not that I am pro-heroin

but my god. officially going off Lyrica has been like an extended bout of the flu. withdrawals like going off opiates: fever, chills, hot itchy eyeballs, puking, shaking, incessantly dripping nose, can't sleep, can't get comfortable, kafka dreams.







DO NOT WANT.

fun with detox

I guess the half-life of Lyrica is about two weeks, cos Saturday night I got really bad muscle spasms, more or less seizure-like, and a wretched case of the spins. and that was just from cutting to 100 mg. being up all night shaking brought the flu back. hurrah.

I figured I couldn't feel worse, so I went ahead and quit taking Lyrica entirely. I have been nauseated as hell, but I am unsure if it's post-nasal drip or withdrawals.

Being off the weed maintenance program isn't helping, either, but I'm too sick to smoke. One day I'll live in a state with "Compassionate Care" and things will be easier. Really.

reading the new stephen king

ANIMALS


Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

-Frank O'Hara

these magic muffins are the secret warp tube to the level 8 of your heart

8-10 ounces mexican drinking chocolate (Ibarra or Popular)
1/2 c canola oil


1 c finely chopped dried figs, stems removed
3/4 c bourbon
1.5 tsp mexican vanilla extract

1/2 c vegan butter (earth balance)

1 c chopped walnuts


16 oz can pumpkin
1/3 c water
1 egg
1/3 c flaxseeds
3/4 c quinoa flakes
1/2 c whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 c spelt flour
1 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cloves



equipment: muffin tin, 2 small saucepans, large mixing bowl



Preheat oven to 350. grease muffin tin.
melt chocolate with oil over low heat and set aside.
simmer figs, bourbon, and vanilla until liquid is absorbed. add butter and walnuts and fry until the nuts are golden brown. remove from heat and set aside.
combine pumpkin, egg, and dry ingredients. add chocolate mixture. thin to approximately the texture of yogurt or sour cream and stir in fig mixture.

distribute batter even in muffin cups; they should be completely full.

bake until a fork poked into the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. there's enough oil in them that they really won't get too dry if you forget about them while you are vacuuming, downloading john cougar mellencamp, and cleaning the bathroom. i did. then i ate 4. mmm.

figs are a great source of b-vitamins, potassium, and fiber. flax, canola, and walnuts all are rich in omega-3s. pumpkin has tons of beta-carotene. chocolate is the number one remedy for dementor attacks.

bleh.

I tried skipping a dose of Lyrica Sunday and ended up with a ferocious panic attack. Not gonna do that again, at least, not off the weed maintenance program. I certainly can't afford weed, not when I can't even pay my phone bill. I've been off work so long. honestly, I am not looking forward to the prospect of spending 6 hours trying to be productive. or of trying to pass a drug test. just 1 day without weed and I am already jonesing. fun with classical conditioning. not to mention super-low endocannabinoids.

I'm hovering on the edge of full-blown sick, with a fever and chills and a fearsome thirst. I hate being ill. I start class tonight, and at 3.5 hours, it's going to be miserable. I hope the room is cold. I have no idea how I will sit still that long well, let alone fevered and gulping water and pissing 16 oz every 40 minutes.

it's -3 out

and I'm ferociously sad. some days I guess it's just too much to fight off.

sleeping alone is fine

Appetite

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Weds already.

I woke up up early, for me, at ten. Discomfort levels are pretty high. Tired, sore, with the sort of pulsing ache under my skin that has always been the main symptom. it's beautiful and sunny out, looks crispy, so maybe after eating and giving the pills time to digest I'll get out for a ride.

The fixie Alex left me apparently had a suicide hub just Locktited on, and it fell apart Saturday night. Baffled the boys I was with. There's a women/trans' night at West Town tonight, and I'm hoping they can show me how to fix it. Guess it needs a lock ring. Otherwise it's gonna be chewing gum, which I was assured is a Rat Patrol secret. Can't be much worse than Locktite.

I don't know why I didn't make better use of the bike co-op back home. I imagine shyness and Saturday hangovers had the largest part to do with it. I wish I had. If wishes were horses, though, I'd have a floor full of shit.

I sorted a shit ton of old clothes into rags and Gaia offerings, so I am hoping my inability to cough up 10 Ds for the "donation" will be assuaged by gifts of shop rags and purple rice milk. I'm completely skint, probably 45 cents to my name if I look in the couch.

It's purifying, I guess, but I sure am tired of rice and beans.

fits in a goddamn manila envelope

Down to 100mg of Lyrica today and yesterday. Might stay there a while. Cymbalta cut to 60 from 90 without any of the nasty electrozappies I was expecting. Didn't quite bounce out of bed, but I did wake up after 9.5 ish hours instead of 13.

I've been just on the cusp of manic all day, unable to sit still, starting then abandoning multiple projects only to pick them back up. I made rice milk, joined with millions of slacker computer geeks skiving off work to lurk the macworld expo, registered and paid for pharm tech classes at the Humboldt Park Vocational thingy, biked to the library, read a book, worked on cellphone/vj self portrait, read through the medical terminology textbook...

oh, and made the bomb arroz con gandules.

My body feels more and more mine, but I am not sure how to tell you why. I'm sure part of it is that the vague dread I felt because of December/money stress is tco, but I feel like I've been missing something. Granted, the meds overload and the smoking pot in bed and crying all day could have something to do with why the end of last year seems so blurry.

It's going to be strange to adjust to having a schedule again. Already I have the next week almost completely planned out. Bike workshop, hang with the Other Ex-Pat, Dill Pickle Food Co-op benefit, pin-up shoot w/ vintage auto, then class starts.

I had all those days where it took me hours just to make breakfast. Hours of blurry headed misery, like a teenager again, stuck on the sofa with mono.

I can't go back to that.

I can't stop moving. I can't let gravity catch my feet.


Pray these wings don't melt.

sunday morning is every day for all I care

I cut the Lyrica down to 100 mg a day from 300 and I am already sleeping less. Just a normal 10 hours or so instead of 14 and waking exhausted and groggy. I can almost literally see my body deflating back to the size I am supposed to be. Hi, hipbones!!

the only real benefit I can see Lyrica having is that it does cut down a lot of the static in my nerves- the itching and hypersensitivity. So does megadoses of Omega-3/6, though, and I have high hopes for the acupuncture getting this body back in line.

GOOD day yesterday. Therapy, a good 25 miles of riding, an art show, and a party. just mild panic attackiness at the art show, mostly from the noise. it tends to short everything else else, loudness, making me twitchy like a bunny, and as prone to needing to sit in a corner.



also, I was the only girl at this party with short hair. wtf, midwestern girls. sorority time is over.

He used to call me Bean

I stole an undershirt at his house, thin soft cotton with tiny fraying holes. It fit so well and it was another little piece of him. He lent it me the last time he let me sleep over. Now I think I might sleep in it every night, and I wonder how I will continue to go on like this, feeling so much. Such a wonderful rush of warmth and then a dull cold bitterness. So swift and so sharp. It's got pincers, Mummy, and it reeks of madness.

I gave him a nickname another boy once gave me. This was a boy I met on the nets, who mailed me paintings of blank-faced teddy bears committing seppuku and texted me sweet nothings like, "I'm outside looking at the stars, wondering what it would be like to hold your face in my hands." He was stuck at his parents' house in New Jersey, having just had a nervous breakdown. We'd spend hours talking online and texting each other. It was almost like not being alone.

maybe this will come true

2007 was a hard year. I came squinting and groaning into it, ashtray and whiskey-breathed and in bed with Someone Who Was Not My Boyfriend. Granted, the Boyfriend had gone AWOL and I'd basically had to break up with his voicemail after 2 weeks.

Things had gone badly between soon after he'd sold his house and moved here. His dog was ill a lot and had gone off the meds that had made him pack up and move 800 miles. He hadn't found a job that he liked and was just sitting around drinking beer and growing more and more barrel-chested and cranky. He had wild facial hair and a handsomely craggy face and tattoos like a sailor. I loved to lie on his bed in my underwear and watch him take things apart and put them together, but I needed to be petted just about as much as he needed to be alone. Crazy plus crazy just can't equal anything lasting.

That was the thing that made me craziest, I think.

Once I get boyfriended I start to get used to constant attention. Every damn time I let myself slip and I start needing him and then I quit paying the right kind of attention to myself. I am terrified of being alone. I guess that's why towards the end of last year I imposed some pretty serious solitude on myself. It got bad enough last year to where I was having trouble leaving the house. Not agoraphobia, just this tedious hesitancy. Now I spend a good amount of time glued to the nets or reading.

I took a vow of chastity on New Year's. I got so tired of fucking guys and falling in love with them at the drop of a hat, belly-up like a puppy, yipping and wriggling for their hands on me.


Fibro has fucked with my head an awful lot this past year. I just started a course of weekly acupuncture treatments and talk therapy sessions. I am going to cut my meds, force myself to exercise and meditate. It will really fucking hurt, but I can't sit in bed and obsess over dying alone anymore. I left the house so little in December, and I am damned if I am going to let this shit win anymore. I am so tired of being depressed and in pain