell check doesn't like French but literally that means the black beast, which could stand for anything, including piddling on it's handler's leg.  Churchill was plagued by depression yet saw England through her darkest hours.  Yalta and the post-war disintegration of the world landscape may have been his blue period.  Old men making old mistakes gave us the present disintegration of the world.  They successfully divided the Middle East into arbitrary entities which are just now seeking their own destiny.  Yes, trace it back to the two world wars and the need for an oil oligarchy and a general plutocracy and you have the miasma that is today's world. 

This, too, is what happens when bullshit meets education in a lost soul.  My dad, Harold, would say "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing". So I gathered great big clumps of it, reading voraciously and studying history and I may never get farther along that having a little knowledge.  I think what he may have meant to say was all knowledge is dangerous.  Use it wisely. 

When I was in graduate school we would have drunken dialogues with each other, the male students trying to overwhelm the female students in a very sexist environment.  That I could hold my own amidst the sexism, some antisemitism, and my own disintegration due to drugs and booze was nothing short of amazing and that I was able to last as long as I ultimately did.  Thanks to a very good therapist I was able to hold things together enough to learn about myself, verbalize a lost childhood and a diminishing adulthood that was measured in ounces.  She told me I was "intrinsically likeable" amidst the rubble of relationships.  Leaving graduate school short of the ultimate prize I embarked on blue collar work and pumped gas for almost three years, too afraid of academia to go back to MSU and seek employment.  Thanks to the wife of a good grad school buddy who managed to stay in touch will me, in spite of my bete noir, I came to the MSU Library.  The rest is history, histrionics and bullshit.  But here I be.  Another buddy from grad school, who made it through all the hoops, recently had a stroke and in a long term rehab in Chicago.  I have been avoiding calling him.  I need to make that call. 

But my own bete noir over the house is in abeyance right now.  Obey the abeyance.  Yes, imagine me happy.

Sisyphus

Actually, one of my favorite quotes is from Albert Camus, who was about to be drummed out of the Existentialists Corps right before his death.  Recounting the mythic story of Sisyphus, the man condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again, day after day for all eternity, Camus ended his cautionary essay with the following: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy".  So today we will try to imagine the Czarina happy as she may well be in some mythic place.

A heavy heart says a lot

That is the words of wisdom from my Yiddish calendar for today.  And mayhap this heart has been too heavy of late, much like a Neil Young song.  Oh, surely I can come up with a better analogy than that.  Let me see...Longfellow perhaps: “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad”.  I have been overwhelmed of late because of all the "grown-up" decisions I have been making regarding the house.  Mayhap I have been cold to some when in fact I have been sad of heart.  Pretending to be a grown-up I feel no more grown-up that when I was I child wishing I were a grown-up not having to put up with the injustices of youth.

As Doctor Seuss opined “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”  Mayhap I should have t-shirts made with that inscription.  Maybe (or mayhap) I should be at least breaking into a grin because so much is over; but how much is there to smile about.  Well, that I made it this far in spite of a number of suicide attempts...how's that?  That I have been a relatively productive member of society for years.  Maybe it is enough to say that basically, and with some hubris, I am a good person.  Why just today I bid Mal a good morning.  And, of course, she ignored me.   So shoot me for trying.  Ah, but Yoda there is no try there is do or not do.  I did and through silence was rebuffed.  There she sits not ten feet away from me and aside from the obnoxious and constant throat clearing and aggressive and threatening emails I hear not a kind word from her. 

So, there you go.  A less then heavy thought to get through the cold day.   Oh, wait, I shall close with a quote from one of my favorite authors from one of my favorite books.  And while I could not cite this quote from memory (or heart as it were) I leave it with you at your door.

“He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

The heavy and sad Czarina... 

A lost childhood

"I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

― Jonathan Safran Foer

Nailed it!

Going through my sad phase now, channeling Lois.  Or maybe Dorothy.  Mom's mom.  The one who raised me with so many quirks and old time moralities that I am an anachronism in my own life.   She who lost the love of her life and had a very drunk daughter.  She of the Taylor clan, a large conglomeration of sisters and brothers who came to our house each Friday night for a Sabbath dinner and laughed and played cards while my mother slept it off and I, like a house cat, ran in and out of their legs seeking a kind hand or word.  I wanted to be part of that family and not the mom and dad I was born to.  I often wished I was an orphan.  Or that I had lost my whole family and was being raised by a kindly old spinster who would love me unconditionally.  Dorothy came close to that unconditional love, but, like my parents, would withhold affection if I misbehaved (there must be a thousand better ways to discipline a child).  So I rarely misbehaved.  I was still a problem, chronically unhappy as a child, always wanting to be held, but not by my mother who reeked of bourbon.  And if I "misbehaved", as all children do, my behavior was held against me and not used as a teachable moment.  I was so afraid of having my actions misunderstood that I learned to feel less and less each day.  I was the perfect yet fuxed up child, afraid of love, afraid of people, afraid of happiness, as that could always be taken away in a fit of misunderstanding.  I joke now that I am that "good person" my family wanted me to be, because I got hit if I wasn't good.  That is not too far from the truth.  Maybe not hit physically, but emotionally and in much more harmful ways.

Okay.  Still apparently channeling Lois (Leah being her Hebrew name and the one she was buried with).  I am now trying to create (what has yet to be created), which is a life for myself before the time runs out.  Will the new house by my ultimate happy place?  Stay tuned.

Why it would be better to channel Harold

I can think of many reasons it would be a better time if I were channeling my father.  Perpetual sad sack and patient man, he made a career out of meaningless choices, not the least of which was to stay with my alcoholic mother.  An enabler, to be sure.  We all were to some extent.  It was easier to ignore the elephant in the room than to confront it.  And when Lois, by some miracle, the first three months I was away from home in graduate school, managed to drink herself into the hospital, not taking the hint, checking herself out AMA and returning home, the prodigal, to spend a drunken week with me and my dad.  By this point in the story her mother, Dorothy, was spending more and more time with her sisters and less time at the home she loved and had shared with my grandfather.  Yes, children, we lived with my grandmother, who foot all the bills, save for the $25 a week my dad gave her as token room and board, an arrangement he was content with as my mother was not capable of managing a home of her own.  His motto might have been "just pull down your pants and slide on the ice".  Instead his verbalized motto was "to be a king is not worth it"...I shit you not.  When everyone know, by virtue of Mel Brooks, "it's good to be king".  No, my dad had small expectations of life and was rarely disappointed.  But he, too, stuff his emotional baggage way down the rabbit hole, not unlike myself growing up, and he suffered from Crohn's Disease later in life, brought on, I am sure, by stress and genetics.  I have my own stress maladies, but we shared a similar gastrointestinal  system.  Push the stress down the rabbit hole and out emerges Colitis or Crohn's and a lifetime of pill popping.  But he never let you see the stress.  If my mother was going out of her mind on a bender, my dad would simply move to another bedroom until the next morning when he would emerge refreshed.  If I were actually channeling Harold I might put the stress on the back burner and smile and be content with whatever life handed me.  But, as I feel it, life handed me a short stick (maybe life handed us all short sticks) and dammit I deserve to be marginally happy at least what will be the last years of existence.  I don't know why I can't see that.  After my mom died in 1994 my dad and I had ten good years together, traveling the world, spending more time together.  And I was too much of a "cranky pants" to really enjoy that time, suffering with the bipolar disorder that shaped my life and I believe was why my mother was so unhappy.  Ten years.  He was happier, I could see, less stressed but still missing Lois all the time.  He could have been a king, but settled for so much less.  And as my parents died ten years apart, I was fretting that I would die another ten years down the line, which has since passed.  So maybe so good will come out of all the navel gazing and reflection. 

I don't know where I am going with this.  Maybe nowhere, but it feels cathartic to get it out.   A pre-Hyphen session with all you pseuo-Hyphens.

Compare and contrast Harold and Lois.

Brad the contractor has sent me the following note:

The old tile is finally demoed. Installing the base, shower valve and board on Friday.  Tile first of next week.    Drywall in kitchen, floor in kitchen, prime paint kitchen, plumbing in bathroom, install new cabinets,  redo wood floors and paint and install new light fixtures. 

 I am hoping to be in the new digs by opening day of baseball season, April 6th.  Apparently the above is a non-timeline timeline.  Hell...that is almost six weeks away.  I can hope...

Channeling Lois

I fear I have been channeling my mother as it pertains to my house and spending money.  And in the end the feeling I get is I don't deserve to be happy.  She was a sad and bitter woman, an alcoholic who never recovered from the loss of her father, almost as if somehow it was my fault for being born on the day of his funeral; a constant reminder of her loss I was.  My parents had expectations of me, not the least of which is that I would be like a self winding watch not needing attention paid to it other than the occasional glance.  I was cast adrift in a sea of apathy from which I was expected through some form of osmosis to get the tools needed to grow into a competent adult.  I have spent the greater part of my life trying to assemble the tools needed to show at least the outward signs of maturity.  Smoking and drinking came too easily, almost at the behest of the parental units.  Now those are things in the past and the outward signs of maturity seem to slip through my fingers, home ownership and decision making seem to be the two biggest ones.  I constantly doubt myself, as if channeling Lois, my mother.  Few knew her, fewer loved her, I not being one of either as she so consistently pushed me away, at the same time wondering why I was so cold to her.  So when I am in the pits of a depression I push those away who wonder why I, too, have grown cold and distant.  Self preservation at this point is the ultimate goal.  If I can make it through the next month, chrysalis-like, I can emerge into a new life role.  Making it to that point will take more discipline, introspection, and self-interested preservation.

“In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.”
― John Irving, Until I Find You 

Calm After the storm

I blew up at Mr. Simcha tonight after he knocked over his treat tower, thus spilling treats all over my just cleaned living room floor.  Now he is trying to make up with me.  But, having been rebuffed he resides in shame in the cat tree...thus

Why, oh why?

Do you know what I hate? "What's that, Czarina?" Why do people feel so compelled to tell me their own horror stories about contractors and home remodeling?   From my well intentioned aunt to various and sundry co-workers.  I am about ten days into Sans Souci's makeover and people are driving bat shit crazy with advice.  So what do I do?  Why I withdraw into myself and try to steady myself with a diet of self affirmations.  It also did not help that my normal Monday appointment with Hyphen did not happen this week due to the snow storm.  That has also put me on a rather tenuous footing.  This week I go Friday and then again Monday.  And, yes, dammit, I need it.  So I called the head shrink and received permission to up some medication to to get me out of the funk I am in.  I truly don't mean to push people away but it is a safety valve I have used in the past to get through dismal times so I don't inadvertently hurt feelings but...

Just got a text from the contractor.  Bathroom is being remodeled as we speak.  I asked him for an approximate schedule of what will be done and when.  I KNOW the kitchen cabinets won't be in for three to four weeks.  Granite has been selected.  Appliances ordered.  Furniture in the warehouse awaiting delivery.  I have the paints selected.  I have no room in the bedroom in my current abode and this situation is causing some additional stress.  Also, Wednesday is when the cleaning lady comes and I never know what surprises await me after she has cleaned.  Little things, like the toilet paper being put on the roll contrary to my way.  I hope she did not try to clean the bedroom.  THERE IS NO ROOM TO MOVE IN THE BEDROOM.  And she is doing a piss poor job on cleaning the bathtub.  I thought, at one point, paying her in cash would be easier for her.  But she came by this past weekend and took the money she would have received today so essentially she is working for "free" today.  From now on she gets a check.  She needs to learn some common sense fiscal habits.  I shouldn't need to babysit her.  I can ask Toni to talk some sense into her.  But this all is another camel straw in the heap of straws. 

Skipping break to talk to shrink and write my blog, which I have neglected for a few days.  First was the snow day and then the ill-mannered Ms. Mal and her sniping over the walls about noise (she is on my shit list for noise).  If it is too loud for her, she ought to look into her black heart and see that she is the chief perpetrator of noise of late.  And Yes, I made a few phone calls today...mind your own fuxing business. 

I am tired and agitated.  I have a session of reflexology when I get home.  Hyphen's orders.  Meet with Dan the Man next week to discuss finances.  That means a free lunch.  Ah, but is there such a thing as a free lunch?  All this should work to calm me.  Must take more drugs, doctor's orders.  Brad has agreed to send me a schedule of the renovation work.  I can post that daily so everyone can JUST BACK OFF!!!  Maybe it is the layoff from music.  THERE IS NO ROOM TO MOVE IN THE MUSIC/BEDROOM.

The problem is once I withdraw is how to re-emerge from my isolation.  Just bop in as if nothing has happened?  Yeah, that has worked before.  Some people might actually be glad to see me again.