While my mind is detached from who I think I am, I think of my former self, my work self. I had a title that defined me but it never fit into the "Occupation" category. This troubled me quite a bit. Although I enjoyed the independence from the sanctioned occupational standards I also wondered what I was. Who was this titled person? What were my traits? How did my work identity correspond to who I really was. I just didn't get it and it didn't feel right. But it occupied often times more than forty hours a week of my time. This seemed like quite a lot of time. My 'free' time I spent going to movies, cleaning the house, eating dinner with friends. But I still didn't know what/who I was. As Dupree said, I didn't know my 'ness.' I think my Debness is under consideration. I think this is what is occupying my mind right now and the separate skin I feel is the pod exterior waiting to come off. I can feel it coming but my Debness just isn't here yet.

Ah, my mind. The mind is an unusual thing. You don't control it. It controls you. My mind is a whirring machine that doesn't think about just one thing at a time. Rather it spins masses of thoughts, feelings and physical/psychological sensations all at once. Nothing cohers - not even my thoughts and feelings. They are detached from each other. I feel overloarded by things to do. I don't work so I have all day to myself and can't figure out why I feel overwhelmed by thoughts of things to do. It creates a very strong uneasy feeling.

Also, I feel as if all described above is only a thin sheath - layer - that covers my body. I imagine it as a type of membrane that adhers to my body and surrounds the real me. Somehow I belive that I should be able to peel back this layer and shed this separate skin but I can't right now. I feel like a captive.

Today was my group therapy - intensive outpatient mental health - as it is otherwise known. I've signed on after a five-day in-house stay earlier this fall. The group therapy sessions last three hours and I go twice a week and see my therapist twice a week as well. We always begin group with introductions and three things for which we are greatful. Mine are always the same: family, home, hobby - photography. Next comes personal time that focuses on individual issues. So far I haven't disclosed any personal issues. It's not that I don't have any. I just don't/can't talk about them in a social setting. This is a drag because everybody else is honest and talk about what they are facing and how they are feeling. The therapist even asked me today how things were going. I said 'fine.' Fine.

Travelogue fatigue? you must wonder. But you have just begun. Yes it is true that I have only begun to write but I am in serious trouble if not fatigue then of writers bloc. It must just be the nature of beginning a new venture. First I talk of canaries and then You, me and Dupree. How do the two relate? This question has been nagging me from the start.

One recent episode might revelatory. Eyes change as we grow older and I have the problem of having one eye that sees distances and the other that sees up close. This is the result of a lasic intervention several years ago. I recently inquired into a second lasic operation but learned that people with autoimmune disease are excluded by most doctors. Apparently our eyes don't heal properly and the results are not 'to our liking.'

Thrilling can only describe this most recent episode in my life. Perhaps that could be this canary's true curse: eternal irrelevance and boredom.

Signing off!

Hi again.
 
A major theme of this blog is going to be that of a voyage. A voyage to investigate what I refer to as canaries in a coal mine syndrome. Miners brought canaries into coal mines as warning signals. The canaries would die from poisenous gases underground, signaling the miners that they should move to safety. Modern day "canaries" exist.

Who are they? What are their situations? Modern day canaries are those people who literally become sick from society.

The goal of this blog is to examine these modern day canaries. Can anything be done to escape the effects of teh noxious environments in which they live?

Are you a canary too?