Feeling a tad morose. A wee bit lugubrious. A little low. She who usually only contacts me for a favor, hits me up to watch her dogs for the weekend. Mercifully, as bad as this sounds, she’s down from 8 to 4 dogs from the elderly ones passing away. God, that sounds awful, but 8 poorly behaved dogs is a lot to handle. Four dogs, one of whom has diverticulitis and shits up the house, is enough. It won’t be so bad, but as always, I feel she isn’t telling me something. Maybe she’s just having an impromptu beach weekend, but I have the feeling she’s sick physically, emotionally, or both. I wish everything wasn’t a game of having to surmise what is happening.
And the real bitch of the thing is I had her as a reference for me volunteering for Crisis Text Line… and CTL says they never received her reference. Though she says she sent it. I don’t even want to ask. Maybe it was too upsetting for her to do, maybe it’s a mistake. I just really want to be able to say one day I made a difference. If I drop dead tomorrow from one cheeseburger too many, there will be no noble epitaph for my life.
Lisa -Filled a void in her mother’s life. Then her mother died, so she fed some cats.
Oh well, life is what you make it, I guess. I’m up to 60 YouTube subscribers. Three are men into fatties and belching, the rest are people just being nice. Still, that’s more than I thought I’d get. If I get internet famous, who needs a useful life.
Another thing. I’m convinced my upstairs neighbors loathe me. I was sitting outside when the man came out. I said hello. He didn’t say hi back. Not the first time either. Then his significant other game along with their two kids.
“Who is that?” said one kid.
“Someone you don’t need to bother,” said the mother. Maybe she didn’t want the kid bothering me, but I felt dismissed as the crazy cat lady. No other acknowledgement. I once even introduced myself when she brought me back my alarming phone when I lost it. No reply except that she had been trying to go to sleep. Maybe they’re just pot smoking assholes.
But then I also fucked up. I’m pretty sure I did. There was a little pink drawing desk all muddy from being left outside. It was left in the hallway two weeks, so I figured it had been abandoned. Maybe it had not been. I use it as a bedside table since my mattress is on the floor. If I put it back there, it’s an admission of guilt. I feel bad. Maybe they hate me for that too?
About a week ago, I went with my friend on our second solo dining experience. You know who I mean, the one who likes showing affection with his tongue as the Continentals do. As I have said before, this guy has the distinct honor of being my first date and my first French kiss. My life before my mother’s death was a bit uneventful in its solitude.
I’ve known this guy off and on since third grade and have off and on liked him since about the fourth grade. When he gave me the surprise kiss and even more surprising tongue, I thought, Hey for the first time someone I could like likes me back! Winning!
This last excursion began with Mexican food, and I have a big steak. We both have a touch of Habanero sauce, a green pepper sauce that is hot as hell. We have blue margaritas, another new experience that are tasty for alcohol. The drink goes to my head and before long I’m exclaiming, “Oh shit!” – at what, I don’t quite recollect, but I have enough of my wits to feel a hint of embarrassment. Neither am I so buzzed that the running commentary in my head doesn’t play. Why is he interested in me?, I keep asking myself. I’m so shy, my conversation isn’t funny or fascinating, and I am less than average in looks. Could he have liked me all this time and waited for a proper time to act on it?
We are home and I know he will try to kiss me again when we get to the door. I try to suppress my giddiness on the way. “Come here,” he says, just as he did before, like he’s going to give me a hug. This time I know his modis and am preparing myself. I’m going to kiss him back this time or die trying.
Now we’re going to count down all the first times in this one…
I manage to tuck my tongue under his in his mouth and leave it there for a couple of seconds, all necessary and proper. When I retreat to my tongue’s natural station, I say “Heh, well at least this time I got my tongue in too.”
I find myself relieved when his tongue returns to my mouth in a way which needs no reciprocation from me. It is a kind dispensation of heaven for a socially anxious woman to have a kiss with a guy whose tongue would be the envy of the Geico Gecko. And herein comes another first, he’s copping a feel of my breasts. Cupping them and pressing me against him, and then, he caresses my bottom – another first. I want to discern whether his pole is raised to attention, but short of grabbing him or applying continuous pressure with my pelvis, which I don’t have the balls to do in either case, I decide I must not look either. It’s as though he’s trying to lift me. “Um, I’m rather heavy and we’re practically making babies in the hall.”
His solution is to pull me under the stairway conveniently next to the fire extinguisher lest we get too hot. More kissing with his tongue. Oh look here, he’s nibbling on my ear. A first! And there he is kissing my neck, another first! I dare to look into his eyes once or twice and he indeed looks as though he actually wants to have me, devour me even.
Then he asks that question every gal dreams of hearing: “Do you have a ‘fuck buddy,’ Lisa?”
“Um no…I’m still a virgin.”
“I have a couple of them.”
“Who are they?” I ask, thinking GERMS!
“Nevermind about that,” he says. “Do you want to be my ‘fuck buddy?'”
I am not aroused because I’m too shy to be aroused being pressed against the wall. So that’s why he’s interested. Oh.
I actually think about it. I’m 34 years-old and my flower is wilted and gathering dust. I say that I might let him have dessert one day as long as he has protection to keep from having a Junior running around. I am giddy and want to hurry off lest Wilt Chamberlain here tries to gain entry when a neighbor might walk by.
I’m excited and happy that I am desired, the margarita still numbing my senses. I tell Soul Bro and we are giggly. It’s after I wake in the night that the tears come. I thought he had feelings for me. Nah, he just needed another fuck buddy to go with his harem. Waaaah!
The next day I talk to Soul Bro, crying even though we are having a bowl. I want to divest myself of my virtue, but by someone who doesn’t love me? I don’t want to die a virgin. I don’t want to die alone. I mail him with a “when and where,” but several hours later seeing that he hasn’t responded, I write, “Nevermind, I’m chicken.” I hope he will write back, but he doesn’t. Feeling my impending old age and ultimate death, plus the fact that I want Wilt in my life whatever way, I make another bid on Facebook, declaring “Fuck it. I’m tired of being a virgin.” That gets an answer and he agrees to Friday night.
Taking my best girlfriend’s advice, as well as my therapist’s, and casting it to the wind, I am ready for my virtue to die. My girlfriend tried to convince me I’m not worthless and that I will meet someone someday. Noted, but life is such a damn transient thing, and unless I start hanging out with mutes, I will be at a disadvantage in the dating world. My therapist also had similar objections, plus the whole ‘fuck buddy’ thing being crass. Yeah. But I am resolved.
Then Team OCD decides to ruin any chance of me ever getting any. Ugh.
My Soul Brother has made me up nicely – eyeliner, sparkly eyeshadow, and everything…when I get the call. Wilt’s tire blew out on the way to buy condoms and he will have to cancel. “I’ll get it fixed first thing in the morning,” he says.
I decide to ask him then the questions I felt must be asked before I let anyone into where no man’s ever gone before.
Perhaps if I had left it at “Do you have any STD’s?” this story would have a happy ending. But no. I ask him if he has a medical encyclopedia’s worth of diseases, even if he has sores near his genitals.
Oops. Apparently, that’s not a turn on. But it get’s worse.
“I know we’re not in a relationship or anything, but you won’t just drop me one day, right, or try to break my heart?”
AND, help us all…
“Maybe my mom is telling us we shouldn’t be doing this.”
Needless to say, he cancels the next day and says he’ll call in a couple of weeks. Let’s hope he calls before the world ends on December 21st.
It’s not been a good 24 hours. I’m anxious and feel as though my life is over, which is stupid …I hope. All I can think of is “What if he doesn’t forgive me?”
My Soul Brother has two Chinese pugs. One is an ‘unaltered’ black male pug. He likes me A LOT. I’ll call him Stan to protect his dog anonymity. My first encounter with Stan after my mother’s death resulted in him trying to make love to me via my arm. His good lady wife, I’ll call her Maude, was in heat and it gave Stan an affection for her and every living thing around her. It was actually a good bit of comic relief from my terror and grief (it was a week after my mom went to the Great Beyond). Thankfully, once Maude ‘cooled’ he stopped. But he always wanted to be with me. At the time I thought it was my award-winning personality.
Later, when I moved in, I was sure I was going to be put back out when Soul Bro told me I shouldn’t be letting his dog sleep with me in case he started marking. But I wasn’t put out.
The other day, Soul Bro approached me again and told me to push Stan away for a couple of weeks and finally admitted why the dog liked me so much.
“It’s your feminine odor, but it’s the same with any female.”
Ugh. Great. So I resolved to rebuff Stan getting near me for exactly two weeks. But that didn’t last too long, because later that day I got upset by something The Partner did. The Partner is Soul Bro’s partner, a man who dislikes me, but the feeling is mutual. Soul Bro, being the dear soul he is, relaxed the rules so I could cry on Stan’s wrinkled shoulder so to speak.
The next day I asked if I should start pushing Stan away. “Nah, he’s OK. He’s a smart dog.”
But Stan’s behavior continued. and the night before last, Stan started to whimper when I wouldn’t pay him mind. I should have known pushing Stan away was back when Soul Bro took him back to his bedroom and shut himself up with the dog. I should have known, but I’m so ignorant.
So yesterday, sigh, Stan was beside me again and Soul Bro called him to go lay down with him (Soul Bro wasn’t feeling well). I quickly pushed the dog down when Stan refused to go with his master. Right back up there, Stan jumped, so I pushed him right back down. But it was too late. Soul Bro was angry at me. “See? This was what I was trying to tell you if you EVER let him sit beside you!” And he slammed his bedroom door.
I was afraid. Soul Bro has told me before that short of me killing him, there was nothing I could do to make him not want to be my friend. But I’m so scared. He’s my only family now and if he stays mad, what will I do? I love him so much, so I always try to please him, but I honestly didn’t mean to do anything. I hate myself. I even hate my vagina. This has made me Chaz Bono!
So like I used to, I went to bed and slept to get away from my problems. I dreamed about my mom giving me a beautiful Christmas Barbie doll. Then my mom died, I went to the Appalachians and was rejected by relatives. But then I look for dolls in a flea market, find out that Dolly Parton is my real mom, and she has the same Barbie that my mom gave me except in a different colored dress. Then I dream I’m peeing blood. The end.
At one point, I heard Soul Bro and The Partner up at midnight. I went and got a hello from both when I spoke, but as soon as the show was over, Soul Bro left without a word. I’m terrified he’s still mad and will want me to move when the lease is up. I don’t want to even imagine life without my Soul Brother.
1. Decide to have a self-hosted blog in addition to my regular blog. Get money!
2. Decide self-hosting ain’t worth the trouble after my mom gives up the ghost (look out for posts coming here that were written there. You may not have seen ’em.
3. Watch my mother go from having a simple cold to being cold dead in the morgue in three weeks. I don’t recommend it.
4. Come to the fabulous conclusion that I am an orphan in every way, as my family tells me in a nice way to F off. Thanks Mom for alienating us, but whatever. I don’t recommend not having blood relations though, I really don’t.
5. Find that my “soul brother,” the kindred spirit that I always yearned for lived just down the hall.
6. Having my life possibly saved by being invited to live in his apartment with my three cats. If I had to give up my mom AND my cats that would have been the knot in my noose. My mother loved those cats so much that I got my reason to live in caring for them. ( Talk about needing to get a life.)
9. I tried pot, tried pot, tried, tried…I try it every time I can. It numbs the sense of being in limbo that is my constant companion… My mom wouldn’t approve, but pretty sure my dad would.
10. I had a date, a genuine adult date for the first time in my life.
11. I didn’t know it was a date until the guy walked me to my door, reached out for a hug but planted his lips on mine. Then, what do you know, but I felt his tongue trying to get in. I gave it a thought, thought “Ah, what the hell” and opened my mouth. I let my tongue stay where the good Lord put it, because I was shy and stunned. Still counts as my first experience in the French tongue, non? A lady never tells, but I’m a blogger, so…
I’m sorry to everyone I haven’t responded to. Life has been hectic. It’s been bad, good, and definitely different. Stay tuned!
It is a full day on my usually empty dance ticket. I, Lisa, professional mental health seeker, have the joy of seeing both my therapist and my shrink. Rolling out of bed, nicking my legs shaving, and dressing in my new Family Dollar ensemble, I get to my therapy session at 10 am. As I suck on a starlight mint, we go over my myriad of “issues.”
“I went to see an art house film called The Smurfs in 3-D this past weekend, and went to the library before the film. This was the first film I ever saw in 3-D and I thoroughly enjoyed it,” I say as my therapist inspects the little book she caught me reading while I waited for her. She admits to never having seen a 3-D flick, and I praise the medium, that one can almost catch a bird flying out of the screen. “Though I don’t think The Smurfs would be your cup of tea.” I then bemoan the cruel truth that kids’ movies would be great except that kids actually come too.
“What is your comfort level standing in a line at the movie theater?”
“Well,” I answer,” not bad really. Crowds don’t bother me, individual interaction does. I can even ask for movie tickets, as long as I have the money so the person will have a reason to tolerate me.” I show her my latest acquisitions in my quest to get all the McDonald’s Smurf Happy Meal toys, the Baker and Brainy (I happened to have them stuffed into the labyrinth that is my purse). I then tell her that I’m too childish, too child-like, but the therapist likes who I am because she’s known me since I was 15 and because she gets money to like me -but honestly, I think she likes me anyway.
“It’s normal to be enthused about something you collect. My mom collected a particular pattern of carnival glass and was very excited when she found a piece at a secondhand shop,” my therapist assures me.
“I have to see the psychiatrist today. I’m not looking forward to it.”
At some point in the session, my therapist says, “but you feel comfortable talking to me, right?”
“Yes, but you don’t poke me with a fork.” One therapist thought I was sexually abused and my psychiatrist feels I have the ways of an “abuse victim.” Once my psychiatrist threw out there one time that maybe I had Aspberger’s syndrome since my social anxiety wasn’t getting better and it’s a struggle to look people in the eye (I’m very self-conscious).
“I’d have to research it more,” I remember the psychiatrist saying. “But I have a lot of empathy. I thought they didn’t,” was my defense. I did not show how upset I was to have a new diagnosis until I was outside and started crying and fussing at my mother. (No one thinks I have Aspberger’s, though, and the psychiatrist never mentioned it again, so it must have been a passing fancy for her too. Let’s just face it, Shrink, I’m f****d and you can randomly flip through your DSM IV and diagnose me with whatever is on the page, but there ain’t no fixing me, not really. But with that cheery thought, let’s continue ).
“I’m thinking about asking her about Abilify,” I tell my therapist. “She’s talked a couple of times of putting me on an antipsychotic in the hopes it would help with the OCD and everything, but I’ve been afraid of getting tardive dyskinesia. Do you have any patients on it with OCD?”
My therapist is looking far into her memory and comes up with 75% of the folks she saw with OCD who are chomping on the Abilify say it helped them, 25% said no it didn’t, and if she remembers right, 10% got off due to side effects.
I imagine people who’ve been on Haldol for years, the excessive drool foaming from their mouths. I imagine lactating. But have mercy on me, I’m so tired of not being what I yearn for the most: Ideal. Everyday I feel I’m not doing things just right and some days it throws me into a rage. I take three times as long as anyone else to do anything. I’m more depressed than I was and I feel as though I have few redeeming qualities. I begin to hope that my shrink knows that I will dramatically change from my lifetime membership at “Camp Clucky.”
Yes, yes, Lisa. We get you suck, life sucks, everything sucks. Blah, blah, boo-hoo. Get on with the story.
My mother and I are having a spot of lunch and I’m trying to look up Abilify just to make sure I want to try this, but my mobile phone’s battery dies on me. I try to recall the latestAbilify commercial. Cartoon woman literally weighed down by her depression and falling into the “hole” of the depression. Then her kindly looking doctor helps her out of the hole and prescribes her Abilify. Some side effects, what were they? Happy family having a picnic. Happy. “Resulting in coma or death.” What? I don’t remember, must’ve been really rare. Still at happy picnic, even Depression Hole sits nearby. Everyone is at the picnic having such a nice time. I want to be at that picnic, so perfect! “Depression used to define me, then I added Abilify.” Ah, how nice. I’ll just ask my doctor all about it.
When I’m in Dr. Shrink’s office, I have my $3.00 ready to throw at the receptionist before she can ask, because I always get the sense she thinks I’ll run off without paying. It’s the rule of the house, yes, but I can’t help see it as a slight towards all psychiatric cases (power to the people!). I don’t think the receptionist likes my mother and I much. I can imagine her thinking “Sod it all, here comes that rubbish. If I wanted to deal with folks on the dole, I’d have stayed in Merry Old England, wouldn’t I?” Even before Dr. Shrink took Medicaid, though, and I had to somehow hack up $75.00 for my 15 minutes, I don’t believe the receptionist liked us much. It may be in my head, and I don’t seem much different from the others in the waiting room: they mainly look depressed, maybe a couple now and then look mildly apes**t. I’ve been with a friend to Mental Health before and they look worse and more interesting. I remember some young woman, obviously in a manic state, talking on her cell, “Friday night I tried to kill myself but they gave me some lithium and I feelsoo much better now!” I wonder if everyone is still getting help since our genius state thought it was a good idea to close the county mental health and the mental hospital to “privatize it.”
I tell Dr. Shrink my decision. She tells me to avoid grapefruit juice (which I already do since I am on Luvox) and to watch for slowed down movements, that tardive dyskinesiawon’t happen suddenly if it happens at all. Two milligrams, not a big dose at al,l and come back at the end of the month( to see if I’m still alive). Ok, great I can do this!
This might fix me.
Or not. Twenty minutes after taking my first cockroach shaped and colored Abilify stuff starts to happen. I am me but I don’t feel like I’m really here. So I’m not at the picnic yet I guess. My thoughts are my thoughts but I feel strangely like I’m not thinking. OK weird. I rush to look at the guide that comes with my prescription then augment it with the internet. Sometime during all of this I start feeling angry, really angry. Smack myself angry, yay!
Apparently on Abilify, I could develop diabetes, go into a coma, and croak, but hey, I won’t be depressed anymore! Since I’m already fat and haven’t checked my blood sugar in ages, I’m not a happy fat camper.
Stay out of the sun and don’t get overheated…What the frostbite? Am I going to turn into a gremlin?
Weight gain! Do I need to say why I might not like this?
Abilify and Wellbutrin should be used with caution because it might lower one’s seizure threshold. Well that would be a different experience! Might lower my immunity…that should be a hit with someone deathly afraid of going to the doctor.
I try to sleep. I can’t, just as I fall asleep, I feel like I can’t swallow and jerk back awake. I sleep an hour to fly awake and feel angry. Repeat this 2 or 3 times in the night. It feels great!
The next 48 hours are interesting. I’m angry at everything and when my best friend annoys me by what I perceive as lectures instead of swallowing it, I tell her off over and over. I can’t help myself! Freedom such as the ability to tell off your best friend over stupid stuff is not a freedom a social phobe like me wants.
Today I returned to my psychiatrist. “I’m doing OK, but I had to stop the Abilify. After one dose I knew I couldn’t take it. If I had done thorough research I wouldn’t have tried it anyway because I’m afraid of getting diabetes.”
“Yes well,”Dr. Shrink replies, “if you look on the internet, getting diabetes from Abilifyseems as common as getting the jitters.”
True, but I feel I should be more concerned due to the fact I’m overweight.”
Later I visit with my professor from college, the one who I named my oldest cat after in tribute. The college is only a couple of blocks from my psychiatrist’s office. We talk various things and then I talk about how awful I sometimes was when on meds that opened my mouth so that I’d say whatever I wanted back when I was in his science classes.
“Don’t ever feel sorry about the things you say unless you hurt someone’s feelings, and I don’t remember you ever being mean to anyone.”
“Well no, but I’d say anything and I cringe at the thought now.”
(Flashback: pointing at a faux skeleton in class and saying, “Look he’s got a boner!” Flashback: among the things I inherited from my grandmother, one was her old lady bright red lipstick. My reply to the comments I got when I wore it, “Hey, this was a really popular color in the 1940s.” I was shy then too, but accepted as the oddity that I was and I’ve always liked making people laugh. In many classes I was near silent anyway, but not my science teacher’s class. It’s a pity he isn’t my real father)
You learn to have patience says my professor at some point in our conversation. ” I guess you have had worse than me as long as you’ve been doing this,” I stammer.
“At least you aren’t an ax murderer. That would be worse.”
“Have you actually had murderers in your classes?”
“Two of them. One the cops chased into the mountains and he was killed.”
Well golly.
So the Abiify didn’t help me become the person I want to be, not close, but, the moral of this story is, no matter what I do, hey, at least I’m not an ax murderer!
PS: Abilify has helped many people, it could help you too. Sometimes the risk is worth the gain. As my pharmacist said, “Line 100 people up, and two would have the same reaction as you did.” Besides, my body’s wired different anyway. I was the 1/10000 of Paxil patients who lost her period on Paxil (happened on Effexor too!). Soon as I stopped, flowed like the red sea. With that, I bid you adieu.
What do you get when you cross a Moveon.org organizer at 8:30 am on the phone with a half-asleep broad with social anxiety disorder? A Moron left to cringe at her conversational gaffe and a liberal activist wondering if she called Michelle Bachmann.
"This is she."
Me: Hello?
Ms. Moveon.org: I wish to speak with Lisa B.
Me: This is she.
Ms. Moveon.org: This is P with Moveon.org and I was wondering how the Clean Oil rally went? (or something to that effect)
Me: I’m sorry, what did you say?
Ms. Moveon.org. repeats as before but the slight edge in her voice is getting edgier. It’s 8:30 in the morning, I just woke up, and feeling attacked makes me very nervous, so I say…
Me: I’m sorry I don’t know anything about a Media Matters Oil rally. (Eeps, the least I can do is keep my progressive organizations straight. I knew right away what I said. Oh. Sweet. Liberal. Heavens).
Ms. Moveon ‘not Media Matters’ .org is not happy with me. I knew from her voice beforehand that she was going to give me hell for not being at a rally, but now she has to deal with an idiot too.
Ms. Moveon.org( in such a snotty voice you’d expect her to sneeze): I must have the wrong number.
Me: Yes
Ms. Moveon.org: Yes, I must have the wrong number. Sorry.
Click. This adds to the pile I’m amassing of reasons I suck and I felt embarrassed. Oh well, screw her. Sign a petition or two (not even about the environment, alas) and suddenly they think they own you.
In the bathroom, I see a roach in death agonies. I hate roaches. I hate death agonies. I can’t bear the nastiness of squishing it in the piece of tissue, so I throw it in the toilet alive and have a case of the guilties as I watch it struggle to live when I flush. I’m sorry. I should have killed you first, roach. More fodder for the “I suck” pile.
Later in the day, phone call. We go to a friend who is sick. I explain what ‘psychosomatic’ means to her, a word which the emergency workers used, as they cart her away. I haven’t been to the ER since the Great Kidney Infection Debacle of ’10 and was grateful to be on the visiting end of things. You can just feel the germs hopping around. I have a little fear myself when I see something at the visitors desk that looks like blood and hope my arm didn’t touch there. All was well in the end. I was there for a friend and we are all huggy-lovey as we parted ways afterward. I can take one log off of the “I suck ” pile, thank God. I was needed for a moment and that makes all the difference.
Hi again, loyal minions! I have a new post up at the new blog. This one is an interview with Jaco, my beloved friend from over at http:// justwriteofleft.com. I injected my semi-comedic stylings throughout the interview to garnish it and give it the “me marinade.”http://ocdbloggergirl.com/?p=1414 . Let me know what you think!
Now for incidentals. Ah, I see where it says equine encephalitis found in mosquitoes around here. Not good, but mainly stays with horses unless it feels like infecting humans. Have you ever found a mosquito biting you. and since it’s already biting you, you decide to observe it’s phlebotomy skills. The little belly fills up, you can see the blood inside, and then she flies away. Me neither!
Anywho, yesterday, I decided to finally go out to the pool for the day, something I haven’t done all season because of Trevor the Terror, the scourge of swimmers. In fact, since one particularly annoying encounter at the pool I haven’t been as passionate a swimmer as i have in past years. I do have a post I’m writing about that, and hopefully I’ll have it done in a year or two, the way that I write. I swam 12 laps, on my 4th lap some youngins showed up and then the pool monitor’s kids, but wasn’t a big deal. The father relieved me by saying hello to me first. It’s like I’m paralyzed in my voice box until someone speaks to me and even then I’m anxious. I like people a lot, but it’s like I need permission to just be…and it’s getting harder. The day before yesterday, I had a fit and went to bed and stayed there, just because I couldn’t get things just right. I start something and have to stop, but anyway back at the pool. I read a bit of the world’s worst detective novel, played my original green screen Gameboy, read a little on my WordPress book. Jumped back into the pool and did 12 more laps in that just below the surface frog-way. It takes 30 seconds to get from one end of the pool to the other without surfacing and I’m proud that I at least have that achievement. I want it as my headstone one day: “She didn’t do much of anything, but she could swim.” By the time I was done with that other set of laps and marveling how during my fourth lap again children showed up, my eyes were hurting since I couldn’t find my goggles that day. I stayed out of the water and ritualized my out of water activities until I began feeling sickly in the 99 degrees and hauled ass home because my eyes could not endure another round of laps. I can get by with 12 without pain in my eyes, but more than that and I am bound to suffer. And the award for best mom at the pool 2011 ” I’ll dunk you over if you don’t stop crying,” said to a child of 2 or so, then splash splash in the face of him. Yep, that should stop him from crying for sure.
We went to McDonald’s for supper and I scored the first 3 Smurf happy meal toys. I think I was too enthusiastic as I looked at the toy display. “Mom! Just look! How cute! I gotta have them all!” People looked at me, but I guess they can go smurf themselves. Today I went and saw the movie in 3D. The first movie I ever saw as a child was a movie about The Smurfs, and what do you know, the first movie I ever saw in 3D was The Smurfs. Very cool!
PS, sorry to everyone about being slow to respond. My mind is going so many directions.
OK, so Jezebel had a contest going for very short fiction, but alas, they closed early due to overwhelming responses. But I did write a miserable stream of conscience piece of crap that I knew had nil chance of winning, but was like “eh, what the hell!” Paint me vagina pink and call me Virginia Woolf, but it needs some sort of airing, so it gets it here among my devoted fans. Remember, it’s fiction. I don’t got no Gothic lover, though Lily is similarly neurotic.
E. Coli for the Soul
by Lisa B.
Lily thinks she’s in love. She also thinks she’s dying, but she will do nothing about either issue. Lily sees love as a germ similar to the flu. Love comes upon you suddenly and hard, then more often than not, leaves you weakened instead of dead. Death, on the other hand, is fatal, and she has no desire to know that she’s dying.
Is the pain in her abdomen strained muscles, or millions of cancer cells building and spreading throughout her body? Will she stop thinking about The Man so often? Wonder what he’d think about this thing, or that person? He is dark, brooding, but strangely kind. Lily loves the darkness, the Gothic quality of his personality. The sadness she loves too, her attraction to people who are more unhappy than she is acts like a magnet.
I will help you. I’ll love you. Please love me too. She won’t say it. She’s become a mute. Love is a contaminant to friendship, e. coli for the soul. He would reject her, not wish to speak to her anymore, and most importantly, he loves someone else better suited for him…
But death, now that’s a weighty subject for a weighty woman. As long as she avoids the doctor, she won’t have to know she’s dying if it so happens she is dying. She may not be dying at all, but she won’t take a chance for someone to say she is.
Yesterday was an action packed adventure, so much of a one I’m inclined to share it all.
First thing’s first. I checked the internet for a symptom I’m having to see whether it’s a sign of cancer. Research inconclusive.
I tried to list some things on eBay for that much needed extra penny towards the end of the month, but my penchant for being easily distracted and my cats getting in the way on my desk and lap, as well as the slowness of my desktop computer made productivity minimal.
Later I walked by Club Ghetto/Trailer Park’s pool, and lo, 73 degrees and a family, including a couple beating me in the pleasantly plump category, were in the water. That’s wanting to swim. Perhaps they were afraid that they wouldn’t have time between now and The Rapture to get in a good splash? I decided to take my chances and wait until it’s supposed to get into 80 and up in a few days. A woman and her small daughter walked by me on the sidewalk and I let out a slight “hello” for fear of being rude. No answer. I began wondering why she didn’t reply. My hair probably went in several directions. I didn’t look her in the eye, so perhaps she thought I was crazy or “challenged,” or, eh what the heck, both. The possibilities are endless!
Much later, after washing my ‘fro and doing violence upon it with my comb, also conceding defeat to my cats lounging on the desk and chair of my computer, I decided to go to Club Ghetto/Trailer Park Pool to catch up on my reading. This would be my first time on the deck of our hallowed pool since last year, a rite of passage from spring to summer.
“Hey!” cried a voice, that distinct accent of southern gay man. I knew who he was before he introduced himself, the gentleman who helped my mother with the groceries the other day. I was inside putting frozen and refrigerated stuff away, so I had not made his acquaintance, but had heard his praises. He asked me if he knew who he was.
“Yes, my mom told me how nice you were helping her the other day,” I replied. She also had said he greatly admired me for always having a book with me. Well, that’s nice, though the day of the grocery incident, I was into the adventures of Cardcaptor Sakura (I’ve discovered the joys of Japanese shoujo (for girls) manga about 18 years late). I was pleased anyway since “admired” in reference to me is a rare bird indeed.
Cardcaptor Sakura
So here he was, The Gentleman, the same fellow who had the delicacy to leave the groceries by our door lest my mother confuse him for a rapist. A large man, rather stout, perhaps around 40, three necklaces including a large cross against his sunburned flesh, blondish ponytail, this was The Gentleman who had given me praise. Here he was again, waxing upon my literary prowess, quizzing me on this awful book I’m reading about Obama, one of those “Hey, it was free for a review” wonders, but far less interesting than the Girl Finds Jesus Under a Train book.
“What chapter are you on?” he asked as he looked at the table of contents.
“Two or three.” The book is kind of interesting, but like I said it also has the distinction of being “awful.”
“Hey wait a moment, I want to talk to you about the book,” he said in a kinda gay, kinda kind sort of voice, as though he recognized me as just shy, not a retard. “What do you think so far?”
Not used to on the spot quizzes, I could only garble out about how I thought the author disliked Obama for being black, his funny Muslim name, and that he blamed Obama for everything.
“Yes, you see it was a very unique time, Never before has there been an African-American president, even though his mother was white, so many people aren’t going to like him.”
“Yes, true,” I replied.
At another point in the conversation, he said, “I love to read too! What kind of books do you read mostly?”
“A bit of everything.” It was though I had become the most interesting person around, just a regular intellectual in her Paris salon. The alcohol on his breath, not quite tempered by his cigar, no doubt helped add to my allure.
Shootin’ the Bull on Books Old World Style
Another man was with him who said nary a word, the opposite of Mr. Sunshine. Thin, dark, and older, with a full head of gray hair that would make Donald Trump jealous, this fellow was just there. Since he didn’t speak to me, I didn’t cast my next “hello” before another unresponsive swine. I should have, mind, since when he’s drunk he gives stuff away, and one day I had a lovely piece of Ruby Red Glass from 1905 on our terrace from it, but I am horribly shy. One spurt of being uber friendly a day is all I’m worth. I wonder if he’s “The Cousin.”
Yes, The Cousin. As in my cousin, probably 20 times removed if at all. My father’s surname is rather uncommon, at least in these parts, so it makes me wonder. Though he grew up in a different part of Appalachia than my dearly departed papa, maybe there is a smidge of consanguinity. He certainly fits the bill of a relation on my father’s side, i.e., drunk. To be a male on that side of a family is to have alcohol running through the veins I understand –which would be great if they got a cut, but not so great for breeding.
“I want you to discuss this book with me when you’re done,” said The Gentleman.
“I’ll let you have it once I’m done with it,” I replied.
“Oh great, I’ll even pay you for it.”
“Oh no, that’s not necessary. I got it for free myself for a review.” (Note I said nothing about my blog, but if he ever does find this, perhaps it’s forgivable).
Finally, I went to a lounge to sit and read. “Oh! Don’t you want a chair?” my new friend exclaimed.
“No, I prefer this kind of seat actually, thanks.”
“Why don’t you sit in the sun?” I moved in deference, though the late afternoon light tried to get into my eyes. I began reading the book I brought with the “awful” Obama book –a fascinating graphic novel about none other than Ronald Reagan. Well researched, it’s a fascinating read. You begin it thinking it will be an ass-kissing homage to the former president, but then it goes into the douchey things ol’ Dutch did, including the part about how Reagan made sure the Iranian hostages weren’t released until he was elected.
Suddenly I heard, “Adios!” I figured it was someone saying bye to the people in the pool then, but no, it was The Gentleman, carrying a sort of Moses-style cane for fashion’s sake. And the winner of the BestGay Pimp Award goes to…
As the sun went further down, I began to feel chilled. It was barely 70 with no sun shining on the pool and yet a family continued swimming as I was WTF-ing. I’d have thought they were Canadian ex-pats had they not been both dark-skinned and speaking fluent Spanish to each other. Far braver souls than I.
As I wobbled home, I spotted The Gentleman far off. Feeling shy with anyone I haven’t known some 15 years or so, I walked on until he began waving. “Hi, Lisaaaaa! I live here!”
And so the first day at Club Ghetto/Trailer Park ended and I already made a friend. It’s true I’ve been very lonely, wishing I had my blog friends here, someone who “got me.” Maybe this is in part what I wished for (though the Nervous Nelly in me says, “Personal space, too, please”).
Ramblings about my life, my mental health & my physical rehabilitation following my suicide attempt. “They say don’t look back, but sometimes it’s important to see how far you’ve come.”
The terrifying and intrusive thoughts of Harm OCD can mentally cripple individuals and family alike. You are not alone. This is a treatable, manageable neurological disorder.
Ocdbloggergirl's Blog: OCD, Life, and Other Misunderstandings 