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.

for real?

I am feeling at about 80% today (crisis averted), and I'm definitely enjoying the sensation of clearheadedness, which is quite a relief--for a time there I was worried that I was maybe in the throes of some sort of Munchausen Syndrome, wanting to be sick. But that's nuts. Of course I want to be well. I want to be jumping and bouncing around and walking, three point five miles at a time, twice a day, for luck.

thoroughness is dull

I crochet, and I do it wrong, on purpose. I do it wrong for the same reason 14 year old me always refused to switch fingers when playing a single repeated note quickly on the piano, like my (long-suffering) teacher insisted. She was right, I was wrong, and I knew it. But I have a stubborn/lazy streak that makes it impossible for me to accept established wisdom, if I can do it my own way and still get by. This is something I am very, very good at: still getting by. I am not good at following directions, or toeing the line. It has a lot to do with ego and a lot to do with, uh, what's a flattering way to say laziness? I just hate doing things the long way, no matter what. Thoroughness is dull. It means that as soon as I understood the basic concepts of my daily responsibilities at work, I stopped doing them the way I was taught. Shortening steps, starting in the middle, combining three things into one. The bits I lose in details (I tell myself) I more than make up for in speed and innovation. ...I tell myself. So that's why, when I crochet--which is all the time, these days, because I need to feel like I'm still creating and contributing, even when my ass is permanently on the couch--I do NOT do it the way my mom taught me, or the way the books recommend. I hold the hook loosely and rock it back and forth against the wrong finger til a blister forms, then a callus. I am sloppy this way; the tension on my yarn isn't steady. But I am fast. It is my own way of doing things. It's wrong, it's kind of downright destructive, to my hands, anyway, but it's fast. It's personal.

drunk at work

I am full of theories. I am also full of poor eating (I have obliterated -and then some- the early illness ten pound weight loss), poor sleeping, and partially digested chunks of my own fingernails. BUT, for the moment, my dizziness and ickiness is manageable. By manageable, I mean, I can talk about it without it getting instantly worse or having an anxiety attack. I've been feeling like I'm kind of drunk, all the time, and today it's easier for me to just accept that sensation and pretend I actually am. The idea of drunk feels so much better than sick. It's not that bad. I bet it's not even something serious. Someone probably just needs to poke my inner ear or tell me which vitamin to take.

on the outside I just look pale

I am dizzy and flattened. Harder and Harder to keep my thoughts straight because everything is a whirl. I am trying hard to make myself live, anyway. Rejoice, anyway, in open eyes and warm winter coats, and in strong arms around my shoulders. But I'm failing. I am three months into some sort of imbalance in my bones or in my blood or in my brain, and my strength is useless/not enough. Sometimes I wonder if my head will ever be on my neck right again, and if these waterfalls running under my skin will ever dry up. I am totally bare to panic. Movie theaters, crowded restaurants, my office chair, hell, even my own living room. One moment it's the one moment too far. It is so easy to lose control and feel my chest fill up. I have no shields. My body is doing this. I am so angry I slap at my leg until my muscles give out and then I cry until the wall of snot and fear breaks. I am not ok with this being real life; I set deadlines. Next Monday, I'll call for help again.

five minutes

the color green
a vivid dream about playing a ceramic oboe in front of a stadium
yogurt
contacts that need to be replaced
batteries that need to be charged
wanting oatmeal
wanting butter
cold nose
office ridicule (doling it out and taking it)
(despite feeling gross, I can fight)
... coping.
not wanting grad school
uppity
patrons from outer space
wind in the windows
whine in the--
I wish the bathroom weren't on the other side of the floor
can't wait for my couch later
and maybe a hot bath

avalanche

I APPARENTLY do have a powerful ability to jinx myself. Yesterday my doctor called with more test results (they scanned my guts and my guts look fine), and she asked if I was feeling any better. I said I was! Because I was! I said I felt like I was nearly normal! But the saying of that, to a medical professional no less, has evidently set into motion a big boulder of a jinx rolling down a hill and BOOM yesterday evening the boulder hit me and again all I can think about is how weird my head feels and how shaky the ground just got and how much I really want to lie down. Five good days in a row, though, I will take. And will attempt to weather this newest mini setback with grace instead of whining and tears. And unclenching rather than winding up in a tight little ball again. I've gotta just keep going. Onward.

reference

It always amazes me how good these students are at identifying me as someone-who-knows-where-X-book-is. Even when I'm wearing jeans, walking across the library empty handed, not even wearing my librarianly glasses. Three times yesterday and once this morning, 'I'm lost, can you help, please?' I help them (of course I do know), and then later I look in the mirror and I think, whatever my appearance does say, I don't think it is screaming 'librarian!' Maybe the clump of gray hair on the right side of my scalp is betraying me.

bananas

I eat bananas really really slowly. You could probably eat three in the space I eat one. I wish this were something I could be proud of. Look at me: I can't manage more than baby bites! It's just bananas, though. I will demolish an apple in no time flat. I could challenge you to an apple off and I'd win.

I am thinking about fruit and bounding around randomly again and it's because... I feel good. Three days in a row now.

present tense

If someone could tap me on the shoulder every ten minutes and gently remind me to stop tensing, oh, every muscle in my body, that'd be great. Even my forehead hurts from being so tightly knit. I have definitely been learning a whole lot about vicious circles. Tense 'cause you don't feel well, you don't feel well 'cause you're tense.

mind blows

I don't know what to do. I just don't. I think it'd be best if I just totally leave off describing how I'm feeling. Don't want to talk about it. Please don't ask me how I'm feeling, because then I stop and take stock and notice how I'm feeling. NO I'm still not better, NO I don't know why, YES I've been back to the doctor for the umpteenth time, YES there are more tests in my future. YES, this definitely has a physical cause; this isn't something my mind has created out of thin air. NO, it's probably not something serious but is seriously holding me back and NO, I'm not handling this well. Today marks ten weeks since I first got sick. I am furious. See? Only writing that much makes me feel worse. I just need complete and total distraction at all times, because being mindful just makes me cry. So distraction it is. S gave me a Kindle for Christmas and this has been a godsend. I can't remember the last time I was reading a book a day. Makes me feel better about being couch-bound on the days I feel like if I were standing and moving my head would detach from my body and shatter into a million pieces.

Christmas came and left. It was lovely, on the whole, but I think I've forgotten any of the details in it already, because I didn't put any of it into words, and because I was hidden behind a veil of foggy headedness the whole time. New Year's Eve rolled around and I was not at all who I wanted to be or where I had wanted to be--not to mention I think I pushed myself too hard, and instead of going home and to bed at 9:30 when I was hit with a wave of dizziness and fatigue, I stayed on at the party downtown through S's band's third set and on through midnight. I can't really regret that, though, even though I think I dealt my body a setback that I'm still paying for. I can't really regret that, because S was incredible that night, and the music was rich, and when the new year rolled around I was bundled up out on the square with S's arms around me and his hat on my head and we watched hundreds of pearly white balloons being released into the night sky and then kissed under the fireworks when 2012 arrived. It was beautiful. Has to be worth it, hasn't it? I cannot keep attributing the quality of my last few days on one late pushing-self night. I just need to... I don't know. I don't know what to do.

I'm not sure this ever gets better. I really kind of just want to quit. And see, this is why I haven't written.

I feel like I should end on a less Eeyore note. So, Hunger Games. Have you read them? Thanks to the Kindle I'm halfway through the last book. Crazy, right? Mind blows?