jalouse

Now that I've made it through the winter and actually have a small posse of friends, accepting my body's limitations takes up more and more of my emotional CPU. Any exertion tends to have me limping within hours and I tend to lose mobility after sundown. I can always ride my bike, but other than than I'm pretty lame. literally.

I miss my body. I look back at past summers and marvel at how much I took for granted. I'd started to have a lot of pain then, but I wasn't nearly as crippled as I am now. I miss being able to stay up late, I miss being able to drink without having my bones transmuted to hot lead the next day, I miss dancing. especially I miss dancing.

it's hard to dance with mermaid feet.

The other thing that preoccupies me lately is dealing with memory loss. yesterday I started reading the sequel to a book I had read a few years ago, and skimming through the synopsis at the beginning I was appalled by how little I remembered. this makes me doubt my ability to do well in grad school. there will be so much to memorize. I used to take so many supplements to slow my brain's deterioration, and they seemed to help, but living on less than 800 a month kind of rules that out.

So I muddle on, taking charity when it's offered, trying to be a good person and fight this bitterness in my heart. but there's a deep and bone-chilling fear that is starting to seep in to everything I do, or think, or dream. I am not going to get better. and realistically, every year I am going to get a little bit worse.

Poem for Monday, April 28th, 2008

Poem in the Night Month

by Beth Ann Fennelly

Now that they've X-rayed

the mummified female crocodile

in the Egypt room in the British Museum,

they've found a baby crocodile, mummified,

inserted far back in her throat.

Just so, little one,

we drift toward the next world.

Our days are numbered.

Strangers will catch your head,

will thumb your eyes back to zero,

will say Welcome to the world, not

the afterworld.

Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

caught up with friends on the way downtown, Adrian from Armitage Bikes, Alex from West Town, a Scalawag on a sweet chopper, and the most awesome green tallbike. the variety is delightful. just as many beatup old schwinns as pistas. seemed like at least half onespeeds now, though. flat city. who needs derailleurs.



rode most of the way with Tracy. it started to pour as we turned off Diversey onto Logan,
and so we rested a while under the right side of the Kennedy/Western/Logan overpass. hundreds of us. cheering and whistling at motorists who slowed to gawk.



we took over western for about a quarter of a mile in the lovely pelting rain, and i rode hard to catch up with tall bike tyler, hooting at cars in my totally seethru tshirt. hilariousness. we screamed our praises to thor.

at the very end, there was a small party with a keg and a mess of falafel and we all stood around and shivered for a while.

on the way west on bloomington there is a charming mural of picasso's "guernica."



happy friday. (cos sometimes it is.)

Poem for Monday, April 21, 2008

Indiana Avenue, 1949

by Etheridge Knight

Neons flash red and green.

April rains on still street, Man

Nods, Red lights blink, blink.

Mirror of keen blades

Slender as guitar strings; Wes

Montgomery jazz.

Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

oh, the pathos

unrecognizable to myself

daddy, you bastard

my bff and I are convinced that we are too strong (intense, intelligent, experienced, intimidating, powerful) and that is why our romantic interests never seem to be requited.

there are no superheroines with happy endings, not really. mortal men can't handle them and superheros have inferiority complexes.

the village healer always ended up burnt or drowned.

I know I have years of sickness left to deal with before I can really even begin to believe there's someone. for as long as I can remember, I've only seemed to aim my heart at the unattainable. not that I have any choice in the matter, not consciously. I've been in therapy long enough to have figured out why I act this way.

getting sent off to second chance when I was a kid fucked me up so much more than I can put into words. there was a complete- and utterness to that rejection that left me permanently ducked and covered, so terrified of not just doing something wrong, but being something wrong. no matter how much someone loves me, I can't just be still and bask in it. I have to pick at it, worry about it til I make myself sick or insane.


there's nothing like being made to tell your mom you lost your virginity because you were a drug addict. unless it's actually losing it when you are 13 cos you are so bitter and angry at love that you don't ever, ever want to believe in it, to let it have power over you. expect maybe being forced to lie about being a drug addict, being made to believe that I was weak, worthless, selfish, mentally ill, being locked up, forcibly drugged, made to pretend I loved Jesus, sing foolish songs and flap my arms, being told to deal with my anger by ripping up phone books because my anger was invalid and not worth responding to, being abandoned, having my parents refuse to believe me, having the people who made me take the word of someone who wanted their 25000 dollars over mine. not allowed to speak for months.

diary read and thrown away, clothes, books, toys, music all thrown away and replaced with generic, safe normalcy.

hours, days spent trying to figure out a way to poison or injure myself sufficiently to be able to go to the hospital and somehow talk my way out of going back. running away, getting taken to juvenile court after spending the night under an overpass. being dragged back humiliated the next day, parents actually believing I wanted to use drugs that badly, instead of that their magic program was so unbearable I'd rather be a ward of the state than go back.

when i read kafka's trial for the first time I shook and rattled like a cicada shell in a stiff breeze. josef k had nothing on me.

fourteen months in all, and fourteen years later not a week goes by without a nightmare of being back there as an adult.

and it still taints everything I do, everything I feel.

and I don't know what else to do besides stay busy between therapy sessions.

emo

wish i could sleep in your arms

Poem for Monday, April 14, 2008

Birds


by Tom Clark


Sky full of blue nothing toward which the Magi
Move, like dream people who are Walt Fraziers of the air…
Sometimes the moves they make amaze them
For they will never happen again, until the end of time; but there they are.


So shall I be like them? I don’t think so…and yet to float
Above the rolling H²O
On wings that express the mechanics of heaven
Like a beautiful golden monkey wrench
Expresses mechanics of earth…t’would be bueno.










Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

Poem for Monday, April 7, 2008

Planting a Mailbox

by John Updike



Prepare the ground when maple buds have burst
And when the daytime moon is sliced so thin
His fibers drink blue sky with litmus thirst.
This moment come, begin.


The site should be within an easy walk,
Beside a road, in stony earth. Your strength
Dictates how deep you delve. The seedling’s stalk
Should show three feet of length.


Don’t harrow, weed or water; just apply
A little gravel. Sun and motor fumes
Perform the miracle: in late July,
A branch post office blooms.







Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

heh

Memphis Players Have Long, Complicated Explanation Of How They Are This Year's 'Rumpelstiltzkin' Story

SAN ANTONIO—Although no Cinderella teams made it to this year's Final Four, the Memphis Tigers held an extended press conference Wednesday to explain to the press and public that they are in fact the "Rumpelstiltzkin" of this year's NCAA...

mountaintop

want

also why i love google

cos i really want to go live in a biodome on mars

why i love google

gmail custom time

svaha

boing boing posted a link to this tremendously brave photography project by German artist Walter Schels today. he and his partner took before and after shots of terminal cancer patients at a hospice.



watching the breath leave my grandmother's body was unlike anything I have ever experienced. there is nothing that could have prepared me for it. our isolated nuclear family structure really cheats us of this experience. I think life really lacks any meaning unless we have a really clear concept of what death is like.

maybe I should look into becoming a hospice volunteer.

Poem for Monday, March 31, 2008

The Day and the Hour

by Fredric Koeppel


Someone comes to tell you the day and the hour
of your death. He sits in a chair and brushes
the dust of the road from his hat. You get him
a glass of cold water from the kitchen; he closes
his eyes as he drinks, slowly, beholden. He leans


forward and whispers a few words into your ear
and then turns toward the door. He stands on
the porch, looking out at the distance. Clouds
fill the hills with purple scrim, and he wonders
which will find him first, the rain or the fall of night.











Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

reminiscing

(it's always the same)

you tube mixtape

I have trouble with patience. Now that things are starting to get better, I want it all at once. I want new shoes and tickets to Pitchfork and a new fixie and fucking true love. my brain keeps kicking into hamster wheel mode and while the ridiculous thoughts are nowhere near as life-threatening (or at least 3rd degree burn inducing) as they used to be, they still wear me out.



my therapist told me I need to start meditating more. shut this monkey mind up. right now it's just yammering on and on about the alone forevers and throwing its own shit at me.


monkey mind has a lot to bear right now. my brother's wife just had a baby and I feel fucked up about it. he did some terrible things while we were growing up and now he's in Southern Baptist Seminary, wants to go off to Iraq/n and be a chaplain, get blowed the fuck up. I can't remember a single time in my life I ever felt close to him. mostly there's just decades of shame and fear and resentment and anger.

I still have a long way to go, and a lot of shit to get over. sitting at home alone 90% of the time doesn't help, but it beats going to a bar.





this last one might have to be my new theme for the year. from me to me.

come get you something to eat

tonight I made myself a delicious feast, despite being stood up due to the weather (which is no excuse in this age of INFORMATION AND TECHNOLOGY and TEXTING EFFING GOOGLE FFS:

masamam curry with tofu skin, sweet potatoes, zucchini, and square rice noodles.

steamed kale in warm onion/garlic/rice wine/sesame vinaigrette, with toasted sesame and flax seeds.


took less than 10 minutes prep and then about 10 to cook. curry paste is a few bucks at the asian grocery and vegan/msg-free versions can be found with careful label-reading. it's insanely easy to make- you just whisk it into coconut milk, simmer, add water and chopped up ingredients and cook til shit is done. this is why I rarely want to eat out Thai Food. it's way cheaper to make at home.

day offs are only sweet cos you've been working

almost 14 miles yesterday, the quick ride over and out to lakeview to retrieve my dropped u-lock key, then up the ridiculously bumpy lake path to the vietnamese market. I haven't ridden the lake path since I moved out to Logan Square, and it's all kind of fucked-up. I'd've been better off riding up Broadway in rush hour, but I was feeling nostalgic for last summer.

it's sleeting out today, and the low barometric pressure has the fire ants nibbling at my knee bones. my new boss is supposed to start treating me soon (how rad is that?)- apparently it's SOP for his business model, as I will be better able to relate to the patients.

I hope it helps.

Poem for Monday, March 24, 2008

“I Keep to Myself Such Measures…”

by Robert Creeley







I keep to myself such
measures as I care for,
daily the rocks
accumulate position.

There is nothing
but what thinking makes
it less tangible. The mind,
fast as it goes, loses

pace, puts in place of it
like rocks simple markers,
for a way only to
hopefully come back to

where it cannot. All
forgets. My mind sinks.
I hold in both hands such weight
it is my only description.















Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

good god almighty i love you

please don't make me stop now...

hail ganesha!

I finally got a job! I'll be working the front desk at a chiropractic/acupuncture clinic less than a mile from my house.

the best part is the brand new yoga studio inside the building. I am envisioning my lunch breaks looking like this:

and he wrote it himself

I found this to be profoundly moving.

But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow...

It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

the day the war started, I was filmed at a protest in downtown Memphis holding a plywood sign painted with "I AM ASHAMED TO BE AN AMERICAN."

the day of the last presidential election, I went and voted and then watched the states turn red from the locked mental health triage unit at the public hospital.

I've seen very little in the past few years that has made me proud. we have a beautiful country that we are allowing to fill up with windblown plastic grocery bags and SUV-generated smog. our prime time television slots are full of sickening pap that encourages women to hate each other as they compete for immature, selfish men.

the day that we elect this man is the day I will begin to feel pride in my country again.

on discovering the bounty of the red hen dumpster

o, to be foam

Your tail will then disappear, and shrink up into what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if a sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as if you were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow.

but in the end she became foam, and then a daughter of the air.

no such luck for me.

raining

Thinking about your friends
How you maintain all them in a constant state of suspense
For your own protection over their affection
Nobody broke your heart
You broke your own because you can't finish what you start...


one of the last remnants of my battle against borderline personality disorder is this insidious, all pervading feeling of inferiority. in every relationship I have, whether it be professional, friendship, romantic, or familial, there are always a set of self-imposed standards that must be met. If I can just do "x," then he will love me. then she won't hate me. then he will stay. then my life will be better. I have these incredibly high expectations of myself. I have to be perfect or I will die alone and be eaten by my cats. sort of an emotional OCD. I have to be the perfect friend. perfect roommate. perfect lover, employee, etc ad nihilem.

it didn't take years of therapy to suss out the etiology of these obsessions. once I stopped and thought about the effects of being sent off as a 13 year old for 14 months to a brainwashing camp it became exceptionally clear. everything I was got stripped away and discarded and then I lived in perpetual fear of being sent back until I was 18. I was forcibly pilled, everything I owned from diaries to shoes to favorite books were thrown away. I had nothing to call my own, nothing to call myself. broken down to my components and then half of them thrown away.

15 years later and I wonder how much longer til I can let go of this. the few people I am close to obviously love me in spite of my foibles, or perhaps even because of them. I certainly don't expect them to be perfect, so why do I expect perfection of myself? why can't I just let people love me without having to impose conditions on them? more importantly, how do I let them love me?

deep breaths? om mani padme hums? weekly therapy and lots of bike rides? or do I just have to wait it out?

I love it when you give me things

I have the flu, or 75% of it. about 4 times as achy as usual, which means my pain levels are at about 10 times those of the average neurotypical. just a wee bit of lung goo, but enough to have be huddled up with bl ankets drinking foulass chinese herbal cough tea. I've actually been taking naps in between exhausting bouts of sitting on the sofa looking at classifieds. I am literally incapable of taking naps and have been for as long as I can remember. I have an actual aversion to them, like I am going to miss something. when I do lay down and close my eyes, I ache so much I can't lie still, so I have to wait til I faceplant to sleep.

the Magnetic Fields were beyond breathtaking. I bawled my eyes out when they closed with "book of love." the guitarist picked out a teeny plaintive thread with a slide and a sustain pedal that was just chilling.

this was filmed a few weeks ago, so it's very close to what I saw last night.

Poem for Monday, March 17, 2008

The Morning Light

by Louis Simpson



In the morning light a line
Stretches forever. There my unlived life
Rises, and I resist,
Clinging to the steps of the throne.


Day lifts the darkness from the hills,
A bright blade cuts the reeds,
And my life, pitilessly demanding,
Rises forever in the morning light.



Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

Who is your "Lost" alter ego? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Locke You're Locke! People underestimate you, but you know you can do anything you want to. You hate limits being put on your life - you don't like it when people don't believe in you. Locke 100% Claire 100% Jack 81% Sun 75% Charlie 69% Michael 69% Jin 63% Hurley 50% Sayid 50% Sawyer 31% Boone 25% Kate 25% Shannon 6%

and then I remember I am not the only one with obstacles

tomorrow: I get to talk a (completely non-techie) friend through installing a usb wireless card on a crappy old laptop I put Ubuntu on. I wish I had had the money to do it for her before I gave it to her, cos I remember it being somewhat of a nightmare.

now that you've made me want to die, you tell me that you're unboyfriendable

going to see the Magnetic Fields tonight. I haven't been to see many shows here, mostly out of poverty, but since they enacted the smoking ban I am looking forward to going out more. at least, once I get a dang job. my escort tonight is the precious little Rat Patrol boy I befriended at the library- his original date had something come up. honorary big sister status is teh shit.

Chicago has all sorts of clever little venues that aren't quite bars. Being from a small town I got spoiled on seeing good music for 8 bucks up the street from my house with a crowd of under 150, but it seems like the better bands (or their managers) tend to go for the smaller places. I know seeing Lucero at the Metro with what must have been 800 to a thousand wasted and screaming fans was excruciating.

Now that I don't feel like I need a cane to stand upright I have all kinds of things to look forward to.

I've been house-sitting since Saturday: far removed from my comfort zone. I brought my own sweet angel baby mouse and my computer but home is way more than just those two things, although they are definitely its infrastructure. it's too cold and there's no light in this apartment, despite the mammoth and heat-sucking windows. one of the cats i am watching is apparently in heat and won't be silent. my cat talks a LOT but not like this. there's something so penetrating and alarming about her yowling. it makes it hard to sleep, and my heart starts pounding every time she starts. my own sweet baby sings along, though, and their opera faces are pretty dang cute.


the brain zaps are almost all gone. very very faint. still very moody. I've had a rough couple of weeks dealing with friends. I think being off meds has made me less forgiving, which is actually positive. I don't make as many excuses for people anymore. when I was stuck in bed all winter I was starved for human contact and didn't take very good care of my emotional needs. now I feel like I am separating wheat from chaff.



this is still very hard, and very lonely, and very scary. I hate applying for jobs, I am terrified of the holes in my resume, I seem to have lost a lot of confidence. and I still feel weak as hell.

I wish I could get paid to ride my bike.

having been fucked is no excuse for being fucked-up

Poem for Monday, March 10, 2008

The Fisherwoman




by David Ignatow



She took from her basket four fishes
and carved each into four slices
and scaled them with her long knife,
this fisherwoman, and wrapped them;
and took four more and worked
in this rhythm through the day,
each action ending on a package
of old newspapers; and when it came
to close, dark coming upon the streets,
she had done one thing, she felt, well,
making one complete day.






Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

no need to worry about everything I've done

doing laundry listening to top 40 r&b, singing along at the top of my lungs, doing the handclaps during the breakdown. crying my eyes out.


still emo as hell. brain zaps are almost all gone. stomach is still sour but no more puking.

and also

The way I feel today sent me digging through my bookshelves to reread Hemingway's A Day's Wait.

I identify so strongly with the small boy who has spent the day thinking he is going to die because he mixed up Fahrenheit and Celsius. Poor Schatz. being sick sucks so damn much. at least you got a nice Papa to take care of you.

About what time do you think I'm going to die?' he asked.
'What?'
'About how long will it be before I die?'
'You aren't going to die. What's the matter with you?'
Oh, yes, I am. I heard him say a hundred and two.'
'People don't die with a fever of one hundred and two. That's a silly way to talk.'
'I know they do. At school in France the boys told me you can't live with forty-four degrees. I've got a hundred and two.'
He had been waiting to die all day, ever since nine o'clock in the morning.
'You poor Schatz,' I said. 'Poor old Schatz. It's like miles and kilometers. You aren't going to die. That's a different thermometer. On that thermometer thirty-seven is normal. On this kind it's ninety-eight.'
'Are you sure?'
'Absolutely,' I said. 'It's like miles and kilometers. You know, like how many kilometers we make when we do seventy in the car?'
'Oh,' he said.
But his gaze at the foot of his bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack and he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.

I know I am out of the red here, but my god, I wish I could stop crying. it just bubbles out of me to where I can't barely even speak. I feel fine, the tears don't really seem to have much emotional content, they just choke me up and irritate my face with the damn salt.

time passes. tick tick tick.

day 5 off Cymbalta

As far as my current emotional state goes, I'm reminded of a Ginsberg poem I posted several years ago in my old blog:

Tears




by Allen Ginsberg


I’m crying all the time now.
I cried all over the street when I left the Seattle Wobbly Hall.
I cried listening to Bach.
I cried looking at the happy flowers in my backyard,
I cried at the sadness of the middle-aged trees.



Happiness exists I feel it.


I cried for my soul, I cried for the world’s soul.
The world has a beautiful soul.
God appearing to be seen and cried over. Overflowing
heart of Patterson.

I'm proud of this.

but you're gonna have to hold on

it's not that I am hearing voices, it's that my thoughts are not my own. I don't want to cut myself, to beat myself with flails and scourges. I don't want to jump from high buildings or throw myself in front of a car.

These things will pass. I will not be evicted, nor will the lights be shut off, neither will I starve, or die in my sleep. My cat will not have to eat me.

"I feel alright, and I cried so hard..."

cymbalta/effexor (SNRI) withdrawals

personal accounts:

self-nonmedication

cymbalta: the withdrawal symptoms from hell

what winners do: cymbalta withdrawal symptoms suck (thousands of comments on this one)


a message board:
cymbalta withdrawal

a wiki article:
SSRI discontinuation syndrome: discontinuation of duloxetine

and that's about all the steam I have for now.

I've been horrible to many of my friends. yesterday at dinner I found myself looking around the table and feeling loathing, revulsion, resentment, anger, abject hatred. all emotions that are not part of my life. things I never feel. this is like a bad acid trip. this is all the Loathing and none of the fear. just endless miles of Bat Country.

Last night, after hours of Neil Gaiman's American Gods on headphones, I was finally able to fall asleep. I thought the dizziness would kill me. I have a terrible fear of going out, Janis-style, choking on my own vomit in my sleep. I feel possessed, terrified, things under my skin, ups and downs and nothing tastes good.

oh god oh god oh god.

and I need a job.
and I need a life.
and I need a family, friends, a new body, a monkey butler with a jetpack, a brain upgrade, to transfer my data to the nets and live there unhindered by body.

everything falls apart. what do we do. there's no loss of energy or matter, just endless back and forthing.

Poem for Monday, March 3, 2008

Walking Thoughts

by Marvin Bell


The sidewalk is growing soft. I am growing soft.
Absence is a principle, a silence wholly.
If the moon fell, there would be no use for it.


What do we mean by “a killing effort”?
Back there, back there the darkness waits.
Everything we know is a circle.


In a dumb country, the one way is everyone’s.
And something has a chance in such a land.
Is my last friend ahead under that light?


I walk on, and the watchdogs bark crossly.
The other sidewalk is softening also.
It lets me down with curious consistency.


Settling for the average of full and empty
I turn toward home, begin to hurry in the dark,
having talked myself into going back once more.


Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

I've been channeling Bruce Banner all day, I tell him.

Rage, incessant and crackling. The fuck you talking to me for, I snarl as some dude who tries to holla. I am electric with anger, striding down Western, almost invincible. I wish I could bottle this feeling, evaporate its water and make it into pill form. Such energy. I haven't felt it in years.

I am tired of your shit. I am tired of carrying it for you. I am annoyed by your shit. Nothing tastes good. Everything is too loud and it catches on a skip and shudders. I feel like the evening after an allnight acid trip. My norepinephrine is being fucked with. Whirr-bzzt. Dzzzrrr. Hhhbbbbzzbbtt.

Am I dying? How much longer.

Tiny wee purple spots all over my face and my eyelids. Are they broken blood vessels?


is this intolerable?

nothing says happy sunday morning like puking up your vitamins.

I'm starting to really resent neurotypicals. I don't want to play nice. your charity breaks me. I'm sick of sitting in bed. the tulips are too excitable.


re-reading through the old blog, waiting for lunch plans to coalesce.

The mental health industry is sick. The information packets at MMHI refer to the patients as mental health consumers. makes me picture rows and rows of blank eyed shoelace-less men and women lined up at picnic tables eating spaghetti. the sin that eats away at the industry is that the providers think they are superior to the consumers.

we've fetished mental health to such a point that we refer to it as a commodity. can one buy mental health? should one have to? does it really come in multicolored gelatin capsules? is there a surplus of mental health rotting away in a warehouse somewhere? does EliLilly offer producers money to burn their excess mental health to keep the price steady or do we flood the market of our neighboring countries with genetically modified mental health, causing their collectively farmed mental health to be worth less, forcing them to immigrate to the border to work in our mental health sweatshops?

the tulips are far, far too red.

and just maybe I'm to blame for all I've heard

I remember sitting in my room in front of my dad's beatup old speakers, listening to this song over and over. before all this shit started. before the endless pills and pried-open jaws and the throat-stroking and the puking and shaking and complete and utter lack of privacy. before the mono or the fatigue that never lifted or the sleeping through classes or the insomnia or the inability to keep a job or the fear of rejection. the blood testing, the needles and steroids, the hypotheses, the ignorance, you have what now, how do you spell that, why i have never even heard of that.

it's warming outside, a white-skied first of march, and I'm stoned on the couch after a restless night. the brain zaps kicked in last night. the only thing that relieves the headache is biking, mouth open to swallow the damp air, headphones keeping my ears warm, free of gravity, invincible, but I'm puking up vitamin-flavored bile in the sink first thing upon waking, so it's sofal orbit.


brain zaps make it hard to think.

like you would do?

Your body like a searchlight
my poverty revealed,
I would like to try your charity
until you cry, "now you must try my greed."

I've never gone this long without having any kind of job, and I'm simultaneously terrified, resentful, and exhilarated at the thought of finding work.

I'm afraid that I don't have the damn HP to stay on track for 6-8 hours. let alone dexterity or constitution. It's hard for me to sit still and focus on something mind-numbingly boring when my bones feel like they are made of lava. that, and I'm running out of marketable skills: I'm too sick to cook and I can't clean houses like I used to, not without spending the entire next day in bed recuperating.

I'm hoping to get in at a doula service, because there doesn't really seem to be much out there for semi-cripples like me. my dear old dad is covering my rent next month, so I have a few

I've got three days left of 30 mg Cymbalta capsules, and after that I'll be pharma-free. so far I'm doing fairly well, although the brain zaps just kicked in an hour ago despite the buffer I'd been hoping the weeks of major Omega3/6/9ing would provide. not as bad as I thought, though, and I did have a great acupuncture session yesterday that gave me lovely lovely sleep last night. albeit bizarre dreams featuring Bette Midler.

the nets are in an uproar over that British study on anti-deps' efficacy. I've even seen (hopefully sarcastic) comments calling it a Scientology plant.

I've spent the past 15 years metronoming between "I'm getting MEDS/LIFE tattooed on my knuckles" and "EFF big pharma." I tend to think that meds are only useful in the most extreme of cases and that proper diet, exercise, and supplementation combined with talk therapy or mindfulness training can fix most problems. I'm disgusted that I can obtain 6 weeks of samples (FOR OFF LABEL USE!!!!1!) for ten bucks while the same amount of money will only get me about 2 meals' worth of organic produce, or 5 meals' worth of conventional produce, which may contribute to long term systemic damage. for the typical poverty-limit and under mental patient like myself, our finances just don't allow for the diet required to heal our bodies.

while the idea of national healthcare is so appealing, I'd sure rather see an increase in food stamps. Last time I was on them, I got ten bucks a month, and that was when I made about 750 a month.

my fridge is full now, but after the end of the week it's back to rice and beans until I can find work. I imagine I will end up making some flyers for eco-friendly housekeeping, but it's such painful work I don't know how much I'll actually be able to handle, and then it's back to square one.

I hope once my brain quits churning my posts become more articulate.

wanna

we're chained to the world and we all gotta pull

they say the way to your heart is through your stomach

Being a Southern girl, if I love someone I cook for them, and worry about them, and bring them presents every time I pay them a visit. Lately this has extended to my offering to make a meal at my friend's houses when I go over for a Buffy or Lost. I worry that they don't eat well, being the sort of boy vegetarian who eats too much white rice and fake meat.

I've been trying to eat an exceptionally well-balanced diet lately. Friday I made mushroom and sweet potato tacos with avocado, chipotle sauce, and onion-steamed kale. Tonight, after a Marinol (BEST CARE PACKAGE EVER), I revived the pressure cooker to make some catfish gumbo. Onions, ginger, garlic, blackeyed peas, organic canned tomatoes, okra, and the last piece of catfish from the giant 4 pound fish I got up at Armitage Produce.

I've gotten so sensitive to what I put in my body. Saturday night I had a gin and tonic and maybe 2 cups of wine and was miserable all day yesterday. Days I eat toast instead of fish and vegetables I can feel it in my energy levels and in my digestion. Hella wicked evil stomach.

I wish my cooking could heal my broken heart, and yours.

my acupuncture clinic gave me some really adorable little round black pills for sleeping. I was astounded by their efficacy. I have been unable to sleep through the night for years without Seroquel, but the second night I took them at dinner and then again about an hour before I planned to take my Seroquel and fell fast asleep reading and only woke up to turn the light off and get up to pee around 4 am. Haven't had any Seroquel since then. maybe 4 days. amazing.

especially now that I am reading that there is a class-action lawsuit against AstraZeneca. apparently there is a high risk of developing diabetes when it's prescribed for off-label use such as a small dose before bedtime to help with insomnia. oh hurray.

the pills are wicked expensive, though, and I am supposed to take 10 2x a day. I guess that's about a dollar a day. man. maybe I should put up a paypal button.

I'd intended to write something witty about my meeting with my dad's pastor's friend here the other day, but ran out of energy. a weekly meeting with this guy (who is the pastor at a small urban church) is a pre-requisite for his supporting me til I can get a job. he wants to know that "I have a responsible adult in my life."

I don't know why my dad thinks this will work. I'll never become a Christian. Especially when this guy got all flustered when I asked him "what about original sin? do you believe women are cursed because of Eve?" I mean, he was just plain kerflummoxed by the fact that I DON'T BELIEVE IN SIN. and then he told me he was certain that Buddhist monks were leading a violent uprising in Burma and not just peacefully getting beaten to death. at that point I wanted to start compiling documentation to prepare for the stupidity I am certain he will bring to arms against me next time we meet.

my therapist says I should tear him apart.

we like

oooh, shiny!!!

I don't know who is responsible for the newly-updated wiki on fibro but it's phenomenal.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibromyalgia

wake up early and you live to regret

I suppose months of being on an anti-convulsive have left me susceptible to mood swings, but for the past few days I've really been plagued by an all pervading sadness that is occasionally overwhelming. I'm shaky and tired, having run out of Seroquel. not even sure if I should continue to take it. Benadryl seems to help me sleep just about as well. and is less toxic. meanwhile my nerves keep misfiring and my muscles feel scraped raw.

I hate being dependent on my parents. I hate feeling this way, I hate the lengths my sickness has forced me to go to get by. I hate this state of perpetual brokenness. I hate my dreams, dreams of being someone else, someone loved and cared for. In my dreams last night I was pregnant and getting married, thrilled to be creating something, thrilled to be wanted and needed and adored. To finally know that things would be ok. And then I wake alone and with no-one to take care of me or hold me when the pain grows so intense I chew my teeth raw. Nothing at all to look forward to, just these unending tears that won't stop leaking. and with cancelled plans and more nights alone and nothing to do but wait it out.

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

el primer intento

i totally just killed a kitten while thinking about your moms, dude

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=kill+kitten


I am very, very upset that this did not occur to me sooner.

i post on CL a lot cos of teh w33d

After I got my heart broke bad the first and last time, I thought I could fuck my way out of it.
I would train myself to never care, to play as I had been played, to feel the power of using my body to make men do things.. I hurt a lot of people, I ruined my reputation, and I had to move away because my sluttiness had rendered me unboyfriendable.

I was labeled as Crazy Girl and a Bad Girl (although also the Smartest Girl in the City) and I knew I would die alone, surrounded by my cats, watching Buffy.

That led, of course, to my friends and I deciding we'd live in a "tat bro" retirement home. Old rockabilly guys and tiny wrinkled old women with their hair died fire engine red and black, covered in tattoos, sitting around on our porches listening to records.


I may never have another relationship like the one that broke me. So I learn to be honest. Most of the people I hang out with are pretty broken. We're all just waiting for time to pass, hoping something would happen.

-We could hang ourselves.
-It'd give us an erection.
-And all that follows.

I might well be the kind of person who goes through life alone, who never finds someone. That could end up being ok. I have good friends I know will always be around, and if I just have casual sex with other consenting, absent-hearted individuals, that's better than ever going through that again. It'd kill me.

I've been chronically ill since high school, although it didn't truly begin to destroy my life until a few years ago. Fist my hands and knees started to hurt. I figured it was carpal tunnel. Then all my joints started to ache, a hot, flaring flame licking away under my skin. There were invisible ants chewing away at the muscle tissue in my neck and shoulders. Nails were being driven into me. I'd lie awake at night throbbing, and then stumble about the next day, feeling like I'd been thru a sleepwalked rugby game. I was so tired. They did a lot of tests and gave me some pills, kept telling me to come back later. Finally they told me I had fibromyalgia, a disease I'd heard very little about.

After years of keeping up with research, I know more about it than the rheumatologist I saw at Cook County, who barely even knew that it was, in fact, a nerve disease and not one of muscle tissue.

I've learned a lot about the brain. I spend hours reading random articles on Wikipedia and learned that burning wood re-ionizes the air, which affects the release of serotonin in the brain. I wonder why ionizers aren't just given out to everyone during the winter. I wonder this because I spent about 90% of my time in bed or on the sofa. If I'm not there I am on my bike (just switched to fixie), flying through the streets, feeling like I've defeated this crush of gravity that threatens to flatten me. It's the only thing that makes me not want to die. Fuck using the brakes.

I just recently stopped being employable. I went to college in all good faith believing that if I studied hard and was smart I'd be able to find a good job.

But I was too crazy to teach after that, so I worked in food. I got to where I really loved it, but then my body gave out.

I had a desk job over the summer, but the stress made me crazy and I just walked out. I hate rich people. I am not a capitalist. I have been very poor for a very long time and all I want is to go to the damn dentist. I don't need a damn Jetta and brazilian cherry wood floors and stainless steel appliances to make me happy. I just want my mouth to stop hurting.

I can't get jobs any more. I can barely walk some days, and I have no way of knowing when those days will be. I look fine, I'm in great shape, but I'm in wretched amounts of pain and all I want to do is distract myself with a book or a dvd or the Nets. I consistently have Kervorkian fantasies.

I answer porn ads from here on Cl to make a living. I don't feel particularly ashamed of it. It's all I can get. I'm good at sex, I have a great body, I've been modeling naked for years, and emotionally it's about the same as taking a guy home from the bar. And the money can't be beat. I just wish I knew I could get enough of it to pay my rent every month. Still, it's definitely contributed to my being off dating. I just don't have the energy to be emotionally AND sexually involved with the same person, not on top of fucking for money.

The snow is lovely, and I am dying to go ride in it, but my stomach has decided to burn and rumble. Fun with IBS on top of all the other annoying things like feeling like I have a sunburn, or being unable to wear long sleeves indoors. Or itching all the time, even after slathering myself in pecan oil.

I have to get a good night's sleep, because tomorrow I am going to take all my anger out on a man who will pay me to do it.

Nice work if you can get it.

I have no clue what is happening in my life. Sometimes I really just want a nice boy to love me, to want to take care of me so I can go back to school and get a job I can actually do even if I'm in a damn wheelchair. Sometimes I just want to die. I'm so tired. I'm sleeping 12-14 hours a night and I just get more and more exhausted. I wish I could just be in a coma. Wake up when they have a stem cell cure. or nanobots. I can still get excited about those. YEAH! nanobots might fix me one day!!!


or else we just get through each day until the zombie invasion happens.
or the plague hits. or the floods start. or the robots take over. or the aliens attack. or we start to live in space.

see, there is stuff worth waiting for.

Poem for Monday, December 10, 2007

The Story

by Mark Strand

It is the old story: complaints about the moon

sinking into the sea, about stars in their first fading,

about the lawn wet with dew, the lawn silver, the lawn cold.

It goes on and on: a man stares at his shadow

and says it’s the ash of himself falling away, says his days

are the real black holes in space. But none of it’s true.

You know the one I mean: it’s the story about the minutes dying,

and the hours, and the years; it’s the story I tell

about myself, about you, about everyone.

Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

please don't take my picture

The year has begun its final tumble toward the exit.
So many things have added their weight to the push that first started its stumbling.

I walked out of a fulltime job, a "green collar" job running an environmentally friendly cleaning service, at the end of the summer. I couldn't keep my mind focused, I was stressed out all the time, and when the owner and I came to anger and yelling I just walked out.

I'd started performing for some femdom pr0n out in the suburbs, and would make as much money in six hours as I did in two weeks at my "real job." It was a bizarre feeling, but it was just like the acting I did in High School, in the long run.

Despite biking twelve miles a day, the new medication I'd started taking for fibro was making me bloat and gain weight. I look at pictures of myself at that time and I cringe. I was pasty and puffy and I weighed almost thirty pounds more than I did ten years ago.

I spend almost all my time now in bed or tucked up in the sunroom.



It's so hard to walk or stand. The ground slips and stutters under me. I panic at bars, need to sit with my back to a wall and drink fast, drink til the leg cramps stop. Smile and talk loud about my cat, about Memphis, but always always I end up talking about being Sick.

It's becoming all I am.

Poem for Monday, December 3, 2007

Poem for Monday, December 3, 2007

At a Loose End

by D. H. Lawrence

Many years have I still to burn, detained

Like a candle-flame on this body; but I enclose

Blue shadow within me, a presence which lives contained

In my flame of living, the invisible heart of the rose.

So through these days, while I burn on the fuel of life,

What matter the stuff I lick up in my daily flame;

Seeing the core is a shadow inviolate,

A darkness that dreams my dreams for me, ever the same.

Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

get that serotonin in me

This reminds me that tomorrow I have "meds clinic" instead of a regular visit with my p-doc. I never know how these sessions go. Sometimes I go and it's a teeny room crowded with professional looking men betrayed by their leg-joggling, sometimes it's like a bus just unloaded from a halfway house.

we'll see.

monday

Preoccupation with death.

Perceiving one's body as crippled,
lame, uglier than average,
more flawed than average,
useless, decrepit, defunct.

I will learn to walk with a cane,
I will fuck you like it will be the last time, like
this churning might break me
open at the hips.

homesick

i spend too much time looking at personal ads. lately i have so much trouble thinking of any possible reason anyone would date me. ok, sure, i'm damn cute, i'm smart, well-read, blah. but everytime i meet someone i like a lot they scoot as soon and they learn What I'm Really Like.

lately i feel like Jabba the Hut.

randomness

i'm only partially employed, and so i spend days in bed with a book, smoking pot out of apples, talking to my friends at their shitty desk jobs via gmail, which everyone has now. i openly disdain people who don't use it. minus fifteen with-it points. whatevs. i sport a little old lady hat i adopted from brown elephant and cheap knit gloves with the fingers cut off.

i am starting to accept that my current employment has rendered me temporarily if not permanently unboyfriendable. there were myriad factors already and i believe the mousetrap on the scrotum for the internets as a means of making money is just a final straw. the snowball. etc.

there's being sick, being an ex-crazy, being far tooo well-read, being hypersexual, being a comic book nerd, sci-fi reader, lover of vampire slayers, owner of multiple well-designed sex toys.

ghostface killah, lucero, magnetic fields. xena in bed. once a week i coach and costume primadonna amateur dominatrices thru a couple hours of dick torture. i make damn good cornbread. i have tattoos in elvish. i am a cultbanger.

the sads (how to fight loneliness)

After the equinox I have to take special care not to plunge into the depths of the black dog; doing this while detoxing from Lyrica is particularly obnoxious. I have to force myself to listen to the Arcade Fire instead of Otis Redding, I have to bore myself into cleaning my room, and I have to keep all the lights on full-blast as soon as dusk even hints at erasing shadows.

and then there's the weed maintenance program. Zak used to joke about it back when I was on Depakote and Risperdal and Effexor and all that other ridiculous shit.

-All you need is meditation and marijuana. And Doral menthol lights.

When he broke up with me, I burned myself numb for months. And then I started smoking pot again and things got a little bit easier to handle. He died three years ago right when I lost my shit. Sometimes I envy him. I'd never leave a mess for someone else to clean up like that, at least I'd like to think I wouldn't. I fantasize about just disappearing off to Canada to sit on a cushion and hum, but when the black dog starts howling I've started to look down at my arms and think about blistering heat and knife blades. I am only lucky not to be back home with the drinking and the pills.

Until things get better, or until they get worse, I'm going to only do things that make me feel better. I have to. this masochism is killing me.

I have a winter full of stoned evenings lying in bed listening to a blissed-out shoegazer mix ahead of me. That or red nights prodding at old scars.

scurvy

my teeth have grown unaccountably sharp.
I chew through my cheeks when I sleep.
I cannot stop prodding at the sore place with my tongue.

Poem for Monday, October 8, २००७

The Fall




by Heather McHugh






Gold leaf fell

to the rake and the fire.
Leaping headlong into those
upholstered yards, we couldn’t tell


rags from riches, loving a little
trash by nature, having
an orange crush. But love
becomes a set of pet


names, all diminutive,

and as for God,
we saw it was the dark
that made the stars. As time


went by,
the jeweled movement
of the loan shark’s car
would utterly impoverish the sky.








Burke's Book Store
936 South Cooper
Memphis, TN 38104
(901) 278-7484
www.burkesbooks.com

too heavy

I'd love to detox off Lyrica. I can't tell if it's helping or not anymore. the weight gain has been around 10-15 lbs, just enough to make me hate my body palpably, bulimically, once again. at this point I'm not sure which is worse, the all-invading ache or the head-bashing mirror hatred. but when I read about cerebral edema and hallucinations it just makes me feel that much more helpless.

the worst part about being chronically ill is the complete disenfranchisement. i have no say in this. I am lucky if I can sucker my np for some codeine sizzurp when I am coughing up green shit. part of me thinks it's cos of the tattoos and the yard-long medical record with the state hospitalization and the crazy meds. I'm still in pain, y'know.

i mean, I stopped driving after I totalled my car stone sober in the middle of the day. I just didn't care how fast I was going or what I hit anymore. that sort of recklessness means I am either a total asshole or on the verge of suicidal, right?

i bought a whole bunch of fancy chinese diet tea. gonna try to eat nothing but brown rice and kimchi for a few days. meanwhile the hunger is as bad as it was with Effexor. i have to get off this shit. i dont care at this point if it helps or not. i have found that fibro pain plus self hatred are unbeatable. i give in.

my third rail.

working title

this body is all i have.

you do not understand this.
you can escape yours easily.
in sports. in sex. in sleep.

we have to walk slowly
when we drag this old thing around.


it is as heavy as grandmothers
heavy as heartbreak
as could have been
as midnight
& as luggage.

actually I am scared shitless

I was more than a little perturbed by the results of the study
published in April in the Journal of Neuroscience.

As a young woman (27) who has fibro, the next study I would like to
see would compare the brains of a group of fibro patients in their 30s
with the brains of normal people in their 70s. I am active, in good
shape, quite intelligent, take excellent care of my body and yet I
despair of living through another decade of this. What can I expect?
Are there any preventative measures I can take (for example,
Alzheimer's medication- would it help with the "fibro fog"?) or should
I start saving to go live in a retirement home when I'm 40? Why do I
know more about my disorder than the rheumatologist public health care
sends me to? Why are fibro patients sent to rheumatologists anyways,
when we clearly have a nerve/brain malady, rather than one of bone or
connective tissue?

No one is answering my questions.

very like a whale

Fibro is the opposite of bionic.

not quite Kevorkian...

Having fibromyalgia makes us reckless in ways that definitely seem to make clear the major diagnostic points of our particular neurosis. People with fibro tend to self-medicate.

When shopping at my new favorite, or my old neighborhood store I throw down a good chunk of change on supplements. I was at Sunflower a couple days ago and I noticed the Tyrosine and seeing as the label said it a nerve strengthener I bought some. Yesterday I woke up covered with a weird rash. Sure enough Tyrosine can cause hives and rashes. So I'm in to Howard Brown to get a cortisone shot and a scolding.

second snow of the season

today he left town to go take care of some loose ends back home. before I left for work, I rough-chopped a sackful of root vegtables and threw it in the Crock-Pot with some organic chicken broth, a smoked turkey leg from Del Rey, and half a packet of curry mix from the Pakistani place behind his building.