Mending

I still feel like posterior but I think I am getting better. I just could not make it into work yesterday and have pretty much been in bed for almost 48 hours. I made it to the local cafe and bought some containers of good organic soup and like 50 bottles of vitamin water. I realized (because of massive leg cramps) that I had pretty seriously dehydrated and while getting a plain glass of H2O down is too much work, I will drink the silly rainbow water when I will drink nothing else. Good to do that before I got to the pedialyte or IV fluids stage. So about 3 gallons of brightly coloured nutrient-tinged water later and I think I am in better shape. I tried going to meeting this morning but bailed pretty fast. The kids left for first day school and I left for lying-under-the-covers-and-reading-blogs school. That's one thing I'll miss about living here...I only have to go up or down some stairs if I change my mind about going to meeting. No trudging through the cold.

Oh man, will I ever be trudging through the cold in about a week. I went ahead and put a deposit on some Very Sensible Winter Boots so that they'd order them in my size. The boots are not sexy or sporty and are probably more suited to the middle-aged but I needed something I could wear with professional clothes or jeans while walking 1.1 miles twice a day and these are just easy. Expensive as all hell, but easy. And hey, I can still wear them when I'm 40. They'll be just as stylish and age-appropriate. (those photos are kind of flattering, but really the boot looks like black leather knee-high galoshes. I just hope they are warm. To add to my attractive profile I've ordered them a little big so I can wear my super sexy double-knit wool men's socks under them. Pair these with my longjohns and I am going to be one hot cold-weather fashion model this season! Hoo yeah!)

Another sign of returning wellness is that I am typing comfortably with two hands and no brace. I was soooooo tired before that even my wrist ached and I couldn't deal so I was pecking everything out with the middle finger of my right hand. No disrespect intended.

PS. Tomorrow (at 9 am, wail...) I have another immigration appointment to get an appointment. Pray for me. Things are still complicated because of my two stupid last names.

Typhoid Mary Rides Again

I'm usually pretty stoic about accidents and illnesses. I'm such an immune-challenged klutz that I really have to be. But this has gotten me. I am a very sick rabbit. Last night I got home from work around 5:30. I left "early" because I was literally falling over, and a propped-up florist is only so productive. I came in my door and laid down on my bed in my coat and shoes to catch my breath. I woke up five hours later, hungry, confused, and still exhausted. I ate some grapes (how convalescent of me!) took some pills and syrup, took off my coat and boots and crawled back into bed. I am a big howling baby about this one. I think it's cause this bug makes you so weak and mewling and kitten-like. The bone cracking cough-til-you-hurl fits are unpleasant in themselves but I could deal with that. It's just that each of them is like an Olympic workout and I'm totally not in that good shape, so after each very challenging event I need to lie down and whimper. Then there's the fact that between the drugs and the cough/gagging, food is nearly unmentionable and way too much work anyway so I am lucky to average a meal a day. On thanksgiving, the ladies of our meeting saved a plate for me and that was lovely. Yesterday I found some very terrible (long-canned, industrial/institutional, served up in a Styrofoam bowl at the diner) chicken soup, but it did the job so I'll go back for more today. Other than that I can only manage random fruit, if I can drag my germy butt to the kitchen and muster the will to pick it up. (The fruit, not the kitchen.) Then again, lying around and moaning only takes so many calories so it is probably just as well.

Anyway, all I want to do is lay facedown in my pillows and whine, which is kind of what I'm doing at the moment, though my pillows are under my elbow and my whining is virtual.

I'm also creeping about my room "packing" after a fashion, which at this point is mostly arguing myself into throwing out a thousand scraps of this or that which I want to keep for "a project." I finally threw away two trash bags of stuff (the garbage juice of yore that plagued me when I wrestled with our giant barrels is now garbage ice) and put on another load of laundry. Every time I do a wash I pack half the clothes, and only keep out things I think I will want in the next two weeks. It is very liberating. Frustrating busy new roommates have not replied to my query about a good time to start moving in next Sat, key accessibility, and (!) street address (Don't laugh. It happens.) and I am frankly too tired to chase them very much. BUT HOLY EXCREMENT I AM MOVING IN EXACTLY A WEEK. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

And I have to go be a propped-up florist again in two hours. I hope I give all the roses cholera or something.

And I have to get better fast, because super exciting visit from friend is like ten days away!

Turns out...

That I have not only a sinus infection but whooping cough and may have infected my entire family, 2 buses, 3 airports, 4 airplanes and a partridge in a pear tree: MINUS 40

That I will be without an ATM card or a neighbourhood branch for 14 business days: MINUS 20

That I had to stand in line for an hour to see someone who would give me an appointment to come in Monday to stand in line for an hour to see another person who will hopefully give me another appointment to get my fingerprints etc taken. I would council myself to take deep breaths but that's not very easy what with the whooping cough. MINUS 10 BILLION

BUT

I have tasty narcotic cough syrup. PLUS 20

I got a beautiful package in the mail all the way from Ireland, nestled right at my doorstep after a long, cold, exhausting day. PLUS 15 BILLION

I got Skype working and can now talk to dear ones all over the globe for free free free. PLUS 25

I just noticed that my brain meds are working really well, and that makes me feel great and hopeful. PLUS ANOTHER DOZEN BILLION, LET'S GET RECKLESS

I have a job interview on Tues for a Harvard position that might be perfect and that I have a good feeling about. PLUS 20


I'm too wasted on cough syrup to do the math, but it's not so bad. Must find food, though. Also have to work tomorrow if I have any hope of getting the rent together for the moving that is coming too fast, and I am in no shape for that, so pray for me.


Happy Turkey Day, all. I know despite a really difficult year, I have uncountable blessings (even using billions) to be thankful for.

Rawr

The good: got home safe from a fun "early thanksgiving" with my family. Not even 5 hours in the St. Louis airport could bring me down. Shout out to awesome friend with the killer phone bill who entertained and soothed the savage beast (me) as I chugged $7 michelob or whatever the heck that beer was.

The bad: Some jerk managed to steal my debit card number and buy sheets from Bed Bath and Beyond in NY, gas in LA, and god knows what (beer?) at a convenience store somewhere else in CA before my bank figured out this was weird. The fact that I was buying stuff in NC at the same time may have confused things. Now my account is frozen and I'm going to have to go fight the good fight to get everything put back where it belongs. In the meantime all of my automated payments will be bouncing joyfully for the next week or so. There is an expletive right...here.

The ugly: Man, I am siiiiiiiick. Like run over by a truck that then backed up over me and spun its wheels sick. Sick as the proverbial dog that is sick sick. Why was I so smug about not getting sick yet this fall sick. I am alternately screeching and whispering at people as I can't hear myself through plugged ears and I have to talk through 7 layers of gunk before any legible words come through. Plus symptom symptom gross symptom symptom. That's all you want to know. Ewwwww.

The annoying: My stupid over-rated lemon iBook is killing me. Or rather, dying slowly while sucking my wallet down with it. I should just throw it in the dump where it belongs and buy a loaded PC laptop for the price of the constant repairs but I am now an apple junkie and cannot remove the OS from my arm. As I will never (never = at least not in the next 3 years) be able to afford a new apple I am going to have to perform continual CPR on its dinky dinged white carcass. (almost literally, I have to tinker and pump and prod and breathe on the brand new $80 power converter to make it work.) More expletives...here.

Prayers for me tomorrow please as I hit up the Department of Homeland Security for some paperwork I really need. I'll be giving them my fingerprints, my DNA, (free cheek swabs for all!) and my pretty pretty profile in return, so the least they can do is stamp my form, please? Love you too, Uncle Sam! Here, have a retinal scan on me!

On a Mini Vacation This Weekend

I took myself out of Boston for the long weekend and have spent it with friends and alone in a pretty perfect proportion. Lots of time walking solitary or riding the bus with my iPod permanently stuck on Brandi Carlile. At some point I will have to move on, but of all the music that's moved me in my nearly twenty-five years, who'd think it would be a country-pop cowgirl who would steal my heart and mark a musical epoch in my life? It may just be that this is a super intense time in need of a super intense sound track but I am becoming a broken record myself by repeating how much I love her. There is this one song that would make me cry by itself, but then, for the love of all that is holy, there is this remix from a live concert in Austin. With cellos, for the love of god. Seriously, what am I supposed to do?

That's right. Cry like a baby. You know, Ever since I got out of the hospital I cry on average about 10x the amount I used to. This is supposed to be good, but I am not sure. I don't mind so much when it's with music.

Sorry I'm only human.
You know me:
Grown up?
Oh no, guess again

My days always
Dry up and blow away
Sometimes I could do that too
But make no mistake that

When you need a friend
You could count on anyone
But you know I'll defend
The tragedy that we knew as
The end

Progress, changing
Growing, then giving up
Somehow we're never quite prepared
But I understand it

When you need a friend
You could count on anyone
But you know I'll defend
The tragedy that we knew as
The end

So taking me with you would be like
Taking all your money to the grave
It does no good to anyone especially
The one you're trying to save.
But it's so hard not to save.

When you need a friend
You could count on anyone
But you know I'll defend
The tragedy that we knew as
The end

It's the first few lines that kill me. As my last relationship wans ending and it felt like my heart was shattering into a million pieces, I said "I'm sorry I'm me." And I really heartfeltedly meant it, which is the sad thing.

But today I have to say I'm really not sorry at all. Not today.

So, I got the gigantic two-rooms-to-myself apartment in the hinterlands of Somerville with the awesome surprise-Quaker roommates. (no dog, though, I got mixed up). In exactly two months I will on here bitching about walking 15 minutes through a frozen urban wasteland to a bus that is never on time while paying $150 a month for heat. But for now I'm really excited. Half my room is packed already. It's disgusting how much stuff I have. Moving to Cambridge is the worst thing that could have happened to my used-book addiction. They are all awesome and they are all orphaned and they are all only two dollars! What else can I do?

So now I just need to get a job to pay for the apartment and the moving and the used books. Yeep. Thank you god, for flowers. Yes, because they are beautiful, but also because I get paid $12/hr net to slaughter them wholesale and stuff them into foam. Amen.

Oh, and another song that makes me cry hard when I'm insomniac and lonely at the same time. This one is on repeat a lot.

Look to the clock on the wall:
Hands hardly moving at all.
I can't stand the state that I'm in.
Sometimes it feels like the walls' closing in.

Oh lord what can I say?
I'm so sad since you went away.
Time time tickin' on me.
Alone is the last place I wanted to be.
Lord what can i say?

Try and burn my troubles away,
Drown my sorrow the same way.
It seems no matter how hard I try
It feels like there's something just missing inside.

Oh lord what can I say?
I'm so sad since you went away.
Time time tickin' on me:
Alone is the last place I wanted to be
Lord what can I say?
Oh Lord what can I say?

How many rules can I break?
How many lies can I make?
How many roads must I turn
To find me a place where the bridge hasn't burned?

Oh lord what can I say?
I'm so sad since you went away.
Time time tickin' on me:
Alone is the last place I wanted to be
Lord what can I say?
Oh Lord what can I say?

Damnit, Brandi Carlile, stop singing songs about me getting my heart broken or I will...

...

...okay, fine, please keep writing them.

For one night at least, I might be an insomniac but I don't feel lonely. Tonight I am in my favourite city, with people who love me, with a glass of wine and a good helping of hope.

The Usual

I've been something of an insomniac for much of my life. I remember when I was quite small having Existential Dread--Sesame Street Edition. I'd lie in bed and realize that everyone I loved was asleep, everyone who knew I existed was asleep, I was completely alone, and I would tremble and cry with fear and loneliness at this awful idea even while my sisters slept next to me.

It's not so bad anymore, but I do have these odd moments of lying wide awake in bed at some small hour, feeling like my life is rushing past, feeling unaccountably alone, wondering what will become of me, dipping my toe into the cold waters of nothingness. I am seriously the most hysterical existentialist to walk this silly world.

I've kept out of psychic trouble this week by trading long emails with good friends and keeping extremely busy. One of the reasons I am quite annoyed and anxious about my wakefulness is that I have a job interview for a new Harvard job tomorrow, and I need some rest. I have to pick up my suit from the cleaners and style my hair and I think I packed the shoes I meant to wear. And it suddenly occurs to me that I have no decent trouser socks that will match my brown suit because I haven't had to be professional in half a year. Blaaaah. I am also packing my room, looking at apartments and being mildly jerked around by potential roommates. Roommate interviewing is unpleasantly similar to internet dating, but with higher stakes. You'd normally spend a year or so before taking the big step of moving in with a significant other, but here you're going to move in with strangers. And the primping and earnestly putting forth of only your most charming, entertaining, low maintenance, tidy, generous, light-hearted self in the face of possible mass rejection is very tiring. But it's keeping me occupied. I can only be so self-obsessed and depressed when I am getting lost in Somerville. I went back to work at the flower shop. It is extremely painful with my farking useless hand and I've had to give up early every day, but it helps a lot to be useful. Last week was just awful, though with definite bright spots. Being back to work and actually taking action towards rebuilding my dismantled life makes all the difference.

Saturday I really thought I was going to lose it again. It was my day on duty at the meetinghouse and cleaning 3 floors of a giant building and the meetinghouse and moving benches all with one hand was BAD NEWS. Also it was raining and icy and dark, and I was so sad and lonely at various points I had to retreat to my room and cry into my pillow like a teenager.

I am missing someone but I don't know who
Now I'm standing alone and I'm trying to remember
Sometimes I wonder how I ever started loving you

Morning sun shine on me
Come light inside my window
And rest on my brow
Kiss my eyes when I sleep
And carry me back home
If my dreams will allow

Though the moods rage and come and go, it's getting a bit easier to remember that they do go, even the very worst of them. None of them last forever, good or bad, and you can ride them out.



I've been finding my friendships re-sorting in the aftermath of my breakup. It's been painful but interesting. And I'm making new friends, too, wonderful friends, friends I haven't known very long but already can't imagine ever doing without. I was remarking to one of these friends that although I really am spectacularly unlucky in some ways (Constant refrain: *head shaking in disbelief* "This could only happen to you, Amanda.") I am preternaturally lucky in others, and one of those is friendships.

I seem to be constitutionally incapable of listening to anything but Brandi Carlile these days. I swear.

I'm like the rain in a downpour
I wash away what you long for
And I wave goodbye with the sun in my eyes
I wish I could be there tonight

I'm like the wind in the canyon
I'm there then I'm gone in a second
You're growing older in peace where you're at
I wish I could be there for that
But I've moved on
Like a rolling stone
In a crowded room
I'm alone

I'm like the rain in a downpour
I wash away what you long for
And I wave goodbye with the sun in my eyes
I wish I could be there tonight
Oh, oh, yeah

You're like the tide in the deep blue
Cause you're always there when I need you
And when you need someone to carry you through
I'm gonna be there for you
I'm gonna be there for you

So November is going to kick my ass. Job interviews, apartment interviews, trip this weekend, trip to NC for pretend Thanksgiving next weekend, working, moving, and SUPER DUPER EXCITING VISIT FROM FRIEND the first week of Dec.

As it should be.

xkcd.com

Thanks to Zach for the heads up. I love this comic strip. It is my new favourite thing.

Quoting

I apologize to those who come here for more than poetry and song lyrics. Some days all I can do is listen to my music till my ears fall off or read my books till my eyes fall out, and I want to share something of what I've found there, but I can't find the words to talk about it. So I paste in the words that moved me, instead, hoping to get something across. I got a bit of a kick in the heart this afternoon so I'm wringing my tears into obsessive Brandi Carlile listening:

Someone told me a lie
Someone looked me in the eye
And said time will ease your pain
But behold, when you fall
It's that same old cannonball
Coming back for your heart again

Bright lights like white lightning
Who shot me down
Who will cut me down
I'm frozen in my bed till the day comes around
And it may come around
Until the day comes around
How I'm lost
How I'm found

I was born when I met you
Now I'm dying to forget you
And that is what I know

Ouch. In other news, I'm sending off emails to cool sounding people from the craigslist apartment section, and it really seems to me that rent has fallen considerably in the two something years I've been here. I'm finding rooms in prime "cool" areas like Davis for about $500/mo. Not bad. We'll cross our digits and pray. I give good email, so maybe it'll catch someone's eye. There's one cheap one in a cool part of Somerville that is TWO rooms, so I could have a studio/library, which would be amazing. And they have a dog. I love dogs but am too troubled and transient to have one right now. So we'll see. I offered cookies. Cheap move, but you do what you have to in this mean ol' world. :)

PS:
Edited to add this email I just got from the girl in my fav. apartment ad!

That's so insane! I was raised a Philadelphia Quaker--meaning I practice a little more selectively than most. What's absolutely crazy is my boyfriend is thinking about converting--and since we kind of stressed the conversation aspect, and then the subsequent potato salad, on what the Philly Quaker experience is.. well, I don't really think I brought home besides the open minded and non violent aspects of things. Small world! I couldn't imagine living in a meeting house. I haven't even been to one on Boston yet. I'm teetering on the side of agnostic, but I love a lot of the beliefs that Quakers have.

Oh man. You love beer and zombies. I wanna say, right off the top I think I love you and you'll mesh awesomely. I'm a lot less worried about stressing to find a good fit now. :)

WOOT! This is a funny old world, even if it's mean sometimes.

Dresden Dolls

They're overexposed here in Boston, but I'm loving them right now. Overwritten overwrought modern-day cabaret? What's not to love?

Thirty licks with a belt; same old tricks on myself.
And I wonder: Does everyone else live this way?
A succession of tests, a triumphant success,
Each time, I'm still intact, at the end of the day.

Thirty drops in a glass, keep my temper and pass
With my breath held. You bastards, you lucked out again!
It's not really so bad. There’s still mom, there’s still
Damage to do before they wrest the axe from my hands.

It's no mystery: you should obviously go,
Before I break everything.
You’re always telling me that you're dying to know;
But you’re not really listening.

How do I manage to station myself in harms way,
And only get hit with a ticket for loitering...
That I have no way to pay? And no strength to argue.
My personal demons can scheme with professional care...
Oh, god, they're after me!
If I could shut them out just for a second,
I swear:
I could stop this catastrophe.

Thirty day guarantee,
But they can't have meant me.
After all, I was born to a child-proof world.
No sharp corners, or glass,
Small objects, or plastic bags.
Please, these are death to a delicate girl.

It's no mystery - you should obviously know
That I’ll destroy everything.
So don't go telling me that you're dying to know-
'Cause you’ll get what you're asking for.

And I still manage to station myself in harm's way,
And only get hit with a ticket for loitering,
Stating I came the wrong day.
Now all the demons are screaming, their wages aren't fair.
I've left a secret kept.
If I could shut them up just for a second, I swear:
It’ll look like an accident.
I could be decent yet!
The magnificent end:
I could be president....

Yeesh.

La la la no sleeping for me. Someday this will come to an end and I'll be snoozing beauty in a castle for a thousand years, and it'll take one hell of a kiss to wake me up while I'm making up for all my lost sleep.

Somehow, for all the ways it sucked, today was not entirely awful. (wow, Amanda, you can muster better than that!)

The good today and lately:
-Woke up and ate hardboiled eggs for breakfast at Charli's. Love Charli. Love eggs.
-Wrote some poems. Love poetry.
-Made some art. Love art.
-Got rid of 4 bags of excess crap from my room. Hate crap.
-Got a big black brace that makes my frayed ligaments rest easier, my wrist sweat less, and my bad-ass factor go up by about 6000 points. It is like a ninja splint. Might even let me work tomorrow. Love splint.
-Got some painkillers. Love painkillers.
-Made a mix CD. I love making mix CDs.
-Got to hear part of a stunning concert while on duty at the desk at the meetinghouse. Love concerts.
-Got a spectacular grade on my psych midterm. Love psych midterm.
-Shared more of myself with a new friend and wasn't rejected, but affirmed. Love new friend.

The absolutely expletive obscenity blasphemy horrible:
-I'm losing my house. The average meetinghouse stay is about two years, and I'm coming up on that now. But the thing is, my concentration, focus and reliability haven't been the same since the summer. I never know when I'll be zipping through chores like an obsessive merry maid and when I'll spend two days straight under the covers, emerging only to half-heartedly swab at corners. I can't promise any time-line for getting better. I do what I can do. I've come so far this year, especially in the last four months, but it's not far enough. If I was doing better I'd likely be invited to stay another year, but no go. They've been so compassionate and forbearing so far, but there's only so much they can do. They're not throwing me out on the street but I am being firmly shifted towards my exit. Not sure when it will happen, probably I have till the end of the year. It's a bit crushing, not just because I have to figure out how to find and pay for an apartment while still functionally unemployed and partially disabled, but because it's so hard on the ego to really really try at something and not succeed. Not to sound cocksure but this is new to me. Which brings me to:

-Had to drop the math course. It was stressing me out almost to the point of hysteria and I just knew I needed to let it go. It's like chess...sometimes you need to sacrifice a piece to win the game. Don't know if I'm winning, but I wasn't going to sacrifice my GPA and sanity to a kiddie math course. But of course my inability to deal with simple probability, statistics and mild algebra is humiliating. A good deal of my energy since has gone into trying to keep myself from hyperventilating about the fact that if I can't do math I can't be a doctor and if I can't be a doctor what am I going to be, oh god, oh god, oh god, etc. ad nauseum.

Seriously, I need a break, this is all getting ridiculous. But still, look at that good list up there. Those are precious things, each of them.

Reading some Rilke:

Voices, Voices. Listen, my heart, as otherwise only
saints have listened: until the immense call
raised them off the ground; and they continued to kneel
and noticed nothing, these impossible creatures:
so completely they listened. Not that you could bear God's
voice, not by far. But hear that blowing,
its uninterrupted message forming from silence.