@The antiques auction. Man standimg next to an antique saddle says "Excuse me, i think you should buy saddle and i be your horse and you ride me."

When it rains, it rains goldfish

Yesterday, chocolate proved itself a migraine trigger. I took my pills and resigned myself to a night at home doing dishes and laundry and watching movies.
The phone rang  a little after 7; Possible Boy wanted me to go hang out with him at the bar. I told him  I wasn't leaving the house, blah blah blah, and we began an extended texting conversation while he went to the bar and I washed dishes.
One of the dishes that needed washing was Aural Girl's Pyrex. I didn't know if it could go in the dishwasher, so I texted her to ask. When my phone beeped to say I had a new message, I assumed it was AG or PB, but no! it was Jame's Spader's now former roommate. I'd started the night running around in one of my slip/chemise/nightie things because I was cleaning and flatly refusing to wear pants or real clothes of any sort, plus, as you may have gathered from my previous few posts, I've been insatiably horny as hell for the past few days. Then both James Spader's ex-roommate and Possible Boy were sending suggestive flirty texts. I like suggestive texts. I also can get carried away with suggestive texts. Apparently I can also read more into them than ever actually exists, as when Possible Boy came over and I put the kibosh on the flirty stuff and then he left just a few minutes into Billy Elliott, I assumed he left because he thought he was coming over for a reprise of November and instead got my nervous-like-I'm-at-a-job-interview mask and zero comfort or encouragement.
I tried to keep watching the movie but Beetle's brother (ok, new name for Beetle's brother: Manbug. It's like a ladybug is related to a beetle but this one's definitely a man) kept texting me, hounding me to come over and smoke up with him. I still refused to leave my house but told him he was welcome to come to me. So he came.
I did, too, but that wasn't until a few hours later...
I wasn't going to get involved with Manbug, and as far as I'm concerned I'm still not getting "involved" with him; the universe handed me this perfect little opportunity and, unlike the other boys on my dance card, I know I can fool around with him and not crush his soul. In the extremely short-term, anyway.

After PB left, I emailed him about our not hooking up. However many of you dear readers just rolled your eyes and shook your heads and asked, "Jesus, Annabell, are you completely socially oblivious?!?" the answer is yes. Turns out not only was it a faux pas in the general being-a-dork sense, but my assumptions that PB's innuendo texting was anything more than playing around was dead wrong. I guess I didn't think it was more than playing until he said he was coming over when I knew he was drunk, but I'm glad I was wrong. He made a point of clearing the air today. I was jonesing for a fuck buddy and trying to be there for him as a friend at the same time and I'm terrible at multitasking, so maybe putting PB at priority #1 made me think he was part of priority #2. Who knows.

I got my hair cut, low-lighted (darkened in such a way that it actually looks like it's highlighted even though the highlights are the pieces that are my natural color), and my eyebrows darkened all for absolutely free and I really like it. We'll see how it turns out tomorrow when I try to do it myself, but for today, I am pleased

People are turtles the whole way down.

Side Effects

Today at therapy I was yammering at a million miles an hour about everything in my life and in my head and being "on the prowl" last night and my therapist asked. "Are you feeling lonely?"

I've gotten much better at handling myself during my migraine isolation, accepting it as not a big deal  because it can't kill me and I still can do so many things; but once I'm feeling like a normal person again, I want normal person things and I want them all at the same time to make up for days lost and prepare for days to come. It's like living in hurricane-prone paradise. Will everything you own be destroyed and washed away? Maybe. If so, you rebuild as fast as you can and board up the new windows so you have someplace to hide when the next one hits, if the next one hits. When they're bad, you're grateful to be alive, but still you lose something. The garden is washed away...is there a point in replanting the garden? Swing set crumpled...do you buy a stronger, better swing set or do you accept that you'll just have to be happy with the pool?

I hug the people I love a little too tight and want to eat as much of the world as I can. Yes, migraines are painfully lonely. I have my dog and I have as much internet as I can handle and I have wonderful people all over the country who send me text messages and make me smile, but sitting alone in the mostly-dark for a week and a half is lonely. More lonely than just the standard having to go through life without feeling complete lonely. It is lonely because I am alone.

That was one of the major plus sides to my friendship with NBF: we were happy just to be in the same room together, so I could be half-dead and he could play his computer games and we weren't alone. He was my husband-without-benefits. He wasn't particularly gracious about it, but if I needed to go to the store for something and couldn't drive or think, I could usually convince him to take me. Monday when I was mostly dead and needed to go to Walgreens I almost called Possible Boy for assistance but I decided I wanted to do it myself to prove I didn't need anybody. And I don't need anybody in a literal sense. For as bonkers and flighty as I feel much of the time, I'm quite self-reliant. But I don't  want to be alone. This doesn't require Husband or even Boy, just humans. Basically, it's no surprise I was ready to feed last night and spent today itching to affect the entire universe.

Ungrounded

I'm feeling better again. I was going to watch the season premier of LOST at Possible Boy's house but he decided he wanted to go out and not stay home for three hours of couch potato-ness. I texted James Spader to see what he was doing, since I know he watched LOST, too, and he would also be an entertaining watching-buddy. He would be full of conjecture and criticism, a side of myself I've been sprinkling with coarse ground sugar instead of feeding its usual lemons. (Un?)fortunately, James is out of town. The episode will be online tomorrow and I was much more interested in getting out and having fun tonight than watching other people run around an island, so I went to the bar for improv night.

Holy shit am I squirrelly.

I've been cooped up and feeling like crap for a week, and tonight was/is my explosion of all my kinetic energy not knowing where to go.

I left the bar shortly after Aural Girl did. Sometimes Possible Boy and I can't talk to eachother. This was one of those times.

But tonight, I was feeling dangerous. There was a bar full of Boys and I wanted to get in trouble. I wanted to do something with all this energy, wanted to watch something explode.

So I left. Before I could hurt anyone, or even ruffle feathers that might later need to be unruffled. But even now, I'm sitting here completely sober with too much fire behind my eyes, still wearing my boots and my coat. I could go back. I could prowl and devour and find something male and fleshy to prove I'm alive.

Down, girl.

Evening Ramblings

Sometimes my dog is so cute I can't stand it. According to a former light of my life/scourge of my soul, my dog is actually thinking "I am going to eat your face" every time he stares at you with those adorable, wide gaping eyes. Well, maybe my dog should eat the faces of the boys I bring home; I tend to let those boys treat me like crap, so somebody needs to be looking out for us...

That's not fair. I'm looking out a bit better. If I wasn't, I'd totally have gone for one of the not-particularly-nice-but-still-interesting boys. I may be subconsciously trying to train Possible Boy to treat me like crap, but he's one of the most frighteningly kind people I've met in my entire life. But there are more fish! Billions of fish! I have some pretty spectacular friendfish, and now I even have spectacular friendfish down the block, so when the next Boyfish comes swimming along I can freak out and cry and all those other things with people who can physically hand me the bag of marshmallows.

I fought the Topamax Withdrawal Monster today and won. Two phone calls and an email to my doctor's office, two phone calls and finally just showing up at Walgreens, and TADA! Topamax. The shakes are going down and I can almost walk straight again. Hooray!

I just want to watch pseudo-edgy TV dramas all the time. And say "pseudo-edgy" because I'm too cool to actually think anything on television is edgy. I'm sooo edgy. I live in Rogers Park. Sometimes, there's crime. There's even black people. Sometimes, I even talk to them. Oooh, edgy.

Oh shit. I put my chicken back on the George because it was still raw-ish. That was a good 20 minutes ago...
Chicken didn't really burn, but my dog may get a serious treat tonight...

Poke Her Face

My hands are covered in dry superglue. I made a bunch of cards with envelopes to match. I can't sell the sum total of what I did for more than $30, but I left a mess and I created things and I enjoyed the process and my head is better now than when this day began.

More things I want to write about but I'm crashing (finally...sleeping much of the day has me wide awake past 1 AM). I'll write a treatise on Lady Gaga as a songwriter and Gagaism as the new dadaism later. Just watch this because it is in my head and totally changed my opinion of Lady Gaga:

Couch Party

Earlier today I gave myself my ketorolac tromethamine shot, walked the dog, and fell asleep on the couch before I took off my coat. When I woke up from the nap, I still had the headache. I went to the Walgreens drive-thru and forced myself through a quick shopping trip at my little local grocery store. I needed rice milk but there was no way I could deal with Dominicks (now owned by Safeway), so I still have no rice milk. It is amazing what I can do, when necessary, with migraine. It's also amazing how hard some things can be. The mess builds and builds, and at this point I'm still assuming I'll feel better in another day or so, and then I can clear away the rubble. Now, the logic and organization receptors are frustratingly haywire and as long as I'm not back in permanent status migraine mode, it's not worth trying to think in the way that hurts most.

When I came home from my errands, my dog was in my nap spot on the couch. I've since reclaimed the space, forcing him to build himself a little fort out of the cushions. First he had to "dig" the cushions, then my sofa's slip cover provided him a more fruitful excavation. We stayed through sunset, watching Hulu. I ate half a papaya, three bananas, and a generously buttered sweet potato. I knit. I finished the entire season of Lie to Me and a good bit of the scarf I'm knitting. My dog farted a lot.

At least I don't feel bitter or ashamed of my day. Maybe the pain is too wide to fit my standard self-doubt, but I feel like I got today "right." I pushed on the things that required pushing and let go everywhere else. Aural Girl and Possible Boy are wonderful and amazing when I'm migrainey. They say nice things and mean them and care and are concerned in a way that isn't more about themselves (cough, my mother, cough cough). They went to see the NBA game in Milwaukee, and I just got a text from Possible Boy that says "having a blast, wish you were here with us!" and at this particular moment I am very glad I am not with them because they are somewhere with noise and motion and people and things that would make me curl up into a little ball and cry. People confined to wheelchairs don't generally get to climb through ancient ruins or Escher lithographs; I may not be able to plan attendance at indoor sporting events, concerts, or the entire city of Las Vegas. I'm so used to having it all, it's not a bad life to have it most.

In a perfect world...

Dear doctors,
When Walgreens calls you to refill a prescription, call them back. Due to insurance, I can  only refill my prescriptions a week in advance. That should be plenty of time to authorize additional refills. It's a huge part of what you do.

Dear Walgreens,
If the doctor doesn't call back, please try calling again. Please. I am at home not knowing if or how much you have hounded them. I don't know if they've already called it back in and you just haven't completed the prescription. You claim to do all of this so I don't have to. Great. Then please do.

There is a reason I am on so many medications, and when that reason coincides with those medications not getting refilled, it sucks a lot. I'm having enough trouble walking the dog and feeding myself at semi-regular intervals. It would be great if I didn't need to chase down doctors on the weekend when I've run out of my emergency supply because only one of my five refills are ready for pick-up and I submitted it all on Monday.

In large amounts of pain and this is not helping,
Annabell