So I sold out.

I put ads on this blog. Why? Because I am fairly broke and because anything would help and because I trust that 99% of you come here to read my posts, not look at ads for anti0-aging remedies. (That does NOT mean you shouldn't click on those ads if you like what you see).

Let's see... other happenings... I threw away all the angry fat clothes I accumulated when I was several sizes larger due to extreme stress. Please note that this statement does not imply that I m now a size zero. It merely suggests that I am smaller than a baby rhino and am getting healthier. Take what you can get. I certainly have to.

HMMM. In other news, I joined APOCALYPSE! APOCALYPSE! Facebook this week after years of intense pressure. No, you can't find me on facebook because you don't know my real name. Maybe all this therapy will help me get over my internet anonymity issues and we can all be together, names, faces, and all.

To make up for all my perfidy, here is a picture of me naked. Too bad it does you so little good.

Love, love.

Now this is right

I talked it over with my surviving female relatives and, while noting the opinion of avitable, we agreed that retail lingerie is the right thing for me to do.

Who else but me could appreciate and sympathize with the issues common to those blessed with largesse?

and who can forget this photo??



Jeez I look almost flat chested in that one. Need to find more photos.

Yes, I care. I care a lot.

I can't get the snippet of code from Google Analytics to stick to the template of my blog. The error message I am getting is something like the XML code is unworthy or some crap like that.

WTF?

Was it always this hard?

The whole problem is enough to make me drink red wine and stuff my face with basmati rice.

And if you don't understand that, we really can't be friends anymore.

Um but honestly can someone help me make this work? Because I am reported to be smart and I am failing. FAIL, FAIL, FAILING.

I do love you though. I can't help myself, and love is all that matters.

(But I fucking want my stats). (Please).

I am an idiot

I was thinking in the shower today. (Naked! Naked!)

I am an idiot. Here's why:

1) I have a hard time drinking water and breathing at the same time. Seriously. I turn blue.

2) I can make out with a guy and like, have his tongue in my mouth, but I'll break up with him if he expects me to eat off the same fork. That is SO gross.

3) I am afraid of the sound of toilets flushing in the dark. But ONLY when it is dark out.

4) I cry EVERY SINGLE TIME I watch the episode of LOST when Charlie dies.

5) I watch LOST.

6) Oh my God.

7) I am totally fine with how fat I have gotten, yet I won't wash my hair more than twice a week because I don't want it to get "damaged". UH... could I be more damaged... like... everywhere else?

8) Speaking of idiotocity, I put SEVEN different things on my face each day to prevent aging. I am going to be FORTY in ten days. Ten days, people. The bell has rung.

9) I am forty and I still have daddy issues.

10) I am forty and I still count fat grams and calories (note how little good it does me).


Anyone else feel stupid today?

(I love you).

Nina

Waiting, part two

My cat is on my bed exactly where I placed him last night. The food and water is untouched. And my cat is dead.

I feel surprisingly emotionless about it... so far. I keep telling myself that I have cleaned up my last sand dollar of cat puke. I keep telling myself that he will never scream at me again and again and again for no reason. I keep telling myself that he was old and that he was tired. (He was). Also it had to happen someday. And he was (obviously) suffering (last night, anyway). But I still feel like shit.

Should I have taken him to the vet last night when I realized he wasn't breathing right? Should I have gotten on the cat boards and hoped that cat fanatics on the west coast had an answer? Should I have been done something other than shove food and water at him? What could have saved him?

Well, whatever the case may be, he is not saved. I have stressed tested him and he is most assuredly not living.

As I write this, he is just where I left him on my bed last night, and yes, I know that is a violation of something or other. I'll have to take him to be cremated today (isn't that what I am supposed to do)? But right this minute, I am just waiting until I feel up to putting him in a duffle bag and taking him to the vet. Let's hope I get that going before the flies arrive.



Bon Voyage, Cathead. I loved you. I liked you. I wanted to feed you to other, foul-tempered animals.

But mostly I loved you. (You were darn cute).

Love,

Nina

Time again

What happens next?

Seven months after moving into Bob and Kate's Asylum, I have been thinking a lot - probably more than is healthy for a girl like me.

Everything I assumed would happen in my life did not happen, and a whole lot of other things happened instead. Let me assure you that this is not whining; it is a simple statement of facts.

I wanted to graduate from college without having learned anything temporally relevant, and for the most part, I succeeded. Byron, Shakespeare, Sylvia Plath - cool. I even composed a performance art piece during which I extinguished candles on various parts of my body. (I got an A on in that class).

I am not constituted to solve world famine, genocide, dirty terrible people of other cultures were the jurisdiction of other young idealists. I just wanted peace. Green grass. Leafy trees, waterfalls, smiling babies. This makes me a lightweight. Morally speaking, of course.

And of course, because on the very best of days, God thinks I am fit for... what? a spittoon? I find that I am the person my family and my therapist believe is responsible for confronting the evil of Erika. Why? Because of everyone in my family, I was the one most injured. Also, because no one else in my family wants to explain it to her because it's all so very untidy and Gosh, what to say? So Nina should just do it.

Normally I am up for a writing project, especially if I can be vituperative and profane.

But this time? This time... internet, I confess that I simply would not know where to start. I just want her to die. But before she does, I want her to know perhaps for the first time, what she did to me, my family, and my father, the love of my life.

Crazy train? I'll be at the bar.

Love,
Nina

Sweating in the Oldies

Kate returned from Sweden two days ago.

(I know I made a quasi-promise to post every day while she was gone, but I found myself the accidental participant in a medical experiment that required me to do nothing harder than take a few pills, try with all physical, moral, and spiritual resources applied, NOT to take some other pill, and the observe my behavior carefully to ensure I wouldn't throw myself off the roof. I am out of the woods. Thank you for your concern).

So Kate came home a few days ago; in fact, she came home twenty four hours before I expected her, so I was unprepared with the flowers and wine and fine foods I had planned to have ready for her. She did not seem to notice.

I thought we could use an outing, so I suggested we got to Lord & Taylor and buy work out clothes. Fun, healthy activity, no?

No.

She did not want to go. But if it's work out clothes I want, why not just go through the boxes of old clothing that belonged to her husband and wear his? He doesn't need them anymore. And I need something to sweat in. Fashionable considerations unimportant. So, I, uh, have a box of work out clothing recently belonging to a man who used to live two floors down and who is now dead.

Please someone tell me how to feel about this.

Love,

Nina


ps Next post I will explain the medical experiment in full detail.

Sister

I left the house tonight to go buy intoxicants.  (We'll talk about that later). 

As I rounded the corner, I threaded my way through a half dozen guys.  

Internet, in case you were not aware, I attract the attention of people who linger on corners.  The usual greetings are variations of: 

Baby, you fine. 

Mama, take me home. 

Bring it, sistah. 

Baby, I'm your man. 

Etc. Etc. Etc. 

Most women find this kind of attention insulting.  I do not.  Why?  Because these mildly disrespectful greetings acknowledge that yes, I exist, and yes, despite my vice-like grip on celibacy and a single life, men still find something, anything about me worth comment. 

Today, however, was different.  As I rounded the corner, the guys did their gawking and I did my walking and I heard, plain as glass:  "Girl, you go on with them 40DDDs. " 

And internet, something happened.  It happened in the region of my brain responsible for poor decision making.  Instead of chuckling inwardly, I turned and faced the man and his poor estimation of the size and character of my breasts.  

I said, "Are you kidding me?  Not even close.  Want to hold them?" 

And the man who had spoken the numbers to me laughed so hard I thought he might lose a lung.  His friends laughed too.   And frankly we all had a good laugh about my boobs and then went on with our evening.  Half an hour later as I passed those very same guys on my way back from the store, they treated me with reverence typically reserved for nuns.  The very corner dweller who guessed my bra size tipped his hat and said, "Good evening, sister." 

So to him I said, "Good evening, sir." 

And a good evening to you, internet.  

Love, 

Nina 

.... in Translation

I had a post almost ready to go about how happy I am that things are settling down and how glad I am that I can live my life free from all interference from the recent abhorrent and improbable events characterizing the last three years of my life. The first three sentences feature the word "happy" in multiple usages.

Too bad I am not going to publish that one.

Herewith, an email received from Erika, the woman I introduced to my father, the woman my father married, the woman my father lost all interest in his children over, the woman who gained power of attorney over my father, transferred all of his assets into her own name, and finally, drafted a will (she got the template from http://www.wills.com/!) calling herself sole beneficiary and executor of this will. (The part where she took control of his assets beforehand was just good planning).

Was I about to show you an email? Oh yeah. Here it is along with my translations in the interleaves:

Hello,

As we hurtle toward "the" are the quotation marks supposed to denote the date of my father's death as superlative? Because guess what? In terms of the agony his death caused my family, the actual dying part ranks pretty low. The death march out onto the deck to have our "last" ever conversation with him probably wins the prize)  anniversary, things here are pretty raw are you fucking kidding me? It's raw sitting on your ass in the million dollar house that you did nothing to earn -- in your windsock of nightgown, all day -- because you don't need a job because you are literally drowning in cash - ie, all the money my father made while he was married to my mother? THAT is raw? You want to know what's raw, sister? Raw is living in someone else's attic because you can't afford to support yourself.... because your credit card bills for all those visits to the ICU were stratospheric. Raw??? here. THERE??? You mean out on the deck overlooking the lake, shoveling food into your mouth that you didn't pay for? Maybe it's the same where you are. I wish. I would vastly prefer to lay on my ass and do nothing -- except for the really challenging part of the week when I had to go visit my grief counsellor. Must be nice. There's a really bad stretch up ahead, but some of those memories are of us sticking together and helping each other. You want to know what I remember about that "stretch"? I remember paying $1200 for a plane ticket, $400 for a rental car, and $120 for a hotel room in order to see my dad, and I remember, as I walked into my father's house, you, Erika, putting your arms around my father and saying, "You never have to talk to her again" before you pushed him, against his will into the bedroom for a "nap." A superlative one, you betcha. Was that the "sticking together" you were thinking of? Or was it the part where you fled my father's funeral because one person from my mother's family dared to show up and wreck your delusion that my father actually loved someone, ever, other than you? As hard as this anniversary is, maybe we can bring something good out of it, something that Harry would want. OMG I can hardly wait. How many buckets of blood do you want to bet that the really special and virtuous and right thing my father would supposedly want is actually something YOU want for yourself? So I will say to you all please forgive me for anything you feel I did or did not do. Never, ever, ever. Now go put a bag over your head and drown yourself. If you look into your heart and can't quite find that forgiveness, I looked. Nope! then look inside Harry's heart and things may look different to you. Well, well, well. There it is. My father would want us to forgive you... for alienating him from us, appropriating all of his assets, and making us strangers in our own house. Except to be technical, it wasn't our house anymore anyway. Bitch, for you to invoke the love and respect we have for our father and then endeavor to manipulate us into forgiving you for dismantling my family, taking what you wanted, and going out for a latte, illustrates in hi-def that you know nothing about forgiveness. You don't know what it is, what it is for, or what it means. My father was a man - not Jesus Christ himself. And you, dirty pirate whore, don't get to drop a bomb on someone else's life and then say "if you could only see this from your father's perspective, you would see that he really did want to destroy you. And who are we to question his will? Or is it His? I get so confused between Jesus and my husband. But I know they both wanted you to get fucked over, so none of this is my fault." He was the most forgiving person anyone of us will ever know, As far as I know, the only crime I committed against my father in the last years of his life was loving him so much my hair fell out - that and "bothering him" by visiting him while he had cancer. But whatever, dad. Since forgiveness is such a strong attribute of yours, sorry. I really regret having that much faith in you. If Erika got you a little confused with God, I got you a lot confused with God. 100%, actually, which is why a nine months later, I still can't believe you abandoned me, all for a piece of ass. So yeah, I am sorry. A lot. I should never have made that mistake and we all learned more about God from watching him the last couple years of his life than we'll ever learn anywhere else. If that was supposed to teach us about God, no thanks. I think I'll just be secular humanist or something. I hear those people are at least nice to each other and believe in justice. I could use a little of both of those, or a lot. Whatever is available.

We can't fix the world, but we can fix our little part of it. Solve my problem for me by saying you are cool with with what I did to you. Then we'll go to work on what? Gaza?

I love you all.

(... translation: I love that you were all foolish enough to trust me. That makes you good people.)


Yeah, I know. I know. I know. But if I can't do this here, where can I do it?

Thank you for reading.

Like father

A while back I met a man in his 60s. Due work circumstances, we spent a day together that long while back, and on that day, his work was easy and mine was not. But side by side we got through the day and then at the end of it, I thanked him for all the encouragement and advice he gave me. As we worked, I noticed the dark, restless quality of his eyes, as if there were a hundred thoughts all beneath the surface despite his calm demeanor. He offered to take me around the block for a coffee or a glass of beer. I declined, thanked him, and went on my way home.

I am going to say something interesting soon. Just keep reading.

So anyway since that day, I have run into him several times on the job and he is affable and gentlemanlike and every time our paths cross, I shake my head and say something to myself that surprises even me: If he were not married, I would make my attraction to him super obvious. Age? Who cares. Obvious psychiatric malady (mine) known in the vernacular as having "daddy issues"? Heh. Who cares. Obvious inappropriateness of the idea even if his wife and entire history simply vaporized?

Internet, if his wife and his whole life history simply vanished, I would brush up on my man attracting behaviors and go get him. I seriously would.

Gross, right?

It's about to get worse. Keep reading.


A while back I met another man. This one still had about him the glow of something I'll just call mid twenties, a certain high energy and stamina. We crossed paths due to work, and we spent a day together. His work was difficult. Mine was easy. But we helped each other through it and at the end of the day we took a walk around the block together. We held hands, despite the impropriety of doing so. (I justified this either because he was unmarried or because I was drunk. Maybe both). On the second lap around the block, someone started talking (probably me) and by the time were around the block three times we had exchanged our utmost saddest stories and due to the liquor and perhaps the howling wind and the desolation of the block at one in the morning, we were both in tears. We got to our various train stations and I rode home in the empty train car congratulating myself for leaving him be despite his apparent "gameness" you know, for whatever happens between unmarried people in a booming metropolis at 1 in the morning. I tried to figure out what about this young man I liked so much.

Reader, I just ran into his father on my way home from the grocery store. I know this because as his father leaned over to give me to customary cheek brush that we all do on the block, I got a good look at his eyes. Dark, restless and absolutely the eyes he had passed to his son.

So there you have it, internet. I broke up with my last boyfriend resigned to live single and celibate forever, and in four years I have been attracted to exactly two men. See above.





Love,

Nina


ps the flowers are there to perhaps take the edge of your gross out factor. If it didn't work, I am sorry. As it turns out, I am gross, and I am in this case unwilling to hide it. See you tomorrow (maybe).

The good corkscrew

This won't be one of those posts where I make an effort to make sense or hope for coherence. I just have not been available lately, even to myself, for reflection. So I am just going to start typing.

I have been lowering the amount of the heavenly sleep inducing medication that induces sleep but also causes serious metabolic problems for 8 - 9% of patients. Go ahead and infer that I am in the 8 (or 9)% of people experience serious metabolic problems due to the heavenly sleep inducing medication. To be fair, it also caused most of the other harmless but still irritating side effects, so I am certain, even if I never sleep again, that cessation of this particular (heavenly) medication is necessary.

Speaking of heaven, I am not going to get in. Lately when I do sleep, I have dreams that are definitely going to prevent my admission into anything like life after death paradise. I am not even sure they take people who have these kinds of subconscious constructions in limbo. Curious? Well, I suppose I intended to arouse curiosity. I either have raunchy, perverted, vivid and scandalous dreams about sex, or I have dreams about exacting bloody and merciless revenge on... certain people. In my defense, I will say this: aside from that one real life incident where I might have kissed that man who was (and is) in every conceivable way grossly inappropriate, I have been a perfect gentlewoman with regard to sexual behavior in real life -- for like, a huge number of years now. Five? Six? I don't count anymore. Nuns would pretty much behave the way I do, (aside from that one real life incident where I might have kissed that man who was (and is) in every conceivable way grossly inappropriate). And yet due to the perverted things I make up in my brain when I am unconscious, I am totally screwed. EXCEPT TOTALLY NOT. How is this fair? Feh.

Which brings me to this: you know you have a bad relationship with alcohol when you have two corkscrews, one of which works really well and doesn't annoy you - and another that is too sciency and doesn't work very well and annoys you consistently - and the one you really like? You keep that one on your desk. Where you spend 16 hours a day. The other one? Hell if I know. I think it is in the kitchen. Somewhere. Maybe. But boy, howdy, I know where the good corkscrew is.

And how are all of you doing? Have I told you that you are beautiful, and I love you? Have I said so lately? Let me do so now: you are beautiful and I love you. Thank you for reading.

Black Magic Marker - or pantless?

To cap off my week of work insanity and general turbulence, I had to be prepared to have one of my classes observed. If you do not work in the teaching industry, let me just say this: being observed is terrible. You can really prepare for it because, duh, it's just the same job you always do and the real wild card is the students - who on any given day are in any given mood and always surprise you, whether you have a colleague sitting in the back of the room watching your every move or not.

So yesterday, since I was just about driven out of my wits by the extent of the work piling up around me, I tried to beg out of the observation by sending a polite email explaining that blah blah can we just do this next week? His answer: no. His schedule was fixed and blah blah see you tomorrow.

Well, well, well. ___________.

So I worked and worked and worked yesterday and did not stop until it was whenever, and I have no idea when I went to bed but I awakened at 5am after several surreal nightmares. I showered and picked through my laundry bag looking for something suitable to wear during my observation.

It was then that I observed, to my horror, that half my laundry was not in the bag - and since this were true, the other half of my laundry had to be downstairs in a dryer. For the past 48 hours.

So I ran downstairs at 5 in the morning, braless, barefoot, and a degree of unhappy just one degree shy of the degree of unhappy I achieved when I discovered that some unkind person had taken my laundry from the dryer and tossed it into a cart with someone else's wet laundry - and that the entire mixture had become sour with mildew in the interim.

The concequences of this laundry error were dire.

I had two choices of things to wear that would be acceptable: one, the suit I wore to my father's funeral, which had been crumpled into the bottom of a plastic bag for weeks, since I advertantly set my handbag down on some recently disgarded chewing gum , and without realizing it, lifted my handbag into my lap, ruining the pants of the suit with a splotch of gum the size of a sand dollar. In order to wear this suit, I would have to shake the wrinkles out of it, pretend it was not covered in cat hair, and use a black magic marker to disguise the gum. (I know most people would not consider this an option. Sadly, I would).

The second item I could potentially wear was a pair of buff colored linen pants with a pale pink shell with similarly colored sandals. Perhaps a bit summery for the time of year, but presentable. But this second choice had it's own issue: the near see-throughness of the pants. Only by wearing absolutely no underwear - MAYBE a flesh colored thong - could one ever wear these pants out of the house. I quickly realized that since I own no flesh colored thong and certainly would not spend the entire day I was to be put through teaching observation hell with a thong up my crack - even if I did happen to possess such a garment, the only way to make it out of the house in this outfit was to go commando.

Those were my options. I had no others. Knowing me so well as you do, what do you think I did? (I'll tell you tomorrow).

Love,
Nina

The general unpleasantness

I got to the airport at 10:30 for a 12:00 flight. Upon arriving, I was alerted by the kiosk that the flight I needed to board to have any hope of attending my meeting on time was canceled due to lightning. Up in the sky. Like up where you can't see it because it is so high up there. The problem, of course, is that the lightning is banging around in the general area we prefer to fly our airplanes. So I called my boss and had the same conversation we had two weeks ago when this happened - meaning when I was supposed to be at my job and wasn't because of a canceled flight. It went ok, I guess. Considering how very inaccessible I now look to my students - all because I live in NY. (This is not good). I find that I will have to wait here, in LGA, until 7:34pm. when the flight is supposedly going to go up in the sky. If it doesn't, Jesus, Mary and the carpenter help me. (Side note: do NOT - while in an airport - unexpectedly have issues related to the lower region of your person unexpectedly needing to do what it does once a month. I DARE you to find a merchant who sells any remedy for your parts and situation. You will fail and you will be grateful indeed that you are not visibly compromised. The end).

Teaching and my ass

I know I complain a lot, but I really like my job. Writing, teaching people to write, editing, cutting, pasting, I like it.

Oh and as far as coping goes... I had ice cream cake for dinner last night.

And I swear to Gah my ass is bigger today as a result.

* crunch crunch *

Love,

Nina

Those girls

Went out to dinner with my girlfriends (the Africa trip ones) and wouldn't you know... the whole conversation was about what to climb next. Consensus is either Mt. McKinley (waaaa... tough one, but one of the 7 summits) or Mt. Fuji (easier but more exotic).

I am also hearing some mumbling about Everest base camp. Not - mind you - climbing Everest - just climbing to the bottom of it through Nepal. Doing that much is considered a feat all in itself. If I know Sri, soon that mumble will turn into a full on go for it statement.

What is wrong with us? What kind of hobby is this??

Anyway, in two weeks, we are going to a climbing clinic in the Gunks.

My point is... I need to get back in shape and start living like a normal person again. I really do. So if this blog turns into a daily report of all the sweating and crunching I am doing, please humor me. I have gotten fat and filmy in the last two years and since all my parents are gone and no one I know is currently having a major disease, sitting on my ass eating Cheetos and drinking Diet Coke is now inexcusable.

Crunch, crunch.

(Assume that sound is me doing sit ups and not the sound of me eating Doritos). (But also assume that could be a lie. This is the internet, after all).

Made you look

At a whole lot of nothing, right?

Truth is I have been asleep. For about three days. Suddenly the insomnia of the last few years decided it would move on to other victims. I am now a narcoleptic, fuzzy, futon dweller. Ever sleep for 16 hours straight? I did that one day this weekend. I just did it again last night.

Oh look! I need a nap!

I'll see you tomorrow (unless I am unconscious).

Love,

Nina

So I am a hooker, now, too?

When I have to be up and out of the house at 7:15am (Uncivilized, I tell you. You'd think I worked in a factory in a Dickensian novel), I sleep, but the restorative nocturnal enterprise is compromised by my fear that I will sleep through my class. I am therefore capable of being unconscious and nervous at the same time, and the result is that I awaken about three hours before I am required to do anything or be anything to anyone.

(I am getting to the hooker part. Please be patient).

I started my day at 4am with a fifteen minute interval of self pity, but I am pleased to report that I did not cry and a few times, I even smiled into my pillow because whatever else you might say about this day, it's an easy one, teaching wise. All I have to do is show up and crack a few jokes. At 5am, I gave up on going back to sleep and went to a certain coffee and donut establishment to get on with the coffee and poor breakfast choice part of my day. (Donut).

(Now to the hooker part).

On my way, a man in a livery car stopped at the side of the road and said the following extraordinary thing:

"I'll take you anywhere you want to go for a blow job."

I pretended I did not hear him.

"Anywhere! Really!"

(As if I might request a ride all the way to Kansas in exchange for a few minutes of inappropriate sexual contact with a drunken gypsy cab driver. Jesus. H. Particular. Christ).

Still, I did not answer.

"Where are you going?" said he.

"Coffee shop," I said.

"Meet me later?" he pleaded.

And here is the part of the story where I start laughing right there in the middle of 2nd Avenue because - let's face it: when it's 5am, and one is in one's pajamas and flip flops, carrying nothing but a ten dollar bill, perhaps it is just possible that one might look as if one just might be a hooker.

Or no?

What do you think?

Either way, i took this picture when I got home. Morning over the United Nations.



I wish you all a fine and happy day during which no offers you to make you any such offers as the one described above. (Hint: get dressed before you leave the house and at least bring a handbag).

Love,

Nina

Chaos weary

I have held down my "whatever" to the extent that I have not been evicted or fired from anything. Yet.

All this reflection is leading me to a better understanding of what I already knew: I am doing okay, sure. But really what I am doing it what I always do: deny, distract, engage in my own special brand of chaos, which I will not describe because you'd be bewildered anyway. Suffice it to say that every day, I wake up with the same set up plans and every day I engage in different plans - plans I had not planned on and that do me no good, not to mention other people. Who does it help, exactly, to bleach my shower curtain when I know full well that I am moving out of here in six weeks? Where is the up-side to a searching a fearless shoe inventory - during which I dispassionately relieve my closet of all but ten essential pairs.

Someone at Salvation Army is going to be out of her mind with barely worn shoe-pleasure. Don't even get me started about the vacuuming. Of the bamboo blinds. That could surely have waited, too.

I did do some actual time-sensitive work today, but only after I disassembled the desk and swept all the crumbs out of the drawer joints.

I get that it's better than passing out in a mouldering pile of my own filthy laundry..., but shit... shouldn't that laundry be done already? Does the zero-underwear moment really need to arrive before I reconnect to what's real and what's right?

Can someone save me from myself? Why cannot I focus on, um, the business of my life? Why?

See if you can answer that while I climb a ladder and dust the crown molding. The rags and vinegar-water are waiting and I... I really think I am going to do it.

Yesterday

I swore I'd be a better blog friend to you yesterday. You know now that I did not succeed.

Let me tell you what I succeeded in doing yesterday:

a) sleeping
b) eating a pint of ice cream and an order of french fries
c)) talking to my uncle about how "super" we are - now worries here! Really!
d) smoking a cigarette
e) falling asleep in a pile of laundry on the floor - not to awaken for 9 hours

Not to alarm you, but I guess it's time to let the bravado go and face facts: this sucks. Am I am okay? Sure I am. What choice do I have? But if you someone gave me that game to play right now - the one where you can trade problems with someone else? The one where everyone (supposedly) owns up to really liking his or her problems more than anyone else's in the whole world?

Not me. I'd trade any of you. (Except maybe Adam, who will never believe me when I say that i have been working on it (really!) despite no evidence to the contrary.

See you all tomorrow.

Why ever not

Yesterday was a banner day for me, productivity wise:

1) I put all the laundry in the laundry place.
2) I put all the stuff that goes in The Pile in to... The Pile.
3) I showered! (I even flossed and exfoliated)!
4) I really, truly, did prep work for classes - that begin in one week.

I even slept last night on less medication. Wondering how much I took last night? Are you ready for this? 45mg of temazepam and half a xanax. If you think that's gross, I'll just not tell you what it was taking to make me unconscious before the recent End of the World (version 2.2).

The result was I had a dream wherein my apartment was some kind of tube. In my tube, I had a walk in refrigerator, sort of like you'd see at the butcher's shop. On a shelf in a jar were three huge crawfish - big as lobsters, really. They were starving and fighting with each other, possibly trying to eat each other. On the floor of my walk-in preserver of deadness for later consumption, there were hundreds of dead, moldering octopuses. Only they were trying to wrap their feelers around my ankles.

The only upside to this dream as the diner style coffee maker that just never seemed to stop brewing. Coffee pot after coffee pot after coffee pot. Only it didn't spill because there seemed to be and endless stream of people there, strangers, in fact, pouring and drinking it.

Feel free to, um, interpret my dug-light dream for me. Or, you can just go ahead and regret that you stopped by today, as I would if I were you.* To take the sting out of that, I repost for you my giraffe with seven legs.** She is also wearing tights. I hope it helps.




Have a good Monday.



* I don't feel as bad as this post suggests. I just had terrible nightmares, probably from trying to cut back on drugs, which I is what I should be doing. If you want further upside, I haven't been drinking... at all... since my dad died. This deserves a post all its own. My lack of drunkenness puzzles me. I mean, who DOESN'T go on a wild ass bender, when... well, you know. I should be drunk 24/7 right now, and yet I am just... not. Can't figure that one out, either.

** By the way, I am still appreciating all of you. I think I am going to make it through the month without having to try to make pancakes out of contents of my vacuum filter, and that wouldn't be true at all without your help.


Ok I am really done talking now. Have a good Monday.