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?

Effexor withdrawal is the worst thing in the universe, genocide be damned.

Prozac withdrawal seems to be not so much terrible as floaty fluffy weird.

Why am I going through Prozac withdrawal? Because after my pharmacy spent 6 days calling my psychiatrist for an authorization on the refill and I blew through my three day emergency supply, and then called my dear darling shrink myself on a Friday evening, hoping to inspire some sense of urgency, it wasn't until 10 PM that he finally sent me a text message saying no more or less than "Prozac called in." The pharmacy at my Walgreens closes at 10. It opens tomorrow morning at 9. I went online to check me account, and they still have the thing "pending physician approval," but if I'm the first thing they see when they open, maybe I can be drugged and not insane early enough for some quality estate saleage.

The end.

Dammit dog, walk yourself.
Ok, fine. It's a damn good thing you're cute.

ouch brain whine whine whine

Ouchy in the head. All day. Not terrible, but enough to get in the way. No following my schedule today. I knew as soon as I woke up. I had wine last night, but not that much. This isn't a wine headache. Front of my head. Pressure. Weather headache.

I have a pumpkin from Halloween sitting on my front table and it needs to go in the garbage. Flashback to Birdie and my college dorm, sophomore year when we didn't throw ours out for months as it rotted away. This one still looks like a pumpkin, but there's no need to push it. I just forget about it because it's out of the way.

I ate a lot of puffed rice today. I feel like that may be making the head worse.

Ok, as I'm writing this, Birdie texts me to say she's in upstate New York watching two of our mutual college friends performing in some show with some band. Crazy.

Dear pills,
Please kick in and make ouchy brain stop. I don't feel like giving myself a shot and I've slept enough today as it is. And I'm bored. And it's Friday night. And I want to drill a hole in my head. A lot. Maybe I should spend some time in the jacuzzi...

The Frozen Tundra that is My Soul

It's almost 3 AM. I just finished picking the chicken out of my cold leftover mediocre semi-homemade masala with a serrated knife, because that's what was clean. I dipped a multigrain roll in the sauce (also cold), too. I couldn't really taste the roll, so it was ok. Now I'm eating the Hershey's kisses my aunt sent me. This is why I had indigestion earlier and it will probably give me indigestion again. My period decided to show up 8 hours ago. My apartment is freezing and I am wearing 2-4 layers on almost every part of my body, then wrapped in a bathrobe and again in a blanket. I keep hoodies and hats on my head at all times, and frequently just give up and crawl back into my bed cocoon in front of my ever-blasting space heater. My dog is there 90% of the time now, and it's making him restless and whiny. We are both restless and whiny, but too frozen and fussy and lonely and stagnant to do anything about it. Happy fucking Valentines Day.




PS- Things haven't actually been that bad and I'll post a real post later. But it's 3 AM and I'm fussy so this is the post I'm posting now.

"sick"

When people ask about this period in my life, I'm going to say I was "sick" in a vague finger-quotey way so they think I was dealing with an unwanted pregnancy or had a nervous breakdown or was otherwise put in some sort of mental facility or had some other medical problem so traumatic I don't care to be reminded of the specifics. I just feel like for all my pain and inconvenience, there's very little drama and story. Just pills and dog and no end to my whining.

Sweet, Sweet Potato

I've been asleep for the last two days. Splendid. Maybe I'm weakened from two weeks of being dead. I don't know. Also, I am out of the Percocets and the head is less than comfortable (though not nearly as horrible as it's been). I need to get my ass to a doctor, which is much more difficult than it should be.

Whine whine whine.

My dog puked what looked like mashed sweet potatoes on my bed last night. I cleaned it up and went back to sleep.

I know three pregnant people right now, and they are all due in March. Strange. I've decided two of them should become internet BFFs, since they have some strange similarities anyway and I know if I'm ever preggers I will want other pregger people friends, which can be hard to come by if your regular people friends are not baby-making with you.

And I want a live-in chef and house cleaner, but I think I've mentioned that before.

Can I lie and say I'm stoned right now to excuse the random oddness of this post?

sittings

Last night I saw a very odd 3 1/2 hour play with my parents at the Goodman Theater. Parts were wonderful, parts were stupid. Kind of like my parents.

I woke up early to try to get some work done, but instead spent several hours battling some nasty-ass trojan buggy thing that decided to attach itself to my computer and ignore my multiple virus and spyware busters.

Then it took me an hour on the Edens to get to the Botanical Gardens/Ravinia area from my apartment in Rogers Park and another 20 minutes after that to arrive at Lake Forest College's soccer field.

Then I watched my brother play part of a game with his college soccer team against Lake Forest. He's been too injured/gimpy to play much or particularly well, but he did manage to score goals the last few games. Not this game, but his school won during their second overtime. Very exciting.

As I drove out of Lake Forest and towards 41, I noticed a cop behind me. It was a big street, two lanes in either direction and very little entering or exiting traffic, so I was going around 45-50mph. Then the cop pulled me over and I assumed I had a tail light out but no, apparently the speed limit on that large fast street is actually 35. He was very nice and even apologized that he had to give me a ticket, but there was some mandatory ticketing thing for anything more than 10 mph over the speed limit. Piece of shit. So now I've gotten my first ticket in almost 7 years and if I want it off my record I have to do some 4 hour online traffic school thing, which is obviously what I need right now on top of the rest of the time I'm stuck at my computer every day and going crazy.

Now I am sleepy and farty because I decided to treat myself to McDonalds fries (I was going for just coffee and didn't see a Dunkin Donuts and felt after a ticket I needed a treat). There are a number of friends I haven't seen in way too long and I would very much like to see, but I don't know when because I'm not caught up yet. It is my goal to be completely on top of everything by the time I go to bed tomorrow, and it's possible but difficult, so we'll see.

I'm such a kvetch.

The Sads, The Happenings, The Dogs, and The Food

Depression is very strange. It's like having allergies, only triggers tend to be situational instead of tangible and cause persistent sadness instead of persistent rash. It might be funnier if the two ailments switched effects. Like if ragweed, cats, and peanuts made people tearful and removed while unrequited love and frustration with life caused swelling and congestion.

Also interesting to note: when I get like this, all I want to write about is being like this. You'd never know that I was still having a regular life outside of the sulking. Like tonight was the close of the show at my work and my boss's last night before she goes to her new better job. There was a party, with lots of fried food (including the best twice baked potato skin thingies I've ever had) and an open bar that I didn't have to work so I got to actually be a part of the party. One of the bar regulars who's on crew is a notorious flirt and, while I like him, I'm never sure how sincere he is about anything. But he also seemed to notice my fake smile and localized rain clouds and, while I pretended nothing was wrong, he made a concerted effort to cheer me up and provided numerous non-flirty (and therefore acceptable and reassuringly sincere) hugs. It was nice.

Tina quit yesterday. I wasn't surprised, since she's said for ages she only stayed on because of our boss. Still, really sad. She's fabulous. We (Tina, my now ex-boss and I) have tentative plans to go shopping in the next few weeks. But it's the end of an era. Yes, 5 months can be an era. That may be a big piece of The Funk.
Another big piece of The Funk is my frustration with my own terrible study skills. I'm reading all my class material, but I missed two classes last week for stupid reasons and the assignment that was due last Thursday still isn't done. I'm making excuses. I need to just fucking do it. There is no good reason it isn't done. And yet, it isn't done and I'm sitting here mad at myself for not doing it and continuing to not do it. Another assignment has been carried around in my bag for a week. It's not a big deal that it isn't in, and there is a fairly logical reason why, but its presence in my folder keeps hissing at me "You're a terrible student/person." And the pile of shit that is my apartment has grown overwhelming again. As for that, I think I'm just going to call the cleaning service and have them come on Tuesday whether or not I've done any cleaning myself first. Fuck embarrassment. It needs to happen. Perhaps I'll schedule weekly cleanings on my first call (as I was supposed to do when I was given the service as a present last May) until I find some sort of rhythm to the organizing and removal of garbage myself. Because that's something I haven't managed yet in the year and a half I've lived here.

Also in the works: the meeting of NBF and my dogs. NBF's dog is friendly and loves other dogs. My dog tends to freak out at other dogs. My dog will be muzzled. I've been working on getting him used to wearing the muzzle in comfortable situations (for an hour or two around the house, on a walk, etc.), and then perhaps they can meet in my car, where my dog tends to be happiest and least territorial. I would love for my dog to be able to have a doggie friend. I feel terrible that he doesn't. He has me. He sort-of has my parents. That's it. Everyone else he hates and/or is terrified of. It's a sad little doggie existence.

I can't tell if I'm hungry or not. I think I am. I went grocery shopping today and stocked up on Lean Cuisines (they were on sale, so my freezer is completely packed yet again). My favorite soup (Campbell's Chunky Turkey Pot Pie) was not on sale, so I only got a few, but I may eat one now because I feel like comfort food.

If you just read all that, you deserve a cookie. It probably should have gone in my paper journal instead of on the blog, and I'd delete it, but eh.

imbalance

I feel like a lot of people in my life are having a rotten go of things right now. Cancers and big break-ups and general unhappiness with life. I feel the need to pour a shit-ton of joy into the cosmos to make the world whole again. Maybe I can knit scarves for autistic baby seals in my "free time." That's sure to work.

Today was my precious, precious day off. I had tentative plans with SUC, so I called him and left him a message after I woke up around 1, showered, walked the dog, and fell back asleep. I've got this strange lurky migraine thing going. SUC never called back, but I didn't try his home phone or anything as I was unconscious for much of the day. Now I'm drugged up but still experiencing pain and light-sensitivity but no other symptoms (no nausea and I can actually think, so I can't complain too much) and I can't sleep. I should clean my apartment, but that's really unappealing right now with my vision all funky.

I'm such a kvetch. I'm annoying the hell out of myself right now. Where's my Dorothy Parker?