Pee Day Ramble

Today was Pee Day. My dog christened it by peeing all over the back porch stairs (that don't get rained on so I had to clean them on my hands and knees, which was just awesome for my dizzy bullshit). I then spent the day peeing into a jug and cleaning my hellaciously messy life and feeling like crap and sleeping. It started raining this evening, so that may have contributed to why I felt so awful all day, but it made cleaning the house harder. Still, I almost completely unearthed the futon in my office/spare bedroom/world's biggest closet; I just have to figure out what I'm doing with all of the alphabet blocks still spread out in order across the bedspread. Then there's the rest of the room, which is coming along (I found a good chunk of the floor) but remains more closet than living space. We're having a condo-wide yard sale on the 29th and it would be so much more convenient if it were, say, last weekend and all the extra shit in my life already disappeared, replaced by money, but no such luck. Instead, I have to try to clean with the sale in mind, organizing things enough that next week is somewhat easier and I don't spend the entire time trying to re-sort everything all over again.

I looked up the weather for the wedding and it's going to be a high of 60 degrees. This means I have to figure out my coat options, which should be no big deal but at the moment feels like one. more. thing. I'm way too nervous about this wedding, or, more accurately, seeing people at this wedding. I don't know how I'm going to get along with the people I haven't spoken to in years who were once my closest friends, and it terrifies me. They used to mean so much and I'm not sure how to take our relationships, past or present, and I'm trying to be as optimistic about it as possible but now that I can't just get shitfaced and have everyone declare everything happy and fine (since I still can't drink) I'm not sure anymore how I most hope things will turn out (a sober mutual declaration of "All is forgiven, all bad is forgotten, we're cool" is a hell of a lot harder and less socially acceptable somehow), I'm not sure what the best possible outcome would be. Without knowing what to wish for, I have trouble calming myself down with optimistic happy thoughts. But the wedding itself should be my happy thought. My friend who's getting married deserves to be happy so. much. And I'm now driving up with Birdie, which means two hours of quality Birdie time I didn't think I'd have. That's a big happy thought. I'm just being Captain Negativity and dwelling on the parts that have me freaked out. I just don't know what people will think when they see me 20 lbs heavier, the only one single, and half-broken by migraines with some new weird malady that's got me peeing in jugs. At least I haven't lost my sense of humor. Or my depression. I had that when I knew them, and they loved me then. I have lost the chip on my shoulder, but I think I could use it right about now because it was a nice protective coating. Still, I have to remember that it's not like this weekend is about me anyway and everybody will be coming with their own shit, too. Maybe we're all fat now. Is it terrible that I kind of hope The Former Boy is fat? I do. I really do.

Enough rambling about that.

It's a little funny that I'm going to a wedding considering I spent Friday wanting to jump a married man. We're friends and we have a really fantastic time together, but he's married so my crushing is useless. Why do I torture myself?

Feeling Better and the Pee Jug Band

My dog is whining at me for some reason. He peed in the house twice in the last two days. I don't know why, but he made sure to do it right in front of me. Jerk. I yelled at him a lot the second time. It would be much easier if he spoke English.

I'm feeling much better. I don't know why. I was feeling worse all day Friday and Saturday morning, but then by Saturday night the wooziness subsided considerably and I took a shower and went to Aural Girl and Dziwka's house, where I ate mashed potatoes and made them watch two particularly good episodes of South Park ("You're Getting Old" and "Ass Burgers"). By Sunday I was feeling worlds better, though nowhere near 100%. Then today I went to biofeedback for the first time in ages and the person running it was the extremely hot (nurse? not sure what he is actually) from the clinic. This boy is gorgeous. I want to have ten thousand of his babies now. But that's not the point. The point is I did my relaxation exercise thingies with the machine and I think that helped some, too, even though during the second half of the session my hand temperature dropped and I couldn't get it to warm up again. Tonight I actually drove to Walgreens and Target and stopped at Discovery Clothing (trashy cheap strip-mall clothing store) and didn't think I was going to crash or faint once. I win.

My internist wants me to do a 24-hour urine test, which involves peeing into a plastic urine catcher, pouring said urine into a jug, and refrigerating it. Every time I pee. For 24 hours. Then I have to drive my pee (or take it on the train...yes I will be driving it) to their office. The jug is huge--bigger than a milk jug--and bright orange. I am not looking forward to this process.

I have to call Hot Dog Sam. She was in Chicago with her baby (and her husband, but he doesn't get italics) the day I had to go into the hospital, and thanks to the hospital, I didn't get to see her. I also have to clean my fucking house. I did the dishes tonight and considered that a small win, but there is so much more to be done. Still, I have to celebrate the minor victories or I'll never be happy.

I haven't put my new school into my Facebook profile yet. With all my years of migraines and weeks of weird illness, I'm afraid to jinx it.

Hopefully Aural Girl will be available tomorrow for shoe shopping. I am broke, but I need shoes to go with my dress for the wedding. Feeling good at that wedding is kind of a priority right now. I have to turn it into a happy thought.

Wedded Blisters

I'm going to my friend's wedding in two weeks and I want to be entirely excited for the reunion of my Unnamed Liberal Arts College College clique, but I return to them alone, 30 lbs heavier, afflicted, and about to try to finish what I failed to complete with them. I feel like I will be showing up as Failure Annabell, as the Annabell that's only gone backwards since we were together. All I have to offer is myself and these are the people for which that should be exactly enough because once they loved me for who I was, but that's somehow the same reason why I most want to come to them shiny and accomplished instead of fat and pain-worn with my best news that I'm about to start school again to get the degree I should have gotten with them ten years ago. To them, my restarting school may be less of a triumph and more of an admission of errors past, and restarting school is my one good thing right now. Finding relative freedom from the migraines was my other huge good thing, but it's hard to concentrate on that when my health has taken a nosedive and I'm seeing my doctors even more frequently than usual.

I have to remember that I'm doing the best I can with what I have, and I only need the love of those who can see that. I have no worries about Birdie, and Sunny will probably be far more preoccupied with the fact that the former Love of Her Life is getting married. The Boy isn't a Boy to me anymore, so I just cannot allow whatever comes from him to bother me. We always had fun together in a platonic bantering goofy way, too--maybe he's still fun. I know, despite all the shit, I can be. I guess that's my real triumph.

Still Weirdly Afflicted

Thursday my mother talked me out of going to the hospital. Apparently my father, who is a doctor, thought it was absurd to need to go to the ER for fluids since I wasn't really dying and my mom had gone through much worse diarrhea and dehydration when she had cancer and they never sent her to the hospital. I was exhausted and feeling like crap and had finally come to accept dragging my ass in to the ER, so the conversation with my mother left me in tears. I decided I'd call my migraine doctor, make sure what I was experiencing couldn't be explained away as a weird-ass migraine manifestation, and get her second opinion on whether or not I needed hospitalization since she actually knew me and knew my full medical history and medication regimen, unlike my fucking father and, admittedly, unlike the doctor who I saw who told me to go to the ER in the first place. Of course I had to leave a message for my migraine doctor, and so I waited.

She didn't get back to me until Friday afternoon, and even then it was one of her nurses. The nurse said, "go to the hospital." So I repacked my bag and, the Friday before Labor Day Weekend, in crazy amounts of traffic, Aural Girl drove me to the ER.

Aural Girl stayed with me the entire time. They ran all kinds of tests on me including an EKG that made me feel like a turkey being prepped for cooking, exposed and prodded. They took my blood pressure and pulse a number of times in a number of ways because I came in with both disconcertingly low. They took lots of blood and gave me two bags of fluid through an IV that went slowly until a nurse finally told me I had to keep my arm straight (I did not know!). The whole thing took about four to five hours and in the end they let me go even though the doctors still didn't know what was wrong with me, but because my blood pressure went up to my normally low but not dangerously low level. They said I should feel better by Sunday.

Sunday I felt a tiny bit better. I went to Polish Fest, which was an experience unto itself. I'm only supposed to eat bland, easy-to-digest foods until further notice, so I had pirogi and a potato pancake and a few bites of a blintz. I heard Dziwka's favorite band, a Polish alternative-rock group, play to a diversely Polish crowd. I was glad I went but I could see sparkles most of the time and worried a bit every time we'd walk quickly through crowds for long periods of time.

A tiny bit better is all I ever felt. I still get woozy after stairs and when I take out the dog and some every time I sit up or stand and a bit all the time. I'm drinking Gatorade like a marathon runner and peeing constantly as a result.

I went to the doctor again yesterday but this time it was my doctor. My blood pressure was very low again. She ordered a million more tests and took more blood. I have to go back to the hospital for the tests. Boo. She still doesn't know what's wrong with me but suggested, among other things, that it might be a weird manifestation of a migraine.

I'm sick. I went to the doctor yesterday and they don't actually know what's wrong with me, but if I'm not better in the next few hours I have to go to the ER and have them pump me full of fluids.

It started last Monday when I woke up with diarrhea and was so dizzy and light-headed I barely could make it to the bathroom. I thought I had food poisoning as the night before I'd eaten at an Indian restaurant with my family and the stomach explosion came on so suddenly, but when I called my parents' house to see how everyone else was doing, they were fine. Tuesday my stomach was back to normal but I was still unbarably woozy and made it out of bed only to eat and walk the dog. But by Tuesday night I felt much better and Wednesday morning I woke up 90% fine.

Friday night I went to Chicago Dance Crash's "KTF" with Aural Girl and Dziwka (her roommate and my other good friend). I'd eaten all of one bowl of Greek yogurt with blueberries for dinner and then AG and I polished off a bottle of wine together, which was stupid of me because the next day was my parents' combined 60th birthdays/35th wedding anniversary party. I woke up feeling terrible. Not that I can't normally handle half a bottle of wine, but I knew better and it wasn't worth risking a migraine. Well, I didn't have a migraine, but I felt like absolute death. I was too woozy and dizzy to move and I actually threw up for the first time in recent memory. I chugged water all morning until I was physically capable of showering and getting in the car, and then AG drove me to my parents' house (with a necessary Sprite stop along the way) where she was tremendously helpful while I tried to do more than stare blankly at walls as we set up for a 30+ person catered event. If I'm feeling up to it later, I'll write about the party and my sibblings and their significant others, but right now I'm staying on the topic of my current "affliction." Anyway, I felt better and better as the evening wore on and I managed to eat some of the fabulous food and shmooze with my parents' friends. By Sunday I was back to normal.

Tuesday I woke up with diarrhea and the light-headed woozy dizzy crap all over again. I saw sparkles everywhere. I ate saltines and drank ginger ale and slept all morning. My stomach felt better but the sparkles and the light-headded woozy dizzy wouldn't go away, so I called my internist. She was out of the office until Monday, so I made the appointment with one of her collegues.

At the doctor, my blood pressure was 80/58. She thought that my light-headedness was due to the diarrhea and low blood pressure. She told me to eat more salt and drink more fluids and keep a food journal (which I have to start this morning) and if I don't get better by today I have to go to the ER for them to pump me full of fluids. I really don't want to go to the ER, but at this rate I'm headed there instead of knitting this afternoon. Fuck.

A number of weeks ago I fainted. I only blacked out for a second I think, but I fainted. I was sitting at the computer for a long time, stood up too fast and stretched. All the blood rushed to my head and I thought "Oh, shit" as I grabbed the chair and fell to the floor. Then a few weeks later, it happened again the exact same way.

My limbs go numb a lot when I use the computer. They tingle and die and I have to whack the feeling back into them. It's annoying. Two weeks ago my right arm stayed numb for hours.

I only mention the fainting and the numbness because they might be related. They might not, but it doesn't hurt to mention them.

I really want to go to knitting this afternoon.

Late Night Laundry List

It's 11:38 PM and I have to fold laundry. I didn't do my laundry until now because I am a failure as a human being. I did some good things today, though: found out lots of good information about school, exercised, worked a little on my business crap, went to Costco and spent $200 on contacts, groceries, and things for the upcoming party my siblings and I are throwing my parents, went to dinner at Aural Girl's house, went to the bar but didn't drink because I'm trying to lose weight. And then it was late and I realized I had no clean sports bras and no clean regular bras and not much in the way of choice of what to wear in general for tomorrow. One load of laundry later and I now have to hang things as time pushes midnight. I'm very ready to be in bed.

Day One

I'm going back to school at the end of September. I got accepted Friday. I am excited and terrified. My writing and general academic muscles have completely atrophied, so I'm going to try to write something and read something every day until I start classes. This is Day One. I don't really feel like writing but putting down words and declaring that I will write seem like important steps. This is a start. Perhaps tomorrow I will start catching up on the last nine months of my life and how I got to a point where I could even think about going back to school. Perhaps tomorrow.

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.