My grandfather sent me a Christmas card with a check in it. I am grateful for the check but I am seriously offended that he put "Grandpa and Grandma Bowman" on the return address. That woman is NOT my grandmother and never will be.

MRI Tuesday. I'm sort of weirdly excited about it. I've never had one, or any sort of scan or EKG or anything more involved than an x-ray, which I've only had once. So I'm intrigued to see what it will be like and what the neurologist gets out of it. I'm going to have to wear pajama pants and a sports bra with my t-shirt though, because all my regular bras are underwire with metal hooks and I don't have any other pants (except for a pair of palazzo pants that are three inches too long) that don't have metal snaps or rivets or buttons or zippers.

I am also finally on medication that will hopefully, eventually, reduce both the frequency and severity of my headaches and my migraines. So far it's not working, but it's been less than a week and I'm on the lowest dose. She said most people with chronic headaches end up needing double what I'm getting. I suppose I understand the concept of not taking more of a drug than you absolutely need, but at the same time, if you know, based on extensive experience with the drug from treating patients with similar conditions, that this dosage is almost certainly too low, why bother with it? I had the same question when I started Wellbutrin. I went back three weeks later and the doctor tripled my Wellbutrin dose. It seems like a waste of time to start so low. But what do I know. I'm not the MD here.

My sister is pregnant. The in vitro worked, first time out. I should be happy for her, shouldn't I?

There's a house in foreclosure in Bloomington.

I fell in love with it the first time I saw it. I was so distracted, staring at it, that I missed the weird quick turn I have to take there and got turned around, and had to go back to the last mailbox I'd delivered and try again. It's blue, with white lattice work and bay windows, a big tree in the yard with a circular bench around it, a gazebo in the back.

Shortly before the housing market tanked, a "For Sale by Owner" sign went up. The regular carrier on that route told me that the couple who lived there had moved here from back East somewhere. He had serious health issues, and they hoped that our more arid climate would help him. It didn't, and he died. She was selling because she was moving back to be with her family. The carrier's wife also thought the house was beautiful, so he called the number and asked about the house. I only remember two of the things he told me she'd said. There was a mother-in-law apartment attached to the house, and she was asking $489,000 for it. I could never afford that, so I wrote it off as an impossible dream, and just stared longingly every time I delivered mail out there.

Yesterday, the regular carrier told me it's in foreclosure. "You can buy it!" he said. "They'll take the highest bid. Twenty-five bucks!" I sort of rolled my eyes at him. But it started me thinking, and while I was delivering the first part of that route I built up a scenario in my head where I somehow could buy it for a couple thousand. I'm good at unattainable dreams.

When I reached the house, I parked the truck and went up to read the foreclosure notice on the window. The auction is the 27th, at 1 pm. The money is due in a cashier's check to the bank's lawyer in Salt Lake the 28th. The real hitch is that they require $5000 in addition to whatever the final, highest bid is. I'm not sure why that five grand was such a kick in the teeth - there's no way that a house like that, even depreciated as it is now, would go for the couple thousand I could scrounge up, so it's not like I really had a chance. But this is the closest I'll ever come to owning that house, and it's incredibly depressing that it's still so out of reach.

I console myself (sort of) with the thought that I've never been inside and have no idea what it's really like, that the grass is dead now, that it might need expensive restoration, that it would take more work to keep up both inside and out, that I absolutely hate moving.

But the bay window would be the perfect place for a baby grand (which I don't own and can't afford). And if I picked up that house for a song, I could take out a home equity loan and pay everything else off, and get right-side up with my current mortgage, and sell the town house, or even keep it and rent it out.

Oh well, right?

I'm not doing group anymore. I lasted three months, which is three months longer than I would have last year and three months longer than I thought I would. I'm overwhelmingly relieved but at the same time, I feel like I've failed myself and my therapist by giving up. Things sort of came to a head a couple of weeks ago, when one of the other women tried to manipulate me into doing something she wanted me to do, and then said, among other things, that she didn't trust me not to judge her because I'm a Mormon. Hello, irony. She judged me to be incapable of not judging her, based solely on whatever screwed up idea she has of What Mormons Are. Clearly she's had some run-ins with less than Christ-like members, but so what? So have I. There are morons and jerks and hypocrites in every religion, and Mormons are not the Borg. Most of us don't check our brains at the door, and I'll guarantee you that my opinions and perspective are different from any other person's, let alone any other Mormon's, because I am not them. Rar.

Clearly I am not over this.

I thought I was. I thought I had worked through my reactions, thought I truly understood that this was her problem, her issues, and not really about me at all. And maybe I have more than I think, but last week I literally felt myself closing off as soon as I heard her voice. I can't make any progress when I'm shut down like that. I'll go back to one-on-one sessions as soon as I can get over my embarrassment at bailing enough to make an appointment with him. He's fantastic. He said he's committed to me. I don't know which is more surprising to me - that he said it, or that I believe he means it.

My youngest sister is going in for in vitro in a couple of weeks. I think I faked interest well enough when I was talking to my mom, but I don't want to hear about it. I can't be excited or hopeful for her at all. Her wedding was the hardest for me to take, and so will any pregnancies she manages. Which, she may not, and she'll have to take a crap load of hormones to maintain the pregnancy if it takes. She's ten years younger than I am, and obnoxious and abrasive and incredibly difficult to deal with, and it feels so unfair that she's married and might have kids and I'm not and don't. I don't seem to be able to be an adult about this, or about her.

The Wellbutrin isn't working yet. October 6th can't get here soon enough. I'm not really excited about talking to the doctor again because he's weird, but I expect he'll increase my dosage. I hope. Also, I am slowly accepting the fact that I'm going to have to see a neurologist. I've never had two migraines in one week before and it sucks.