Poem for Monday, October 27, 2009

Waking

by Roger Sauls

I couldn't see the nuthatch
or the wren as they raked alphabets
on the dull tin of the gutter.
This early, waking is a kind of weather,
a fog, perhaps, that you meet
on the way to the mind's next landscape.
So I set out for the yard, where grackles
threw pebbles in the air for joy.

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

I have been struggling (as always) with feeling extremely run-down this past week. the wind has picked up considerably (between 10-25 mph) this past week and I've been having a lot of of pain in my chest from riding without enough layers. I've skipped the Zen temple for several weeks in a row and have suffered emotionally as a result. I try to meditate at home but I'm pretty lazy. I know if I want to keep functioning and not let stress send my body into a static feedback crash I have to make time to take care of myself, whether it be a 10 minute sit, an hour walk, or a trip to the library.

today it was a trip to the amazing, ginourmous, better-than-church downtown library. got a few books, one of which I am quite excited about.

I'm about two chapters into All in My Head, writer Paula Kamen's fantastic book about her battle with chronic headaches as well as that of others. So far it's a thoroughly well-written and researched read. it's inspiring for when I ever get around to writing my fibro book.

on her site there are a decent set of links, mainly dealing with headache. there's a very, very well-done list of Dos and Don'ts for relating to someone with Chronic Fatigue that made me want to cry and pump my fist in the air and then send it to everyone I know.

For example:

DON'T suggest that my symptoms might not be so severe if I didn't dwell on them, cater to them, give them so much attention, let them run my life. In fact, that is the very philosophy that led to the collapse of my health in the first place. I maintain what vitality I do have by careful attention to even small changes in my body.

DON'T suggest new supplements or treatments unless I have asked. Like most single dykes with the disease, I have experienced a drastic and terrifying reduction of resources. And like most women living on very low fixed income, I have had to evolve a highly refined and customized process for cost-benefit analysis. It has taken me years to fine-tune my regimen of supplements and foods. Yes, I am sure I would benefit from massage, blood tests, medical care, organic food, acupuncture, and chinese herbs, but I can't afford them. Unless, of course, you want to buy them for me. Classism and ableism go hand-in-glove, and in case you don't know, health care in this country is a privilege, not a right.

really effing brilliant. I've had so many well-meaning people tell me about some miraculous supplement that cured someone they know and it's getting harder and harder not to take offence. thanks, but when my life is a choice between eating enough to keep my weight up and taking yet another supplement, I'm going with food.

I've started taking St John's wort again in addition to 5-htp, what with the winter breathing down my neck already. I've been having bad bouts of depression at more or less the same time every day, the early afternoon. it's hard not to let it suck me in. getting my blood flowing helps, as does chocolate. it certainly does feel like a dementor attack...

time to watch Lost until I'm ready for sleep.

oh and

my bloodwork all came back negative. my doctor wants me to eat 3000 calories a day and if I can't gain a pound a week, come back in a month or so for more tests.

still feel pukey a LOT of the time. still having thumpy heart and tight chest. still having trouble sleeping.

but I'm not dying any time soon.

good lord willing and the creek don't rise.

ned called me "hipster bait"

"if i wanted to catch a hipster guy, i would put you in a cage with some marquez and a gameboy and come back later in the day with like 12 skinny jeans boys all crammed in there."

Poem for Monday, October 20, 2008

Waiting on Elvis, 1956

by Joyce Carol Oates

This place up in Charlotte called Chuck's where I

used to waitress and who came in one night

but Elvis and some of his friends before his concert

at the Arena, I was twenty-six married but still

waiting tables and we got to joking around like you

do, and he was fingering the lace edge of my slip

where it showed below my hemline and I hadn't even

seen it and I slapped at him a little saying, You

sure are the one aren't you feeling my face burn but

he was the kind of boy even meanness turned sweet in

his mouth.

Smiled at me and said, Yeah honey I guess I sure am.

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

props

I forget to give myself credit.

I've been through a lot this past year and still managed to keep my self-destructive behavior in check. I was having a rough time for a couple weeks, and despite the fact that inside my mind and body was not a fun place to be, I still managed to take refuge in things that keep me safe. Meditating, biking, reading, watching Lost; I haven't gotten wasted or used someone else's body as a means to escape mine in more than half a year. which is definitely a new record for me.

I seem to have accepted the fact that my physical condition might never improve much more. it's a hard and bitter pill to swallow, and I sure do get dose after dose of it multiple times a day, but I am being brave. I am strong. I might cry a lot, but I'm nota drug addict. Every other person with chronic pain I've met was an oxycodone addict, but I want to have a life, and being on pain meds is a dead-end street. Hell, it's a Thelma and Louise style full on acceleration towards a cliff.

Lately, when my physical state becomes overwhelming, I try to tell myself "this is just one more thing you will be good at treating."

it helps.


but I sure as hell can't sleep for shit lately.

Poem for Monday, October 13, 2008

If the Moon Happened Once

by Kay Ryan

If the moon happened once,

it wouldn't matter much,

would it?

One evening's ticket

punched with a

round or a crescent.

You could like it

or not like it,

as you chose.

It couldn't alter

every time it rose;

it couldn't do those

things with scarves

it does.

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

the waiting is the hardest part

I've been steadily losing weight for a while now, way past what I put on drinking and taking meds, I'm down to 112, which is what I weighed in, um, 9th grade?

during my acupuncture treatment Friday my intern told me the clinic supervisor insisted that I go see a physician to get checked out. I looked at her and said "what could it be?" she shrugged and said "glands? cancer?"

so of course I've been totally freaking out for the past couple days, more than usual.

I'm fairly certain I have hyperthyroidism, because my grandmother had thyroid disease and I seem to have inherited a lot of her health problems, and because I have all the main symptoms. unexplained weight loss, nausea, hot flashes, heart palpitations, elevated pulse, joint pain, diarrhea, yeah... fun.

if that IS what I have, I'm still sticking with Chinese medicine and nutrition, because the western treatments involve burning out your thyroid permanently via injection of radioactive iodine or else taking medications that kill all your white blood cells.

I'm really, really scared. I have no fat left on my body and I feel very, very fragile. It is painful for me to sit on most furniture and my bedsprings poke me through the mattress pad so I wake up feeling bruised. I've been crying for three days. it's so scary not to know what is wrong and to feel so horrible.

and to go through this alone, without a close friend to cry on, with no-one to go to for comfort, it's almost unbearable.

all I can do is keep breathing.

I get my blood tested Wednesday.

profile

I'm really good at writing personal ads and filling out online profiles. it's so easy to summarize myself in a handful of snappy lines. I ride my bike I like to cook I have various geek/literary themed tattoos I am hella wicked smart I read a lot I don't drink I don't smoke I like Battlestar Galactica.

when I write it all out I think I come across pretty well. I sound downright awesome. hell, I totally fracking rule. so why am I still so sad?

I know I am pretty and smart and funny and caring. I try to balance all this out with the feeling of worthlessness I have left over from my adolescent traumas and from dealing with my sickness.

7 months of menstrual suppression and I have morbid PMS. I'm inexplicably sad. there's not much I can do but hole up on the futon with Dr Who, then spend all the money I will get from cleaning my boys' house on chocolate.

wait it out.

Poem for Monday, October 6, 2008

To a Reader

by Robert Hass

I've watched memory wound you.

I felt nothing but envy.

Having slept in wet meadows,

I was not through desiring.

Imagine January and the beach,

a bleached sky, gulls. And

look seaward: what is not there

is there, isn't it, the huge

bird of the first light

arched above first waters

beyond our touching or intention

or the reasonable shore.

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

take us apart and put us back together right

This band from Champaign,Headlights, are my favorite biking music lately.
I've been listening to this song in particular a whole lot in the past few days. it seems pretty relevant to what's going on in my life right now, in a very comforting way.

Strange winds are blowing me down this way.
There's no prize in sight but the pain in my feet but I won't remember after tonight.
The clock turns red and the word on the street is that we are getting ready to leave.
Behind me I've forgotten to check all of the things that somehow now I don't seem to need.

Stepping over broken doors down in the street, all the chairs and tables lay on their sides.
We have to turn them over and stand them upright so we can leave them on their feet for the night.
So we can leave them on their feet for the night.

Take us apart and put us back together right, so we can leave on our feet in the night.

Poem for Monday, September 29, 2009

The Everly Brothers

by Floyd Skloot

My brother thought they were freaks

of nature, voices fitting together

through some fluke of chemistry.

He said they might just as well

have been Siamese twins sharing

a heart or the Everly humpbacks.

My brother preferred Jerry

Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry.

He cackled at their antics,

battering mother's baby

grand with his fists when we

were alone and duckwalking

the hallway until our downstairs

neighbors hit the ceiling

with a broom. At night he worked

on his Elvis sneer while caking

his face with Clearasil.

I can still see my brother

rave as we rode four stories

up in the quaking elevator.

He offered me one frenzied

groove of Yakety Yak at the top

of his lungs when I tried

to sing. All I wanted was

his voice joining mine in

harmony. The song did not

have to be about faith in love.

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

I can never say no to anyone but you

I just finished watching Teeth with my best guy friend. We were both profoundly disturbed, but for completely different reasons. He, for the normal-male-fear-of-penis-severing, me for much uglier reasons.

I was raised in a pretty Christian household. My mom had me praying for Jesus to bring me a husband from before I was old enough to understand sex, and by the time I figured out the mechanics of it (thanks to a fascinating 4 pages in a Ken Follett novel) the world had already started to sour around me.

Somewhere around the age my brother started trying to pin me down, my best friend got raped. Everyone called her a slut and said she was lying. She started spiraling out of control and I was angry enough to go along for the ride. There was no protection, no guarantee of safety. Nothing but lies. Sex wasn't some beautiful prize, it was a power struggle, always with a winner and a loser.

We were 13.

I ran away at the end of the summer. I'd been on Prozac for a couple months, on and off, and this was back before they knew about the erratic behavior side effect. I went for a walk down to the river park and ended up camping in the woods with some older kids I'd bummed cigarettes off before. By the end of the first night I'd decided I might as well lose my virginity. It wasn't worth anything. It wasn't special. The guy was 19, and not gentle. I have no idea how he could have bought the lie that I was 15, because I looked about 12.

It was my first kiss, too.

It was like being told a secret so huge it ripped me apart from the inside.

The next day I limped to the picnic shelter restroom and washed up. Looking in the mirror I imagined myself somehow infinitesimally wiser. Powerful. Bitter.

Then, of course, I got sent off to long-term brainwashing camp, where I was forced to repeat over and over that I had had sex because I was a drug addict, in front of large groups of other inmates, as well as in front of my mother. Then I spent the rest of high school under hardcore vigilance. I spent a lot of time listening to the Cure's darkest songs, especially the Figurehead.

I will never be clean again...

My first weekend in the dorms at Rhodes, I went to a frat party with a guy, Adam White, who was friends with a girl in my dorm. We went "just as friends," since I'd just starting dating this guy Josh and was really into him. Adam got me really drunk-my second time ever- and took me back to his room and next thing I knew he was in me. I was so wasted all I could think was that Josh was going to be so hurt and that this wasn't supposed to be happening. When it was over I staggered into the shower and sat sobbing under the spray. I remember lying on the cement out in the middle of campus watching the stars reel overhead, and I remember Josh coming to get me and crying when I told him what happened. I couldn't understand why he was so sad.

I don't think I've ever not been fucked up about sex. I've had a lot of it, and some of it's been really fantastic, but most of it seems to have been the kind of wasted and sordid one-night stands you only have when you really hate yourself. I tried to convince myself that I was just empowered, that I could be liberated and deatched and in control or callous and cold-hearted, but really I just thought of myself as disgusting and used-up and corrupted.

I did a lot of things I am not proud of, especially toward the end of 2007, when my antagonism toward my body was at its hardest.

I've had this mysterious bladder pain for about 6 months now, which is also the longest period of celibacy I've had since I was 17. It's gotten to where I have actually resigned myself to never having sex again.

Part of me wonders if my subconscious and my vagina are conspiring against me.

Do I really think I deserve this? Have 8 months of therapy really not even made a dent in this mountain of guilt and shame?





Deep breath. I have two tests tomorrow, and I can't figure this out tonight.

Poem for Monday

Poem for Monday, September 22, 2008

For the Children

by Gary Snyder

The rising hills, the slopes,

of statistics

lie before us.

the steep climb

of everything, going up,

up, as we all

go down.

In the next century

or the one beyond that,

they say,

are valleys, pastures,

we can meet there in peace

if we make it.

To climb these coming crests

one word to you, to

you and your children:

stay together

learn the flowers

go light

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

I can't seem to keep weight on, and it worries me. or rather, it adds to the general anxiety I have about my health declining. I'm sick again, feverish and achy, swollen glands, exhausted. If I'm not better by next week I am going to go get tested for mono.

I got a flickr pro account and was looking at pictures from last year. compared to then I look emaciated.

I'm so fed up with being sick. I have a good day, then I overdo it and get sick again.

acceptance. acceptance. I might never get any better. I need to focus on being grateful for what health I do have. some days I have to chant to myself "at least I don't have lupus. at least this won't kill me."

I miss having a social life. I miss dating. it's been since April since I had someone cuddle me. I don't know how to talk to regular people anymore. all I seem able to talk about is fibro. being sick has consumed me and I don't know what is left.

Poem for Monday

Poem for Monday, September 15, 2008

Moving Day

by Jay Meek

Our lamps sit on the lawn

as though

we lived there we roll

our rugs into documents

of

nothing new this is our last

house before the river we are

leaving

our lives again our radio

keeps playing Music

for

the Royal Fireworks we are

drifting downriver farther

and

farther from it where

are we going into our own

voices

saying go back go back

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

por fin escampa

For the past two days I've been feeling less depressed and restless than I can remember feeling for months. I'm sure it's due to too many factors to pick just one, so I won't.

It's lovely to be able to spend time in my apartment reading and napping in bed without feeling a pressing need to Get Outside. Granted, it's pouring down rain and my bike isn't working, but the horrible urgent restlessness that has plagued me all summer has finally abated.

Bless you, Minor Bupleurum. The whole idea that emotional balance can be achieved by balancing internal organs makes a lot of sense to me, since the western/corporate medical idea of just treating the brain certainly hasn't done shit. (as a side-note, skullcap+marinol=total psychedelic za-na-nas, seeing trails, blissed out. I'm looking forward to doing more research with drug-herb interactions, since I will probably end up treating mostly chronically ill patients.)

I have a few chapters to read for my Clinical Counseling class, and some laundry to do, and meals to prepare for my 8 hour day tomorrow, so I'll have to venture out into the rain, but I'm pretty unfazed. I've been a cranky bitch for a while and it's a relief not to be so angry and frustrated and anxious, so I don't mind.

I'm finally starting to feel like me again. this goes beyond the number being unemployed and bored out of my skull did on my psyche. this is more that I am finally able to move the physical discomfort of my everyday life to the back burner, to minimize its window. yeah, I feel like shit. no, it probably won't ever go away. at least it's not so upsetting anymore.

whew

I decided to drop the class I had Wednesday nights and it's like taking off a pair of sunglasses I didn't realize I was wearing indoors. it was a fairly interesting class, the philosophical and historical foundations of Chinese medicine, but as far as priorities go, the two classes I have the next day are so much more important. I just couldn't get home and get to bed on time and I was toddler-faced and attention span-less through my long 8 hours of class.

So far, after two weeks, I'm pretty excited. half of the classes I am taking now are not super challenging, just a lot of review and rote learning. I haven't taken biology since 1997 and I never took anatomy. I am glad my school really emphasizes biosciences, because I hope to do a lot of research later on in my career. I still remember what mitochondria are and all that, so I am not reallt worried.

We've discussed yin and yang characteristics in several of my classes and it's been interesting to try to identify myself. I have come to the conclusion that I have excessive yin and almost totally depleted yang, probably as a result of being forcibly medicated in my teens when I was still growing. it definitely makes sense to me, even on a nutritional level. When I am feeling really poorly, I crave certain foods, all of which are very yang- I want hot, spicy, garlicky meats and chocolate, I want sunshine, I want to be warm and active. When I am feeling well, my natural personality comes out- I'm bubbly, excitable, exuberant, impulsive. When I feel bad, I am quiet and withdrawn.

I've done a few things in the past week to try to test this hypothesis, mostly eating more meat and only listening to upbeat music (according to Tony, my tai ji teacher, rap music is yang, so I have been pretty much exclusively listening to Jay-Z and Missy Elliott). I also decided to take a break from birth control and menstrual suppression, since birth controls add yin energy and I already have way too much of that.

I'm optimistic again. I feel surprisingly ok today, especially for a nasty rainy day punctuated by uterus spasms. I got some really cute skull & crossbone galoshes and some winter gloves, so I'm one step closer to being ready to ride in the snow. if it ever stops raining I will be able to start getting my new fixie put together.

It might take me slightly longer than I anticipated to finish grad school, hopefully no more than an extra semester. I have to accept my limitations, and keeping up with an overload is just not possible if I want to do well.

After an email inquiry I sent, the assistant dean is trying to get a disability support group going at school. I hope some of the more advanced students respond. I could definitely still use lots of guidance.

Fwd: Poem for Monday

The Grade-School Angels

by Rafael Alberti (trans. Mark Strand)

None of us understood the dark secrets of the blackboards

nor why the armillary sphere seemed so remote when we looked at it.

We knew only that a circumference does not have to be round

and than an eclipse of the moon confuses the flowers

and speeds up the timing of the birds.

None of us understood anything:

not even why our fingers were made of India ink

and the afternoon closed compasses only to have the dawn open books.

We knew only that a straight line, if it likes, can be curved or broken

and that the wandering stars are children who don't know arithmetic.

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

restore from saved game y/n

The summer is pretty much over at this point. I feel like the past month has flown by. I've felt a lot better mentally and physically, despite brutal allergies and trouble sleeping.

Good things have just been dumped in my lap lately. My parents decided they wanted to buy me a new MacBook and some school clothes. I sent an email out to my bike club offering my old linux box to the first taker, and Alex at West Town offered to trade me a bike for it, which is fantastic. My Specialized Globe has been way too big for me for a while, and the back wheel is pretty damaged from getting doored back in May, so riding has been hell on my knees lately.

Orientation for graduate school was Wednesday. There were a few people in my class I am really looking forward to getting to know, and the classes should be quite challenging. I was flabbergasted to win a small scholarship. I know I deserved it. I've been through a hell of a lot and it is going to make me a hell of a witch. (The herb room at school is SO Hogwarts.)

I'm trying to hold on to some confidence, but I'm pretty overwhelmed. I know there are a lot of people who expect great things from me, and I am afraid of letting them down. Still, I know I am a dedicated and capable student. I know that the past few years of perceived failure were necessary to make me re-evaluate the way I related to myself and to other people. I know that I am still the same person I was 10 years ago, and also that I am completely different.

I'm not fucked-up. I'm not crazy. I might suffer from a really unpleasant set of chronic health problems, but I am still a kind and loving person who has much to offer. Other people don't pity me; they are proud of me.

I'm still terrified. Mostly afraid that it will be physically too much for me. Afraid that I won't be able to pay attention, afraid that my smarts have vanished. At this point I know it's just a matter of being patient and letting this new role take hold. I feel a lot like I did 11 years ago when I started at Rhodes. The world just got way bigger and it's a little scary.

I'm using my scholarship money to build a new fixed-gear and get it pimped out for winter. I got a new iPod and a microphone attachment so I can record my classes, since my the nerve grafts in my hand have now started to extend into my fingers and writing may become extremely unpleasant. I had a meeting with the assistant Dean to make sure that I'll be able to get up and stretch and walk around the building if my fibro makes sitting still in class for 4 hours too painful. I get acupuncture for 15 bucks, and I will be getting as much as I can, especially this first month of class.

In a lot of ways I feel like I've been given a chance to start over, but not all the way at the beginning. I get to go back to where things went wrong with total knowledge of what I need to do to win and start from there.

Level up.