Out with the Old...

The trouble with getting a Brazilian wax is that it leaves me feeling like I have a fresh new haircut and I want to show it off but I can't without getting arrested.

I dumped Corvus. He had been gone for over two months and wasn't calling me, even when he had a phone, and wasn't contacting me any other way when he didn't. We'd talk for a little while on Facebook Chat about once a week and invariably it would be all about him no matter how much I tried for a share of the conversation. I got sick of it. I moved on emotionally. I read The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists and couldn't believe how well the DSM's diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder fit Corvus.

When I made it clear to Corvus that I was sick of it, he started calling and texting me constantly, but it was too late. We broke up in what I thought was a fairly mutual conversation, saying we'd still be good friends when he came back (oh, his constant promise that he's coming back!) and then chatting for awhile longer about nothing. Then he kept calling and texting me to say how much he loved and missed me. I couldn't tell if he didn't understand that we'd broken up or what, so I was very direct with him. Yes, he'd understood. But he still loved and missed me. The next thing I knew, he was heartbroken and crying and calling me at 12:30 at night. I wasn't happy or particularly empathetic. The last time he called was Friday while I was with my work-from-home-together buddies at a cafe so I didn't answer and he didn't leave a message. That was four days ago. I think he may have finally figured out that we're broken up for real.

Meanwhile, I met someone else. We'll call him O'Snarky. Aural Girl's dog befriended O'Snarky's friend at the bar the Wednesday before Halloween and as Aural Girl and the friend got to talking, so did O'Snarky and I. He was cute and Irish and (you guessed it) snarky as hell so I reluctantly gave him my number, even though I hadn't officially ended things with Corvus. I refused to go on an actual date until after the actual break-up, but those two events happened only a day apart. So much for time to think between Boys. O'Snarky and I have been on a few dates since.

It's hard for me not to directly compare O'Snarky to Corvus--the way they treat me, the way they kiss, how they look (::cough:: naked ::cough::), who they are and how I felt or feel. I will miss Corvus mechanically, I will miss feeling head-over-heals and irrational. But I won't miss the anxiety or the way he acted like I was just an object in his universe or the way I could never actually rely on him for much of anything--emotional or otherwise. O'Snarky has a job and takes care of his mother, two good signs of the responsibility I crave. And there's genuine empathy seeping out just below the snark. Right now it seems those qualities and getting laid are all I need.

So ends my longest relationship to date and begins...who knows what.

It's almost 6 AM and I've been up for hours. Migraine. Nasty one. I was supposed to go to my knitting group yesterday but my vision was all messed up from aura with whirling in my periphery and sparkles of dark matter straight ahead. That meant no driving, and the idea of getting on the noisy el sounded like puke in my face. I slept much of the day, occasionally waking up and being bored enough to take the blinding light of the computer over the empty total nothingness I felt. The computer provided enough distraction, while reading a book didn't zone me out enough to cover the pain. I had to give myself a shot again and it didn't really work. I hate that the most--coping with the needle and the blood for nothing. I'm out of the pill form of the ketorolac and Walgreens had to call it into my doctor and then it was pouring so I didn't feel like walking over and, once again, driving wasn't an option. I'll hopefully pick it up tomorrow and then I can be more aggressive with it. I just can't be aggressive with the shots, they wig me out too much to do two in a row or be dutiful about following up eight hours later when the first one did nothing.

I need to go back to biofeedback. I can't get my hands to warm up by relaxing anymore, which means my circulation is sucking and I'm not fully relaxing and that can't be helping the migraines.

I need to eat something more than cereal and bananas. I have plenty of frozen entrees and ingredients for nearly instant quesadillas and a pound of ground beef: all things I stock with being a migraine house prisoner in mind. I just don't feel like eating anything besides cereal. The nausea isn't as bad as it was a few years ago when I'd actually throw up with the headaches, but I have no appetite, just an awareness that I'm hungry and need to eat. Oddly, the one thing I feel like eating is Indian food but I don't have any of my instant Indian packets at the moment and I lack the ingredients and energy to make something from scratch. If I feel like shit tomorrow, I can walk over to the Pakistani-serving-mostly-Indian place around the corner from my house. It's not cheap, but my body really needs real food.

I need to clean my house. There isn't a tidy room in the whole fucking place. My living room is desperate for shelves. I think I want staggered floating shelves along my big blank wall.

I'm thinking of HDS, her mom, and her entire family.

Can't Sleep, Haven't Written

So I haven't written in here in ages.

I went to Denmark with my mom and sister. It was fabulous. Viking ships and castles and cobblestone streets everywhere and a beach where two seas flowing in opposite directions meet and crash into eachother. We spent two nights on the island of Aero which was charming as hell and my mom drove everywhere which was impressive as hell and we did too much shopping on account of the other two people I was with and my mom's search for a raincoat (it was cold and rained half the time we were there, even though it was the end of August). Maybe later I'll go through my notes and write more about the trip, but right now it's 6-something AM and I just can't sleep so I'm writing.

The most amazing thing about the trip, I think, was that a year ago my mom was going through her breast cancer and now we were running around a foreign country from 8 AM until we passed out, usually long after 10, for ten days straight. I often felt like I had to keep up with her. Just one year after the cancer summer.

When we got back, she went to work two days later and, jet lagged as hell, her leg fell asleep and she fell wrong on her foot and fractured it. It was just a hairline fracture, but a fracture nonetheless. No cast, but one of those giant boots she has to wear for at least another week.

In other news of the bad health of beings I love, my dog got scary bloody-eye glaucoma. It was not fabulous. After months of eye drops and specialist visits, he ended up having his eye removed because it just kept getting worse and was clearly very painful. Turned out there was a benign tumor growing in there. The real fear was a malignant tumor, but tumor was definitely expected, so having the eye removed was clearly the right thing to do. He's still healing--the surgery was only a week ago and he gets his stitches removed on Monday. It looks like one eye is just closed all the time, but right now he's stuck in a cone and keeps bumping into things. Otherwise he's pretty much back to normal, going on regular-length walks and huffing and puffing at the world as he tromples about the house. I think he's still adorable.

Then there's Corvus. He's in Colorado with his mom. He left the same time we left for Denmark (end of August) and still hasn't come back. He had a recording project out there that, when almost finished, went awry as the guy he was recording assaulted Corvus's mom and Corvus (long story, but Corvus pissed him off...doesn't justify assault but Corvus did something that was, in my opinion, really rash and dumb). The guy being recorded ended up mouthing off to the judge (speaking of rash and dumb...) and landed himself a double felony conviction. With his father vouching to make sure to get him to all his hearings and whatnot, he's on probation and back in his home state, project unfinished. Now Corvus is trying to get paid for his time engineering and everything else on an unfinished record and seems to think he can't return to Chicago until he sees his money. So it's about to be seven weeks since I've seen him with no concrete sense of when he's actually coming back.

When I first got back from Denmark I missed Corvus painfully, but the longer it's been the more I feel ok on my own and just see how unreliable he is. I still love him, I still miss him, but I don't see spending the rest of my life with him, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm 29 and I'm happy to be with him if he gets his ass back here but I wonder about finding a Forever. I also wonder if I'm not being fair; he's only 26 and still getting his own life in order. Was I reliable three years ago? It's not much time, but for some people it can be huge. Is he just immature? Or am I making excuses for him now? I wish I knew. Either way, absence is not making the heart grow fonder, it's making the heart ask all kinds of questions and get all kinds of annoyed and impatient.

Great. It's barely after 7 AM and the workers across the street are making beeping noises with their trucks. I was hoping to get back to sleep at some point...

How lonely we are to find validations of ourselves.

Thinking about college

Nameless Liberal Arts College was the wrong college for me in so many ways.

I was even more bull-headed then than I am now.

I wish I was consistently well enough to go back to school. Maybe one class this fall as a trial. I miss the awesome Chicago college I started attending right when I got sick.

I want to be one of those people who can overcome shit, and I want to be one of those people who can accept shit, and I don't want to be so frustrated and saddened by my version of life. They say to write down goals and then achieve them. Can that be my goal? I'd like to get my BA and support myself, but the real all-important pie-in-the-mother-fucking-sky is to be accepting of and happy with myself. Be good to myself. Love myself in a real way for once and for good.

Corvus and Aural Girl walked my dog while I was away this weekend at my brother's college graduation. Corvus cleaned my house as a birthday present surprise. He really cleaned my house. He organized my closets and did the laundry in my hamper and everything. And he said beautiful things about me I didn't believe. He can be quite incredible. I should have gone over there tonight but I'm so tired and have to have my car jumped in the morning (booooo) and I didn't. Now it's 1:30 and I'm still awake and I'm all upset and I feel like an ass for not running over there as soon as I got home. I'll call him in the morning once my car is running and we can drive off into the sun(wrongtimeofdayforset).

So many of my Nameless College regrets surround a Boy I let treat me like garbage. I loved this shit out of him, maybe more because I could taste the blood on his lips. Corvus treats me well and I'm holding myself to holding him to it.

My own voice is still so loud in my head, it makes for better writing* than personality or happiness.

*and sometimes not even that.

I'm anxious. In general. About everything. I think the assault was more damaging than I gave it credit for. Not that it's so terrible, and not that I'm afraid to leave the house or anything. I'm just on edge. My safety and general well-being were fundamentally threatened and it rattled me. No wonder I felt no great relief the next day when the US offed Bin Laden- I'd just been reminded how many more dangerous people lurk around every fucking corner who have nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

Sorry. I don't mean to freak you out too, readers. I'm just jumpy because one asshole decided to be an asshole and had to remind me I'm mortal. Ugh.

Bin Laden's Death to One 28-Year-Old

When we heard Bin Laden was dead, Corvus spontaneously ran outside to shout with joy. "It's over. It's finally over." Tears dripped down his face.

I wasn't quite sure what ended with Bin Laden's death. I wasn't complaining, but I wasn't feeling the overwhelming relief or joy that seemed to take over my boyfriend. He's three years younger than I am, and it didn't occur to me at the time, but we were in different places in our lives on September 11th and I may be five minutes too old for the jubilance. Or maybe I'm just too skeptical to place my feelings of safety in the mortality of one human. Still, I envy the death revelers.

On September 11, 2001, I had just begun my sophomore year at Nameless Liberal Arts College. When someone in my statistics lab stood up that morning and announced an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon, I thought they were doing an experiment for psych class. But no, Google quickly confirmed that the world had gone to shit. Class let out early. Some classes were canceled for the day, others went on with optional attendance. The dorm lounges were packed with students staring at the news, horrific images, and the first time I ever heard the name "Osama Bin Laden."
My most hawkish (and incidentally, at the time, only Republican friend) wanted, to bomb someone. Blow up something in revenge. But being a self-centered 19-yer-old, that was my biggest fear: war. We were in the middle of a middle state, nice and safe. I already knew my family was safe, so my next concern was my of-drafting-age male friend pool. We'd just elected The Bad President and there was no way he was keeping us out of war. I assumed at that point it would at least be the "logical" war, but my peers were the ones who'd have to fight it and I didn't like that. We sat in that lounge and I wanted to be held by the Boy I was pining over at the time as well as every single boy I gave a marginal crap about before they all had to go die for the country.

I had friends in school in New York too close to Ground Zero. One still has PTSD.
I had friends help clean up at Ground Zero.
Then somehow we ended up in Iraq and no one I really cared about at the time had to fight.
But the threat of Terror never felt like it was the threat of Osama Bin Laden. I remember Oklahoma City (though I was quite young) and that was American extremists. There will always be a small percentage of the human population that likes to screw things up for the rest of us, and that is terrifying. I'm glad there's one less ultra-asshole, but he was never the focal point of my fear or pain and therefor doesn't get to be a trigger for great relief.

Maybe if I was just a bit younger, or a bit someone else, I'd need a face for the abstraction of fear. I wouldn't have such concrete non-Bin Laden things from September 11th and he would hold status as the threat of my youth. Maybe he would have been my childhood's boogieman. But he was only a piece of my fear and feels like just one piece of the puzzle, not full closure on a hole in my soul.

I joined my friends for a post-Obama speech tequila shot. Obama is so presidential and doing a shot seemed somehow the most appropriate response to Bin Laden's death, anyway; we drink to life, death, joy and pain, to numb the feelings that are too alive and  to remind ourselves we're alive when we're too damn numb.

Assaulted

April's last evening was among the only to feel like spring. Chicago winters are always long and hard, but this one refused to end. The whole city is suffering for sunshine, and the first hints of warmth make everyone insane.

Some in a more destructive manner than others.

I was walking home from the el around 10:30 PM. I was too tired to stop at the bar to be social, so I said hello to the smokers outside and kept walking towards my house. I didn't cross the street at the corner because a car was coming, so I rounded the bend and figured I'd cross at the alley.
There was a tall man in his 20s standing at the gate to the apartments next to the cafe. I was glad I didn't live there because he seemed like he was up to no good. When he started following me I decided not to turn into my alley but stay on the lit street and power walk it. As he walked too-close behind me I sped up and started wondering what I should do if he kept following...
GRAB!
In one swift motion he groped  my left boob and my right ass cheek and said, "Hey, baby."
I threw him off of  me and yelled "HEY! Fuck you!" as he ran down the street.

Two men and  a women in some sort of all-white religious frocks came up the alley and I told them what happened. I called 911 and when the police came I got into the back of their car and drove around, hoping to find my attacker. It's not like he did me any great permanent damage, but more than anything I didn't want him doing worse to someone else. He probably lives in the neighborhood. If he's still out tonight, we couldn't find  him, so I filed a police report (the officers explained that way if I see the guy again I can call 911 and have the asshole arrested) and came home.

Fucking dick-ass-douchebag-ass-hat.

Taxing

I finished my 2010 Federal Taxes this morning and now I'm having a panic attack. My business came out either $1300 or $3000 (I'm still confused) in the red according to standard deductions and accounting and all that and I'm freaking out, even though I know much of that has to do with car and house depreciation numbers and deducting $300 for an office supply that was a gift from my parents. Still, that's kind of the real cost of  my  business and I'm just sucking money from the universe and I had no W-2s all of 2010 so I feel like a giant suck on society and a useless human being. I'm still not over the can't-hold-a-real-job-with-headaches-but-need-one-to-feel-like-a-real-person thing. Like if I'm not leaving my house on a daily basis and doing something for seven hours a day, I'm wasting community air. Never mind how bad my head got in 2010. Never mind being hospitalized half-way through. That feels like an excuse when I'm having a day without a headache, with just a pathetic panic attack that makes me feel even less human and more..well, pathetic. What I'm doing seems so useless when you put a big number up like -$3000. Will it ever be profitable in a real sense? If not, what should and can I be doing instead? And why can't I just logic through this like a strong real grown-up instead of a sniveling useless panic-attacker?

I'm hard on myself. But shouldn't I be? How will I ever be a grown-up otherwise? Except right now being hard on myself is making my cry and panic like a fucking baby. I take photos of things. I sell those photos and/or those things. People buy them. It isn't enough. When will it be enough? What do I have to do to constitute "enough?"

Can I please limit my body to one disruptive malfunction at a time?

Frustration, Smiles

Where’s my novel? Where’s all my greatness?
I’m so frustrated right now.
I want to write music without sound.
I’m annoyed I’m not writing or doing more.
I’m annoyed I can’t decide what more I want to do and practically can accomplish.
I’m annoyed I’m not satisfied with the things I do accomplish.
I need a project I feel good about.
Something that feels worthy.
Something tangible and challenging yet manageable.
All my albatrosses feel pointless. I want to knit or build or even pick up a normal boring-person hourly-waged job so I can checkmark success in more than repetitive motion.
I just want something to show for myself, but every minute of every day—a prolific portfolio of lifetime achievement.
I’m the only one who can make these things happen. But I have to pin them down as more than theoretical feelings and goals. I need practical steps and to do lists or I stay aimlessly wandering around the house looking for my sense of satisfaction and throwing temper-tantrums inside myself.

Writing something is a good step. My writing has gotten rusty. Keep it fresh and practiced so when there’s something to say, it sounds how I want it to sing. That’s pretentious as hell but true, so not the pretending part of pretentious, just the annoying part.

Too much computer time lately. It makes me crazy. Buying season starts now and I can start that fun part of things again if I relax about my financial situation. Let myself be happy again. I’m cranky slipping and at least I’m catching myself while it’s still just slippage.

A business requires building. It requires learning and figuring out and I haven’t been doing this so long. Days like today are frustrating because I suddenly am so capable doing so much and I don’t have sufficiently varied activities to keep myself entertained when I’ve done by noon what often takes me an entire day to accomplish.

Now what?
Violin or finish the knit gloves. Those are good. And get all my to-file papers in one place even if I don’t start filing them. And shower. That’s a good tangible checklist for this afternoon. If I can stand getting back on the computer and editing more photos, so much the better, but I don’t expect that to be in my tolerable zone in the next few hours.

Writing is grand.

*     *     *

Romance always makes a juicier update than the cerebral shit I can't help but spew:

Corvus is great. We still seem to think the world of one another. We spend huge quantities of time together. My dog specifically requests to be pet by him, then randomly freaks out and barks and snaps when Corvus laughs or stands too suddenly, and Corvus still likes my dog. Likes me, too. Has an insanely healthy view of the world and relationships and surprises me over and over again with yet another high-quality layer of himself.
My only complaint: he reminds me too much of myself, so the days I am particularly annoyed with myself I end up defaulting to annoyed with him for no reason. There was an episode of 30 Rock called "Double-Edged Sword" and I think of it every time I'm in self-hate-and-therefore mode. But, at least in Relationshipland, I'm learning to be a grown-up and it's all tremendously healthy and good and I'm just looking for something to complain about because it's easier and less-corny-sounding than all the perfectly content smiley swellness that makes up 98% of things. Tomorrow, we may go to the zoo.

With Corvus it is simple; he is a dragon. I do what I feel and he sets every part of me aflame then devours me whole. I am his delicacy and he is my freedom.

Scream

Inordinate amounts of pain. Ovarian cyst acting up again is my guess, and I just shot up with the Torodol since I can't take normal over the counter drugs. The pain is unbelievable. Took a shower and a bath. Nails peeling, dog whining, but it's pain and pain and pain above all. Trying to think of other things. Just spelled "of" "ove" and had to correct it. Feels like I've  been ripped  open or I  want  to rip myself open, not quite sure which. Both.
Corvus. He's in Charleston. His grandmother's funeral was today. Want to say more about it but now is clearly not the time. Too lost in the immediate negative corporeal. Come on, Torodol. Fix it.
This is after I spent a few days fighting the jitters, only to realize they were me adjusting to medication change. Add Lorazepam and all is forgiven. And forgotten. Sleep away the changes. Now after sleeping most of today I am awake and I eat and it stabs the cyst. What the fuck. Body is not very cooperative. Want to clip my toenails. Something positive and body and pretty. Corvus thinks I'm hot. Is broken  the price of hot? Could perfect toenails negate the pain?


O! True apothecary! Thy drugs are quick! 20 minutes from wishing for death to re-evaluating my tolerance for aliveness. Not bad.

Holy Fucking Corvus

My dog has declared a bit of snuggle time; he's feeling neglected, having been locked away to give this crazy electricity free reign over my house and my heart.

Corvus. What the fuck? How does a reciprocal crush become oh my god without blinking? For once, I don't actually care how. That's a mini "oh my god" in itself.
But Corvus! Like a mirror--a reflection without being the same. And so much kindness, so sweet. He babbles things fit for poetry, apologizes for perfect words (and I'm supposed to be the writer?). Then,  without thinking, he holds my head up as I drink water in bed, tries to wash the dishes, makes the bed the moment I'm preoccupied...I'm not the porcelain princess, he treats me like I'm made of gold; like an unworshipped goddess; like an adored equal.
He sees beauty and light and hears it, too. He doesn't know he's brilliant or doesn't believe it. He is story after story and he is warm strong quiet and he understands the laughter in the saddest of things.

There's so much more, but to dwell and list seems petty this time. Somehow, it's all more real and fair to just babble and swear and scream the name of the nearest deity.

Holy fuck.

Starry-Eyed

Boy, oh Boy.
He kept using the word "hypnotized," and that's about accurate...we're both still hypnotized. Chemistry and starry-eyes and things I can't yet render in words.
Boy gets a name..."Corvus." Constellation, raven, sacred servant to Apollo.
I picked him up at the airport. I've been cleaning my house and myself. He seemed entirely taken by surprise...I wasn't surprised by Boy and Girl make with the smooching, but the whole thing was surprising...listening to eachother's heartbeats just holding close but somehow doing so without pretense or even awareness at first...it was all so crazy electric yet smooth and perfect. We're so awkward until...we're not. I'm less and less sure he's real or I'm awake because it seems impossible, but there's no question, we were awake and alive. Jesus fucking fuck.

Nocturning

My psychiatrist may be brilliant.
I've been in my standard winter useless-lump-slump. Every year I forget that it happens every year and I fight it tooth and nail, or at least "fight it" as much as I can without leaving the house or accomplishing anything and really just fight my own sense of self-worth. But every year I try new drugs and new therapies and new resolutions to not be generally miserable and this year has been no exception. So far it's been a sun lamp and that horrible, horrible Ritalin experiment and lots of yelling at myself to be fucking positive and get off my fucking ass and accept my health and my family and get on with it already.

It's not working. At all. Which is much of why I'm not writing. I don't feel like doing anything, writing included, but I also am trying so fucking hard to be positive and I don't feel positive so I can't write positive so I can't write. Hell, most of the time I can't feel because it's feel crappy or feel nothing. We're messing with my medications again or still or more or however you want to look at it. The migraines have been so much better, I don't know why The Sads have been so much worse.

But in the past 9 hours I've gotten more done than I've been getting done in week-long stretches, and without stressing or straining; just quietly working and accomplishing like I do when I'm not in depression mode. Like I said at the beginning, my psychiatrist may be brilliant.
I was trying to explain to him my listlessness and days of foggy nothingness, migraine or no migraine.
Is it cognitive? Motivational?
I don't fucking know, probably because I'm having too much in the middle of it to have a clear understanding of what it is.
So is it a medication? Does it get better or worse at different points of the day? When I've taken things?
I'm clearest at night. Always have been. I wake up at 9 or 10 and can only start to think then...which is right around or after I've taken my night dose of the same crap I take in the morning and feel like a fuzz-bucket.
So maybe not the medication...

BUT!

If I'm naturally nocturnal and am clear at night, what if I actually allow myself to be nocturnal? Get shit done at night when I can get shit done and sleep during the day when I'm a grog-monster? I can still see my friends in the evenings, when I see them  anyway, and spend some portion of business hours awake so I can make  phone calls and go to stores and things.

It took me about 24 hours to get over the idea that staying awake all night and sleeping during the day made  me an automatic freak of nature and quite possibly bad person who just couldn't make it in society. But why? Other cultures have different sleep patterns than ours, anyway. It's just when the sun shows up that tends to dictate the most popular times for productivity, and even that's BS as proven by the existence of Cleveland where the sun never shines yet at least three companies still operate (though I hear one is in talks with Miami).
I'm still adjusting and figuring out what works with my biological, medication, dog-walking, hypothetical social, and errand-running schedules, but today started to feel right. I slept hard from 5-10 PM and it's now 7:15 AM and I've done all kinds of Etsy stuff, written this, worked on a BS time-wasting project I enjoy (in which case maybe I should be nicer to it and stop calling it a BS waste of time), did all the dishes, researched prices on printers and contact lenses, talked to my brother and Aural Girl on Facebook, and walked the dog twice. Maybe the return of the bitter self-hate is an indicator that it's bed time again. Also I'm itchy, another good sign. I'd wanted to write a bit about The Boy, but I'll give the extremely condensed version instead:

Boy. Talked hours and hours of IM pre-Christmas. Then didn't hear from him between Christmas and New Years. Heard from him New Years Eve, ended up talking to him on the phone for a long time, now no sign he's alive for a week. He's on vacation and working on his own stuff (and getting a shitton done, it sounds like). And I had a fear it'd be like Love in the Time of Cholera or something...passionate love letters curdling when faced with actual proximity...but he comes back in a week and I'm trying to play it cool when we all know very well I'm a giant dweeb whose unsure about everything in the entire universe, worst of all myself and second-worst-of-all Boys.

7:30 AM. Sounds like a good bed time to me.

The music in my head has gotten loud enough my dog can hear it.