Maybe more here than meets the eye

There were three possible solutions, and one of the words was not like the other two.  More than half of the Wordle players chose one of those two; interesting, I wonder why they did.

 

What is a Good Cat?

A good cat likes to take a nap and wants to be safe while doing it.  Good Queen Swirly used to mess up the green slipcover on the family room sofa, and then crawl under it for her afternoon naps.  After straightening up the slipcover a few times, we realized she was just being a Good Cat, and learned to drape a light fleece blanket over the back of the sofa for her naps.  

Only today, she's not as hidden as she might think.

 

Another Day

Around January 1 of this year, I started taking sertraline again. Not for depression, the official reason for the drug treatment formerly known as Zoloft, but an unofficial reason:  it helps me keep an even keel, without highs or lows.  I would take it before going to The Borgata so I could play video poker for hours without emotion at steady losses or the occasional hot streak.  A performance-enhancing drug, you might say, and completely legal.

A physician's assistant told me that it takes weeks for the drug to build up in the blood before benefits are felt, but that's never been how it's worked for me.  The first few weeks I took it in 2012, there was a sense of being wrapped in a thick cushion, apart from the world around me, but that eased back into a normal feeling, or one that felt so close to a drug-free normal that I could forget I was taking it.

There's an unclear memory of brief sudden images that I learned were part of the regimen, known informally as "brain zaps", but they too faded away over the years.  I can't remember the last time that they happened.

I was also warned not to stop taking it cold turkey (well, that's not how they put it) but to taper off, eventually reaching zero.  If I didn't, I risked something for which I can't remember the term they used, but that I remember translating as "withdrawal", and that makes sense when speaking of drugs.  But sertraline just works for me; I can take it or leave it.  When I take it, it works at once, and when I stop, there are no consequences.  Really good stuff.

Backing up now -- why did I start taking it again?  Because a stressful season was about to begin at work, one in which client demand would peak and waiting lists would stretch far beyond any other time of the year.  I wanted to be able to take things as they came, without emotional reactions.  Did it work?  Yes.

It's only after stopping, now that the busiest season is past, that I feel like I'm thinking a bit more clearly, that a thin hazy layer has lifted.  The biggest change is that I'm writing in here again.  Yesterday I took a bunch of notes that can be turned into separate posts down the road, maybe this weekend.  So I have more energy and interest in doing more than the necessary tasks of my job, followed by hours in the recliner listening to audiobooks.

This evening, I watched some of Vivement Dimanche and some of another film I can't remember now and won't boot up Tivo to find out.  For about an hour, I lay on the sofa while my little girl cat, "Daddy's Widdle Baby Durl" rested on my stomach.  

When she hopped down, I powered up the laptop and read some of Frank Sinatra Has a Cold, some of Valerie Trierweiler's settling-scores book en version originale, and some of George Ade's Fables in Slang, although the public-domain book contained references that have been lost to time.  I guess you had to be there, where "there" was the early 20th Century.  Also, I read part of Keith Gessen's New Yorker report on late-Putin Russia.  Maybe before bed I'll read another chapter of Fred Allen's Much Ado About Me, a mid-century book whose references should be clearer.

Wrapping up:  On sertraline for about six weeks, I could function at a near-normal level, but only after stopping could I tell the difference between full capacity and the thin hazy layer of lethargy I was working with before.  It wasn't an awful lethargy, it was a comfortable and quite a satisfactory lethargy.  

I could do what I had to do, and do a capable job of it.  Beyond that, I had no desire to do much of anything else.  I'm glad I had it before, and I'm just as glad not to have it now.

P.S.:  Sertraline also helps me lose weight, because I don't indulge in stress eating.  I'm down to 245; that's 10 pounds in 6 weeks.  I turn 67 in five months. let's see if I can keep it up without outside help.