surrounded

I'm happy because yesterday was Christmas with one family, and today is another, and then tomorrow is Christmas, and I am definitely on board with stretching these things out as long as possible. On the other hand, these past six or seven days have been a marathon of everything, even when staying at home under the blankets. It happens. I'd had weeks at a time of moderate to good behavior from my body/cells/immune system, but I still wasn't whole, so I think I knew this downturn was coming. I'm getting through this.

S couldn't wait to have me open the gift he'd bought me--it's a print of a painting I'd had my eye on for three years. It is perfectly whimsical and I almost don't want to hang it up, because I like seeing it propped up against the coffee table, inches away. My husband's family Christmas yesterday included a gift of a gorgeous oil lamp more than 100 years old, which is one of those things that had always been on my unspoken list. How did they know?! It makes me feel loved. The coffee I'm drinking makes me feel warm. The jingle bell necklace around my neck makes me feel like I should be playing, so I probably will, to the best of my body, and it'll be another lovely day.

Merry Christmas to all who read this. I hope you smell cinnamon and spice and feel surrounded, accepted, and at home. 

active

I need to issue a correction, or an update, because a half our later S read my psychic plea and came home instead of staying out late, and I let my angsty ridiculous out and then it was gone, and then, even without asking, my best friend also read my psychic plea and came over with her husband and chocolate and holiday cheer, and in the end we were watching How I Met Your Mother and planning for the future, and it was exactly, exactly, what I didn't ask for. Today I'm wearing jingle bells around my neck and though I've only been at work an hour have already purposefully busted through a wall I'd manufactured and am not-blaming those who are not-to-blame, and there's the holiday party this afternoon, and. This is all just providing reinforcement for my passive aggressiveness, I guess. I'll think about that.

passivity

I am thoroughly rotten today. Bad day at work. Bad skull day. Bad diet day. Bad news day. Bad uterus day. And I was passive aggressive when I should have been aggressive, and so S left to go out for the second evening in a row, leaving me sitting alone on the couch with a balled up kleenex in my hand and memories of the panic attacks that were crippling me a year ago.
I am feeling very needy without the ability to verbalize what, exactly, I need. Clearly I need what's coming at the end of the week: a twelve day break from work. Turns out it's very, very hard not to be poisoned by what happened with the non-job last week. Maybe by January I'll be kinder.
I should be better than I am. I have, right now, the thing I crave most of the year, in the lighted Christmas tree in a dim living room. Presents underneath with ribbons I curled myself. I have fresh chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven. I have Netflix. I have the ability, if not the strength of character, to ask for help. None of this is helping, probably because all I'm actually pulling off is passivity and silence, inside and out. It's dumb. I want S. 

something to see

You know how sometimes you just have the strong feeling that if you keep your eyes open, there will be Something To See. I felt this on the drive home from my parents' house this afternoon. Thinking, maybe a kingfisher, or cat stalking through a field. What I got was the top half of an ass crack of a man leaning behind his truck's open hood. I'm still delighted that I was right. 

fair

It might be good to not be such a consummate whiner or to not say anything at all for weeks until something goes wrong. But yesterday I was passed over for a promotion I wanted and deserved, and this morning was locked out of my workstation for the first half hour because of a not-my-fault password snafu, and my eyelids are swollen because I had a Thing last night wherein I got very, very upset and snotty over disrespect, penury, and the debilitating disease routing my father in law, and I just kind of want to get that OUT.

I would much, much rather be curled up on the couch at home in front of the Christmas tree maybe with some spicy tea, and the curtains shut.

In spite of this and because I am who I am, I'll dig around for some things to add weight to the other end of the scale. Like this video. And the free coke up in the staff lounge. And the picture my husband texted me of his belly. And only six days after this one of work until the university closes til January. And the cluster of people who had been and still are rooting for me. Oh, and my health. It's getting much better, thanks. The ratio of clear headed steady footed days to days I feel like my skull is lining itself with jalapenos and the world is spinning is shifting closer to 'fair'. Whatever. Husband's belly and I will make it work.

lousy day to

not have a late-morning run across town to our storage site, because I
could use a half hour to self-pity in peace.

good morning

Very thankful to have the rest of the week off of work, and to have the first morning in nearly a month when neither S nor me are a slave to an alarm and to have an hour and more to spare in the mornings to sip our coffee and smile at each other and listen to a new episode of RadioLab. I am always going to be grateful to have married someone with bright eyes and ears and an endless curiosity that mirrors and magnifies my own. 

not guilty

My guilt sensors are way off. I definitely just profusely apologized for pushing my book cart through the microforms room when a stressed out lady told me that doing so was disrespectful because it distracted her from her research. Yeah. No. And lately I've felt that twinge of responsible guilt for things that went wrong that I had absolutely no connection to. A misplaced set of passenger van keys. An unlocked office door. A mystery beer cap falling out of a blanket. Times like this always remind me of the time when I was a child and a craft stand lady accused me of stealing a ring when I hadn't, to semi-traumatic results. I can use that to justify becoming an unrepentant actual thief and becoming the opposite. But in the meantime I'm having to cross my legs to not go back downstairs and again, DO MY JOB in front of the frazzled scolder, to remind her that I have the upper hand. I didn't.

good news

I found another pair of work pants in my closet that still fit! I have been growing a beer belly without the beer and without anything auspicious like pregnancy to back it up. I am glad to have at least one more pair of pants to wear during the week before I either stop eating cheese or start being able to walk/bike/run. Or bow to reality and go shopping.

I hit the trifecta of my personal city/state/country vote aligning with the rest of the city/state/country. It was exciting. Now we all need a nap and a renewed commitment to civility, innovation, and cooperation.

My Halloween costume appears to be destined to be used as pajamas (well, duh) for the indefinite future. We're all pleased here.

I'm feeling snuggly. I don't mind the advent of the cold. My work sweater fits me well.

go vote

1. I cannot BELIEVE S and I forgot to watch V for Vendetta yesterday evening.

2. I have been living my life thus far (movie watching aside) by letting decisions make themselves for me. I kind of like waiting until there's no other option, or someone else preempts my choice. That's how I ended up moving to Virginia, for example. Or staying here. I am fervently setting myself up for another non-decision in the next month or two. It's not very adult of me, but whatev.

3. This election season has been stressing me out, because I'm growing into a political being. It was not well timed, and it was NOT a decision, but rather the result of open ears, exposure to the very people governments like to marginalize, and an insatiable appetite for NPR. It was inevitable. And then I blocked my mother in law from my facebook. Heh. Anyway, all of you should vote. No matter for whom. Don't worry about my mother in law. I'm already going to be cancelling out her vote, and we'll be fine starting tomorrow. Feel free to add your vote in wherever and for whomever. But so help me god, the minute you start publicly posting hateful, offensive things about those with whom you disagree on facebook, boom.

4. I accidentally doubled the amount of coffee I drank this morning. Yikes. It might be a long/short day today.

no straight lines

I remember how a year ago on Halloween someone didn't recognize me, even sitting at my desk. This year there was no question, and I went home and took a nap without much chocolate.

I slept like a rotisserie chicken last night. My health is not good (this year/week). I am dripping with whine. So all I've managed to do is hang a few posters.

I think I have to wait for the new year to do whatever it will be to finally get a clear head? I'm partially just mad because this will be the third Thanksgiving in a row that I've been not-optimal, and I love Thanksgiving. It had always been a favorite.

I did scrub out the bathtub rather furiously and then lie on my back in it and think about volcanoes, and I did listen to a lovely Tchaikovsky symphony in the evening. And yesterday I handled a long morning with music and clapping and an Italian lunch even though I kept taking honesty personally. S cut up a pomegranate for us to share and there was a lot of room for snuggling and talking about election history for the rest of the day.

It's even harder to talk in straight lines these days than it used to be--I'm sorry! I'm stuck in a year long head cold.

ZINNIAS

Zinnias, stout and stiff,
Stand no nonsense: their colors
Stare, their leaves
Grow straight out, their petals
Jut like clipped cardboard,
Round, in neat flat rings.

Even cut and bunched,
Arranged to please us
In the house, in water, they
Will hardly wilt--I know
Someone like zinnias; I wish
I were like zinnias.

~Valerie Worth

getting used to things

Today, it's a year of the virus that has been the biggest bitch, ever. A year! I haven't said much (or said much at all) about it lately because... uh. We're all just tired. I do kind of think I'm getting my feet under me again, because I always think that. But I've also been keeping track of the days that suck so much they make me cry, and there have been only four so far this month. There were seven in September. And believe it or not, two whole days this month during which I felt perfectly normal from morning til night (!!). So, it's better. I still can't do anything. I'm still spending most of my free time on the couch. Not strong or steady enough to walk or bike to work. I'm getting quite puffy because of it. But I am pretty confident in my ability to tough out the normal stuff. My days are no longer a constant battle to make it to the next hour. And I haven't let not feeling well keep me away from doing the kinds of social things healthy April loves. So. Screw it. I do feel better when I think I feel better. I keep trying that.

I'm really happy with a few things about myself, including my eyelashes and my feet.

And a patron just dropped off a 3 lb box of assorted cookies for me as a thank you.

I am reminding myself that I am flexible and adaptable, despite the fact that I resist change with a growling, toe dragging fervor. Who I am is changing. Work is changing. My plans are changing. And I'm just trying to focus on the fact that I get used to things. It's my superpower. I get used to things.

bent on undoing

I had a dentist appointment today and so afterward I found myself drinking cherry coke. That's like me.

I am feeling work stress. I am feeling wronged. I am feeling lucky, anyway.

genius

The best/worst thing in my life these days is the discovery that I am capable of making absolutely killer homemade pizza hotpockets.

in portents

I dismiss everything as a coincidence these days. It's kind of the opposite of what I normally do. I'm not sure if it's proving helpful. Finding portents in the way the traffic flows and in almond milk and in the color of the carpet keeps me occupied, at the very least. But it's also a bit of a victory to not blame the half mile's jog.

I probably shouldn't have

Stopped at BK for a smoothie on the way home from work because I was grumpy

Gotten my hopes up about dumb things like... recovery

Watched five episodes of American's Next Top Model in one evening

Called out my mother-in-law on the {offensive} political vitriol she posts on facebook

Worn the same pair of disposable contact lenses for two months in a row, even after they started hurting

Written that sarcastic, jokey email that got forwarded to my boss and makes me look like a glib dumbass

Put off keeping in touch with my semi surrogate mother because I... because I... keep running out of things...

what even is that

Cake from the deep freeze still tastes like the day of the wedding, and feeding each other. There's another one--a wedding--this evening, even in the middle of the week. Stealing the spotlight from the president and his challenger (in my mind).

I misfired on Sunday/Monday and I'm still trying to get back on my feet. My eyes are still drooping shut and I'm trying to release the tension in my neck and cheeks. It's like the boys living a floor below us and their booming bass below our bed--even when it's not keeping me awake, I'm bracing for it. Tense, in case I have a reason to be so. This is 90% in my body. I am 90% handling it/not crazy. The other 10 is usually tears and huddling discomfortably under a blanket, but that's down from I'd say, 60, a few months ago. I wonder if it's food? Allergic to my tooth fillings? Allergic to my muscles? We still don't know, and the only thing we found last week when we looked in my head again were swollen membranes. What even is that.

Husband looks good in the new tie I bought him.

I can literally dress for days in clothes that my best friend handed down to me. I'm wearing her underwear today, and it's not weird. I benefit wildly from her long torso and the shirts and pants that don't quite hit right when they've shrunk up. I need to keep reminding myself to give back in turn (not clothes, but company, and encouragement, and warm ears). I am scent-oriented, and always have been, so there are times when I don't want to wash the sweater she gives me, because it still smells like her brand of spice and green things.

This is something that is bringing me a lot of happiness and nourishment these days. It's hard not to respect it. You should try. 

bragging

Oh my man. I've been married to you for a year. And it is not ridiculous to assume that I'm going to keep loving you incrementally more every single day of my life, because that's what's been happening so far. You frustrate me sometimes, and you can bewilder me with your man-logic and your collection of paradoxes, but oh, do I ever love you, all of you. You are empowering and patient and brilliant, and sometimes when we're lying in bed talking, you make me laugh so hard I can't breathe. You are music and dance and passion. You are something to be proud of and someone to delight in. My favorite thing about you is your empathy and the part in you that never ever tries to 'fix' my emotions--instead you celebrate my humanity and your own, never trying to shape either of us into anything artificial. You're very real. Practical and solid. You fit me so well, and you love me so well, and I wish there were a way to just let everyone know that this guy here? You know how great he is with friends/at work/with family? Well. You haven't seen the half of it. You should see what he is when he is in full on husband mode. He is absolutely stunning. I love you, babe.

Alvin

I'm not really sure how you mourn a man who was 92 and ready to die. I'm not really sure how you mourn a quiet, hardworking, dairy farmer whose skin sloughed itself off from decades in the sun. I'm sad because he had a strong cleft chin, and what if these go extinct? I'm sad because my grandma hasn't recognized him or anyone else for years, but now how will she stand being alone in the nursing home? I'm sad because my dad still called him 'daddy' and because he was the human version of gravity. Steadfast, solid, strong, serious. He always cried lately. So many of my memories of him are second hand because a shy girl and a shy grandpa never spent much time alone together, but I understand this, and it doesn't stop me from aching over his death, because even in his silence he was the strongest man in the world, and so, so, so good, of the concerted, deliberate, patient variety, the way my own father became in his footsteps. I'm sad because I wouldn't be here without him, and I haven't yet figured out what qualities I've inherited from him, and because this weekend we are saying goodbye to one of the most generous and GOOD (can I stress it more?) people who has ever lived, and definitely I'm sad because doesn't a grandparent dying always make you feel less connected? Another one of my roots isn't here any more. My family will be driving up to the NY/PA border this weekend. I guess this is how it's all meant to go.

life going off

Last night I saw a picture of my grandpa in his nursing home bed and immediately teared up and said to myself, 'my grandpa is going to die.' Then, this morning, he did.

gray Tuesday

The rain caught up to my desire for rain, and now I'm thinking it would be a good day for a pumpkin spice latte, but that would mean waiting in line. We need a recliner here.

I've had

I've had bacon and eggs and an adorable, hairy husband kneeling at my feet. I've had a rotten tummy (thanks, antibiotics!) and an abandoned walk. I've had a book a weekend, football, and dreams about invitations. I've had new neighbors below us who are college boys with a midnight passion for loud music, who have been agreeable when we ask them at 2:38 am to turn it down. I've had blueberries and a heartbeat and serious conversations and potting soil and a 50 foot radius. I've had an anachronistic desire for rain.

at large in the library for 30 minutes

A kid, trying to be courteous, held open the door to the stairs for me as I was coming up to his right pushing a full book cart. Oh, child. I can't walk these down. I thanked him anyway as I rolled past to the elevator. The building is always so full of smells when school is in session. I smell it all. I felt like I was chasing perfumes. The smell of the girl in the periodicals room was an A-, the dude in microforms room was a solid C. One of the stacks smelled like onions or body odor or both, and doesn't it suck so much that you can't always tell those apart?! There's a student whose name I saw today called Idayat and I KNOW that it's just an unfortunate collision with the English language, but I'm sorry on his/her behalf. Also, for no reason I can tell, I've had a rash of misidentifying ethnicities from behind. There are a lot of all sorts of people from all over the world in this building, and I love seeing all of them. And maybe this is vaguely racist? but I have misclassified a few people lately based on the back of their heads. Where am I going wrong? What else in my trip? I have a distaste for those glossy design periodicals, I'm sorry, I just can't work with them. They are all oversize and lacking page numbers. I'm only human. It's a better coup to find the needed material when they're in a magazine like this--one I'd much much rather cut up and make into a collage than try to nagivate. Ok, so I get to crow right now, I guess, for being better at my job than the people who tried to track this down before me! I think, though, that my ego is falsely inflated, because I only fixate on the times I am successful. It's ok. I need victories. I also needed the dark chocolate Hershey's kisses at the circulation desk. And the side staff door to tech services being unlocked for only the second day this week (THANK YOU), and the familiar way the 4th floor button in the stacks elevator always has to be pushed twice.

5:00 am

Oh lord. I just keep avoiding.

Well, I had a crappy and beautiful and frustrating and exhausting and fantastic and grumpy and disappointing and lovely week and a half. The wedding in Indiana? I was very glad to be there, but getting there and back was inconvenient and I should totally know better by now than to announce that I'm feeling healthy, because right after I do, I get punched back, so yes, no, the wave of good feeling did not last and I did end up feeling achy, sticky, and tragic most of the weekend. The good news is (other than the wedding and the family) that I pulled it off, despite the clamor of my skull. I've settled into a half comforting, half soul killing pattern over the last few months of feeling good for a handful of days, and then having a setback of three or four days wherein the gerbils in my head come roaring back. I am gearing up for another round of appointments. But that's neither here nor there (well, actually, at the moment, it's very much here)... as I said, I managed the weekend well. I even managed well the fact that S and I got home at 5:00 am on Monday and left for North Carolina three hours later. I counted up, and I've spent about 54 hours in the car in the last two weeks. If that's an exaggeration, it's not by much, and it's only because I have no math skills. As they have done in the past the skull gerbils only lasted a few days, and so by Wednesday life was wonderful. S and I had a very us-affirming few days at the beach. We entertained and were entertained by his family, but mostly it was just him and me, swimming in the ocean, walking on the beach, swimming in the beach house pool (it is almost too much), eating rich food, sneaking beers from his mom's stash in the basement fridge. Oh, and the hot tub. Yeah. I definitely had a few moments or maybe a few days during which I felt completely completely well and like me. I was me. We laughed a lot. I did not wear a bra even once, and my nose and cheeks freckled, and everything tasted like salt. We came back home on Friday, with just enough turnaround time to do a bunch of laundry, sleep a night in our own beds, and play a gig (him, not me), before hopping back on the road to take a pointless trip up to Maryland. It wasn't supposed to be pointless. There were six of us, and three of us (NOT me) were to compete in a badass race early Sunday morning. So we were up there and ready Saturday evening, filling up on carbs, putting the finishing touches on team shirts, going to bed early at the hotel, but then we were woken up before dawn by notifications that the race had been flooded out and was cancelled. Not a whole let else to do at 5:00 am in a hotel in Maryland when the race is off. So we watched Bruce Almighty and then came back south. Stopped at a Perkins for breakfast. Were home and napping by noon. As disappointed as I was on S's behalf, I was glad to be home sooner than anticipated. I could feel my tides rolling back. I wonder if it was the stress. According to my calculations, I might be feeling decent again by Thursday. Or I might not, because I have not been going easy on me so far this week. I've set a new compromised-state-April record (out of stubbornness, not real readiness) in that I've walked a total of 15 miles in the past two days. It's fall. The air really should have curative effects, shouldn't it? 

thank you antibiotics?

I've had a note scrawled on a post it note on my desk for months and I had no idea why I'd written 'WJF' but I didn't toss it because, well, I wouldn't. I just realized it actually says INFJ and that makes a whole lot more sense. More sense than the sign for a 'Hawaiian Laua' pizza at the deli downtown. Or my boss always never using the right 'your.' Always never.

Well, in other news, there's a trailer park outside my window, and I'm on a roll of almost a week of feeling good, like actually GOOD. I feel like myself and have felt like myself for enough days in a row that I'm getting a little bit of confidence back. I'm beginning to blunder forward fearlessly again, yes I am. I have no idea if this good physical state is a permanent thing, but it is a gift, no doubt, and it is seemingly setting me up very well for these next ten days of traveling mayhem. Knock on wood, I suppose.

I'm going to go to Indiana and North Carolina and Maryland, brb.

assets

Things I have:

A jar of pickles under my desk to celebrate my favorite coworker's birthday

A lovely soon to be new sister, because my brother found a really really good one to agree to be his wife

This song stuck in my head

A good leftover loop going for lunches

A husband who, just because, brings home a baguette and fancy cheese and rich red wine

Shampoo that smells like lavender

A Netflix subscription

Hand-me-down wrapping paper

Freckles on my shoulders and nose

Three thriving house plants

A deep and abiding love for Ben & Jerry's Coffee Toffee ice cream

A glorious mom-made quilt on a soft and wide queen sized bed

An air popcorn popper passed down from my grandma, that I love

A plastic skeleton chillin in my living room

A baggy of blueberries in my top desk drawer

doing something

I have had a summer (and a spring, and a winter) of feeling tied to the couch. But, it appears, if all goes well, I will be ending the summer on a three week spree of doing something. I was THIS close to rsvping no to the bridal shower of my very first best friend up in NY this weekend, but then my mom offered to come along, and so I am going, and I'll be there. I waffled for a few months about a family wedding in Indiana on Labor Day weekend, but in the end, that was another say yes, I'll be there. And after that, four or five days in the Outer Banks with S's family, at a posh yellow beach house that has its own swimming pool, never mind the ocean just over the sand dune. After THAT, my superhuman husband is running the Tough Mudder with his brother and a friend up in Maryland, and I'm going along to be photographer, cheerleader, and pieces picker upper, providing there are any after they've finished. By the time all this is over the fall semester will be more than swinging, and my hours will go back up to full time, and it'll be getting cooler, and dear LORD I better be getting better. I'm on one last round of antibiotics before we have to go nuclear again, and please lets all cross our fingers on my behalf. 

powerwashing

It has rained so much and so hard in the past month or so that the silver 'Civic' on the back of my car has been power washed off. That's not even an exaggeration. I'm not a farmer in the midwest and I'm not yet a foot-commuter again, and I don't live in a basement. So the weather is just a thing. The rain and thunder, even on a Sunday morning, is just a background. I am indifferent, and I'm still calm.

This second thing is unrelated, but last evening I drew blood by dropping a butter knife on my foot. That's not even the first time I'd bled myself with a butter knife. But it was the first time it was on my foot. There's no significance there. 

pricklily

I am listening to choral music on youtube and squinting because I've not been able to shake off a wave of tired, tired, tiredness. I welcome this tiredness, though, because it's the tiredness of an inner silence, whereas for months it'd been the tiredness of mental exhaustion from a constantly roiling mind as well as a beat up body. Today I do feel pricklily sick, but I'm also blessedly, blessedly empty.
I've been through another round of another doctor. This one is obese and forward and last week was not encouraging, but today he was. There has been another thing on my list of potentially wayward body parts that has been checked off as 'just fine.' Better than fine, actually. He said, I couldn't have gotten better results if I'd cheated. I'm not sure how you cheat dizziness. But the important thing is that there IS a next thing on the list that I can fight and check.
A year and more will go by, I think. I got sick in the fall and then I had a mental breakdown, and I'm still sick, but at least my head is more on my shoulders (today). What a narrative this will be when it ever gets to the end.
I was reminded (it is entirely appropriate, seeing as who reminded me), that this last Monday was the equivalent of the Monday two years ago when S stopped me on my way toward the door on my way home and said, 'I have something for you.' 'For me?' '...If you want it...' and I incautiously agreed, and when I looked up he was holding out a diamond ring. He's the same man who always thanks me these days for being home at night when he gets off a 15 hour shift. It's pretty remarkable.

I just started crocheting a new afghan and I have someones in mind to give it to on their wedding day. 

dealing with it

I have finally come to terms with the fact that I don't like raw onions. I fought it for a while, but screw it. It's cooked onions or bust. My next goal is to come to terms with the fact that I still don't not feel weird. Still. There's dealing with it and then there's dealing with it and I can do the first only.

noticing

Here is a news bulletin about my lower half: I have bug bites down the backs of my legs. Probably from sitting in the grass, watching corn hole. And I'm also wearing pants that are... wearing... thin at the crotch, and I'm having a hard time stopping wearing them. I haven't bought new clothes in the better part of a year.

Last night at the band concert that I wasn't playing (but my oboe was, actually, in someone else's hands) they played such a good set of songs, and one of them was the piece that I walked down the aisle to on October 1st. It was because of that band arrangement that we used it, actually. The conductor was our organist and handed it to us on a platter. It startled me when I was the only one who noticed.

Ugh. There are a lot of things I am doing that make me feel dumb, and make me feel overwhelmed, and I think I keep accidentally offending a coworker, and I have more tasks than time and.

BUT, I am feeling (kind of, in small doses) that I am capable of a comeback.

I'm wearing the same shirt I wore three years ago

I have been loving this man of mine for three years as of today. Three years ago we were just kind of friends and we rode to Staunton together sometimes, but then on a Thursday in August he asked if I wanted to go out to dinner with him and I did, of course I did, so we spent the evening together. Had dinner, went for a walk in the woods, sat on a hill and talked and talked and by the end of the night I asked him if he wanted a girlfriend and he said yes, so I became one. He is no longer the same man I walked and talked with that night, and right at the beginning he told me he was afraid he'd become less of himself if he was in a relationship, but the opposite happened. He is so much bigger, stronger, wiser, and more genuine today than he was that August. He's my superman, and he is never stopping getting better, at everything. At loving me, at loving himself, at relaxing, at working hard, at being just the best damn man in the world.

at once

I dreamed I was in jail last night, and I spent a lot of last evening thinking about comparative nipple sizes. I'm watering plants and overeating and undersleeping and developing blisters. I've made another appointment, I've finally fallen for Trailer Park Boys, I'm whipping through a to-do list today. I am proud to my guts of S, with his straight As and running and weight lifting and wearing clothes without holes. I am behind at work and getting behinder because I am moving... like... this.... Why does my left armpit smell and my right not? I haven't worn deodorant in a year, and sometimes I think I should again. Maybe just on the one side. I think I did better when I used to sweat righteously, not the prickly waiting on hold with the pharmacy sweat. Tis the season of cherries and plums and living in flip flops.

unrelated

I am quite grateful for this today, because of the tininess and the mewing, and I'm missing a family reunion because I am afraid, and I painted my fingernails gold, and I have a filthy kitchen and a small wildfire in my head (boo), and my hair is six inches shorter, and my ass is more aligned today and I'm SITTING and STANDING without whimpering, and I'm wishing I had an extra $1000, and did you get a load of the torch lighting? I was entranced. I'm drinking a spinach smoothie in hopes that this will inject me with superpowers.

looking forward

I am excited about the Olympics, because they make me human-cry. I am sad about a favorite lunch spot of mine closing, because they had the best tater tots.

Yesterday was S's birthday and it was a marathon of a day and I love him much, much more today that I did a year ago, or even on October 1st. He played an awesome gig and then I gave him a skeleton and we sipped scotch before he left for a night shift.

I'm doing alright. Dunno if it's coincidence or correlation, but having an actual part of my body that is in pain (my ass!) is making it hard to notice my perma-dizziness and skull pressure. Maybe it's gone for good. I have never given up the idea that it could disappear overnight. I limp and gripe today, but I feel pretty well wholly April. Have not been so in the better part of a year. I won't be surprised, though, if tomorrow the wave crashes back in and a new family of gerbils hatch. It's ok. It's going to be ok. I am definitely looking forward.

I AM BOOBYTRAPPED

I think the only parts of my body that are not not working to snuff are my left leg and my hands (THANK YOU, LEFT LEG AND HANDS). Last week it was a bad pap smear result. This week it is a SERIOUSLY PAINFUL gammy hammy. I AM USELESS. I AM DRIPPING WITH MELODRAMA AND ASIDE FROM THE PAIN AND IMMOBILITY, I HAVE TO ADMIT, I'M ENJOYING THIS A LITTLE BIT. Really, sometimes I give into hysterics that I very well could curtail. NO, though, I WILL burst into tears and dramatically fling myself across the room (metaphorically. Literally, today I neither have the energy or the ability to move). I will NOT let common sense win. I WILL spend today yelling. This is all nucking futs.

not special

These days I am feeling

not special 

but atypical, 

and that's not nearly as fun. 

In other news, my heart is 100% normal and I just ate an entire bag of doritos. I have a lot of ground to make up/make in the first place. 

placeholder

A guy walks into a bar with a lizard on his shoulder. "What do you call that?" asks the bartender. "Tiny," says the guy. "Because he's my newt."

second saturday

I am very glad today is Saturday. I thought yesterday was, because I wasn't in the office. But I'm glad it wasn't, because I wasn't in the office because of an all day interlibrary loan conference in the middle of the state. What a shitty way to spend a Saturday. If it had been a Saturday.
I let my mind wander a lot during the sessions, and had a throwback to high school as I almost entirely filled in our schedule paper with tiny, scribbly doodles. I am just so very incapable of not doing things with my hands. That includes talking. But mostly it's the other stuff. I looked for holes in the conference attendants list and circled all the gaps. No last names that start with E I Q X Z. We're even worse with the first names. I feel like every letter should be represented, in a group like this. I am not much help, though, with my A and B. (It was either counting letters or a boredom stupor during a 100% patronizing presentation, the kind where it was explained how to click on a link in a website, and how to fill out a form.)
I will say this for the conference, though--it always lights a bit of a fire in me (just a bit, I'm still pretty tame, career-wise) about libraries, librarians, and especially ILL. It's just such a good thing, right? And the people that do it? I mean, can you top them? No you cannot. I sat at a table with a funny lady with a she-mullet who took notes on her ipad. I love that. We are very karmic people. There is give and take, and above all, balance. No wonder it suits me.

I was glad to be home afterward, although you wouldn't know it by the way I grumped along all evening. Survivor's grump. 

medley

Thyme in my teeth, hangnails, limp hair. I had a face to face encounter with a cockroach today. On my windowsill I have an avocado pit finally bursting into life. I have basil over the limit. I have fish from my husband in my belly. I'd forgotten how thin the walls are at the women's health center. I am thank you note shamed, and in awe of the ricocheted volume of the hay bale chipper. I bought hand soap that smelled like an old best friend, but it disappeared, I guess, between Target and my apartment. Somewhere in there, too, the pill capsules busted. And I am so caught up. 

whining

Don't read this. I hate being a whiner. Uh, I hate other people thinking I'm a whiner. So don't read this.

My body is still not functioning well, and sometimes I'm ok at dealing with it as calmly as possible/denying the severity of my weaknesses/soldiering on bravely. But sometimes I am not. And at the moment it is consuming me. I am very frustrated with my fear levels. Things I am afraid of these days include: waiting rooms, heat, loud noises, crowded restaurants, people who don't already know me, potlucks, red lights, standing. And definitely I'm terrified of disappointing people, especially S. Missing out on what alternate reality healthy April would be loving right now. I am so frustrated. If I had the energy I'd be punching things, screaming at the top of my lungs in my car, and biking up a mountain, just to get this OUT. OUTTT. It is so exhausting to only have two modes: when I'm not at home or in a similarly 'safe' space, I am constantly on edge, monitoring my energy levels, monitoring my anxiety levels, monitoring every little head-spin or ache JUST IN CASE. And when I'm at home, I am relaxed, finally, but am useless. All I do is lie in bed or on the couch, all the time. In a frigging coma of I-am-not-myself. I haven't done anything. I haven't done anything. I am so, so, so tired of this. I do have my good moments and I have my good moods. I am still functioning. I can still laugh and love and be April-ish. They just take a lot of work and a lot of willpower and I'm TIRED of not really being here. I'm tired of missing myself and being missed by all who love me. I get it. I do. I'm at a loss.

gobsmacked

I cannot stop sweating I NEED A SHOWER AND I'VE BEEN PUTTING IT OFF FOR DAYS I DON'T KNOW WHY. It is not very beautiful in my armpits or my brain today. I've been gobsmacked by the elevator across the floor with the buttons on the other side of the door. I'm counting the pulses in my head. It would not surprise me today if the seat of my pants split. Seems plausible. After running away in tears from something that should have been manageable and lashing out at myself for the rest of the day yesterday (I fight with cheese) I have to be relieved today (temporarily) by the cold coffee and the oddly kindred spirit who rode with me to the castle and back. I fumble with the keys until I almost lock them in the van. I'm not in the right place, but a good long shower and a full night's sleep might help.

protected

I am feeling quite taken-care-of these days, and listened-to and loved. I should say I always have been, because I have. But lately it seems stronger, somehow. My health is still somewhat of a blurry question mark, but I actually had a doctor call me at 8:00 last evening to answer my questions and give me recommendations. So I feel better today, as I always do after I talk to someone calm and knowledgeable, and after I have a new plan to try. I think, on the macro level, I'm getting back on my feet. And the things that are worrying me and keeping me up at night are being addressed.

Besides that, I really did have a wonderful week last one. I love LOVE my extended family. There are some aunts and cousins of mine that just hit the spot, you know? I have no problem making them a priority. We were in a nice little cabin, in a nice little state park, and the weather was hospitable. I did a -very- little bit of hiking/walking/swimming, and an even less bit of being incapable and I only cried about that a tiny bit. The majority of the week was spent sitting happily, around a picnic table or on a camp chair, with a jigsaw puzzle or a book or a fresh breeze, with delicious food from the grill, and card games and champagne and pie. I laughed a lot, I loved a lot, I wasn't ever alone and I liked it that way. There was a lot of greenery and bird song and comfort. We should do it again.

Back home on Friday in front of the derecho that has still stranded my in-laws without electricity. And back in the arms of the husband I had been craving and aching for. He's such a good one. Even when he's infuriating. Sometimes I find myself following him around the apartment like a needy cat, butting my head into his shoulder, asking to be petted. He does. I help him study for his summer classes, and he kisses me on top of my head and tells me that I am made of electric satin. Our love is very easy and fulfilling and I am so, so thankful for every little inch of him. Before I was married, even before I'd ever dated seriously, I had this vision of what being married could feel like, and I was right--it feels like security and a layer of invulnerability. It takes away my fear of the future, because I know that he'll be with me and we'll face it together. It makes me confident. He's the bubble wrap that surrounds me and protects my sharp edges from getting bruised, and that's a damn good thing.

reentry

I can tell I've been away from work for a week, because I keep accidentally hitting the 3 instead of the Enter key on the number pad. Absence makes the pinky wander.

storms

I got back into town before a big scary storm hit yesterday evening. I almost felt like it was my fault. Here comes the hurricane. My lover and I were alone for an evening by candlelight after a week apart. And then we got into a fight. I'll feed him cobbler this evening to make up for it.
The power was on again for good at midnight, so we are fine, fine. But there have been whole weddings moved and frustrated by places still in the dark and buried behind downed trees.
I ate sauerkraut and cherries for lunch today, and I washed our bedsheets, and when I was in town delivering keys to a coworker a police officer drove by slowly, laughing at the way my hands were flapping around as I spoke. 'I think if I handcuffed you, you wouldn't know how to talk.' That's probably true. It's kind of nice that I'm distinctive?
I'm paranoid about my heart. I probably have no reason to be, especially after a normal EKG a few months ago, but sometimes I am hit with oppressive weakness, and I feel it in my chest, and I think, this is it, the pain is just proving my point. If my heart pops a hole and and I fall over, gray and dead, please don't have my funeral on the same day a storm rolls in. 

seven days

I am hoping to perfect the art of relaxation this next week. Seven days, lady family, cabin, Kindle, good food, good games, nature, swimming pool. I think that's a promising recipe.

want some wasabi snack mix?

They do NOT tell you in premarital counseling that when you send your husband out for gummy bears and snacks from the bulk section of the co-op, sometimes he comes home with $77 worth. I kind of feel like Marilla, bewildered by Matthew's 20 pounds of brown sugar.

I'm trying to decide to be charmed.

prejudged out

You know how sometimes the people you don't like, or think you don't like, turn out in the end to be the most compassionate and generous when you're in a time of need? I think that's like a miracle.

!

I woke up with an exclamation mark in my step this morning. !

it was good

The top of my forehead is burnt, and I'm in a bit of a snit about spoiled food and dirty laundry and solid rain, but I ate an everything bagel from my hometown grocery store three mornings in a row, did a lot of hopping up and doing things, and I felt really quite well for about 75% of the weekend on the lakefront. I am steeped in love. They are my favorites.
Yesterday was a little tragic, with the goodbyes and the whole year away and the rising tide of April-disgustingness and a solo 7.5 hour drive south. My saving grace on the drive was stubbornness and Mary Doria Russell through the speakers. I only hit the rumble strips once. There were tears and disbelief and a thorough shower when I arrived at home. But it was worth it, for my soul. Four days and I'll leave again.

nerved

Three conversations going on at once, a jackhammer outside the window. I am nerve-tired. I need ear plugs.

going somewhere

I'm taking a drive up to NY this weekend to spend a few days at a lake house in the crotch of Keuka Lake with my oldest friends. I'm traveling alone, and am not even going to think of the possibility of a failure of my body or my car. Shut up, I won't hear it. I'll be fine. I'll sit a lot.

Later this month my mom, sister, and I, an aunt, and two of my most beloved cousins are going to Ohio to a cabin in the woods for a week. I don't even care that I'll probably have to spend a lot the week being passive. I do not care. It is still something I have been counting down to for months.

It has just been so long since I've GONE somewhere, at all. I still sometimes entertain the fantasy of an instant fix to the damage that has been done to my body/mind/cells. So it's pretty easy to imagine GOING SOMEWHERE as the catalyst. Perhaps I'll sit on a dock this weekend and look at the lake for an hour and when I stand up, I'll be cured. Or maybe sleeping in a cabin in a state park will be like a shot of vitamin B. Or a mitochondria transplant. I think I need one of those.

I have no choice

I have to measure the success of the day in a pot of beans and folded laundry. The rest of me is aching with inactivity and artificial air. Right now I honestly cannot separate the way I feel from the way I've been acting like I feel. This couch is a sinkhole, and my husband will be out at a gig til late, late, late. I am not today the girl who could go along. 

luck

Earlier this week I decided to be lucky, so I won a $5 Starbucks card in a bingo game. Everything else should be that easy.

view from the lawn

I bombed out of the concert last night. I cried about it, and then I calmed down, and then I was in the audience and a random dude spent the whole evening chatting me up even though I was really quite pathetic and he was aware that my husband was watching us from on stage. Also, fireflies kept landing on me like I was a Disney princess. So I'm ok.

one, two

A paragraph of woe-is-me:

This weekend two days in a row I spent hours doing things I love with people I love, and both times it took a concerted effort to look and act ok. I get so mad sometimes. I'm doing the right things! I think. I'm treating myself kindly! I think. And yet, I keep having bad days after good. I feel so, so strongly that someone needs to stick a bottle brush up in my head through my neck and just sweep it around in there. There must be cobwebs or fungus or pus or dead gerbils. When I'm in a rut (I'm in a rut), there is so much ick in my skull cavity. It makes me feel carsick and dazed and achy and grumpy, grumpy, grumpy. I am all but panicking about the inaugural summer community band concert this evening. I have promised I'll be there to play, after having missed months of rehearsals and events. I promised I'd be there, assuming (as I always do) that I'd be just fine by June. I am arguably finer than I was in the winter, but I am not fine. I am mad. This might be the second time in my life I regret the fact that I do not play a dime-a-dozen instrument. If only I was a flute player or a trumpeter. I could escape without guilt, then. I will go, though, and I will do my best to play for an hour and a half. I'll do it because I do love the music, and I owe so much to this group (like a husband, for example), and I'll do it because maybe it'll help? Maybe a weekly performance in a park will be like a virus exorcism?

A paragraph something else:

You know, sometimes people confide secrets to me without meaning to. I think it's been happening more often lately because I can't run away. Heh. I mean, someone will sit down next to me and, true, I don't have the energy to get up and leave, so I'll stay and talk, and I'm at a rather blunt stage in my life when I like to ask direct/slightly rude questions. It surprises people into telling the truth. Anyway, it's been interesting. I spent at least 25 years being subtle and keeping my opinions to myself, and I'm kind of over that. I have always known how to tell the truth, but I'm doing it in a much less hedgey way these days, and asking for the same in return. And now I owe the world the ability to keep a secret once it's been given to me. I'm working on it.

8:00 AM

I slept well last night. I'm glad. I was worried there would be repercussions of a day of cheese curls and chocolate chip cookies. I fell asleep with my hand on S's arm, making sure he was still there, because once I dreamed I lost him.

I'm thinking this morning about the year I spent living in a tiny tiny room. I used to sit on a pillow on the floor and drink hard cider and tell stories to strangers on the internet. Once I went three days without seeing another human being, and ate a whole bag of frozen pierogis. That was just after one tide turned and just before I became my own wavemaker. Everything seems to build to everything else, doesn't it? Perhaps that's why the idea of my self as stagnant is so repellent, despite the fact that this is what my bones tell me to aim for. I am the one who craves order and schedule and the same, and I have the spirit that gets these things... and then feels trapped. Maybe this is why I very much want to grow a garden someday. This is apropos of nothing. I am just trying to put all of these years, including the next three, into perspective.

Today is bathroom scrubbing day. Today is laundry day and rigging things up in the spare room and it's the day my sibs are coming over for dinner.

I need to match things. I think it's because there are newlyweds one floor below me. It's 8:00 AM and I hear them.

I hate mopping

I am feeling quantifiably better today than I was yesterday and there are babies being born and ones that are just now brand new and I have yet to roll my eyes ONCE today. Yesterday was all eyeroll, all the time. I was on a roll. Heh. Heh.

The deconstruction of the old health center literally right out my office window is more than enough entertainment for a Thursday morning (and a Tuesday, and a Wednesday). I swivel my chair to the left, I have a view of rubble and big dinosaur machinery and yes, a lone toilet among the debris. I turn back to face my desk and there is a healthy dose of work waiting, and a new doctor who does this with me over email:

me: "...I’m assuming [the pressure in my head] has something to do with the fluid build-up. Either that or my brain is about to pop and spray out the sides of my head."

him: "Oh, yes, that pressure in the head does mean it is about to pop and spray brains out the sides. I should have mentioned that....  to be most thoughtful of others you should probably carry paper towels so you can clean up the mess after that happens.  On the bright side, once that happens, everything else will seem much less of a problem in your life."

me: "I think I'll just preemptively wrap my head in towels like a turban. I hate mopping."

him: "And thus the wisdom of the cultures that just wear turbans all the time.  Always prepared. And you are right, mopping up afterwards is so hateful."

THANK YOU for humoring me, all of you, and especially S. This has been one hell of a chunk of my life. It's NOT over, but I have a new champion, and a plan, and like I said, I do feel better today than I did yesterday. So it might finally be in the process of being over. If that turns out to be true, I'll go into more detail about what this was and how I finally kicked it. If it is not true, well then. Shut up. 

rocking forward through the big toe

Today, because it's the Friday before a three-day weekend, because the library is cool and quiet, because I am wearing jeans rolled up at the bottoms, and because I need to give myself whatever room I can, I am walking through the book stacks barefoot. I can live here.

a new tack

I'm up in the air about these...

Quackery or The Answer to all of my issues? Remains to be seen.

perspective

If I had been a few minutes earlier this morning, I would have witnessed a car wreck. As it was, I saw the aftermath--the car at an impossible angle along the side of the road, the EMT team trying to cut their way in, the crowd of frightened onlookers being interviewed by the police. Sirens.

... and let there be perspective. 

keep it in check

I need to keep telling myself (whether or not it's true), that as long as I am not getting WORSE--not dipping below my baseline level of sickly weakly gross--or not developing any new and worrisome symptoms, I need to CHILL THE HELL OUT, because I'm not DYING. If I was dying, this would hurt worse, and more of me would hurt. Right? I have to keep telling myself that I WILL get better. I will. I need to believe this. After seven months, I need to keep believing this.

pulling back

I've been struggling a bit physically in the past few days, and am quite sad that it hasn't been mitigated by breakfast in bed on Sunday and a pot of begonias on the porch. (My husband... that guy... I can't even tell you how much I love him. I may never become a mother, but he still spoiled me rotten on Mother's Day, just because I am a woman, and I'm his.)
I suspect part of this dip in progress is due to me... getting out over my skis... about what I am and am not physically capable of. Walking is a yes, long hours on my feet is a no, and also no is anything hardcore aerobic. I did both of the latter at the end of last week, and then there was the heavy, heavy fatigue and then there was the ickiness. Oh, the ickiness. Oh, the gerbils building a nest in my skull.
OR, this is just the cyclic nature of my slow recovery from the virus, which is certainly not gone yet. OR, maybe I have a totally unrelated bug that is mimicking the effects of skull gerbils. OR, maybe I've had too much caffeine? OR, there is no reason.
Maybe I filled up my bag full of good days (I really was doing quite well), and now there's a lull while I hunt around for a new bag to start packing into.

Nothing I can do but pull back a gear and take more naps.

preach

I am in FULL ON LECTURE MODE today. Already I have sent three strongly but lovingly worded emails. If I bump into you today, be warned. I am up on a soapbox. I think this may have a little to do with the fact that the semester's over and none of our students are in the office during the week. I give such good lectures about nutrition, study habits, and sleep hygiene, people. I miss having that outlet. Also, I am all het up about love and marriage and why and why not and what happens when it's not right. (not mine. not mine at all). My poor cousin had the nerve to get engaged today and just got a full blast of WHAT COULD GO WRONNNNG. Oh mercy. I think I've had too much iced coffee.  

try everything once is on hold

Someday there won't be anything preventing me from jumping off a building (with a harness) (with a goal). 

slightly less well

Oh man. The day went haywire. Bad news -> mini meltdown -> pull self together in empty study room -> look at kitten cam again -> drive to off-site storage listening to melancholy piano music on pandora (yes, yes, yes) -> stopping on the way back to the library at the Sheetz that's giving out free fountain drinks while under construction -> diet coke high (I can't make this a habit) -> laughing at kittens -> gonna be ok (but it might take ten years).

I'm doing well

Today is hoping it won't rain and falling victim to these procrastikitties.

boom

I am kind of conflicted about the implications of my odd obsession with Top Shot.

so aching much

I cried on my way home from work today... three of our student assistants graduate this weekend and, I'm a sap. I just love them so aching much. It would have been impossible not to get attached to this batch.

The one is a free-spirited wild poet who got a big tattoo of a jellyfish on her arm last semester, 'because jellyfish are fucking cool!' She just always made me smile, because of how she looked and the things she said and her facebook status updates. I fully support her brand of crazy. I hope she writes novels and novels about her strange adventures. You can just tell by her laugh that she's got a whole life of them ahead.
Another is a sweet sylph of a girl, quiet and agreeable and the. most. fashionable. person. I. have. ever. met. It is so strangely lovely to have a timid girl who dresses like a fashion model working with you. In all her time in the office--and she came to work with us four years ago, as a freshman--she never NOT thanked me for giving her work to do. She always had it wrong. I should have been thanking her. Ah, I am hoping beyond hope that she's going to take flight.
And the third, damn. He's the one who actually started working in the office the same fall I did, and six years later is finally graduating. After he got over his freshman shyness, he has done nothing but harass me, nonstop, for all of these six years. I can't tell you how much I love him. He's a big bear of a boy, chock full of funny mannerisms and bad aim and horrrible horrrrible grammar, in the funniest way. There is no one he reminds me of. He is a perfect gentleman and a brown-noser and a troublemaker. He speaks in a southern drawl that is thick and sweet and sometimes he gets really, really sad and there's nothing I can do to help. He's gone through some horrible things in his lifetime, and even in the past six years. Sometimes he breaks my heart a little or a lot. I always want to hug him. He's made the office into a battleground for years and I am so grateful, because it gives me an excuse to fight back. He is a walking, talking inside joke, and a contradiction, and a punching bag, and I will miss him so, so, so much.

So I cried in the car, because I'm not ready to not have them nearby to look at and listen to and abuse. Sometimes in the past few months I wondered if maybe the virus from hell would steal intangible things from me, like my heart and my delight, and my sentimentality. It's not even a little true. 

a new gross!

Well, this has been a bummer of a day. I am sensing that one of the side effects of being sickly and generally sedentary for six months is a weakened immune system. I am just basing that on the fact that I'm in the throes of my second ever (ever!!) stomach bug. Puking is so gross, guys. Especially when it's not the only thing leaking out of your orifices. I mean, my GOD. No wonder people complain about these things. If this is one of those storied 24 hour bugs, well then I have nine hours to go. I'm braced. 

maybe it's physics

I am pretty amazed by the fact that my husband is the type of person who never accidentally pokes himself in the eye with his thumb. 

a long, long funnel

Recently I have been getting lost in old family photos, like really old. I am a sucker for these things. I don't even care who's in them sometimes, I just want to see them all. I'd look through a stranger's old family photo album with just as much enthusiasm. But in this case, for these photographs, they are mine. My ancestors.

I sometimes think I can see myself in the faces of my great grandparents.

I cannot BELIEVE the series of events that had to happen for me to exist, from out of this vast history of people crossing paths. They didn't have to meet! But they did meet, and so here I am. I'm at the bottom of a long, long funnel. In just the three or four generations before me--whose faces I can see in photographs--there are a whole host of humans working toward my existence. Three generations ago I am Steiner and Zuercher and Miller and and Brubaker and Newcomer and Nussbaum and Hersh and Falb. Somehow I have all of this distilled in me.

...What even is that, and how do I not take it for granted?

maybe now that I'm a year older

My horoscope in the university's newspaper told me to 'set juicy goals' for myself today.

extinction

Maybe my flaming skull-gerbil is limping on three legs?

keeping what I have

I blow-dried my hair this morning for the first time in at least seven months. It was either despite or because of being told earlier this week that my hair is very healthy. I'm not sure which. I'm just glad it has stopped fleeing my head with abandon.

another list

Today is a day that doesn't feel typical, even though it is one. 


Things that are making me happy:


Looking through family photos from when my mom was a kid and before and sharing them with people who love old photos as much as I do

A mocha frappuccino from the Starbucks downstairs, for real

My mid-day trip to an off-site storage facility in a university van, especially when I have company

The smell of the storage facility and the way it sticks to the bound journals who live in it. Smells like paint and new carpet and old books and it's somehow very wonderful

The word 'trox' as a typo that will stick

Talking with my hands

Baby ducks, as yet to be named. I think one should be named Shuffles

Peanut butter

Goodwill jeans that make my ass look better than normal

Friendly/grateful patrons

My office mate's laugh, and the fact that I can cause it

My plans for Friday evening: grocery shopping, playing this app on my Kindle, watching a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother when S gets home from work, and going to bed by 10:30 (woot)

Knowing that tomorrow I have a lunch date with my alternate mom and a birthday party to attend in the evening. Just enough.

...

I'm hanging in there, folks. I'm holding steady at 'ok.' The good news is that I haven't been laid up with the worst sort of  'sick' sensations in about a week... this is the longest reprieve I've had in five months. So I'm ok. Just sort of bumbling along feeling odd and weak and sometimes really grumpy. If I stay perfectly still there are times I can feel completely normal. I think it will be like this, and be like this, and be like this. And I'll keep on.

things I am obsessed with

My husband's fuzzy belly

My mom's painting skills

The Stitcher Smart Radio app

My Kindle Fire, Roger

The smell of my Easter lilies

The incredible awesomeness of my siblings, especially my sister (yes, you)

Chocolate cake with peanut butter icing

Community, the show

Community, the warm fuzzy feeling (this week, it was all over the library)

Falling asleep on S's lap with his hand resting on my head

The swans on the 'lake' a few blocks up from us

My favorite friend's brilliant intuition and fermentation skills

Back scratches

The Muse Pandora station

Reading other people's blogs

Getting better, getting better, getting better

chipping

My birthday gift to myself was to paint my nails a week and a day ago. I am pretty good at leaving my nails and cuticles alone when I've gone to the trouble of painting them. For seven days. And then on the eighth, I go to town.

Happy birthday, self. Please please please get healthy in this next year. I've got big plans.

misfortune

I found a crushed fortune cookie near the library this morning, still in its cellophane bag. The fortune said 'Let go of negative things today.' I don't know if I can take that on as my own fortune. I don't know who dropped it or why, and besides, just now I got a cardboard cut (worse than paper! worse than paper!) on my ring finger.

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

~Mary Oliver

green

I have a not-altogether-unreasonable level of energy today! Perhaps begging worked. Or else the yellow evening joyride in a black smart car over the ridiculously rich spring hills. It is a day for adjectives, and that's a good sign.

ouch

It's not as romantic as all that to tell your husband, that after a half year of marriage, it's been a whole lot of suffering, but not because of him. It'd have been worse without him.
We ate tacos from the best little hole in the wall Mexican joint in town and he gave me pickles, because I love pickles, not because I'm pregnant (I wish. I could handle five+ months of misery if it were for someone else). And then he wrote a paper and I sat very very still in the spare room.

Ugh today my head feels like it might implode and the tiredest part on my body is my calves. I don't know why.

I don't know how I can keep doing this. I better have a good day coming up.

non-diagnosed

Well, I have been informed that my blood is (still) normal, on all tested counts. Well, I'm still not feeling normal, on all unmeasurable counts. I am still fatigued and aching and loopy and prone to flights of unnecessary and overheated panic. My doctor has given me the dishearteningly non diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It's where they acknowledge that you are tired and feeling shitty and they don't know why, but don't think it'll kill you. They pat you on the head, tell you to get rest and eat well, and then they send you on your way. BOOM, NON-DIAGNOSED.

I am skeptical of this diagnosis, because it's not one, and because there's not like a definitive symptom list I can compare myself to, because, it's not a thing, so everyone who 'has' it is different. It's just NOT other things. Ehhn. I guess some people with fatigue disorders do well on antidepressants--it can help with the anxiety thing and also a little with the muscle weakness/fatigue itself. I guess I should try that. I might one day explode in a firework show of pharmaceuticals and pent-up flight reflex.

svensk

I think there is a specific way Swedish people make me feel. It's good, though. We have a visiting librarian from Sweden and he is making me feel the same sort of vague pleasedness and invulnerability that my Swedish classmates did the summer I lived in Vienna. Maybe it's the accent.

lasting

The upshot to having a body intent on personal sabotage is the sense of survivorship I feel when I make it from one end of the day to the other. Screw you, collapsing muscles and airy head and hyperactive nervous system. I freaking lasted through your evening-long hissy fit, and I did NOT faint and I did NOT jump down off the stage and run away. I freaking lasted through a hot and horrid and loong orchestra dress rehearsal. Three cheers for not-dead-yet.

(To self: Please, please, let me carry the ability to squeak by on willpower over to tomorrow's performance. It will be my last, until I am myself again. So maybe, last ever (melodrama optional))

There is more of my blood in a lab somewhere as we speak and I am hoping hoping hoping that one of the new tests will be able to give me a whip with which to whale on my damn body til it behaves again. This is not ok, me. This has all been not ok. 

bless me

Oh, my default certainly still is hope. I keep thinking, with eyes squeezed shut, maybe this sneeze will be the one that dislodges the monster!

one at a time

All week I will need to tell myself this:

The only thing that matters today is Monday.

don't tell me

The killer of enthusiasm is three hours of a narrowly controlled anxiety attack.

wait wait

There is NOTHING better than a lazy Saturday morning. I can't tell you how lovely it is to sit in the cozy chair by our cozy window in our cozy spare room and watch the rain and listen to old podcasts of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me (I smile the whole time). Is there anything that can make me happier? Oh wait, maybe going to see the Hunger Games this afternoon with my sibs. MAYBE.

(enthusiasm?!)

planning

I wonder if I'll celebrate being well again by going completely schedule free. Planning ahead and sticking to the road of least resistance has been the way I've been surviving. It plays to who I am naturally--cautious. But it's going too far. I don't want to be this way. And I tell myself I'm not really this tightly wound. It's the ickiness talking. I wonder if I'm capable of going the whole other way, if I ever get better.

with friends like these...

not green

There are a lot of reasons to dislike the fact that S works every Saturday. But then, I always do enjoy a three hour cup of coffee in my underwear while the dryer runs. I'm not able to be very active these days. Saturday mornings are down with that. 

more truths

I am digging this pomegranate yogurt I'm eating.

My favorite cellist (they do exist) called me charming.

I married the right guy. My husband is my perfect human. 

I will probably forget to wear green tomorrow.

Yesterday I was very rude to a circulation student assistant.

And just now I knocked over someone's bottle of soda, on purpose.

The lid was on.

There's a pigeon strutting around outside my window and it is absurd.

I am accidentally holding captive a 1986 bound volume of Poetry magazine under my desk

and a wrinkly old apple in my top drawer.

cut short

I need to speak only in short, provable truths. Speculation slays me. Whining is annoying.

My grocery lists are a word jumble. I let my tea steep for seven minutes before I drink it. I am still capable of smiling and laughing. I got out of bed this morning. I am surrounded by caring, supportive people. I can feel my heartbeat in my feet.

trying new things

I hadn't said anything yet, because I'm not sure of anything and am certainly not feeling wholly normal yet, but I THINK I've found a curse breaker, and it is craniosacral massage, and I THINK this may be what straightens me out in the end. I also think I'm still having disappointingly bad days after good ones (though, my god, you should have seen me on Saturday. I was glorious and clear-headed and ebullient). But. I may be on to something. The therapist, her name is Janis, was magic to my neck and head. I think I lost five pounds of lead cobwebs from my shoulders and four of my seven flaming skull-gerbils (trust me, they've been rampaging through my head for months). The tentative diagnosis? Super tight neck muscles doing a neat sort of self strangulation, and also, THAT DAMN VIRUS. Janis could feel the congestion and fluid build-up still up here in my head. I didn't know it. She told me that raw garlic is a good natural antibiotic and with her blessing I've been offending the nose of my husband for five days now and waiting for the flood. I am still not well.

cursed

I keep wondering if I'm under a spell. I told S that I'm a little worried there could be a girl out there who is in secret, unrequited love with him, and that's why three weeks into our marriage I got sick. She cursed me. I wonder what I can do to antidote myself. So far I've tried echinacea tea and clean pillowcases and sour warhead candy and How I Met Your Mother and a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof and yellow post-it notes all over my desk. I must be missing the mark still. Foaming handsoap? Cognitive behavioral therapy? Coffee ice cream? Dr Google is no help. I'm gonna go have my head massaged in two days and maybe that'll open up a hole in my skull to drain out the ick. I mean, the curse.

jumpy

Oh man. My startle reflex is on fire. Alarm testing might make me pee my pants. Where's my worry stone?

running on

My pants are too tight and I'm a little afraid of the thunderstorm and I'm drinking freshly bottled kombucha (I helped) and picking nail polish off my thumbnails and seeing double--I mean, the me who is really rather useful, and the me who is a blubbering, chubby mess of dizzy unselfworthiness. I've been sneezing a lot. 

scrambled

I'm scrambling today. There are two or three paper cuts on my left hand and one on my right wrist. You could say the microfiche cabinets are trying to kill me. My brain turns out to be normal, and I've seen it now, and that's weird. It's weird to look at scans of your own brain. I took them home with me on a cd. My brain is normal, to the expert eye. But I'm still scrambling, because I still don't FEEL normal. Maybe this is all the proof I'll get that this is a chemical thing, not a physical one. My doctor says I should try physical therapy for my neck and inner ears to see if that's the problem. She's an optimist. I'm a little surprised, honestly, that there wasn't a spider inside my skull. Onward, I suppose. I'm seeking solace and celebration(?) in a warm grande starbucks cup of chai. My mom makes it almost as well. She's not here with me at work, though. God, I wish someone was. Her, or S, or a warm fluffy blanket. I'm very much looking forward to having a clean Saturday and Sunday. I need to do nothing but try to be myself.

don't take me seriously

Sometimes my drama gets me in trouble. Sometimes I get a day's silent treatment because I accidentally too vociferously protest something or other. Vociferous isn't a good word, though. I'm not over chatty. I'm just melodramatic. I have been known to slump over in my chair and gasp. I need to wear a sign that says, 'don't take me seriously'
Also, probably, 'just humor me when I'm acting like a little kid, because sometimes I need to.'

I am celebrating Leap Day with an MRI and then skipping work the rest of the day. You?

dry skin

I've watched the back of my left hand molt this week. Often, you can tell the state of my general well-being by how often I moisturize. Sometimes it's just not worth it.

The good things in my life this week have been the orchestra rehearsal last evening and e-books. I have been whipping through so many good bad books lately. They suck. I love them. I can't put them down. Latest one was Before Ever After. I think I like that it doesn't matter where I put my brain when I read them. I sneak-read an hour of that one during a meeting at work this week.

I was awake for a long time in the middle of the night last night terrified that this state I find myself in is permanent. I don't think I'd be good with permanently feeling this way. But then I also know that I'm forgetful and malleable and I wonder if maybe if these nasty, icky physical sensations keep up for more and more months and years, I'd forget all about the way 'normal' used to feel. Meh, what was energy? What was stability? What was lightness and clear air? Overrated. I'm still alive. (I don't believe this, but I'm not giving up) (and I like lotion too much)

blueberry

Well, folks, things aren't necessarily bumping along cheerfully here. But I'm drinking blueberry tea and I have the perfect shade of nail polish on my fingernails. I always look for balance and I think I'm going to have to leave it there.

in the open

It actually does kind of make me feel better to say out loud: 'I'm... having anxiety issues.' I've said that --in public-- twice in two days as a sort of last ditch effort to keep my heart rate under control. It kind of has helped. Probably because the people I've told it to have been kind and understanding. So it's not just S, then, who believes in me?
When I get over my indignantness? indignance? indignity? at my brain betraying my weakened body by getting its chemicals all in a bunch, it really is helpful to just lay it all out there. My mental state is compromised. I am not sure what this means for my future. Drugs?

little atom bombs

My mind and my body are misfiring. Seriously, seriously misfiring. I have 3.5 hours until I can go home and lie down and cry and cry and I think I'll have to count every single one of the minutes left in order to not let my anxiety overtake me. I'm not crazy. Or if I am crazy, I'm not imagining it. Something is wrong with me. There's a self-destruct button in my head that was under a glass case the first 27.5 years of my life, and somehow it got smashed in and I feel like, I don't know, I feel like my body is winding down and out and my mind is going along with it. I'm not sure that I'll ever be able to interrupt the sequence and get my life back on track, because I still don't know WHY this all got started. If this is still all due to that damn virus that hit me way back in OCTOBER, I'm pissed at my immune system. I wonder if it ate away at my brain along with my strength and physical resilience. I'm going to have a brain MRI done sometime in the next few weeks and I keep thinking they'll see big black holes all over in my skull. Little atom bombs have been going off.

mounds

People I love are moving to Germany, and painting watercolor ducks, and fighting through a 12 hour shift with a nasty cold. People I love are having babies, running headlong into a freezing wind, and handing out heart shaped bites of fudge. The me I love is somewhere in here, too, laying one foot in front of the other very, very carefully. And she's craving something coconutty covered in chocolate.

87%

It is a great disappointment to me that, although I do have a junk foody restaurant within walking distance of my apartment, it is a Dairy Queen. I would like to trade that for some place that actually has good bad food. No offense to the ice cream. I always go for salt.

I just finished reading Abundance, by Sena Jeter Naslund. I admit, I am tissue paper thin these days (though maybe I always have been? I am beginning to think I always have been) and I gulped my way through the ending. I should start a list of the books I am reading and loving. I'd say this last one was a kind-of loving. Maybe I'm not very much of an 18th century French aristocrat. The other day I read a book called The Talk-Funny Girl, and that one I loved the whole time. I'd say, if you were to read one of those, read the latter. Unless you are a French aristocrat or are especially good at picturing elegance in your head. I loved Naslund's book about the wife of Captain Ahab much more.

I had another doctor's appointment yesterday. Running out of potential easy reasons why I am stuck in some sort of drunken car sickness mode. It sounds like the next step will be to actually look at my brain to see what's in there, just in case. But in my body's general defense, today I have been feeling well. I'd say I'm about 87% of an April. The perfect resolution to this stickiness will be a gradual draining off of the ick, and then one day waking up and realizing my head is no longer queasy. I told the doctor I haven't been doing much bouncing lately, and I miss that. I am capable of a lot of glee, in my good times. 

I am

'We are what we fear in others.'

up to the minute

Things I've done lately: baked a cake. Had a Downton Abbey binge. Stabbed myself in the cheek with my toothbrush. Became obsessed with collecting ducks. Worked verrry slowly. Worked like a whirlwind. Drank whiskey. Held the promise of another doctor's appointment over my own head as an attempt at immune system motivation (go, recovery, go!). Experimented with power yoga. Dreamed about my cousins. Wore my favorite plain jane gray winter hat. Had a mid-church freakout.Went three days without showering (oh god). Used recycled paper and was glad when it ran out. Accidentally spelled my name 'Aoruk.' Ate a cube of mozzarella cheese straight up. Wore a pair of adorable little red flower earrings. Slept very, very well curled up around my husband. Slept very, very badly curled up around my husband. Came first alphabetically. Read two books in four days and started a third. Cheered for the winning team. Ate two oranges and a grapefruit in 12 hours. Fell even more in love with my whimsical chef. Started a wishlist for the library. Whined, a lot, but mostly to S and to myself.
Currently: staring out the office window at the (somewhat novel, this year) snow falling, and wanting to eat the cake stashed under my desk that we're saving for a birthday party this afternoon.

mee

When I was cooking dinner on Saturday, it smelled like mouse pee. I would know. It still tasted delicious, though. Though maybe like mice? I wouldn't know.

reasons to turn down coffee

I've been toying with the idea of reinstating a visit to the Starbucks a floor below me on Friday mornings. I'm turning my own offer down. Still not nearly feeling like the old April (am functional, am slightly crazy, am still rather dizzy and fighting the weird sensations running along my shoulders and down my back), so what right do I have to further modify me with caffeine and sugar? I can't claim the right. If I'm barely getting from 8:00-4:00 as it is. (I'm BARELY getting there). And also, I can tell myself this is in my control but I'm not really sure anymore (ask my cuticles), I have been biting into my lower lip all day, every day. The last time I tried to drink something hot the heat of the mug seared straight through the thin, patchy skin on my lip and made me cringe. It very well made me cry. Like everything does. Ask the healing gunshot wound and Jonathan Safran Foer.

445

This week I am four-for-five for reaching locked back employee entrance at the same time as a coworker, and being able hold the door, my own keys jangling in my pocket, while they hurried in.

better!

There are WHOLE HOURS at a time when I don't even think about my substandard health that was/kind of still is but not that bad. I can be at work for an entire morning and not even wonder what's coming next. Light at the end of the muthaf*&kin' tunnel.

minutiae

Sometimes I think I must be the luckiest woman in the world, when I can spend an evening eating mini banana splits and listening to Beethoven symphonies and reading side by side on the couch with my husband under a fluffy blanket.

morning

I'm working rather hard at living these days. I hope it pays off in the end. I wonder if I have a caribbean fungus.
I'm up early on a Saturday to make S breakfast (see), because this week he worked three 14 hour+ shifts, and then we have a day trip to Richmond (see). The other day I went to an orchestra rehearsal and my upper register sounded fierce. I have not burst into tears, well, except for when I accidentally slammed the car door into my shoulder, in at least a week. I am pretty sure this does not mean I'm getting physically better, but oh ho, I am getting psychologically better. Someone needs to wave a wand over me and combine the two. As I sit here at the early morning kitchen table, blinking vainly against the liftoff of my head. Woops, there it goes. 

retro

I've gone April-retro. I'm listening to music (currently, track six of Yo-Yo Ma's Goat Rodeo Sessions, on repeat) and I'm reading books (as many of the e-books available at the public library that I can squeeze into a two week due date) and I'm dreaming about people I haven't even thought of in years (...). Also, though this is in no way relevant to retroversion, last night I saw a butterscotch cat shinnying up a telephone pole and then later I lit a fire in a fireplace, and this morning a lamppost told me I was beautiful.