The Trip

Hot Damn.
Going on one week paxil-free now and as expected its been quite a trip. Contrary to my expectations, though, it hasn't just been a week of hell. There have been some bright spots along the way intermingled with mind-warping weirdness.

Here are a few highlights:

Saturday morning was glorious here in Portland. Bright blue sky, amazing foliage and the perfect amount of fall chill in the air. I took myself out on a walk up one of my favorite trails nearby. I used to walk this trail every day before we had kids. Me and the dogs, or me and Dan and the dogs. I walked it a lot with Minna too, when she was little enough to ride in the carrier, but since then the visits have been few and far between. As I was walking I tried to calm my head and take in the scenery. For a while I was doing OK, feeling kinda foggy, but not too bad. And then the voices started. Actually, one voice. My voice. My voice from about 5 years ago. I can't really explain this without sounding even loonier than I actually am, but suffice to say that hearing me talking to me but knowing that the me that was talking to the me that was listening was somehow dredged up from my memories of years past gave me chills.

Saturday afternoon I needed a little alone time to chill out, so I headed to the studio to distract my brain with some TV. I flipped around and ended up on the cooking channel half-way into an episode of "Down Home With the Neelys". A few minutes later, I was sobbing, bawling, gasping for air. Totally overwrought by the loving banter between Pat and Gina Neely. She looooooooves the way he chops shallots- you better recognize! and he has never met a woman who makes better shramps. It was all too fucking much for my faulty wires to handle. Ridiculous.

By Saturday evening, I was feeling good. So good I decided it would be a great idea to pack up the family and head to The Old (or is it Ye Olde?) Spaghetti Factory. What the what? If you know me, you know that I think the Spag Factory is where good dining goes to die. Normally I consider the Spag Factory to the be restaurant equivalent of public pools. Ew. But on this night, I was seeing nothing but positives. Its cheap (and we broke), Pasta! (one of the few things both kids will eat without a fight), and trashy (both kids were in dirty sweats and slippers and I had no intention of changing them before heading out). When I put this suggestion to Dan, he paused and said....Spaghetti Factory? Huh. You must be trippin'. But he knew better than to stand in the way of my big idea, so off we went.
The SF did not disappoint. It is trashtastic. People fucking everywhere. Amazing that a place so humongous, yet shitty, was teeming with people willing to suck it up for the 30-40 minute wait just to get some-o-dat Manager's Special in their face. We got our beeper and headed up to the "Kids Korner" to wait. Any time the C in Corner is replaced with a K, you know you are in for a treat. The Kids Korner consisted of, literally, a korner filled with video games. The one in the back was our kids' favorite. For 50 cents a mechanical crane type device moved back and forth with accompanying sound effects that evoked images of a dinosaur trying to push out a hard poo. At some point it stopped and scooped up about 2 cents worth of crappy candy and dropped it in the chute. "A winner every time" the sign said. Fifty cents for a crappy pack of smarties? Winner!
I had no quarters so the kids stood with their little noses pressed up against the glass tank for about 20 minutes watching other kids "play" the game. Eventually, their tactic paid off and each one of them received a candy donation from another parent (who was probably cursing me for being so goddamn cheap). Free fun size Skittles and Nerds. Winner!
The food was crap, but the kids were really really good and we actually had a pretty relaxing meal. Of course about 30 minutes after we got home I had to puke over the railing off our front deck. The Old Spaghetti Factory, where the food is cheap and the bulimia is free.