Inpatience

It's amazing that last post reads so coherent. I felt like I was in pieces, like I shouldn't have been able to type the words.

Now, I'm in a hospital bed with an IV aching on my left hand.
I've been  so ambivalent  about this whole inpatient thing because this is somehow the big huge next step overhaul in migraine treatment options and it feels like more of the same: more throwing curious chemicals at a problem we don't understand. The drugs they're giving me to break up my current headache cycle aren't even anything new; they're the exact same thing dripped  into me five years ago in Cleveland with limited success.
I feel so down and negative right now. It's a universe of infinite possibility and potential. I'm trying to concentrate on the shiny happy things, but it  feels like all my shiny happy places are currently imaginary. Still way better than feeling like shiny happy places will never exist, but at the moment I can't see them in a touchable way.
I see the beautiful moon and amazing view from my hospital window. I see tubes and informational bracelets and "mid-century furnishings."
I had one friend (Possible Boy) drive me to the doctor's office, the bank, and the hospital, and stay with me through all the waiting and my frazzled uncertainty, until hours later I had a room and internet and gratitude I'm never sure how to show.
I have another friend  (HDS) who is not only walking and feeding my dog but also sent me a picture of him adorably accepting her surrogate love.
These are my shiny happy and these are real. I feel like I'm covered in muck and can't be a part of them. They are a part of me, I know, but I am a part of them, too.
I want this dark cloud off of me and the only way out is to realize it's not actually there.

My parents came by to visit tonight. They showed up just after visiting hours ended. I was still glad to see them.

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.

Thanks Crazy Family

My grandparents graduated together from NYU Medical School and continued to work at Bellvue and do research for them as long as my grandmother lived, so they lived in an incredible NYU-owned apartment right on Washington Square Park. As a teenager my dad worked in a novelty shop around the corner that sold t-shirts with boobs and sarcastic posters and things. If I was lucky I'd get to walk there with my five older cousins, doorman smiling at the gaggle of Singers on the way out and me feeling like the grown-up queen of the world for getting to go on such an adult adventure before my fifth birthday.
When my eldest cousin was closer to her fifth birthday than her fifteenth, she and our mutual grandmother went for a walk in Washington Square Park.
"Dr. Perlman! Dr. Perlman!"
An enormous black man in a pink tutu bounded towards them, calling my grandmother by her maiden and professional name. My cousin stood in horror as Grandma and the Creature in Tule proceeded to have a very friendly chat. Thirty years later, I expect that same cousin in that same situation would have the same reaction, except she might make her desire to leave more pronounced.

My dad's sister's family was raised in Deerfield, Illinois with a very narrow idea of how things are supposed to be. Artistic endeavors exist to get you into a better college. You go to the "best" college you possibly can, get the "best" job you possibly can, do business, make money, get married, make babies, etc. My dad's brother was treated as the token family failure for never living up to these expectations.

My mom's parents never went to college and my mom had to write an essay for her father to explain what she planned on doing with her schooling to prove higher education wouldn't be wasted on a girl. She wasn't expected to marry a nice Jewish doctor, but she did. My maternal grandmother's greatest wish was for blonde grandchildren, and somehow I showed up despite my two dark-haired parents.
My mom has two brothers. One is a lawyer whose salary so astronomical it would make my dad's side of the family cry, but his debt is on par with Iceland and his third marriage is destroying the offspring it produced. The other two siblings are much more like me, with more intelligence and creativity and depression than directional drive. My mom's mom has had a few paranoid psychotic breaks, but only one or two in my lifetime.
On my mom's side there are ten cousins. One cousin had severe OCD (that's doing much better in the last few years, yay!), most of the cousins have been treated for depression and/or anxiety disorders, at least four or five have tattoos, and my brother and sister are two of the only three whose lives aren't primarily driven by something in the fine or performing arts.
My mom and my dad's sister are very civil to one another though they are secretly battling for my father and the entire world's love and affection. Still, my mom makes more sense on my dad's side of the family than she does her own.

I get a sadistic pleasure out of watching the two sides of my family interact, each making caddy comments about the other in the same key but for opposite reasons. I have a cousin on each side with the same name and only two years apart. They are both fundamentally artists and married around the same time and live in Chicago. But one went to an Ivy League school for undergrad, spent time as an investment banker during the boom, graduated Harvard Business School, owns a condo in yuppie-ville, etc. When we were little, he was my favorite cousin. He's goofy and loved to play with me and have fun all the time. The other cousin dropped out of high school and got his GED. He's an artist by profession, makes amazing things and has his work in magazines and people's homes and such, but doesn't self-promote at all and works obscene hours every week for little or no money. He's extremely shy and socially awkward, but he's also very tall and has a lot of tattoos and piercings so people think he's menacing and standoffish instead of nervous and quiet. Both cousins helped when my parents redid their kitchen.

My immediate family has been to Scotland and Switzerland and Tanzania and many other places as tourists. My sister has been to every continent except Antarctica. We travel and we gawk and we try not to be the obnoxious Americans going, "Hey, look at the funny clothes! You call this food? Where's the McDonalds?" My parents, with their exacting perfectionist tendencies for themselves and their children, also instilled in me an openness and acceptance of The Other. We want to see everything the world has to offer. Perhaps my mom, in trying to distinguish herself from her family, has been more severe in keeping her judgments. My dad won't stand for slow service at the drive-thru, but he will go to any religious service in any language if it's beautiful. Then again, we all laughed hysterically at the state fair llama show when the handlers spelled out "LOVE" with the llamas to Elton John's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight."

All this and more is why I'm bringing Neighbor Guy to my family's Thanksgiving. We are not Birdie's family, where Neighbor Guy would be par for the course. But whatever my family is or isn't, whatever I want them to have been or be, they are the sum of so many parts and an inescapable part of me that can't be broken by chaos or wild cards or inappropriate dinner guests.

For all this and more, corny though it may be, I am thankful.

Maybe next year I'll show up topless.

Like Family

Last night, my parents and brother came over for dinner. It's the first time I've truly hosted them for dinner. It was my chance to show off all my shiny things that seem so absurd when I wave them around at my friends; things like a fully set table with crystal wine glasses and appetizers in the living room (well, bags of chips and humus from the store and guacamole I'd made days before) and my general ability to hostess like a grown-up to sufficiently meet and exceed their expectations. Growing up, I watched my parents wig out when their families (my dad's side in particular) came to visit, cleaning the house top to bottom, never serving anything in its original container, making presentation prime. When my dad was growing up, they wore ties to dinner and had white linen table cloths every night and a maid. Both of his parents were doctors and his mother went to finishing school in Switzerland. Her father was a somewhat notorious lawyer in New York City who defended a Communist spy. My grandmother was herself a card-carrying communist for a time. Same grandmother who was a Freudian psychiatrist. At their formal nightly dinners, she and her medical degrees and her Smith College and her finishing school background would frequently stand up under five feet tall and pronounce "You ass!" in response to my grandfather. She could cuss like a sailor and would, but over lobster bisque served in silver tureen.

So never mind the mess in my office or in my head or everything else. If I can be a good hostess, if I can prove whatever it is I think I need to prove to my parents and to myself, then I am officially a successful human being, deserving of their love and praise, deserving of their financial assistance, deserving of my share of the oxygen on this planet and the space I occupy and everything else.

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.

Children's Stories

Talking to my mom on Friday about my "picking" business stuff felt a little like defending a thesis. At least I know it's not just me. Both of my parents put people on the defensive a lot, like you have to justify your life because they know better unless you can prove otherwise. I fear I do that to people, too. My mom had my cousin feeling like a charity case a few weeks back when we all went out to lunch.

I see more and more the disparity in general outlook between my parents, who have more money than anybody needs but will argue over a $5 mistake in their bills for hours on end, and much of the rest of humanity, who would never even notice a $20 service charge on their credit card bills. It's largely how my parents got to the point they are, but now that they're there, it seems completely distasteful when they argue to keep their every dollar because my mom "should" get her bangs fixed for free if she didn't like the way they were cut after a week.
What's the line from Streetcar Named Desire about "you just begged me to rip you down from those marble pillars" or something? Now I have to look it up...
Found it:
You showed me a snapshot of the place with them columns, and I pulled you down off them columns, and you loved it, having them colored lights goin'. And wasn't we happy together?

Sometimes my brain spits out elaborate stories for other people's lives based in very little. Overhearing a woman's monologue to what appeared to be a very young couple on the bus last week, I filled in her role as step-mom and their relationships and backgrounds and general life stories. Sometimes a bit in the news will have me convinced of a secondary back-story. Then one of my friends gave me a juicy morsel of gossip about himself without any further information, so when a seemingly random photo popped up in my Facebook feed I came up with an entire plot involving their grandchildren. Until three minutes later when I realized I had the timeframe messed up and the picture and the gossip didn't coincide, but I was still amused and convinced he should hunt her down and name grandkids. The next time we spoke I had to tell him, and it turns out, I was right. Well, not about making babies or anything, but all my stories in my head were kind of the ideas he had in his head and I am clearly the smartest person in the whole entire universe and I get at least their second born child as a prize. It's such a cute hypothetical story, too, since he had a crush on her sister but they were really just friends and then she's way more his usual "type" so it's perfect (this is why I came up with the story in the first place).

Soundtrack in my head right now: Fleetwood Mack's Landslide, as sung by the PS22 Chorus

Out of this World

I adore the dramatics of Love. The concept. The silliness. Acting out all the bits and pieces. So is it the concept or the person? How can I tell? Am I just giving myself more excuses to run away from any possibility of something real with a real person? Anything that happens in reality doesn't measure up to that weird ethereal dream mush. I keep it that way on purpose, not consciously, but definitely on purpose. The Greatest Loves live in stories and in my head and in their struggle to survive, struggle to maintain. I've trained myself to think that longing and yearning is love, so Boys have to be unattainable to be lovable. The struggle is where love builds. That's what made a certain past Boy so perfect for me: we went through years of not actually being together but fooling around on and off through our melodramatic friendship. That was passion. Until I stopped pining over him and fooling around turned into physical recreation without the big sparklies in my soul.

New goal: associate Love with contentment and Happiness. Love should go along with those moments when everything in the world is just so completely beautiful and awesome I want to take a bite out of it and explode. Those moments have always been very solitary for me, even if I'm surrounded by people. If I can find someone who really sees it and feels it and shares it, that would trump all my whiny piny love.

Ugh. Still setting Love in the ethereal. Still running around on Mars and Venus.
Reality: Flirt with Boys. Talk to Boys. Enjoy spending time with Boys. Find favorite Boy. Smooch Boy.
That's how things are done down here on earth. Just choose a partner and go dancing. Doesn't need to be so cosmic or complicated.

But it still does for me. There's magic and serendipity when I close my eyes and listen. I've spent most of my life trying to fit into LogicLand. Things seem to work out better for me when I tell Logic and Should to go fuck themselves. Something about Rogers Park reminds me of my music camp. It's the feeling and the people and walking by the lake all the time. The feeling. A sense of freedom from my parents and who I try to be at "home." At camp, I never worried about that. I worked on the things I cared about and let things that didn't matter to me slide. I spent every minute possible with people I adored because I could. There wasn't the pressure to have to explain myself and my actions and justify my decisions. I still worried and overthought and freaked out about Boys and did all sorts of typical me things and typical teenager things, but it was a different mold than usual and I liked it.

My parents are the source of much of my anxiety. I think even more than I realized, which was already a terrifying lot. It's not their fault, the same way it's not the fault of the spider when the arachnophobe panics, but they are my spider.

Ohmigawd. Fear Factor needs to start locking people up with their parents.

I think I'm showing up at an estate sale in six hours?

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.

Annabell copes with stress by making statements of grandeur

There is so much life, and so much to life, sometimes it's hard to bear. But it's incredible and I love it and I have to remind myself so it doesn't hurt.

It makes me a writer. I will be a great writer so long as I don't get struck by lightning or anything terrible too soon. I'm never sure how much I buy into all the "meant to be" crap, and it doesn't really matter one way or the other if I believe in it or not. But I can and I will take everything I am and see and experience and use it to be a great writer. Maybe I won't live to see my own success, but I think that's ok, too. My parents and grandparents are almost entirely responsible for my current financial status, so I suppose it's fitting that any wealth or grandeur achieved be visited upon future generations. Not sure I believe that, but it sounds right. I still have the guilt about not supporting myself. I want to support myself. But I also want to accept who and what I am and be happy.

I am not my parents.
It is not my job to appease my parents.
Everything is relative.
Everything is a matter of perspective.
There are no absolutes*.


*mmm...paradoxy...

I listen to emotional music because I am dead inside

This is a friggin' long entry. Some of it is good, some of it is bad, and very little of it talks about anything I've actually done for the past month. If you only read one part, read the blue text. If you read any more than that, sorry in advance.

I don't know why The Sads are winning now as opposed to some other moment over the last few weeks, but they are. Probably hormone-related and all terribly logical, but I'm still feeling The Sad. I should listen to Emo and wear sweatbands around my wrists.

I called a therapist today and left a message. I've had the business card of said therapist for a month, but my parents decided to give me an ultimatum on Friday that I absolutely HAD to 1) start therapy 2) find a good psychopharmacologist and 3) hire a housekeeper on a weekly basis. They thought I'd be most upset about #3. Mostly I was upset that they were giving me Life Ultimatums, but as we all know, They know best and have not only a right but a duty to tell me what to do because They are right. At the moment it's particularly frustrating because, as I check off month number four of seriously compromised physical wellbeing, I do need some help and I do need to get my ass to the therapist but I've had such a hard time convincing them I'm a grown-up that relinquishing any of that is terrifying. And being my parents, their fucked up shit is ever so close to my fucked up shit, so it all gets more and more fucked up and shitty and I start regressing and now I'm back in my hole avoiding the universe. And I hate myself for getting like this, and it's not nearly as bad as it's gotten in the past, but knowing my cave-dwelling tendency, it freaks me out to watch myself bolting back in that direction. I have an appointment with a new neurologist on Monday, and I've done a lot of the crap to get myself on the state's health insurance thing, but I haven't followed up and I needed to do that today. I didn't. I called the therapist (and my regular doctor to restock my supply of Effexor samples, though my head was being too fussy to drive down there) and that was very good, but I didn't deal with the health insurance. I should have dealt with the health insurance a week ago. And instead of it just being the top priority on my To Do list tomorrow, it's a fucking albatross.

On the other hand, Etsy has been great. I'm actually selling things. Not nearly enough to consider it a job or even a real income, but at least my crafting hobby is paying for itself and it's given me something to do in my state of permanently-semi-dead. It's mostly a feel-good lovey-dovey community and the chatrooms provide a vague sense social interaction, and when I make something and someone likes it enough to pay me money for it, I feel deeply complimented and at least a little bit productive. I think the next step in Living-With-Migraines is to find some sort of work-from-home part-time data entry job.

It all comes back to trying to balance my current life formula. What percentage of my time should be spent doing each of the following to make the most out of my life:

• actively looking for medical and trying out answers and solutions to my migraines (neurologists, headache clinics, clinical trials, etc.)
• actively looking for and trying out "alternative" answers and solutions to my migraines (acupuncture, yoga, howling at the moon, etc.)
• learning to live with my migraines and seeking out new short- and long-term paths (find more lucrative work-from-home strategies, get degree online, join chronic pain support groups)
• nursing my wounds and just trying to do things that make me happy on a basic day-to-day level (sleeping, Etsy, dog snuggles, watching movies, etc.)

I want answers. And now I think my parents are convinced most of my migraines are self-perpetuating from my depression, and that's definitely on my list of possibilities, but my parents are back so deep in my skull I can't tell if that's really just me thinking it, if it's them thinking it and so I think it, or if both they think it and I think it but one is not necessarily dependent on the other. I'd say a lot of my opinions are going through this process right now. It's like back when I was 10 and I realized for the first time that everything I thought I knew was only because I accepted what I'd been told.

If I let myself, I could easily spend my entire life in an epistemological daze/fury.

It's hard when the voice of my own nagging and self-doubt is echoed by my parents, and then their voices echo in my head in an orgy of aphorisms and "shoulds."

A month or two back my whole immediate family was out to dinner at a very good restaurant. As we were all quite stuffed and contented and happy with our meals, we started ranking our favorites to least favorites from each course. I pointed out, half-joking, that we were such a judgmental family we couldn't even get through a meal without judging and ranking everything instead of just talking about how delicious things were and why. Everyone got really quiet. We'd switched to judging ourselves for being too judgmental.

This is why I'm crazy.

Tomorrow, I will deal with the health insurance. Head willing, I will go to the post office. I will also gather the plates and bowls and things that have overflown my garbage can by my desk and put them in the trash and take that trash outside. Baby steps.

"Baby steps" is so something my father would say.

You, Topia

I just cleaned the living bajeezus out of my kitchen. My fingers are all pruney. I still need to mop the floors and finally put away all the dishes and shit thats been living in boxes in the dining room since I moved in (AKA stuff I won't need unless I throw a dinner party), but then I can put up a large "Suck It" sign when my parents pick me up tomorrow.

I have a new guess at a possible migraine trigger: the turtle. It seems totally random, but it showed up right when this batch of migraines did, and it's right by my computer, so maybe something in the woodchips? And thinking back to when I had the really awful bout in Oberlin and Cleveland, that's when I had my turtle. Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's worth taking the turtle back to my parents' house at least and seeing if the head gets better. How weird would that be?

Ever step back and wonder why basic food, shelter, and medical coverage aren't provided by the State? Of course upgrades should be available for purchase, but why the hell don't we make sure our most basic needs are met? We're just so primative in certain ways, it's amazing.

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!

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."

updating

The Comcast people never came or called. I should have called them, but I am lazy and my computer is picking up some new random free signal, so at the moment I am internetted, though it could go at any minute.

So much to update...

This weekend I will be traveling to Pennsylvania via LaGuardia airport to see three of my bestest friends from College Attempt #1. They are all on the east coast and two were randomly going to converge on the third's house (and more importantly, swimming pool), and Birdy said half joking that I should fly out, and I laughed, but then I realized I had no specific obligations this weekend and how amazing would it be to join them? So I am joining them. My dog will be staying with my parents for the first time ever without me. I'm sure it will be fine, since he is used to them and their house and all they have to do is make sure he has food and water and open the door to their yard every so often when he decides he needs to go out, but my mom isn't thrilled at the prospect.

My One Night Stand of several weeks ago is now my Facebook buddy and we message one another with some frequency. I'm entertained but apathetic about the whole thing. Very much a que sera sera.

I am done with summer school (Bs in both of my classes, which is fine by me) and fall semester doesn't start until September. I have a big long TO DO list for the next month and a half, but I haven't been this free and non-stressed...ever? I have the random promo jobs and things to do, but I don't have to actively seek work and I don't have big fat due dates and deadlines. It's amazing. I couldn't go on like this forever (I'll probably start getting restless in another week or so), but for the time being, it's wonderful.

E and Sunny both had birthdays and I never gave them shout-outs, so here is their official shout-out. HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!

Taste of Chicago was right by my school so I spent a lot of time and calories there. I even ate the humus that gave people salmonella, but I was fine. Maybe I have enough other stomach problems that they canceled out the food poisoning.

A few weeks ago, I went to lunch with three classmates (Mr. and Mrs. Toothpick and King Overshare), and King Overshare earned his name by telling us stories about sucking his cousin's toes while his cousin slept and his devastation upon purchasing a "sex machine" that turned out to be too small. Since that lunch, it has been The Toothpicks' and my goal to get King Overshare drunk. He was out of town for the debauchery of my drunken hook-up night, but after the last day of class we all went to a bar and all I can say is holy shit. King Overshare is gay and out of the closet only in recent years, but he managed to make absolutely everyone uncomfortable. At one point he was trying to do a strip show for the lot of us, then later he stretched out across three of our laps and proceeded to lick our faces while we tried to squirm away. He got into a long debate with the token class homophobe over whether or not every person on earth wants his or her asshole licked and God's intentions in creating so many nerve endings in the butt. Apparently, after most people left, something happened with my classmate's male roommate that no one will talk about except to say if the roommate ever sees King Overshare again, he is going to kick his ass.

Saturday night I saw Ratatouille with my parents. Cute and entertaining, though certainly no Finding Nemo.

Sunday was the day of people I knew in grade school. First, I went to my elementary school BFF's engagement party, then another person from back then hosted this movie night and discussion thing, and then we met up with another girl who started at our school in 5th grade and I hadn't seen in at least seven years. The whole thing was much fun.

Monday night Mr. and Mrs. Toothpick from my Fiction II class called to say they were going to see a Thin Lizzy cover band, so I joined them and much drinking followed.

The last few days I have been riding the el in my PJs handing out fliers for the Pajama Men's show. It's easy and $10/hour, so I can't complain.

I'm sure I am leaving out major chunks of life, but this will do for now.

More Or Less Harried

My apartment is hot and dry. Outside is cold and wet. Perhaps if I stick half my body out the window, it will all average out to some kind of comfortable.

Yesterday was NBF's birthday. Happy birthday, NBF! He had to be at class until I had to be at work until it was no longer his birthday, and he's a total morning person (and yet I'm still friends with him!) so I kidnapped him at sunrise and we went down to Navy Pier and I brought a tiny bottle of decent champagne and a fruit tart (which we didn't eat) and party hats and Minnie Mouse "Happy Birthday" plates and napkins for a little party. Then I took him to breakfast before we parted ways for him to go to school and me to go to the El to get back home and sleep. It was very early and he'd actually been out until 2 AM the night before (which he never does and I'd warned him I was picking him up at 6 AM) but the sheer ridiculousness of the whole thing won out and it was totally fun and he was properly amused, so all in all it was a success. In theory we're going for massages this morning before my improv class, but he was supposed to leave me a message last night as to the time and place, and I have a feeling he just crashed instead of making appointments, but we'll see. He's also taken to trying to convince me he's imaginary.

I'm getting the hang of things at work (finally!), leaving me much less frustrated at the end of the night. Still exhausting and I still need to find better shoes, but last night my parents were at the show and my cousin-in-law and I were both scheduled for the same spot where we could chat our downtime away. She is completely fabulous and we have the same sense of humor so we think everything we say is hilarious. When my parents came into the bar to find me after their show, Tina*, who is never shy, got all freaked out and sheepish and started to hide in back before I told her to to come meet my parents, at which point she asked "Is my hair ok?" and bounded out to greet them. I like seeing them when I don't see them that much. Small doses. After they left, Tina said my mom was "a knock-out" and "gorgeous" and then lamented the lack of positive parent-child relationships in her family. I have to tell her story on here one of these days. It's amazing.

I would not complain if I no longer had hair anywhere below my neck. I'm so ingrown-prone, it is a pain in my aforementioned neck.



*My wacky 54-year-old grandmother co-worker, henceforth called "Tina" because she was trying to look into the men's bathroom and I called her a "Peeping Tina."