Open Letter

Dear Two Guys Installing My Elfa Shelves,

Please do it right. And carefully. Be anal about it. Not like my bathroom sink which is flush to the wall on one side and half an inch away on the other so that the whole unit is at an angle, made obvious by the way it sits askew to the tiles on the floor. Not like my dining room ceiling, which is incredibly streaky because the paint goes on streaky but perhaps you could have said or done something before you were completely finished?

Is there a reason you don't have and/or don't bring tools? Just wondering. Because last time you had to go out and get a level (perhaps a carpenter square would have served you well, too), and today you had to buy the correct drill bits before you could do anything. And then borrowed my pliers. And my scissors, step stool, paper towels, vacuum, hammer...sorry I didn't have a rubber mallet. Maybe I'll get one for next time.

I'm very glad you're nice. I'm nice, too. Until you fuck up my house. Don't fuck up my house.

Love,
Annabell

Sex, Drugs, and Trying to Get Off the Island

I think my psychiatrist is convinced NBF and I were doin' it. There was this very strange bit of conversation today about me being "sexually active" (matters because migraine doc is making me go to the gyno for hormone meds it instead of just writing me a prescription, largely as incentive to make me go to the gyno...blech).

Dr. Shrink: Are you sexually active?
me: Yes. Well, I don't know how active, but yes.
Dr: What do you mean by that?
me: I do sometimes have sex but it's not exactly a frequent or regular thing
Dr: When was the last time you ad intercourse?
me: Duh...um...what day is it? A month ago? No, more than that...a month and a half? Something like that.
Dr: [sounding like he'd gotten me in a trap] Was this your friend that moved away?
me: Oh god no. We were never like that.

Then I started rambling about occasional circumstances presenting themselves and sometimes lead to intercourse blah blah blah, but I think he took my weird bumbling as me trying to cover that NBF and I were actually lovers instead of me just being a bumbly person not sure how to explain things to my attractive and young enough you'd think he'd be less suspicious of a 27-year-old having occasional casual sex psychiatrist.

I have new friends in my neighborhood. They're Neighbor Guy's fault. Most of them are gay males. I'm also now connected to a surprising number of ex-navy men. They all hang out at the bar that's around the corner from my condo. Very convenient. I'm currently on the zero booze migraine diet, but mixes of juices make me feel fancy. I'm writing like I do this all the time when I've actually been once. Well, I went with NBF and I think I even dragged my sister before, since it's right here, but I never actually talked to people I didn't already know before.

I'm watching obscene amounts of LOST. You can see all five seasons online, and now that I'm physically incapable of concentrating on anything that requires more than a minute of my input, movies/tv shows and walking the dog are about the only ways I get any stimulation. I'm really excited I could write as much as I've written tonight. I'm spacing out pretty badly between sentences and clauses and having a hard time getting this last paragraph down, so I think I'm spent, but it felt good to get this much out. I started a paper journal again hoping it would be easier to keep up now that I'm a space cadet, but I write so much slower by hand that I get less out and once I start spacing out I'm a goner. Ok, I'm a goner now. Stoned writing again, except without the pot. We cut my Neurontin in half starting today so maybe I'll be better soon. As of now, who needs marijuana when your daily breakfast comes in pill form and your own saliva requires a side effects warning label?

Ugh. Brain fried. Fried fried fried.

Two-Steppin'

There's pollen floating so thick it looks like summer snow. It gathers in drifts on the grass and clings to leaf piles and big rocks on the sand. It's beautiful. I don't get seasonal allergies or sneeze at flowers, and for that I am grateful. It is magical fairy dust instead of the threat of greater discomfort.
My head has been bad. Still. Yesterday I was feeling better and did as much as I possibly could in my shiny happy window, including going to the beach with my across the street neighbor and both of our dogs. Mine required constant Dog Whisperer correction and is a pain in the ass, but I love him to pieces and he had a wonderful time and he needs new dog friends now that NBF's dog is gone. And I need new people friends now that NBF is gone. Like, people who are local. So it's completely fabulous that I'm hanging out with Across the Street Neighbor. He needs a code name, I suppose. Neighbor Guy? That works. We went to Two-Steppin' Tuesday at a country-themed gay bar in Andersonville last week and learned how to line dance and two-step and had a fabulous time. I was the only actual girl in the entire bar for most of the night but there were only about 30 people in the whole place and everyone was extremely friendly and forget the myth that gay boys can dance because they were all tripping over themselves and eachother and laughing and having a wonderful time. I was one of the better dancers there, and that's saying something. I had to lead sometimes in two-step because some of the guys only learned to follow. Some dressed for the occasion in their stylin' cowboy best, too. Basically, awesomeness.

blog : journal :: sex : ?

One of the Best Friends I've had in my entire life contacted me on Facebook. I'd looked for her before, Googlestalked and asked around, but no one really knew where she was these days.

And now she's resurfaced in Chicagoland and I can't begin to express how happy this makes me.

I wish I had just enough more of the writers' narcissism to not give a fuck if things I wrote in here ended up hurting or offending anyone. But even with my pen name, enough people I care about know both this blog and enough other people I care about, and I just don't want something I write to fuck anybody over or hurt them in any deep and lasting way. Fine. I started a fresh paper journal the other day. I'll go write in there. It's just frustrating when you know you're playing it safe so you end up turning down a willing partner because he's your friend's ex-husband or brother or something and you can go home and masturbate but it's so not the same.

Remembered and Lost

I think I remember a time when I didn't have a migraine. Nixon was president and we were worried about the Y2K virus infecting all the cows in Asia. I thought some day I'd take over the world by being a journalist. I went to a concert and didn't require 23 different chemical compounds to make it past the gate. I went to school or work without a second thought.

I just added cinnamon and sugar to my plain yogurt. It's delicious. I tend to think anything is delicious when it involves cinnamon. Even more than chocolate, though I think of it less often.

How much LOST can I watch in one day?

My Grain is Rice or Corn

I'll get back to The Columbian later. Can't really concentrate or think about that story right now, so you get a different one.

Let me be frank with you all for a moment. Maybe Frank is having an easier time than Annabell.
The migraine stuff has been rough. I'm drugged out of my mind to the point that it takes all my concentration to accomplish simple tasks. Writing has never been difficult for me and yet this blog post is requiring all kinds of extra initiative and push and time. I have bills to pay and phone calls to make, too, and they very well may take me hours instead of minutes.

My latest major anti-migraine push has been a diet change. Since there are a bazillion little additives and weird things in our foods, any number of which could be triggering or causing the migraines, I'm taking them all out. Gluten, milk, and eggs are always big question marks for migrainey people, too. I did a version of the no gluten diet six years ago, but now that things are so bad I'm being extremely strict just so I can either find a culprit or officially rule food out as a cause.

So, the only foods I am eating are:

• fruits
• vegetables
• potatoes
• corn
• rice
• milk
• meat
• sugar in its nice pure sugar form (no corn syrup or weird fake sugar products or derivatives)
  
• spices that can be found in a spice cabinet (MSG is not a spice)
• butter
• olive and vegetable oil (NO soybean or peanut oil, more strictly than usual)
• beans (meaning garbanzos since they're the ones I like)

I think that's it. No eggs. I'll eventually add eggs back in and take out milk, but getting rid of both simultaneously seemed like too much. No soy. No gluten. No multisylabic anything. No chemical anything. I'm trying to buy organic and reading labels like a Wall Street Journal editor. I feel like a hippie. I'm so all-natural, except for the copius amounts of drugs I take every day in pill form.

I've been eating a lot of rice cereal and Indian food with rice cakes. Yesterday I made it to the grocery store and got yogurt, but only plain yogurt passed my dietary test, so I took my buy one get one free organic strawberries, chopped some up in the blender, and mixed them in with said plain yogurt. I considered adding sugar but thought no! I own real vanilla! So I added in a splash of vanilla. And since I was in the spice cabinet I saw my cinnamon, and I love cinnamon, so I mixed that in, too. Let's just say Dannon can suck it.

Why do I already need to lay down again? Is new diet worse for me? Is rice actually my kryptonite? Will dog ever stop whining even though I'm not letting him lick my empty yogurt bowl?

Tune in next time.

Miami International Airport

I went to my cousin's wedding in Miami. The plane in which I was originally scheduled to fly home arrived at the gate as a 737 instead of the planned 757. They offered $300 in travel vouchers and a guaranteed seat on the 8:15 PM flight to anyone willing to trade in a boarding pass.

I was at the podium before they could finish making the announcement.

It's not like I had anywhere to be, and many of my best friends live in far away places. $300 of airline travel for four and a half hours of hanging out in the Miami airport is far better than my usual pay rate.

The rest of my family opted to stay on their original flight. They all worried about working Monday morning and general life obligations and hassle and whatnot. The other wedding guests, too, refused a $67/hour waiting incentive and boarded for Chicago.

I had the two most recent issues of the New Yorker, the Sunday New York Times, and a cell phone with two virtual pets, a virtual farm, a virtual pyramid, and a virtual mine, plus the will and ability to nap in strange places and positions.

Instead, there was The Columbian.

...and then I spilled most of a bowl of Cheerios on myself and the floor by my desk. Not in the schlemazel "oh, this always happens to me!" way, but in a completely oblivious slide of my lower desk shelf while I read something online. It hadn't occurred to me that I might spill. A lot isn't occurring to me right now.

What is it about a demi-stupor that drives me to document every thought and action? Like I need to save everything I'm doing now while I can't properly analyze for later. Or like I'm some sort of lab specimen.

Dog is extremely useful for cleaning up Cheerios. I knew it would be OK if I missed some of them, and he just finished his search-and-destroy mission for the stragglers. Now he's looking at me like he wants more. Sorry, little one.

Somebody is intermitently blowing an airhorn outside. Why? Left over from graduation earlier today and every so often the curriosity of it overcomes people at the party?

I need to take dog out. He's been so good today. I am so lucky to have him for days like the past few, when he forces me to get fresh air and otherwise provides love and company while I'm conscious and unconscious alike.

Batty in the head going batty in the head. I'm awake but there's a dream happening just below the surface. I want to capture it and write it down but as soon as I concentrate enough to write it, it disperses at my touch. I didn't even take the extra weird medications today, this is just me and the standard cocktail plus a low constant pain that feels like my brain is bruised deep down. Like it would make perfect sense somehow if this was the dream and the "reality" was my brain fell off the shelf and got banged up and now I'm just feeling the soreness of the fall and trying to operate with this bruised aching brain.

Maybe we're all just brains on shelves and migraine sufferers are the ones whose brains get used as soccer balls.

Zomigawd I have to pack for my cousin's wedding this weekend. Concentrate concentrate think think think. This is like the time I tried to go to the grocery store really really stoned, but without the element of fun or choice.

Positive Thinking turns Existential Crisis

To do list:
Give self credit for the good I accomplish

So jobs that pay and count me as a productive member of society are a bit of a no-go right now. I still do a lot of good. I'm a good person. I don't feel like a good person, but examining the evidence* I certainly have the thoughts and actions of a good person. After having lunch at a recently opened restaurant for the second time and being once more blown away by the fabulous quality of the food, I will leave a review on Yelp. Writing Yelp reviews is easy for me because there's no obligation and I can do it whenever I'm up to it and if I'm never up to it or can't come up with anything to say, it doesn't matter. But when I do publish something on there, it is a service to everyone who reads it and, in the case of positive reviews, a service to the business that made me happy.

I kept the kid entertained for hours on Saturday. It felt to me like "Of course I played with the kid. It was fun and gave me something to do and I couldn't have just left him to sit there bored for four hours." But (thank you, Therapist), everybody else around was quite fine going about their own lives and not giving a flying crap about the happiness of the 8-year-old. I could have brought my card stuff out and worked on it alone and been much more productive in a cards-to-sell sense. But I didn't. I did a good thing.

Good things are good. They are not just expected and obligated. For me there are only obligations and failures. Bad bad bad bad bad. See the good in yourself, Annabell. Acknowledging my own accomplishments (particularly in my own head) is not inherently conceited.

We are all sinners in the eyes of God. Terrible, wretched creatures drawn towards doing terrible, wretched things. Only Gratitude and Magic Words can set us free. Only Good Works and Acknowledging our own Helplessness and Magic Words and Obedience can set us free. Only Death can set us free and God decided ahead of time if that Freedom will be Eternal Suffering or Glory. Only Death can set us free and We decide in every act if that Freedom will be better than the Wretchedness.

Wait, I was raised Jewish.

We are all terrible wretched creatures for what we've done to our mothers by not calling them enough. Only an advanced degree in something that pays well can set us free.

Holy shit, that's my life.

Can I please train myself to think differently? Here's the one I get glimmers of and try to maintain but my satirical Jewy version always looms and beats it up:

Everything is beautiful. Even the most wretched, sick, sad, atrocious is part of The Beautiful. Every time we laugh and remember and breathe and look around, we are free. But it is still our job to help comprise The Beautiful and live our lives, so making as much Happy as possible becomes the daily goal. And then it doesn't feel like such a struggle. It doesn't feel like an escape to be free.

Meanwhile, I just ate a ton of gummy bears and will probably regret it later. Can I look at that as funny? Keep remembering how ridiculous it is? Enjoy the gummy bears. They were tasty and gummy.

I am not wicked for learning how to smile inside before I learn how to make a living. Happiness is more important happiness is more important happiness is more important happiness is more important happiness is more important. Feeling guilty about spending this time writing in my blog instead of doing something that makes an obvious stride towards my financial independence is part of the ridiculous. I won't be happy at anything until I reconcile that guilt. Can I take it out and beat it with sticks? I'm trying to write it all out, but it's more of a snake of grime oozing out of the pore of a blackhead than any satisfying burst. I hope it doesn't scar.

Fuzzy Paradigms

Fuzzy squishy stupor. Half-assed floating around all day. Can't snap out of it because I don't have the will or the want to. I think it's the Neurontin. It's only 10 PM and I think I'm going to bed so I can get a fresh start with a fresh day tomorrow. Fuzzy cold rainy weather. Thought about going over to my neighbors' and getting stoned but I think that would just be me justifying how I feel with something extra I'm doing to myself. Control thing. I'll save my social visit for a day I'm feeling truly social instead of dangerously strange.

One of my friends from Nameless Liberal Arts College came into town for 26 hours for a job interview that didn't go fabulously. Seeing people from that era of my life, though it wasn't that long ago, makes it clearer how much these last two years of migraine incapacitation have changed me. Not necessarily for the worse, and I might have changed without the migraines, but I've had to let a lot of things go and turn my old intensity level almost completely off. I always had the depression, so it's not that; I just can't be a Type A anymore, and that's an odd shift to make. I've had to retool my whole world outlook so as not to go completely insane, and I don't know if you can see the paradigm shifts from the outside, but they make old friends I haven't seen in awhile look totally different. Again, not a change for the worse, just a change.

Excuse me, I need to go curl up and have a frustrated cry in my bed now because I feel like I'm stoned all the time and it's much harder to be productive when you're stoned all the time and I still haven't separated my self-worth as a human being from my productivity level.