Another Saab Story

My car is still in the shop. Again. It knows I'm not a "Saab person;" I don't but weird little upgrade parts so the engine does weird little things and I don't go to shows or internet forums to talk about Saab things and I don't speak Swedish and I don't rub down the leather seats with tanning oil. I like the ignition key position on the center console and I like the seat warmers and other than that, I have no business driving a Saab. It knows. It melts and cries fluid and throws belts every chance it gets. I need it to be healthy long enough to empty it out and sell it and buy a friggin' van.

Yesterday was pretty much amazing so I think I'll give it its own post...

Cold Comfort Ferrari

NBF is back from his South American Christmas and New Years and I am very happy. I missed him way more than I expected to. I keep telling myself it was because I was sick for much of the time, battling the nastiest cold I've had in at least 10 years (I still have the remnants) and just wanting live human companionship that required minimal effort on my part. I have other friends who are zero effort, but they do not live in my neighborhood. I've been working on cultivating my other Chicago friends, and I have some great other Chicago friends, but they still require calls and plans and wearing pants, and when NBF moves, that's a big hole he will leave behind. I knew that already, but his three week absence made it clear how much it's going to hurt.

My car died again. No clue why this time. I was driving down Lake Shore Drive when it started feeling funny, like the acceleration was jerky even when I wasn't accelerating or something, but no lights were going on and we were almost to where we were going anyway and I pulled into the turn-off lane and started to break when all the lights came on at once and the car died right there and wouldn't start up again. The City of Chicago tow truck people came before I'd even found the phone number for AAA and towed me onto Lower Wacker so I'd be out of traffic (no tickets or impounding or anything, it's just their way of getting you off the highway so you don't cause more problems...very smart in my opinion and the woman who towed me was very nice) and I then got a four hour time window from AAA that they wanted me to spend in the freezing cold in the car waiting for the tow truck. NBF spent the first two hours with me, no truck. Called AAA back and they said I could wait in a cafe and they'd give me 15 minutes warning before the truck arrived so I could get back to my car. NBF went home to walk the dogs and I went into Descartes on Michigan Ave to drink hot chai late and knit until the tow truck came about half an hour later.
The driver of the AAA truck was probably in his 40s and while we drove through snowy rush hour traffic, he rambled and I coaxed his life story. He's a single dad who ended up raising his two daughters after his wife of 15 years turned out to be batshit. He didn't say batshit, but the woman flew off the handle and had multiple affairs and didn't really fight for custody or anything then tried to blame her older daughter for not just saying in court "I want to go with my mom." Mind you, I only heard his side of the story, but from his side, she sounds pretty batshit. He's also extremely happy and proud that his daughter made it through high school considering what a rough time she had with the divorce and everything and that she's not pregnant or into drugs, and while he hopes she will some day go to college or something, he's glad she's come this far. It was nice to hear. He just seemed like a really solid, decent guy trying to make the best possible lives for his two girls. It was a good story.

Now I have no car again. It would be easier if I really had no car and just lived my life carless and maybe belonged to iGo or something for the times I needed a car. It would be easiest if my car didn't randomly die on my every other month. I don't know what I do wrong. I take it for its regular oil changes. I feed it premium gas. I even got it exciting snow wipers this year. Still, it insists on hating me. Maybe I should blame the entire country of Sweden. Next time, I'm getting a hybrid Camry. The Camry gods are punishing me for straying.

My sister moved to Portland, Oregon. Portland is the new Brooklyn. I'm still looking at condos here in Chicago, even though it's freezing and I think I'm crazy and still can't really believe I'm looking at condos.

Now that it's 2009, my 10 year high school reunion is officially next year. If I don't do something awesome really soon, I'm going to have to make a baby so I have something to show for myself. I was so scarily driven in high school and the people who actually remember me probably expect me to be a Fulbright scholar or have a Pulitzer or something by now, instead of spending a good 8 years trying to figure out how to reconcile what I want with what I think I should want and how to make what I want happen without feeling guilty for not doing what I think I should want or do.

Warm sleepy dog on lap is a wonderful thing. Too bad I don't feel like that's enough to show off, and that I need something to show off, because warm sleepy dog makes me happy. I'm just still not strong enough in what makes me happy. Bah.

remiss

In an email from a friend: "I've missed reading your blog posts - have you given up on Annabell Jo?"

Hell no. Out of the habit. Distracted. That's bad enough, but I'm not giving up.

I'm still migrainy. Nowhere near as bad as they were, but I've had almost zero days with zero pain and symptoms. They're just more livable, and I'm doing a lot more around them, and I'm only really losing maybe a day or two a week instead of only having a day or two a week. I've sold my cards in person more than once now, and my aunt and uncle are hiring me to do some stuff on their website that can be done whenever I'm physically able. I want to take one class in the fall back at school, but I'm not there yet. There's a whole lot of tests and a few doctors' appointments I need to make to hopefully get me to that point, but first I need health insurance.

I still don't have health insurance. On the phone yesterday with the iChip people makes me think I'm really, really close, but I would have said that months ago, too, so I don't want to get too excited. The adjuster from iChip had the exact same problems with the idiots at my last insurance company that I did (it took her EIGHT CALLS to find someone who could give her my policy number, something I was never able to get in writing), so that made me feel a little less crazy.

My car is still "in the shop." It's now done except for a tire, which wasn't the result of the accident (Chicago pothole(s) damaged the tire and wheel itself), so it's out of pocket, so I got a tire for half the price online that has to be shipped from Saturn or something. I'm borrowing my sister's car until I get my own back, which my sister just loves, but my parents are redoing their kitchen which somehow translates to also repaving their garage and outdoor parking space thing, so my sister's car needed a place to stay anyway, and parking is terrible around her summer sublet apartment in the now-cool South Loop.

She and I went to the Taste of Chicago yesterday and had a very nice time. It was as uncrowded as the Taste gets, and I think I was sufficiently distracted by food and being the Person With a Sense of Direction to ignore my persistent mid-grade migraine long enough to have fun. With two strips of tickets (a total of $16) and "Taste sizes" only (each booth offers one of their items as a smaller portion for 3-4 tickets), the two of us had:

• rib tips from Robinsons No. 1 Ribs
• cumin-dusted fries with mango chutney from Vermilion Latin-Indian Cuisine
• jerk chicken with red beans and rice from Vee-Vee's African Cuisine
• chocolate-dipped frozen baby banana from Aunt Diana's Candy Makers
• samosa from Arya Bhavan
• alcapurria (pork filled banana dumpling) from Sabor Latino

Everything was entirely fabulous except for the alcapurria, which was a big fried blob of generic friedness. The jerk chicken was a real stand-out, so my sister and I will have to go to the actual Vee-Vee's sometime, since it's close to my apartment.

My grandma turned 85 yesterday and this past weekend most of my maternal extended family converged on San Diego. That's where NBF is for the summer and I almost didn't see him at all because he is a big fat poo-head. My mom's sister hosted the whole thing (she lives there) and she's pretty fabulous. That side of the family is much easier to deal with in general, since they say what they mean and don't care how much money you make. On the other hand, my grandma can be pretty difficult, but also people have stopped being nice to her and about her. And my siblings were being total schmuck-heads to me in general. Let's just say it was a real test of my Newfound Positivity (thank you therapy...I'm not sure if I'm being sarcastic).

Speaking of therapy, big revelation this week: being less loud and/or obnoxious and/or "annoying*" and generally changing what I say and how I act to fit a situation isn't "giving in," it's more like being a teacher altering your methods until the students understand. My therapist is very good.

That should be enough for now. I need to get my ass back writing again in less than seven weeks.


*My sister thinks I'm annoying. All the time. She tells me so. All the time. It's swell.

In and Out of the Flow of Life/Mucus

Screw neti pots and their recent surge in popularity thanks to Oprah and the New York Times - my OCD tendencies had me eying those saline nasal irrigation things for years. Normally I want one when I have a cold, since I seem to have been spared the classic runny-nose seasonal allergy crap, but with more evidence and doctors suggesting that perhaps my migraines are sinus-related, I splurged and spent $12 on the NeilMed Sinus Rinse kit. 8 oz of warm water (I did it right from the tap, livin' on the edge, instead of buying distilled water and heating it in the microwave) with the little packet of salty crap to make saline, mixed in the bottle, leaned over the sink, held it up to my nostril, and squeezed.
Gross. But the good kind of gross. Except for the part when it started snotting down the back of my throat and I had to spit out snot. That was mostly the bad kind of gross. But overall, I am pleased. I do feel better able to breathe through my nasal passages and feel they were very well cleaned and irrigated.

I'm a member of this awesome co-ed fraternity now: Alpha Alpha Alpha. They're really into travel, and they'll help you out anywhere if your car dies, and all sorts of places give you discounts if you tell them you're a member. AAA loveeeeee!!!

After spending way too much time and energy insuring my new car (have I mentioned lately I love my new car? I don't think I have. I love my new car.) I was getting renters insurance through AAA because they were significantly cheaper than anywhere else and my dad decided I needed renters insurance. Then the AAA insurance guy asked me about my car insurance and blah blah blah now I am paying a lot less and I trust AAA more than the no-name company I ended up with before. So that was all good insurance news, even though I spent a very long time going through the different quotes and people and things.
After the fiasco with my old health insurance, I decided to get new health insurance. Pay more and make sure everything was covered. I did lots of shopping around for that, filled out the application online, answered more questions over the phone last week when they called to clarify certain things about my health and insurance history, and told my mother every other day that no I hadn't heard back from the health insurance people yet. Well, the same day all my other insurance got happy, I got rejected from the health insurance. Probably because of my migraines (yes, they can do that), in which case I just need the letter to show up here that states they rejected me due to medical history and I can apply for the Illinois Lame People Insurance, but (and here is the moral of the story so I will bold it) Why is it so fucking difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to insure our health and property to a safe, legal, minimal standard?

My migraine has been much better behaved and I was all ready to do an I Love Topamax dance, then the weather shifted and it kicked my ass. Maybe less so, I'm not sure. It was a few days of bad that I first thought were the result of chocolate and didn't know what to do if it turned out chocolate was my trigger, but then I went outside and it was very clearly the weird crazy weather shift shit that normally gets me. Now the weather is back to Standard Chicago Winter and I'm doing better and I want to register for classes and such, but I still don't have this crap figured out and I don't want the same thing to happen again and I don't quite know what to do about it all. My school starts really late, so I have a few weeks, but I don't know what monumental change will happen in those few weeks to make things any clearer.

To end on a positive note: I have an audition for Wheel of Fortune on Tuesday! I got an email saying I'd been selected for an appointment time to audition for the Chicago taping of College Week! So excited!

crafts and crap and life and strife and monkey and chunky

Saturday, I was a real person again! On my way out the door I ran into my cousin-in-law, who was rehearsing for a play in the lobby of my building. I then ran errands and met with a friend at the Handmade Market, a craft fair at a bar, coincidentally located around the corner from where my cousins live. It was pretty entertaining and I managed to buy only a $2.50 home-made lipgloss that is really quite lovely, though I was smitten with a series of bracelets made from old watch faces and subway tokens, but I don't wear bracelets and didn't know for whom to buy one. As we were heading towards the door to look for food, I was thinking I should call my cousins and ask where Bite, a restaurant I'd been to a few times with them that I liked very much, was located. Then I noticed that one of the exits for the bar actually led into Bite. So we ate at Bite and the food took forever and I was very hungry but it was good and the conversation was good and I was out and social and human, even if we were surrounded by hipsters. On my way home I stopped at Joann Crafts and spent too much money, came home and immediately made a completely lovely set of cards and one of my weirdest cards ever. I listed them on Etsy before going to bed, and the really weird one sold Sunday morning! I win.

Sunday morning, NBF and I drove my old car to my family-friends' house and signed papers and picked up my new car! I have a new car! 2003 Saab 9-5! It is GORGEOUS! It is all silver and sleek and pretty and leather and has seat warmers and I have to be nice to it and not mess it up because it is too nice to mess up. I even put a towel down on the front seat because my dog was getting snowy salty paw prints on it when we drove to my parents' house and I didn't want it to have snowy salty paw prints. It's too pretty to have snowy salty paw prints. Pretty pretty princess car.

Last night I went to my parents' for dinner. Brisket and latkes and menorah lighting. Jewish much? I'd mentioned that I had to leave first thing this morning because I had a lot to do today, with going to the DMV and errands and phone calls and whatnot now that I'm functional again and it would be a weekday. My mom was asking about all the specifics of my phone calls and such, as though it were interesting conversation. I hate talking about that crap. It's lame and annoying enough to have to do it without it becoming the topic of polite conversation. Plus as soon as my mom knows I have to do something, she takes it as something she has to remind me to do. So I kept being vague despite her odd prodding and changed the subject.

I frequently dream about being walked in on when I'm changing or going to the bathroom, or that strange uninvited people keep getting into my house or apartment even after I thought I locked all the doors. My subconscious isn't always subtle.

I drove home from my parents' this morning feeling that thick heavy pre-migraine tired, but I didn't sleep well last night, so I figured I'd pop pills and crash for an hour before getting started on my errands. Woke up with my alarm and MIGRAINE. Again. Fuck. More pills, more sleep. Still migraine. Basically slept all day and it's still here. I have another doctor's appointment in the morning, this time with a new internist, and since it's right next door to NBF's school I was driving him down there anyway, so maybe he'll get to do the driving and we'll see what New Doc can do for me if the headache doesn't die overnight. Fuckfuckfuck.

At least I'm getting several real days of real functioning between my migraine days now. Even if this is the new pattern, it's a better pattern. Let's go, optimism!

thankfully home

Sunday I was feeling much better. My parents came and we went to brunch and I ordered a frittata containing spinach on purpose. We went grocery shopping and my mom tried putting things away in my kitchen because she doesn't like having things out or that I still have things in boxes. I prefer it that way for now because I only use the dishes I need and they don't pile up, plus having some of my food things on the counter makes it so I know what I have without having to dig through my deep cupboards. The eternal battle continues. We then tried to jump my car and failed, so my parents called their auto club and the guy came and got it going but said the starter was shot so we should get it to where it could stay until we had it towed and fixed. Since I am getting New Car as soon as I am physically capable of going and dealing with the license plates, we figured it made the most sense to drive my car back to my parents' house and I'd get the New Car Tuesdayish. Lots of driving and a chili cheese dog from Gold Coast Dogs later, I was dropped back at my apartment sans car.

Monday I woke up dead. Tuesday, too. Dead dead dead. Wednesday I still felt like crap but the original plan was that I would drive to my parents' Wednesday night to see my siblings (returning from LA and college in Iowa) and help with Thanksgiving prep. Instead, my mom picked up my corpse and my dog on the way back from getting my sister from the airport.

Wednesday night through yesterday is a blur of pain and my mom's leftover hydrocodone and noise and people and my brother's massage chair. For Thanksgiving itself I drugged the living hell out of myself (hydrocodone and Aleve at maximum doses) so I could be social and enjoy the food. I apparently did very well, though mostly I remember staring at my cousin-in-law's very shiny diamond rings (and I always thought the shiny stoner thing was a joke!) and rattling off things I was thankful for every time the general conversation got too far into the gutter. I think I was the only person to do the "I'm thankful for..." thing at all.

The best thing about all those days at my parents' house was how happy it made my dog. He got spoiled like crazy between my dad and my sister, and even my mom fed him bits of leftovers when she felt too bad staring at his "orphan eyes." He got to run around in the yard whenever he felt like it, and by day 3 didn't even try to wake me, going instead to scratch at my parents' door until someone came and let him out. He even started snuggling with my dad after over three years of my dad trying to win his affection.
My brother's massage chair was also excellent. I spent at least 3 hours in it over the four days, digging through my unbelievably tight shoulder and neck muscle knots. I really want to steal it from him, but he spent his bar mitzvah money on it, so that wouldn't be fair. My parents are talking about getting me my own, anyway, I just have to try out the different models to figure out which would be the most helpful.

I wish my parents' house didn't stress me out quite so much, because it would be an easy and obvious solution to Incapacitated Annabell. But it never gets completely quiet and the concerned looks on my parents faces tend to worry me more than my own afflictions, and not even a massage chair is better than good sleep in the dark and quiet. I feel bad for my dog, but otherwise it's good to be back in my own hole, listening to free audiobooks (LibriVox is awesome and brilliant and you should check it out) and working on things I can try to sell on etsy.com (my username is my real name equivalent to AnnabellJo, as in FirstnameMiddlename). This is my new life.

a weekend of fun and much-betterness

Birdie and her sister (Batty? jury's still out on codenaming her, but I think she might appreciate that one) came and went and fun was had despite Birdie's being throat diseased and me battling what I can only hope are the last little sputterings of this motherfuckingmigraine. Batty(?) brought me Percocets, which helped immensely. I guess regular codeine didn't do the trick but oxycodone is enough different/stronger to make a difference. I was out! I was free! I was me again! Yaaaaaay!
We ate soup at the Soup Box (I love that place and it made sense for Birdie) and then stopped by SUC's sushi restaurant but were too full of soup to eat there so he and Ex-Boss Lady joined us for drinks (Birdie and I didn't drink due to our respective ailments, but still) and I hadn't seen them in forever and I forgot how much I like SUC. Then NBF went to bed and we womenfolk went to see Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 plays in 60 minutes), which I went to a bunch when I was 18 and hadn't since. It was very fun and good and they only made it through 27 3/4 of the plays. We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and I'd forgotten to take my Effexor and then there were bright spirals and flashing lights and all my pre-migraine shit went crazy and I ended up hanging out in the park across the street where it was cool and quieter. Drugs (both illicit and licit) and a 45 minute nap fixed that before dinner. NBF turned 29 and my cousinses and Batty and NBF's high school friend and her husband joined us and we ate delicious Indian food. Then (sans-cousinses) we went to Green Mill for the last set of a group that would have been better without the flute. Then today was low-key and we took a delicious group nap and my car is inexplicably dead and I no longer have motor club (apparently the kick you out of your parents' account when you turn 25 and I just found that out in the last month and I haven't done anything about it yet) and my awesome last year's Hannukah present internal cigarette lighter jumper thing doesn't come pre-charged and I didn't know this until we opened it up and tried to use it. Moral of the story: Birdie and Batty had to take a cab to the airport because otherwise it takes a good hour and a half by public transportation and they didn't have time. Blech. I passed out again on NBF's bed while he worked on his paper, we ate leftover Indian food, and I waddled home after 5 and fell back asleep by 6. My dog, having not been out since around 10 this morning, woke me at midnight (I think he was entitled) and we walked up and down the block once and then I wrote this and now I go back to bed. I'm thinking/hoping tomorrow I will be able to go back to school, which will be super-fun trying to figure out what of the semester is still salvagable and exactly what I need to do to save it. Still, better than the migraine. Death to migraine. Love to Birdie. Back to sleeeeep now.

car, migraine, yap yap yap

Still in a migraine stupor. I hate this. I was going to try out for Wheel of Fortune today, but there's no way I'm going anywhere loud and crowded or acting excited about anything.

However, thing that I am excited about, even if I'm incapable of expressing it at the moment: apparently, my parents are buying me a new (well, new to me) car! I love my old Camry and thought I'd drive it until the day it died, but they called to say they came across a really good deal on a 2003 Saab somethingorother and would I like it? I'm a bit sad to say goodbye to my Camry, since that's the car that went to Key West and back in a weekend, and it's been good to me, but I know with 130,000 miles and 12 years under its belt, it's getting ready to die. And I have a sense it's going to need new breaks again soon, too, since they're starting to sound/feel funny. So new car! That's like winning on Wheel of Fortune without ever playing the game. I still would have liked to play the game...

What the hell am I talking about? The weirdest part of a migraine is how drunk/stoned I feel, like thoughts don't stay in my brain for more than about two seconds, and normal emotional reactions just don't exist. Like, I know I'm excited about new car, but I'm not feeling properly excited about it. Like, this is big fat exciting! A Saab! I really like Saabs. But I'm too numb right now to really feel it. Almost in that depression way, but without the sadness or hopelessness...or even that feeling of numb. This is more the way I don't feel things in my third arm because I don't have a third arm. I am not missing a third arm, I just don't have one.

Yeesh. The logic of Full Blown Migraine Day 3 is very odd. It doesn't help I keep getting distracted by things in my peripheral vision that aren't really moving but randomly take my attention, anyway. I wanted to write about how weird it is that my parents now have all this money. Again, not that I'm complaining. If anything, it's perfect when in my life they went from getting by to comfortable to "want a new car?" Because I grew up not spoiled but not needy. When I got too big for my clothes, we could afford to go get new clothes, but I didn't get a whole new wardrobe every season or shop at boutiques and department stores. If I wanted a new toy, it went on my Hanukah or birthday list, and big-ticket items (a new bike or a boom-box) meant that was pretty much it from my parents for the holiday. Totally comfortable, totally reasonable. But I guess what my dad is/does is pretty unique and now he's all high on the corporate ladder and I get calls like "Do you want a new car?"

Think they can buy me a new brain?

I hope this makes sense.

Something smells funny and I can't tell if it's real or in my head or some combination.

Anybody (HDS, I'm looking at you) know a shit-ton about C. S. Lewis? I have a presentation on Thursday.

Blah blah blah blah. This is a clear case of "those who speak do not know," or at least "the less my brain is functioning, the more I write."