Mea culpa once again...

Yeah, yeah - I'm a damned delinquent. Deal with it already!

Anyway, I was absent for a few days. I was just trying to enjoy my holiday weekend, get over this craptastic cold/allergy/whatever thing that lodged itself in my respiratory system. BLEAH.

Saturday consisted of LOTSA sleeping.

Sunday was more of the same, but I did do something fairly constructive.

Yes...I faced one of they tactile manifestations of my bipolar-ness. It wasn't pretty either.

To further eludicate, one of the things that can be a warning sign for bipolar disorder is excessively risky behavior.

For some people, that's sex. Others gamble.

Lots of us (myself included) shop. For me, my "poison" of choice was office supplies. I liked to buy clothes too, but I REALLY liked office supplies, as well as art supplies (crayons, markers, colored pencils, sketch pads, and the like). I'm not sure why my brain focused on those things, but there ya go.

At any rate, I would go on office supply binges. I really got into gel pens - they were the most addictive. How could they NOT be? All those colors...the glitter gel pens...the pens that write on black paper and look cool...oh MAN. Had to have 'em.

Once my medicines balanced out, the urges to shop faded away. However, I never really confronted the fruits of my labor (so to speak). I tried to ignore them. However, I unpacked a box from when we moved into our new place, and found this 8 x 8 tin box FULL of pens.

I just stared at them. It was like staring down a box of scorpions...many of them had their full ink supply, and had been barely used. So, in an effort to further confront the beast, I sat down and started sorting. Whichever ones worked, I would keep. The ones that didn't, I threw away.

You know, I spent a lot of money on pens that didn't work. Every pen I threw away signified dollars that could have been spent on groceries, bills, etc. By the time I was done, I was so sick of pens, but moreover, I hated myself. How could I have been so stupid?

Hubby #2 knew more about what was going on with me than I thought, and I should have given him more credit than I have. I hate confronting myself, because I know deep down I am my own worst enemy.

So anyway, the rest of Sunday was spent in a deep blue funk. Monday was a little better though, just because I got a glimpse of the absurd.

In an effort to cheer me up (which, I must admit, worked), D took me to one of my favorite fast-food artery-clogging restaurants. Yep, good ol' Long John Silvers. The closest one to us is in Frederick, MD. However, little did we know that the mall in which Long John Silvers is encased is closing.

Yep.

Anyway...when we walked into the mall, the first thing we noticed was that the Ground Round restaurant was closed. Not just closed for the holiday - we're talking "no-tables-chairs-fixtures" closed. Wow.

Nothing prepared me for the "discount stores" we found inside. Someone (apparently someone named "Joey", because his name was festooned on banners hanging outside the store) was attempting to cash in on the sadness.

I know I'm going to piss off some people with this description, but too bad - the stores looked like shining examples of what a Mafia yard sale would look like. Seriously - it all looked like it fell off a truck.

For example...one store seemed to think that everyone would want to buy dreamcatchers, slot machines, 7 ft. tall gum-ball machines and anything that depicted Native Americans. (I mean sculptures, paintings, lamps, etc.)

I think my personal favorite item in that store was a resin sculpture of a Native American woman riding on the back of...a rhino. Yeah. You read it right. (Somehow, I must have missed out on the role the rhino played in the Trail of Tears or Little Big Horn. I'll have to check my history books.)

They had some useful things too, don't get me wrong...but there was a definite air of "cheese it, the cops" floating around. The rest of the stores weren't any better. It was like going to Goodwill, except you had the sinking feeling that the money you spent there was going toward someone's bail instead of creating work for the disabled.

We did get to LJS (our golden destination) and asked one of the counter clerks when the mall was closing. All they said was "Soon". They looked so drained, so hopeless, so...weary.

I really felt bad for them. Between having to walk past those awful stores every day and not knowing when things are going to happen to themselves, it really would be a level of hell I'd rather not face if I can help it.

But I will not buy a slot machine for my home. The stupid pens were bad enough.

Sudiegirl