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...

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.

What if your kid starts biting people?

Upstairs neighbors who went to the condo board to voice their concerns about  my dog instead of talking to me had a baby a few months back. HDS and I opened the door to leave on Sunday and the dad, his grandmother, and other various adults were in the hall. My dog ran out barking and snarling. I ran out and got my dog, picked him up, and carried him back inside (he's 14 lbs). He didn't bite anyone. But my neighbor still lost his shit. "There are laws against this." I lost my shit in tears.

HDS and I had been on our way to lunch with my mom, who suggested a gate for when we open the door so there is no way my dog can run out in the future. I had the gate up already when a police officer came by later in the day. My neighbors called the police. They don't  talk to me, they go to the condo board and then they call the police. When they were dog sitting, I was there when their furry charge got out off  her leash. I reattached and tightened the harness for them. My dog escapes for an instant and they call the police.

I'm terrified. I don't  know what to do. I keep him on his leash, muzzled in the presence of others, and we've been working our butts off on training. But he is my dog and I love him so much and he isn't going to kill anyone and he's a complete sweetheart, joy, treasure, necessity in my life. He is not a pit bull or a thing or  a gun. I'm so scared my neighbors will go after him and I see the huge unfairness and uncaring of situations  like these and it crushes me into a little ball of chalkiness.

Friday we go to Nashville.
Monday I  go to  the hospital.
When will this anxious, sinking feeling go away?

Don't touch me

Today was one of those strange days in my body where I'm in pain but I feel like doing everything, so I did everything. I did not clean the house or take the dog on an extra-long walk, but otherwise I feel pretty fucking accomplished for a scrambled egg brain.

I organized all my vintage maps by region into folders in two small plastic boxes.
I went to an estate/demolition sale that kicked ass. $7.50 for stuff that I can sell for $100+ and it's all easy to mail.
I purchased key ingredients for the completion of two of my ongoing projects.
I went grocery shopping.
I took photos of some of the new things I got at today's estate sale and almost completed getting them listed online.

I'd planned to go to the bar and listen to the Irish band and be social, but I'm completely exhausted. My logical processing ability started its downward decent a good six hours ago, and at this point I'm likely to bite anyone who touches me, possibly including my dog. When I first got back from all the running around errand stuff and I was light-headed and woozy and trying to breathe and re-establish myself on this plane of existence, I looked up and there was my dog, sitting tall in the middle of the dining room, staring at me. I stared back. It was perfect.

Now I don't want the computer touching me, either. I don't usually get like this. Weird.

Day ?

It's hanging on again, day after day, ignoring medication after medication. Am I doing something wrong? Something different? Something bad? What's the variable? Is it something I can control?
My house is a mess. I expect the migraine to break and then I can clean up, but it's not breaking and it's been too many days of bad. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, cleaning the house will just have to be my quiet, slow, in-the-dark migraine project. I've learned how to live like this, had extensive training, so deep breath and prove myself a worthy advasary for The Beast.

My poor dog is going stir crazy. Half-assed walks and throwing treats up and down my hallway aren't sufficient entertainment for him while they're a little too much for me.

I. FUCKING. HATE. THIS.

Couch Party

Earlier today I gave myself my ketorolac tromethamine shot, walked the dog, and fell asleep on the couch before I took off my coat. When I woke up from the nap, I still had the headache. I went to the Walgreens drive-thru and forced myself through a quick shopping trip at my little local grocery store. I needed rice milk but there was no way I could deal with Dominicks (now owned by Safeway), so I still have no rice milk. It is amazing what I can do, when necessary, with migraine. It's also amazing how hard some things can be. The mess builds and builds, and at this point I'm still assuming I'll feel better in another day or so, and then I can clear away the rubble. Now, the logic and organization receptors are frustratingly haywire and as long as I'm not back in permanent status migraine mode, it's not worth trying to think in the way that hurts most.

When I came home from my errands, my dog was in my nap spot on the couch. I've since reclaimed the space, forcing him to build himself a little fort out of the cushions. First he had to "dig" the cushions, then my sofa's slip cover provided him a more fruitful excavation. We stayed through sunset, watching Hulu. I ate half a papaya, three bananas, and a generously buttered sweet potato. I knit. I finished the entire season of Lie to Me and a good bit of the scarf I'm knitting. My dog farted a lot.

At least I don't feel bitter or ashamed of my day. Maybe the pain is too wide to fit my standard self-doubt, but I feel like I got today "right." I pushed on the things that required pushing and let go everywhere else. Aural Girl and Possible Boy are wonderful and amazing when I'm migrainey. They say nice things and mean them and care and are concerned in a way that isn't more about themselves (cough, my mother, cough cough). They went to see the NBA game in Milwaukee, and I just got a text from Possible Boy that says "having a blast, wish you were here with us!" and at this particular moment I am very glad I am not with them because they are somewhere with noise and motion and people and things that would make me curl up into a little ball and cry. People confined to wheelchairs don't generally get to climb through ancient ruins or Escher lithographs; I may not be able to plan attendance at indoor sporting events, concerts, or the entire city of Las Vegas. I'm so used to having it all, it's not a bad life to have it most.

Obedient

My dog and went to an almost two hour evaluative session at a trainer today. Is this the way I want to train him? While there, I was very well trained to think it was the answer, but I'm very susceptible. Going straight from the dog trainer to my parents' house, I still had the confidence mask on from dog training and when my dad tried to intervene (well intended but all the usual gobbldy gook); I gave him the verbal "NO" I normally reserve for my dog. I spent the rest of the night correcting my father's dog-spoiling behavior. Having the self-training fresh in my mind also helped  me with my own therapy work, since the emotional fence was up and what it lacked in strength it made up for in height. My parents still pried into everything I tried to leave outside their knowledge base, but like my dog, I made some awkward but progressive steps in keeping things outside their knowledge base. They really don't accept the "I don't want to talk about it/tell  you" cues that work for most of humanity. My mother always says strangers tell her their life stories for no apparent reason. Her prying, nudging gestures amid a pronounced and purposeful silence might have something to do with it. I like extracting people's stories, too, but it's good to remember/know that it's not always because people are so desperate to talk or tell us--we egg  them on, consciously or not.

Another fun moment with the parents: my mom told a story about something that happened in the past few weeks. My dad jumped in to say the exact opposite happened. My mother remembered an extremely different course of events. I'm sure my father was right because, I'm finally fully aware, my mom doesn't always remember reality. Years and years and years of assuming I was the crazy one! I may have some of the crazy too, but I don't trust perception to be anything more than perception. The other day I was using the analogy of colorblindness, and it's funny because my mom knows she's terrible at color and yet she still argues and insists she's right in any color-based decision.

So me, coming back from being strong and dominant all night, instead of being energized or encouraged, I can't fight this sinking discomfort, that (at least the extreme version of the dog part) is too much. It's the black-and-white shit again. I'm never supposed to pet him unless he "earns" it. When my dog bit a person, I should have "beaten the shit out of him." My dog was beaten enough already, thank you. The other dogs at this place just sat there perfectly until told to move to another spot. Can I have a dog who won't bite my friends without having to make him sit on nails?

We have a choke collar and strict instructions. My strict will never be the trainer's snapped German instructions (odd language choice with no accent and mostly Polish coworkers), but I'm starting to think I want to check out a few other local trainers...I'm naturally resistant to some of the harshness necessary to train my dog, but there may be more bugging me about this guy than just that.

For the Love of Dog

The personality traits that make someone a good leader are not the same traits that make someone want to lead.
I made it to my first condo board meeting. Tonight they were going to discuss rules and regulations, and based on previous interactions with my neighbors, I felt it was important I be there to at least voice concern over excessively stringent or intrusive rule-making. I turned out to be the only one there who wasn't a board member and no huge decisions were made, but a discussion on satellite dishes made me glad I came. One board member wanted to completely outlaw satellite dishes as they are an eyesore and can be destructive to common structural elements to the building. If the dish is going to drill into the roof and cause leaks for everybody, that's a totally understandable concern. But completely banning all dishes because they "look like a trailer park" is excessive.
"They effect everybody's property values."
I didn't say it out loud but shouted in my head, "So do black people. Should we ban them, too?"
I love the Rogers Park that exists at my bar and at the beach and in my head. It's the version of this neighborhood in which everybody is a little bit quirky and has actual friends from at least three different continents, four different decades, and not more than two el stops away. Too many people in my building invested hoping to help gentrify the neighborhood and turn their condos around. Monetarily, I would do well for that to happen, but for my own personal selfish reasons I hope my happy little alcove of utopia stays eclectic and gritty until I'm ready to move on. For non-personal selfish reasons, I hope Rogers Park can maintain its multifaceted complexion for a long time. The city needs places that are neither dangerous nor bleached-out gentrification yuppievilles.

I went to the dog spa place by my house today to get my dog's nails trimmed and see if they had any good private dog trainer recommendations. My dog was extremely well-behaved for the trimming and they had a 50% off coupon for the trainer they normally recommend. Jackpot. Except the trainer is in North Plainfield. Don't be fooled by the name of this suburb, there is nothing north about it. It is near Joliet and all its ass-faraway-southliness. They do in-home training (what my dog needs, considering his worst behavior is in the home when strangers come over), but their website didn't give concrete pricing so we'll see how expensive they are even with 50% off. I found a few others on Yelp that sound good and are closer and have real listed prices. Time for puppy to stop scaring people.
Coincidentally, after I'd gotten the trainer coupon earlier today, the condo board president informed me that my upstairs neighbors (who I never see) had expressed concern that my dog might be dangerous. I should have just left it at "We're signing up for private lessons," but I took it unnecessarily personally that my neighbors didn't come talk to me themselves, so I said all sorts of extra dumb crap that made things worse. The condo board president keeps his dogs in a cage all day so they won't mess up the house. I don't know what I thought I would gain by talking. It's just hard for me. My dog isn't a thing. He means the world to me. He is also very, very difficult. I'm not going to let him attack your baby. I might let him take a little nibble out of Possible Boy's leg, but both my dog and Possible Boy are up to date on their shots.
I tried going to bed once tonight. My dog puked a huge quantity of gross on my fitted sheet and one of my sweaters. He's not usually a pukey dog. I cleaned it up and changed the sheets and felt restless and bothered by my deep and profound love for this creature no one else seems to find lovable.

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.

Stupid Antisocial Dog

My head is still being stupid, but I had to walk the dog and I wanted human contact, so I tried walking him to the bar. Smoking in front of the door with some friends was the bartender least likely to ever be my friend but most likely to show up as a caricature on Saturday Night Live (and, subsequently, a person I'm glad to have performing behind the taps on slow nights).
That sentence had too many clauses. A lot of my sentences do.
Anyway, my dog being my dog cowered at the mass of cigarette-tokers guarding the door to the bar, but I tried dragging him in closer anyway. Next thing I know, I'm holding an empty leash as he bolts towards home. So much for human contact.
My dog is waiting for me around the corner, neither of us particularly concerned about the other's predilection for abandonment.
Dog reattached, we headed home. Who do we see? This uber-nerdy but very nice guy who has met my dog in the past at the bar and just crouched down and ignored my little psychopath until he was ready to sniff him. So we walk a block together while he talks more than I've ever heard him, saying life is hard right now and he's dropping out of his engineering PHD program because it's just too much. I should do full character write-ups on him and the bartender somewhere slightly less public. Or can I get away with putting them on here? Stupid public/private/anonymity/being a decent human being/covering my own ass/etc.etc.etc.

Between A and B

Possible Boy said everything I've ever wanted to hear a person say about something I wrote. And he meant it. Really, really meant it. If I could make myself cry honey and rose petals.

Aside: Other Girl needs a different name in here. It's the code name that seems wrong every time I write it. NBF always cracks me up to call him New Best Friend because how the name came about, the irony of it, the double-edged smirk. Possible Boy is a bundle of still-blooming kinetic energy, so I think of him as Possible Boy like a super-hero name: Super Man, Wonder Woman, Batgirl and Possible Boy.
I discussed Other Girl's need for a new name with Other Girl and, plied with wine, we decided on Aural Girl. We think it's funny.

We can talk now. All the things I was so careful to hide. Hide the crazy, right?
I want to fix him. I want to take all of his sad and make it go away. I don't know how to make my own sad go away, and I'm back on my weird self-defeatism again. When I feel physically ok, what am I doing to make money or somehow improve the world every moment of the day? Oh, look, it's that little hole in my heart. I can't just stuff it full of imaginary Possibilities and dreams to distract myself, so how do I fill it? I ate all the cookies last week. Warm dog, that feels good. I want something bigger, something to pop or burst or push me in some direction. I have to recognize that I'm the one who makes the choices, chooses to pop and burst things, can set things in motion at any moment. But I keep waiting for something external to happen; peg my emotional currency to random forces. I'll just keep playing until I get one good score, take a nap until I wake up refreshed, walk my dog in any direction until we come across something interesting. If I'm a feather in the wind, then I don't have to take responsibility for any of the decisions I make. Decisions have consequences and then I dwell dwell dwell. That came up in therapy today. Therapy that I had over the phone because I forgot we switched it today to her new office. I definitely didn't remember when I crawled back into my nice warm bed this morning post-writing, but I've been weird about it changing to a new place on a new day. What the fuck? People go about their business all the time with changing appointments and things. Ok, so this has been the only constant appointment in my life over the past year, but I also walk my dog every day and go to the bathroom and ingest food. The other things that I don't keep constant, I wrestle with my real commitment to them being constant. What is my life? What do I want it to be? How and when do I remember I'm alive? At least I'm not jumping off airplanes or anything, but I over-analyze every thought and action and then try to insulate myself from myself by hiding in the hole in my heart and reading or watching Hulu. Never mind all the things I got done today because look at all the time I spent not getting things done. Look at all the oxygen I wasted.
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
I'm not the only one like this, but can I use that to inspire myself to keep improving? Hello, Annabell! Do you not remember what you were like six months ago? I'm making insanely tremendous leaps here. Patience. Rome wasn't built in a day, and other such sayings and aphorisms and blah blah blah. How much do I coddle myself and say "look how well you're doing!" and how much do I yell at myself to get the fuck off my ass and stop analyzing my lack of motion and (apologies to Nike) just do it? Carrot, stick, carrot, stick. Isn't there another way? An easy answer? Something solid and definitive I can hold onto? I wanted a human to be that thing I could hold. I've imagined that as my panacea. I had a friend a few years ago who was adopted, and she always thought finding her birth parents would be her "cure." White wales and golden fleece, why do people all feel so incomplete?
My parents have all kinds of faults and difficulties and incompatibilities, but there is no question in my mind that they are the ends of one anther's beginnings. They also still have the incompleteness and the insecurity and the melancholy.
Books and movies and television are filled with lies. Like drugs, they get us high on the illusion of a simple answer, a simple happiness, definitive answers and paths from point A to B with story arc and happy ever after. When I wake up and remember I'm trying to narrate myself in a complicated universe, I throw temper tantrums and curl back into my head and books and tv and don't want to do anything that doesn't go into the story. No paying bills or daily tedium. No routine. You don't write about all the days you got up, flossed, brushed your teeth, walked the dog, ate cornflakes, watch Colbert Report, and then farted around on the computer for two hours before showering if you even bothered to shower. The narrative skips to what you did, and I feel I'm failing myself and the narrative and my debt to being alive every moment that isn't story-worthy. At least, that's how I feel while I'm writing.

While I'm talking to Possible Boy, I want to make everything whole, in myself and in him.
While I'm talking to Aural Girl, it's scaffolding around an archaeological dig; building up more support, digging a little deeper.
And then there's the general flock of Boys at the bar. It takes so little for them to tell me I'm pretty.

"She had begun to notice something strange.
Her ugly duckling features
Had undergone a change.
In short, she was growing pretty.
For the
first time in her whole life--pretty.
And the shock so stunned and thrilled her
That she became
Almost immediate
Incurably
Insane."

(From The Fantasticks by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt)

That's enough rambling and ranting for tonight.
And they all lived happily ever after
and had direction and purpose and willpower and shined like cattle guard on the Little Engine that Could.
Amen.

Life is Beautiful, Dammit

Brought my dog to the vet. While he doesn't seem to actually have fleas, he may have been near fleas or "exposed to" fleas, and because his allergies are so bad it made him batshit itchy. $166 and three types of medication later, he should be feeling better very soon.

On the way back from the vet, I stopped at a few used bookstores to sell my applicable wares.
Last stop, I made my sales pitch. She's only interested in selling for trade, so I was only interested in selling the non-shmancy books. My nice architecture coffee table book that I almost didn't bring in she offered $8.
"That seems low," I said. I'd been hoping for $20 from Powells or something.
She went off on me for trying to haggle.
Those of you who know me well can guess how I responded.
We started debating. To her, the haggling culture is inherently aggressive.
"You wouldn't go to 7-11 and argue their prices."
I tried to explain that in the buying and selling of used goods market, it's expected. It's a cultural thing.
She said it's inherrently adviserial and bullshit and bad.
I said it doesn't have to be bad; it's a game. It may very well be bullshit, but you can laugh at bullshit. Bullshit doesn't have to be bad.
She didn't like that.
So, in my infinite wisdom, I kept pushing, tried to explain that the entire universe is only what you make of it and that all these things only have to be negative if you choose to see them as negative. I ended up talking about my migraines, about friendship, about life in general. At some point I started crying in frustration. This mostly just flummoxed her, softened her a bit. I couldn't stop the crying which was embarrassing and made me seem like just a crazy person.

In the end, I kept all my books and bought Tom Robbins Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas for $6.06 (including tax).

Life is full of things. This was a thing. Hopefully I didn't ruin her day. I wanted to get through and shine light where I saw bitterness and pain. I'm like those born-again evangelicals who want to smear happy over every bit of misery they encounter. I want misery to see that there's no reason to hate. Laugh at the hate. It's all just part of life and life is amazing and beautiful. The fight, the pain, the tears. All of it. Amazing and beautiful, dammit.

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.

worry, boy

I'm feeling weird and panicky. I've been this way since Saturdayish. At first I thought it was Boy-related, but now I think it's just me. Medication? Hormones? Something I'm not doing that I know I need to do but have crammed below my consciousness? I used to get this way over that last category, but I'm not finding it right now. I've been eliminating those dark clouds, not creating more of them. So the Panic may be chemical. Blech.

It started with The Boy. But I'm thinking Possible Boy may not be so much anymore. I'm slipping into a status member of his fanclub, and our interactions are reminding me more and more of the bad parts of some of my Boys past. I caught myself starting to revel in the yearning that had nothing to do with Possible Boy himself, meanwhile back in reality he's so completely unsure about anything that I had to ask myself if the struggle was worth it. I'd gotten my hopes up for plans yesterday that never happened, and I'm ignoring an entire world's worth of Possibility prematurely for a Boy who isn't even doing me the same favor. Fuck it. He can keep a glimmer of possibility, but I'm taking my hopes and dreams back. He never asked for them in the first place.

NBF finally booked his ticket. He shows up Saturday.

I'm worried about my dog. That's a real worry. He's been chewing on himself a lot and we never went to the cardiologist. I wanted to get reimbursed from his doggy health insurance for his last round of ailments before having to dole out hundreds for new things, but there may not be a choice.

Seriously, stomach, shut up. I have to go spend 8 hours in a hot auction room as soon as I convince myself to put on clothes and make a final phone call or two. Do I dare pop my lorazepam? I'm already so overmedicated, but this is exactly what it's meant to "fix."

Furry Alarm Clock

The sun gets up later and later, but my dog's been getting up earlier and earlier. He whines and whines until I'm aware he's whining and then I'm awake, too and I take him out. From now on, no matter how tired I am, I need to run him ragged before bed. I have no need to see the sunrise.

Four Chord Progression

At my parents' house in the room that was my sister's growing up. My mom's birthday is tomorrow and my sister is coming in from Portland (Oregon) to surprise her. I'm here on the pretense that it just worked out and this way I can spend as much of my mom's birthday with her as possible. Birthdays and Mother's Day are very important to my mother. The world centers around you on your special day. She and my father both made sure to change the planets gravitational rotation for us growing up, and I see now how much she expects the same in return. So long as it stays fun and not obligatory...

I told my parents about my possible temporary career as an antiques buyer. I was more emotionally ready than I thought to deal with the responses I knew they'd have: trying to be encouraging but wary as always and full of the advice that they clearly know best not just generally about the universe but the specifics of things with which they have no experience. I feel like a total know-it-all ass when I'm with my friends, but then I get back with my family and see how far I've come and my outlook is much more hopeful.

I have trouble not sounding/being bitter when I'm with my family. I've gotten a million times better about a million things, resent the world so much less, finally don't expect perfection or see things so good and bad, black and white...but that gnarled knotty beast of misery and unhappiness still wisps up when I'm around them. It used to be one giant solid tangled mess from my stomach up through my skull, but I've worked through a lot of it. Maybe even most of it. Then I'm back here and I feel the coils. I can't apply everything I'm becoming without wanting to punch one parent or the other. Progress is progress..

Dog is whining because I won't go with him to sniff every corner of the house. Sorry dog.

Oh I Believe In Yesterday

Yesterday, I was going to try to sell these chandeliers I got at an auction. $50 for one, $15 for the other. The $50 one is apparently worth at least $300 if I can sell it to a dealer, who will turn around and sell it for double that retail. The other one I like more though it's worth less, maybe just a hundred or two. If someone wants it for enough I will sell it, but I'm really tempted to keep it and put my shiny crystal chandelier in my front entranceway and this new big brass number in the dining room because it goes really well in there...

Yesterday, I only made it to one antique dealer and made zero phone calls. She didn't buy it but I didn't expect her to. I didn't have a migraine until very late in the day. I had Neighbor Guy.

There's an old Sesame Street bit with Itzhak Perlman. A little girl goes running up some stairs and plops down in her chair with a violin. Then Itzhak Perlman (who had polio as a child and walks with crutches) struggles his way up the same stairs, sits down and says "Some things that are easy for you are hard for me." He then picks up his violin and runs scales, arpegios and noodles all over the fingerboard. Then the girl says, "Yeah, but some things are easy for you that are hard for me" and plays a Suzuki Book 3 Bach piece.

I see people's feelings like they're spelled out on "Hello My Name Is" tags. I'm not always right, but I am more often than not. It's why I used to think I was psychic, and I still have trouble reminding myself that other people won't immediately catch on to the little signs and signals I think I'm sending out as obvious announcements of my feelings. I attribute it to being a writer; it's the insight of a therapist with the hubris of assuming I'm right and then sharing it with the world. Think Dr. Phil and first-person journalism.

My dog and I were drinking water and smoothie respectively on the coffee shop patio when Neighbor Guy came walking past with his dog. Last time I saw NG he was drunk and depressed. Now he was clearly sober and depressed but kept insisting he was fine. I asked him what he was doing, he said nothing, so I scrapped my always-changable plans for the day and asked if he wanted to hang out. So we did.

Either I'm naturally drawn to depressed people or everybody on earth is actually depressed once you get to know them.

Apparently Possible Boy thinks I'm a possibly perfect Possible Girl, but he already had things getting started with Other Girl before he even met me (he was talking to Neighbor Guy about her the day we met) and he's never been in a real long-term relationship and doesn't want to do anything to mess up the possibility of Other Girl. I'm not getting any of this from any kind of frank discussion with Possible Boy, but between Saturday night as a bit of a third wheel and then asking Neighbor Guy like the big fat jerkface I am, I'm pretty sure this is the "true" story. What ever happened to the grand institution of Dating? I don't know Possible Boy well enough for him to feel like a great loss, but I'm sad to put the possibility on ice.

Yesterday, Neighbor Guy and I contemplated an upsidedown tomato garden on the ledge of a window down the street. A man walked out of a building and Neighbor Guy immediately engaged him in conversation, except in "conversation" NG was doing all the talking. As we started walking in the same direction, NG invited this new person to come hang out at the bar and I tried interjecting as much as I could to smooth a path between NG and propriety as he continued to point out where he lived down to his dog in the window. Our mostly dumbstruck companion managed to pointedly mention his girlfriend early on, shattering NG's dreams of settling down with an upsidedown tomato garden of their own, but that didn't stop NG from sighing as he mentioned his imagined love's eyes or checking by the bar repeatedly later in the day.

This sort of crush is quite foreign to me. I need some sort of words or personality bit to spark me. Neighbor Guy just needed blue eyes and thin lips (WTF? thin lips? what is wrong with you, NG?) That's part of my dilemma with Possible Boy. I know very little of him. I mostly like what I know, but it's so clearly just this tiny little surface sliver, I don't feel like I want to fight for him since it might turn out I don't like him after all and he'd be much better off with Other Girl. I just want a friggin' chance to get to know him to figure out just what kind of Possibility he is. Why are boys so frustrating? Why aren't these things nice and logical? Never mind. They would be totally sucky boring if they were logical. They just make me want to throw things the way they are.

AAAAAHHHHH! Wake up wake up wake up!!!!!

Yesterday I slept and slept and slept.

Today I had an ohsomuchsleep! hangover and ate puffed rice and apple sauce and read The New Yorker and then played stupid games on my cell phone for some insane amount of time. And now it's 3 PM and I haven't showered or done anything and there's stuff to do but there's nothing to do so I'm eating Fritos (only three ingredients! corn, corn oil and salt!) and pea pods and drinking orange juice and trying to pull myself together a bit by writing all this down. Clarity. Need clarity. Writing brings clarity because it forces all the bazillions of fuzzes of thought to choose one loudest string to write down. Pick a single path, a single narration.

This is the sort of thing that belongs more in my handwritten journal, not so much my published blog, but I need to type it and I can think of a few very specific people who find this amusing, so everyone else can just ignore this post as part of the great "why do I give a fuck?" garbage of the internet.

[Side note: I love that my dog loves pea pods. They're so much better for him than, say, his butt.]

My general life to-do list is pretty fuzzy, since everything has to be optional on the days I can't do anything. I have things to do on the days I'm feeling go-gettum-y, but on blah days when I can but I lack momentum, I need more direction. I need a real list and priorities and whatnot, not with the type of urgency that makes me crazy and guilty when I can't accomplish anything, but with enough forward motion and upside* that I want to do it when I can.

I really have managed to re-teach myself how to think about huge quantities of life. The migraines have been a serious forced and necessary paradigm shift and (a path towards enlightenment)**.

[Distraction! Went to check email and discovered person I know through my crafting stuff has been missing since last night. Hopefully she's fine and people are just being alarmist...maybe she's eloping? That would be fun and not bad. Try and think the best instead of the worst.]

Dog won't stop whining because he wants to go out. I won't take him out until I shower. I need to shower. Priority #1. Then I can go back to writing and listing and sorting out the universe and not being able to do anything about missing persons and trying to convince myself to do something about things I cando.


*wrong word, but I can't find the right word in my head at the moment...positivity...optimism...no no no...stupid wordfind...

**again, wrong phrase, but it's as close as I'm getting right now to the right one

Lump from dog's butt is benign. Lump in my soul rejoices.

I gave the now married couple their wedding pictures via flash drive they brought. They gave me a really nice thank you card and were extremely happy.

It's members' night. Museum of Science and Industry. I want to go. I don't want to go. They have the new Harry Potter movie in IMAX and my head is already iffy and there's no way I could survive that. I like all the other stuff, and it will probably be less busy everywhere else as a result, but like I said, the head is iffy. And I don't have a "date." I know if I pushed I could find someone to go with me, but it's almost 6 PM already and I'm not so sure I want to push. Just can it at this point. Take it easy, eat an actual dinner, do something that I enjoy that won't make tomorrow useless.

Jacuzzi Power!

It's 1 AM. Today's pain didn't like light or sound, so I slept a lot. Snuggled the dog a lot. A few hours ago as I was lying around awake but unable to use the computer or read or listen to audiobooks or anything, I tried to think what I could do to keep my brain interested. What senses could I stimulate in a way that wouldn't just cause more pain? I've thought more than once that it'd be nice if I could read braille. It would also be nice to have a human snuggling companion, but I'm not there yet and human snuggling companion would have to be well aware of the "no talking or I will kill you, and no taking my snippiness personally" rules. Then I thought of it: jacuzzi. I own a jacuzzi tub. Warm, sensory, soft, different than bed that I'm in all the fucking time, no light, the sound doesn't usually bother me. Perfect.

And it was. For over an hour. Distracting from the ouchies and even melting away some of the pain. I need to do that more often. Maybe get some essential oils or something. I threw in some Epsom salts for good measure since I had them sitting right there. Awesome.

Now the computer is starting to bother me again, but I'm using it in my dining room and I had this picture of myself silhouetted in the window by the glow of the screen with one of my newfound male admirers walking past on the street*, looking up, not knowing it's me but still being struck by the image. I also had something Japanese and entirely unrelated playing in my head, but the strangest thing about my thought process at that moment was how aware I was of exactly two of my channels. I'm surprised I didn't have "The Little Mermaid" soundtrack playing and several different ideas for things I should feed myself before going to sleep and who knows what else as well.

Ugh. I stopped making sense. Back to sleep.

*entirely probable now that they all live in my neighborhood. does this mean no more rolling out of bed and walking the dog without changing or brushing my hair?