Lovesong for Shed-Beast

How did Dog survive before it had Man to hold it while it whined and protect it from thunder? Did Dog always need its food broken into smaller pieces, or did it at some point consistently and instinctually remember how to chew? And what did Man do in the pre-dawn sleet storm? Sleep?

No, Darwin here is a fairy tale. Fur and love and big desperate eyes must be grand design; otherwise I would  have eaten the little fuzz-monster.

Companions

Merry Christmas.

After spending too much time knitting while watching movies and not enough time digging through the crap in my office or doing actual work, I went over and hung out at the apartment of my friend who has or had a crush on me. Not James Spader (who sent me a really sweet text message this afternoon from Christmas at his parents house in Florida...), but another boy who makes his awkward feelings known. Another Boy in my flock of "gentlemen callers." My minions. And why exactly am I not attracted to this Boy? I have no fucking clue. We had a really nice time last night, but I left his place feeling like a lesbian for the total lack of attraction I felt.

My dog is staying with Neighbor Guy while I'm in New York. I flat out refused yesterday and this utterly and completely terrified me this morning, but Neighbor Guy has been pretty much wonderful about the whole thing and even humoring and placating my nervousness. We had a trial day today, and when I left, my dog was growling and snapping and trying to bite NG's dog, who is a puppy and at least 100 lbs bigger and took the snarls to be just the most fun new game in the world. I feared the worst. NG wasn't even going to be home all day; his upstairs neighbor comes by to walk his dog when he's at work, and NG doesn't have a phone. I was going to board my dog at the kennel, but apparently they require one of his vaccinations to be done every 6 months instead of every 12 like the vet recommends, and it has to be 48 hours or more before his stay, and I didn't learn any of this until yesterday afternoon after everything closed until Saturday, a mere 24 hours before I need to drop him off.
But this may all be for the best. Neighbor Guy is reminding me why we're friends, and when I came to get my dog tonight, he was very unhappy to see NG, but seemed perfectly find with the other dog, and considering how many hours NG will be at work anyway, that's what really matters.

Now, I go snuggle with my favorite little guy. He's had a rough day.

Rain, Rain, A-OK

It's raining! I'm so glad it's raining! I spent all day today in my migrainy demi-coma and thought I had to re-renounce even the single glass of wine and/or products containing corn syrup I had at Other Girl's house last night, but it's raining! The exact kind of weather shift that usually knocks me out. Maybe I would have survived the day had I stuck to my strictest regiments, but add in such a big strong trigger as sloppy weather and it's much harder to say I can never eat or drink anything worthwhile ever again.

Clearer and clearer: NBF is a fucktard, this buying and selling antiques thing might actually work, Neighbor Guy is a child, I like making absolutist statements

Other Girl's dog looks just like my dog except he's tan instead of black and white and his ears bend. He also acts like my dog only minus the whole trying to kill people who enter "his" territory thing and he's less dog-aggressive. But his personality is very much like my dog's personality when we're alone, and they're the same size and shape. He even has the name my dog had when I got him from the crazy lady in Ohio. My dog is whining at me. He knows I'm writing about him and he's upset that he gets no final editorial approval.

When I sit down at my computer, I expect it to provide some sort of satisfaction. Then I'm annoyed when it doesn't. Same thing with food. There's something internet and food and television are supposed to fulfill. Except the only one that every really works is food, and that's often a shot in the dark. Maybe I'll eat frozen mango chunks and read.

My Kind of Town, Not My Kind of Drugs

I've always been willing/happy to move to another city if there was some other city with a solid concentration of my friends. The more I look at condos, the more I realize that everybody isn't going to just magically congregate in one place and I need to keep chugging along towards stability and pretend adulthood and as long as there's nowhere else to go, buying a condo in Chicago makes a lot of sense. Hell, this one was my idea, not my parents'. And there's a lot of great stuff out there. So condo it is!

So la-dee-da, staying in Chicago for at least Obama's first term (roll your eyes at me because you always knew I'd be in Chicago forever anyway) and now a few of my favorite people may come to me.

One is applying for jobs post-masters degree graduation. He was like a less healthy (mainly because I was even less emotionally healthy) version of NBF back at Liberal Arts College. I do have a history of turning into an idiot around him, but the last few years I seem to be over the idiot thing (I'm not sure when and where he turned into a human being instead of a demigod, but as long as the glitch in my perception is fixed, it's a decided improvement) and we have much fun together in less-than-gigantic doses.

My friend who lives in Madison auditioned for Chicago Civic Orchestra, and I reeeeeally want him to get into that for next year because he'd have to come down here more often but could still stay living with his fabulous girlfriend in Madison while she finishes med school, and Civic is an excellent gateway to many other Chicago (ok, and other) orchestra opportunities and she's all Midwestern Cheesecurdy anyway and unlike some friends that I would just be trapping in a web of evil, I have a sense he could be perfectly happy as a Chicagoan. Mwahahaha.

Am I trying to justify planting my condo-buying roots here while NBF gets ready to move to his no longer certain or shiny future? And why do I cling to NBF most when he's fussy? I cling to a lot of people most when they're a certain level of fussy. Too fussy and they can go fuck themselves. But that familiar level of sad and self-hating and you are suddenly the magic little center of my existence. Case in point: my dog. Those of you who know my dog, stop laughing.

My health has been particularly frustrating. In the past 16 days I've gone from a daily dose of 225 mg of Effexor to 0 Effexor to 40 mg of Prozac to 60 mg of Prozac to now 10 mg of Prozac. Slap on top of that the 1 mg tabs of Lorazepam I get to bite in half as needed to keep me from jumping out of my skin and make sure I can still digest food and I'm a treat to be around. 900 mg a day of Neurontin, 100 of Topamax, and .05 of Synthroid feel like old friends now. The foundation. The sandy beach atop which I must build my castle. Oooh, cheesy metaphor.
At any rate, all the stomach troubles and the jumpiness was due to the Prozac. My psychiatrist thought by switching directly from the Effexor to the Prozac I could avoid the Effexor withdrawal and I'd take to the Prozac right away. Instead, I went through the full withdrawal thing and then all the batshit insanity was classic serotonin side effect crap, meaning my body did not adjust nicely to the Prozac and my psychiatrist added anxiety meds just to counteract the Prozac and dropped me waaaay down on the Prozac and I'm still feeling jumpy and useless and having trouble digesting things but in theory it will go away in a few days. In theory. And my head still hurts and my left eye is still twitching. You don't notice the eye thing unless I point it out and you look very carefully, but it's there and it's weird and I'm broke and I can't get anything done towards being a productive member of society and it's making me very fussy.

How many more years until you go to the doctor, they stick you with a needle and instantly know your exact body chemistry and what's wrong and how to fix it?

Back to happy thoughts, brain. Happy happy happy thoughts. Hot Dog Sam and her hubby are likely to move to Chicago in a few years, too. They would totally live in my neighborhood. We'll totally force our dogs to play together the way our parents used to force us to play with their friends' children of various ages and personalities, regardless of compatibility. It'll be awesome.