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.