To the day. This time two weeks from today, God willing, I will be somewhere over the
Atlantic ocean.
Woah.
I am so excited. I am also sick, again. I hope Irish germs find me less attractive than American germs.
Speaking of American germs, my new green card came in the mail today. Huzzah! Enclosed was a pamphlet: "Welome to America!" Thanks, America! It's been real, it's been nice, it ain't been real nice, see ya later.
No, I'm really glad to have it. It means I can re-enter the United States with a minimum of harrasment. And as the biggest part of my family lives here, that's really kind of important.
My list of things to do, find, get rid of, pack, etc, is mind boggling. I am in a bizzare time warp where time is flying and crawling all at once. Agile, that time.
I learned a new word today: epistaxis. I was diagnosed with a sinus infection, and was reading what the doctor wrote on my chart, because I'm nosy (Ha! Nosy!) and I was like: "Hey! What the heck is epistaxis?" The doc said "it just means nosebleed. If it was a dribble, or if it had stopped a few hours ago, I's just write nosebleed. But if it's a bad nosebleed we like to use a scarier word." Ha! I really like him.
I also learned a new smell: electrocauterized nose. Someday I will make you all a scratch and sniff sticker...it really has to be experienced to be believed. If you'd like to try it at home, you'll need some gauze, a cattle prod (or super-heated fire poker), a large hammer, and a nose. As the doctor swabbed anti-pain gell in my nostril and then shot lidocane or whatever in my nose, he said "in the old days, they just rubbed cocaine up here instead." I was trembling, but I put on my evilest grin and said "well, I'm an old fashioned girl!" Luckily, he laughed. And then stuck a cattle prod up my nose.
But what are a few cattle prods up the nose if in two weeks you are flying overseas for the first times, into the arms of someone you adore?
Of The Best Stuff, but Cracked
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
I might be smoking a cigarette...
...but I'm still adorable.
Thanks for the photo, and the ticket, SKB!
Friday, February 08, 2008
Things that make me smile today:
From dear friend S:
Aslan, I totally feel you. PLS STOP SNOWING ALREADY K THNX BYE
Boots bought yestersday, to help in survival of slush andswamp workplace slime. Also Pink:
PINK!
Grown up siblings (landmark birthdays coming up: leap year for Jenny, 21 for Miguel, all this month. Woot.):
Heck, all siblings:
PASSPORT CAME IN THE MAIL:
There is an e-ticket to Ireland sitting in my inbox.
I turned the heat up in my room. Because I can.
Being crazy in love never hurt either.
Aslan, I totally feel you. PLS STOP SNOWING ALREADY K THNX BYE
Boots bought yestersday, to help in survival of slush and
PINK!
Grown up siblings (landmark birthdays coming up: leap year for Jenny, 21 for Miguel, all this month. Woot.):
Heck, all siblings:
PASSPORT CAME IN THE MAIL:
There is an e-ticket to Ireland sitting in my inbox.
I turned the heat up in my room. Because I can.
Being crazy in love never hurt either.
Sunday, February 03, 2008
La la la
Well, I made it to meeting this morning and had a good one. I spoke a message that I'd been carrying around for a while and it felt faithful. That's always good. I have a pretty heavy case of the sniffles, but then I usually have the sniffles from October through April, and then the pollen comes and I have another three months of them. So not sure why I ought to be bothering to moan about them at all.
Anyway, the sun is shining and the Superbowl is on. I don't care about football, but I do like snacks and people, so I'll be hanging out at my dear friend S's house (actually I am already there) for her super Superbowl party.
Also, I am going to visit Ireland in March. Yay.
Anyway, the sun is shining and the Superbowl is on. I don't care about football, but I do like snacks and people, so I'll be hanging out at my dear friend S's house (actually I am already there) for her super Superbowl party.
Also, I am going to visit Ireland in March. Yay.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Hello Friends!
Well, I am still doing very well. To the friend who commented in the last post, worried that I was in a manic state: fear not. I have an entire team of psychiatric professionals with whom I meet many times a month, in one permutation or another. In fact, at one point in the last few weeks I asked my therapist if I might be manic. She said "There is mania, and there is happiness. I have seen you manic. Right now, you are happy."
There is no cure, let alone a "miracle cure" for being bipolar. As of right now my disease is well controlled by medications, but it is still present and it is still a part of my personality. It always will be. When I am happy, it is likely that I will feel it more intensely and display it more passionately that the average happy person. When I am sad, it is likely that I will be more depressed and take things harder than your average sad person. This is part of my disease, but also a part of who I am. This is how I move in the world.
In the past week, I've had some elated times and some very hard times. It can be scary to navigate though emotionally intense times for the most emotionally well-adjusted person, but when you've been made necessarily aware of your slightest shift in mood, it can be quite frightening. There is a stigma to any mental illness, and the self-inflicted stigma can be the most devastating. For every shift in mood there is a corresponding shift in self-observation: is this an emotion, or is this a symptom? Am I reacting to the world, or am I getting ready to be locked up again?
It has the potential to be paralyzing, when faced alone. How is one to navigate the very human world of stimuli and responses when you cannot trust your own perception of stimuli, nor your ability to respond in a non-pathological way?
If it is possible at all, it is possible only with a great (very great) deal of training and experience. As of this writing, I am never quite sure, when I experience an emotion, if I am having a genuine emotional experience or a pathological expression of that experience. My intellect and reasoning and if/then mental flowcharts can only take me so far. I have been (mightily) wrong before. I might (probably, likely) will be wrong again. To be blunt: that sucks.
But I am not alone. I have doctors, I have therapists, I have friends, I have family. If my personal barometer is off (and sometimes it is, though increasingly less so) then I can count on them to let me know. So far, the most brilliant and rewarding moments of my recovery have been the reactions of these dear people around me. Friends notice how much healthier I look. My family has not seen me so relaxed since infancy. My therapist is calmly elated at the difference between the shrinking, shy, self-hating, depressed and manically anxious girl who scuttled into her office and then tried to kill herself, and the tall, calm, gentle and observant (if intense and often overly emotional and overly analytical) woman who comes to see her now.
It is often difficult to extract the “disorder” or “disease” from the fundamental personality traits of the patients. I always have been and I always will be intense. I always have been and I always will be prone to unreasonable flights of fantasy that cannot necessarily be grounded in reality. I always have been and I always will be easy prey to debilitating depressions in response to seemingly minor provocations. It is part of my disease. It is part of my disorder. It is part of who I am. With medication, with therapy, and with time, it will become easier for me to discard and control the parts of this phenomenon that are not “me.” As my brain chemistry is corrected, and as the corrupted thinking patterns and deep-seated wounds in my self esteem and my vision of the world are healed, I will be able to embrace with more and more confidence and peace the passion and intensity that makes being Amanda worth while. It is already happening, and though it may not be a “miracle cure” it is none the less a miracle.
If I sound manic in my posts, it is necessary to know where I came from. I have poured out my soul on this blog, but only so far. Even though I am bipolar, for a long, long time, the only symptom I displayed was depression. It was a depression so profound, sunk so deep in my bones, that I had been carrying the desire to die from an obscenely early age. My mania never announced itself in elation or joy or grandiosity. When I was “manic” my symptoms mimicked a major anxiety disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, or obsessive compulsive disorder. Even manic, I was never happy, at least not for more than a moment or two at a time.In my depressions, which would last years (interrupted only by "manic" sessions of obsession and fear) I could not bathe, I could not eat or I ate too much, I could not leave the house, and when I left the house I felt that around every corner lay someone ready to despise me. I sometimes could not go to work and when I went to work the burden of my own perceived incompetence crushed out any ability I might have had to prove my competency. There was a deep sense of doom clouding almost every waking moment. I lost jobs, friends, and relationships to this unspeakable sadness. Compared to the bone-crushing, heart-breaking, soul-smashing intensity of the depression I carried before, any glimpse of happiness would seem positively manic and obscene. And of course, when I express it, I am going to express it even more loudly and obscenely than my gentle non-mentally ill bretheren.
But I don't just have a glimpse, I have whole vista of happiness. And even with the many distressing and tragic and painful worries that remain in my life, I am full of joy and thanksgiving. I am so, so happy that even without a comparision to my earlier miserable state, it might seem unreasonable.
For a long time, it has hurt. It has hurt to be. It has hurt to be me. And though I still feel hurt (sometimes deeply), it no longer hurts to exist. And beyond that, the hurts that I have carried so long have given birth to the happiness I hold now.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.
— Rumi
There is no cure, let alone a "miracle cure" for being bipolar. As of right now my disease is well controlled by medications, but it is still present and it is still a part of my personality. It always will be. When I am happy, it is likely that I will feel it more intensely and display it more passionately that the average happy person. When I am sad, it is likely that I will be more depressed and take things harder than your average sad person. This is part of my disease, but also a part of who I am. This is how I move in the world.
In the past week, I've had some elated times and some very hard times. It can be scary to navigate though emotionally intense times for the most emotionally well-adjusted person, but when you've been made necessarily aware of your slightest shift in mood, it can be quite frightening. There is a stigma to any mental illness, and the self-inflicted stigma can be the most devastating. For every shift in mood there is a corresponding shift in self-observation: is this an emotion, or is this a symptom? Am I reacting to the world, or am I getting ready to be locked up again?
It has the potential to be paralyzing, when faced alone. How is one to navigate the very human world of stimuli and responses when you cannot trust your own perception of stimuli, nor your ability to respond in a non-pathological way?
If it is possible at all, it is possible only with a great (very great) deal of training and experience. As of this writing, I am never quite sure, when I experience an emotion, if I am having a genuine emotional experience or a pathological expression of that experience. My intellect and reasoning and if/then mental flowcharts can only take me so far. I have been (mightily) wrong before. I might (probably, likely) will be wrong again. To be blunt: that sucks.
But I am not alone. I have doctors, I have therapists, I have friends, I have family. If my personal barometer is off (and sometimes it is, though increasingly less so) then I can count on them to let me know. So far, the most brilliant and rewarding moments of my recovery have been the reactions of these dear people around me. Friends notice how much healthier I look. My family has not seen me so relaxed since infancy. My therapist is calmly elated at the difference between the shrinking, shy, self-hating, depressed and manically anxious girl who scuttled into her office and then tried to kill herself, and the tall, calm, gentle and observant (if intense and often overly emotional and overly analytical) woman who comes to see her now.
It is often difficult to extract the “disorder” or “disease” from the fundamental personality traits of the patients. I always have been and I always will be intense. I always have been and I always will be prone to unreasonable flights of fantasy that cannot necessarily be grounded in reality. I always have been and I always will be easy prey to debilitating depressions in response to seemingly minor provocations. It is part of my disease. It is part of my disorder. It is part of who I am. With medication, with therapy, and with time, it will become easier for me to discard and control the parts of this phenomenon that are not “me.” As my brain chemistry is corrected, and as the corrupted thinking patterns and deep-seated wounds in my self esteem and my vision of the world are healed, I will be able to embrace with more and more confidence and peace the passion and intensity that makes being Amanda worth while. It is already happening, and though it may not be a “miracle cure” it is none the less a miracle.
If I sound manic in my posts, it is necessary to know where I came from. I have poured out my soul on this blog, but only so far. Even though I am bipolar, for a long, long time, the only symptom I displayed was depression. It was a depression so profound, sunk so deep in my bones, that I had been carrying the desire to die from an obscenely early age. My mania never announced itself in elation or joy or grandiosity. When I was “manic” my symptoms mimicked a major anxiety disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, or obsessive compulsive disorder. Even manic, I was never happy, at least not for more than a moment or two at a time.In my depressions, which would last years (interrupted only by "manic" sessions of obsession and fear) I could not bathe, I could not eat or I ate too much, I could not leave the house, and when I left the house I felt that around every corner lay someone ready to despise me. I sometimes could not go to work and when I went to work the burden of my own perceived incompetence crushed out any ability I might have had to prove my competency. There was a deep sense of doom clouding almost every waking moment. I lost jobs, friends, and relationships to this unspeakable sadness. Compared to the bone-crushing, heart-breaking, soul-smashing intensity of the depression I carried before, any glimpse of happiness would seem positively manic and obscene. And of course, when I express it, I am going to express it even more loudly and obscenely than my gentle non-mentally ill bretheren.
But I don't just have a glimpse, I have whole vista of happiness. And even with the many distressing and tragic and painful worries that remain in my life, I am full of joy and thanksgiving. I am so, so happy that even without a comparision to my earlier miserable state, it might seem unreasonable.
For a long time, it has hurt. It has hurt to be. It has hurt to be me. And though I still feel hurt (sometimes deeply), it no longer hurts to exist. And beyond that, the hurts that I have carried so long have given birth to the happiness I hold now.
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
Some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
Who violently sweep your house
Empty of its furniture,
Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
For some new delight.
— Rumi
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Some prayers of happiness
Dear Friends!
I am so well. It's been a while since I wrote here, but I am very, very well. They found the right medications for me, and my soul has never been so free. It's a miracle of the highest order, at least in my little life. The heavy, murderous shadow that has weighed me down from early memory has been lifted, and I am well.
I can't say it enough: I bore friends with my constant repetition of how happy I am. And not just happy, but peaceful. I never knew what a miserable burden of anxiety I carried, even on my best days. I knew it was hard to be me, but I didn't know just how hard it had been until that burden was taken away from me.
I still encounter the range of emotions: elation, anger, sorrow, joy, pain, silliness, seriousness, love, and the mild panic of a paper due and an exam to write.(Monday! Ack!) But I feel these things more freely--they aren't overwhelming blows. For so long, living with bipolar, I was prey to every stray thought and feeling. Everything was terrifyingly significant, everything had to mean something, and I had to find out what it meant right away or something terrible might happen.
And that is all gone.
I am speechless with gratitude. All of my prayers and psalms begging for mercy and deliverance have been answered, and far beyond my wildest expectation. I longed for freedom from misery, but couldn't know that beyond that freedom was so much capacity for joy.
And best of all, I can feel God again. I was so desolate and alone for so long, but the tyranny of my pain has been broken, and I am free to seek and find God, very close.
Alleluia!
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good,
for his faithful love endures forever...
...In my distress I called to the Lord,
he heard me and brought me relief...
...I was pushed hard, to make me fall,
but the Lord came to my help.
God is my strength and my song,
he has been my saviour...
...I shall not die, I shall live
to recount the great deeds of God.
Though the Lord has chastened me sore,
he has not abandoned me to death.
Open for me the gates of saving justice
I shall go in and thank God...
...I thank you for hearing me
and making yourself my saviour.
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
This is the Lord's doing,
and we marvel at it.
This is the day that the Lord has made,
let us be glad and rejoice in it...
...You are my God, I thank you.
All praise to you, my God.
I thank you for hearing me,
and making yourself my saviour.
Give thanks to God for he is good,
for his faithful love endures forever.
(Psalm 118)
On top of this great gift, I have found a great love, and I am finally fit for love. For the first time I can love without the sense of dread and fear of rejection. I don't have to waste my energy shielding my partner from the fact that I am me. I don't have to feel in need of constant renovation and revision. I give happiness and receive happiness, give love and get love, and know that the gifts I give, as well as the gifts I receive, are well worth having. I can give myself as I am, and be received for all that I am. It's the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me, and sometimes I think I might pop from the sheer joy of it. Hooray!
One of the tangible gifts that my love has given to me is a beautiful little blue book called "The Book of Uncommon Prayer." It is full of some of humanity's best tributes to God, and I have a lot to share from it. For tonight, I have a blessing for all of my friends, and one especially.
The winter will lose its cold,
as the snow will be without whitenes,
the night will be without darkness,
the heavens without stars,
the day without light.
The flower will lose its beauty,
all fountains their water,
the sea its fish,
the tree its birds,
the forest its beasts,
the earth its harvest --
All these things will pass before
anyone breaks the bonds of our love,
and before I cease caring for you in my heart.
May your days be happy in number as flakes of snow,
may your nights be peaceful,
and may you be without troubles.
I am so well. It's been a while since I wrote here, but I am very, very well. They found the right medications for me, and my soul has never been so free. It's a miracle of the highest order, at least in my little life. The heavy, murderous shadow that has weighed me down from early memory has been lifted, and I am well.
I can't say it enough: I bore friends with my constant repetition of how happy I am. And not just happy, but peaceful. I never knew what a miserable burden of anxiety I carried, even on my best days. I knew it was hard to be me, but I didn't know just how hard it had been until that burden was taken away from me.
I still encounter the range of emotions: elation, anger, sorrow, joy, pain, silliness, seriousness, love, and the mild panic of a paper due and an exam to write.(Monday! Ack!) But I feel these things more freely--they aren't overwhelming blows. For so long, living with bipolar, I was prey to every stray thought and feeling. Everything was terrifyingly significant, everything had to mean something, and I had to find out what it meant right away or something terrible might happen.
And that is all gone.
I am speechless with gratitude. All of my prayers and psalms begging for mercy and deliverance have been answered, and far beyond my wildest expectation. I longed for freedom from misery, but couldn't know that beyond that freedom was so much capacity for joy.
And best of all, I can feel God again. I was so desolate and alone for so long, but the tyranny of my pain has been broken, and I am free to seek and find God, very close.
Alleluia!
Give thanks to the Lord for he is good,
for his faithful love endures forever...
...In my distress I called to the Lord,
he heard me and brought me relief...
...I was pushed hard, to make me fall,
but the Lord came to my help.
God is my strength and my song,
he has been my saviour...
...I shall not die, I shall live
to recount the great deeds of God.
Though the Lord has chastened me sore,
he has not abandoned me to death.
Open for me the gates of saving justice
I shall go in and thank God...
...I thank you for hearing me
and making yourself my saviour.
The stone which the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
This is the Lord's doing,
and we marvel at it.
This is the day that the Lord has made,
let us be glad and rejoice in it...
...You are my God, I thank you.
All praise to you, my God.
I thank you for hearing me,
and making yourself my saviour.
Give thanks to God for he is good,
for his faithful love endures forever.
(Psalm 118)
On top of this great gift, I have found a great love, and I am finally fit for love. For the first time I can love without the sense of dread and fear of rejection. I don't have to waste my energy shielding my partner from the fact that I am me. I don't have to feel in need of constant renovation and revision. I give happiness and receive happiness, give love and get love, and know that the gifts I give, as well as the gifts I receive, are well worth having. I can give myself as I am, and be received for all that I am. It's the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me, and sometimes I think I might pop from the sheer joy of it. Hooray!
One of the tangible gifts that my love has given to me is a beautiful little blue book called "The Book of Uncommon Prayer." It is full of some of humanity's best tributes to God, and I have a lot to share from it. For tonight, I have a blessing for all of my friends, and one especially.
The winter will lose its cold,
as the snow will be without whitenes,
the night will be without darkness,
the heavens without stars,
the day without light.
The flower will lose its beauty,
all fountains their water,
the sea its fish,
the tree its birds,
the forest its beasts,
the earth its harvest --
All these things will pass before
anyone breaks the bonds of our love,
and before I cease caring for you in my heart.
May your days be happy in number as flakes of snow,
may your nights be peaceful,
and may you be without troubles.
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Yule Be Miserable
I just bought an album by this name, and it has made my night. It's a collection of Christmas songs by blues artists, like Louis Armstrong's "Zat You, Santa Claus?" and Ella Fitzgerald's "Santa got Stuck (In My Chimney)." It is RIGHTEOUS. Here's the cover art:
As for myself, I am back on my feet but in the middle of the worst panicky moments of packing. Moving day is tomorrow.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
As for myself, I am back on my feet but in the middle of the worst panicky moments of packing. Moving day is tomorrow.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
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!
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!
Monday, November 12, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
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.
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.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Saturday, November 03, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
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....
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Why am I reading Neruda at a time like this? Masochism.
Instead I turn to a book of poetry Charli showed me, An Almost Pure Empty Walking by Tryfon Tolides. Never heard of him before. But man.
Two poems right now:
"Praying or Love Poem"
I go to the bookstore, where I don't
want to go, especially, or to be, after I get there,
as if being is burdensome, as if I might find a place
to set it down, instead of carrying it,
so I can rest. Perhaps I mean the body's
weight and entire containment,
the soul straining and fatigued.
The bookstore, in afternoon light, with comforting
jazz, a cafe, people absorbed
in reading and in conversation, is not the place
I want to find. Nor will the next place be
where I go dragging that weight as if I had chosen it
as a solemn and mysterious duty.
and the next, shorter but no less sweet:
Something inside myself keeps me
enslaved, yet saves exactly who I am
I don't want to give you an example--
it's too private, I think, painful--
Let's talk about the weather, how
humid it is these days, or
the war--why we are always at war,
or let's not talk. Is there a quietness
that can make us whole?
Instead I turn to a book of poetry Charli showed me, An Almost Pure Empty Walking by Tryfon Tolides. Never heard of him before. But man.
Two poems right now:
"Praying or Love Poem"
I go to the bookstore, where I don't
want to go, especially, or to be, after I get there,
as if being is burdensome, as if I might find a place
to set it down, instead of carrying it,
so I can rest. Perhaps I mean the body's
weight and entire containment,
the soul straining and fatigued.
The bookstore, in afternoon light, with comforting
jazz, a cafe, people absorbed
in reading and in conversation, is not the place
I want to find. Nor will the next place be
where I go dragging that weight as if I had chosen it
as a solemn and mysterious duty.
and the next, shorter but no less sweet:
Something inside myself keeps me
enslaved, yet saves exactly who I am
I don't want to give you an example--
it's too private, I think, painful--
Let's talk about the weather, how
humid it is these days, or
the war--why we are always at war,
or let's not talk. Is there a quietness
that can make us whole?
Sunday, October 28, 2007
From Lowell's "Epilogue"
"But sometimes everything I write
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All's misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?"
I take a lot of heat for writing about my mental illness here, but it's what I do. This bit of Lowell's (famously bipolar, himself) sums up how I often feel about anything I write...I'm laying down the moments that grip me in some way: "lurid, rapid, garish..." Why don't I write more about the happy moments in my life? To be once again brutally honest, for me at this moment happiness = peace and quiet. And when things are peaceful and quiet I am generally sitting very still enjoying it and hoping nothing will change. When things head back to hell in a handbasket then I thrash about and take action. And blog. My joys these days are small and private, while my catastrophes are loud and impossible to hide.
I need to stop typing, my hand is killing me. I tore a ligament and OW.
A friend bought me An Unquiet Mind a book by/about a bipolar psychiatrist. So far it is pretty gripping.
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
All's misalliance.
Yet why not say what happened?"
I take a lot of heat for writing about my mental illness here, but it's what I do. This bit of Lowell's (famously bipolar, himself) sums up how I often feel about anything I write...I'm laying down the moments that grip me in some way: "lurid, rapid, garish..." Why don't I write more about the happy moments in my life? To be once again brutally honest, for me at this moment happiness = peace and quiet. And when things are peaceful and quiet I am generally sitting very still enjoying it and hoping nothing will change. When things head back to hell in a handbasket then I thrash about and take action. And blog. My joys these days are small and private, while my catastrophes are loud and impossible to hide.
I need to stop typing, my hand is killing me. I tore a ligament and OW.
A friend bought me An Unquiet Mind a book by/about a bipolar psychiatrist. So far it is pretty gripping.
Friday, October 26, 2007
I am discovering the joys of pop music
And rocking out to Brandi Carlile's excelent album "The Story." Almost every song on there goes right to my heart.
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you
I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
And baby I broke them all for you
Oh because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do and I was made for you
You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through like you do
And I was made for you...
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
Oh but these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you
Oh yeah and its true, that I was made for you
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you
I climbed across the mountain tops
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
And baby I broke them all for you
Oh because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do and I was made for you
You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through like you do
And I was made for you...
All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
Oh but these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to
It's true...I was made for you
Oh yeah and its true, that I was made for you
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