The days when I curl up in my recliner with the pugs tucked in around me and hold onto my latté with a death grip.

The days when both sides of the kitchen sink are piled so high with dirty dishes that every time I go in to do them I feel so overwhelmed and forlorn I shrug and slink out of the kitchen and just let them keep piling up. I’m going to get it done though. I will have to use the 1-2-3-4 method which will likely take at least 2 days.

1. When I have to get up to go to the bathroom or anything that takes me through the kitchen I have to open the dishwasher and unload one rack.

2. Next time I go through I unload the other rack.

3. Next time I load the dishes and start the dishwasher.

4. The last time I hand-wash the things that either wouldn’t fit or can’t go in the dishwasher and wipe down and straighten the counters.

Nothing makes me happier than a really clean kitchen. It’s getting from here to there that’s the problem. You see it is, well, perhaps I can sing it to you. It goes to the tune of Bad Moon Rising by Credence Clearwater Revival, one of my favorite groups back in the 70’s. Good God I’m old. I put the youtube link in the title for those of you who are — flinching — too young to remember this song. I can’t actually sing it to you because of fear of copyright infringement, but you get the drift. Here are my lyrics, based on theirs, but theirs aren’t so bipolary…

“I see the Bi-i-polar rising
I see there’s trouble on the way
I feel the anxiety and I’m frightened
It’s been a damned hard day.

Don’t come round tonight
I’m bound to take your li-ife
Bad bipolar’s on the rise…”

I will spare you the rest.

Right now I am on the couch with my posse beside me. My pug posse that is. They see me through thick and thin and are just the right size, like soft, warm, furry little teddy bears, to pick up and squeeze and kiss and hold onto when I need to steady myself.

 They’ve been squeezed a lot these last few days. As you can see they are plumb worn out.

Okay I’ve been beating around the bush but here’s the deal. I knew that despite my commitment to writing this book — and I am deeply committed and GOING to write the book and nothing will stop me, even if I stumble along the way — that being bipolar and writing this book was going to have it’s ups and downs, but I’ve been terrified because more than once I’ve been knocked off my horse, so to speak, and couldn’t make myself get back up in the saddle. But this time I’m prepared. I know that it not only can, but will happen. Also I started a new medication a week or so ago and sometimes it makes me fuzzy headed or headachey or more tired than usual at which point the pugs and I curl up and take a nap. This being the case I had to come up with a strategy that would keep me moving forward even if I had to go so slow at times that inchworms would pass me on the path. But, well, where am I going? I’m going to be right here, and if it takes me 2 or 3 or 5 years what does it matter? It won’t take that long but the point is why beat myself up when I have hard days. No, I just have to dip a toe in and keep on going.

So my strategy is this. I have 3 notebooks. 2 I have torn the covers off of because, well, one tore off accidentally and with my compulsive sense of symmetry I couldn’t stand for the other one to have a cover. These are some of my favorite little sketch books in the whole wide world by Global Arts. I have their sketchbooks in all kinds of sizes. Bought them a couple of years ago when I fell in love with them and could get them in batches wholesale. These are little 6×6 inch books and they have wonderful orange covers with flaps. I love the covers, but what with the accidental mishap and the symmetry issue and all I had to take the other one off. But the paper is very crisp and white and wonderful to write on with a fountain pen. Then there’s my Moleskine. I have these too in different sizes and whatnot, some with soft covers and some with hard, but when I am going to be seriously banging about with one I like a hardcover and I like the reporter style that flips open from the top. Here, you can see them when I was writing last night…

One of the Global Arts notebooks I use for research notes, one I use to sketch out the chapters, and the Moleskine goes everywhere with me, from room to room or in my huge turquoise purse if I have to go out. That Moleskine holds me up if I have to leave the house to go out into the scary world. I use it for everything from notes, short ideas on the fly so I don’t forget them to run with later, and even whole chapters are sometimes written in the Moleskine. This is going to be a book with a lot of very short chapters so it is perfect to write them out by hand first. I love writing by hand and have always written first drafts by hand. Now I do write first drafts on a computer but not whole drafts. I am always writing part of it by hand. The hand to heart connection is very powerful and gives the book some oomph it wouldn’t have if I did it all on the computer. Or that’s how it works for me in any case.

So I have my system and my little notebooks and they are always beside me with my kindle or current book and lots of pens of every type and color in case I need to doodly-doo to unwind my brain a little. And on these hard days if I can’t write a whole chapter or be that organized in my thinking I do some research and makes notes on that notebook or jot down ideas for chapters on the other one, maybe outline a little or shuffle things around. I am a very visual person and the way the paragraphs sit on the page is really important to me. And sometimes if I have been very gentle with myself and not knocked myself all around and beat myself up because I wasn’t doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing the little bits that I am able to do might inspire me to grab the Moleskine and GO! The gentler you are with yourself the easier it all goes. At least that is my experience.

So now it is just past midnight on Friday night. (I know that it is technically Saturday morning now but with the odd hours I keep until I go to sleep it is still “Friday Night.” Going to bed on the next day messes with my head a little.)

I have made notes, and done research, and a bit of doodly-dooing, so it has been productive for a day when my bipolary bits are acting up. I feel good about that. I was going to try to work on the book but while I will be up for some time yet my head hurts and I feel a little fuzzyfied so I will sign off here and put on a movie or a documentary and chill with the snoring pugs. They are just so cute, my little bundles of joy. So much love here even on the hard days.

Warm Regards & Deepest Blessings to all…