Welcome to my wonderful, terrible, soap opera sit-com world.
Monday, May 31, 2004
MEMORIAL DAY 2004
No huge tirades, just a moment to say I hope everyone takes a moment to remember everyone who's given their lives in service to the military. By "given their lives in service," I do not necessarily mean those who have died, I mean anyone who served, anyone who fought a war, anyone.
Both of my grandfathers are veterans of WWII. One is with me, one is not. My father tried to join two different branches of the service, but was disallowed because of various medical reasons. My husband is currently in the USAF.
Take a moment to remember them. And as you do, look around you and create your vision for the future.
Memorial Day; it's more than just BBQ'd chicken and coleslaw.
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Sunday, May 30, 2004
AND INCIDENTS AROSE FROM CIRCUMSTANCE
Sigh.
What was that I was saying about simplifying my life?
So tomorrow, now, there could be a gang of four friends coming over to hang out, play games, and do Memorial Day funstuffs.
And today, my husband is in the living room putting together his new computer that we bought at Fry's today.
Well, it's really kind of "upgrades" for his computer, but it's going to be a million times better than the old clunker he had. Internal guts, mainly. 160GB hard drive, new processor/motherboard/ram... blah de blah. Not bad for $320, considering that for $320 he basically has a brand new state-of-the-art capable-of-anything-he-needs machine minus the big beautiful monitor. I'm thinking he'll be up to his eyeballs in Unreal Tournament 2004 Online in oh... two hours.
At least now he can't complain that his wife has a faster computer than he does... his is gonna be smokin' fast.
Now, I should get back to the housecleaning and simplifying.
Anybody want to buy an electric guitar?
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It's time to simplify my life.
So, symbolically, literally, figuratively, I am starting to get rid of the dead weight.
Today and tomorrow I will go through all of my clothes and make bags for Goodwill or Disabled American Veterans or one of those organizations that wants to drive by your house and pick up loads of stuff you don't want any more. I have clothes that are 15 years old that of course I never wear, that are in fine shape, but that I couldn't get MY poor shape into if my life depended on it.
So, simplification of the wardrobe.
Then, we need to start going through closets and cupboards in this house and doing the very same thing, making boxes for charitable donation. There are so many things around here that I, or we, haven't looked at or used in years, there's just no reason why we should keep them around.
Time to start consolidating and getting rid of a bunch of crap, to make it easier to move. I'm starting to look forward to the move more and more every day in some ways, and it makes me sadder and sadder in others.
But it's probably going to happen, so I should probably just buckle up and go along for the ride.
In other news, we are going to Las Vegas, and we realized last night over a cold beer and a nacho, that two weeks from yesterday we will be standing in line waiting to get in to see Blue Man Group at the Luxor hotel and casino.
Wahoo!
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Thank you, Maury, for a wonderful evening out. S. and I joined our friend Maury for a fun evening of dinner at the pub, lots of beer, throwing darts, listening to a good band, and cut-throat pool.
I needed it.
I deserve to get out of the house and have some fun with friends, goddammit.
Thank you.
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Saturday, May 29, 2004
IT TAKES TWO, BABY.
Since everybody's doing it, why not me?
Go now. Make your vidu.
I love you, baby.
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My dad is in the hospital.
After missing two consecutive doctor's appointments, he finally agreed to go to the doctor, who immediately admitted him into the hospital.
Whoever beat him up did a good job of it, as they apparently really only beat him in soft tissue where they could do organ damage. They have definitely damaged some of his internal organs, so he is going to go through a series of tests (MRI's and Ultrasounds, I think) to try to determine exactly which organs have been damaged and to what point.
His blood pressure was 220/140 and they said any longer with him not going to the doctor and he would have suffered a stroke. I'm sure they are also going to check to see if he hasn't suffered a minor one already.
They have told him they want to keep him for at least a week. I am guessing that's how long they figure it will take to even out his BP and medications and try to get a better idea of what's going on with him. They have some ideas about his self-destructive nature of late, which could lead to them keeping him for even longer. And that would not be a bad thing.
I'm calmer knowing that he's somewhere that he's being monitored and he can't do something stupid.
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Wednesday, May 26, 2004
BLAH.
I don't have the time to post this morning. S. let me sleep in a little later than normal.
I'll just say that the stories about the "Gang" aspect of this thing with my dad have me COMPLETELY freaked out, we've decided there's basically nothing we can do at this point, and I spent most of last night being freaked out that he'd call here in the middle of the night.
My first day of meds went okay, I guess.
Maybe tonight I can make it through LOTR:ROTK, which S. picked up at the BX.
I have a ton to do at work, so much I can't even think about it, so I might not get a real update up for you. But then again maybe I'll eat a cup-o-noodles at my desk or something at lunchtime.
Swing on by.
Just feeling freaked, is all.
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Tuesday, May 25, 2004
THERE GOES MY HERO. WATCH HIM AS HE GOES.
My day, in this order:
1) Doctor's Appointment
2) The Mysterious Phone Call
3) The Not-So-Mysterious Phone Call
Well, my sister phoned me mid-morning to let me know that she had juts been through the "fucking mother of all screaming matches" with my dad. Apparently, she told him he's a disgrace, she told him he's a disgusting old pervert, she told him she's ashamed to be related to him, she got everything and all of it completely off her chest. Some part of me jonesed for that. Some part of me needed that. Some part of me was desperate for that kind of truth and honesty with my dad, this shell of a man, this random guy with way too much time on his hands and way too little brain in his head.
Little did I know I would get my wish.
By about 2pm my right arm was aching. Why? Because my twisted, anxiety-ridden mind is able to convince me that I should be feeling the pain of getting stuck with a needle before I even know for certain that I'd get stuck. By the time 3:15 rolled around, my arm was throbbing from my shoulder to my wrist. I got home and was dizzy and irritable. We got in the car and drove to the doctor's office.
My doctor is a wonderful man. He is soft-spoken with bright blue eyes and kind of softish brown hair, and he's very boyish-looking in what works out to be an extremely comforting way. He talked to me about what's been going on (without going into too much detail about the dad thing, and with going into agonizing detail about how it's affecting me) and gave me some options.
I am going to start some medication for anxiety and depression, and I start this morning. In addition, I have a nasal spray that will help with the crackling in my ears (go figure), an anti-inflammatory that will help with my shoulder and my foot, and a prescription for Ativan, a sedative that will help me through the attacks if and when I continue to have them. He only wrote me a script for like 8 or 10 of those without a refill and I am to take them only when I distinctly need to - I can't take them at work or anything, only when I am home for the evening.
So I get home and of course by then I have such a rush of strange emotions, I want to fix and control everything, I was snippy with my husband, I ended up laying on the couch just watching the room spin by and wondering what I could have for dinner.
And then the phone rang.
It was a (907) phone number, Anchorage, Alaska - that's where my dad is from - it is also where Young Chippie is from. So without recognizing the number I had to figure it was YC finally giving me that phone call, and answered it.
It wasn't YC.
It was, however, a woman who's related to my dad in some way, shape or form - his ex girlfriend D. I hadn't talked to D but maybe one time in five years. And here she was on the phone with me.
Telling me that my dad was a victim of gang violence when he got the shit beat out of him the other day, because Young Chippie's "ex husband" is a gang member. Telling me that he's admitted to her that the gang thugs beat him up so he would stay away from her. Telling me that he's been receiving death threats on the phone and has been ignoring them. Telling me that he has not one, not two, but three guns in his house and is taking classes for a concealed carry permit because he's afraid for his life. I asked her to let me call her right back, and called my sister so we could both listen.
The things that she told us pushed us both over the edge over and over again. Culminating in my dad supposedly buying a couple-three brand new Apple computers for HER children and having them delivered to her house. Plus him buying a truck for her without intention of being paid back (although supposedly she's paying him back). Plus everything else. More and more it was becoming obvious that the reason why YC isn't calling us is because she knows we can't possibly approve -- this is not a relationship, it is a business relationship and she is proving herself to be nothing more than a high priced whore.
So, my dad's going to get killed by a bunch of gangbangers because he won't leave some girl alone.
And he seems perfectly content to die that way.
While I was wrapping up with my sister, after exchanging phone numbers with D so she could reach us in the event that anything happened, my phone rang - it was our dad. Sis figured we better talk to him so we called him back three-way.
He started the conversation by being snide and snippy (to the point that I said, "You gonna call my house and give me that kind of attitude?" He backpedaled a little bit, but he was a man on a mission.
He was calling to tell us that since his daughters are money grubbing whores, he's going to "solve the money problem" and hopefully that'll make us get down to business and start being a part of what's going on (whatever the hell that means) - he was calling to let us know that today, Tuesday, he is going to his lawyer to rewrite his will. My sister and I are being completely written out of the will. He will give half his money to the little town where he is building his house. He will give the other half of his money to the girl and her children. Contingent upon them moving there and running some kind of art society for the little town, of course. But that's going to solve the world's problems because now that there's no money involved, why would my sister and I have any choice but to get to know her for who she is?
Believe me, world war III broke out. My sister was screaming about how he bought her children computers but he can't loan her $500 to get a new computer for her son. I was screaming about how I didn't want his fucking money and cutting me out of the will was just another way to make sure he didn't "have to" have a relationship with his kids. He was screaming at me about how he was right about me, and that I never amounted to anything.
My throat hurts this morning.
One of the final things I said to him, after us all three yelling and carrying on for an hour - I wish I believed he remembered one thing about what he said - was something like this:
"I'm glad you wrote me out of your will. I'm a 35 year old woman and I'm self sufficient. I've never asked you for anything and I certainly never EXPECTED anything from you. You holding this money over our heads is just another way to prove that you value people by how much you think you can buy them. Just because you finally figured out you can't buy me, that doesn't make me worth any less. At least now I know if you have a relationship with me it's becuase you're my father and I'm your daughter, and not because you have some sick sense of obligation so you can justify giving me some money if you die."
He pointed out that he is certain that at the reading of the will, I will feel a great deal of pain to look over at YC and see her getting half of everything with no chance for me to get two nickels to rub together, and that the reason why he's doing it is so he can hurt us after he's no longer here.
It went in one ear and out the other but at least I said it.
My throat hurts. I feel like I got run over by a truck. Every part of me aches. I finally got to bed last night, S. took care of me and held on to me while I "drifted" off to sleep (which is pretty much impossible for someone in the middle of a panic attack). The irony?
We dropped off my prescriptions at the pharmacy and never went back to pick them up. As much as I could have used an Atavan or half an ativan or something, we didn't even have one here for me to take.
Now, maybe my dad will leave me alone. It's obvious he's going to end up dead in a puddle of his own blood at the hands of some gangbangers, or he's going to drink himself to death or O.D. on drugs or something.
So I guess I should start living my life like I don't have a dad.
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Monday, May 24, 2004
TURN YOURSELF AROUND AND COME ON HOME.
It's cliche', but it's the truth.
I don't want to write about my dad any more, at least today or maybe tomorrow. Maybe I'll still do it, I don't know. But this blog has turned into "why my fucking dad is an arrogant sicko perverted freak" and I am tired of it. As I am sure you are.
So if anyone has any suggestions for something you'd like to see written... let me know.
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Things did not go as well with Young Chippie as we would have hoped, but they went about as well as we expected.
You see, my dad's vagueness about the whole situation and when we should talk to her seemed to point us exactly to the one thing we figured would happen but kind of hoped wouldn't happen.
We called Young Chippie, and apparently she freaked out and called my dad. We were a little concerned that might be the situation, as he had never said that she would phone us, only that in a "week or two" we could phone her. So when we took it upon ourselves to phone her, she of course freaked.
We phoned her place of work and left her a concise, specific message. We were both on the line and told her that our father had told us she wanted to speak with us, and we wanted to let her know that we wanted to speak with her. We gave her my home phone number and asked her to phone us at her convenience, after work, when we were all at home and could sit in the comfort of a non-work environment, and we'd turn around and phone her back. Told her that we just wanted to set up a time to talk. Told her whenever it was convenient for her, she could get ahold of us.
Of course when I got home, I did not have a message from Young Chippie on my answering machine saying how happy she was that we wanted to talk to her... I had a message from my father saying how disappointed he was that we phoned her at her place of work. As if we ambushed her there and expected her to hash out every detail of what could be a completely fictional relationship with my father, and as if we went against his wishes by contacting her.
Friday night, my father called here two times at about 10:30pm and left messages practically begging me to get ahold of my sister, contact her, let her know that he would give us Young Chippie's "new phone number" in a little over a week when service could be established, and at that time we could talk to her, and that could we please get ahold of him and call him back and let him know that would be okay because she shouldn't have to talk to us from work and and and and and and fucking and. I mean, he just carries on and on. It's unreal. He was also, for the record, quite snotty when he left the first of two messages, muttering something about how although at 10:30 he was sure *I* felt like it was *LATE* that *HE* was just getting *DONE* with his *DAY* and that *I* don't know *ANYTHING* about what's *LATE*. Bah.
So anyway.
Friday night phone calls from my dad are enough to send me into a tizzy. Anymore, they're damn near enough to give me a panic attack. After completely guzzling a cocktail to try to calm down, I crashed out on the couch in one of those anxiety-attack-depression-ridden sleep-of-the-dead moments. S. moved me to bed and when we got up in the morning, the first thing I did was puke. Actually, I laid on the couch in the front room, on my back, retching because there wasn't anything IN me to throw up. Bah.
Saturday, S. was determined to show me a good time so we went up the street to our favorite little pub for dinner and a brew, and then we went to Gameworks and had some fun. We played $35 worth of games and drank about $35 in alcohol (mainly me and my Chocolate and Cherry martinis, yum), I am the queen of virtual baseball batting cage, and S. kicked my ass at pool. But it was just what the doctor ordered. I loosened up and had some fun and at least for a couple of hours, forgot about what's going on.
Came home and slept like a rock, got up and phoned my dad on Sunday morning with my sister. We just let him know that we aren't going to call Young Chippie again, that she can call us when she wants to talk to us and that the ball is in her court... but also that we don't intend on talking to him any further about his supposed relationship with this girl until we hear from her. Whether that's going to spur him to hurry up and get her to talk to us, or whether it's going to force him to leave her alone, we just told him that we are tired of talking to him about her, we only hear one side, and we don't want to talk to ANYONE ELSE about this relationship except her. So she could call us whenever she wants and we'll make time to talk to her, but we aren't going to "harrass her at home" just because he says she wants to talk to us. We also told him, as we always do, that we love him dearly and that he should feel free to talk to us about his health, doctor's appointments, his business, the weather, or anything but her.
I think at this point, my sister and I feel that Young Chippie probably called him and said, "Why the fuck are your children calling me??" We honestly can't decide if this whole thing is in my dad's head or what. But the fact that we didn't even hear back from her for 2 seconds tells us that something's fishy - perhaps he had not had time to tell her that he told us she "wants" to talk to us. He may have just been creating that whole thing in his head, too.
Little by little I am having to teach myself and force myself to detatch. I have to not care what happens. Anyone who knows me in person will know that, that is a very difficult proposition for me. If anything, I have a tendency to over-care about things. I have a tendency to care too much about stuff.
So I have to quit it.
This afternoon, I visit the doctor to see if he has any ideas. Wish me luck.
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Friday, May 21, 2004
OH GOD, PLEASE HELP ME
I am numb.
I talked to dad again last night. He wants us some time to "set up some phone time" with Young Chippie. What he doesn't know is he's made his own children so fucking completely over this bullshit that we are going to find a way to talk to her tonight. He told me last night SHE wants to set up some time to talk to us (and our husbands) so if that's true, then she'll be all for talking to us.
My sister is going to phone her place of employment today some time, possibly have a brief conversation with her, and tell her that we want to talk to her tonight if she is available. We are also going to tell her that if our dad catches wind of the fact that we are going to talk to her, then we just aren't going to talk to her. Period. Our dad starts calling us in the middle of the afternoon because he's all worked up about us talking to her, then we just aren't going to.
My sister and I are completely ready to tell the two of them to do whatever the hell they want and leave us out of it. That would be the coolest. Thing. Ever.
But it's not going to be like that. See, we figure that Young Chippie still doesn't completely want to be with my dad, and we have to get to the bottom of it. This on again off again bullshit with the two of them is adding stress to my otherwise pained-up life, and I can't deal with it any more.
Speaking of which, I have a doctor's appointment on Monday at which time I will discuss with him the majority of all this stuff that's making me insane and in pain and drained. Hey, I'm a poet and I know it.
So anyway we are probably going to talk to Young Chippie tonight. Tonight or never, I'd imagine.
And then I will want a very large drink, or an extended series of very small drinks.
In closing, as my dad was getting off the phone with me last night I pointed out that I had given up on trying to "make" him want to take care of himself, that he's the one who drinks too much, he's the one who takes too many pills, and he's the one who loads his pistol and leaves it on the pillow beside his bed.
So of course, he had to say, "You know what, I wish I had found it in the middle of the night the other night and just put it to my head and pulled the trigger. Then I wouldn't be here worrying about this right now. Goodbye." *click*
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Thursday, May 20, 2004
WHEN I DIE, I EXPECT TO FIND HIM LAUGHING
Talked to my dad last night.
I phoned sis on the way home to see if she had heard anything from him after the "fuck you" incident of two days ago, and she said she hadn't - but then she phoned me back in about five minutes and played a message that was left on her phone while she was out - he HAD called her, apologetic and nearly in tears, saying that he wanted her to call and play the message for him because he had no recollection of phoning her in the middle of the night and he had no recollection of saying anything mean to her.
And then the truth revealed itself.
He also called Young Chippie and motherfucked her, her kids, her mom, her family... and SHE also had a message saved from my dad. And he "made her cry" and he felt soooooooooooooo bad that he had done it to her, he had to find out what he did to my sister, since obviously this MUST be the only time he's ever called anyone in the middle of the night and motherfucked them.
You know, except all the times he's done it to his kids. Except for those.
So.
I think the first thing I said to my sister was, "Good, it's aboutfuckingtime he did it to someone besides us." I think the second thing I said was, "Isn't it interesting that for 20 years I can be driven to tears by that man, telling me I'm a piece of shit and calling me nasty names, and when I cry or get upset he tells me to "suck it up" and "be an adult" and accept him for who he is... but when Young Chippie gets the call, and SHE gets upset, suddenly it's urgent that he change his life?"
That was only the first in a series of epiphanies.
So then when my sister phoned me at about 8pm and went to play me the message he had left her to spurn her to phone him, there was another one on the machine. A very long one. An excessively long one. Thank you, US West Voice Messaging. A massively long one. Where he was crying, and carrying on about how awful it was to be him and how he took a cocktail of double the dose of all his medications the other night plus a bottle or wine or a fifth of vodka or something, loaded his pistol and put it on his pillow, and didn't know if he wanted to kill himself, but how amazingly and massively upset he was that he had upset Young Chippie.
And again I had to say, "Interesting that he gives less than two shits about whether or not we've been affected." So we agreed we were going to call him.
Here's some of the things my sister and I said to my dad last night.
"I think it's really sad that you're so upset right now. Not because I think it's pitiful that you're so upset, but because for years upon years you've been calling us in the middle of the night and shitting on us, and in the last month you've called us no fewer than five times at 3:00-5:00 a.m. shitfaced and you've motherfucked me to ME, not even to the voicemail. And you've never apologized, or felt remorse, because you don't care what I think."
"I don't know why it matters to you how I feel about Young Chippie. All my life you've never given a flying fuck how I feel about anything - how I feel about you, how you MAKE me feel when you berate me, choices I've made in my life, directions I've taken, you've never wasted a rat's ass moment of time pondering how I might feel about something. The only reason you suddenly care what I think is because you think it's going to help you get a grip on Young Chippie and make it look like we're in your corner. That's a crock of shit, and you should do what you're going to do no matter what I think because you've never cared about anything else."
(At that point, my dad said, "What about your husband?" and I said, "Shit no I didn't ask you for your approval of my husband, because you've never approved of anything I have ever done in my life. Why should I believe at 34 years old you were suddenly going to approve? I got married because I love him, not because of what you think." He got very quiet.)
"I refuse to take responsibility for the downturn in your relationship with Young Chippie. I had my reasons for telling you not to bring her to my wedding reception dinner in Las Vegas (with S.'s family, who I would have been meeting for the first time) and if you can't accept that, you're delusional."
"All I've tried to do for a month is create some kind of relationship with you that I feel like we should have had for my whole life. I call you on the phone, I ask about your health, I try to see what's going on with you, every day hoping maybe this will be the one when you tell me you love me back, or you act like you like me a little bit, or you don't take a raging shit on me. Every day, guess what happens? I leave the conversation feeling shit on. Every time. All I've been trying to do is unconditionally love you, and you've been an abusive bastard."
"What kind of fairytale world does Young Chippie think you live in? Does she know that you're practically estranged from your two kids? Does she know that the only time you call us is when you need something from us? Does she know that you have never met your 8 month old granddaughter and that you've only met your 3 year old nephew two times? Does she know that we've never had a normal father-daughter relationship with you? If she knows all those things, then why should she possibly care what we think? Once she realizes she might only see us once every couple of years because you don't want to make the effort to know your children and grandchildren, I'm sure it wouldn't much matter to her what we think about things."
We were also very straightforward with him about his alcoholism. He didn't want to hear that.
My dad. Bleah. As I was getting off the phone, I went into some kind of heartfelt thing about, you know, I love you, dad, and I hope you get your health in order, and if there's anything you need from me just go ahead and -
"... *grumble* my feet are swelled up, will you look at that *grumble* foot won't fit in my shoe, that's so strange, you know I took them out of the other shoes *grumble* because they were bothering me and now they won't go into thse shoes *grumble*"
I lost it.
I said, "God dammit, dad! Fuck! I don't give a shit about your swelled up feet and whether or not they fit in your old shoes! I'm here trying to UNCONDITIONALLY GIVE YOU LOVE AND SUPPORT and I'm trying to TELL YOU THAT I LOVE YOU and you INTERRUPTED ME so you could bitch about your SHOES. This is why I'm DONE! This is why I don't want to DO this any more! THIS IS WHY. I LOVE YOU AND I HOPE YOU FEEL BETTER AND I HOPE YOU GET YOUR HEALTH UNDER CONTROL AND I HOPE YOU GO TO THE DOCTOR AND I HOPE YOU CAN FIND SOME WAY TO GET HAPPY WITH YOURSELF AND YOUR LIFE. GOODBYE."
And I hung up.
I am going to call my sister on the way to work (my cellphone has free LD minutes) and see if she can give me any further information. I was on the phone with him until 10:30 last night and it was like 1:30 a.m. my sister's time, and then I had to get back into my Spanish translation work. So I worked until about 11, went to bed, and tossed and turned all night.
My wonderful, amazing husband comforted me and told me how proud he was of me. Oh, and he went out and picked up some dinner at like 9:00 p.m. because I hadn't eaten anything.
So of course it appears I have gained more weight this morning. Because I ate "dinner" at 9:30 or 10:00 last night, it was not very healthy, I've had to operate on two ingrown toes (it's almost my own form of "cutting," but they did legitimately hurt) and now they are infected, so every time the sheets brushed them I'd wake up...
You guys, I've just got to get my shit together.
In other news, S. updated his blog and gives detailed exploits of all the amazing things he got done around here yesterday while I was translating Spanish and talking to my dad. I'm lucky.
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Wednesday, May 19, 2004
YOU AND ME, LIKE A DISEASE
I am gaining weight.
It's not a lot. A half a pound over the course of a week or so. But the point being, I am no longer losing weight and I am definitely gaining it.
I could be holding water, I could be having stress. Maybe I have an alien inside of me like Ripley. And if I'm lucky, it will burst out of my chest, taking with it about 25 pounds of water weight.
C'mon, Alien!
But seriously, I am definitely gaining some weight and it's starting to piss me off. If there's one thing that definitely adds stress, it's me adding weight. I liked it better when I didn't get on a scale and I just went by the way my clothing fit. Yes, yes, I understand completely that this means all I have to do is not get on the scale any more. Sounds simple, but it's actually very hard.
Ew. I just heard on the morning radio about some guy who was driving down the road and saw some girl pick her nose and eat it. Ugh. Sorry for the interruption, just had to share.
So anyway, yeah, I've gained a little weight, and I have to get on track. That's it, back to drinking lots of water and eating small calorie meals. This going out to lunch because it helps me feel better thing, it's sucking moldy ass. Although I've got to admit, a nice slice of pizza or some alfredo pasta at lunch much beats a vegan cup-o-noodles.
And here's where I start working myself up.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm, vegan cup-o-noodles. If I have a vegan cup-o-noodles, does that mean I can have a venti iced caramel maccchato?
Shut up.
So anyway, I have some affirmations I should be writing daily now and lists to make. Had a little "spiritual consultation" last night with my friend Psychic Nancy, and she's determined to help me through some of this. She, like me, is an over-emotional, scattered, obssessive Aquarian, and I think she understands me as well as anyone does. She came over, we had burrito night, and we talked for a long time. She also poked at my shoulder a little and today it feels remarkably better... she showed S. where to touch it and massage it a little. She says I have a blockage of energy (duh) and that it's getting clogged up in my shoulder and that's why it's not healing right. So I'm going to keep doing the things she's suggested, and see if it helps.
Affirmations. Lists. And an iced venti caramel macchiato.
Shut up.
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Tuesday, May 18, 2004
HEY, MEGALOMANIAC
This morning, first thing, my phone rang and it was my sister. She was asking me if I had heard from my father, which thankfully I had not, in the middle of the night.
Turns out, she did.
So when she tried to nail him down to why he was calling (shitfaced drunk) at 4:30-5am Pennsylvania time, he of course couldn't come up with a reason and was just making shit up so he'd have something to say. She explained her kids were going to wake up if and he had to stop calling in the middle of the night and that she'd be happy to talk to him at another time during the day, he started backpedaling, and she told him she was going to have to hang up. When he kept talking, she just told him she couldn't stay on the phone and hung up.
He immediately phoned her back so she picked up the phone, hung up, and then left it off the hook. So, he left her a very kind message on her voicemail culminating in the ever-popular, "Since you're giving me a bad time, then I just want to tell you, FUCK YOU."
So, we phoned my dad at 5am Alaska time and she left him a message on his machine letting him know that she had saved his voicemail message and if he wanted to give her a call when he was sober, she'd be happy to play it for him so he could get an idea of how he's treating his kids in the middle of the fucking night.
Yay.
In other news, I had a very vivid and very strange dream. You know how the trend right now is to take your personal site, your blog, and make it your own by hiring a service to design a striking visual for you?
I dreamed that the blog design services weren't for your blog... they were for YOU. You got to pick out what body you want, how your hair should look... someone would design... you.
And oddly enough, I dreamed that everyone was doing it and I didn't want to do it. Everyone who was anyone, was getting themselves designed. But I didn't see the purpose in it.
So what does THAT say about me?
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Monday, May 17, 2004
FREAK OUT
Well, here we go again into a Monday. Spiraling into one, to be specific, and sucking every little second of the way.
I had some righteously awful dreams last night. Let me tell you, they sucked moldy ass.
I have a big meeting/event at work that I'm "in charge of" this week, and it happens on Wednesday. So what did I dream about?
I dreamed that for some reason I was trying to get a day off, randomly decided I should take TODAY off, and my dreams as far as I can remember last night focused around why taking today off is a shitty idea, why I couldn't get ahold of anyone to tell them I wanted to take today off, and how they were all trying desperately to find me because they didn't understand why the fuck of all the fucking days, I was taking today off.
Go figure.
So in my dream I'd call, no one would be there, I'd check in at the house, there'd be a message, I'd call back, they'd be in a meeting, I'd leave my cellphone in the car and they'd try me on that and miss me... talk about impending doom. I dreamt impending doom, utter frantic hell, immense amounts of guilt and stress, all in one night.
And now I'm up, and I get to go to work, and calm myself down about the impending doom part, but it still feels like I didn't sleep last night. Bah.
Also, there was one point in the night when S. bumped me and tugged on the covers and told me I was having a bad dream, but he doesn't even remember doing that, so maybe I was dreaming all of that too.
I cooked dinner last night, which is always therapeutic for me. In addition, my friend Psychic Nancy is going to come over to the house on Tuesday and try to work with me, my chakras, my brain, my heart, and my husband to try to get me to "purge" some of this anger and sadness and everything that I have so maybe I can start being normal. Between two glasses of wine, cooking dinner, a little afternoon nap and a new haircut and new set of fingernails, I'm feeling a little more like a human being.
I just wish I were able to have slept like a "normal person."
S. is really worried about me. I can see it in the way he looks at me and I can hear it in the way he talks to me. His ex wife had all kinds of mental problems and disorders and issues and was on a cocktail of medications for everything from tourette's to depression to anxiety to bipolar, and he's told me horror stories about what it was like to live with her (mostly because she either didn't take her meds, was exaggerating her symptoms (she colected social security disability for her mental problems, so it was important to stay "looking sick" all the time) and how they eventually had to hospitalize her for trying to hurt herself and him, both. So, I look at this whole situation and get frustrated and afraid that he's going to get tired of dealing with me.
I know that won't happen and he swears it won't happen. I'm just not used to feeling helpless.
Me and helpless, we aren't very well acquainted.
So I'm going to make an appointment some time this week for the doctor, but first I'm going to continue to try to get it under control for myself. Maybe admitting it is thefirst part of being able to come to terms with it.
Then I'm going to make an appointment for the "electric ceiling fan" guy through the home warranty to come out and visit us, since we seem to be having a little "got a burning smell coming out of the ceiling fan" problem. So S. is going to take the time off to be here for the fan guy. I forgot how nice it was to share those types of responsibilities with someone. Actually, I've never been able to share those responsibilities with anyone, so it's particularly nice to be able to experience it for the first time.
I'm just tired.
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Sunday, May 16, 2004
ITS' A JAGGED LITTLE PILL TO SWALLOW
After a series of small, unrelated, anxiety attacks - panic attacks - and tearful episodes - this weekend, I believe I am close to deciding to go to the doctor and see if there is something that can be prescribed for me (on hopefully a temporary basis) to help with what is starting to look more and more like generalized, chronic, anxiety.
In addition, I may very well talk to him about the possibility of a medication that would also deal with mild depression symptoms, among them the desire to sleep ALL THE FUCKING TIME when I am not dealing with other things that require an anxiety attack.
And then I can have him look at my shoulder, and possibly get a referral for my plantar fasciitis.
And if I'm lucky, none of those things will cause me to gain weight, one may actually help me lose weight, and if anything, perhaps there's something else he can recommend besides good diet and moderate exercise (as I am trying to do both, but mostly failing on the exercise, but there's nothing extravagant about the way I eat) to help me with that.
In other words, boys and girls, I am 34 years old, am falling to bits in front of my husband's eyes, and I am looking for a medical miracle.
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Saturday, May 15, 2004
TURN ME AROUND AGAIN
My dad called.
Okay, let me back up.
I was sitting at my desk at work at around 3pm, getting ready for the weekend and trying to get a bunch of stuff off my desk, when my cellphone rang.
I looked at the number, and although it had a 907 area code (Anchorage, AK) it didn't register as my dad's home or cell numbers. Then I realized, it was his office. I didn't answer it, and let it go to voicemail. Then there was no message.
So, my mind started racing as it has been prone to do of late, and I finally decided upon, "What if that was his secretary calling me to tell me he's in the hospital, and she doesn't want to leave it on the voicemail." I phoned my sister to see if perhaps she was getting a similar phone call but there was no answer, at which point the marble in the roulette wheel of my brain stopped on, "She wouldn't leave a message for sis either which means neither one of us is going to know if Dad is dead, I better call her back."
The next time I try to be brilliant, I would like someone to reach through the intarweb and SMACK me, please.
So I phone my dad's office back and he answers.
Anyone who's been reading this blog for a little while might remember a "feature" I had for a little while called, "Stupid Shit My Mom Said To Me Today."
So, in the spirit of nostalgia and all things retro, I hereby present to you:
Stupid Shit My Dad Said To Me Today.
I warn you in advance, this is a little long.
Dad: Hello.
Rose: Hey dad, saw you called, but I missed it. I'm sitting at my desk on the cell phone, it's 3pm here. What can I do for you?
D: Hey, I tried to call (where Rose used to work) and I asked them - you know that lady there, she's only running on half a deck. I asked her your name, and if you worked there, and she just kind of stuttered and didn't really know what I was talking about. So I asked her if her lights were on! Yeah! Lights on! And she said, uh, that she didn't know, uh, yes. Or no. Or something.
R: Dad, I haven't worked there in a year, the girl probably didn't know where I was.
D: It's been a year, huh.
R: Yeah. Hey, I'm sitting here at my desk, is there something I can help you with?
D: I'm TRYING to TELL you what you can help me with if you'd just let me talk.
R: Okay. Go ahead.
D: Hey, do you have AT&T?
R: For our cell phones, yes.
D: Okay. Well hey, did you hear? They got bought out by Cellular One.
R: Actually it's Cingular, but yeah.
D: Okay. So now there's no service anywhere! Nobody's phones work! And everyone's rates have skyrocketed! Have your rates gone up?
R: Well, I don't think the coverage area should change, if anything it should get better because they are combining networks... but no, my rate didn't go up, it's a contract.
D: Everyone's rates are going up. (Young Chippie)'s phone bill went up 700% in a month.
R: Maybe (Young Chippie) should cancel her cellphone. Hey, so what is it I can do for you, then?
D: Well I'm TRYING to ASK you a simple QUESTION if you'd just let me do it.
R: Okay, go ahead.
D: So there's no coverage in Mexico now for the cellphones. Did you know that? Cellular One buys them out and then there's no coverage in Mexico.
R: How do you know that?
D: From like 32 million calls from Mexico I make.
R: When were you in Mexico?
D: Three weeks ago.
R: Three weeks ago you were in the hospital. When were you in Mexico?
D: God damnit, Rose, right before then I was.
R: Did you have coverage?
D: Yes!
R: Then how do you know there's no coverage in Mexico?
D: (Young chippie) says that when she -
R: Hey. Is there - so what's this question you want to ask me?
D: I want to know if I can get an Arizona cell phone.
R: Why would you want a cell phone with an Arizona phone number?
D: So I can get coverage in Mexico.
R: That's not going to change anything, they're all on the same network.
D: And then I could have the bill sent to your house.
R: Dad, it's not going to change anything, they are all on the same network. The coverage area is the same whether your phone is from Alaska or Arizona or Pennsylvania or Ohio.
D: No, it isn't, Rose.
R: Yeah, it is. So do you know that I might not live here in three months? Why do you want to do that anyway?
D: Well if you move I can change it to (sister who lives in Pennsylvania).
R: So you need me to call the 800 number for AT&T Wireless? Why don't you just call them?
D: I don't have time to wait for two hours on hold.
R: And you think I do?
D: Jesus christ, Rose. Do you have AT&T Wireless STORES there in PHOENIX?
R: Yup.
D: So why can't you GET in your TRUCK and DRIVE to the STORE and ask them this for me?
R: Do you have AT&T Wireless stores in Anchorage?
D: Of course. A handful.
R: Is the closest one like 30 miles from you or something?
D: No, it's over on "C" Street.
R: Well, why can't you drive down there and ask them yourself?
D: If I go in there I might have to wait two hours for someone to serve me.
R: Okay, and I have two hours to wait in line at a AT&T store here? Why do I have to do that?
D: Why don't you just walk in there, walk right up to the counter, and fucking tell them that you have one fucking question, and that you want them to stop waiting on the other fucking people long enough to answer you a question? That's what you do, just go in there and tell them how they're gonna handle you.
R: And again. You can't do that, why?
D: God dammit Rose -
R: And dad, what they're going to do is pick up the phone and call the 800 number. I can't get the phone for you or anything, you have to do it yourself, and they call the 800 number.
D: No they don't.
R: Yeah, they do, they sell phones and accessories, but if you set up new service or you have a question about coverage, they usually have to call the main office of AT&T to set that stuff up for you.
D: God dammit Rose, that's not -
R: Yeah, it is. And I know it is, because we were just in there before S. left for Mississippi, and that's what they did. Handled most everything, then put me on the phone with the Home Office to confirm confidential information like social security numbers and stuff, plus he had to call to find out if S. would have service where he was going to be.
D: Never mind, when I go to Nevada I will just go to a store there.
R: Dad, it's not going to matter. Honestly. ALL the cellphones on one network get the same coverage area on a national or international plan. They're just going to give you the answer that you don't want to hear, which is what I am telling you. Going to a store in Anchorage, Las Vegas, or Phoenix isn't going to make a difference. A phone number with 602 isn't going to get any better coverage than one with 907.
D: God damnit, Rose, you're making such a big fucking deal out of doing this for me, I tell you what. I'll just go down to the goddamn store there and when it takes me less than 30 minutes to get this fucking thing done, you can bet I'll call you and give you a piece of my mind over how fucking unreasonable you were about helping me with this.
R: Dad, if it takes you less than 30 minutes to get it done at your local store, then you should probably be worrying about why you spent 15 minutes with me in the middle of the afternoon, while I should be working, to try to convince me to do it for you.
D: Uh. Well. *cough* If it takes me 45 minutes, then. I'll tack this 15 minutes on it.
R: Whatever.
D: Goodbye.
R: Bye, dad.
*click*
---------------
Okay. So my dad is fucking insane. Insane. Did I mention that my dad was insane? Hi, my name is Rose, and my dad is fucking insane.
INSANE.
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Friday, May 14, 2004
MUSKRAT LOVE
Have I told you lately how much I totally get turned on in the morning watching my husband go through his routine?
With his perfect short military haircut, and his glasses (Rose will make passes at men who wear glasses!)
To see him polish up his boots and lace them up, all the little doohickeys he has to do to get his BDU's looking sharp, watching him gel his hair and shave and everything...
And then when he gets his blouse on and puts on his hat and says "Bye baby, I'll see you when you get home tonight," and I look at him there all decked out in his uniform, and I think to myself, this is my soldier, this is MY man, this is my hero.
And you know, then I want to rip his BDU's off and make hot monkey slippery muskrat military wife love to him right there in the doorway.
I'm sorry, was that my outside voice?
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Have you been following the Saga of Dan and Amber? If you aren't, why not?
Dan has been using a poker analogy in his side of the story, and it made me remember that what feels like an eternity ago, I wrote a story using a poker analogy. It's not your typical poker story.
With my apologies to Dan and to any other poker player that will notice that I am obviously NOT a poker player - by the fact that my analogies might not be exactly perfect or the lingo might not be totally authentic, I officially give you the story I wrote a long time ago.
The Game Of Love
We sat casually around the table, but here, there was never anything casual about the game. No guts, no glory – or at least that’s what we told each other just to get under one another’s skin.
“Who’s dealing?” he asked with a gleam in his eye. “Gimme the cards,” Jeff said. “I’ll deal.”
“Give me something decent this time,” Sara grumbled. “I can’t lose another hand. I’m running out of resources, here.” I glanced over at the table in front of her – three or four chips of Pride, a couple Love, probably about five Joy, but her Hope, Pain, and Fear were long gone. It’s usually a good move to get rid of Pain and Fear first, but I wasn’t sure why she had frittered away all her Hope. I fingered my chips – some Fear, three Pain, but my I had lost all my Pride in the first big hand of the game. At least I still had my Soul.
We all anted. I sacrificed Joy to mix with the Pride, Hope, and Fear that were already on the table.
Jeff dealt and as the cards came to me one by one, as always I touched each one and arranged them carefully. Methodically. Jack. Jack. Jack. Queen. Queen. Full house – and a damned good one. “Poker face. Poker face,” I thought to myself. “Easy, now.” Maybe I could win back some Pride.
“Dealer checks,” Jeff said, and looked at Sara. “Check,” she said. Mark checked, too. And when I looked across the table at my partner in crime, he glanced up at me, peeked back at his cards as if he were pondering his next move, and hesitantly said, “Check.” I checked too. “Why not. I’ll make up for it in a few minutes,” I thought to myself.
“Dealer takes three,” Jeff said with a dejected tone, and turned in three cards. “Me too,” Sara said, and took three. “Screwed me again, look at what you’ve done,” she said sarcastically. Jeff chuckled to himself and turned to Mark. “For you, sir?”
“Two,” Mark said, staring at his cards without looking up.
“And for you?” Jeff asked. I stared at him. He had his cards lined up carefully and surveyed them. I couldn’t decide if he was thinking, or trying to make me believe he was thinking. He stared at Jeff for a moment and then he looked over at me, and his eyes flashed. “I don’t want any cards,” he said. “I’m good.”
He stared back at me. “Shit,” I thought. And I looked at my cards. Again. What could I do? Full house. As good as it was gonna get. I tried desperately not to fidget as I held his gaze. His eyes had a way of sucking me right in. Most days I was convinced he could see my soul – but today I was sure he could, because I had it sitting out on the table. He was trying to read me. Or was he…
“Rose,” Jeff said, “It’s to you. Do you want cards or not?”
“Shit,” I thought to myself again, more flustered now. “No, uh, n-no cards,” I stammered. Was that my voice cracking?
What happened then was almost instantaneous. “I’m out!” “Me too.” “Ouch – lemme go, man,” the grumbles came from around the table. And then it was just him. And me.
What did he have over there, anyway? I tried to look past his hand and see what kind of goods he had sheltered behind his cards. He hadn’t lost much today. I remember when we used to play, he was kind of always low on Joy and high on Pain. But he had a pretty balanced – what’s that? His soul? I thought he lost that in an earlier hand. I guess someone lost it back to him. Was it ME that lost it back to him?
Jeff snickered. “Okay then, you guys, looks like it’s down to just you two ramblin’ gamblers. Rose, you go first.”
I stared at my cards and glanced across the table at him. He was looking me right in the eyes, probably trying to figure out his next move before I even took mine. I looked down at the table. “I’ll get rid of these,” I thought, and pushed what was left of my Fear out there.
Before I could even say anything he was sliding his chips across the table. “I’ll see your Fear,” he said, “and I’ll raise you some Strength.”
“Do I have strength? Where’s my Strength?” I surveyed my chips and, frustrated, said, “I don’t have any more Strength. I’ll see your Strength with my Joy, and I’ll raise you this Pain.” I pushed the last of my Pain across the table at him. Wow, that felt good. I felt like saying, “You know, you can just keep that.”
“Fear, Pain, what is this? Okay, I’ll see your Pain,” he said, “and I’ll raise you a little Peace.”
“Peace? Where did he get – why don’t I have any – PEACE?!” I frantically scanned my piles of chips for anything similar.
“I don’t have any more Peace,” I said quietly. “I should’ve known, you always have more Peace than I do. I’ve got Hope though. Here, here’s about half my Hope.”
He put his cards down on the table, face down, fanned neatly and perfectly. “Yeah, you’re right. You’ve never been very peaceful. You don’t even have any Serenity over there?”
“Nope,” I said quickly, my gaze boring a hole in the table.
“Look up,” he said. I pulled my eyes from the felt and looked him right in the face. “I’m seeing your Hope,” he said, “and I’m raising you. More Hope.”
“I can’t give you all my Hope,” I said. “I don’t have that much left!”
“Well, them’s the rules, ya plays the game, ya takes yer chances,” he said in a silly voice. And he winked at me, and tapped his finger on the table as if to hurry me along. “Hope,” he said.
I grabbed the remainder of my Hope and slid it across the table into the pot. “What’s that,” I thought, noticing the tar-black chips where the sky-blue Hope had once been. “I guess I have more Pain than I thought.” “I’ll see your Hope, then, and here, I’ll raise you some more Pain,” I said quietly.
“You can’t raise me with more Pain,” he reminded me. “You’re stuck with that, now. What else do you have over there? What are you hanging onto?” He was eyeing my Soul.
“I’ll raise you some Joy,” I said. “Oh, uh I mean – apparently this is all my Joy.” I fingered the few pieces I had left, and shoved it out onto the green table. “Do you have any Joy?”
“I have plenty,” he said. “But I’ll see your Joy, and I’ll raise you Love.”
He knew I didn’t gamble any more with Love. I glared at him across the table and snapped, “I’m not playing with Love. I’m sure I have some Lust or Happiness in here somewhere. Infatuation, maybe. Disillusionment? “
“Love,” he said. “That’s the bet.”
I slammed my hands on the table. “Fuck you,” I shouted. “I’m not betting with Love!”
“That’s the bet,” he said, matter-of-factly. There was nothing cold or unfeeling about the way he was speaking to me. As a matter of fact, he was being rather calm and inviting. “It’s a gamble, but if you win, you win big,” he said. His eyes sparkled, and a little flutter went through me. I felt his shoe tap mine under the table as if it were a secret signal. “C’mon. Love, to you, that’s the bet.”
I hesitated. What did I have left. “Damn it, he hasn’t put any Pride in the pot, I really wanted Pride,” I thought to myself. “Let’s inventory – My Soul. Love. Joy. Pain. Damn.” I counted exactly how much Love he was moving out onto the table and counted out an equal number of chips.
He looked across the table at me and smiled. “You gonna raise me?”
“Well, Pain is out,” I thought to myself. I looked at my cards again. What could he possibly have? What were the chances?
“It’ll all come back to you,” he said slyly. “You know I’d probably end up sharing anyway.” I looked at him and smiled – he usually was pretty good about that stuff.
“I’ll raise you some Joy,” I said.
He chuckled softly. “I already played all my Joy – hm. So here. I’ll see your Joy with some more Love. And I’ll raise you …. What else do you have over there?” He was, again, looking at my Soul.
I tried to put my arms in front of my chips but it was too late.
“I’ll raise you my Soul,” he said.
“You have more Love over there, raise me the Love,” I sputtered, but he went ahead and slid his Soul, glowing blue, out onto the table. The sapphire light reflected off the other chips and gave him an odd tint.
“Don’t you have any Pride? You’ve got to have some Pride, RAISE ME PRIDE,” I said frantically, but he just calmly looked across the table at me with a smile – was it a loving smile? ll be damned,” I thought to myself.
“The bet is my Soul. To you,” he said quietly.
“What if I see your Soul with what’s left of my Love and –“
“The. Bet. Is. My. Soul. To. You.”
I looked at Jeff for a ruling. “Rose, you’re gonna have to see his Soul with your Soul or forfeit the hand,” he said. “You can fold.” Everyone else at the table now just stared in awe at what was happening. One of us would be losing everything.
I heard his words in my head again. “I’ll share.” I looked at him and for a moment, and illuminated by the glow from his Soul, he seemed almost angelic. “I… uh… I mean, that is, you don’t understand – “
“Rose, risk your soul or lose all of this that you’ve put in here – Love – Joy – Hope – all of it. You can’t quit now,” he said to me. “Besides. MY soul’s in there. I have as much to lose as you do.”
I wrapped my hand around my Soul, glowing red as hot embers, and slid it onto the table. “Fine,” I said. “But if I’m putting my Soul out there, I might as well raise you the rest of my Love.”
“What?” he asked in disbelief. “You’re going all in?”
“What other way is there,” I asked, and defiantly slid the rest of my Love out there. “That only leaves me Pain,” I thought to myself, “But what are the chances he can beat my hand?”
He didn’t even hesitate when he placed more Love out onto the table. “I don’t have to go all in, I can meet your bet,” he said, “but what the hell,” and he pushed the rest of his Love across the felt into the growing pile.
Jeff was nearly bouncing up and down in his chair. “Okay! Okay! So we’re all set. It’s to you, Rose. What do you have?”
I was shaking when I laid my cards out on the table. “Full house,” I said. “Jacks and queens.”
Everyone stared at him, and a hush came over our normally rowdy group. He took a deep breath, almost a sigh. I felt his foot nudge mine under the table and I looked up at him. His eyes were doing that sparkling thing again and for half a second I felt some comfort – until he shifted in his chair and said, “Read ‘em and weep.”
©2002, Rose.
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Thursday, May 13, 2004
BORK BORK BORK
I have a cussing problem.
I know, I know. Hard to believe. Me? Rose? Have a issue with profanity?
Shyeah.
Okay, so suspend reality for just a moment.
Hoenstly, I do. And I know I do. So when I am at work, I do not curse overtly. Every once in a while a “goddammit” will escape my lips, but in the office although I’m boisterous, I don’t curse.
Instead, I have come up with my own language. It helps me. I’m finding that this mystery language is making its way to my house. Maybe that’s better, so I don’t walk around talking like a sailor all the time.
So here are some of the things I’ve said in the last week or so:
Cheeseandrice!
Criminy!
Criminently!
Jiminy Jackrabbits!
Holy mackerel!
Holy moly!
Jumping Jeebus!
And here are what I wanted to say:
Jesus Christ!
Fuck!
Fuckity Fuck!
Jesus Fucking Christ!
Holy Shit!
Holy Fuck!
Fucking Prick!
My name is Rose, and I am a Fuckaholic.
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Good morning.
Last night, I did not call my father and he did not call me. I did not get a late-night phone call. Part of me is now "afraid" that he is laying in his bed or collapsed in a heap on the floor of his apartment, dead, and that maybe they won't find him for a week.
However, I still don't plan to phone him. Even if I tell myself I am just complying with his wishes, that's what I have to do.
That's really all I want to say about that.
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Yesterday, I wanted to go to the bathroom after lunch and puke my guts up just because I could. I didn't do that. I had a reasonable meal and managed to hold it in. I feel like I was so busy feeling bad yesterday that I just didn't get hardly anything done at work. I ache(d) from my neck to my groin. My shoulder, which was almost healed, had gotten inflamed (maybe I whacked it on the toilet when I was puking). I had a headache like a hangover, and felt like I'd been run over by a truck, and all I wanted to do to make it feel better again was go puke again.
And I didn't.
One day down, one day at a time.
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S. went yesterday and picked up more medication for our poor dog Cody, who the vet says is dying of prostate cancer but who doesn't seem to know he's sick. I know that it's going to come on very fast now, as he's lived past his original "deadline" by nearly four weeks. His "symptoms", like not being able to pee very well, aren't getting any better. But he still isn't acting sick. We will probably take him in for an ultrasound, if the vet requests, next week. Just to confirm that he is in fact, still getting worse.
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S. got the results of his per diem and travel voucher for his three months away. We owe $38. That isn't bad. Man can only eat at the chow hall so many times before farting up a storm. I'm not unhappy with the situation.
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Okay. Gotta go to work.
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Wednesday, May 12, 2004
A NOT-SO-OPEN LETTER TO MY DAD
(NEVER SENT)
Dad.
I don’t think I can allow myself to be a part of… there I go. Trying to walk on eggshells or pussyfoot around things, trying to make it look like maybe I’m a nicer kid than I really am. On some level I know I owe you respect and I feel I’ve done that. I just can’t go on like this any more.
There is a lot of history that I could put in here, but you were there. You were drunk, delusional and have selective memory about all of it, but you were there. You were there for the beatings, you were there for the degrading lectures, you were there for the drunk 3am phone calls, you were there for the lies.
I tell myself that somewhere inside you, you actually do love me, or give a flying fuck about me. But your actions SCREAM compared to my hopes. And your actions tell me that the only person you loathe more than me, is yourself. You degrade me and berate me because it helps you feel better about yourself.
For weeks I have been calling you almost every day, checking on you, demonstrating my concern for your health and well being.
For weeks you have been calling me a money-grubbing whore, telling me I only care about my inheritance and that I’d just wish you would die. You tell me that I have used you. You tell me that I don’t really care about whether or not you’re happy.
So, in at least one way in that argument, you win.
I can’t work myself up all day long for the 30 seconds of anticipation before calling you. Will he tell me he loves me today? Will he act like he likes me? Will he respect me? Will he be honest with me about what’s going on with him? Will he be appreciative of my interest?
And every day, I either get told not to “bother” calling you any more, or that you’re sick of hearing from me, that I’m stifling you and stressing you out and ruining your life because I’m trying to tell you what to do. That I make things hard on you.
And every day I say, “I love you, dad.”
And most days, you say ,”Bye.” Sometimes you just hang up.
I can’t sit back and watch you kill yourself. I can’t pull up a chair and spectate, as if I’m watching some stupid movie on TV. I can’t watch you drink yourself to death, I can’t watch you die of a broken heart, I can’t watch you be delusional about your relationships with other people. I can’t watch you hate yourself so much that the only way you can feel better for 2 seconds is to drink, or hate me, or both.
I can’t answer the phone at 3am anymore so I can be belittled and talked down to, shouted at and cursed at. I can’t sit back and be patient with you while you tell me I’m too old to have children and should give up on a family, or call me names, yell at me or lie to me.
I can’t, and I won’t.
Today I make the choice to not call you any more. If you don’t want me to “bother” caring about you, then I won’t. It does me no good as a person, it does nothing for my wellbeing, it does nothing for my happiness, to call you and express my love for you and get shit on every single day. It does nothing for my strength and growth as a person to be called fat or weak or lazy, It doesn’t make me feel any better about what you’re doing to know that not only do you not give a flying fuck whether or not I care about you, but it doesn’t give a flying fuck what the doctors say. You’re going to kill yourself, and I can’t be a part of it.
God only knows why I love you, dad. But thank goodness I love myself enough to know that if I let you bring me down with you, I will spend a good number of years of my life still trying to figure out what I did wrong, what I did to make you hate me, what I did to disappoint you, long after you’re dead and gone.
Maybe the last thing you ever say to me will be calling me fat. I don’t have to have peace about how you feel about me. That’s something I can’t control. I just have peace in the fact that I did everything I could do to reach out to you, connect with you, understand you. You’re a fucking prick. At least I got to a point in my life where I could admit that you were a fucking prick, and I never expected you to be anything but that. An abusive, self centered, delusional, egomaniacal, brutal alcoholic prick.
You can do what you want. Kill yourself if that’s all you think you deserve. I can’t watch you do it. And I won’t.
Rose
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subtitle: how bulemia works
Let me be very clear. I am not ignoring the Nick Berg situation, and I am deeply disturbed all around in all ways by all things going on in the middle east. I'd just rather not talk about it here.
So anyway.
I call my dad damned near every day. Let me say that again. I call my dad almost every day. This man who shit all over me, told me I'd never amount to anything, and who as recently as 18 months ago told me I have a "piece of shit life" and that I need to be something besides a "stupid antisocial geek," this man, I call this man. Every. Fucking. Day.
Yesterday I tried to reach him and he did not answer his phone. Concerned, I phoned my sister and let her know the same, and we tried him again - this time with both of us on the line.
He proceeded to start to have a conversation with his two children about how he's making changes to fix his life, get in his truck, tell us he was "on his way out to check the job site," and then he drove straight to the bar.
The bar. Where they serve alcohol. And people were laughing and enjoying happy hour. And the music was playing. The bar. Where he proceeded to order a glass of wine right in front of his two kids on the phone. The bar. Where he shouldn't have been. My father drove to the bar with me on the phone with him.
So, we asked him if he should be taking his (make-you-able-to-not-drink) medication if he was at the BAR ordering a DRINK.
And I pointed out that, maybe the reason why his ULCERS aren't healing and that he keeps PASSING OUT and having to be in constant touch with the DOCTOR is because he's FUCKING DRINKING.
And at some point the conference-call phone we were using at my sister's started to poop out and it made it very hard for my dad to hear me. So he said this.
"D______, is Rose there? Rose? This is for Rose. YOU tell ROSE that if it's SOOOOOooooooOOOOOooo EASY to do and if SHE is SuuuuUUUuuuuuch a GOOD person that SHE needs to do THIS. Rose, get up in the morning, and dish out yourself 6 ounces of food. And then have 2 ounces for breakfast, and 2 ounces for lunch, and 2 ounces for dinner. You fuckin think you could do THAT? Since you know SooooOOOOooo much about it?"
That's about the time I said, "D____, tell him I'm hanging up." And I hung up. And I sat there on the couch, and S. had gone outside and played with the dogs. I just sat there on the couch, I couldn't believe the feelings that were coming over me. I couldn't even cry, I was so shocked and angry and upset. That my dad would compare me being overweight with him drinking himself to death.
And I filled in blanks. I heard words like "fucking fat cow" and "lard ass" and "goddamn pig" and I saw pictures of myself flashing inside my head, of what I looked like even when I know I was "thin" but I still thought I was "fat." And I started bawling. Ironically, we were planning an evening out to dinner. And I thought, how ironic is it that the fat cow gets to go out to dinner? And I thought, how much shit would my dad give me if he knew I was preparing to go out for a bite when he suggested that I'm a holier-than-thou piggy fat girl?
We had planned to go out for Mexican food. Ah, Mexican food, the one thing S. couldn't get in Biloxi to save his life. Gooey cheesey yummy with Mexican beer or a margarita and a side of red sauce. So we got in the car, and I was still in shock, and we drove to the restaurant. I don't remember a whole lot about the drive. I never should have let us go to the restaurant, I should have just crawled in bed for a while or had a big green salad or even tried to exercise or something, in retrospect. But there we were, on our way to the equivalent of a bulemic's Sin City.
We sat down and the first thing I did was ordered a cocktail (they bring margaritas in these little pitchers, and it holds a couple-few rocks margaritas with LOTS of ice in 'em) and we started eating chips. I'm sure I was inhaling them.
Then the nachos came. And the cheese crisp with green chile strips. We didn't have an actual meal, just talked and snarfed over some Mexican comfort food. The place we went has HUGE servings of food and I didn't want to have to haul some of it home with me.
Halfway through the cheese crisp it started to hit me. I was full. Oh, and not just a little full. Gargantuanly full. And as I put my hand on my disugsting fat stomach, I could feel how tight my normally-loose jeans felt. The combination of water, cocktail, and corn chips had started puffing up. I shifted in the seat and felt even more uncomfortable, but I kept eating. Finally I just had to sit back and ask S. to get a box for the rest of the cheese crisp pizza thing to take home with us, because I couldn't eat any more.
And that's when it happened.
I excused myself to the bathroom.
I walked into the little bathroom with every desire to take a big fart or possibly a dump and try to free up some of the tightness in my pants. Maybe a good pee would help. But the minute I locked the door behind me and saw the toilet, my body jumped to reflex and I threw up. I mean, I puked hard and fast, into my mouth, and had to lean over the toilet in a hurry to make sure I didn't barf all over myself. That's when I entered the very strange "zone" that bulemics get in when they are purging, it's almost like we pass out for a minute or two. I don't remember anything for the next short time, until I was standing up from the toilet, feeling a remarkable relief in my disdended belly.
I turned around and looked at myself in the mirror. I was starting to feel the bulemic rush, that feeling of comfort and calm that comes from purging. My face was flushed and starting to sweat. My eyes were reddened from the force of my vomit. And I had some little splash spots on my shirt, and a big splorp of enchilada sauce that must have been held over from my food orgy of nachos and tortillas and taco chips. I tried to clean the enchilada sauce off my shirt and hoped no one would see the other splatters. I washed my face. Now the rush was coming on full bore. I felt invigorated. I felt calm. I felt energized.
I washed and dried my face, and exited the restroom. I almost skipped down the aisle back at the restaurant to the table. "Ha," I said to S., "How come you didn't tell me I had enchilada sauce on my shirt?" My eyes were open wide, there was a bounce in my step and a tone in my voice that wasn't there when I got up to retire to the restroom five minutes earlier. The cheese crisp was packed up and the bill was ready to be paid. We took care of the bill and walked out of the restaurant, and S. was looking at me like I was some kind of alien. I felt good. Really good. Too good. I had to say something.
"I got sick," I said.
"I kind of figured you did something like that," he said.
And that's when the roller coaster started. When I have a true stress-induced bulemic episode, the first few minutes after the purge are exhilerating. Whatever was stressing me out is secondary to the euphoria I get from having thrown up, having controlled something, having eliminated the "evil food" from my belly. And then it starts to sink in, little by little, and I start to realize that I puked, and I start to realize that I hate myself, and I hate my huge bulbous ass, and I hate my gargantuan tits, and I hate my round cheeks and my flabby stomach.
I start to remember that I am in fact a huge, disgusting pig, and that my dad felt the need to point it out in the middle of an argument. I tell myself that my husband will eventually leave me for someone younger, thinner, less crazy. I tell myself how much I completely hate myself and I even have a short argument about the virtues of "feeling better after the purge" and what I'd feel like if I'd have held on to my dinner. I cried sporadically on the way home.
I draw a parallel that it's like a drug addiction, but having never used drugs I have a hard time saying why I know that. When I have an episode initially there's a rush. Then there's self loathing. Then there's a crash. It happens fast for a bulemic. I was crashing within half an hour.
We got back to the house. Things are foggy in my memory. I changed clothes and S. got out the foot massager and set it up for me to use. He poured me a glass of cranberry juice so I could put some sugar back in my system (I am hypoglycemic) and sat with me on the couch. He'd reach out periodically and pat my knee or turn around and tell me he loved me, but all I could tell myself is how terrible I am and how disgusting I am and how I'm not worthy of anyone's love, attention, affection or respect. I just wanted to go to bed.
At about 10pm, we went to lay down to bed. My foot didn't hurt but my shoulder did. My head was pounding and my stomach was still turning flip flops. And as I drifted off to sleep, which came very fast because of the adrenaline crash, I kept hearing my father in my head, telling me that I'm no better than he is because I'm carrying extra weight.
And for a moment, I wondered what it would be like to drink myself to death.
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Tuesday, May 11, 2004
RAISE YOUR HANDS
My dad had a very bad weekend.
Picture this.
Dad and young chippie get on a plane and go to beautiful city on the coast in California where he's gonna show her a great time. He rents fancy car, gets beautiful hotel room, she decides she wants to go out "hip hop dancing."
My father, who is enamored with this girl (who apparently was dressed like a whore, but he digs it) tells her to bring get her little wearing-cutoff-jeans-with-asscheeks-hanging-out and three and a half inch pumps in the cab, he's gonna take her to the "biggest and best" hip hop club in town, yes he is, yes ma'am, so he asks the cab driver where that is, and they go.
And my 65 year old neuropathy in both feet dad sits at a table sipping a cocktail (which he's not supposed to be drinking) and watches his supposed girlfriend dance, and he says he likes to watch her dance, and so she's dancing, and then she's like, ghetto booty bubble butt grinding dancing on some young guy.
And my dad watches this for a little while and starts to get more and more uncomfortable, and then the young dude is taking some liberties with the chippie and it's getting more and more sexual, so my dad goes out and "breaks it up" with the date.
Who freaks out, and tells him, "I will dance with whoever I want! I will dance whatever way I want, and whenever I want! I am no one's property!"
So my father, in his infinite wisdom says, "Jesus christ, it looks like you were dry fucking the guy."
So she goes back to the hotel, packs her shit, goes to the airport, waits overnight, gets on the 7am flight home, and my dad followed her on the 11am flight. And went home. And apparently they're broken up now, for good, no way in hell.
Now, I've got to say - I think this little bitch was disrespectful of my dad. If he's paying for the trip, and he took her to the bar, then goddammit, rub your ass against a wall or a barstool or something, but don't feel like it's okay to grind your ass against some young stud on the dance floor. Seriously. That's just a crock of shit.
My dad is back under doctor's care now for the next few days, trying to avoid going into the hospital, because he's passing out and probably bleeding out his ulcers. Great.
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We found out some news yesterday about S.'s new job at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma. He spoke with his sponsor out there, which means they have some kind of word that he's coming (although we don't have actual orders yet).
Turns out his job is going to be working on the AWAC planes. You know, the big black planes with the giant radar dish on top? The surveillance planes? This, of course, instantly gave me a panic attack because of the possibility that he would have to be ON a plane. While it was in the air. Flying away. From wherever we were.
I also got a little panicky when I realized that if they know we are coming, then someone here must know we are going, which means he will be in possession of his orders some time very soon.
Which means we will sell the house and pack our shit and move away.
As I told Alex this morning, if I could live in my house until I die and never quit my job and never go anywhere and never "experience" "anything", I would do it. So moving across the country is not just a huge pain in the ass, it's me leaving behind friends and family, my first home, the best job I've ever had, chance at a great career, everything I have pretty much ever known. So it's very scary for me.
And today we are one. step. closer.
What a suck.
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S. tests in the cycle for promotion to Tech Sergeant tomorrow. We have high hopes but it is nearly unheard of for someone with six years in to hit tech sergeant on the first testing cycle for which they would be eligible. But this will be great experience for him and then next year in the cycle he can test again and have a much better chance.
My husband has worked his ass off in the USAF. He joined late. He's 29 years old, but he joined when he was 22, almost 23. He's been in the USAF for six years. He has been promoted early, and promoted often. He's an exceptional leader and hard worker, he is intelligent, focused, and I'm amazingly proud of him. He's gotten the highest score possible on his annual "reviews" every single year. And I love him and I'm proud of him.
Good luck, baby. Thank you.
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Monday, May 10, 2004
HOLY CRAP
Well, I slog into Blogger today and find a whole new format. Goodness even knows what I'm going to do. Where is my old blogger format? Where is the calendar, where does it show me my last post, where where where where...
Oh well, I'm sure I'll adapt. Just like, you know, with everything. I think it's interesting though, that Blogger now hosts comments and all kinds of other things that the other blog softwares have been doing for a while... but I have all kinds of HTML and CSS stuff linking me to other stuff to make it do what I wanted to do.
Bah. Story of my life, day late and, well, a day late.
So I horked my shoulder at work on Friday lifting a heavy box or two. I mean, tweaked it out BAD. I've been sore all weekend. If it weren't for a couple of bags of frozen peas and some motrin, I'd probably even be in worse shape. I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, as S. insists I should go to the doctor at the earliest possible time. I keep hoping it's going to feel better. Going to work today with it feeling like this is going to be interesting, since a lot of what I do at work is desk jockeying and typing. I wonder how I'm going to be doing after lunch today.
My dad is in San Diego with the new GF, and of course is not calling me. Because calling me means he has to talk to me about things he'd rather not discuss. Bah.
Anyway, my sister just phoned me in prime blogging time to talk about my dad, and I've completely lost my train of thought. I'm sorry to desert the blog like this, but I'm going to have to come back to it another time, probably tomorrow a.m.
Ugh.
Motrin.
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Sunday, May 09, 2004
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY
To all my fellow bloggers who are moms, and to all the bloggers that HAVE moms, happy mother's day. Make a point today of telling your mother how much she means to you.
For all of you who don't have a good relationship with your mother, even if you just say "thank you" in your own head for having a mother that loved you enough to give birth to you... then do that.
Me? I'm not a mother but I'm going to go have lunch with mine today.
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Friday, May 07, 2004
FUCKED UP IN THE HEAD
obsessive compulsive
Which Personality Disorder Do You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla
Shyeah. Like we did not know this already? Cheeseandrice, people.
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Yo yo yo, it's Friday.
Yesterday was kind of crazy insane. I guess I'll just play a game of catch-up.
Not last night but two nights ago, pre-yesterday-morning, my father attempted to call this house at 2:00 a.m. I did not answer the phone so he hung up and called my sister (5:00 a.m. her time) and had an hour and a half-long talk with her. He told her that the young GF has "insisted" that she isn't going to give him a second chance or move forward with anything with him until his two children have met her and are accepting and supportive of the relationship.
Nothing like a little pressure.
Dad also told sis that he was going to call me (us) and tell me (us) that they are coming to Phoenix and that he wants me (us) to meet them somewhere and get to know the GF.
Nothing like a little more pressure.
And that they are indeed going to Las Vegas over the weekend we will be there for our honeymoon and that he'd like us to spend some time with them there also.
And that's about where the balloon popped.
Of course, because I am raised in a family of raving lunatic psychos, when I called my dad at 5:15 pm my time to talk to him he said no such thing. If you don't talk to the players in the drama four times a day, it can change right out from under you. So not only did I feel insane but I was reinforced that the whole family is just out of their freaking minds. I feel like I'm living in the middle of a soap opera. The drama is getting amazingly tiring.
The reason I did not blog yesterday is that in prime blog-time, my sister called me here at home to fill me in on the "situation" with my dad, and then I was just busy all day at work and didn't take work time to type the update. Bah.
In other news, I have a strange crackling noise in both ears when I yawn or swallow, and it's getting rather frustrating. I have no ear wax, as I have checked. I think I'm going to have S. check for me later on tonight. Maybe it'll get me laid. Honey? Can you look in my ear and see if there's no wax? What? Clean as a whistle? Sounds like as good a reason as any for some hot monkey lovin!
Work's been going well. Been a fairly slow week but that's because my "big projects" don't happen on this week. I'm in prep mode. That's okay though. I'm grateful for the slower days, because the non-slow days are no fun at all.
Starting to get ready for the big trip to Las Vegas. Anyone who's been there in the last two years, do you have any suggestions for something we should see or somewhere we should go? I'm very excited and it's going to be S.'s first time there as an adult. I want to see EVERYTHING. We're getting there on a Thursday afternoon and coming home on Sunday.
Hm. What else.
Uh, I guess that's it. For now. I'm sure I'll pull something else out of my ass later.
Oh, Shanna is helping Enchanted Rose (that's me and S.) with our logo development and working on our website. Maybe we'll actually have this thing up and running by midsummer. Who knows?
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Thursday, May 06, 2004
BAH.
My morning has been insane and I haven't had time to blog. I'll try to update y'all later today or tonight.
Sorry.
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Wednesday, May 05, 2004
I'M SORRY FOR WASTING ALL YOUR TIME.I apologize in advance for the length of this post. Rant-o-rama, baby.
Good happy things first. Thank you to whoever gave me my second Blogarama review. Rock on!
The one that is riling me up more than anything right now reads, "Dieting is just a shorter way to say, 'eating disorder.'"
Take it from someone who is in recovery from a very serious eating disorder, children, that's a crock of bullshit.
I am a recovering bulemic and compulsive eating/binge eating disorder sufferer. As of right now I haven't had a bulemic episode in a little over a month, I think. I typically stop counting days after about two weeks, but I had an episode while S. was in Biloxi this year.
Let me tell you this. Except when I was in the complete throes of my disease, I have never known a thin Bulemic.
Not one.
Dieting and having an eating disorder are not the same thing. Because despite whatever the fat acceptance psychos will tell you, trying to live a healthy lifestyle, eat reasonable portions, and exercise in a moderate amount so your body is a healthy, functioning machine, will NOT kill you. An eating disorder will. And we've all heard of people who have died from one, if you haven't known one personally.
I remember when I was about 17 years old. I had this pair of Jordache jeans. Come on, ladies, you all remember the ones I'm talking about, too. They were like stonewashed cigarette pants, they were marked size 9 but they were more like a 6 or a 7 because in the 80's, sizes ran smaller on pants and bigger on shirts since we all wore them bloused out with belts. So these jeans, they had little zippers at the ankles and little bows on the backs of the calves. They were tiny. TINY. T I N Y jeans.
I had to wear them. They were given to me for some reason, my mom bought them or something. Now let me make perfectly clear that at the time I was 17 years old, except for being a busty kid, I was NOT a overweight child. I might have weighed 150 pounds soaking wet and as a standard, wore a size 9 junior's pant. That's a healthy weight.
But I had to get into those god damned pants. I wasn't even very concerned about being a fashion plate. At 17 years old, I wore sweatshirts and Levi's 501 jeans and tennis shoes everywhere I went. But for some sick, twisted, demented, EATING DISORDER BRAIN reason, I had to get into those fucking fashion plate jeans.
So what did I do? I had a brilliant plan.
I limited myself to 900 calories a day and figured I would start throwing up.
How does a person "decide" to start puking? Honestly, I had see some ABC After-School Special movie about a girl who was anorexic and bulemic. And while they didn't paint a pretty picture, there's something JUST wrong enough inside the mind and heart of a bulemic that they can look at something like that and say, "Gosh, that's awful. But it just might work."
I started eating the equivalent of three Snickers bars a day, which would hover me right at 900 calories. If I had to eat something else to curb hunger, I would cram as much food in my mouth as possible and then retire to the nearest restroom to "relieve" myself of the burden. Sometimes, that was in my mom's house after dinner or snack. Sometimes, that was in the restroom of the library where I worked. The staff lounge had a private bathroom where only one person at a time could go in and do their thing. So, I'd take my break at an odd time, go downstairs, buy crap out of the vending machine, eat it, feel full, and then go throw up.
Genius, huh?
What is "dieting" about that scenario? What is "dieting" about eating three snickers bars and Grandma's cookies and trail mix and Doritos and washing it down with a Mountain Dew, and then barfing my guts out in the bathroom? That is not a diet. At the time I probably thought it was. I thought I was taking the edge off my hunger by allowing myself to eat, but was purging myself of the hateful, calorie-filled junk food by getting rid of it. I talked myself into believing I was healthier for what I was doing to myself.
I mentioned I worked in a library. I was a library page. That's fancy-schmancy words for, "the kids who work there after school shelving books." So one day after an episode puking in the staff lounge, someone walked up to me and said, "Oh my god, Rose. What did you do to your eye? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR EYE?!"
I hauled ass to the nearest bathroom and looked at myself. I had blown about half the vessels in my right eye in HALF with the stress of my latest puke. I came out of the bathroom calmly and said, "AW, I whacked myself in the face with the spine of a book a few minutes ago, I bet I'm gonna get a shiner," and went back to what I was doing. Later in the evening my eye started to really hurt and it took quite a while for it to get back to normal.
Go ahead. Ask me if I stopped throwing up.
I did not stop throwing up until I fit in those fucking jeans. And I fit in them for all of like, two days. And then I went abck to eating the normal healthy diet that had me at a normal healthy weight - which WAS, IN FACT, A NORMAL AND HEALTHY WEIGHT, NOT AN OBESITY BLINDERS OKAY WEIGHT - and my life was never the same. I was addicted to throwing up.
The throwing up part of a Bulemic's eating disorder is control related. It has very little to do with losing weight. Oh sure, you'd think that it's primarily motivated by body image, and it probably starts out that way. But the pure fact of the matter is that bulemics do what they do because they feel their life is out of control.
I am overweight for my age and height. I really make no bones about that here. And although my husband loves me just the way I am, I would like to lose weight so I am healthier and feel more in a position to get pregnant and start a family without additional health risks. Blah, blah, blah, I know. But the fact of the matter is, I am overweight. When I have a bulemic episode now it has NOTHING to do with my weight. It has to do with my dad being ill or my family fighting or troubles with friends or work stress or things that are completely out of my control.
Because if I can make myself go in the bathroom and throw up, inside the mind of a bulemic there is something intrinsically calming and soothing about knowing what the outcome will be. I can decide to do THIS and I know the result will be THAT.
I have a friend who is a recovering cutter, and I believe the two disorders to be very similar. Cutting holds absolutely NO physical benefit, as a matter of fact it can badly scar and disfigure the cutter. But they still do it. They do it because they feel pain and anguish and instead of having the necessarily mental or spiritual tools to work through it, they find it easier to manifest that aggravation and pain and frustration through the blade. At least then they can effectively manage it better. It's tangible.
My bulemia makes out-of-control situations tangible.
It has nothing to do with dieting.
Anorexia has nothing to do with dieting.
Compulsive eating disorder has nothing to do with dieting.
Binge eating disorder has nothing to do with dieting.
Eating disorders have NOTHING to do with dieting. I can't tell you how much it upsets me that someone who supposedly has the interests of "fat people" in mind would even suggest for a moment that a "diet" and an eating disorder are the same thing.
People die from eating disorders. No matter what the fat acceptance psychos of the world say, people don't die from healthy diets. Fad diets sure, but who doesn't know that? Who doesn't understand that if you eat hamburger and bacon and eggs and cheese four times a day for a year you're going to put some stress on your body? Oblivion and ignorance. But a healthy diet with reasonable portions, there is nothing unhealthy about that.
No one in their right mind who is interested in helping someone recover from an eating disorder, will recommend they participate in any kind of planned "diet," just because there are so many underlying mental and emotional issues that you never know what might trigger an episode of the eating disorder. But to suggest that a compulsive or binge eater should be able to do whatever they want because they aren't going to go on a diet, that's just ludicrous. And it's tantamount to enabling someone with an emotional disorder to continue living in their rollercoaster and on the road to destruction.
If you know someone who has an eating disorder, or suspect someone you know or love has an eating disorder, please check out the National Eating Disorders Association, a wonderful website called Something Fishy about Eating Disorders, or participate in National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, which will be held in 2005 from February 27 to March 8. The NEDA webiste has some interesting photos and write-ups of activities that took place on this year's National Eating Disorder Awareness week.
Thank you.
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On a side note, an old friend of mine googled me the other day and somehow, some way, made the connection to this blog and found me. Needless to say I was freaked out. I'll stand by anything I've written here, though, and have taken some steps to try to anonymize this blog even a little more. Perhaps I will redesign the header and take off my picture in addition to everything else. Or maybe some day I'll just say "fuck it" and not care.
One of the things I was so impressed with, when this friend contacted me, is that she's been able to completely get rid of the negative influence in her life regarding the group we used to run with. Although neither one of us has any contact with that group any more, I am affected by the "way things used to be" far more than she is. She's moved on, moved away, has a little one of her own and a husband, and has her own life in which she focuses on herself and on her family.
Maybe moving away from this place is just what I need to jumpstart that kind of transformation. Because somewhere in my heart, I'm guilty of a certain amount of self loathing, wondering why I was such a bad person that old friends quit talking to me, wondering why after a certain point I just didn't quite fit in any more, wondering why I always worried so much about what everyone else thought of me. The funniest thing about it is, we were all the kids no one else wanted to accept. We were the geeks, the chubby girls, the outcasts, the skinny guys with glasses, we thought we understood one another because we were all "different" enough that we were the same. But somewhere along the line, even the tweaks and geeks decided some folks weren't the right kind of people to be a part of the group. Whether that's me or someone else, folks in that group had a tendency to believe that if you didn't quite fit, you didn't measure up, you didn't deserve the same respect anyone else did. I'm sure I was guilty of mistreating someone at one time or another, though I can't put my finger on any specific instance. Maybe that was my karma for getting dropped from the group. A combo of me marrying someone that nobody liked, not quite fitting in any more, and being a general pain in the ass, probably. Oddly enough, one of the best things that ever happened to me was leaving them behind in the way I did.
In so many ways I've grown so much since we were in our 20's and all that mattered was hanging out with the gang and holding on to whatever sick relationship we thought we needed at the time. I've learned what I deserve in life and have made efforts to live a better life and be a better person so I can truly deserve even more blessings, and bring them upon myself. I've found a husband and a soulmate who would stand up for me and protect me against any odds... and I'd do the same for him. I have a fruitful career and some truly wonderful friends (Shanna, Kristina, Maury, plus my new friends through this website that I've gotten to know). I'm turning into the good person I always wanted to be, stronger, happier, more grounded, more settled.
But I have to learn how to release my anger and hurt over the past, and I have to focus on putting these poisonous people behind me.
Yeah, maybe Oklahoma is just what I need.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-
My job as a military wife is
to make it as easy as possible
for my beloved husband to do his job.
Where he leads, I will follow.
Name: Rose
Age: 36
Religion: Pagan
Husband: SSgt, USAF
Current Location: Tinker AFB, OK
Job: Self-Employed Transcriptionist
and Domestic Goddess
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