A Look Back - A Pooka's Retrospective

I remember the exact day in my life when I knew that something was really, really wrong with me.

My Junior year of high school, my insomnia and nightmares hit a real peak for me. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't pay attention, my grades slipped. I was miserable. I was also confusing the hell out of everyone. I couldn't sleep, but I was always exhausted and trying to sleep. To me, that made sense. If you can't, you get tired, and you try, but you can't, so you get worse and so on.

Friday night is prime time for high school teens -- no school the next day, and the week is over.

Me, I came home around 3:30, took off my clothes, and crawled in bed. This time, I was so painfully exhausted (everything HURT) that I actually fell asleep.

And stayed that way.

It was around 9 that night when they finally found me. The door to my room had been slightly closed, but open enough that you could see most of the room and that obviously the lights were off. They'd found my books, so they knew I'd at least BEEN home.

No one ever thought of looking in bed.

My boyfriend was in a total panic (I remember him trying not to cry when he found me, yes, HE looked, not my parents), and my parents were, not surprisingly, mad.

I got yelled at for it. By my parents. For being home where I was supposed to be. Hello, Houston? We have a problem.

But I knew then that something really had to be wrong. I wasn't crazy. All the weird aches, weird reactions to medications, the insomnia ... something had to be there.

It took them another 15 years to give it a name.

Fibromyalgia. Fibromyalgic Syndrome. FMS. Fibrositis.

It has a lot of names, but the symptoms are all pretty much the same. Only the severity changes. Each one of us handles the disease differently, each one of us has our own magical combination that will ease it and make it roll over and behave. Not all of us find that combination. Not all of us are taken seriously -- some never are.

It's a disease that affects mostly women, women in the child-bearing "Valium" Stepford years. Think of how long it took pre-menstrual syndrome to even be acknowledged, much less accepted as a reality. In a field where men still dominate, if you can't see it, smell it, or taste it, it's not real. When you can't stab someone with a needle or take an x-ray of it, it's not real.

I faced a lot of that. I faced even more of it before I got to the point where even an idiot could see that something was painfully wrong with me.

I was a hypochondriac. I was just lazy. I just wanted attention.

No, I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up like every normal person on the planet. I wanted to be able to go and run and climb and play without hurting, without knots tearing at my limbs and making them spasm and cramp. I wanted to be able to be with others without catching some virus that someone they were in contact with had, and they only passed it on without becoming sick themselves.

I wanted to be normal, and I never was.

Throw being massively hypoglycemic into the blend, and you get a real mess. My blood sugar was the cause of SO much pain for me and those around me. I would wake up with morning readings of 30 and 40. I remember a reading of 19. Damn near enough to kill a person.

I don't remember a lot of what happened during those swings. I faintly remember a lot of anger, tantrums, hysterics. I remember a lot of bruises from fainting, a lot of laughter and hard looks when I'd pass out in class, or stagger into a doorframe because I was too dizzy to keep my balance. I remember having a lot of arguments with a lot of people, and I know I wasn't even remotely coherent or logical. I just don't remember any of the details. They're lost to me.

I only remember that half an hour or so after someone finally stuffed food in my mouth, I felt better. Logic returned. I'd cry and apologize and never know why.

Cocktail for a maniac. Recipe for a broken heart.

Or classic early fibro symptoms.

The doctors were close, though. They had the right idea over the years, they just never managed to find the right solution. I give them a lot of credit for that. Some of the doctors really did try: Unfortunately, none of the results fit the bill.

I've been tested for lupus more times than the scar on my arm cares to tell. I've been repeatedly tested for rheumatoid arthritis, for Epstein-Barr (mono), Lyme Disease, Multiple Sclerosis.

I've endured wave after wave of miserable tests including a colonoscopy because they were determined for a while that I had Crohn's Disease, or colon polyps, or tumours, or ...

You get the picture.

Only when you start to piece everything together does it begin to make sense.

In the meantime, I watched my self-esteem and confidence dwindle to nothing. *I* knew there was something wrong me, and I knew it wasn't just in my head. There was too much proof that I wasn't crazy, but none of it matched up.

I bruise terribly. I rarely feel an injury, but I will bruise up black and purple and it definitely hurts then. After surgery, (or even my tattoos) I bleed more than I should. I've almost died in childbirth due to massive hemmorhaging. I've had a blood transfusion to keep me from dying.

My bloodwork is all clean. There's nothing in it to explain why my body doesn't want to heal. So I must be imagining it, even when the bruises say otherwise.

I've got more than enough proof that I don't sleep, and when I do, it's restless and harsh and full of nightmares. The list to affirm to that is a mile long.

Is it really surprising that no doctor has ever done a sleep study on me?

The most I've been able to get out of a doctor until recently was the confirmation of Raynaud's Syndrome/Phenomenon. I have abnormally cold hands and feet. Even now, my entire body is quite warm, but my hands are icy and ashen, the skin sagging around the bones and tendons. If I try to warm them, they will change colours from red to purple and back again, and I will be in serious pain. Touching ice, or even a cold glass is agony.

My feet do the same thing. Showers are sheer hell. By the time the water is warm enough on my feet, they hurt. Socks only marginally helps. My feet can be cold inside two pairs of socks and in boots.

All the little things add up. My husband was slowly watching me fall apart, and I know even he thought I was crazy for a while. He might deny it, but you know The Look when you get it, particularly if you've seen it time and time again.

The first real help came on a visit to his mother.

You see, my mother-in-law has Fibromyalgia.

Those little things made perfect sense to her. She's lived with them, too.

To be honest, at the time I didn't think much of what she had to say. I'd been told too often that it was all in my head. Here, take this pill and you'll be fine. Here, go see this shrink, this doctor, this ... whatever. There's nothing wrong with you that I can find, so go away.

And the little things kept adding up. Like having to cut all my hair off because I couldn't keep raising my arms above my head long enough to wash it, much less keep it braided so it didn't knot while I slept. I could not raise my arms above shoulder level. I'd get dizzy, they'd feel like they weighed a thousand pounds and it would HURT, oh God, it would hurt.

I've never, NEVER been comfortable with having my blood pressure taken. It can bring tears to my eyes, it's so painful. I get bruises and strange skin tears from cuffs.

Know what?

There's an FMS Trigger Point there. Go fig. You get a gold star.

Hugs became more and more painful. My hips wouldn't always want to work, they'd lock and send bolts of pain down my legs and into my back. My fingers would suddenly start shaking wildly. I'd drop things. I've never been known as clumsy, but that's certainly what I was turning into.

Then a weird series of events managed to turn my world around and give some sanity back to it.

My labor with Thing 2 was relatively normal by all standards, especially compared to the birth of Thing 1.

The next day in the hospital, however, scared all of us.

My bloodwork came back strangely. I started hurting after dinner, severe, sharp shooting chest pains. My blood pressure spiked, 02 levels dropped, and suddenly I was hooked to EKGs with oxygen going and people basically freaking out on me.

The next bloodwork apparently scared them worse. I was taken off food entirely and set up for an ultrasound.

My, look at the gallstone totally blocking the tube. Maybe that's why her liver is starting to fail.

I'd been in the hospital almost a week when they finally told DG he couldn't come in and stay most of the night. He asked why.

"Because she's no longer on the Critical Care list."

Ahem? Oh hell. Yes, they should have told us I was considered a Critical patient. I'm VERY glad they didn't. That would have just been more stress to handle in an already stressful situation.

I think I knew on some level how serious it was, though. Some of you reading this were around during that period, and possibly remember the letter I wrote in the hospital that DG posted for me. Even though they were trying to keep the new mom calm for Thing 2, I knew, and was scared.

Three months and 60 lost pounds later, after Thing 2 was a little more situated, I went into the hospital.

My gallbladder *had* to come out and my tubes had to be tied because I can't take most birth control and having another child probably would have killed me. We did all that at once to minimize side-effects. I still have problems with scar tissue from the gallbladder, and lots of "echo" memory pain.

But this is where the downhill spiral started. I was tired more often, suffered insomnia worse than before, and occasionally hurt for no apparent reason.

My arm was another *had* to. By the time I reached the surgeon, I'd lost all feeling in my hand and it was totally unusable. A knot of tendon near the TP had looped around my ulnar nerve and completely strangled it. They went in, removed the knot (and the nerve and muscles entirely), and totally rebuilt the inside of my arm to try to prevent it from happening again. I have some permanent nerve damage up in the arm itself, and the scar isn't pretty, but I have my hand back. Recovery time was actually shorter and I pushed myself enough that I have full use of my hand without having to endure the abuse of physical therapy.

My immune system joined the "abandon Pooka" bandwagon after this one. I can catch damn near any virus that even looks at me from a distance.

Just in time for my tonsils -- which had been taken out when I was 18 months old -- to decide to make another appearance. They didn't entirely grow back, but a particularly nasty case of strep hit me, and settled into the new growth and BAM. 9 months solid of hell. I had strep a confirmed 4 times during that 9 months, plus pneumonia, and I was never NOT on an antibiotic. Pneumonia and strep really really SUCK when you're an asthmatic.

I developed my new deadly allergy to penicillin during this time, as well as widened my sulfa allergy to all sulfamides and cephalosporins. No antibiotic ever worked. I stayed sick a solid 9 months. I was in the middle of full tonsilitis when they said to hell with it and took them out.

There weren't any ways around them. Each one was sufficiently traumatic on its own to contribute to the fibro, together, a real mess.

This leaves us where we are today:

-I am often very scatterbrained, unable to retain information I've recently heard or read, sometimes unable to concentrate at all without tears and frustration at the inability to do so.
-I am often incapable of holding my children, or playing with them, or even meeting basic care needs.
-There are days when I physically cannot crawl out of bed, even to use the bathroom, without assistance.
-I cannot sleep. I am alternately exhausted and insomniatic (did I just make up a new word?).
-Sometimes it is all so bad that I wish they would find something fatally wrong with me, just so I know that it would be over soon.

The good news is that fibromyalgia won't kill you.
The bad news is that fibromyalgia won't kill you.

This brings me back to the original purpose and point of all my rambling.

You CANNOT do it alone.

Tomorrow, DG and I will have been married for eleven years.

I never could have made it this far without him.

We have been together through the bad, and the worse. We've seen death up close and had too many personal encounters with him, and together we've won past it.

There are days when we truly loathe each other, but beneath it is still what has brought us and kept us together. You just can't survive this much together and have something relatively small tear it apart.

And I could NOT do it alone. Not without him.

Thank you, honey, for eleven years.

You know why I leave "wonderful" out of that. We aren't perfect. We never will be. And neither of us pretend that we are, either.

Thank you for being there, even when I wasn't.
Thank you for being here for us now, even when I can't.
Thank you for trying to close the gaps that I make out of fear.
Thank you for making me hate you every now and then to bring things back into perspective.
Thank you for not letting me run away.

In shorter words: "Eleven years, and we haven't killed each other yet."

I love you.

~pooka

Out of Context

Still awake.

Fingernails are still flamable.

Mice can hang upside-down for extended periods of time. This appears to do no damage whatsoever to their little mousey brains -- they're still as utterly butt-stupid on return to your regular upright position.

Carpet should not be kitty toilet paper.

Oh look! Carbon paper!

Tootsie Roll power, such a chocolatey chew.
Tootise Roll, I think I'm in love with you.

"He doesn't wear a zoot suit!"

"It's true. If I really cared, I'd dress like a dead man, too."

For every leap forward, we take three steps back. Progress is only an illusion. Evolution is a curious lie. Now we walk forward into the late past, regressing from humanity to be boiled down into the most primal primitive beast to walk the earth. Violence is not a solution, it's a symptom.

If your life was to accrue finance charges, would you still be in the black?

My Christmas tree is still up. For at least one shining evening, All was calm and Bright with the world. Removal of the tree is a sad task, one I never eagerly embrace.

I think I want to be young again. I'd need different parents, of course, but I want things to be simple. I'd like to have no more to worry about than what jeans go with which sweater, what flavour lipgloss I really liked, who was dating who, and getting homework done.

There's a new Eeyore PEZ dispenser out. I want it. I haven't seen Pooh or Piglet or Tigger, just Eeyore. He's cute. I like my Eeyore.

Still can't find the top to my Eeyore PJs.

Sometimes, you really just don't want to swallow.

Isis is an Isis is an Isis. Loves her, yes we do.

Movie trailer tonight. They've remade "The Time Machine." Lots of remakes these days, Ocean's Eleven, Planet of the Apes, Time Machine, other movies I can't possibly remember the titles to because I'm a doofus. A trend? Sign of more troubled times, searching desperately for some anchor in a sea of insanity.

The moose on the bookshelf is looking at me funny.

"This retro thing is pretty silly. I mean, I'm wearing a snood."
"I was trying not to notice."

Mmm, fun foam. Fun foam. Yessire, I'm having Fun now.

Maybe my life is little more than a cheaply built grafitti wall.

"You gotta help me make a stand.
You just got to see me through another day.
My body's achin' and my time is at hand.
I won't make it any other way."

Sybil is starting to make very scary noises. I'm afraid they're hinting at a meltdown to come. It's a weird low hissing gurgling sound from around the processor/fan side, kinda like the noise soda (especially ginger ale) sometimes make after the bubbles have clung to the sides and then spontaneously broached the surface.

I'm having difficulties with my Ks and Gs. Perhaps they are trying to tell me something.

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Black Hole

Giving the Beast a face

Monthly Medications: $140 of copays.
Monthly Office Visits: $40 of copays.
Knowing You Aren't Crazy: Priceless.

I got "lucky" (yeah, right) when I was down in Houston and out with klash.

My arm decided to do one of the Wonder Spasms, the full debilitating FMS blowout. My hand, trembling and quaking, turned purple and went ice cold because the spasm took away full control of my arm.

And Klash and her daughter got to see it happen from the beginning to end.

Times like those when you not only KNOW you aren't crazy, but so does everyone around you, are priceless. And all too rare.

Fibro is so often a faceless demon. You can't see it, smell it, touch it or taste it, but it controls you nonetheless. That lack of solidity makes it a true demon, one of which has managed to convince all too many that it doesn't exist at all.

Proof ... is priceless.

My fibro wasn't too bad until I had to endure multiple surgeries, childbirth, pneumonia, and 5 confirmed cases of strep all within a 4 year span.

I still have nerve damage where my arm was rebuilt, and since it's after the "regeneration" point, I know it's permanent, along with the ugly thick purple scar.

I had my tonsils removed for the second time after enduring 9 very long months of being constantly ill. I lived on liquids, period. I ended up in the ER repeatedly to get shots that would bring the swelling in my throat down so I could even breathe. I developed a violent and deadly allergy to penicillin after 30 years of being able to take it, as well as new allergies to codeine, and I completed the allergies to all forms of sulfa meds.

I've spent too many hours weeping hysterically because I Just Don't Know ... and half the time am too fogged to know what it is that I can't put together. I've had to learn to live with being "Stoopid" now, to live with hearing my husband say "Man, you should have seen her ..."

This is not me. I am not this broken shell. I am not this lost mind.

But if I am not ... who am I?

I am a mother. I have two children who I sometimes cannot even name properly, going through the "Ka, uh, Cha, uh, oh, WHOEVER you are!" stumble to call one onto the rug. I cry inside when I have to tell the eldest that she has to ask her father for help with homework because I simply can't remember HOW to do addition or subtraction at the moment.

I cannot pick up my youngest and cuddle her in my arms because she's too young to understand about avoiding trigger points, and she cries when she realizes she's hurt me again. Too many days I'm unable to hug my children at all, because my skin revolts and even my clothing is painful to wear.

I am a wife who cannot remember the last time we were able to have sex. The agony of after and during can't make up for what small pleasure I could receive. It's no fun for my husband to watch me burst into tears during it because it hurts. He's afraid to touch me at all, never knowing when it will hurt. And then of course it hurts more, because I WANT to be touched ... but even I don't know when it will and when it won't be painful.

I am a writer that has forgotten how to finish a sentence. I begin ... and the little surge that is supposed to connect one thought with another short-circuits and I'm left to stare blankly, wondering what it was that I had set out to accomplish. The story of my life, always to remain incomplete.

I am a woman, and I am so much less so. I cannot love, I cannot feel, I cannot nurture on call, but instead my life is run for me by a beast with no face and an ill-fitting name -- Fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia. It, too, is like me, a thing that cannot be easily defined. It is all, and it is none. It is husbands, wives, children, parents, friends. It is sly, subtle, forward. It is control, and it is the loss of the same.

It will never ever go away.

The hardest thing for us to do, when we're in so much pain, when it hurts to even exist, is to remember that WE ARE NOT ALONE.

Sometimes, that makes all the difference in the world.

This is why parents go grey early

"Do NOT hit your sister! No, I do NOT care if she hit you first."

"Stop running in the living room!"

"Put the cat down before she bites you."

"Your father is TRYING to sleep in there. Be quiet!"

"Haven't I told you before that we do not throw fireballs at the dinner table?"

"Omnivore does NOT mean that you can take a bite out of your sister!"

"That's it, 2 minutes for high sticking. Put the hockey stick down and get in the corner and you, go get a bandaid and stop blubbering."

"Sorry, Mommy can't hear whining."

"You are going to fall and get hurt if you don't get down from there."

"See, I told you. Now don't climb it again."

"No, you can't levitate your sister and make her go away."

"Put the spellbook down and stop trying to turn your sister into a frog."

"I don't care what spell you're trying to cast, for the last time, I am NOT getting you chicken blood!"

"If you can't play nice, I'm turning the computer off."

"I don't care who had it first, it's mine now."

"How many times do I have to tell you to pick that up?"

"If I have to tell you to stop fighting one more time, both of you go to your room."

"For the last time, cover your mouth when you cough!"

"Do you WANT to be grounded?"

"Some Assembly Required"

DG has discovered words more horrifying than "Some Assembly Required."

"Made by Mattel."

Thing 2 wants her toy. DG sets out to accomodate the Thing.

Half an hour later, he's still trying to remove ... THE PACKAGING. I've seen less restraints in S&M clubs. This might even require power tools.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Zamboni is in cardboard heaven. Boxes! Everywhere! Oh bliss! He has snurfled and flopped and writhed in them all, even the ones that are impossibly too small for him to do it.

Zamboni is a fruitcake. With nuts.

I'm getting "swish and flick"ed by Thing 1.

Thing 2 is trying to make me walk the plank. Aaargh, Matey!

Harley has gotten distracted from her mousey by DG's Eddie the Eagle. She keeps tryin to steal the puck, eh?

Felimid, having grown tired of trying to set the new land speed record, has settled into a perch of dominance over the heathens below. Of course, getting there almost shattered the patio door, since his massive bulk sent the 5' tall cat tree a'rocking.

Oh god, the Things are eating more chocolate.

Oh god. I just discovered that Thing 1 knows most of the words to "15 Men on a Deadman's Chest." I do not want to know how or where she learned this.

No, Mommy does not want to walk the plank.

No, DG cannot come search my treasure chest.

No, Mommy is not going to explain that one to you.

Kids, cats, sack the wives...

Thing 1 leaves for school. Mommy is asleep. Thing 2 is asleep. DG left 15 minutes before she did, will be back after he finishes walking heathens across the street.

Thing 1 does not close the door entirely.

The wind is blowing, it is very cold.

When DG returns an hour later, the door is wide open.

Zamboni is missing.

The other two cats, being far more intelligent, realized that it was way too cold and wet to even consider a trip outside. They are in bed with me, where it's warm.

Through sheer luck, nothing other than the cat is missing.

DG leaves to search for stupid.

Almost an hour later, he's found ... peeking out from the porch next door, dry and cold, but safe. And sheepish. And whining.

Thing 1 will get a talking-to.

Zam is home.

But don't think this will change his mind about the next escape attempt.

---

Thing 2 walks out of their bedroom with a blue plastic steak knife in hand and a maniacal grin on her face.

Thing 2: "Wookit me, I the doctor an I gotta CUT KAIWEY OPEN to see whats wong wiff her!!"

Me: (knowing that Daddy and I both have had surgery and this is a semi-logical conclusion) "Honey, doctors don't always have to cut someone open to find out what's wrong."

Thing 2: "Good ones do! CUT CUT CUT! Kaiweeeeey, come heeeereee!"

Run, Thing 1, Run.

Whose kids are these, anyway?

Thing 2: "Daaaaaaddy? Will you PLEASE stop Kaiwey from whining? She is SO bitchy!"

I'm anticipating a Lina fireball any moment.

Thing 2: "Daddy, do you HAVE to go bring Kaiwey home? It's SO much quieter here wiffout her."

---

(door opens, enter the Squealer)

Thing 1: "Mama, Heather accepted a sword fight with a bunch of boys and then she got hurt and so now she's going to come inside, m'kay?"

Keep in mind that Thing 2 will be 5 on Tuesday (dur), and is smaller by far than most 2 year olds.

Thing 2: (she's doing fine, not even crying, until she sees me) "MOMMY!! I was fightin wiff this boy an I was kickin his butt an we was sword fightin an I went WHAM WHAM HIYAH pow an I was kickin his butt (yes, she pointed this out at least twice) an then his brother got mad an he came an HIT me an Oh Mommy lookit my finger!"

So now she's beating up boys to the point that their big brothers have to come defend them from the pint-sized terror.

She, of course, after bandaid, is ready to go back outside.

Thing 1 was bleeding worse than her sister. Apparently she "fell down."

I had to emphasize the point repeatedly with Thing 2 that if she insists on fighting with boys, she's going to get hurt eventually. I think she's ready for round 2. I feel sorry for those boys.

Score:
War Wounds - 1
Sidewalk - 1
Thing 1 - Zip

Misunderhearings

Thing 2 and I are watching Cartoon Network, and they show a commercial for the Barbie Nail Studio.

Thing 2: "Mommy, how do you get them off?"

Me: "It's just glue, honey, they come off easily."

Thing 2: "You mean you don't gotta use a knife and cut off your fingers and wipe the blood clean so those will stick?"


Now me, I wanna know where the hell she got THAT idea from ......

Wasn't there, didn't do it, you can't prove anything

It's lies, I tell you, all lies. Don't believe DG, he's just making it up!

Oh. Shit. Wait. You mean he didn't say anything?

Uh. Nevermind, carryon.

Apparently ... and this was after I opened my eyes and realized I'd passed out cold onto my laptop and it was cussing at me at binary ... after I went to bed, DG shifted, and it startled the sleeping me.

Apparently ... I snapped upright and screamed, one of those throaty warpath everyonedies screams, and turned on him. "Feral," and I quote.

Apparently I scared the shit out of him.

And then, some minutes later, without ever focusing on him or answering him, I laid back down and went back to sleep.

*I* don't believe this. *I* don't remember shit. I'd honestly believe he was making it up ... if he didn't look so freakin startled while he was asking me about it.

(Jon says I looked like this every time he woke me up, however, his memory must be faulty and therefore he's not an acceptable witness for the prosecution.)

The leg is HURTING him today. Right on schedule.

He tried getting up, didn't last long, so I had to get up and make sure he was fed so we could dump pain pills into him.

Of course, that means I still haven't gotten nearly enough sleep, so we're working ourselves into some serious fucking sleep deprivation now.

I need an assistant.

America: Land of the free, Home of the Carnivore

Frozen dinners are designed with the carnivore in mind.

Look at them.

Look at the vegetarian dishes while you're at it. "Mock meatloaf." "Tofu corn dogs." "Meatless Vegetable Burgers."

90% of them have some sort of Meat Substitute.

There are times when the fibro has me in too much pain and too incoherent to "create dinner." If I want to get fed, I'd better hope there's something easy I can nuke.

And there are lots of things that LOOK good out there.

9 times out of 10, I pick what passes for meat in them out. There's a saucy noodle thing with BIG chunks of carrots and peas in it. Lots of noodles, the sauce is pretty good .... but then there's this CHICKEN in it. Urgh. Pause to pick chicken out. It's mindless, so I can get that part right.

Michelinas has a pretty good stroganoff. I gotta pause to pick the meat out.

I finally found a chicken minestrone (Stouffers) that doesn't make me gag. No, I take it back. I ADORE it. Lots of zucchini (proof that God really exists), and BIG chunks of chicken (not mystery meat), so it's even easy to pick out if I can't stomach it at the time.

Mexican dinners usually aren't as bad about it, by the time they've processed the ground beef THATfar (IF that is indeedy what it truly is) and mixed it with all the goop, there's nothing TO pick out.

And have you ever stopped to pay attention about proportions? "Rice and chicken (turkey, whatever)." You get all this goop, lots of meat, and a bare-assed spoonful of rice. Huh?

Meat, tons, check. Sauce, tons, check. Cool, that means we can skimp on the noodles and veggies, Americans LIKE it this way!

I don't make claims to be a vegetarian. It's not a principle thing. I am firmly convinced that we are mostly carnivorous by nature -- at the very least, true ominvores. There are times when I just oooooooze over a really good steak -- and it better still be mooing on the way to my table. Bloody, please. A good vet could still save it.

But meat just doesn't like my system very well. In anything more than mild doses, it reacts badly with my fibro and then I have to spend the next few days dealing with a total gastrological riot. Dairy is pretty bad about it too, so I must do without cheesy goodness and yummies like ice cream and cheesecake and even milk except for sparingly.

America: Land of the free, Home of the Carnivore.

When Cats Err

Zamboni is a very large cat. Zamboni is a very large very FLUFFY Maine Coon cat.

Zamboni decided that while he was sniffing at the table, it would be fun to sit in Thing 2's forgotten waffle plate. Full of syrup.

Now we have to catch the Elusive CactusTailed CowCat, complete with bits of paper and string for camoflague, to either bathe or shave.

Important Notes:

Cats and syrup don't mix.
Thing 2 needs to be retrained.
Laughing your ass off with a sore throat is a Bad Idea.
Bathing a Coon is JPG worthy. Drowned rat, anyone?
Zam has a opossum tail under all that fur. Eeeeww.
Zam does not like baths.

WOW, can he yowl indignantly. Wow, he's loud. Wow, he's mournful.

He even has Harley and Flea seriously upset. Harley tried to come over and give him a consolation bath while I was holding and drying him. Poor kitten about gagged on the mouthful of fur. Zam doesn't particularly allow the other cats to groom him, so this was quite an experience.

All three are now hiding under my futon, plotting the demise of DG.

Babes in Fearland

We think that they're too young to understand, that it rolls right past them.

We think that they're not listening.

DG and Thing 1 just left to try to get food -- not that any of us have really eaten at all the last few days.

Thing 2 just came running out of her room in DG's floppy jester's hat and a striped dress, jingling away ... to see only mommy.

Thing 2: "MOMMY! Where's my daddy???????"

She's shaking, eyes wide.

Me: "It's okay, honey, he just went to go get dinner."

Thing 2: "Oh Mommy, I worried. I thought he was dead!"

I hug her, try to soothe the kid. Then there's a pause.

Thing 2: "Where's KAILEY???"

Me: "Honey, it's okay, she went with Daddy. They're all right, I promise."

Thing 2: "Oh good, Mommy. I was SO worried."

I'm trying not to cry.

Shots in the Dark

Sleep eluded me last night.

No, incorrect. Let me not be guilty of false information, however inane it might be. It's certainly relevant in this case that I be accurate.

While sleep managed to find me, the quality left a great deal to be desired, sporadic and poor as it was. Nightmares stalked the world behind closed eyelids, nightmares that I honestly thought I had put behind me.

And in those nightmares, a gunman with an AK-47 stalked the halls of our hospital. This time, I didn't cancel my appointment for the day. This time, I was there with the infant Thing 1.

This time, my family didn't escape.

I attempted to go to sleep around 1 am or so. Lesson learned for the moment to not even try it without being utterly exhausted. At least then the dreams have to fight overwhelming coma to affect me.

There was a sound, somewhere between 4 and 5 am that had me sitting upright, even more panicked. I hadn't set the alarm last night, but even without that, as I startled out of yet another nightmare, I heard the quiet "snick" of the front door.

DG came very close to getting a baseball bat in the head.

I was grateful that he was home. I know that some of the fear in my dreams came from real enough worries about his safety, but the early presence spawned all new concerns. Why the hell was he home early?

I know he had a good response, (because he couldn't possibly have really told me that "I just didn't want to be there anymore" -- RIGHT dear?) but my brain seems to have misplaced it. I stumbled somewhat dully back to bed.

I shouldn't have been all that surprised when I had what little sleep I might have returned to violently disrupted by the ring of the damn telephone every half hour.

And in between, more shots in the dark.

Good morning, America

"Good morning, America, how are you ...."

Drained. Crawled into bed somewhere after 4 am. Finally was talked into attempting food around 3ish, I think.

Worrying about DG, standing out at crossing guard. All right, worrying a lot. See, DG is dark, very dark, skin, hair, eyes. So much that especially in Hispanic strong areas, people have walked up to him and started speaking in Spanish, expecting him automatically to understand.

It's not a far leap for some minds to assume he's something else. So I'm worried. In the small town we call home, it's not TOO much of a worry, but elsewhere ... I can't help but worry about my husband.

It struck me some time yesterday evening just how very old are our souls becoming, and at an early age as well.

I was born during Vietnam.

I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of the USSR, and thinking "It will get better now."

I got married during Desert Storm. My in-laws lived in Saudi at the time. They were issued gas masks and chem gear.

I clearly remember the first WTC bombing. And the Sarin Gas attack in the Japanese subways.

We were stationed at Fairchild when a gunman, ex-AF, walked into the HOSPITAL and opened fire -- on everyone. My husband worked in that hospital. He came home with blood on his uniform. My eldest daughter was born in this hospital. I knew most of the dead. One was my doctor.

The same week, a B52 went down on our base with half the flight command staff on board. My husband was on Search and Recovery when Fairchild AFB lost the BUFF. We distantly saw part of the crash from our front yard. We could see and smell the smoke from our house.

At our next base, we felt the shudder when the Alfred P. Murrah Fed Building was bombed in OKC.

Bosnia. Serbia. Yugoslavia. Israel. Palestine. Northern Ireland. Afghanistan.

I watched yesterday as the World Trade Center fell. As the Pentagon burned.

When is it supposed to get better?

I saw so much anger and hatred yesterday -- both directed, and aimless. After a few of the worst, I kept to reading posts from people that I knew to be, on the average, reasonable and intelligent instead of knee-jerk extremists.

Being an ex-military family -- DG was an instructor for Red Flag, the field hospital school -- as soon as the initial shock was over, he was on the phone, making calls, volunteering if needed. We're far away, but it's instinct. Many of my friends are either military, ex-military, or grew up in military families.

There's a saying about military spouses. If you think the soldiers are tough, look at the ones they leave behind.

We have to pull together. It's a pack instinct to the greatest degree. When one is hurt, we're all hurt and work together to solve it.

There's no other way to survive.

The skies are still silent today. There's not a cloud in the sky. The blue is rich, innocent, forgiving. There are no contrails. There is no roar of engines, no flashing of lights.

It remains an eerie silence.

Christ.

The building is GONE. The south tower has collapsed amid another explosion apparently.

All those lives .....

God.

The second tower has fallen. The World Trade Center is totally gone.

90-odd passengers/personnel on the planes. Thousands in the buildings.

Hundreds of police officers and firemen trying to rescue survivors.

The silence is deafening.

We live 5 minutes from the DFW airport. Airplanes -- and low ones, coming in on approach -- are a 24/7 fact of life.

There is nothing in the air right now but birds, and it is very, very quiet.

The local world has come to a screeching standstill. Things have changed forever, in a very dramatic way. The innocence, the shelter that we lived under is gone.

The grass is still green, children are still playing, and the skies are still blue.

They are also silent.

The innocence of the country is gone, wiped away in flaming moment after flaming, smouldering moment.

It is possible that we will never know the entirety of what has happened. We may never learn the names of all that have lost their lives today. Many of the missing will remain missing, with no body to grieve over, and only memory left in their place. Recovery can never be complete. There will always be guilt, horror, anger and grief.

So many lives lost.

The shoe, as they say, is on the other foot.

What has been Real Life for the rest of the world has now been made real for us as well. We've joined the victims of mass destruction, become the newest children of violence, become another statistic.

Will we cope as well as they have? Will we come together and go on?

Will anger win out? Revenge? 'Justice?'

The dying, I fear, is only beginning.

.....

Oh. My. God.

Kinda makes you think about that recent Infocom data seizure, doesn't it?

Fuck.

And with passengers on board.

I'm going to go throw up now.

Packrats Anonymous

DG went through the two HUGE moving boxes that he's stacked by the door to our bedroom for the last two years at last.

He found the grenade again. Go figure.

Oh, right, sorry, DG. A cluster bomb. My bad. At least it didn't roll out of a jacket pocket onto my foot in the closet like it did last time.

And your average issue chemical agent testing kit.

And about 3000 yards of sticky tape.

And a full set of restraints, including leg irons .... I'm considering offering them on EBay if Sorcha doesn't threaten me with death for getting rid of them.

Semi-full surgical tool/dissection kit, including the massive swab hemostats and scapels, and I'm sure there's suture kits around somewhere.

Ammo box or two. MREs that are God-only knows how old. Super Boy Scout Compass thing.

Things that I don't even want to try to identify.

"Honey, do we need .... "

"Honey, can you think of any reason to keep ....."

"Do we have any room for ...."

Dude. Packrat's Anonymous. Try it. Really.

Jabberjaws

Thing 2 is in a Mood. I blame my Momster entirely.

I let them outside to play when the sprinklers came on, despite the heat warning and the code red air quality alert. Sprinklers, man. Gotta do it.

They didn't want to come in of course.

Thing 2 is now "dressed" (with her still-wet swimsuit under the dress), insisting on riding the hot pink Barbie scooter around the living room. 'No' is some foreign language right now.

Red ropers. Denim dress. Dripping swimsuit. The Wet Look hair. Crocheted jewelry.

And she hasn't stopped jabbering since she woke up.

"Mama, when we woke in the hotel, they had my favorite cereal. CORNFLAKES. For real! Really! And milk, and cereal, and we got a bowl, and we came home and you painted our room so we can go outside and play sprinklers after eating cereal."

I think she's hungry.

Now she has cereal. And she's still talking. Spraying a fountain of Froot Loops everywhere. Duct tape wouldn't even stop it.

Last night she went and went and went till she literally passed out in the middle of the floor.

Today ... God help me.

---

Thing 1: "Wow, those trees are really dark. I bet there are wolves out there that would get me."

Me: "Nah, no wolves, but I'm sure there's a man-eating tree or two."

Thing 1: ::yowls, whines, whimpers -- giggling::

Thing 2: "Ooo, yeah. I wicked. I'll cast a spell and make the trees go eat Kailey. See, here's me casting a spell so they'll GET HER! Eat Kailey, trees!"

Thing 1: ::more yowling, no longer giggling::

Thing 2: "Oh chill OUT. I just teasing you!"

---

"Mamamamamamama, watch Dracuwa!!!"

"WHAT?"

"Mama, I wanna watch Dracuwa 2000."

I cave.

She's rooting for the vampires. She squealed and sniggered when the first robber dies.

"Mama, is Dracuwa gonna show up?"

"Yeah, eventually, hon."

"Good, cause he's COOL!"

She has a stuffed black cat she's named Salem.

She's wearing this burgundy and black choker. With her 'spell book.' And watching Dracuwa 2000. And singing.

Wednesday Addams ain't got nuthin on this kid.

What Colour is Estrogen?

I can tell you what colour mine isn't -- pussy power pink.

After staring at an entire wall of that colour, I decided that I had somehow failed a vital test in Grrlyness. Boy, was it pink. Really pink. Really bright pink. Really girly fun pink.

Wow. That is seriously ... seriously ... Pink. We're talking John Cougar "Pink Houses" - "Paint the mother piyunk!" pink.

Pink. Pink in ways that seriously threaten testosterone. Pink in ways that could make a little boy curl into a fetal ball and weep for his mother. "Usul, we have pink the likes of which God has never seen." "Houston, that's an affirmative, we have Pink!"

Pink. Nothing in nature comes in this shade. Well, there was that one spider, but it was his own fault for climbing back into an area I'd previously prepped, and that wasn't nature but Darwin at work.

Christ. I've been sucking down too many paint fumes.

A wall and a door are completed in Petunia Pink. A door is done in Cornflower. The side of the room that will be Cornflower hasn't been scrubbed and primed yet.

DG has pretended to scrub one wall, and moved some furniture. He sat around and watched me put the primer on one door and the wall earlier. I asked him why he was just sitting and watching.

"You didn't tell me I could do anything else."

Stare.

I suppose I asked for this. After all, I blindly decided to embark on a detailed home improvement project with a man whose entire idea of spring cleaning consists of shoveling all the piles on his desk onto the floor to be kicked around for the next year until it's time to relocate them again.

I consider standing over him with a paint stick and a scowl until he scrubs the wall right and primes it. I know this won't work. I have no idea what will work, but I do know that isn't it.

So I take a break, ponder why it seems like there's a big hairy pink caterpillar creeping its way across my face, and consider going back in there and finishing the work by myself.

Wow. Um, I didn't know caterpillars had that many eyes. Or feet. Or tentacles.

And every damn one of them is pink.

Alice, move over.

Painting With Cats

Using hot water to clean a metal-edged paintbrush means ... never having to feel the deep slices in your fingers until it's too late to realize you're being cut.

Ow.

I think I shall be writing a new list entitled: "How to Paint with the Assistance of Your Cats."


Get paint can ready. Find your work tray, and the can opener.

Steal can opener back from cat.

Open Can. Prepare to transfer paint.

Get cat out of paint can.

Get paint foot and nose prints off the furniture. Chase down and clean cat.

Pick up spilled gallon paint can. Find second cat.

And third cat.

Bathe. See instructions on how to bathe cat. Figure out how to get a gallon of paint out of a longhaired cat.

Shave cat.

Visit ER.

Tear out carpet that received the rest of the paint.

Get new paint, try again.

Have everything ready and in one place this time. Make sure opener is on a leash so cat can't steal it.

Open can, transfer paint.

Remove cat's paw from tray. Clean.

Get bandaids.

Finally get paint set up. Get chair.

Fight cats for chair.

Get new chair.

Start painting. Get cat out of paint tray.

Follow the trail of pawprints. Decide you didn't need carpet anyway, and the floor might as well be painted too.

Clean cat.

Return to painting. Pick three pounds of cat hair out of not-yet-dry paint.

Find cat. Clean. Get bandaids.

Decide to try a power system.

Shave cat, after scraping it off the ceiling.

Move.

Karma Chameleon

Parents left with the kids, DG and I started making plans.

We left the apartment to get food, then head out to pick up the paint and paint supplies for the Things bedroom. Give em a real surprise to come home to.

Only, when we got back to the car, it was Dead. Deceased. Not even a click.

Karma Point 1: I got AAA. We called for a tow truck that cost us nothing.

Karma Point 2: It wasn't HOT. The sun wasn't overhead, we were in shadow, and it was relatively comfortable.

Karma Point 3: We weren't in the middle of nowhere. In fact, we were on main street, right in front of an address and between two major cross-streets. Easy to find.

BIG Karma Point 4: No Things. The kids didn't have to wait in the heat or be bored or cranky.

So actually, DG and I didn't have a bad time at all while waiting.

Guy gets there, goes to try to jump the car and see if it's the battery. Well, it works. Briefly.

It was most definitely the battery. The heat had cracked the damn thing so that the terminal BROKE OFF.

Karma 5: We weren't moving when it snapped.

Well, what the heck. AAA tow drags us to WalMart. We get new battery, we go home.

Karma 6: We HAD the money to do it.

All right, so our battery blew up. This sounds like a bad point, right?

Newp. Surprisingly enough, neither that WalMart nor any in the area carried the right size and style. Had been out for a week or so. Apparently there's been a HUGE run on the things, and the factory can't keep up.

We weren't the only ones in there at that same exact time looking for the same battery, either.

So, they got one that worked with the car, did the work yadda yadda.

The only REAL problem with the entire thing was that the money used for the battery was the money intended to paint the kids' room. No idea what we're going to do now, but that's right out.

But we're all home, we're all safe, and the car works.

The battery was going to die anyway. We'd been having a few problems as it was. The moment that it chose to breathe its last was crucial.

Now, if I could just stop breaking my fingernails ....

Proof Pain is Mental

DG: (outside with Things) Heather? Why are you bleeding?

Thing 2: Bweeding? I not bweeding!

DG: Uh, yes you are.

Thing 2: I not bweeding. Hrmpfh.

DG: Look at your leg. You're bleeding. What did you do?

Thing 2: Bweeding? AAAAAHHHHHH!!! I'm bweeding! I'm dying! Daaaaadddddyyyyyy!

If I had a box just for wishes ...

Threw away a box of memories today.

Hadn't opened them since we moved here 3 years ago. Boxes were in the way. Screw it. Opened em up first, though. Got to remember, and say goodbye.

Trinkets from ex's, reminders of family best forgotten, broken items I fixed and refixed and could never part with before, little goofy inside jokes. Some hard reminders of hard times in a few.

I am an admitted packrat. Today, I stuffed the packrat in a box and sent her out with the trash.

In some ways, clutter can be comforting. My desk, my futon, my "living space" is surrounded by bookshelves stuffed to overflow. Little gadgets and gizmos inclined to promote thought and creativity. Comfort. My cave.

Three large boxes.

And I feel more accomplished than melancholy over the loss. I hadn't opened the boxes in three years. They were distant memories. In all, there were very few that I decided I could not live without.

It's progress. But there are still more boxes ahead.

Maybe one of these days, I'll get to those skeletons in the closet, and banish them for good.

Katie KaBoom

There is a tantrum of Biblical Proportions going on in the Thing's bedroom.

I've not heard NO this much since either of them first learned the word as a baby.

Dogs miles away are cowering and howling in pain.

Linda Blair just called with the number for her exorcist.

Glass is shattering. My ears are bleeding.

It's gone from mere tantrum to Academy Award performance.

And now they're both crying. And screaming. And howling.

Warning, Houston. Situation approaching Critical Mass. Evacuate, evacuate. Proceed to the nearest exits by any means necessary. Run for your lives.

If you think I'm going to wade into the middle of it, you're crazy.

Looking for a bomb shelter, humming "Katie KaBOOM" .....

.... and this one isn't even a teenager yet.

Posting on the net...

... anywhere there will ever be an audience larger than one.

1) Debate the issue, not the poster.

2) Never point out that someone is debating the poster instead, for this maketh you a target.

3) Read. Write. Re-read. Re-read. Repeat. THEN post.

4) When posting on a controversial subject, expect someone to disagree.

5) When someone disagrees, do not immediately take it as a personal attack. They are disagreeing with your idea, with your opinion, your fact. They do not automatically think that you suck and should be slowly spoon-fed to rabid wolves (or given to Morax for his birthday, whatever). Even if the poster DOES think that you suck and should be slowly spoon-fed to rabid wolves, disagreeing with you is not always a personal attack.

6) See Point 1.

7) See Point 2.

8) Wear asbestos underwear.

9) Be open. Be honest. If you're making a personal attack, good God, say so. Don't mince words. Be specific. Be brutal. Get it over with. Then delete it and act like an adult. Walk away, or post something that adheres to Point 1.

10) Realize when the Horse Is Dead.

11) When dealing with a Repeat Offender ... don't. You're just asking for it, and deserve what you get. Be realistic.

12) Know when to give up and walk away. Most of the time, they won't even notice you've left the thread until there's no one left to bite.

13) "My uncle's sister's cousin's brother's friend that knows a guy that lived next door to someone that saw it happen" is a Non-Answer, and does not deserve a response. Should you feel the need to respond, feel free to do so in kind. After all, your "father's uncle's grandmother's cousin that once went out with the guy that lived next door to the other guy" is just as much of an expert in the field.

14) See Point 10.

15) When you start taking yourself too seriously, keep in mind that there's at least one other person in the world that doesn't take you seriously at all. Take it as a hint. P.T. Barnum was right. So was Darwin. Think about it.

16) See me? This is me walking away. Practice it a few times yourself. Make it your friend.

I'm walking away now .......

Stray Thoughts

... One size does NOT fit all.

(Bonus brownies for anyone else that remembers it)

Thing 2 is pretending to throw up into a Halloween bucket. She's going to make it happen at this rate.

I don't think I'll ever buy a desktop computer again. Laptop is the only way for me.

My monster gets here tomorrow. The house looks like a bomb was dropped on it, and the kids won't help. Will Not. I'm trying to use the presents the monster is bringing as a bribe for them to work. Ain't helping.

I still want a Chia Penis.

There is an awful ache crawling down the back of my neck from my skull. This is the headache only Zebutal could handle, only, my doc won't give me any meds. Grr.

Clover, Green Grass, and Tomato Vine ... heady, rich, earthy, and I don't have to scald myself in the sun to enjoy them.

I should have practiced shouting the names of the Things before we named them. I'm getting really tired of hearing them repeated time after time.

If you're lost you can look and you will find it ......

I want to be held. I want to be enveloped in strong loving arms and told that it's going to be all right. I want someone to make me believe it. I don't want to face this alone anymore.

My monster is coming. Can't sleep, clowns will eat me. I'm already stuttering, I'm already a child again, I'm already crawling into my shell, quiet and lost and fearful. I just want her to go away.

My grandparents are dying by the day, and now my monster expects me to support her in facing it.

Rich and spicy, a sting at the nose. Tomato Vine. God, I love this smell. Makes me remember itchies from picking okra and squash, the buzz of locusts and the sweettart bite of berries straight from the vines, thorns in my fingers and all.

Chocolate Cream Oreos. I like them better, not as sweet. I can eat the whole thing, instead of just parts. Amy thinks I'm a heathen for picking the chocolate ones.

I don't really like Chocolate Fudge PopTarts.

I can see regular Oreo shells discarded all over the living room. DG must have left them where Thing 2 could reach the cookie bag. Damn.

I miss my friends. I miss having friends around me. I miss the physical social interaction. I miss going places and doing things with them.

I'm lonely.

I don't want to be a mother. Where did I go wrong? Where did I NOT go wrong?

Bring me the hockey stick. It's Butt Season.

I'm still lonely.

Warning: Curves Ahead

Perhaps instead the warning should read, "No Curves Allowed."

Those of a delicate nature would be advised to skip over this. I feel a rant coming on, sing it sister, hallelujia.

Bras.

I'll wait for the booing and hissing to die down.

Bras. There's that ugly word again. When you're my size, you can't go without one. I'm a Very Big Girl. Most of it is in my chest. I'm a 40-42 J cup. Big Girl.

Circus Freak big. I'm a monster.

No? You disagree?

Go shopping. Search the net. Search your local malls.

Find me ONE bra that is less than $30.00. Find me a GOOD one that's less than $40.00.

I'll be here waiting when you've finally given up in frustration and want to strangle someone. See, I'm already at that point.

A smaller woman can walk into Walmart and walk out, spending 30 bucks and carrying away 2-4 bras. I can't get one for that.

I have fibromyalgia. I can't wear underwires. I bruise. I blister. It's very unpleasant. Go ahead, find a soft cup bra big enough to fit me that's affordable. Find me a sleep bra, or a sports bra that will actually fit.

Forget it.

It's worse because my breasts are way too large, and the rest of me is much smaller. If I wore a 50 something band size, I'd be easier to fit.

I'm frustrated. I'm annoyed. I'm depressed. I want to be comfortable, dammit, and not have my kids starve to death because I dared to buy a new bra.

My last "new" bra is over 4 years old. I've bought a few since, and they never fit right. All too small. I was desperate. I won't waste the money again. I'm tired of maybes and almosts and not quites.

I want a bra that fits, dammit, and I don't want to have to sell a limb to get it.

Once Upon a Starry Night

... there was a lonely, scrawny, fey little thing that had a penchant for getting "lost." Oh, she knew where she was, but no one else was ever able to find her when she had to get away. There were legends about her ability to vanish, jokes about the fey creature's ability to teleport, even when being watched. I'm still reminded of these legends, every blue moon.

One rare lonely night, when she had the car to herself, she drove off into the middle of the woods in her pajamas. Her goal was to seek out a particular field where the stones had been carefully brought in and laid according to ancient pattern, all by the hands of men that knew the proper songs.

Still in her pajamas, she parked the car out of site of the stones, and stepped into the circle.

The moon was full. The stars were out in their full glory. This field was used for this purpose quite often, blankets laid on the ground as friends sat together and watched the dance in the skies.

This night, she was alone.

The stars danced for her, private performance for the little lost fey, and she for them, feeling not like a fool, but free -- and freedom was a rare elusive beast to her, teasing, and never caught. For the time being, the burdens were set aside, the darkness cast away and given back to the moonlight.

I'd like to find that girl again, wherever she is inside me, and dance one more time, for the night.

Blank Pages

Tell a simple machine that '2+2=4', and the machine will log it away in memory, and from that point forward, '2+2 will always =4' until such time as new stimuli is added.

Tell a sentient organism that '2+2=4', and he will ask you 'why'?

The day that your computer begins to ask you 'why' upon receiving new data is the day you've lost your position. Welcome to the world, little brother. You're now an AI.

Stimuli. It all revolves around stimuli. It's how we learn. Kept in a blank, dark box, no contact with anyone or anything, even a sentient organism cannot learn. There must be some sort of data input for learning to take place.

As a programmer, you are the stimuli, the computer the student. The moment the machine learns to ask 'why', the situation is reversed. Until then, the computer is like a blank page of paper, capable only of receiving stimuli and input, then reacting accordingly. Paper can process just as well as a computer, because they're both dependant on the mind of the one utilizing them.

The blank page theory is also dependant on yet other stimuli, yet another series of 'whys'. 'Why' is the programmer telling the machine to perform this function, 'why' is the writer committing these words to paper, 'why' is the artist turning the blank space into a canvas. A simple machine accepts the change without question. A blank page accepts the change without question. They're incapable of being stimuli directly, in most cases.

There are precious few in the world that embrace stimuli in every bit of creation. These are the few that see every blank page, every virgin expanse of paper as a challenge to be met. The space must be filled. How few? Try this.

Find a relatively busy sidewalk, outside of a business is perfect. You will require several sheets of blank white paper (spares in case, trust me on this). A bit of sticky tape is a bonus, so that the page remains where it is, without being subject to wind and human motion.

Set the page on the ground. Step away. Leave it alone. Sit back and watch.

Count twenty organics that pass by. You won't need any more than that.

See how they react to that page. Watch just how many completely ignore its presence. These are the cases where you might have to switch the page out. Footprints negate the experiment, since the page is no longer blank.

Who tries to pick it up and see what it says? Who tries to just throw away the trash? Who, if anyone, tries to make some use of it?

Do you want to be disappointed now and be told just how many of your subjects will show no reaction to the page whatsoever?

It's simply a page. It has no 'why'.

Sometimes, I feel like that blank page.

Acute Viral Gastroenterits. Tummy Flu. Whee.

I'm still not back in my own skin. This is a really unpleasant and creepy feeling. College and late high school were very very good to me ... I had my fair share of drug use. I NEVER felt like this. Not good.

4 baths, 3 changes of sleeping venue, at least 3 changes of sleeping clothes (including the total loss of them at one point), and I still can't comfortably sit still. Replace sit with a number of other words, like sleep/stand/slouch/lay down, etc, and you get the picture.

First shot they put in my IV was a painkiller. I still don't understand this one. The majority of pain was from the massive stomach upheaval when some group of collective dumbasses brought huge smelly bads of Wendy's food into the ER waiting room. I should have upchucked on them. Then, from the doc poking around on me.

Of course, at least it did help with all the multiple BPs they took. I've got blood blisters from the damn cuff. Why the fuck do they always insist on slapping a cuff on the arm that had the surgery? I am SO sensitive. Assholes.

IV. Three x-rays. Urine sample (which is just always fucking fun when you're dehydrated). Blood tests, which he took through the heplock -- and then wondered why it was going so damn slow. Shoulda barfed on him, too. Oh, and buddy? "As little adhesive as possible because I'm allergic to it" does NOT mean "lets wrap tape all the way around her wrist for the IV tubing." Asshole. The nurse that took it out had to cut the stuff off me.

I only know one of the three things they shot into my IV along with the saline, and that was the standard Phenergan that I had to ASK for -- I'm barfing, HELLO -- but they happily shot me up with a painkiller that is still totally fucking with me over 12 hours later.

I don't feel good.

Okay, I'm not technicolour power yarking anymore ... but the dizzy out of body thing I've got going on is far worse in many many ways.

Ptooey.

Theowho?

I don't know what I am. Eclectic Catholic, perhaps. I've touched the Other World, so to speak. There is No One Truth. My faith is a wide and generously forgiving creature, touching points of knowledge from everything I've absorbed and incorporating it into something distinctly my own.

I still wear a little gold cross. It's hanging not all that far from the pentacle tattooed on my hip, or the Eye of Horus that will eventually be on my lower back and part of a larger blended vision of combined Faith.

I believe in Free Will, only to the extent that we are allowed to make certain choices within the threads of our pattern. The keystones, the laylines, the basic warp of our lives, our Destiny, is pre-ordained. The weft in between is where we're allowed to make the most of how our Fate is woven.

Too much "wrong" can happen to those using Free Will to the very best extremes for any other course of belief. If Free Will was so effective, then logicially speaking, the life of that Good Child would always flow along the same comfortable lines of Will.

But Bad Things happen. No matter what choices we make, there's always what seems to be a "wild card" thrown in that tosses our lives out of our chosen path. It's no wild card, it's Fate, and it's guiding back towards the path Destiny intended.

Fate, you see, is not a fickle mistress. Fate is true balance. There is neither good, nor evil, nor right or wrong. The Wheel spins equally, and the Fate of one is balanced by the Fate of another. Fate chooses without bias, through that single half-blind eye that the Sisters of one mythology share.

It's the turn of a card, the fair lot drawn while another gains the short straw. Someone must win, someone must lose. Life works that way. There can never be one extreme without the other.

In the end, everything balances out.

In perspective, it may seem unfair. Cast your lot beside that of another, and see how he feels. Or another. Or another. Tally up the good and bad amongst you, the life of total hardship of one to the fairy tale life of another.

Black and White become Grey.

To sleep...

I'd like to live in a temperate zone, I think .... with mild summers and winters and a lack of the temperature changes that cause me to ache so badly.

I'd like to sit on a dock, dangling my feet into the cool water below and listen to the dragonflies buzzing and the frogs croaking while watching the sunset, just once more, and know that it was my place to be.

I'd like to curl with my friends around a fire once again and add my voice to their songs that rise into the night with each spark from the flames, riding the updrafts into a single, joyous melody.

I'd like to dance barefoot on the sands to the sounds of steel drums, hand in hand and heart in heart with people whose only cares of the moment are for living the music.

I'd like to walk the misty moors and lay in the heather, to chase sheep and climb hills and breathe in the air of my ancestral home.

To sleep, perchance, to dream.

We need a life

Pooka: ::goose::
Sorcha: HEY! Ref, I call a fowl!
Pooka: Disallowed, no phones in the game.
Sorcha: Ahhh, go lay an egg you big chicken.
Pooka: Cluck you. I don't need to be hen-pecked.
Sorcha: Listen to her crow. Don't get your feathers ruffled.
Pooka: Look, chick, don't you take this any fea-ther.
Sorcha: Damn, looks like I scratched a nerve
Pooka: I'm all cooped up, what do you expect?
Sorcha: Eggcuse me? Who's fault is that? Not mine.
Pooka: You're the one that Rhode me, Red.
Sorcha: This is silly. You crack me up.
Pooka: Eggsactly.
Sorcha: You keep carping on like this and it could get messy.
Pooka: What, we might need a sturgeon?
Sorcha: Someone may have to call the cods on us. It's gonna smell rotten.
Pooka: Mako, mako not. Besides, no one is floundering yet.
Sorcha: I think I am just gonna try to tuna you out before we are all in a heap of trouble.
Pooka: You're on fin ice, eh? Sink or swim, and you can't even keep your head below water.
Sorcha: You sure as hell have some nerve. Having a whale of a time screwing with me. Why don't you go suck a jellyfish?
Pooka: You hard of herring, honey? I think your just doing this to me on porpoise.
Sorcha: Listen Gilfriend! I have had about all of the flotsam I can take from you. I'm gonna land you with a right hook.
Pooka: Just can't fathom that. I mean, you're so crabby, but you don't have enough groupers to back that up. Hah, you're kelpless.
Sorcha: That does it. I'm gonna pound you until you are as flat as a mackerel.
Pooka: Oh, I get it. You're tanked.
Sorcha: Ya, one too many Seaweed cocktails.
Pooka: Your barbs are losing their sting, Ray.
Sorcha: Don't whine at me. I have a haddock. Besides, you are just feeding me the same old line over and over.
Pooka: Betta back down then. I marine it.
Sorcha: Bite me. You blow dogfish for quarters.
Pooka: And you're just being shellfish.
Sorcha: I am just gonna clam up now. You make me seasick.
Pooka: Brine, brine, brine, that's all you ever do.

Sunrise, Sunset

Oh god. In approximately 10 hours or so, my baby, my very last and final baby, turns four. FOUR. Four freakin years old. How did she get so old, so big, so fast?

She's wearing one of her sister's dresses, with her new Walkman on, dancing around the living room to a Britney Spears tape. She's doing it well. She has rhythm. The pixie cut just makes her look even older and more impish -- especially since I know WHY it's now that short.

I still can't believe she massacred her hair that bad.

Four years old.

It's still not enough for me to forget labor with her. Nor is it enough to forget how she came into this world -- not with a whimper or a cry, but a full-fledged roar.

"Well, it looks like you have a baby ...."

"WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"...Air Raid Siren."

I still remember my initial terror when a nurse casually mentioned, "Oh, we have a birthmark."

AAAAIIIIEEEE! How bad, is she okay, is it ....

Oh. It's a little witchmark under her right arm. It suits her.

Unfortunately, I also remember all of the pain AFTER her birth, when my gallbladder decided it was finally time to freak out. I remember the fun of my liver trying to shut down. I remember being hooked up to EKGs, and some MORON trying to put an oxygen mask on a panicking asthmatic. Cannula, dumbass, thank you very much, you want me in hysterics? No, didn't think so.

She stayed in my room with me, except for the times that the doctors forced me to give her up so I could rest.

I well remember being in the hospital for a week, eating the worst, blandest food they could find due to the gallbladder. I'm still trying to forget the huge stone that finally went away so my liver could work right again.

Oh boy, and do I remember the night that Hubby showed up, only to have the head nurse kick him out.

"You've let me be here till all hours for the last week. What's up with that?"

"Well, she's no longer on the Critical List now."

Critical ... oh hell. Nice of them to let us know. Shudder.

Every time a new shift came on at the nursery, they all would migrate down to my room to see "the pretty baby."

She was, too. Auburn hair, violet eyes, and a perfectly round head. It's nice to have big hips sometimes.

Of course, from the moment she roared into the world, her attitude was cemented.

She didn't want to nurse. Why? It was WORK, dammit. I should take care of all of that. Two days before we finally got her to accept nursing, and a hell of a lot of effort in both fighting the nursery staff that wanted to give this indignant child a bottle, and getting her to accept doing the work involved for food.

In the end, by the time she weaned herself at 1 year, she never did willingly take a bottle. Only once in that time did she have a bottle at all, and that was when I finally went in for surgery to remove the gallbladder -- and seal off all future chances at motherhood -- and even that bottle was given with even more effort than it takes us now to get her to do something, like, oh, clean up her room.

Four years.

Where did the time go?

Where did my baby go?

Happy Birthday, Thing 2. I hope you don't mind if I cry.

Kid For Sale: No, I'm serious

Thing 2 just knocked over a bottle of water.

She stood there and WATCHED it pour on the floor. So did Thing 1. It took several shouts to make them realize that Mommy wanted them to stop the sparkly waterfall. ARRRGH! Pick it UP already!!!!

It had puddled on a polar fleece blanket. The carpet was safe.

Stress "was."

Exhibiting all the genius of her father, Thing 1 picked up the blanket poured it off on the floor.

She then stood around and stared at the dripping blanket. And stared. And stared.

"Get ... a towel. Put the blanket on the washer, get the towel that is there."

Yeah. Right.

We're talking brain surgery here.

"Huh?"

"You. Kitchen. Blanket. Washer. Towel. Trade. Return."

"Oh." Drip drip drip drip.

"NOW!"

She carries it there, slinging water as she spins in circles the whole way. There were even a few swooshes and swoops in there. Water is now everywhere.

I'm hoping the blanket had a better fate than the towel and the spill.

Her idea then of mopping up the mess was to throw a towel down and walk off.

Hell, why do I need my mother to make me crazy? My kids are going to manage it in record time.

Butt Floss!

I don't get thongs.

Okay, okay, let me correct that. I mean, I DO get that they're the only way you can wear some kinds of clothes without panty lines showing through (and I'm including g-strings in the thong description to save time). I can also see the point that if your underwear is going to crawl up your ass, you might as well just start with it there and save time. Personally, I think that's just an excuse.

But Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the things just aren't comfortable. I've tried, and I've tried. I own multiple pairs (and why in the hell is it a "pair" of underwear anyway?) Really, you spend most of your life trying to keep your underwear OUT of your crack, but by putting them on, you deliberately subject yourself to it.

Okay, so they look good -- on SOME people, anyway. I'm firmly convinced that I'm not one of them, no matter what hubby says.

What sadist came up with the idea?

Closet Skeletons

There are skeletons in my head
there's some underneath my bed,
and the closet's overflowing.

Pocket demons in my brain
eat my thoughts till none remain
and there's nothing left but screaming.

* * *

I'm lying in bed, and some wild stray thought picks the lock to a childhood door that had otherwise been blissfully locked behind me.

My monster. My mother. Same colour, different smell.

I'm not sure when I first became aware that I wasn't a child, I was an inconvenience.

Maybe it was the day that, after complaining quite mightily since the night before about my ears and throat being sore, I was given cough medication and sent to school.

I passed out in the hallway.

When my mother showed up, annoyed that I'd dared to interrupt her day, the first thing she did was bark accusations at me in front of the school nurse and everyone nearby. I was a druggie, I'd taken something and was stoned. I was taken home, given a lecture, and that was that. Right.

Until I passed out at school again two days later. Yeah, fuck you lady.

This time, the old nurse (who had been a buddy of mom's when she worked at the school) wasn't there, and there was a temp in place. This budding genius not only took me seriously, but took my temp. 103. I was taken to the doctor, who pronounced a severe ear infection, strep throat, and an extreme case of vertigo. I spent several months on Antivert just so I could walk a straight line without staggering or stand up without promptly falling down.

Or maybe it was flag camp. Ah, the joys of summer activities. I spent the first day throwing up. Every time. Every year. Same routine.

Now, logicially speaking, heat stroke and heat exhaustion were to be expected. This was usually June, in Central Texas heat, out in the middle of a freakin open field with no shade whatsoever. Even better if they could find a paved asphalt parking lot. Mmm, boy. Baked tennis shoes, anyone?

I was a slacker, of course. I was just trying to get out of it. I just didn't know the drills (hah) and was trying to get out of it. I was lazy, blah blah blah. Never you mind that I was shaking and clammy and had totally greyed out to the point of being completely witless.

"Excuse me, but could you move your speculations 5 feet to the right whilst I vomit on your shoes? Don't mind me, that's just my lunch, do carry on."

Once I got the first few rounds of barfing over with, everything went fine.

Till my last year.

Oh no, they couldn't give us asphalt this time, some genius decided the grassy yard by a dorm was more satisfying. Kick and turn and OH FUCK where did that hole come from?

I went down in a heap, my leg twisted beneath me. At first, I thought I'd broken something. After all, your kneecap isn't supposed to wobble like that, and it CERTAINLY isn't supposed to be on the SIDE of your leg, right?

Oh, I was fine, there was nothing wrong. Get back up, dammit. Do it again, and without the falling down this time. What do you mean, you can't stand up? Lazy girl, here. (yank tug excrutiating pain) Now, wrap this ACE bandage around it and you'll be fine. See, you can do it!

So I spend the rest of camp limping around on a dislocated knee that had been VERY poorly popped back into place. Mmm, love that sweet smell of success in the air?

My mother, of course, told me to stop being a baby. There was nothing wrong with me, there was no one around to watch my act, take the damn brace off and cut it out. Yeah, fuck you lady.

The pain and frustration led to a frantic desperate tryst with the current boyfriend that led to the fun of a condom breakage and, in the two weeks before my birthday, my first and only abortion. I was 16.

No sanctimonious holier than thou bullshit here, thank you. If I'd carried the baby to term, I'd have died. I know this well enough know, though I didn't at the time. As it was, I almost bled to death when I finally did have a baby (and the next, and so forth until they tied my tubes so my body wouldn't help me self-destruct) and had enough trouble. Frankly, it was it or me. Selfish as shit, I know, but that's what teenagers are good at.

I remember the abortion itself clearly enough, though. My parents never knew. Which is a blessing, because I'd have been out of the house quicker than shit through a goose. The only one with me was my boyfriend who was as scared as I was. Planned Parenthood gave you chances to back out. I almost did. I remember him promising to stand beside me, no matter what my decision was.

In the end, I went into the room.

Afterwards, all I felt was overwhelming, all-encompassing relief. I digress.

So, I'm a teenage unwed post-abortion ex-mother-to-be with a fucked up knee, (k-i-s-s-i-n-g), trapped in a car with my happy little Norman Rockwell from Hell family on our way to Outer Nowhere, New Mexico, to visit my aunt the doctor who happens to be the only really cool person left alive on my mother's side of the family. My grandparents are okay, really, but my aunt is more in touch with the Now of the world, rather than with the Then.

And my aunt wants to know what's wrong with my knee. I tell her. My mother blows me off and starts scolding my aunt for encouraging me. My aunt, love her to death, ignores my mother and looks at it. She also promptly "suggests" to my mother that maybe taking me to an orthopedic doctor when we got back might be a good idea, just in case.

Thank you for inserting some logic into the woman's brain.

The doctor she somehow picked happened to also be the orthopedic surgeon for not only my high school's football team, but also worked with the Houston Oilers. Oh. My. That must mean he can Be Trusted. Yeah, fuck you, lady.

Doc looks at my knee. I explain. He looks at me. He unwinds the wrappings. He looks at the knee. He, mind you, GLARES at my mother.

He then makes her come over to the table, and put her ear down right against my knee. He wiggles my kneecap (which moves quite freely). There's a horrible grating sound. Nasty. Icky. Makes you shiver.

"Hear that? That's a Bad Sound. How long has she been walking around without seeing a doctor?" He's not glaring at me. He's still looking at her.

She mumbles something incoherently and inspects the ceiling.

Doc starts prodding. "See this muscle?" He whips out his handy blue marker. "This is where it SHOULD be. " Marker slash. "Want to know why it isn't?" He told her anyway.

"These..." Several marker slashes. "Are where her scars are going to be if we can't rehab this knee." Lots of physical therapy.

Mom makes sure physical therapy is done, because by god she's not going to waste money having me cut on because I'm lazy. Yeah, fuck you, lady.

Hell, maybe it was the time that Dad had been sick for a few days. Dad is not a Brave Man when it comes to being sick. Dad is a downright card-carrying certified Sick Wuss. He's dying. After a few days of this, you wish he would so he'd at least shut up. But Dad had germs. And Dad passed them around.

And I got them.

But noooo, I wasn't sick. Fuck, I could be bleeding out the eyes and ears and my mom would slap a bandaid on me and tell me to shut up and get dressed because school started in half an hour.

Two days later ... yup, you guessed it. I passed out at school.

Here came the accusations again, here came the glares, here came the .... the nurse holding the thermometer. I was too pale and too red (all at once, I'm a very dramatic feverish) all in the right places, and she'd taken my temp. Whoo hoo, lookit that, she really IS sick, go fucking figure.

Walking pneumonia. Another day, and the doc would have hospitalized me. He should have. It's not like I got any care or compassion at home for the entire two days that I got to skip school. Oh yeah, mom, I'm having a whole fucking world of partying down drug doing fun here at home while I'm laying in a goddamned coma in the bed, unable to even get up to get a drink. Yeah, I'm just partying down so hard that I'm working myself into dehydration just for the sheer fucking fun of it. Yeah, fuck you, lady.

This is is the same woman whose idea of responding to a grade drop, or a bad conduct mark, or a note from a teacher was to threaten me with a visit to a psychiatrist. Maybe I should have just let them send me. I'm sure he would have loved the rant I'm going through right now. Psychiatrist, great. Physician, forget it.

Yeah, fuck you, lady.

* * *

There are skeletons in my head
there's some underneath my bed,
and the closet's overflowing.

Pocket demons in my brain
eat my thoughts till none remain
and there's nothing left but screaming.

Yeah. Fuck you, lady.

Are we there yet?

So, am I the only totally sick fuck up this late?

Apparently so. None of the other journals seem to have been updated recently, while I was busily off writing the great American novel: "How to Fuck Up Your Kid's Life in Twenty Moves or Less."

I feel like I'm a total failure at everything, heavy thoughts for 6 am when you haven't been able to go to sleep and all those little skeletons keep nagging at you. My eldest child is a neurotic, delicate wreck. The youngest is a sociapathic future Playmate looking for a clock tower.

Where the fuck can you go RIGHT with that? Talk about troubles finding a middle ground, it's the classic scenario: perfect victim, perfect victimizer. The baby is a bully, her sister cries. No, she bawls, loudly, like a cow with colic. It gets old, because it's not a matter of her not wanting to defend herself, she simply can't.

And I'm so tired, so tired of everything, so tired of being in charge of everyone else, tired of having to be responsible for everyone, tired of being sick, tired of feeling guilty, tired of the whining and crying and bitching and moaning that it's impossible to feel sympathy. I don't care about fair. I don't care about hurt. All I want is some fucking peace and quiet.

I might as well talk to myself. No one else around here listens to me.

My house is a disaster of Biblical proportions. My health is bad enough that the process of repeatedly bending down to pick up and put away various haphazardly strewn items relocated to such a position by Hurricanes 1 and 2 causes immediate waves of dizziness, followed by spiraling levels of sheer pain. Up and down and up and down are meant for roller coasters and carousels, not my ears

When, in some self-abusive burst of energy, I get totally sick of it and do a massive whirlwind attack before seeping into unconsciousness, it lasts all of an hour before WHAM. I'm giving them credit, usually it takes the amount of time for me to turn around before it's a mess again.

Thing 1, the delicate weeping flower, bawls and heehaws and moans when asked to clean up. You'd have thought we'd asked her to cut out her own liver for dinner instead of pick up her freakin mess. Thing 1 has perfected the Eeyore face, and has moping down to an art form.

Thing 2 looks at us like we're stupid, then wanders off to do whatever the fuck Thing 2 wants to do. Thing 2 has decided she will only respond to frantic screams. Everything else is totally ignored.

It goes something like this: Point child to toy. Explain to child that toy must be removed. Explain to child where toy must go. Explain to child why toy must go. Point child and toy to room. Make child pick up toy. Pick up toy, put toy in child's hand. Child drops toy. Child walks off. Repeat. Repeat again. Threaten to beat child. Repeat. Threaten to send child to room. Watch child walk happily off into her room, having decided that was where she wanted to go in the first place. Pick up toy. Put toy in room. Pull out last remaining strands of now-grey hair.

So, as I sit here writing the great American novel and wondering how many people are going to get ticked off for my verbosity ....

"Oh, MOMMY! You ugwy! Your nose all screwed up!"

Thaaaaaank you, Thing 2.

Stop growing up already.

For Mommy?

Please?

Day in the Life, or, Things my family has learned

-- that Mommy can not only do a perfect Beavis voice, but she does a damn good Bart Simpson, too.

-- cats do not like being dressed up in clothing.

-- gravity works.

-- neato seasonal tights are not appropriate wear for tile floors.

-- sticking a key in an electrical outlet is a Bad Idea.

-- rain can be cold.

-- if you unwind a cassette tape, it probably won't work anymore.

-- toilet paper will not hold up a Barbie in the bathtub.

-- Mommy doesn't care about fair, Mommy just wants to stop the screaming.

-- if you aren't bleeding, you do NOT need a Band-Aid.

-- powdered sugar sticks to EVERYTHING, including Mommy.

-- cannonballs in the bathtub make a really big pool on the floor.

-- permanent marker does not come off furniture.

-- washable markers aren't.

-- crayons melt in the dryer.

-- leaving Legos on the floor in the dark is the quickest way to send Daddy to the ER for stitches.

-- they will not die if they don't get what they want.

-- hand soap makes lousy toothpaste.

-- if you ignore something long enough, there is NOT a magical fairy that will come and clean your mess up for you.

-- just because Mommy is sick and can't talk does not make Mommy stupid, deaf, or blind.

Dreamwalking

I hate dreams that are so realistic that, upon waking, they distort your view of reality. I hate waking up lost and not knowing where I am, certain that I should be Somewhere Else. Maybe it's the fever, maybe it's the meds, maybe ... maybe it's just Karma.

I haven't seen my great-grandmother's house in over 15 years. In fact, I can't even recall the year that she died. I do know that the scar on my hand is still visible, but since it was quite a doozy of a scar, that makes sense.

We had all shown up at the hospital, and were sitting there waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting. It was over half an hour before anyone bothered to talk to us, only to tell us that she'd died before we even got there. What was the wait for? To clean her up.

They had to do a trach on her (severe pneumonia, she basically drowned) ... but they left her on the table where she had died. And so these people take us all in, including me, and I couldn't have been more than 13 or 14. I knew enough to know what a tracheotomy was, and so the cloth they had thrown over her throat did nothing more than conceal the actual damage. It all seemed very cheap to me, that someone who was so loved was presented to their family ... like that.

I pretty much freaked out.

I "think" I hit my hand on the door when I fled the room. My family let me go. All I know is that I stopped some time later, sobbing in the middle of some hallway. A nurse stopped, upset, and dragged me back to the ER. Why? I was bleeding all over her floor. LOL Whatever I contacted with my hand, it left one hell of a scar as a reminder.

I digress.

Anyway, Ethel's house (she wasn't great-grandmother, she was Ethel, dammit) wasn't quite in the sticks, yet wasn't quite "citified" yet either. You walk outside, and you smell country. You had to walk some distance to reach the huge garden in back of the house, where rows upon rows of soon-to-be food waited, scarecrow and all.

I can never remember if the house was 2 bedrooms or 3, but I remember the layout clearly enough, especially the kitchen. I grew up in that kitchen, and the smells of fried chicken or fresh boiled corn, or better yet, jalapeno cornbread can still make me misty eyed. I can remember the incessant and futile humming of the window units, just barely breaking into the Texas summer heat. I remember the back door in the middle of the "living room" that led straight out to a flower bed and a cut brick walkway. I can remember the little iron scotty dog that always held that door open. My grandmother has it now.

For all I know, the house is no longer there.

Yet for the life of me, I can't figure out why I was suddenly back there again last night. Not just there, but moving in, with my family, trying to figure out how to install ceiling fans so the temperature would be bareable until we could get central air, or figuring out where the kids were going to sleep, or how to get the washer and dryer hooked up INSIDE the house, instead of in the huge garage that was always more of a barn, and always filled with wild neat things to get yourself thoroughly in trouble.

In the hazy early wakeup, I had no idea where I was. It certainly wasn't "here."

I was still there, and I could still remember in such clear detail that "home" was hundreds of miles away, in a quiet Texas cornfield.

And they say you can never go home again.

I just vomited an electric pumpkin

I'm feeling extraordinarily self-conscious about my body again.

Fat. Well, the word is really subjective. Everyone has their own ideas of what exactly constitutes FAT, how many pounds versus height make you obese, what you can carry and still at least look good. It's never just a matter of numbers, since every eye views it differently.

And in my eyes, I'm fat.

I hate being fat, I really do. I know I'm overweight, trust me. I'm hardly deluding myself on that issue. Diets can only do so much without exercise, and for me, exercise is really difficult. My health limits it in so many ways that there's very little I can do that won't be infinitely worse for me in short term perspective.

Running and aerobics are right out. Walking, if done often enough and long enough to make a difference, makes chronic foot problems act up. My breasts are too large to be able to comfortably and efficiently use exercise machines. I can't afford an exercise bike, or access to a health club (not that there's one anywhere close anyway). Swimming can only be done in the summer without an indoor heated pool -- which I don't have access to -- and how am I supposed to really SWIM and work out in a tiny apartment pool while watching two small children that don't know how to swim? Yeah, I know, there are ways around a lot of it, but it gets really frustrating.

I'm rarely happy with my body. I'm fat. I've got some wonderful curves that, with 30 pounds off me, would look fabulous. Those thirty pounds aren't off, and I look awful.

I can't be happy with being fat. I can't make myself comfortable with it and just accept that I'm a Big Girl now. I've tried. It's just not happening. The mirror is an enemy even more devious than my mind, because it sometimes gives the illusion that I don't look quite as bad as I think I do.

Then ... WHAM. I'll turn around, and suddenly the mirror will have expanded my bulk till there's nothing left but fat and ugly and repulsive. I do a lot of crying at that point. Sometimes, it's so extreme and so damaging that I can't force myself to put on my fat clothes and go out in public. Hubby has to put up with me weeping and refusing to go out with him and the family, because I'm a hideous fat monster.

Half of the problem could be solved by the breast reduction that my insurance refuses to pay for. They, of course, don't give a rat's ass about mental damage. They don't give a shit about psychological breakdowns. Hell, they don't even give a damn about the blisters and the bruises and the other impacts that my chest has made on my health. I look like a freak. I feel like a freak. They don't care.

Strap two heavy melons to your chest. Go on, I dare you to find something that will hold them up. Oh, don't worry if you're only barely hanging in there, that's what happens when you're a freak of nature. Got it? Great. Now jump up and down. Go ahead. Aerobicise. You can do it.

Awww, did you get hurt?

DUH. No shit.

So, I'm fat. Physically pffffft.

Totally unreasonable. I know, somewhere in my brain, that I'm not THAT big, that the largest percentage of overweight people are FAR bigger than I am. Doesn't matter. They aren't living in my skin. I am. I don't like it. I don't like me.

I'm on a nice limited diet. I don't just sit around and eat junk food and ice cream and crap like that. Goodies like my Hubby bought me the other night will last for MONTHS, till the food is so inedible that it has to be thrown away. A small square of fudge will last days with just a nibble every now and then. I drink water more than anything else, maybe one or two sodas total, IF that, in a day. Usually, it's nothing but bottled water to drink. Yes, I miss drinking other things ( I LOVE root beer, yum ), but it's not like I sit and make a total pig out of myself.

Not that it makes any difference to the people that look at me and see fat. I have an insulin disorder. I've been severely hypoglycemic all my life. My body produces way too much insulin, and doesn't process carbohydrates well at all. I've got a high potential to become diabetic if I don't watch what I eat. I try very hard to pay close attention to what goes in my mouth.

Of course, I'm still fat.

I can't buy a dress off the rack. My proportions are so off because of my chest size that nothing will hang right. I bounce between a 16 and an 18. The problem is, even when I spent 6 months as a size 12, I still had to wear XL and 1X shirts because of my chest. Dresses both stretch and ride up in the front because of my chest, then wrinkle and ride up in the sides and back because of my hips. I have a very tiny waist by comparison, so I'm really doomed.

Then there are the idiots that feel that just sizing up the junior fashions and leaving them alone is going to work. Riiiiight. Take one beanpole, make it really wide. Uh huh.

Now the clothes look like shit and they STILL don't fit anyone with a curve. Yeah, that was real effective, folks. You don't even get a C for that effort.

I *really* have a thing about SOME kind of jacket to go over my arms. I found a wonderful crochet top last summer that helps, but with only one colour, and no real length, it's seriously limited. (I HATE the 4" purple scar on my arm, and if I don't cover the skin, then my arms look chubby AND sunburned. No thanks) If they DO bother to put a jacket with it, the damn thing is wrist length sleeves and too damn warm, defeating the purpose of the sleeveless shell beneath.

And explain this: WHY in god's name do designers think larger women want to walk around looking like neon signs? I see the most horrendous colours in Plus sizes, and it's not just splashes, no. I mean full suits of "This Colour Came Out of My Child's Diaper" green, or "I Just Vomited an Electric Pumpkin" orange.

It's not that I want us to be camoflaged and in dull colours, it's that these colours are flat out hideously ugly on ANYBODY!!!!!

I remember high school. I was 5'4" or so then, weighed maybe 110. I thought I was fat. I hated my body. I was always trying to diet because half of my girlfriends were all twigs.

Twig. Aha. In retrospect, the problem was a simple difference in body structure: I was built like a woman. They were built like little boys. I had curves, serious curves, classic hourglass curves, from late 5th grade on. I never wore a training bra, I went straight to a B cup and kept right on going. I was a heavy C-D all through high school. I had a tiny waist, big boobs, and hips, and hated the fact that I didn't look like a string bean like everyone else.

What a fucking joke.

Looking back, I'd kill to have that body again, to be able to go back and do it over and be proud of what I had. Hindsight is always 20/20. Now I know what fat really is.

Now, I'm fat.

And I hate it.