Maybe you are wondering…what it’s like to be crazy. I can’t tell you what everyone else’s crazy feels like; I can only tell you my story.

I have been what some might call bat sh— crazy several times in my life. I have Bipolar Disorder. I don’t have a mild case of it. I am, however, fully medicated and perfectly sane and stable at the moment. I say at the moment because a moment can change so quickly, especially with this disease. 

Umm, I’m just throwing this out there, but is anyone else done with 2026? I mean, I’m done. What new tortures do we have waiting for us? 2026 is only a month-old baby, and it already needs therapy.

If you live in my parts, there’s an Arctic Blast, and the weather is so cold that I wish I were a bear and could hibernate for the rest of the winter, possibly the rest of my life. I’m not even going to mention what is going on in America these days; I feel like I just want to speak in metaphors about it from now on.

I’ve struggled with the way I look since I was very young. I was a chubby kid. When I was thirteen, I went on my first diet. It was an old school Weight Watchers diet that my aunt shared with me. I lost 20-30 pounds, and suddenly I wasn’t fat anymore. I discovered makeup at fourteen and suddenly felt pretty. When I was sixteen, I broke out into acne because of wearing the wrong kind of makeup. I was devastated. I never felt so ugly. It went away in a year, but scarred my soul.

So I found a mouse in my garage. Lord help me…It was 9 a.m., and I just started screaming the F-word over and over again until it ran away from my sight.

It’s a great mantra first thing in the morning, really gets your blood boiling. It was like below zero, and wow, what a way to wake yourself up. I’m sure I woke a neighbor or two up as well. 

I have to be honest, the mouse was cute. Don’t get me wrong, I remain appalled that there are mice in my garage. I stand by that.

I mentioned in a previous post that there are animals in our attic. When I told my friend about the mouse in the garage, he was just like, oh they are probably from the attic, like the same family, expanding their real estate options. 

Let’s face the reality that these are dark times. The only way to survive is to be aware of the dangers, but never let them steal your peace or joy. If they do, they win. The most important form of resistance is not letting them upset your equilibrium,

Yes, you should be outraged and afraid; this is really happening. The way I’m navigating my mental health is by expressing my feelings and thoughts through writing. Go to your art, music, books, films, and TV, like we did in the pandemic. Go to art. It may be the only thing that can save us.

Okay, I may or may not have eaten the alive parts of two dead bananas, because honestly, eating bananas for me is just a conduit for eating peanut butter. I can’t just eat a spoonful of peanut butter, I’m not a heathen!

I’m on a diet, so finding interesting things to eat that fit into my paradigm is now a huge pastime of mine. I’ve even started cooking, which is truly outrageous for me, and I feel I deserve some kind of medal for these actions, but apparently, no one is handing out basic survival duties medals. Who knew?

I will say that if you want to get on my good side, keep telling me I don’t look fifty at all. 

Why do I need this reassurance? Because I’m officially old, that’s why. I’m in the fifty-and-above category. So don’t ask me why I’m not smiling, and why I have that look on my face.

Maybe you didn’t notice, but I had to change the title of this blog to Fifty-Something Years in Ninaland. I haven’t written in months. In that time, I turned fifty. What do I have to say about that? Sometimes I think exactly nothing, other times I think I can’t stop talking about it. I could join a retirement facility. However, that does not mean life is over. Perhaps in many ways, a new life for me has just begun. 

It’s the end of January, hopefully this horrible month will end. I’m so tired I can barely talk about it. I don’t always write about politics because, honestly, I’m too tired. I’m tired of Trump, I’m tired of this entire administration, and I’m tired of MAGA.

At this point, it’s much worse than tiring; it’s frightening. ICE has created a situation where many of us are panicking.

I’m currently trying to get an enhanced ID because I don’t walk around with any proof of citizenship. I’m brown. They are killing white people; if they can do that, what can they do to my people?

What’s the most embarrassing thing about you? I have a story, once I was wearing a long skirt and standing in line at Hallmark, and all of a sudden, I had to pee so badly I couldn’t handle my life. The woman ahead of me in line was paying in like pennies, and it was taking her half an hour to pay the bill. By the time she finished, I had peed in line. I have no idea if anyone could smell or see it, but I paid for my card and went home and showered. 

Another embarrassing thing about me is that I have chin hair. It’s ridiculous, I shave it every day like a man. I’m not sure why I’m admitting these things, but they are real. They are what make me real. I mean, you shouldn’t be embarrassed about being embarrassed; we’ve all been there. 

So I got a contract writing job and I’m very excited! They did an extensive background check on me; hopefully, they didn’t read my last post about how I stole a toothbrush. My cousin’s daughter, who lives in Australia, was like, OMG, you wanted a toothbrush that was 50 dollars! She couldn’t make sense of it. It makes me wonder if I even make sense at all. 

I have to make sure my brain is still intact enough to work again. The fact that I hardly remember my social security number or the 20-odd passwords I created to apply for jobs, but know my landline number from my childhood by heart, is frightening. Then people will ask me, Do you remember something I told you? Do I remember? That’s a very loaded question. Who are you again?

OK, so I have to tell you this story! First of all, it starts at the drug store, CVS, of all places. I go there to pick up a prescription for my father, and as I’m hopping around, I see a Sonicare toothbrush for fifty dollars. I had a Sonicare toothbrush like five years ago, and I lost it. How do you lose a toothbrush? Like a big toothbrush with a stand and a wire, and all the stuff that comes with this particular brand of electric toothbrush?

I have no idea. But I somehow managed to misplace it and never found it again. So here we are again, at CVS, I say screw it, I’m never gonna find that toothbrush, I’ll just buy a new one. Since I’m getting the prescription for my dad, it will be on his credit card. I know, I’m a bad person, right from the start of this story. I can’t even own a toothbrush properly, and I'm making my father pay for my irresponsibility.

I’m tired and I’m old. That is all I know for sure. Oh yeah, and I’m fat. Life is glorious, isn’t it? I don’t mean to be so negative, but I definitely woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I’m still kind of pissed that I had to wake up at all. It’s almost noon, and I want to go back to sleep. 

I ate cake for breakfast with coffee, which actually made me happy. But as you know, happiness is fleeting. One moment you have a piece of German chocolate cake melting in your mouth, and the next you realize you still have to file your taxes. 

I’ve started frying my brain again, that is, watching TV. I got a free three-month subscription to Apple TV because I need one more streaming service. But I have to say there are some outstanding shows on there.

Where do you get your medical information from? Your doctor? Dr. Interwebs? Dr. Paranoia and Imagination? I would venture to guess you get your medical insights from all these sources if you are anything like me. 

Where do you get your news from? The World Wide Web? The television? Newspapers? NPR? Social Media? WhatsApp? I will admit I’ve used all those sources at one time or another. 

With the advent of the internet, we are having an information explosion. We know too much, and we also know too little. Let me explain…

The Music of My Mind

I would write you a song, but I’m not good at rhyming, nor do I think song-like thoughts. I’m not sure if there is really a beat in my words, but sometimes when I write, I feel like my mind is singing. Let me play you a song from my past; they’re all stored in my brain, I don’t need an app to access them. 

My heart knows how to sing. Do you ever feel like you are in a musical without the music? Sometimes I like being alone because that’s when I can really hear the music of my life. I don’t know anything about music; I just know what I like and what I don’t like. 

I tried to play the trumpet and the harmonium as a kid and failed miserably at both. But there’s still music in me. I don’t know how to get it out, though. I sing my heart out in the car, where no one can hear me. Is that what they mean by living out loud?

Do you remember Kmart? I mean, how could you forget? If you are a child of immigrants, your parents likely bought your clothes from Kmart. They were cheap and not exactly cool. If you were anything like me, you weren’t that cool anyway, so it didn’t really matter. You could get almost anything at Kmart! And everything was cheap!

Do you remember Denny’s? Apparently, there are still Denny’s in other parts of the country, but they have closed down here in Michigan. It was a cool breakfast restaurant with cheap food again, and it was open 24 hours a day. I remember going there in the middle of the night in college.   

When you get to my age, nostalgia is a really popular pastime. I remember stores like Toys R Us, the best toy store in the universe, and Art Van, the best furniture store around. Now everything is online, but when I was a kid, going into a store was like a rush. Do you remember Cabbage Patch Kids? These were popular dolls that were ugly as hell, but I loved them!

So what are your problems? Is your cellphone giving you an echo that annoys the living bajeezus out of you? Is your car’s Bluetooth not connecting to your phone? Did you forget your Netflix password, and you are on the last episode of your favorite show? Are these really problems? Or do we just think we have problems? 

Like traffic, I know more than one person who loses their mind over too much traffic. I have a friend who even joined a ‘traffic group’ that tries to advocate for better use of roads. I asked this friend if he thought maybe he should join a group that supports homeless people or something, anything but traffic, but he said no, traffic is what he is passionate about. I’m serious.

My mission, should I choose to accept it, is to get our house ready for sale. Yes, we are finally selling this beautiful money pit. I have to declutter every surface. There are rumors that we have too many vases and throw pillows…I have no idea how they got there. I mean, okay, I’ll admit it, I may or may not have bought every single piece. But they are sooo pretty…no? 

Besides decluttering, there’s much to do; there have been animals in our attic for probably twenty years. How do I know this? I can hear them moving around from my bedroom. Now, I mentioned this to my dad many years ago, and he didn’t seem moved by it at all. He just looked at me like, well, they haven’t fallen through the ceiling. Okay, but they could. And when they do, what are we supposed to do? Run for our lives?

So I go on Rate My Professor dot com, and lo and behold, some jerk gave me one star out of five. I knew it was someone from that nine o'clock class. If I were a motel, I would not even be a Motel 6; Motel 6 has two stars. It was my only rating on Rate My Professor. So I did the only natural thing I could think of: I rated myself. Oh, stop it, it's not like illegal or anything. And my opinion counts.

Why should I fear death?

If I am, then death is not.

If death is, then I am not.

Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?

Epicurus

What do you think happens after death? I know, I know, this is a dark subject to bring up in the morning, as if mornings are not horrific enough. But I can’t help it, I must know. The only reason I'm curious about this is because my dad just died, and I want to know that he’s hanging out in bliss somewhere.

But the truth is that there is no way to know, is there?

I’ve been addicted to a lot of things in my life; I’m not going to sugarcoat it. But none of them were meth, and that is all that really matters. I want to start with the rather casual and benign addictions. I kid you not, I was once addicted to taking selfies. Yep, I’m so embarrassed about it because how vain am I? 

But it was just so fun to play around with the camera and put my face in different lighting and see how I lit up. I think one day I took around a hundred pictures of myself. I know, I know, that’s pretty frightening. I still have the photos on my camera, and I refuse to post them here because, again, the vanity. 

I mean, this new camera selfie thing is like having your own photographer built in. Don’t judge me, I know what you are thinking. Why? That’s such an invasive question. Why does anyone do anything? Yeah, try answering that first.