"Dug In"

Let me tell you how I know I'm losing my fucking mind after about one month of the Safer At Home order here in Long Beach, CA. 

I did a bad thing. I didn't really *intend* to do a bad thing. The bad thing *kind of maybe* resulted in a good thing for someone. The bad thing started out as a kind gesture from someone else.

Yet, I definitely did a bad thing. 

Someone emailed me a gift card for a food delivery service, and our financial situation has been fucked for a couple of weeks, so I decided to use the gift card and order some delivery food on Friday evening.

My hubby had been feeling headache-y for a few days and was napping, so I asked for the food to come later in the evening, around 7:00. My instructions for the Delivery Specialist were basically what the CDC would recommend: Leave the food on the steps and nobody gets sick. Don't knock, don't call. Just leave it and walk away.

I placed the order around 5:45 and was expecting it to arrive around 7:00, not right away, but later, at the specific time that I selected from the drop down option menu that they offered me. Are you with me here?

After submitting the order, I got a text saying the restaurant received the order and it was going to be delivered around 7:00. I could see the order status flashing that it had been received by the restaurant and was going to be ready for delivery around 7:00. 

I went into the courtyard to do some needless pruning of leaves because what the fuck else is there to do when you have worked on a computer from home all week and live in a studio apartment with a giant human man and three animals - all four are living beings whom I love dearly, but also do very little these days except sleep and loudly demand to be fed, yet cooking wouldn't be required that evening, and all four were currently sleeping.

Suddenly, while pruning for no reason, and in the midst of listening to a VERY INTENSE podcast episode about the maniacally brutal, wholly pointless torture and murder of two young Tennesseans, my Bluetooth headphones started ringing. I jumped three feet in the air and answered the call. It was 6:09.

It was the driver calling to say my food had been delivered, and I was like, "You weren't supposed to deliver the food until 7:00 but okay, just leave it on the steps, thank you," and I hung up.

My order was fifty-one minutes early, my hands were covered in yard waste, my husband was napping, my face mask was indoors, the status bar on the delivery app still said the order wasn't even started at the restaurant level, the sudden ringing phone startled the hell out of me, and therefore...I was pissed. 

Angry enough that I spent the several minutes it took to prep for venturing into the Front of the Apartment to retrieve the food thinking of all of the Reasons Why I Should Be Pissed, thereby making myself even more pissed.

Why do people schedule delivery times? Generally for a motherfucking reason. I don't willy-nilly ask someone to bring me a bacon cheeseburger with fries two hours AFTER I'm dying to shove it in my mouth.

Why did they offer the option of choosing a delivery time if they were going to BLINDLY IGNORE THAT REQUEST?

They asked for delivery instructions, in which I told them not to call or knock! Maybe they knocked on the door and woke up my husband. I didn't know, I was in the courtyard, but it was possible, and I DID know they called me when I asked them not to!

My gift card wouldn't load properly onto the food delivery app earlier in the day! 

The list of grievances was long. 

Granted, everyone in the country who could afford to do so was probably also using the food delivery service that Friday night, so they absolutely must have been slammed, but that was NOT MY PROBLEM because my food was supposed to come around 7:00 delivered by a pandemic-level hero to my goddamn door step because I worked hard all week. Me. 

As someone who has worked in many many jobs which would be considered Customer Service, I understand. I Get It. I should not have been upset that they delivered my food 51 minutes early. But I was. 

I'm only vaguely clear on why I was upset, but I am completely clear that it had something to do with control. That also sounds strange to say, seeing as how I haven't been this regimented, productive, or - frankly - calm (out of necessity), in a very long time. I think it's that last bit about "out of necessity" that's flaring up control issues, probably not just for me.

Eventually, I ventured out front to collect the food. It was delivered in a brown paper bag with a white 8.5" x 11" paper receipt stapled to the front. It was piping hot. I can't smell anything, but I'm positive it must have been fragrant. I set the unopened bag on the counter (I was far too invested in my fury to eat at that moment, and everyone else was still sleeping), and returned to fuming about the situation.

Here is where I began to slide into doing the bad thing.

I decided to contact the food delivery service's online help team, which you can only do via the online chat, and once connected with a representative, I explained the situation, made it very clear that I was displeased, and informed her that they should figure out why their "vendors" agree to allow customers to schedule deliveries if they don't actually intend to do that. 

Then I straight up I lied to her. I said the reason I asked for a 7:00 delivery time was because I wasn't home. I needed to know, is my food safe? Is it there sitting on my porch all by itself, or is it at the restaurant? After all, according to the app it hadn't even started being prepared, which makes sense because it was only 6:09 (That part was true.)

I literally let the customer service representative call the restaurant to ask them where my food was while she was chatting with me on the app, while I was looking at the bag of food I'd just placed on my kitchen counter. 

Then the restaurant lied to her and said my order wasn't ready, but would be on the way in another 35 to 40 minutes - did I still want the delivery, or did I want to cancel it? 

No joke, I got reverse-gas lit there. Which was actually fair, in hindsight.

Then the internet connection cut out and I lost my chat session with the customer service representative just as the restaurant called me directly. I would be lying if I didn't tell you I started to panic, but in for a penny...

...so I lied to them. Same lie, I wasn't even home yet. That's why I wanted the later delivery. In my hood? Who even knows if it'll still be on the steps when I get there? I mean, why the fuck do you think I ordered it with a two hour delay?

I had just doubled down on my bullshit - I absolutely was going to make a point, I just wasn't sure what point I was trying to make.

Now, the restaurant did NOT lie to me - they said sure, your food was delivered at 6:09, so I said I was going to ask the food delivery service for a refund because I wanted my delivery at 7:00 or after. 

You know, after I got "home."

That's when the restaurant person handed the phone to a different person who very clearly was the Restaurant Person In Charge, and that person informed me that they were happy to re-deliver my order around 7:00 but they absolutely would be retrieving my original delivery order and donating it to someone else. She didn't apologize for the error, but she strongly insinuated that I am an asshole.

"Of course!" I insisted to her, like I was some kind of philanthropic food delivery patron, and we hung up the phone. I re-donned my mask and returned the unopened bag of still hot food, careful to try and place it in exactly the same spot on my steps, receipt facing the same direction, so as to complete the ruse that I was not at home for any of the needless bullshit I'd created, and I went back to yard work and murder podcasts and waited for the replacement order.

I'm not sure where, or to whom, the food donation was made - but that response from the restaurant was the last thing I expected and probably the only way to make me feel a tiny bit less culpable for being an asshole. I literally called the restaurant back later and apologized, but either I spoke to someone who didn't know what happened, or they pretended like they didn't know what happened. I also gave a five star review online.

The fact remains that I've done a bad thing - my husband is currently furloughed from a different local restaurant, I literally know they cannot afford this type of nonsense, but I did it anyway (although I kind of thought the food delivery service would be the ones to take the hit, but I didn't even pay for the meal in the first place), and that's how I know I'm losing my fucking mind.

New strategies

So my new psychiatrist wears Crocs. Blue ones.

I'm pretty sure that's an important detail, but I have yet to decide what that means.

It seems that many of my past mental health professionals rocked questionable footwear. I wonder if that's something they learn in Crazy School. It might be a way to distract the patient from their $200 an hour rate.

He also stands the entire session. Right next to a giant, comfortable, reclining lounge chair in faux suede. At first, I felt like it was an interrogation method designed to keep me talking, but then I realized he's not a therapist so the questions were more medical than psychological, so then I was just confused all together.Why wouldn't he want to recline? I wanted to recline. The couch was ok, but it was covered by a blanket the same way I cover my dog-eaten couches with blankets when company comes over.

Somewhere between asking about my erratic behavior and my hospitalization, he blurted that he suffers from chronic back pain which is triggered by sitting for long periods of time, which explained the standing thing but did NOT explain why he wasted money on a perfectly comfortable recliner if he was just going to pace around the whole hour.

I've found that shrinks prefer when I avoid personal questions about their footwear and their personal choices, so I just nodded my approval of his vertical lifestyle.

He declared that I've been misdiagnosed for years. Apparently I don't suffer from depression, which kind of explains why my antidepressants don't really work very well.

Instead, he believes I'm bipolar, and have been misdiagnosed in the past because my manic phases are very short compared to textbook bipolar patients. The treatment for bipolar disorder (also called manic depression) is an entirely different class of drugs which are considered mood stabilizers, and which are supposed to level out both the lows and the highs, versus just fighting against the lows.

This sometimes manic diagnosis might explain why I decided to rip of the bathroom floor tile in 2011 and, by the next day, decided that floor rugs would be a perfect substitution for actual flooring. Laying in bed and ordering Chinese delivery for six months seemed like a much better use of my time and resources.

He also gave me something for anxiety, but that seems only to make me sleepy like an antihistamine, so I'm not sure if that particular option is going to work out. I've got a med check coming up in three weeks, so we'll have to discuss other options (XANAX) at that time.

Meanwhile, I'm getting closer to moving out of the weird All-Man household and into the new place. Just 12 days until I've got hardwood floors (which will make me feel more at home because my MN house is all hardwood floors), a big back yard with a garden (which will make me feel more at home because I have a big garden in MN), and cohabitors who WEAR SHIRTS (which is not true of my MN house, but it's different when the shirtless person also sleeps in your bed).

 So things are looking up at the moment. Hopefully this means I'll soon be blogging about Happy Things and Funny Things instead of just Crazy Things.

For example, I saw a chicken at a garage sale.

My anxiety is so bad, ya'll

I'm trying to keep busy. I really am.

I've noticed that the days when I have made plans to meet an actual human being are the days when I feel the most calm.

So Friday I met a co-worker for a cocktail while I waited for a girl date with a woman I met on Craigslist, who is also looking for friends in the area. It was a fun hang, and the bartenders were interesting. One of the servers is actually from Thief River Falls, MN which I've heard of, but am not sure why. Everyone was worried about me meeting a stranger from Craigslist and were pretty sure I was going to end up dead in a gutter or missing my kidneys, but I assured them I'd watched Craigslist Joe the night before, so I knew how to survive. And maybe even get a movie deal out of it.

Then I met the woman - we'll call her Sunny - and we had another beer (well, she just had 1/2 a beer, but I'll forgive her because she was too beautiful to judge) and some gastropub food, and we talked about how we ended up in So Cal. She's from NYC and has been here two and a half years, but met her serious boyfriend early into that stint, and therefore has neglected her female social circle. I'm hoping we hang out again sometime. Preferably after I'm medicated again.

I wasn't ready to go home after she left, so the co-worker was kind enough to come back and we watched a bunch of drunk people bounce around on the dance floor. I also met a gaggle of gay men who were very very young, very very pretty, and very very drunk. One of them looked exactly like Neil Patrick Harris (minus 20 years). I got a couple of their numbers, but am quite sure that A) they don't remember me and B) they are too young to provide a satisfying hang should I even get the chance to try. The servers were all very glad to see that I'd survived my incredibly dangerous encounter with a mid-twenties IT professional. I just shrugged and flexed my biceps to show them how I'd managed it.

We walked to a couple more bars, but it was late enough that everyone was obnoxious instead of charming. I was interested to see a taco stand outside the back door of one bar - good idea for selling 2 a.m. tacos to people trying to sober up enough to drive. The co-worker bough some food, and while he was in line, I ended up talking to some other very young, stoned surfer types.

It's universally true that Californians believe their state is superior. Everyone insists I will never want to leave now that I'm here. Which is funny because there hasn't been a moment in the last month that I haven't wanted to run screaming back to Minnesota. The only things holding me back are the rent I've already paid for August and September, the psychic reading that told me I'd feel this way for the first two months, and the fact that I haven't eaten at In N Out yet.

Oh, and August in MN means that it's almost September, which may as well be December for all the summer that's left.

I was telling the stoned surfers that I've been attending some outings with groups I found on Meetup.com and one of them was all, "Dude, my mom totally loves that website. All her friends are from there." I think he meant to convey that Meetup.com is really awesome for some people, but what he actually conveyed was that I'm a hell of a lot older than him. I'm in the category of women he associates with his mother.

Yesterday I woke up with a hangover-style headache which was weird because I wasn't drunk at any point the night before, but I rolled with it and slept most of the day. Then I started another marathon of The United States of Tara on Netflix, a show about psychiatric disorders which helps me to feel a little less crazy. I also decided to treat myself to lunch and a movie, but none of the movies looked good, so I wasted several dollars in the book store instead. I looked for books about dealing with anxiety, but those invariably make me want to murder small children. I don't want to meditate when I'm focusing on keeping my stomach away from my tonsils.

Today I met an acquaintance for lunch and hated every second of it. I'm not sure if it's the guy I don't like, or the fact that my stomach has become permanently lodged in my throat and is a signal that I might freak the fuck out and enter Full Blown Panic mode at any moment. Outside the restaurant, a large group of flamboyantly dressed Latin folks congregated, and we eventually learned that it's some kind of holiday in Bolivia today. They were preparing to parade around the outdoor outlet mall. I've never seen so many long braids in one place, and I kind of wanted to cut one off and take it with me. I'm going to avoid introspection about that desire. I think that's for the best.

Finally I remembered that a friend recommended vitamin B6 for anxiety, so I ran to the world's most Hispanic-packed Wal-Mart and bought some. Hopefully it will tide me over until my psychiatrist appointment on Friday, because for a few minutes today, I found myself wondering if I was going to end up in the hospital again.

Then Scary ate one of the ear pieces on my ear buds and I spent ten minutes trying to fish the cheese grater looking piece out of her mouth.

So aside from the crippling anxiety, it was a pretty good weekend.

It's been a few minutes and a few hundred miles

When last we spoke, I was pacing my living room in Shakopee, Minnesota, filled with righteous indignation and full blow panic over my doctor's refusal to refill a medication that was supposed to keep me calm.

Right now, I'm laying in a stranger's bed in my rented room in a primarily Asian neighborhood of Santa Ana, California, riding out the (hopefully) last few days of an ear infection, and the only medication I'm on is Amoxicillin.

It's been a weird month wherein I accepted a transfer to my employer's So Cal office, purposefully went off my medication, packed myself and Scary up and moved to California. My step-grandmother just died, Daylow is desperate for me to come back to Minnesota, and I've been sick for a week with no hearing in my left ear. 

I feel incredibly out of place here, but I'm sure that will pass given longer than a couple weeks. I'm hoping this move will kick the winter SAD right in the ass, but for the time being, I'm alone and lonely. I'm hoping the change of scenery will inspire me to be healthier and happier, but for now I'm just sick. I'm hoping I'll make new friends and meet new people, and that is starting to happen - and will likely continue - after I feel better and start going to meetup groups again. I'm hoping I'll start writing again, but at the moment this feels very forced and fake.

But you have to start somewhere, huh? Any where better to start than a zip code in Orange County.

Ironically, the cable here doesn't include Bravo, so I can't watch The Real Housewives of the OC.

This must be what meth is like

This lady.
This is what I feel like right now.





Here's The Thing:

Don't ever.

Don't fucking EVER.

Go off your medications cold turkey.

First, let me tell you that it was not my intention to go off my medication. Like everything that's happened lately with the medical system, my depression and anxiety medication refills went horribly wrong. I've been off of them - because I ran out of them - since Saturday. Today is Wednesday, did you know that?

I'm working from home today because I FINALLY got my general practitioner to refill my existing prescriptions this morning, but he didn't think it was a good idea for me to be at work. Or in public at all.

I've been pacing around my house looking for projects all day. I hung a curtain rod. I hung some photos. I finished remodeling the bathroom. I worked all day from home as well.

And now I'm sitting here blogging because I don't know what the fuck else to do. I'm literally shaking with anxiety and this weird nervous energy I'm not used to. I'm at the point where I'm considering demolishing a wall in my house just so I have something to fucking DO.

It's raining, so yard work is out of the question.

My roommate cooked, so that's not necessary.

I'm too anxious to give a fuck about cleaning, I want to build something/break something/fix something/burn something.

I want to smoke 800 cigarettes at the same time. I want to shave my head so that I can watch it grow back all night long.

It probably doesn't help that I've been unable to really sleep for about 4 days now, and I'm exhausted and wired at the same time. I feel like this is what coke would do to me. Or meth. Or not being depressed.

I may just write a novel here, actually, so that I have something to keep my hands busy with.

I've cried three times today for no reason at all. I've yelled at my computer for taking too long to open an Excel worksheet. I swore out loud at a stupid email question, and I swore out loud when I fucked something up in a work request.

I want to dance and cry and break things all at the same time. The only things I don't want to do are sit still, masturbate, and sleep. Oh god, if only I could sleep.

I tried watching TV and didn't make it to the first commercial before I had to get up and move. I bought a cross stitch pattern yesterday to give my hands something to do, and that lasted two rows before I decided that the stupid Bengal tiger could go fuck itself if it wanted me to stitch it into existence any longer.

I'm thinking that booze might be the only option, although I've been directly told it's counter-productive to my general feelings of health and well being.

Frankly, I want to try to demolish the glass Coors bottle with my teeth so that I can spend the evening pulling glass shreds out of my gums with a pair of needle nose pliers. At least I would have something to do.

I literally have no point in writing this, no joke to make, no reason to write. I have nothing to say, just feel like it's helping to type and type and type.

So this should be super fun to read.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go walk between the kitchen and living room for the next hour.

Mental

I admit, my last post was quite apocalyptic - that happens to be how I was feeling. Much has happened since, including hospitalization.

I went in for my psychiatric assessment last Tuesday, and half-way through the meeting, the licensed social worker thought it might be advisable to admit myself into the adult behavioral health ward at the hospital next door. I've since learned the acronym S.I., or "suicidal ideation," which just explains my frequent thoughts of driving my car off of the road into a river or a tree or a ravine, or how I'd wonder how many pills I have in the house, what kind they are, and whether taking them all would allow me some respite of the permanent variety.

I've never moved from the "ideation" stage to the "action" stage, so I can't say I was sure at the time that I might harm myself, but I did realize that I needed to do something in order to get well.

The social worker walked me into the ER, told them why I was admitting myself, and I was in a surveilled, locked room with my belongings removed and total supervision in less than 5 minutes. I'm a clumsy gal, and I've had my share of ER visits, but I've never seen anything move that quickly before. The poor ER administrator ladies were all but fumbling their words in an attempt to whisk me away to safety.

Veronica was with me - she'd wanted to accompany me for support and a delicious lunch afterwards - so at least I was entertained during my stay. She helped me work out how to notify my boss of my sudden leave of absence in a way that would not divulge the personal weakness behind it, and she also fed me Bugles, which was awesome because I'd opted not to eat prior to my appointment in anticipation of the delicious meal I was expecting.

Soon, I was rolled up into the mental health ward, where I quickly realized exactly what I'd gotten myself into: locked in.

Locked in with no belongings. Locked into a hallway where guests were stripped of almost all belongings, especially anything sharp, of a length to tie a knot, or of the electronic (electrocution?) persuasion.

Inside of the locked ward was a second, more securely locked ward. That's where I went.

I gave my life story to a nurse (for the third time of the day) including my primary physician's name and location, the details of my S.I., my alcohol use, my history of depression and anxiety, the reason for my admission, how I heard about the mental ward at this particular hospital, whether I felt I was in danger of self-harm at that moment, my medical history, how my brain injury occurred, whether I was currently in any pain, what my goals were for my stay, on and on and on.

I was in far too much awe of my decision to really grasp what was happening until after a few hours, after Veronica and Daylow both had left for the evening and I was left alone in a room with no light switches, no telephone cords...where the thermostat was hidden behind a metal plate in the wall and the only luxury allowed were magazines (after the nurse had flipped through each page, searching for god knows what).

Because my anxiety had been at an all-time high for several days (thanks, Wellbutrin!!!!), they immediately prescribed something to alleviate the roller coaster dropping feeling in my stomach, and unsure of the rules for sleeping, I spent several hours reading and re-reading a magazine about gardening which Veronica had left.

The nurses frequently looked into my room, door safely left wide open, all night long. Once with a flashlight. Despite the medication, which made me feel like I was swimming in Benadryl, I didn't sleep very much or very well.

The next day only got more disturbing and/or therapeutic.

This is the Last Stop

It's been a while, there's no way around that.

I'm back because I'm sick in a pretty substantial, yet insubstantial, way.

I'm sure more of you can relate than those who don't, but some of the demons from my past have resurfaced with a vengeance this winter, and I vaguely remember that writing here used to help a little.

Tomorrow, I'm going to see my counselor in the morning, then I'm working from home until 1:30 p.m. when I'm heading to an accredited psychiatric hospital, where I'll be assessed and have to decide whether inpatient or outpatient treatment is best for my situation.

Funny, I heard that Cory Monteith is going back to rehab - addiction treatment - because he's relapsed. It's understandable. It's actually better than that, it's respectable. While addiction is a weakness of sorts, it's widely recognized as an illness. A socially acceptable one.

What I have is widely - and narrowly, depending upon my relation to the judgement - considered a weakness. A character flaw. Narcacism.

I've talked about my struggles here before. When I was a teen, I cut myself. Once the option arose, I began drinking instead. But I'm not an addict exactly, I'm someone who has been diagnosed with mood disorders: Dysthymia, Seasonal Affective Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

It's April 1st and there is snow on the ground. Melting, but there. It's maybe 30 degrees out, and windy.  Another contributing factor is my TBI.

Right now, I feel like something is irretrievable wrong. Someone has died. Someone has been injured. Someone I love is crying out for help because they are in the greatest of danger, and I just KNOW it. But they aren't. No one is. Everyone is fine, relatively speaking.

My stomach is in my throat and my heart is racing. I feel like I'm on a never-ending roller coaster plunge. I have the urge to pace the floor, back and forth, until the Call comes. But no call is coming.

This happens to me every once in a while, and is augmented now because I am taking a well-known anti-depressant that was prescribed to me by my general practice doctor, and only because I've taken it before with no serious health side effects.

Why did he prescribe it? Because up until about 10 days ago, I was - once again - contemplating taking my own life. For very selfish reasons that seem perfectly reasonable to a sick mind. This was an emergency effort to keep me going while I began meeting with a counselor, and ultimately, until I came up with a longer-term plan.

Right now, that plan is to get intensive psychiatric treatment that will help with the chemical imbalances, the emotional fucked-up-ed-ness, and my general health.

I'm turning 30 this month, and I always thought that maybe age would bring peace. Perhaps different friends or different goals...perhaps if my most impulsive behaviors were unleashed, or my lifestyle and circumstances changed drastically...perhaps I would be well.

It's not working, so I have to try something else. But there's a very big stigma associated with mental health issues. Never mind that my paternal grandfather died living in a van in his driveway because he was convinced that his house was bugged. Forget about my maternal grandfather who was abusive to the people he loved most before drinking himself into the grave. Ignore my mother's propensity to live in a fantasy world after trading drugs for god. My biological sister who attempted suicide and then witnessed it's brutal fallout not long after.

Sick in the head is even harder to understand than addiction, and it's part of the reason I wait until I'm at a DEFCON LEVEL EIGHT CRISIS STATE before I try to get help.

It's likely I'll need to miss work, which means I'll need short term disability and/or FMLA leave. I'm ashamed to tell my boss why I'm sick. I'm terrified that I won't qualify.

I'm most afraid that I'll go to the hospital for my assessment tomorrow and they'll tell me I'm fine, that it's in my head. Because NO SHIT?! My head is the problem.

But what I've never been scared of is spewing my shit to the Internet, and for that freedom...I have all of you to thank.

How big WAS it?

"They're your issues. You determine their size."

Someone wise told me that the other day.

This is something I've struggled with for years and years, probably because I always imagined that going to a therapist would provide a simple solution to my mental disarray, much like a dose of amoxicillin knocks out my walking pneumonia every time it strikes.

Turns out, even the best therapist I've seen has admitted that "becoming healthy" depends upon my ability to "choose how I live."

FUCK THAT, man. Just fix me already.

It's such an odd thing, being genetically predisposed to imbalance and addiction, circumstantially being driven to those things, and then choosing them because they are how I identify myself now.

It's the triple threat of mental disorder.

Thank god for Cheez-Its.

FOR SALE: Toro snowblower, pretty much brand new, expensive, fancy, and sprays magic (instead of snow) out of its blade thingys

$8.15

No joke, this snow blower propels itself, shoots really high in the air, and the snow it disburses is like a sparkly rainbow of unicorn farts and angel kisses falling from heaven.

I'm asking the price of a quarter tank of gas for this beauty, basically because I'm that desperate at the moment, and in exchange, this Fancy Toro *Expensive Model* can be yours.

I haven't checked the forecast yet, but I'm assuming it might snow again this year, maybe once or twice, definitely in March and DEFINITELY after we've washed our cars, so it's probably a matter of life or death, whether or not you own my magical unicorn snow cone maker.

Call me. Buy this. I NEED GAS MONEY.

Except that...wait, NO I DON'T.

Why don't I need gasoline after all, you ask?

That's right, I almost forgot.

I thought I was acting out my perfectly normal routine of riding to work in Daylow's car and, once there, being stranded even though I didn't need to go anywhere,  going to Arby's for lunch with a co-worker because I think he felt bad that he couldn't drive me around like a princess so, instead, he drove me to Arby's (which I didn't used to like, but now that I can't taste...I guess I actually do, and then working almost two hours later than I've recently been accustomed to working, but it seeming longer because it was dark when I left, the building was empty, and I'd gotten there at my regular time this morning, so it was a longer day in general, and then riding home (again, a passenger) by another  very  compassionate co-worker, and unlocking my front door to go inside, and having to explain to my very confused dog why I was entering from the wrong end of the house, did that mean she needed to get up and greet me, or was I planning to go around back and come in the correct way?

Except, as you can imagine, THAT IS NOT A NORMAL DAY FOR ME.

My car. It has been...returned to it's maker, shall we say, and is going to auction if I don't come up with a lotta cash soon.

So PLEASE call me. And buy my magical unicorn fan, and I'll only charge you the cost of a repo.

IF YOU DON'T PUT THE WORD "crustacean" in the subject line, I'll now your spam.

Because the idea of being "left out" makes my skin crawl almost as much as Percocet

Speaking of which, anyone have any Percocet?

Because apparently brain injury + concussion = migraines which arrive out of nowhere and are vomit-in-the-shower-crippling, and are also virtually unaffected by anything known to man (except an illegal substance of which I certainly have never partaken, I'm just assuming since weed is used medicinally for migraines, it must actually work. Which reminds me, I need to move to California, because I could get an Rx for weed for any number of my ridonk ailments, from migraines to anxiety to depression to boredom. What, boredom is TOTALLY a medical condition.)

What was I saying?

Ah yes, it's time for me to hop on the band wagon and write a year-end wrap-up post because we're about to begin The Year the Mayans Got Bored with Making Calendars.

I'm pretty sure they just ran out of weed, but when they called their dealer, his voice mail said he wasn't available to sell  because he was busy getting sacrificed on an alter or some shit.

There's something else we can thank weed for: Postponing the end of the world until 2012.

Anyway, I'm sitting here in my bedroom, surfing the interwebnet because I don't want to watch the UFC fight that's on my TV because EEW, blood is grody, and I'm thinking about how crazy this year has been in almost every way.

2011 was supposed to be my first full year of marriage to my best friend, and while *technically* that's true because no court papers have been filed, I'm pretty sure everyone would have an opinion on just exactly how "married" I am. Not only are we not really married, not really living together, and certainly not best friends any longer, I'm hard pressed to get Gray to speak to me these days.

It's completely understandable, of course, but sucks just the same.

So I lost our beloved Bampa, as well as my husband and friend, not to mention all the brutal alienation such a split inevitably causes. So many of our friends are mutual, and most of those have no interest in my life at this time (I assume) out of loyalty to my husband, which again is understandable, and again, sucks.

The few friends I called my own, mostly from work, I lost touch with when I quit my job, but I think really they were relieved because I was proving to be more exhausting than awesome to them. Also understandable, when our lunch chats morphed from my wedding plans to my dating plans.

I'm an acquired taste at my very best, so throw in a few impulsive mistakes, a few irrational behaviors, and more than a few drunk texts...folks seem to appreciate some space.

So, New Years.

I'm not so naive to believe that January 1st is some kind of magical date. It's not a re-set button. It's nothing but the end of a calendar year, a calendar which was determined thousands of years ago by people WHO SLAUGHTERED OTHER PEOPLE IN THE NAME OF GOD.

So, really, they were a lot like we are now.

But this is what we do, we Americans. We talk about our kids and our ailments and our jobs and our wardrobes, and then we speculate on how those things may change in the next 52 weeks. We make predictions, we make grand statements about our intentions, we set unattainable goals, we thank everyone for believing in our ability to attain those goals, and then we get hammered and watch an electric comet plummet into Times Square, half-way hoping something will go horribly wrong and the ball will go rolling down the sidewalk, taking out every single one of those paper hat-wearing revelers, half-way relieved when it doesn't happen.

And so, I'll jump on that train because it's what I do.

In 2012, I intend to Get My Shit Together, Financially Speaking. I'm starting a really wicked new job on the 9th, and it should more than be enough for me to catch up with my medical bills, et al. I hope to find a second roommate to rent out the other bedroom upstairs, which will help financially as well. I plan to keep my part-time job and work nights and weekends, depositing that chump change into a separate account that I will use for "fun money," leaving the rest of my accounts untouched except for necessities. I plan to start over with a 401K because retirement sounds better every moment I'm alive.

I'd like to grow a tail, but that one is up in the air.

I plan to quit smoking, preferably forEVER this time.

I also intend to train Ramsey and Lucky to bring me beer in bed, and possibly to clean the toilet.

As far as relationships go, I plan to get back in touch with many of my friends. I'd like to make new ones. And I want to be sure that my partnership with Daylow doesn't grow stagnant, predictable, or co-dependent. I have a history of all of those things, and they don't bode well for Happily Ever After.

I'd like to drink less.

I want to camp more.

Daylow and I are going to plant a big garden this year, hopefully saving a small fortune on vegetables and herbs.

I want to see my family more than I got to this year.

Finally, I plan to win the lottery. Sadly, this may be the most likely of all of my goals, although if I do win the lottery, I'll be able to buy toilet-cleaning rats and pay people to be my friends, so it would kill several birds all at once.

Now with 100% more rodent incest

Well, I'm back and I can honestly tell you that I don't have a fucking clue where to start.

I've wrestled back and forth for months now about how to approach the future of this blog, in light of the face that when I began writing here in 2008, I was blissfully pregnant and madly in love with Gray; but now, about three years later, I'm not pregnant (nor am I a mother), Gray and I are in the process of ending our marriage, I have two completely new men living in my house, I quit my job, I lost many, many friends, and I worried the hell out of almost everyone who knows me.

So what to do?

Speak the balls-deep truth about my failed marriage and risk hurting Gray even more than I already have?

Pussy-foot around the truth and kind of...phase my new life into the blog and just hope nobody notices?

Start over with a completely new blog?

Seriously complex first-world problem, right? Boo to the hoo and suck a toe, right? More specifically, CAT, suck on the infected toe of reality and find something more important than this stupid online journal to worry about, like keeping your house and not being psychotic?

Here's the thing though: This stupid online journal is part of what keeps me from going psychotic. It's like therapy. Really, really unethically based therapy. And I'm starting to need this therapy again. It's mid-December in Minnesota, and snow or no snow (currently, it's looking like a shit-stain Christmas), I have my annual SAD flaring up, otherwise known as My Perilous Grasp on Sanity, or My Single-handed Funding of Kleenex Factories World-wide.

I need this blog to survive another life or death battle with my personal Interloper.

But using this blog as an anti-depressant isn't going to do a damn thing, I've decided, if I don't continue writing my real story. The things nobody wants to hear me say. The truth.

Plus, when I look back into my archives, I realize I don't remember 99% of the stories I tell you, which means that in the last few months I've spent on hiatus, I've forgotten at LEAST fourteen separate instances of drinking myself stupid, seven of my Epic Shits, and many other small, ridiculous fluffery that I consider far too closely and then write about here.

Like the tampon vs. the chapstick. WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT?

Thank christ I wrote it down.

So here I am, Lolita Razzle Dazzle, resuming my life's work of offending and humiliating other people.

And it feels so good to be home.

PS: I now have two fancy hooded rats named Lucky and Rachel Ray, and they're going to fuck each other soon if I don't separate them. We thought Lucky was a girl, and so we bought a female from Lucky's litter to be a companion, but then giant testicles appeared on Lucky, and Rachel Ray is most definitely rocking a vagina, and they're almost old enough to mate. But I can't justify two separate cages because WHAT WOULD THAT SAY ABOUT ME, plus the ball python Raven is already irritated that she didn't get a chance to eat Lucky and Rachel Ray, and I don't like pissing off snakes if I can help it.

So either one of the rats becomes snake food (which I cannot do, no fucking way, they're my bayyyybeeeeees), we split them up and get two completely different companion rats that they cannot fuck (unless they swing that way), or we allow these little bastards to have incestuous rat sex and produce up to fourteen separate baby rats, which would then need to be hand fed because Rachel Ray is too young to nurse her babies properly, and then I'll end up living in a house full of rodents because all the babies are my grandchildren and I am insane.

So here: Have some cute rats

Pity Party!

Hi kids. It's me: The MIA Nutjob.

Since last we met, my life has been demolished like a really ugly skyscraper on the Vegas strip. It was exciting to watch this giant, solid structure implode and collapse, and my mind whirled with the possibilities for that vacant lot and what I might make of it.

And then I started cleaning up the debris. FUCK. The debris. It is everyfuckingwhere. And it's heavy. And it's seemingly endless, because I'll hoist a big fucking cement chunk up on my tiny little shoulders and crawl over to the dumpster with it, spend an eternity trying to raise it up high enough to tumble into the roll-off container, and then turn around to crawl back for another chunk, all the while hoping my legs won't collapse and leave me in a puddle of urine. When I get back to the clean up site, there is no visible difference in the amount of debris. The piles of broken walls and the throat-closing dust haven't shifted. Haven't shrunken. I feel like I'm shoveling and endless pile of steaming horse shit.

Granted, it was my idea to demolish that building on the strip. It is my dreams that made the mess. I chose to end my second marriage. I chose to quit my job. I chose to work in an environment that is such that I fell AGAIN and cracked my skull AGAIN and am now on two weeks bed rest. AGAIN. It was me who decided to adopt a third dog, and also me who broke down into a sobbing, screaming puddle when I realized I don't have the strength in my legs to make that situation work.

All of this was my idea.

So I guess it's time to buck the fuck up and just make it work. Keep shovelling the shit, even when I'm so exhausted that it hurts to open my eyes (thank you concussion). I will not lose my house. I will live without cable and internet. I will not eat out. I will sell every damn thing I own that is of any value. I will not sink. I will not sink. I WILL NOT SINK.

I keep trying to imagine myself as a Phoenix bird - the beast who dies in a fiery mess of debris, but then returns, stronger and more beautiful than before.

I'm trying.

The party you are trying to reach is playing with unicorns

I'm here, I'm here.

It's just...well...it's probably good that I'm not in school this year because it turns out I have a lot of shit going on.

Since last weekend:

• Somebody gave me a dog. Another one. No joke.
• Somebody else gave me a flooded basement. Twice.
• Somebody tormented me with pictures of SPIDERS RIDING ON SNAKES, and gave me a stroke. I have to say, if I'm going to see any animal riding on any other animal, it has to be baby monkey. That video? Never gets old.
• Somebody gave me a new tattoo. More on that later. Fair warning, Dad. YOU WILL HATE IT.
• Somebody else gave me a unicorn. A Webkinz unicorn. I don't know what that means, but my mother-type friend says that means it's alive. I named her Galdalf because I'm reading The Hobbit for the millionth time.
• Somebody gave me the keys to her house. And permission to carry her dogs in my pocket.
• Somebody else gave me Halloween Dots that look like black licorice flavor but are really blood orange flavor, and I know this BECAUSE I CAN FEEL CITRUS. Winning.
• Somebody gave Klout perks, which I don't understand exactly, but they are sending me things in the mail, so I don't really care. Unless I open the box and it turns out to be a cobra. Then I'll probably file a Klout Komplaint.

In addition to all of these new acquisitions, I'm also trying to edit a bunch of videos of me playing Beatles Rock Band - POORLY, I might add - for a really ridonk vlog to post here. Because there isn't enough ridonk in the world.

So as you can see, it's been a busy week. In fact, I missed my 3rd Blogaversary on Sunday. This time, I didn't even post about how I didn't post about it.

(My first real post in 2008. My first blogiversary post in 2009. My second blogiversary post in 2010.)

Clearly, I'm regressing back to my teenage years. When you see my new tattoo, you'll agree. I'm about 14. And I'm a boy.

I'll be back here when I feel like it.

I can haz a new addiktion

Seriously, I cannot get enough of these two songs.

I want to snort these songs and then blow my nose and then swallow the mucus and then puke it back up and then mix it into a bathtub of hot water and then soak in it and then filter out the chunks and put them in a blender and then inject them into one of my many arm veins.

And then lick the wound.





Gray is going to kill my ass if I make him listen to these agian.

All right, all right. I get it. I'm weird.

People keep giving me random, awesome shit.

For example, I keep a bowl of candy in my office to lure unsuspecting flies into my personal paperwork hell. I sometimes take requests for specific types of candy, or if I overhear someone talking about some they like, I'll look for it. One guy loves Warheads, those little sour hard candies, but I couldn't find them, like, ANYWHERE. I was beginning to think they weren't being made anymore.

Someone heard my Warhead dilemma, and said, "Don't worry, I gotcha." I assumed that meant he knew where to buy a bag of them, but a couple days later, a giant package was delivered to the office with my name on it. I had a moment of panicking, thinking maybe I'd drunken ordered a sex swing and mistakenly shipped it to work instead of home. Then I panicked again, wondering how the hell to assemble a sex swing.

Turns out, it was a giant case of Warheads, shipped from New Jersey.

Another friend of mine, who happened to give us the best wedding gift of all (a framed, autographed Lamb of God album) knows I love spicy food. He does too. Every so often, he just shows up with habanero kettle chips or spicy sardines or hot chili flavored Ramen. Once, he even gave me a jar of pickled eggs, but that is decaying in my kitchen cabinet. I AM AFRAID OF PICKLE-CHICKEN HYBRIDS.

Last week, a friend walked into my office and said, "Oh, I was just at Target and I saw these and I just HAD to get them for you because...it's just too perfect. You had to have them."

These really are the most appropriate note cards I've ever gotten. People see the word "crazy" and they think "CAT!"

Another co-worker was at the dollar store and saw this Wooly Willy. He thought it was something I needed to have, which is true, because I REALLY needed a wooly willy that day.

This thing turns out to be a bigger draw than the candy bowl. People are sitting down to draw metallic mustaches ALL DAY LONG, and now I just realized why Klout says I'm influential about "mustaches." It makes perfect sense.

Aaaaand then there's the giant rubber band. Totally not that exciting, right? WRONG. People love this fucking thing, and let me tell you, it gets some serious air around the office. It can go halfway down the hallway, no problem. Again, this was something a friend saw and said, "Catherine. She can haz giant rubber bandzzzz."

Nobody seems to realize that what I REALLY need is a motherfucking unicorn.

I would post a TMI warning, except if you're here at all, you already know.

Well now. Remember waaaaaaaaay back in June when we were hot in the middle of Operation: Baby? And I posted that although I wasn't pregnant, I also wasn't experiencing anything even remotely resembling a period?

Yeah. Well it's arrived. THREE FUCKING MONTHS LATER.

Seriously, three months (almost to the day) since my last period. Since then, we've put Operation: Baby on hold and I've gone back on the pill because I have some personal shit I need to address (via Dr. Crazy Palms, who is still kicking my ass and taking my name every session) before I feel like I'm really ready to successfully damage my own children the way I've been damaged.

For most of my life, when I'm on the pill, I "suppress" my period, meaning I skip the week of placebo pills and just go straight back to the hormone pills, which means I usually only have one or two periods in a year, which means I WIN!

Except now that I'm suppressing again after MONTHS OF NO UTERINE ACTION AT ALL ANYWAY, of course this is when the fucking shittiest part about being a woman decides to come and fuck with my life.

Welcome back tampons, you have not even been a little bit missed.

Feel like a fuckin bottle of wine, stuffed with a cork, laying sideways in the fridge, dripping all over the place anyway.

Packing is for pussies, except that it's not for me, and I'm definitely a pussy, so really...packing is for *other* pussies

So my former BlogHer roommates have been emailing back and forth for CENTURIES about what to pack for the conference, one even going so far as to lay our her outfits, photograph them, and send them all for our admiration. Or approval.


I don't know which it was, but I have not stopped making fun of them. Because, look:

"A thought that has crossed my mind: Do I need sparkle for Sparklecorn? I don't like costumes."

In my experience at Sparklecorn, you can wear (or not wear) whatever the fuck you want to wear (or not wear), so I replied, "No you don't. Not even a little bit."  Just bring your boobs.

So while this entire month-long exchange has been entertaining, I woke up this morning and realize I have to get on an airplane. Like, TOMORROW. And with me must come clothing and shit.

Now I'm frantically reading the archived emails from my former roommates, trying to decide what to bring, what not to bring, challenging my shitty memory to decide what I took last year that was non-necessary and what I forgot to bring, all the while forcing myself not to panic that I am getting. On. A flying DEATHTRAP.

On purpose, and with purposeful intent.

So I'm also regretting how I let the laundry pile up for days and days now because UNDERWEAR?!?! does not seem to exist in my household at the moment. And skirts? are all fucking M.I.A. Which means I'll be one of the dykes at BlogHer, baggy jeans and my home-grown mullet, which means I'll be a predator: a horny dyke in a sea of thousands of awesome vaginas, and frankly, people are already scared to meet me. Being a dyke predator is NOT going to help my case.

Haircut? Might be the easiest solution.

Anyhoodle, bon voyage and wish me luck because I'm pretty sure I'll be dying in a flaming, airplane-shaped inferno tomorrow.

Totally worth the co-pay if it gets me a book deal

The best part about therapy is realizing how crazy you are.

And by "crazy" I mean "just like everyone else without the balls to admit the shit they think/deal with/fantasize about."

Everyone already thinks writers are eccentric, which is the fancy word for nuts. And I claim to be a writer. Or I pretend to be one. Or I want to be one. Or I want to figure out a way to slither into Stephen King's head and live there, like a parasite. And see how that shit works itself out onto paper.

What I'm saying is that therapy is good for a writers' soul. So is craziness.

I just got back from the river where I *accidentally* chugged out 950 words of a story I'm "working on," like, completely by accident. BY ACCIDENT.

Well, by avoidance, really.

I got home from the shrink's office, I'm going to have to call her Dr. Crazy Palms, and I was like, "Shit, all the stuff I'm supposed to *actually* think about is too much work. Time to write."

Therapy is already paying for itself.

That's when you know your session was hard: when writing is easier.

This message is brought to you by psychosis. And also insomnia.

So.

I'm going to see a new shrink today, mostly because I saw a new phychiatrist last month (the kind with pills) and he read through all of my past therapy files and summarized their contents out loud to me - all of the things in my past that have been done to me, all of the things that I've done, all the fucked up stuff that I'm afraid most people have dealt with, but apparently they have a gene that I'm lacking, the one that instructs them to move the fuck on already, it's in the past, something I've never been able to do - and after reading the notes, the psychiatrist looked up at me and said something like, "No wonder you're depressed."

And all I can say to that is HA. HA HA HA HA HA. Yeah, no shit.

So the main problem I've encountered with talk therapy is that my previous shrinks take a lot of notes and nod their heads a lot, occasionally asking questions, but mostly just waiting for me to blurt shit out. Anyone who's "met" me knows that BLURTING IS NOT A PROBLEM FOR ME. So while perhaps getting patients to discuss their sexual abuse or their history of self-mutilation is a major break through, for me it's like DUDE. Save us both some time and just read my fucking blog.

What I need is a shrink who will grab me by the throat and shove my face into the sentence I just said, hold me underwater and scream at me, "LOOK AT THAT SHIT. WHY DID YOU DO THAT. That's what you need to figure out, dumbass."

I need someone to push me.

Someone to call me out.

Someone to actually HELP me.

So this morning, I have the very typical (for me) Patient's Remorse, the feeling I get when I'm at the point of no-return before a therapy appointment, when it's too late to cancel without paying for the session anyway, and I'm all, "But see? I'm not even that depressed today. This is like going to get a manicure after pulling all of my nails out with pliers. KIND OF REDUNDANT."

The psychiatrist I saw last month upped my dose of the anti-anxiety medication I've been taking for two years with fairly remarkable success, and it seems the slightly higher dose is helping because now I feel like I'm normal again.

Except.

Except this feeling is something I've experienced before a bajillion times, and what it means is that I'll be peachy-golden-sunshine-and-unicorn-farts for about two weeks and then all of a sudden, I'll feel like the entire world is spinning, the color will drain out of everything and I'll watch it slip away like shit down the toilet, and I'll be like, "Fuck. Shoulda kept that therapy appointment." But then, I'll be too depressed to pick up the damn phone, so I'll suffer through it until I'm feeling better.

Lather, rinse, re-fucking-peat.

Defeats the whole purpose of therapy, really. I'm tired of using crutches. I want to fix the fucking break inside of me. Forever.

It's exhausting, always trying to decide if living is worth the trouble.

So.

Updated** Nopers

So I'm not even a little bit pregnant.

Except that I still don't know for sure, I'm just guessing based on the utter lack of symptoms, the negative pee test, and the fact that I had cramps so badly on Saturday that I wished for a swift death.

Ladies, you know what I'm talking about - the cramps which feel as if a sewer rat has climbed inside your abdomen via your belly button, which it ripped open with its bare feet, and has taken to leisurely gnawing the lining of your VERY SOUL one shred at a time, while using it's hind claws to scrape your cervix into bloody shreds of flesh and tears?

Those kind of cramps.

Except...wait for it...NO PERIOD YET.

Usually, my personal brand of rat gnawing cramps come at the same time as the hideous rush of dead uterus, but not this time.

Because of course not this time.

If I've learned anything during Operation: Baby, it's that my body is NOT to be trusted under any circumstances.

So I'm not pregnant. I think. Probably. Status pending.

So here: have some pictures while you wait.

Lily, secure in her guilt. That's a diaper she shredded. A BLOODY diaper.
And it was stuck in her teeth. And we found a piece in Scary's shit.

Scary, post-hair cut. She is so itty bitty now!

A visual demonstration of why I love metal shows. I'd go for the t-shirts alone.
But more to come on this...I've got some heart-to-sick, twisted heart coming with my favorite scary band, Fetus Heist.

***So Dr. Crazy Socks and I squared off this morning for the first time in, oh, a year-and-a-half. He remembered me, but not in the good way. He was - fittingly - wearing crazy socks, either some kind of pink trout or salmon, I couldn't bring myself to ask, and he confirmed that indeed, I am still crazy. More appointments pending, including one with a psychiatrist. Apparently Dr. Crazy Socks feels he is in over his head re: fixing me. Because of course he does.