Near Cat-tastrophe

I call this a shaggy-cat story. 

I gave my cat a bath. After a quick dousing, I reached for the towel. She took off. And ran right behind my PC. You know, the most dangerous and destructive place a wet cat can hide?

She took sanctuary in a jungle of a million, mostly mysterious, cables with connectors; two power strips; a couple of USB hubs, and three external disks, all powered up for detonation. 

I screamed, grabbed and extracted her contortionist body while untangling her claws from the wires because an unwilling cat has to destroy everything it can. I feared she might get electrocuted. Then I feared both of us might die.

But even worse: she might have killed my PC.

Fortunately, no sparks or explosions happened. I don't know how. And a bigger miracle: everything still works.

Better yet, we made up and are living happily ever after. Until she does something else.

A truly shaggy cat.

Not the usual high (horse)

 It might seem sometimes that I'm on my high-horse, that I'm emotionally above things.

No, it's not a horse. I'm on high doses of drugs, legal ones, both psychiatric and neurological. I would be hapless, helpless, and hopeless without them. And I supplement them with caffeine tablets, about 4-5 cups of coffee worth per day. Never underestimate caffeine's benefit as an antidepressant.

Many people are skeptical of psych medications, but I'm a success story. I know they don't work for everyone. And for many unfortunate mentally ill people, even good doctors might never hit on the right combination of meds (because more than one are usually needed). I was persistent about seeking help, and after about 35 years, I finally got the right doctors who hit on the right drug combo.

Now, I know I have attachment issues. I get sad and shaken by crises, and I worry about today's scary political situation, about the danger we're all in from COVID, about my family and friends, and about economic plight of our nation. I have low points, and surges of agitation, but those moods never persist, and I can work through them. I can feel anger, but that emotion doesn't last either.

I consider myself fortunate because at my lowest point, a relative came through for me when I really didn't deserve it. Although I can't describe myself as happy, I can say I'm focused, disciplined, and yes, finally very organized. Considering how badly I botched my life, how many wrong acts I've committed, and how low I fell, this is the best condition I could expect to be in right now.

I hope I'm not too late in my life to contribute something. With good luck, perhaps I can. I hope.

It's been a frustrating day. I didn't write creatively today, not yet, anyway. I studied math. I tried to address some technical/business issues with my ISP, for the most part, I got stuck on-hold, never got it solved. I posted to FB, and probably shouldn't have wasted my time on that. I tried to upgrade my router firmware, and discovered that I lost my administrator PW and have to factory reset it: tomorrow. Besides, I've been teaching myself to write batch files to back up my work to redundant disks. Every backup program I've tried has been an abject failure. It's better to do it myself with tools Windows provides, though there's been a several week learning curve. In teaching myself, I learned more about the Windows OS. But no, no creative writing today. I want to be done with the batch files by Saturday. That's a realistic goal. Then I'll throw myself back into creative writing. 

Whatever learning I do, I have to do by myself. I'm a higher-education failure. My attention and anxiety problems made that impossible. I didn't flunk, but I didn't learn anything, either. I'd like to buy MasterClass, but I have to know for sure I can make time for the courses. The time's not available right now. Not until I complete the course on Conceptual Math.     

The Democratic Convention continues tonight, and I'm glad to be missing it. Yes, I'm a Democrat, I'm a liberal. But since I'm already persuaded, I don't have to watch the convention.