Wednesday, March 31, 2010

I want to poke my uterus with a stick

Crampy. I had a very good yesterday. From a single sushi roll as I dined alone for lunch in Highland Park after my therapy session, to mediocre chicken vesuvio with Aural Girl and Possible Boy at the weird restaurant we've been meaning to try. I got stuff done and walked two different dogs at the beach.

Today, I feel crampy and overwhelmed by each project I think to tackle. Cleaning my bedroom and master bathroom was high on the list, but I'm making excuses. I think I need to put on real pants and take the dog to Walgreens and pick up my birth control (which I missed taking at 11:11 AM and can't be helping crampland) and maybe some Aleve because lord knows I'm not on enough drugs.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Later

I have all these stories to tell, but I'm very full of food and I want to make with the asleeping now even though it's only 10:30. When the fire department finally breaks down my front door in three days, they'll find me and my dog have turned into giant gelatinous blobs of goo. Like spontaneus combustion, but far less spontaneous and we will be glerb instead of poof.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Neighbor Guy says he loves me, that im his dearest friend. He loves the idea of me. No respect for the real me, though, just the version in his head.

Friday, March 26, 2010

I'm lying in bed naked, stoned, farting, and eating an all-natural strawberry popsicle.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

If A Double-Majoring Liberal Arts School Student Hasn't Already Written It...

Each movement of the musical composition examines a different theory of the ontological argument (more or less, proof of the existence of God).

A movement in which each instrument that requires two seperate movements to create the sound and the pitch is played by two people. So a violin has one person moving her fingers across the fingerboard while the other person bows the strings, a trumpet gets one person moving valves and one to blow in the mouthpiece, etc.
A movement, same setup as the last, but while the people doing all the fingering of the instruments are masters and know the score, the people responsible for the sound-making are blindfolded.
A movement, same setup as the last, but now the people don't actually know how to play the instruments and are just learning.
A movement, same setup as the last, but the sound-makers don't come out at all. The entire thing is done in silence but with every note fingered out.
A movement with no instruments
A movement with no people
A movement with two conductors, one giving the correct beat and one giving the wrong beat.
there could be a bazillion movements.

Yes, as a matter of fact I am stoned. Least crappy I've felt in weeks. I'd taken absolutely everything else and done deep breathing and muscle relaxation and I was sitting in bed with my head burried in a pillow because I thought if I could push my face in deep enough it might get a little bit darker. Pot, bowl, matches, all within arms reach, probably shoved in my nightstand the last time I did this (not even two weeks?).
A few puffs of smoke and I start to relax the knot that's been holding in the black sludgy poisin.

Stop writing Enjoy the stonediness.

Monday, March 22, 2010

big hurt

Pain is BAD. Hit a blood vessel for the second time ever when giving myself a shot this afternoon. It didn't even phaze me this time; just annoyed I had to keep a wad of toilet paper soaking up the blood until I could get a better bandaid.
Pain is so big only its hem registers so long as I'm still and distracted. I try to be aware of the present when I'm not in pain, right now is the opposite. Anything to distract from the physical and the now.
I was shaking like crazy earlier. That stopped. Just PAIN. I've taken all my drugs. Would pot help? I have an 8:30 AM appointment tomorrow to see my psychiatrist because I've been so crappy. If I didn't have to be awake so early I'd be stoned by now. Need to schedule more biofeedback. It's been months. Need to accept my parents' money, be a grateful disabled leech.
Want to give myself another shot directly into my skull. I need another soft distraction. More food? I'm not hungry, but tasty things are a nice positive sensory experience. Where's the guacamole? Where's the chainsaw?

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Don't touch me

Today was one of those strange days in my body where I'm in pain but I feel like doing everything, so I did everything. I did not clean the house or take the dog on an extra-long walk, but otherwise I feel pretty fucking accomplished for a scrambled egg brain.

I organized all my vintage maps by region into folders in two small plastic boxes.
I went to an estate/demolition sale that kicked ass. $7.50 for stuff that I can sell for $100+ and it's all easy to mail.
I purchased key ingredients for the completion of two of my ongoing projects.
I went grocery shopping.
I took photos of some of the new things I got at today's estate sale and almost completed getting them listed online.

I'd planned to go to the bar and listen to the Irish band and be social, but I'm completely exhausted. My logical processing ability started its downward decent a good six hours ago, and at this point I'm likely to bite anyone who touches me, possibly including my dog. When I first got back from all the running around errand stuff and I was light-headed and woozy and trying to breathe and re-establish myself on this plane of existence, I looked up and there was my dog, sitting tall in the middle of the dining room, staring at me. I stared back. It was perfect.

Now I don't want the computer touching me, either. I don't usually get like this. Weird.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Yes, I'm driving to my parents' house in a few hours

Moblogged from the bar:
Cute stranger who tells me im pretty? Run off to a trainyard with captain negativity? How best to know im alive? How best to be happy tomorrow?
Ran off looking for a diner with Captain Negativity AKA Chain Boy. Talked about depression. I got to be the beacon of hope and understanding. I keep waiting and poking, hoping to uncover more outside his vacuum of misery. I thought about kissing him just to see if it would be the magical quick fix he imagines. It didn't feel right. He'd still be a frog and I'd still be locked in my tower.

My head behaved itself very well tonight. I'm very proud of it.

Faces

I just posted an elementary school class picture on Facebook. Going to tag the people who are my Facebook friends, I notice trends:
29 students in the class
8 are currently my Facebook friends
3 1/3 African-Americans in the entire class, all of whom are my Facebook friends
3 of my 8 tagged friends are gay/bisexual
2 of my Fb friends were the other huge dorks that annoyed the hell out of me growing up. Both of them are gay
The third tagged lesbian I still see occasionally and I like very much; we could be reality friends.

Ken's photo is next to mine. The pictures aren't in alphabetical order; I'm guessing they're in whatever order we chose to stand in line because I'm also next to my fifth grade best friend, Ken's best friend is on his other side, and there are mini clique clusterings across the page. I've known him for 20 years. He remembers things about me I'd forgotten, times when I tried to conquer the world at age 10 and was too wrapped up in fighting evil to be a kid or be happy or notice what anyone else was doing.

Now Ken is working to fill the world with good and caring for everyone around him. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
How?

Took a Walk

A black man in a very red hat wearing a red and black winter coat stood facing the street, shoulders square to the building and sidewalk, like a lawn ornament. I expected to see a dog in front of him, doing his business while the man waited, not wanted to watch. There was no dog. The man didn't move. He reminded me of a lawn jockey. The thought offended me even as I smiled at the parallel.

At the beach, a white man in a brick red coat was giving a tour.
"Chicago is down that way. Northwestern is a few miles up there. This here is Rogers Park. There's a dog beach half a mile down there. Daniel Burnham in Chicago. Lake Superior."
It took me a minute to realize he was alone and directing his commentary my way.
I smiled, I nodded. I didn't want to be one of those people who just smiles and nods. Sometimes we let our inner monologues bubble over so that someone else will say, "Yes! I understand!"
He walked over to a large shadow and asked it a question I couldn't hear. As I got closer (it was on my path) I saw there was another man sitting in the shadow.
"Don't listen to him, he's a homeless alcoholic," said the tour guide.
"No, he's a homeless alcoholic," said the homeless alcoholic.
There was no one else on the beach. It felt like spring under the warm sunshine. We had a "conversation" about the weather in short declarative statements.
"It's beautiful out."
"There's 14 inches of snow."
"There may be snow."
"It's beautiful now."
Then, "You're Katie Couric and I'm your husband Robert. I built this lake just for you, Katie; Lake Superior."
I said, "Thank you," and resumed my walk.

On the way back, my dog scared a mess of pigeons off someone's lawn, but a single tawny dove stayed behind. Smaller and thinner than the wounded dove I couldn't save last year, but there it was--a dove.

The lawn jockey had moved to a different street by now and walked very slowly. He must be hot in that thick winter coat.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Take a Walk

Neighbor Guy called. We had a nice chat. Then he asked me to walk his dog. Neighbor Guy was too tired and lazy and didn't feel like it and really wanted me to take the dog to the dog park or something. Pissed  me of a lot. He wants me to take care of his dog during one of the few precious moments I feel ok? I told him directly that I feel like shit most of the time and I still walk my dog and he can walk his own fucking dog on a day that he feels a little tired.
He said, jokingly, "I can't believe you used profanity with me!"
I asked if he understood why I didn't appreciate his request.
He said yes, I was very clear and direct.
Then he immediately started up again trying to get me to walk his dog.
I said "Fuck you."
We didn't talk much longer after that.
I'm aware the world revolves around Neighbor Guy, but even after I explained my feelings, his rude obliviousness was too much for me to swallow before lunch.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

explain yourself

I tried very hard to explain what it's like living inside my head to my therapist. She didn't understand and admitted as much. I write with the hope that people will understand and tell me I'm not crazy. She told me I'm not crazy, but she's saying that before understanding the thing she's valuing as sane.
If I can find a way to show her life in my head, maybe she can identify ways to make it more pleasant.

Now, my body is demanding a nap. I don't really want to be napping if I'm going to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight, but I'm going to fall asleep typing if I don't lay down.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

In bed. Under water filled with molassas. Too much amitriptyline? Why would spring hold so heavy? Eating tons of fruit all morning. Where is my energy? Life?

Monday, March 15, 2010

I'm going over to Possible Boy's house to talk. I don't know what I'm going to say or what I think I want to hear, I just know I'm churning up dark things inside that can't be allowed to continue. These are my friends. Letting them know what's bothering me so they can be there for me is a big part of friendship. I'm much better at monologuing into the general cosmos and waiting for someone to pick up on it, which may be why I also take stab-in-the-dark guesses at what other people are really thinking or feeling when they pause too long on a name or touch an object a certain way.
I need to talk to Aural Girl, too, but I think seperately from Possible Boy.

When I'm playing a game or writing something or fixing a picture in Photoshop and I mess up or don't like the way it's going, I start over. Wipe the slate clean and start fresh. I have that impulse with chunks of my real life, too. All of my papers and filing crap, I just want to restart and have everything that's everywhere right now go away. I want some sort of  reboot on my doctors and medications. Another one for my vintage/antique inventory, now that I'm finally getting a sense of what sells and how to sell it.
I guess I try to start things over a lot. I think of how many jobs I've had, things get too tangled and I get too frazzled and all I can do is curl up into a ball and run away.
Is that so terrible? I know it should be. Put that on the list of Terrible Things I Do along with forgetting to pay bills, being jealous of my friends, and punching old people.*
When I can't feel and think the things I want to feel and think, I get very upset with myself. Control. Should. Get me out of here.

*(I don't really punch old people)

Disbelief

Dear Annabell,

Being human and being alive is hard. Some times and some things are harder for some people. You are doing a good job dealing with now. You are working really hard. Dark clouds may say otherwise. You may say otherwise. But I can see the progress, I can see all the things you do and try and think and push every second of every day. I know how hard you are fighting, and even if you're going nowhere or fighting in the wrong direction, you deserve a lot of credit for your effort and your experience. You are a deeply wonderful human and I am proud of your humanity.

Love,
Annabell who needs to believe what she writes

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Wish I Was Irish

Happy birthday, Hot Dog Sam! I am ever so glad you are alive!

I've been feeling like shit all week but today I made it out to the St. Patrick's Day Festival at the Irish American Heritage Center with Possible Boy, Aural Girl, and AG's other friend. So much to say about everything but the Puky Death portion of the Migraine Beast came to kick my ass right at the end so this has to be quick.
So much joy. So much to watch in other people. So many good feelings.
Also, jealousy. I want what other people have. Not things, emotions and  people. PB and AG being all in love, I build up that hard nasty knot around a gaping hole. Being around them reminds me what I lack, but they were the closest, brightest friendship filling that hole and I miss them. I wish I was better at sucking it up.

Great music and great energy.
A woman fell and I wasn't sure if she slipped on a wet patch on the  floor or if she was drunk and created the wet patch when she fell over and spilled her drink. She fell again later on the dance floor. Her friends spun her around  and around. The features on one of her friends' face looked like they'd been spun around, too.

A small man of at least 80 danced circles around everyone. Jigged and reeled and jumped with his mouth agape and his tongue bouncing and his eyes serious but enjoying every minute of it.

So much more............

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

No One Understands Me Like My Barometer

The fog inside my head spread out to cover Chicago.

I missed therapy this morning. First time I've completely missed a session. It sucks for my therapist because I know she'll often schedule me on a day when I'm the only reason she has to go to her office, but today even as I apologized I didn't feel my standard penitence and guilt. Wednesday we'll talk about ways to keep track of everything and remind myself and stay organized and all of that, but fuck that and fuck every well-intended coping mechanism. I've been poking around some of the other migraine/chronic pain blogs out there. All these things that make me feel crazy and worthless and alive and everything else get echoed across the internet. It's the stuff that makes it hard to take care of yourself when you most need to take care of yourself, the helplessness, the outlook adjustments, the assertions, and the thin shadow puppet "normal life" stories we project to distract and amuse ourselves. So I'm sorry to anyone I've inconvenienced with my disease, but try living with the uncontrollable monster that causes such "inconvenience," the guilt and frustration of constantly messing shit up, and the uncertainty as to whether or not anything you do has any kind of impact or if you're just being tossed around.

Some days I can cope with no control. Today was not one of those days.

Thank you, Aural Girl, for coming over and bringing me food and human contact. I don't think I even asked how her fucking trip was. She just did this huge thing. I was very lost and self-involved in fogland. The humus is delicious.

Monday, March 08, 2010

yes, still

I'm at serious diminished capacity. I started to fix my slow internet and generally clogged computer stuff, but this time I stopped myself. If my brain isn't working right, I screw things up. This is how I messed up my finances. I get major points for recognizing the feeling and not doing things that might explode. It's like handing off the car keys when you know you've had too much to drink. Trouble is, with neurological fuckedupness, there's no measure. I can't count empty bottles or shot glasses. There's no breathalizer. I do things all the time to check my cognitive abilities, like puzzles and touching my fingers and thumbs together in patterns. I also watch how much my hands shake. Right now it's a lot, but I still don't know what that means. I write because I want a record of my thoughts. I don't want to lose them. Apparenly, hypergraphia is tied to migraine and siezure sufferers, Dostoevsky being one of its heroes. Makes perfect sense to me.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

cloud formations

I tore through my house, ready to declare war on the alien race pushing towards our planet with increased frequencies. I wished I'd showered as I thought of facing the apocolyps unclean, dirty underwear...Where is that noise? I looked out the window and people just walked past. They couldn't hear it? They didn't know? Is it my vents? My vents only magnified the pressure from outside, higher up, something above. Into my bedroom, dark safe bedroom, I opened the window. In that instant I saw myself as a crazy lady, jumping from her third story window. I wanted to stick my head out but the screen was down. People still walked around outside, not looking up at any sort of spectacle. No Independance Day. No V. Rain. That's all it was. Rain.
This feeling, this pain, stimulus depravity, sensory overload--it's so far beyond current comprehension levels. It could be anything. It's like trying to explain a sphere to a piece of paper. I can't even explain the hurt of the rolling, frustrating strangeness, the dull ache, and the complete unpredictability of when and where I can and want to be "normal" and do as much as humanly possible to make up for these days when I feel like Yoda drooping his shoulders under the weight of another disturbance in the force.

Too much light.
Audiobook time?

Eureka?

Not quite as funny as "A priest, a rabbi, and a minister walk into a bar," but How many neurologists does it take to diagnose a seizure disorder? None! A puppet-maker dispensing mostly bad advice about depression with anxiety in a crafty-people chatroom.

I just learned of the existence of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. For all of the millions of things that sound sort-of-kind-of like what I deal with, I think this one is it. Maybe I'm just nuts, but between a thing I heard the other day about a woman with migraines like mine plus a seizure disorder, and then the symptom check-list for TLE including more of my symptoms from across the board, I want to call my doctors, like, now. Except it's 1 AM and tomorrow is Sunday. But TLE doesn't show up on the brain scans I've done. That was the big exciting thing. I know there's more to my migraines and my everything neurologically than we currently understand.

Friday, March 05, 2010

ouchy pressure tight ouchy want to puke kill the ouchy distract
Back to the woozy again. Body, just tell me what's wrong and I'll act accordingly. Am I woozy for lack of food? I'm eating things that seem easy to digest. More rice? More water? Do I just wait until the earthquakes die down? Am I being punished for not worshiping Wanda the Three-Headed Sphincter of Wonderland?

The more of my life I spend in bed, the less anything makes sense.

Too Much

My stomach twists tighter and tighter. For wanting Possible Boy? It's fear and jealousy and it's only getting worse now. Panic panic panic. The money is almost fixed. Why the panic?
I've always had anxiety problems. The last two years may be the first time I haven't had major anxiety problems. Anxiety returns and I flip out over its return. Figures. HDS just had a panic attack for the first time in ages. Something is askew. Ken was talking about some people who are sensitive to solar flares, they just don't know it. Who knows if it's solar flares or extra WoobahWoobah energy being released on planet Xerg or insect migration or what, but yes, I am sensitive to things I do and don't understand. Possible Boy and Aural Girl are living happy ever after and that makes me feel sad and left out and lonely. That's pretty easy to understand. Less easy to understand is why I feel like I'm about to be found out for murder, or the bottom is getting ready to drop from under me in some other huge way. I can't move. I'm looking for some huge thing I fucked up to justify the volume of my panic and it's just not there. This reminds me of when I flat-out lied to a Hebrew school teacher in fourth grade. I atoned for that one at least two Yom Kippurs in a row and made myself sick every time I thought about it.
Can I ever forgive myself for being human? This will  be the second day in a row I take my lorazepam, an anti-anxiety drug I've taken only a few times in my entire life. But for the level of freak-out I'm feeling, it would take a murder or some other very conscious harm to justify the bats in my stomach. This is what the pills are for. Now I'd like to function again. I'd like to figure out  in a non-insane way what and how I'm feeling about the Ken situation. I'd like to get through my emotions without boiling over and shutting down. That would be swell.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

purposefully vague (sorry)

My last post is annoying.

Ken is full of surprises. I'm throwing my little temper-tantrum of unhappy, and he comes gallopping in with solutions to everything. Is he real? Human? Now I sound like the conspiracy theorist...

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Yolk's On Me

I didn't get the golden goose, now I'm cracking open every egg, looking for the prize inside.
Why do we keep crushing eggshells?
Isn't it enough to be somebody's prize?
All the kings men tell me I'm golden.
I want the answer to loneliness from the whites of his eyes.


It's possible to be happy for someone and so jealous it hurts, all at the same time.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Can I please run drugs for a week? Just a week. Even the phone sex thing takes like a month to get paid, otherwise I'd already be doing that.
I've heard of manic-depressive, right now I'm panic-depressive. I spent the last two days in a sleepy, woozy, teary funk. Now I'm awake again and going batshit because I can't fucking sell anything large enough and/or fast enough to cover my psychiatrist check and my condo assessments check now that it's March.

fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Have to buy bubble wrap and mail things that actually WERE purchased (yay the $50 that are in my checking account) and eat something and remember that money and the world are all imaginary anyway. I should pop one of my anxiety drugs that I own for exactly the reason that I sometimes get like this and can't function, go over to the house of a friend and think about things that do matter, like being alive and human connection.

 I want to make a noise like a dinosaur.

Monday, March 01, 2010

Snippets from incomplete posts, written over the past two days

I'm starting to think a lot of the "crazy" people of the world may just have certain sensory perceptions heightened beyond their psychological and physical ability to process.

A plastic bag just scaled the building across the street from me. I'm not sure if a squirrel was carrying it or stuck in it, but it  was pretty strange.

Work will set you free.
 

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