drama: nobody wants any part of it

People at the pool are weird. I love watching them.

Today there was some family having some kind of drama and in typical Black Southern Mama-Style (how I adopted my child raising skills, thank you black Southern mama's!) the mom finally just said, "Shut your mouth! You came up in here with all this drama and nobody wants any part of it! Take it on home with ya, or shut the hell up!" And I managed to not go bow at her feet, as her kid shut the hell up about whatever teenage angst he was going on about.

There was also some really weird girl in the pool, pretty young, maybe four or five at the absolute most, and most of what she said made no sense. She constantly was pretending to drown and I all around found her to be rather insufferable, especially when she kept pushing her ball out into the deep end and yelling at me, "Oh no! I can't get it! I'll drown!" Of course, in typical black Southern mama style (although I am white as could be) I told her, "Then quit tossing your ball over there, 'cause I'm through getting it, you understand?" She nodded and left me alone after that. I couldn't figure out if she was mentally retarded or what the deal was. My son even was avoiding her, and he's the friendliest kid around. He just couldn't figure out what her deal was either. She would make sense and speak clearly and then it would come out like some kind of made up baby gibberish. All I could think was, "Dude, if your kid is NOT retarded, then YOU ought to be smacked upside your damn head for letting her act this way."

All hail those black mamas. You don't take any shit, and I love you for it. I learn so much from you, and you don't even know.



Thank you.

ps) it works on husbands, too. Really. I love you. Thank you.

awareness

"Imagine yourself as a child lying on your back, gazing up into a cloudless sky, and blowing soap bubbles through a plastic ring. As a bubble drifts up into the sky, you watch it rise, and this brings your attention to the sky. While you are looking at the bubble, it pops, and you keep your attention right where the bubble had been. Your awareness now lies in empty space."

-B. Alan Wallace, "Tibetan Buddhism From the Ground Up"

inventive ways to torture your small breasted friends

This weekend I was a bridesmaid in my friends wedding.



Alas, the dress was a bazillion times too big and even after $80 in alterations, the seamstress informed me that there was simply no way to fix the dress short of taking it entirely apart and sewing it back together. It was simply way too big, about 8 sizes too big, and there was only a month left till the wedding. In other words, no time to fix it. And no way for me to afford to have THAT much work done anyway.

So, I had to stuff the dress to make it fit. It was no easy task. I had to find a bustier that was low enough in the back to accommodate the low back. It had to have padding. Then I had to buy more fake boob padding to make it look...totally not ridiculous. You could still see everything puberty had given me, which wasn't enough to fill the porn star sized chest of this dress.

That still wasn't enough, so I went and got double sided sticky tape to at least try to hold all the insane padding in, and ended up sharing it with most of the other bridesmaids who seemed to have the same problem on their hands (or chests).

So, just for fun, I decided to give you an idea of just how big the chest of this dress was, and the only way to do so was to show you the dress stuffed with things that are recognizable by all.

Here is me wearing the dress stuffed with a double sized roll of toilet paper, one each side.



I know, it's fucking hot, isn't it? Try not to cream yourselves.



And the ultimate in hotness? A dress that doubles as a waitressing garment. This one can hold a pot of coffee, one a tit. I only had one pot to show you with, alas. But, I think you get the idea.



Anyone thirsty?

walls

repeat to self: it's 2006

Is anyone else dumbfounded to find the BBC reporting on Axl Rose?



I mean, dude?
What's next, Vanilla Ice?

arguing with myself

I'm trying to get a book published. I say trying, but specifically what I mean is I'm trying to figure out how in the hell to publish a book. I have plenty of stories, it's a matter of how to categorize them, how many books am I hoping to do, and in what order.

Then there's that whole printing and distribution part...
I'm overwhelmed. But I'm hellbent and determined.

So there. Stick it up your ass, apathy!

ps) I am very happy to have an appointment with my shrink today. Yes, indeed.

what the Sex Pistols were TRYING to say...

"Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others."
- Edward Abbey

the healing path is not always an easy path

"Eventually we will find (mostly in retrospect, of course) that we can be very grateful to those people who have made life most difficult for us."

-Ayya Khema, "When the Iron Eagle Flies"

"In my own experience, the period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in one's life. ...Through a difficult period, you can learn, you can develop inner strength, determination, and courage to face the problem. Who gives you this chance? Your enemy."

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

duh moments

I'm pretty sure I have ADD, too. My shrink has been telling me this, my counselor has mentioned it, and my husband is positive that I do.

I just went to an ADD website to look at the list of symptoms and realized I was skimming over it, unwilling to take the time to even read all of the words.

Um...hello?

I'm going to have them do the full testing. Full testing, meaning having my shrink's office do a full mental evaluation. It's a long test full of a bazillion questions. I had it done when I was sixteen, and all I remember of the results were the words, "delusions of grandeur" to which I was highly insulted that they would talk about the Queen in such a way, psssh! Off with their heads!

A testing I will go...

"Nobody can save you. We will all be eaten."

Much thanks to reader Roydillon who left this priceless jem on my virtual doorstep....

I'm a sucker for a greenhouse

horoscope today: truer words never spoken

You are feeling a bit more relieved as you settle into more of a reflective emotional posture. Find a place within your own mind to watch the current drama unfold, for it's better to be a spectator now than a player. This may not be tolerable, for you know there are things that you should say, but you don't want to hurt anyone. Be truthful about your feelings, but express yourself with kindness.

the heat makes them weirder...

It's summer again. Do you know what that means? Well, here in my brain, it means an influx of rabid insecurities has just lit a fire under my body dysmorphic ass.

It used to be that I loved summer. Then I started disliking summer because I was no longer a kid with no school and no job, and instead of spending my days lounging about in the bath temperature waters of the various lakes in Michigan, I had to get a job and go to work.

Bummer. That's when I realized how fucking hot out it is in the summer.

See, I grew up a poor kid. I lived on a dirt road, while everyone else in our middle to upper class town lived in designed neighborhoods with curving paved streets, sidewalks, and manicured lawns. They had man made lakes built into their neighborhoods that you could only acccess if you had a special pass, or if you were a desperate poor kid who was willing to bum rush the lake by running inbetween two people's houses and swimming out so far the security wouldn't even bother coming after you. (You then had to swim to the other side and take off so they wouldn't catch up with you later.)

These were the neighborhoods we coveted at Halloween because they gave out the best candy. These were the neighborhoods that made our eyes light up when our classmates said they lived in and do we want to come over? (Chance of private pool in back yard? 50% Chance of access to lake with private paddleboat we can jump off of and swim around to our heart's delight? Also 50%)

But us (me) lived in the really old square blocked little tiny non-cookie cutter houses that somehow magically escaped the miraculous change that happened to the rest of the town.

Years after I moved away, they put in a real sewer system! And paved the road! Holy crap!

My point being, I grew up part of a small minority of poor kids. Even if we didn't really like each other, we tended to stick together if need be, just because we were the poor kids. If someone at school was bothering that dumb asshole that lived on the next street over, I'd jump in to give him a hand, because I knew his parents were drunks and I heard them screaming. I knew how it was. If somebody called the chubby girl that lived a block away fatso, I'd be right there asking them who the hell they thought they were to judge her, because I could see in her face the fear that she was hiding the fact that she lived with her grandparents, across the street from her parents, because they were coke dealers. Fat was the least of her concerns, but she didn't want any attention, thank you very much, and I knew that. We stuck together.

I never thought much about it. I grew up hating the rich people because of their wealthy sense of insolence, it just seemed to go hand in hand. And I did not go hand in hand. I tried.

When I was in high school I had a few run-in's with the rich kids. One went badly, very badly indeed. The other was a hippy chick that I totally loved. She hung out at my boyfriends house a lot and we all got high together. One time she invited me to HER house. No prob...till I got there.

Fucking hell. It was a mini-mansion.

Ok, ok, let's not judge, I told myself, and went in to her wing of the house, where she and all her friends were. They looked like a cool group, all a bunch of hard core Deadheads, and until one of them opened their mouths, I might have believed it.

The conversation was where they were going on Spring Break, and one by one the whole group lamented and whined about how stingy their parents were for only letting them go to the Bahamas and not Belize (they all groaned), one bitched because her parents bought her that new (some kind of SUV) but weren't willing to pay for her entire trip following the Dead all summer, just for a few weeks, and I slowly went cold realizing the circle was coming to me. "What are you doing for Spring Break?"

I don't know what I answered, I really don't. I think I blocked it out because it had to be a lie. The truth was I was working full time, hopefully overtime at the fast food restaurant I had a job at, in the hopes that I could pay my insurance for my twenty year old jalopy with a rusted out floorboard, and maybe, if I was really lucky, have enough left over for a bag. That was my big plan. Fuck. I didn't even know where Belize WAS. Passport? Who the fuck owns a passport? Just all these girls and not me, that's who.

Despite the fact that they LOOKED like me, they were NOT like me, and I've never wanted to run screaming from some "friends" house so badly in my life. I couldn't ever really hang out with her again, after having that secret peek into her "real" world. It's a good thing, because apparently she ended up hooked on heroin and later stole my ex boyfriends car to try to sell it in Detroit for some more smack. She died of a heroin overdose shortly thereafter.


Us, before all that shit. I'm the one on top, the one still breathing...
~sigh~

Money didn't seem to do her any favors. In fact, it seemed to open doors she wasn't vaguely prepared for.

For a while I nannied for some very wealthy people. It was fun, getting to spend over a hundred dollars at the grocery store for them and them not batting a fucking eye. Wow. I cooked the best food for them, while at home I knew my boyfriend would be eating some Ramen noodles or some shit. Stay for dinner? You betcha? Cook for you? Hell, I don't mind! Are you fucking kidding? I'm malnourished as shit, this isn't skinny! It's called malnourishment!

Meanwhile the mother was bulimic and always freaking out about her weight, god forbid her Jewish mother came to town. Her sadistically rich Jewish mother who just picked the poor woman apart until she was a nervous wreck, scarfing a whole container of Ben and Jerry's in front of me, smiling manicly, only to go puke the whole thing up and come back for more. It was horrible to witness.

Other than them, I haven't been around many rich people. When I lived in Asheville, it was bohemian central, and I mean the likes of which most of you can't even imagine. If I went out dressed in fairy wings, a bathrobe and slippers and went grocery shopping like that, people would have just smiled at me. For real. It's a weird town.

Now I live here, in good old Virginia Beach. I like this town in the winter, but now it's summer and it's already grating on my soul.

The first time my husband took me down "The Strip" (the main beach area) I was horrified. "I don't think I can move here," I told him, quite seriously. "This place is too pretentious for me. I can't deal with it. I'll never fit in." He just laughed and said he didn't either, who cares?

I care.

Well, I care...somehow. It bothers me. It bothers me A LOT. I see all these fake ass people and it just feels as if my soul is degrading. Everywhere I look are bleach blondes with tanning bed tans, manicured and pedicured feet, dudes with skin so brown I can barely see the tattoos they're covered in. The expensive "pimped out" cars, fuck, even their bicycles are pimped out. There's plastic surgery places on every fucking corner, and the urge to blend it and become like these aliens is so STRONG.

It's horrible.

One of my friends has been schooling me about surf stuff. A poor girl from Michigan, and then the mountains of North Carolina, knows NOTHING about surf stuff. Surf brands. Surf labels.

Who cares?

Now that I know, I see it everywhere! People with surf brand labels on the backs of their cars as bumper stickers, on their clothes, on their shoes, on their shorts, on their anything. And this voice in my head screams, "WHO THE FUCK CARES?"

Apparently, all these people.

In the winter I can blend a little better, but as soon as summer hits it becomes obvious to me that I am an alien in a strange world, and that I do not belong here. I do not want to join the ranks. I just want to be me.

I want to be a kid who hangs out under overpasses to beat the heat and watch the people go by, wondering about their lives and what they do. I don't want to work on a tan. I want to sit under a shady tree with iced tea, not lay on a beach watching a volleyball championship. I don't want to be perfect, I don't want to try. Trying makes me go insane. I gave that up at twelve, and I won't go back, I won't go back, do you hear me you crazy assed resort town?!

Sometimes I can't wait to move away. At least away from the beach itself. When we moved here, I thought it was great to live so close to the ocean, and in the winter it is. But now, I want to be miles from here. I don't care how hot it is, I can't stand all the bikinis and snotty little rich kids.

Maybe some day they'll grow up to be nice people. Or maybe they'll OD on some stupid shit. I don't want to find out.

I wish it was fall already...

the heat makes them weirder...

It's summer again. Do you know what that means? Well, here in my brain, it means an influx of rabid insecurities has just lit a fire under my body dysmorphic ass.

It used to be that I loved summer. Then I started disliking summer because I was no longer a kid with no school and no job, and instead of spending my days lounging about in the bath temperature waters of the various lakes in Michigan, I had to get a job and go to work.

Bummer. That's when I realized how fucking hot out it is in the summer.

See, I grew up a poor kid. I lived on a dirt road, while everyone else in our middle to upper class town lived in designed neighborhoods with curving paved streets, sidewalks, and manicured lawns. They had man made lakes built into their neighborhoods that you could only acccess if you had a special pass, or if you were a desperate poor kid who was willing to bum rush the lake by running inbetween two people's houses and swimming out so far the security wouldn't even bother coming after you. (You then had to swim to the other side and take off so they wouldn't catch up with you later.)

These were the neighborhoods we coveted at Halloween because they gave out the best candy. These were the neighborhoods that made our eyes light up when our classmates said they lived in and do we want to come over? (Chance of private pool in back yard? 50% Chance of access to lake with private paddleboat we can jump off of and swim around to our heart's delight? Also 50%)

But us (me) lived in the really old square blocked little tiny non-cookie cutter houses that somehow magically escaped the miraculous change that happened to the rest of the town.

Years after I moved away, they put in a real sewer system! And paved the road! Holy crap!

My point being, I grew up part of a small minority of poor kids. Even if we didn't really like each other, we tended to stick together if need be, just because we were the poor kids. If someone at school was bothering that dumb asshole that lived on the next street over, I'd jump in to give him a hand, because I knew his parents were drunks and I heard them screaming. I knew how it was. If somebody called the chubby girl that lived a block away fatso, I'd be right there asking them who the hell they thought they were to judge her, because I could see in her face the fear that she was hiding the fact that she lived with her grandparents, across the street from her parents, because they were coke dealers. Fat was the least of her concerns, but she didn't want any attention, thank you very much, and I knew that. We stuck together.

I never thought much about it. I grew up hating the rich people because of their wealthy sense of insolence, it just seemed to go hand in hand. And I did not go hand in hand. I tried.

When I was in high school I had a few run-in's with the rich kids. One went badly, very badly indeed. The other was a hippy chick that I totally loved. She hung out at my boyfriends house a lot and we all got high together. One time she invited me to HER house. No prob...till I got there.

Fucking hell. It was a mini-mansion.

Ok, ok, let's not judge, I told myself, and went in to her wing of the house, where she and all her friends were. They looked like a cool group, all a bunch of hard core Deadheads, and until one of them opened their mouths, I might have believed it.

The conversation was where they were going on Spring Break, and one by one the whole group lamented and whined about how stingy their parents were for only letting them go to the Bahamas and not Belize (they all groaned), one bitched because her parents bought her that new (some kind of SUV) but weren't willing to pay for her entire trip following the Dead all summer, just for a few weeks, and I slowly went cold realizing the circle was coming to me. "What are you doing for Spring Break?"

I don't know what I answered, I really don't. I think I blocked it out because it had to be a lie. The truth was I was working full time, hopefully overtime at the fast food restaurant I had a job at, in the hopes that I could pay my insurance for my twenty year old jalopy with a rusted out floorboard, and maybe, if I was really lucky, have enough left over for a bag. That was my big plan. Fuck. I didn't even know where Belize WAS. Passport? Who the fuck owns a passport? Just all these girls and not me, that's who.

Despite the fact that they LOOKED like me, they were NOT like me, and I've never wanted to run screaming from some "friends" house so badly in my life. I couldn't ever really hang out with her again, after having that secret peek into her "real" world. It's a good thing, because apparently she ended up hooked on heroin and later stole my ex boyfriends car to try to sell it in Detroit for some more smack. She died of a heroin overdose shortly thereafter.


Us, before all that shit. I'm the one on top, the one still breathing...
~sigh~

Money didn't seem to do her any favors. In fact, it seemed to open doors she wasn't vaguely prepared for.

For a while I nannied for some very wealthy people. It was fun, getting to spend over a hundred dollars at the grocery store for them and them not batting a fucking eye. Wow. I cooked the best food for them, while at home I knew my boyfriend would be eating some Ramen noodles or some shit. Stay for dinner? You betcha? Cook for you? Hell, I don't mind! Are you fucking kidding? I'm malnourished as shit, this isn't skinny! It's called malnourishment!

Meanwhile the mother was bulimic and always freaking out about her weight, god forbid her Jewish mother came to town. Her sadistically rich Jewish mother who just picked the poor woman apart until she was a nervous wreck, scarfing a whole container of Ben and Jerry's in front of me, smiling manicly, only to go puke the whole thing up and come back for more. It was horrible to witness.

Other than them, I haven't been around many rich people. When I lived in Asheville, it was bohemian central, and I mean the likes of which most of you can't even imagine. If I went out dressed in fairy wings, a bathrobe and slippers and went grocery shopping like that, people would have just smiled at me. For real. It's a weird town.

Now I live here, in good old Virginia Beach. I like this town in the winter, but now it's summer and it's already grating on my soul.

The first time my husband took me down "The Strip" (the main beach area) I was horrified. "I don't think I can move here," I told him, quite seriously. "This place is too pretentious for me. I can't deal with it. I'll never fit in." He just laughed and said he didn't either, who cares?

I care.

Well, I care...somehow. It bothers me. It bothers me A LOT. I see all these fake ass people and it just feels as if my soul is degrading. Everywhere I look are bleach blondes with tanning bed tans, manicured and pedicured feet, dudes with skin so brown I can barely see the tattoos they're covered in. The expensive "pimped out" cars, fuck, even their bicycles are pimped out. There's plastic surgery places on every fucking corner, and the urge to blend it and become like these aliens is so STRONG.

It's horrible.

One of my friends has been schooling me about surf stuff. A poor girl from Michigan, and then the mountains of North Carolina, knows NOTHING about surf stuff. Surf brands. Surf labels.

Who cares?

Now that I know, I see it everywhere! People with surf brand labels on the backs of their cars as bumper stickers, on their clothes, on their shoes, on their shorts, on their anything. And this voice in my head screams, "WHO THE FUCK CARES?"

Apparently, all these people.

In the winter I can blend a little better, but as soon as summer hits it becomes obvious to me that I am an alien in a strange world, and that I do not belong here. I do not want to join the ranks. I just want to be me.

I want to be a kid who hangs out under overpasses to beat the heat and watch the people go by, wondering about their lives and what they do. I don't want to work on a tan. I want to sit under a shady tree with iced tea, not lay on a beach watching a volleyball championship. I don't want to be perfect, I don't want to try. Trying makes me go insane. I gave that up at twelve, and I won't go back, I won't go back, do you hear me you crazy assed resort town?!

Sometimes I can't wait to move away. At least away from the beach itself. When we moved here, I thought it was great to live so close to the ocean, and in the winter it is. But now, I want to be miles from here. I don't care how hot it is, I can't stand all the bikinis and snotty little rich kids.

Maybe some day they'll grow up to be nice people. Or maybe they'll OD on some stupid shit. I don't want to find out.

I wish it was fall already...

act that further suffering will not be created

Considering the harm others do to you
As created by your former deeds, do not anger.
Act such that further suffering will not be created
And your own faults will disappear.

-Nagarjuna, "Precious Garland"

done

I was going to sit here and blog about this and that and all this shit that's on my mind and has been for some time, but then I got the e-mail from my mom about my grandpa and then I decided to discuss the logistics of our weekend trip to our friends wedding with my husband, who I believe just blew a gasket.

I wish I was unconcious. That's about all I can say about it. Fuck it.

afraid

I just got this e-mail from my mom about my grandpa. He's been in and out of the hospital so damn much I don't even know what the hell is wrong with him.

"After 5 trips to emergency in less than a month, it all boils down to treating the angina attacks with pain management. I brought Dad home tonight.

We had a family meeting with two cardiologists yesterday morning in Dad's room. They are tweaking his meds again, and added a rather new drug (Ranexa 500 mg 2/day) that they have heard good reports about. He's getting a little more blood pressure med at night now in an effort to carry him through until morning. The doctors explained that angina is not life-threatening, although severe cases can cause heart attacks. We will continue use of the nitroglycerine pills, when needed.

Dad will have no further scans (using dyes) as his kidneys are functioning less than 50% now and the dye could cause enough damage that he'd be on dialysis forevermore.

No cutting (stenting, bypass, heart cath) will be done as the last nuclear heart scan (April 2006) showed more damage and blockage. They feel he would not survive surgery.

So, we have him home again. I am spending the next three nights at their apartment as the attacks always come between midnight and 4 a.m. I'm hoping to relieve some of Mom's extreme stress by being there past the usual "less than 48 hour" time limit the attacks occur after discharge from the hospital. He only one attack during the day and that was in the 4th hospital visit.

If the attacks continue, they will consider using a form of morphine to control the pain."

When my mom starts getting all factual and not emotional, I know it's bad. I don't understand how bad. The fact that she hasn't mentioned anything good or possibilities for the future or anything... doesn't sound good.

I mean, morphine is the plan? That's what you do while you wait for people to die, right?

Right?

I don't want to ask. I don't want her to answer.

I am my own Pompeii

This was written a few days ago, thinking about the Catch 22 of having a chemical imbalance.

like volcanic ash that drifts
choking those downwind, unaware
I come to you
I darken your doorstep
turning your days into nights
silent and pervasive
yet completely lacking malice or blame

Both blameless ash and victim am I
I am my own Pompeii.

I am simply an act of nature.

Simply: the antithesis of everything I seem to be.
Is there time to philosophize while we wait for the wind to change?
Will it change?




Karl Briullov. The Last Day of Pompeii (1830-33). The Russian Museum in St Petersburg.

an angel named Shmuley

I have, many times, seen a new show called Shalom in the Home being advertised on TLC.

Being the snot that I am, I decided to wait and see if it stuck before I committed an hour to watching it. You know, I wanted to see if the show made it past the first couple of airings. I am already fostering a semi-addiction to Honey We're Killing the Kids, I really don't want any more shows about dysfunctional families, even if it IS people helping fix them. It's just painful to watch.

And then...(drum roll)...it happened. I don't know why I didn't change the channel last night but I didn't. And I watched Shalom in the Home.

I finally had to go grab a box of tissues it was so emotional to watch. Now, the rabbi (capital R?) himself said that it was a particularly painful family to behold, and he was right. What hurt the most was that I related to it. Hard core. Even worse, my husband kept offering comments when he turned from the computer like, "Geez, I HATE THESE PEOPLE!" and how awful the child was, how mean the parents were, and I finally had to stop him and say, "This was my life."

The little girl was nine and was just awful, screaming hatred and sarcasm at her parents. Who did she learn that from, hmmmm? The mom was an emotional basket case, wrapped in total denial and numbness, and the father screamed horrible things at everyone.

I didn't learn to scream BACK until I was at least fourteen, but I was far more vile than that child.

At one scene, the rabbi has the family out on a camping trip. He is accompanying them, but remotely. They have wires and radio communication with him, and he tries to help guide them through the process of learning how to accomplish tasks using team work. It's rough.

On the second day, there is a meltdown, and the mother and father start fighting and both walk off. The girl just stands there and kind of walks off in the other direction. The camera is focused on the rabbi who comments on how sad it is that the parents are busy fighting and no one notices the little girl. And it's true.

I just cried and cried, I cried for me, I cried for my son, I cried for all those kids that are suffering at the hands of dysfunction.

I'm guessing not every show was like that, judging from the rabbi's closing words about it, but I wanted to tell you about him.

He's an angel.

****cut straight from the website****

Shmuley's Words of Wisdom

Hanging around with Shmuley can be quite inspiring. So, we decided to grab a pen and paper and absorb everything that we could. We are now offering up nugget-sized bits of Shmuley's advice here.

You can't be a good parent without being a good spouse.

There are two kinds of parental love: the love you give your kids, and the love you give your spouse. Kids with loving spouses grow up believing in romantic love.

It's your kid's job to resist. It's your job to impose your will.

Good discipline is just another form of love.

Ten percent of life is what happens; the other 90 percent is what you do about it.

Many of us parent out of fear - fear of alienating our kids, fear of making the wrong choice - but fear never leads to the right destination.

You cannot fix your children without also fixing yourself.

The greatest gift a man & a woman can give to their children is the gift of loving each other.

Shalom in the home, domestic tranquility, is the ultimate blessing. The man who has a woman who believes in him is impregnable and invincible. Nothing in life can hurt him because he has peace at this center.

Your marriage is not a facet of your life. It is your life. It is not a detail of your happiness, but its source and greatest blessing. Swallow your pride. Go back to the person to whom you once committed your life and exert the energy to make the marriage work again. By doing so you will have the satisfaction of knowing, not only that you never stopped climbing – that you never quit – but rather that you never climbed alone.

There is enough uncontrollable pain in life without us unnecessarily adding self-inflicted wounds.

The hero is not the man who conquers the world, but who conquers his own passions.

We dare never parent out of fear. Fear is a hysterical reaction to an imagined threat, while caution is a calculated response to a real danger.

A parent’s bedroom is not a family sitting room or family dormitory. Children should never sleep in their parents’ bedroom. If you need to hire a security guard to make your bedroom into Fort Knox, that is still better than allowing your role as parent to conflict with your role as lover to your spouse.

The rule of relationships is this: We all want to be wanted, need to be needed, desire to be desired. Demonstrating a dependency on the object of your love is the golden rule of relationships.

Man is a force of nature, like a hurricane, whose turbulence is on the extremities but has utter calm at its center. We are powerful when we have shalom, tranquility, in the home, when the place to which we retreat is tranquil. Then, none of the external noise pierces our soul. For many families today, however, they have tumultuous winds in the home, forcing them to flee to mind-numbing escapes on the extremities, outside the home.

It’s not true that a couple’s sex life need end with the advent of children. On the contrary, what is lovemaking other than a man and woman at play, flirtatious and precocious. And the natural playfulness that children inject into the lives of their parents can help them to draw closer.

The greatest gift that a man can give his children is to love their mother. Conversely, the greatest gift that a mother can give her children is to love their father.

By being happily married we gift to our children the knowledge that love works, that the world is comprised of pieces of a puzzle that ultimately fit.

The man who cheats on his wife thinks of himself as an adventurer, when really he is a wanderer.

We dare not make money into a commodity by which to purchase self-esteem.

The foremost sin in a marriage is to put someone (even your child) before each other.

The real purpose of counseling a family is not to point out right and wrong, but to inspire them to choose the right and reject the wrong.

The Garden of Eden was not a place in space, but a place in time. It represents our childhood years, when everything is magical and perfect. Eviction from Eden represents growing up, the natural tendency to be bitten by the hardships and disappointments of life, to calcify and coarsen. The restoration to Eden takes place when we have children, who reintroduce all the lost Eden-like qualities of childhood into our lives.

Parents today are guilty of believing that they can have healthy children without having a healthy family environment.

Most of us promise ourselves that we will never make the same mistakes as our parents, yet we grow up and almost by osmosis, we start becoming them. We end up transmitting to our children the same imperfections that our parents transmitted to us. It’s a never-ending cycle. And there comes a time in the generational life of a family that one generation has to say, "Enough, I will be healed so that my children will heal." Let that generation be us.

You cannot have healthy children without having a healthy family environment.

There are no bad children. Only bad parents. When our kids act up, it’s time to look in the mirror.

Parents need their children far more than children need their parents.

You are not a hero to the world unless you are first and foremost a hero to your children.

Have you really been successful if the people who mean the most to you, think the least of you?

neighbor kids: redneck boys and retarded girls

What a very interesting afternoon this is turning out to be.

After returning from a rather frustrating bike ride with my son, who seemed hellbent on going as slowly as humanly possible, we showered and settled down.

The little neigbor girl called (we know her from the bus stop) and asked if I knew her mothers phone number. Um, no? I asked her if she was ok and she said her sister was in a lot of pain and was crying. I could HEAR her bawling, and I asked the younger one (who is maybe all of eight, the older one might be twelve or thirteen) if her parents were home. "No," she said. I asked if she knew when her mother was coming home. "No," she said.

Fuck.


She could have just run up to the store or could be gone all day. This girl who is crying might be having a major dump on the toilet or her appendix burst. Who the hell knows? I tell her I'm coming over.

The sister is in the bathroom, on the toilet, wearing only a T-shirt, and I have to give her props, not an ounce of shame. I can see her everything, and everytime she reaches up to wipe her eyes I can see the rest. Whoa. Ok. She's sobbing, and I'm trying to get some answers out of her and stop her from sobbing long enough to tell me what's wrong.

Here's where it gets real fucking tricky- I can't tell if this girl just speaks garbled because she's crying or if she's kind of retarded. I can't make out what the hell she's saying. We finally nail it down to menstrual cramps and I find some baby Motrin in the house, and pray to god she isn't allergic to it, while asking the younger one if she's ever seen her older sister take it before. She said she had. Ok.

But damn if the sobbing girl won't do a damn thing I say! She just sits there and bawls, even when she stops crying and I ask her if she's starting to feel better, it's like she wakes up and looks at me, then starts into wailing again. Fuck. I was trying so hard to help her! All she kept telling me was that her mom would make her better by something about make-up. I was like, "Dude. I do not know what you are saying. Please drink this."

I hear the younger one say, "Mom's home" as the door opens, and I think "Thank god" while at the same time terrified that this woman is going to be irate I'm trying to get her daughter to swallow medication without her approval, but for all I know and can get out of these two, the mom might not be back until midnight, I don't fucking know! And this girl has cramps, BAD, and needs to quit her sobbing before the younger one freaks the fuck out.

Well, the mom comes in and I explain, and she tells me that maybe the girl ate too much, I tell her the girl told me she hadn't eaten anything and that she's had her tonsils out. The mother smiles and shakes her head, no. Ok. I tell her all I could clearly get out was that she was bleeding (and point downward) and that I thought THAT was what was hurting her, and that was why I was trying to get her to take the baby Motrin which her sister said was ok for her to take (hint hint I'm not trying to poison your kid).

Ok...the mom nods and says that yes, she did just start her period for the first time and that probably IS what's bothering her. She thanks me and just kind of rushes me out the door. I felt weird, like thanked but not really...I don't know. Maybe she was freaked out that there was a stranger in her house, giving her maybe retarded daughter medicine, maybe she was embarrassed at her daughters predicament, or leaving her kids alone, or I don't know what. But I was shooed so shoo I went.

As we walked home some other neighbors were outside fixing their car in the blazing sun. I made a joke with the mom about them having a party and she rolled her eyes and laughed. She asked if my son would like to play with their son who is two years younger and I asked him. He said sure, and so now here they are, a few feet away, playing X-box. The younger one has the THICKEST little redneck accent and I'm working real hard on not laughing. He's not the best kid, but not terrible either.

So, redneck little boys and crying menstrual retarded girls, that is my afternoon. When my husband walks in and asks me what I did today, I actually have a real story.

Not to be a bitch, but for real, this is why I don't talk to my neighbors...

Why, oh why....?

Why do friends of mine who know I am not a Christian INSIST on sending me Christian mass e-mails? I mean, if they really had some special Christian message they meant to send just to me, I might feel special.

But when I get shit that says,

"8 angels are sent 2 you.
You must send them to 8 people including me.
In 8 minutes you will receive something you have long awaited for.
Have faith!"

It just makes me feel kinda cranky, not faithful. So, I found a picture of the Anaheim Angels baseball team and sent THAT back to her.

(rolls eyes)

I hereby declare:

That whoever named "The Funny Bone" should be publicly beaten with a squeaky rubber chicken, because hitting the "funny bone" isn't fucking funny at all, but rubber chickens are ALWAYS funny.



Let it be done.

a common decision with uncommon results

Find a friend to be with and stay in that relationship, avoiding the dangers of hurting others. Stay with your friend and become mindful and joyful. If you can find no friend, then go on by yourself. Better to carry on alone than live with the foolish.

-Sunnata Vagga

some kind of gerbil medicine for crazy bitches...

The doctor switched me to some different medicine. This is the same medicine I wrote about last week, the same medicine that went flying across the room in my fit of combined frustration and apathy. (Those things do NOT go well together, in case you were wondering, and do indeed cause mass instability in the brain.)

The new medicine is called Gabatril, or something that evokes an image of Habitrails for gerbils. It's an anti-seizure medication.



All righty. Well, she said it works well with PTSD and since any and all SRI's seem to do horrible things to me, perhaps serotonin is not the chemical imbalance. Maybe it's GABA.

Well, what do I do? I've tried, for those of you keeping track at home (and if you are, get a fucking hobby or something, for real):

Paxil- good for anxiety, killed my libido dead, and I mean DEAD. DEAD. The Grim Reaper couldn't have been any deader. And I am one horny bitch. D-E-A-D.

Celexa- about as helpful as smacking myself in the eye with a spoon each day. Totally worthless, and not as comical.

BuSpar- great if I wanted to spend a few hours each day confused and nauseous, otherwise useless. A lack of oxygen might produce the same effects.

Xanax- fucking wonder drug, but the spikes of it working and wearing off really DO suck ass, I confess. Still, for STOPPING a panic attack, and staving them off, there is nothing like it. Nothing.

Piles of stupid antihistamines- doctors try them on you for a "sedative quality" and maybe that would work for someone who isn't as far down the screaming abyss of anxiety as I am. Putting rabbit crap between my toes would have a more beneficial effect.

Zoloft- seemed to help in some small way but it was hard to tell with the insomnia, total depression, and constant exhaustion. Did I mention it made me MORE anxious? Yah. Awesome. The best part of taking Zoloft was stopping, in which case my shitty life seemed like it was suddenly coated in fucking GOLD, GOLD I tell you, by comparison. I don't care if Ween wrote a song about you, you SUCK.

Lunesta- to sleep, for insomnia. God bless you Lunesta. You taught me how to fall asleep again, and I could stop taking you. Plus, you caused much amusement to my husband and I when I would take you and have (I was told) screaming maniacal orgasms but not remember a damn bit of it the next day, causing me to be forever quoted as saying, "We did? Really? Did I like it? Oh, good."

Clonazapam- something used to prevent seizures. I have to say, seizures are one of the few things that I have not had any anxiety over having, and now I have even less. The idea is to use it as an "off label" precription, meaning to use it for somethng other than what it's perscribed for. As it is, it calms me down in a way strangely similar to Xanax but without the massive up and down peaks. It makes me tired, but that's a small price to pay when you compare it to the alternative which is hiding in my bed all day and screaming in terror when the phone rings.

And now, Gabitril.

So far, it seems...weird as shit. Good. Awesome. Then nauseating and wretched one night...then good. I don't know yet, I've only been taking it a few days. But here's the thing: this is PMS time, and a time where I normally spend teetering on the edge of what feels like screaming banshee madness, and I have (and Mr. Wonderful will back me up on this) been downright cheerful, other than a few odd moments here and there.

If anything can work against the evil that is PMS on my system, well slap my ass with a wet fish and call me Billygoat, I'm going to church.

You might not understand. My usual anxiety turns into a rabid self-consuming morbidity that is soaked in rage, fueled by self loathing and sprinkled with a dash of what might very well be paranoid schizophrenia. I jest not, dear reader. It takes every bit of willpower I have to not lose my fucking shit and go postal on anything, animate or not, I'm not picky, that comes in my path. Each three weeks I wait, and then it happens again.

I'm TIRED, don't you see? I'm so TIRED. By the time I've recovered from the last bout the next one is gearing up to try to shred my sanity like a pissed off wet cat hopped up on catnip meth.

Now this time...I'm waiting. I'm just sitting here in the bunker and waiting for the bombs to start dropping but other than a little bit of light artillery I've seen nothing.

I refuse to hold out hope, because I've read somewhere that a few people had great results only for the results to suddenly cease weeks or months down the road. But. But. But I am living it up, to the best of my hesitant abilities, and I can safely say that the last ember of hope of being "normal" isn't crushed.

Maybe....

For now, I have to go to sleep, and quickly. One bummer about this stuff is it makes me sick as a fucking dog if I take it and stay awake too long. The other night I laid there for an hour, so exhausted but every time I let my concentration waver towards sleep I would be battered with fucked up anxious images and waves of nausea. I laid there trying to project my consciousness into a potted plant in my room, hoping that would be grounding enough, because it felt like my bed was moving. I was sea sick, sitting on dry land, and I was NOT happy about it.

So, before that happens, let me get my potentially happy ass to bed.

In general, I am still having bouts of exhaustion, depression, anxiety and what the fuck ever else, but I feel far more cheerful, and frankly, it's enough to keep me going for now. For anyone who has ever suffered an anxiety disorder as deeply as I have, you know what I mean.

You'll take what you can get, and in this case, I'm loving it. Regaining my sense of humor is one of the greatest gifts. You don't miss it till it's gone, seemingly irretrievable.

Hey, funny bone- welcome back. Have you met my sheep? I think you'll get along great.

One of the Top Three Most Embarrassing Moments of My Life

Once I had a "boyfriend" who lost the condom. Lost it. As in, he slipped out, the condom did not.

He was a jerk, and I thought he was kidding me. I was on the pill, so it wasn't like I was really worried, but after a moment or two of reaching up my unmentionables (I was merely sixteen at the most) he started making fun of me.

Did I mention he was a jerk?

So I went upstairs, to the privacy of the bathroom and tried to get up in there with my fingers and dig for a possibly lost condom or a really stupid joke, I wasn't sure which. After not finding the condom, I decided he was just being an asshole and forgot about it.

...Until three days later, when I had a gynecologist appointment. My mother, sweet soul that she is, made me have a MALE doctor (do not do this, asshole mothers, to your daughters) and after getting myself into the hideous position and he reached inside, there was a moment of silence.

I heard the words that will forever be emblazoned in my memory, "Did you lose something?" as I awkwardly looked down to see him holding the lost condom with a pair of what looked like tongs, in his plastic gloved hands.

One dangling, used condom, that had been vacationing in the warmth of my cozy vagina for a few days. Just...dangling there in the air...held by a doctor using tongs, while I had my legs spread and a spotlight shining on my obviously well used and seemingly cavernous cooter.

Even the female nurse who was in the room looked hideously embarrassed for me, as my face turned red and I stuttered, "He said it was lost...I looked...I thought he was kidding...I tried to find it..."

I thought about him telling my mother that tidy bit of information, my darling mother waiting right outside in the waiting room, but I don't think he did. He did mention staying on birth control and not having sex with jerks who lose condoms, though.

I can't say I took his advice, but I did learn one very important lesson: have female gynecologists. At least she might understand and say a few soothing words, not just continue in well lit, spread legged silence.

Yes.

I lost something.

Thanks.

couldn't have said it better myself

Fools, their wisdom weak,
are their own enemies
as they go through life,
doing evil
that bears
bitter fruit.

-Dhammapada, 66, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Who now?

I just found out one of my favorite sci-fi crushes will be going away. I am sad. I am also really fucking hungry, but that's not the point. The point is that I wanted to explain the difference between what I think is sexy in a woman.

I doubt anyone could deny that she's hot, and if you can, shut your fucking pie hole, I wasn't asking you, you asshat.

But what's hot to me, personally, is that girl next door look. That's the good stuff.

Mmmmmm.

confession

I was really hoping Brad and Angelina's baby would come out hideously ugly, like with an ass for a head or seven extra arms or, I don't know, something not as perfectly perfect looking as them.

This may make me a crappy person, but it is nonetheless true.

every kettle has a lid

This morning I was watching my son and husband spaz out at the kitchen table. There's my husband, bowl of mini-wheats in front of him, playing with a saw (yes, a saw) at the table, bending it this way and that, twanging it to see if he can get any noise out of it. My son was talking about how two of his Apple Jacks were stuck on the side of the bowl and staring at him, and then my husband set down the saw and began to start back up on his "Bad Chicken" song that he had concocted that morning when I discovered there was some chicken gone bad in the fridge.

I just sat there watching the two of them tweak the fuck out and suddenly said, "You know what I just realized? I just realized how lucky I am that only ONE of you gets summer vacation, because if you were both going to be here every fucking day all summer long I would just LOSE MY MIND!" and I started emitting some noise that is usually only heard while one is walking down the hall of a mental institution.

When my husband left for work he asked me if I planned on using the computer any more this morning or should he turn it off. I laughed far too long and loud and told him that I most certainly was going to use it, and that I was blogging his ass as soon as he left, his playing-with-a-saw-at-the-breakfast-table ass, and then he kissed me. I softly sang in his ear, "See you later, baaaaad chicken...." and he left.

I was nuts way before I met him. Somehow, it all kind of works. As our cute little shrink says, "For every kettle, there is a lid." I'm not sure which is which and what purpose it serves, but I'll just take it as it is.

(nods)

show your support!

I saw a girl the other day that had one of those ribbon bumperstickers.

You know the ones, "Support our Troops", "Breast Cancer Awareness", "United We Stand", whatever. As the girl was getting into her car, though, I actually read what her bumber sticker said (it was stuck on the side panel). It said:

"Support Road Head"

It was beyond my control. I stopped her and said, "Does that mean...what I think it means?" and pointed at her sticker. Flustered at being confronted she said, "Yah," real quick and sat down in her car.

I laughed so hard it echoed off nearby buildings. "Thank you," I told her, "You just made my day."

I see you can get them here, among other things.

The Psychic Stuff, part II

This is the middle (?) of a tale that involves psychic ability, Satanism, and channeling. If these things bother you, or you want to dispute the validity of my experience, go somewhere else. This is my blog. This is my story. This story starts here.

I guess I should have seen it sooner. I don't know. It's not really the kind of thing you expect, so it's not really the sort of thing you look for. A few things you can overlook, brush off as coincidence, until one day something smacks you out of the sky.

My experience with Joy was like that. (Joy is not her real name, no.) But first, let me back up.

We're talking about psychic things, and how I came upon the understanding that I have some sort of gift, multiple gifts, and that I don't fully understand them. Looking back over the course of my life, I realize a lot of little things that might have been clues but that I had completely overlooked at the time.

Little things like... I was always drawn to cemetaries. Not in the "I'm fucking goth" kind of way, but they always seem so peaceful to me. So welcoming, as if I'm being invited into the home of someone who rarely gets guests. I would ride my bike to them, one in particular near my house, and just sit there for hours. What the hell was I doing? I don't remember doing anything, just sitting there under a tree and just kind of daydreaming. This made a lot more sense later.

I've never been afraid of ghosts. I've been in places that people said were haunted, and I mean for real, people were freaked out about the place, and I have always been able to enter with a strange sense of peace. This is odd considering I'm scared to death of nearly everything else, but ghosts, no. Again, I have the same strange image or feeling of entering and seeing someone surprised, or relieved, like, "Finally! You can HEAR me!" although I don't ever hear words. I see images.

It's like daydreaming. That's all I can tell you. It's exactly like daydreaming.

There was one place that scared the shit out of me, and it was this guys trailor in Detroit. My friends were going to get a bag (of weed) and were friends with some dude who lived there. Ok. We go, and as soon as we pulled into the driveway I started flipping out, just repulsed. I did NOT want to go in there. I had no logical reason, but even still, I told my friends (risking being made fun of) that I did not want to go in there. It was, frankly, safer than than sitting in a car outside. It was a bad area of Detroit, so I went in.

We sat at the tiny table, and I placed myself in the corner, wedged behind all my friends. Something was horribly terribly wrong and I didn't know what it was, but one of my friends finally whispered to the next, "Dude! She's wringing her hands! We need to go..." But there was a problem. The guy with the weed was apparently the housemate (trailormate?) of the guy that we came to see. We were waiting for him.

As soon as he came in the door I knew what what was wrong. It was HIM. I don't know what was wrong with him, but he was WRONG, and if I could have pushed myself out of the wall I would have. My brother and his Satanic bullshit were NOTHING on that guy. He was the purest evil I have ever come in contact with. My friends were growing more and more concerned because I was shaking at that point, uncontrollably, and finished up their deal and we left. My biggest problem was that I had to pass that guy in the tiny cramped hall, basically brushing all up against him on the way out. I took a deep breath and just pushed with an image of steel between us. Maybe iron. Something like an archaic sheild.

We got outside and got back into the truck and left. My friends were all over me, "Oh my god, are you ok? What the hell happened? What's wrong?" and all I could tell them was that he was evil, and kept looking back. I wanted to be as far from him as possible, and as quickly as possible. We drove back to our friends house and one of the guys took me aside and asked me if I'd ever meditated before. "No," I told him, and he took me to the back room of the house, after I made them close and lock every window and door and stand gaurd. I wasn't kidding. I was flipping the fuck out, terrified.

We went to the back room and that darling man showed me how to meditate, how to picture "the safest place you can think of..." I drew a picture of it later. It was a tree, on a hill, near a lake. I was sitting under the tree. I still have that picture.

The evil guy? I still don't know. But I suspect... I suspect he committed horrible crimes, murders, rapes, I don't even know. I suspect he had done so much evil that my psyche just shut down somehow, like, a reflex from being in the presence of that much evil. I was running on pure instinct which was screaming, "AWAY!" and that was all.

Do I believe in evil? Yes. I believe in it in the sense of a willingness to commit it. I don't believe there is a Devil and all that crap. Just that people can be willing to do good or do bad. It's all in the willingness. It has nothing to do with the church or religion, but Buddhism makes a lot of sense to me.


By self alone is evil done, by self alone does one suffer.
By self alone is evil left undone,
by self alone does one obtain Salvation.
Salvation and Perdition depend upon self; no man can save another.

-Dhammapada 165

What makes a person good is their willingness to do the right thing even if it's the hard thing, and to keep doing that. That's how I try to live my life. I don't always succeed, and I haven't always been that way.

Moving on....

I've always had an affinity with animals. That is not to say that they all love me, but that I can feel their emotions. Some dogs you just stay the fuck away from. I met a cow that I hope to never meet again, unless it's as a hamburger (oooh, bad joke).

There was a day, when I was about nineteen, that I walked into the courtyard of my favorite coffee shop. There was a guy there, with the most beautiful Doberman Pinscher. She was delicate and flowerlike, and I started to talk to him about his dog, while tentatively reaching out to pet her. "Oh, she's really friendly," he said, "she wouldn't hurt a fly!" He was right. As I slowly ran my hand down her back, I got about halfway and had this sudden flash of fear and pain and abuse.

Well, what do you do? I didn't know the guy, what was I supposed to say, "Do you beat her?" I just looked up at him and continued rubbing her, but more softly. I asked him, "Where did you get her?" He told me he had stolen her from his old neighbors because they used to beat her. I nodded and said, "I could tell." Oh shit. I hadn't meant for it to come out. He looked at me weirdly and said, "How could you tell?" and I said, "Oh...um...I just can. She's very timid..." trying to explain it away into something commonplace.

He told me that she's been a sad dog, because she had a friend dog there and they did everything together, and he couldn't manage to steal them both. I felt for her. What a sad situation, to be saved but know your friend is not.

As I left, I called out, "Goodbye, (something)!" and he just froze. I was talking to the dog, whose name was Greta. But the name I said was something else, something odd. German? Scandanavian? I don't know. He just stared at me. "That was her friend's name," he said, referring to Greta's dog companion. "How did you know that? I didn't tell you." I just looked at him, bug eyed. "I don't know..." I said. We stared at each other, and I said, "That happens to me...sometimes..." but he just kept staring. Fuck. I walked away. We turned out to be friends, and he always had a crush on me. I dated one of his friends and spent a long time taking care of Greta when the guy left town and couldn't take her with him. She never got over it, she was always very frightened.

Next total bizarreness that I recall: a group of friends and I had decided to go to Devil's Courthouse. It's a stupidly named place, up on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. It's one of the overlooks, and it's gorgeous. You can hike way the hell up to the top of a cliff face that overlooks valleys as far as you can see. According to Native American legend (that is Cherokee land), it was a place where the young men of the tribe would go to become men. They would scale the rock face and sit and look out on all that was below them until they could grasp their place in the world and their tribe, and then they would come back.

As it was told to me, Stupid White Man came along, heard that story and just fucked it all up, talking about how legend had it that Satan sat there in judgement of all who came before him. What a load of shit.

Anyway, it was a very spiritual place, and common for kids to go up there, kind of like daring each other to go to a haunted house. Some people heard weird things, saw weird things, etc. People had stories about how so-and-so saw people hanging from trees or so-and-so almost jumped off the cliff, etc. We would go up there at night (of course) and smoke pot, sit and talk for hours, that sort of thing. We'd gone there plenty of time, this group of friends and I.

Well, one night was different. It was a new moon, and cloudy, which meant that it was virtually pitch black in the forest walking up the trail. A few people had brought flashlights, and they were waaaaay ahead of the rest of us. I was straggling in the back, enjoying the silence and the utter darkness. The only way to walk was to hold my hands out in front of me and look straight up, where I could just barely discern the difference in blackness where the trees were not because of the trail. It was very slow but an interesting challenge, I thought.

As I slowly puttered along (and this was a rather vertical trail) I slowly became aware of feeling some presence around me. I could feel other beings, but they weren't human, they were like little things, maybe waist high, and kind of creepy. I could sense that their intent (to do good or bad) could go either way, and that didn't make me happy. The thought of being tripped by one was creeping me out. At the same time, I totally did not believe in them. It was weird.

Years later, I would describe it as being like Nobby, or like the other house elves in the Harry Potter books/movies. It was a lot like that.

Well, after a few minutes of that weird feeling, I started to look ahead, because I knew that at some point the trail hit a cliff and tee'd off in either direction. The way we wanted to go was up, to the right, but I had to make sure my blind ass didn't just walk over the cliff edge in the blackness.

As I stared up ahead, trying to discern the lighter patch of black where the cliff edge was, I got this feeling. I have never before or after felt anything like it. I'm going to do my best to describe it to you, but it's nearly impossible.

I felt like I was going to demolecularize. As if my body was no longer my body as I knew it, just a pile of molecules that could reaarange themselves in any order I wished. I thought of being an eagle and flying over that cliff face, out in to the dark of night, and started to tingle all over. But it wasn't like a pins and needles tingle, this was altogether different and completely strange. I swear, I could feel the molecules in my body shifting. I thought of the shamans talking about shape shifting and realized that this must be it.

I would like to note that I was not under any chemicals, drugs, etc. We waited till we got to the top to get high. I was quite sober.

I thought about being an eagle, and then suddenly was terrified that I wouldn't know how to change back. I knew how to be a human, and this was a new experience for me. What if I was an eagle? I don't know how eagles think! What about my friends? They would freak out and think I died or something, searching the cliffs for my body, never to be found...

I freaked. I called out in the darkness to the girl that I knew was the last one ahead of me on the trail, and my voice sounded tiny and strange. I heard her answer me, from a long way off, and she made her way back down the trail. I told her what happened and asked her to hold my hand. I was pretty sure I couldn't change if she was holding my hand. It was instinctual- she was human. She was touching me. Her humanness would keep my humanness intact.

We hiked up the rest of the way like that, and I rarely went there since. One time that I did I watched an eagle soaring up on the air currents through the valley, and it was way the hell off, but as it circled it got closer and closer and finally swooped right over my head, close enough that I could feel the rush of wind. It did it two or three times and then took off. Kinda fucking weird.

It was about this time that the thing with Joy happened, but I'm saving that one for last. Why, I don't know. Just because. The other stories are shorter, I tell myself. That's my excuse.

When my last boyfriend and I started dating, he had come over one night and I was curled up on the couch, while he was sitting near my belly, me like a cat curled up around him. Suddenly I started hearing this crazy buzzing noise, and it sounded like a fucking chainsaw, it was so loud I couldn't hear anything over it, and it kept getting louder and louder. I felt like everything I was, everything I thought I was was being pushed out of my body, like something else was taking over. I thought it was probably how channeling happens, but I couldn't read the entity trying to come in. Just that screaming chainsaw buzz, and I'm not sure I'm letting you in with just THAT to go on, you know? So I conciously pushed it away, and it faded to nothing.

In the meantime, the boyfriend heard nothing. I was freaking out. But, since it was a new boyfriend, I wasn't about to go telling him about how I get freaky sometimes, so I kept it to myself. After about twenty minutes, I decided I might try it again. I don't know how I knew it was my choice, but I did. So I opened myself up to the idea, and sure enough, the buzzing sound started again. It got louder and louder and I bailed once more. I just didn't know. I tried to communicate, psychically, asking whatever, whoever it was what it was and what it's intentions were, but I got no response. So, fuck it, I stopped trying. I've never tried since. Too fucking weird.

Ok. There's more here and there but the big story was Joy.

(deep breath)

Joy and I met when I was about twenty. She was bad ass, rode a motorcycle and was hot like Angelina Jolie. I would have switched teams for her, at least for a little while. But she wasn't friends with any of my friends, so I finally got up the nerve one night to ask her if she just wanted to hang out. She seemed surprised but said, "Yah, sure."

We went to her parents house, where she had her own room or apartment, I don't remember. It's all kind of fuzzy because we were smoking a lot of pot. What I do remember very clearly was that I barely knew her and she started bawling, telling me about how she had just recently had an abortion and how it freaked her out. I had had one before and tried to console her. She sobbed, "No, you don't understand!" and told me about her friend Annie who had died the year before, and how when she was having the abortion she could hear Annie crying. "I think she was trying to come back!" she sobbed, "and I killed her!"

Oh my god.

I really didn't know what to say, truly. I just held her while she cried and then we smoked some cigarettes. Joy was embarrassed and I felt really fucking awkward. I mean, that's a hell of a how-do-you-do. Needless to say, we didn't hang out after that. We would say hi and stuff when we ran into each other in town, but that was about it.

What was weird was that I couldn't get it out of my mind. It seemed like everytime I had a moment to think, I would think about this image of her friend crying while she had an abortion. It was driving me nuts.

Finally I had enough. I was home alone, and lived in this house out on a mountain in near solitude, and was taking a bath in the sunlight. I said out loud, "What? What is it?" I was just exasperated, and sick of being pestered, that's what I felt like, pestered.

And I started to daydream. I was daydreaming that her friend Annie had come to talk to me, and was telling me that it was terribly important that I tell Joy that she wasn't her baby. Annie was insistant, telling me that she was in the room, that she loved Joy and stayed with her a lot, and watching her have an abortion all alone was horrible, and that somehow Joy actually heard her crying. "You have to tell her!" I heard her dreamily plea to me.

I sat up in the bath, suddenly realizing that not only was I daydreaming, but that I felt like, "THIS IS NO DAYDREAM." I looked around, but there was no one there, just this daydreamy quality if I let myself relax. So I laid back and said out loud, "What in the hell do you want from me? How am I supposed to do that? You want me to walk up to her and tell her her dead friend talked to me in the fucking bathtub and told me to tell her that everything's cool?"

"Yes," I heard her say/not say.

"Fuck."

The feeling of being pestered went on, for weeks. When I was alone I would talk out loud, "How the hell am I supposed to do this? I will! I will! Just stop bugging me! Fuck!"

And then the oppurtunity presented itself.

A large group of us went to Atlanta to see our friends band play at some shithole of a club. Joy went. She was in someone else's car.

At one point I saw her go outside onto the patio, and I said, "Now or never" to myself and followed her. I sat down next to her, and both of us lit up cigarettes in the dark. I made sure no one was close enough to hear us, and then I said, "Look, I have to tell you something. It's going to be really fucking weird, but I have to tell you or I'm going to fucking lose my mind over it. I think your friend has been trying to talk to me."

She stared at me, and I have to say I was terrified. Not only was I going to inform another human that I thought I was hearing dead people, but in a club full of our friends, where she could go inside and tell everyone that I'm fucking nuts, but more than anything I was scared to death she was going to beat me up. No lie. I was scared of her.

So I stared up at the sky. The sky in Atlanta is nearly starless with all the light pollution, and I focused my eyes on one plane that I could see way up in the sky with it's blinking lights, and just spilled my guts as fast as I could without looking at her.

When I got done, I looked over. She was just staring at me, freaked. Obviously freaked. I looked back up at the plane, desperate. And then it happened.

I opened my mouth as I turned towards her, and said, "She says to do this" without a thought in my head, and I punched her really fucking hard on the shoulder.

There was no pre-thought, no awareness of what I was saying or doing until I had said it and it was done. And I was mortified. (I'm shaking just writing this.)

She stared at me. I waited for her to start beating the shit out me, but instead she started crying, her voice shaking as she said, "She always did that..." and her voice trailed off. We just stared at each other, both of us crying. I was crying because I heard dead people, she was crying because of...whatever. I was just fucking freaked because I thought maybe it was all in my head and I could just go on about my life thinking I'm nuts, but instead I just found out that I had to go on about my life knowing I could hear dead people.

We stared at each other and cried. I finally said, "That's it. That's all she has to say..." and looked away. It was true. The pestering feeling was gone, and I smoked the fucking hell out my cigarette. So did Joy. We sat there for a few minutes, chain smoking and trying to compose ourselves. Finally Joy said, "I think the people in front of us are smoking crack..." She was right. Some other people had come outside and were smoking a crack pipe right in front of us. We both watched them and kind of laughed, like, well, that makes as much sense as anything else, right? Then we went inside.

I don't think she and I have ever said anything to each other ever since. She moved away. So did I. Weirdly enough, the boyfriend that I talk about, the last boyfriend that I had for five years, was the one that knocked her up for that abortion. Small world? I don't know.

I still hear Annie.

I hear my Grandparents, I hear my husbands father, I heard my bosses dad tell me something about a burgandy and gray golf bag when he died. I refused to tell him. I didn't want to lose my job.

Sometimes I hear people. Well, I see them. I see their images, I feel daydreamy, and I don't try to invite chainsaw noises into my head.

There's more, but that's the gist of it for now. My hands cramped up a long time ago...

amusing myself on a rainy day....

a pleasant way to waste your time

It's the small things that make our country great.

Being able to smash our president into a bubble, then make him hump it for a while, then swing him around and around... I mean, the possibilities are endless.

Now if they could make a game where he eats pretzels, THAT would be the shit.

Psycho Sheep With Bad Aim Seeks Unhelpful Fuckfaces

(This came from my regular blog but I just couldn't let you miss it. I just couldn't. It has nothing to do with sex unless you count some Chinese bitch telling me I'm titless.)

I've been doing a lot of work on how to express anger, how to not be such a passive wuss, and just learning how to speak up for myself in general.

I have found my voice, but as my husband so astutely points out, I don't always have the best of aim. Sometimes I know there is indignation and rage, but who do I aim it at? Who is truly deserving, and who is merely just an overlookable annoyance?

For example, when I came back from the tailor and told dear Mr. Wonderful about how the little Chinese woman ONCE AGAIN (she tailored my wedding dress) managed to point out that I "Have No Boo" (translate: have no boobs), I pondered taking one out of my shirt, jiggling it at her and informing her that just because she speaks crappy English is no reason to constantly insult me by incorrectly stating that I have NO boobs, when in fact, I do have SOME, just not MUCH. Perhaps a good titty wagging in her short little face would bring some light to the situation, and help clear some things up for her.

My husband thought that perhaps this might be a bit much and I might want to tone it down some. I disagreed and said she might want to learn what the English difference is between "very little" and "none" so as not to get punched in the mouth by some irate bitch who has been joked about her itty bitty titties ever since they never arrived in youth. My friends, of course, heard all about that at the wedding and love to joke about how funny it is, "You got no boo!" I'm thinking, yah, keep laughing, you're gonna think it's hilarious when you have no fucking teeth and it comes out, "Youth goth oo boo!" while you wait for the dentist to finish custom making those bajillion dollar dentures.

The other day a friend and I were walking through Big Lots, and I saw the cutest set of bamboo chairs that I thought would be just adorable on my porch. Then I saw the tag on them. Not the price tag, no. It was the tag that said, "Can support up to XXX pounds." Suffice to say the chairs supported someone considerably lighter than me, and I burst out, "Wow! Look at how cute these chairs are! I would so totally get them, except there's just no way they could possibly support my fat ass! I mean, how bad would that be to bring them home and say, 'Look at our new chairs, honey!' and then go crashing to the ground and be rushed off to the emergency room to remove shards of varnished bamboo from my ass? Oh well, guess I won't buy them!"

After that I wanted to look at umbrella's. I found a few, set up throughout the store. Where the actual umbrellas for sale were, I have no idea. I never found them. Again, I loudly lamented, "Oh, if only I could actually BUY an umbrella instead of just wistfully looking up at them! Alas!"

My favorite part was the aisle with the "Hot and Cold Water Dispenser, $69.99" I couldn't help myself, I yelled out, "Holy shit! I saved a bundle! I have one of these at home! It's called a SINK!"

Happily my shopping companion was also PMS-y and on day whatever of quitting smoking. She was about as psycho as me, but I was getting far more vocal about it.

Our next stop was the gardening center, where I found a most lovely plant that I wanted to purchase. Unfortunately, their prices were completely fucking ridiculous (I've WORKED in a greenhouse, PUH-leese!) and so I asked some helpful fuckface, "Do you have this in seeds?" As in, "I like this plant, I would like to grow it, how about you don't bend me over and fuck me up the ass with your gardening trowel by letting it grow a few feet and then sticking it in a bigger pot so you can charge me eight times what it's worth? How about that?"

Helpful Fuckface said, "I don't believe those come in seeds." I looked at him. I said, "Do you mean that YOU do not carry them, but perhaps I might find them elsewhere?" He explained, "No, I mean I don't think they grow seeds. I think they're done by clippings."

I stared at him, waiting for the stupidity of his own words to sink in but they didn't. So I said, "Do you mean to tell me that this plant has no way of propagating itself other than having humans clip and replant it?" He just stared at me, Fuck-Faced. "Is that what you are trying to tell me? Because I just want to be sure that that is what you're saying..." I waited. He could see the "Helpful" diminishing off of the imaginary nametag I had given him, I do believe, and could see that it merely now read, "Fuckface". I turned and walked away from him.

As we drove away with out meager purchases, I told dear shopping companion that I do believe I've just lost it. I've cracked. Snap! Is there any going back? I don't know. Now that I have accessed all this anger (and god help us all, PMS kicked in like a booster rocket from hell) I realize how very much of it there is. I realize now that I really hate a hell of a lot of people. The stupid people in particular. Not the ones that are so stupid that they just can't help it, but the ones that have a vague inkling that they are stupid and try to just cover it up by offering misinformation that even THEY are aware may not be the truth. I'm just fucking OVER it, I told her.

I told her the stories of when I was younger and me and a friend used to yell stupid ass shit out the car window on the way to school, just to blow off some steam. Ok, we were usually high as shit, but still, it was brilliant. When you're sitting smack in the middle of rush hour traffic in 20 degree Michigan weather, it is absolutely LIFE AFFIRMING to roll down your window and screech out of it like a freaking banshee. Bay like a donkey. Neigh like a horse. Look at the people sitting there sipping their fucking frappachinos, hopelessly stuck next to your ass and make sheep noises at them at the top of your lungs. That's just great.

I actually discovered this trick while in line at a Grateful Dead show. People would be tripping and then as you got closer to the entrance, there were these metal barriers to kind of corral you in and keep the line uniform. This is the part where a lot of tripping hippies would start rethinking that whole "Maybe I shouldn't have brought in all that acid and that eighth of weed with me after all" and start getting real sketchy, tweaking out and looking for escape, but there was none to be had. They were too deeply in the throng now, and thousands of people were in line behind them, pushing them along. No way out, unless you jump that gate and the cops were always watching for the ones who tried THAT shit. So, to get people to chill, I would start mooing. Just...mooing. Soon a couple more people were laughing and mooing, and pretty soon a huge group of tripping hippies were mooing their way along in line, paranoia forgotten. Works like a charm.

Anyway, we were driving home from the gardening land of No Longer Helpful Fuckface, and I'd just had it. Bitches telling me I "got no boo", chairs that wouldn't even hold my fat ass, and rejects trying to tell me that plants magically have sex like Ricky and Lucy, or maybe June and Ward Cleaver.

I rolled down my window.

My friend cowered in fear in the seat next to me, knowing there was nothing she could do. I was driving.

I started howling stupid shit out the window, then waited for the best one I could find. Two little hottie surfer boys, coming up on our left, windows rolled all the way down, car pimped out and everything. I waited, grinning maniacally, while my friend tried in vain to disappear into the seat beside me. I waited...they got right up next to me and I leaned out the window, making the loudest fucking sheep noise ever heard. Had we been in Scotland men would have come running and little dogs would have tried to corner me by barking, but instead we're just two hot bitches riding down the road, and two hot dudes just drove by, being scared fucking shitless by one hot bitch losing her fucking mind and screaming like a psycho sheep out the window of her car for NO APPARENT REASON.

The look on the passengers face was priceless, and one I will treasure forever. I laughed so hard I could have laughed up my spleen at the next intersection, only to land on their windshield, but alas, they turned left. I laughed and laughed and laughed till I couldn't breathe, and was actually having a hard time staying on the road.

I've decided that being insane is only fun if I can be a REALLY crazy person, and every day I have that just pisses me the fuck off, watch out you potential Fuckfaces of the Universe.

I am Psycho Sheep. I will destroy your concept of reality, just to take you down with me. And I have bad aim. I am dangerous.

Psycho Sheep With Bad Aim Seeks Unhelpful Fuckfaces

I've been doing a lot of work on how to express anger, how to not be such a passive wuss, and just learning how to speak up for myself in general.

I have found my voice, but as my husband so astutely points out, I don't always have the best of aim. Sometimes I know there is indignation and rage, but who do I aim it at? Who is truly deserving, and who is merely just an overlookable annoyance?

For example, when I came back from the tailor and told dear Mr. Wonderful about how the little Chinese woman ONCE AGAIN (she tailored my wedding dress) managed to point out that I "Have No Boo" (translate: have no boobs), I pondered taking one out of my shirt, jiggling it at her and informing her that just because she speaks crappy English is no reason to constantly insult me by incorrectly stating that I have NO boobs, when in fact, I do have SOME, just not MUCH. Perhaps a good titty wagging in her short little face would bring some light to the situation, and help clear some things up for her.

My husband thought that perhaps this might be a bit much and I might want to tone it down some. I disagreed and said she might want to learn what the English difference is between "very little" and "none" so as not to get punched in the mouth by some irate bitch who has been joked about her itty bitty titties ever since they never arrived in youth. My family and friends, of course, heard all about that at the wedding and love to joke about how funny it is, "You got no boo!" I'm thinking, yah, keep laughing, you're gonna think it's hilarious when you have no fucking teeth and it comes out, "Youth goth oo boo!" while you wait for the dentist to finish custom making those bajillion dollar dentures.

The other day a friend and I were walking through Big Lots, and I saw the cutest set of bamboo chairs that I thought would be just adorable on my porch. Then I saw the tag on them. Not the price tag, no. It was the tag that said, "Can support up to XXX pounds." Suffice to say the chairs supported someone considerably lighter than me, and I burst out, "Wow! Look at how cute these chairs are! I would so totally get them, except there's just no way they could possibly support my fat ass! I mean, how bad would that be to bring them home and say, 'Look at our new chairs, honey!' and then go crashing to the ground and be rushed off to the emergency room to remove shards of varnished bamboo from my ass? Oh well, guess I won't buy them!"

After that I wanted to look at umbrella's. I found a few, set up throughout the store. Where the actual umbrellas for sale were, I have no idea. I never found them. Again, I loudly lamented, "Oh, if only I could actually BUY an umbrella instead of just wistfully look up at them! Alas!"

My favorite part was the aisle with the "Hot and Cold Water Dispenser, $69.99" I couldn't help myself, I yelled out, "Holy shit! I saved a bundle! I have one of these at home! It's called a SINK!"

Happily my shopping companion was also PMS-y and on day whatever of quitting smoking. She was about as psycho as me, but I was getting far more vocal about it.

Our next stop was the gardening center, where I found a most lovely plant that I wanted to purchase. Unfortunately, their prices were completely fucking ridiculous (I've WORKED in a greenhouse, PUH-leese!) and so I asked some helpful fuckface, "Do you have this in seeds?" As in, "I like this plant, I would like to grow it, how about you don't bend me over and fuck me up the ass with your gardening trowel by letting it grow a few feet and then sticking it in a bigger pot so you can charge me eight times what it's worth? How about that?"

Helpful Fuckface said, "I don't believe those come in seeds." I looked at him. I said, "Do you mean that YOU do not carry them, but perhaps I might find them elsewhere?" He explained, "No, I mean I don't think they grow seeds. I think they're done by clippings."

I stared at him, waiting for the stupidity of his own words to sink in but they didn't. So I said, "Do you mean to tell me that this plant has no way of propagating itself other than having humans clip and replant it?" He just stared at me, Fuck-Faced. "Is that what you are trying to tell me? Because I just want to be sure that that is what you're saying..." I waited. He could see the "Helpful" diminishing off of the imaginary nametag I had given him, I do believe, and could see that it merely now read, "Fuckface". I turned and walked away from him.

As we drove away with our meager purchases, I told dear shopping companion that I do believe I've just lost it. I've cracked. Snap! Is there any going back? I don't know. Now that I have accessed all this anger (and god help us all, PMS kicked in like a booster rocket from hell) I realize how very much of it there is. I realize now that I really hate a hell of a lot of people. The stupid people in particular. Not the ones that are so stupid that they just can't help it, but the ones that have a vague inkling that they are stupid and try to just cover it up by offering misinformation that even THEY are aware may not be the truth. I'm just fucking OVER it, I told her.

I told her the stories of when I was younger and me and a friend used to yell stupid ass shit out the car window on the way to school, just to blow off some steam. Ok, we were usually high as shit, but still, it was brilliant. When you're sitting smack in the middle of rush hour traffic in 20 degree Michigan weather, it is absolutely LIFE AFFIRMING to roll down your window and screech out of it like a freaking banshee. Bay like a donkey. Neigh like a horse. Look at the people sitting there sipping their fucking frappachinos, hopelessly stuck next to your ass and make sheep noises at them at the top of your lungs. That's just great.

I actually discovered this trick while in line at a Grateful Dead show. People would be tripping and then as you got closer to the entrance, there were these metal barriers to kind of corral you in and keep the line uniform. This is the part where a lot of tripping hippies would start rethinking that whole "Maybe I shouldn't have brought in all that acid and that eighth of weed with me after all" thing and start getting real sketchy, tweaking out and looking for escape, but there was none to be had. They were too deeply in the throng, and thousands of people were in line behind them, pushing them along. No way out, unless you jump that gate and the cops were always watching for the ones who tried THAT shit. So, to get people to chill, I would start mooing. Just...mooing. Soon a couple more people were laughing and mooing, and pretty soon a huge group of tripping hippies were mooing their way along the corral, paranoia forgotten. Worked like a charm.

Anyway, we were driving home from the gardening land of No Longer Helpful Fuckface, and I'd just had it. Bitches telling me I "got no boo", chairs that wouldn't even hold my fat ass, and rejects trying to tell me that plants magically have sex like June and Ward Cleaver.

I rolled down my window.

My friend cowered in fear in the seat next to me, knowing there was nothing she could do. I was driving.

I started howling stupid shit out the window, then waited for the best one I could find. Two little hottie surfer boys, coming up on our left, windows rolled all the way down, car pimped out and everything. I waited, grinning maniacally, while my friend tried in vain to disappear into the seat beside me. I waited...they got right up next to me and I leaned out the window, making the loudest fucking sheep noise ever heard. Had we been in Scotland men would have come running and little dogs would have tried to corner me by barking, but instead we're just two hot bitches riding down the road, and two hot dudes just drove by, being scared fucking shitless by one hot bitch losing her fucking mind and screaming like a psycho sheep out the window of her car for NO APPARENT REASON.

The look on the passengers face was priceless, and one I will treasure forever. I laughed so hard I could have laughed up my spleen at the next intersection, only to land on their windshield, but alas, they turned left. I laughed and laughed and laughed till I couldn't breathe, and was actually having a hard time staying on the road.

I've decided that being insane is only fun if I can be a REALLY crazy person, and every day I have that just pisses me the fuck off, watch out you potential Fuckfaces of the Universe.

I am Psycho Sheep. I will destroy your concept of reality, just to take you down with me. And I have bad aim. I am dangerous.

shit as a trump card

While talking to a dear friend the other day, she suddenly yelled into the phone, "OOOOOHEEEEYYYYYUUUU!" in utter dismay.

"What is it?" I asked, "What's wrong?"

"I stepped in dog shit!" she howled, and I couldn't help but laugh. Poop, when it isn't happening to you, is always funny.

There was a long pause.

She then quietly whimpered, "I'm barefoot..." and I stopped laughing.
We both agreed that she simply must hang up because having any form of fecal matter on one's skin was simply the end all be all trump card to end a conversation.

The last thing I heard her saying was something about how there wasn't a pot big enough to sterilize her foot in, and that's when it hit me: a test of one's friendship. If you should tell your friend that you have crap on your personage and they keep speaking, you should blacklist them forever.

a fairy tale

Once upon a time there was a woman who had PMS. She went completely fucking beserk and started seriously fucking some shit up.
The End.

don't even bother

Let's be clear about something: I'm about to snap.

I don't mean in any small way, but in a catacalysmic, using words so damn big I can't even spell them, way.

I just got back from seeing another doctor. It's the same doctor. Well, it's my shrink, the third fucking one I've had since I've arrived at this clinic. And like all doctors, I arrive with such hope.

I like to live with hope. I'm starting to think maybe being a jaded fucking depressed bitch was a better plan. I was rarely dissappointed. And when I was let down-which was almost never- having lowered the bar to the floor anyway, it didn't ever catch me by surprise. I just thought, yah, same shit sandwhich, different day.

For almost 20 years, 20 years have I had panic attacks. They started out small, once in a while and have grown to a nearly continual state of being.

For the last 15 years I've had hives. That's gotten a little better since they put me on sedatives.

For 15 years I've had migraines.

For 10 years I've had back pain, particularly sciatica.

For the last 3 years I've had excrutiating back pain, since falling down some cushy concrete steps.

I go to doctors. They tell me this and that. They do tests, they have ideas. They prescribe things. Things seem a wee bit better and then worse. Or just the same, although maybe by comparison it seems worse, since they were better for a little while.

I feel like nothing is happening. I just keep going to doctors who give me fucking attitude and treat me like I'm a fucking junkie or some shit. I'm so fucking over it. And nobody seems willing to take the time to look at the big picture. Nobody.

Today I went to my shrink. She asked me how it was going and what had I been taking. I told her I'd been taking the exact thing she told me to take last time I saw her (details withheld, sorry) and she looked at me like I was insane. “That's too much! You are over medicating!� I stared at her and said, “That's exactly what you told me to take!� She just kept looking at me like I was a fucking lunatic.

She decides to change my medication. It doesn't even fucking matter, I don't think it's helping anyway. I really don't give a fuck anymore. I can't. Do you understand? I can't care about it anymore. I'm so fucking tired of going to doctors, hoping they'll help and they don't help, I'm like their own little personal chemistry set to play with. Weee, let's try this! How about that?

THIS IS MY FUCKING LIFE!

I'm not a goddamn chemistry set, I'm a walking breathing human who has a LIFE, a son, a husband, and doesn't want to be a fucking lunatic anymore. Don't any of you know what to do? Am I that fucked up? Is it just not fixable? Because, I can tell you, sucking on the noisy end of a gun sounds real good on days like today. I know, I know, so shut up. I'm not going to leave my child motherless. But otherwise, I really don't know. I mean, I believe in reincarnation, so what the fuck? This body is fucking defective, send it back. Give me a new one. I'm to the point I'm willing to take my chances. But this one, this one is broken.

Then I thought, maybe if I just fake a suicide, then they'd have to lock me up, right? A herd of doctors would be staring at me night and day, maybe THEN someone would find the answer.

I got home today and threw my medication across the room. Some new shit. Maybe it's the answer, or maybe it's just something else to do nothing but give me a long list of side effects, very unpleasant side effects. Oh joy. I don't even want to take it. I don't even want to believe it might help. Nothing else does, except the one fucking medication that all the doctors desperately want me off of.

Xanax.

Who the fuck knows? Does that even help? Maybe I should just quit taking everything and go for the crash course in Sanity 101. Just go cold turkey, fuck it, and somehow force my body into quit freaking out.

Seems like it could work, just as likely as any of these fucking doctors finding an answer, and just as likely to find me dead somewhere, driven over the edge of...whatever. Where ever.

Yesterday I got this huge packet in the mail from the back specialists. Ok. I opened it up to find out that I don't actually have a referral from my doctor, that all that fucking retard managed to do was to call some place and make me an appointment. HOLY FUCKING CRAP, I couldn't have managed to do that myself! Gee fucking whiz, thanks doc! But that's not all! The appointment is for tomorrow, and I'm supposed to come with a referral or pay full price for some specialist hoo-ha that, let's face it, might accomplish NOTHING AT ALL, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. So I have to call my doctor to get this fucking referral. No dice, can't get through. I call the insurance company, who hand me off to some guy with a thick accent who tells me I don't fucking know what, no matter how many times he explains it.

I finally call the specialist, and explain to the girl that I don't have any idea what I'm supposed to do, but that I have 15 minutes left to cancel my appointment before the 24 cut off period in which I will be charged for anyway, and what the hell do I do? She says, “Oh, no problem, let me put you through to So-and-so.� Oh, I'm getting somewhere. Nope! So-and-so has voice mail, and it says on her voice mail to “leave me 24 hours to get back to you�. I start to laugh and curse and cry, and leave her the most psychotic message, telling her I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do, but that I got handed off to her, here's my info, and if that's isn't good enough, consider my appointment cancelled as of the time of my phone call, which is just minutes away from the 24 hour cut off point.

I'm sure that will all be going down on my permenant record.

Who the fuck cares?

All I'm doing is wasting my husband's money on seeing a bunch of people who treat me like a cookie cutter and not a human. I'm like a little bouncy ball, throwing his money away, and nothing good comes from it. All he gets is a lunatic hysterical wife.

As I laid down in bed last night, crying myself to sleep, he held my hand for awhile and said, “I love you.� I told him I didn't know why he did, but that I was glad he was fucking retarded enough to do so.

I wonder how long it takes for him to get sick of me?

I wonder if I can manage to get my son raised and on his own before I fucking lose it?