wink and a nod

a person’s depressed, already exhibiting poor judgment, insomnia and entertaining suicidal thoughts. so an antidepressant is prescribed that can increase these symptoms as well as add nausea and dizziness.

and for the insomnia? here’s a bottle of sleeping pills. use wisely.

everything i thought it could be and more

excruciating pain, mind-numbing pleasure and about fifteen POPS as bits of me where stretched in ways i didn’t know possible.

therapeutic thai massage. you need to go get one.

i’ll bet these folks could kill with their bare hands without even thinking about it. i was so relaxed i wouldn’t have cared. what an experience. i don’t know where to start. the incredible feeling of trusting a stranger with hands as strong as silk cables to contort my body at will? the sensual pleasure of lying in artificial twilight next to a babbling brook on a divan wreathed by some mysterious relaxing thai incense? my wobbly-relaxed legs and their near inability to function after?

maybe i should begin with how incredible it was to lie for an entire hour with no expectations: no wondering what’s going to happen next, what am i doing with my life and how does it make me feel. suspended in time and space while this tiny little woman manipulated every muscle in my body, sharing such close physical contact with another human in so indescribable a way, it was, dare i say, spiritual.

if you are a mother, if you survived the holidays, if you are perpetually sick and in hospital, if you hurt in any way, if traffic seems too busy and intrusive, if it’s monday, you need to have a thai massage. go.

means to an end

a lot of women write letters to their unborn babies. as i have never been one to let reality stand in the way of my actions, i decided to write a letter to my as yet un-conceived, may never be female fetus. so here it goes.

Welcome to the World Baby Girl!

Birth was hard, huh? For you and me both. I’m glad I did it without pain meds because you are going to need every ounce of your brain power to navigate this life. You’ll need some great friends too because life’s pretty fucked up from here. One day you’ll look back on the pain of birth, medical exams, broken bones, broken hearts, even giving birth and realize it wasn’t so bad after all.

I don’t want to scare you, Baby Girl, it’s just that the world is kind of screwed up. Your mom? Bat-shit crazy. Not like your Auntie, she’s different crazy. You’ll love us and learn to appreciate our eccentricities, but eventually we’ll make you nuts. You’ll wonder what the hell happened to us and worry you’ll turn out the same way.

You might.

Sorry. I’m not a sugar-coater. Life’s a bitch. Adjust. React. But most importantly, act. On your own terms, for your own welfare. Be a good person, please be a good kind happy woman: be free and committed, be deeply in relationships and true to yourself, be generous and selfish. Learn and listen to your own voice. Speak it firmly and confidently. Do not equivocate. Do these things for me, your maybe-mother-to-be who did not begin to know that true independence could be hers until she was thirty-five.

Why do I ask so much of you already, Baby Girl?

As my life lessons passed, with each opportunity I missed, I’ve wondered what could hurt more in life? Today you were born and with each contraction I bore, each push against your tiny body, I wondered what could hurt more? But you’re here now and with you a love so great and so fierce that it is my sharpest, will be my most sustained pain yet and everything else fades away. Everything.

I ask because I want you to have it all; the things I saw but could not reach. Everything I imagined but could not create. Go and get yours, Baby Girl.

It’s all for you.

option 2: jaded cynic

life is shocking. damn shocking. from the minute you’re born and pull in that first breath, which i imagine cuts like a knife. and just when you think you have a handle on it, something new and shocking comes along again. like first grade. first love. first cancer scare.

but we adjust, huh? it’s the end of the world as we know it and then a favorite song plays on the radio or you get a good nights sleep. you return to what’s comforting in some small way and deal with the new shocking thing a little bit more everyday and you get a handle on it. again.

and hopefully you remain an optimistic open-minded romantic.

reconditioning

under the heading “working on it” (otherwise known as life), i am trying to change my phrasing. for instance instead of saying or thinking “you make me feel small and stupid” i would prefer to say or think “i feel small and stupid right now”. there are others, but i’m gonna take this one step at a time.

and try not to ruin my buzz by over-thinking.

um, yeah

this may seem kind of random, especially given my last entry, but if you pass an indian man on the street whose turban is very nicely wrapped or a beautiful color, can you compliment him the same way you might a woman with excellent shoes or a scarf?

i must be feeling better or i wouldn’t have remembered how i worry about this.

a day in the life of

yeah, i’ve got some stuff going on right now. but let’s not get into details, ok?

this morning i woke up with the script’s song “breakeven” bouncing in my head, from one ear to the other, ricocheting back and forth until i finally got up.

by 1 pm i felt like throwing up. too many coffees maybe.

now i’m crying, weeping, leaking all over my desk like a weak bladder while i carry on signing checks, stuffing letters, stamping envelopes. i’m not even sure why i’m crying. that’s not true.

a heart does not break even and a god i don’t believe in does seem like the only option.

this sucks.

follow the oases

some times life is damn tricky.

i am deeply unhappy in my life. i don’t know why. i don’t know what i’m going to do next.

but i’m working on it. and for this evening, i am going to let that be enough.

absolutely no self esteem issues here

i’ve been silvering red paper cupids for display windows at our retail store. it’s an idea i got from martha except that she was silvering ornaments for her christmas tree and used actual sheets of silver leaf whereas i am using decoupage glue and aluminum foil.

it’s quite labor intensive and the foil tends to slip and slide and the glue to not dry. so i get a little frustrated at times as i trim bits of foil and fold pieces over the edges in a hopefully attractive and artistic way.

this morning as i attempted to rub off excess glue coverage (extensive), my husband suggested as a super hero i could be tin foil woman, completely covered in the stuff and making that distinctive crinkly noise as i walk.

“yeah,” i elaborated, “but i wouldn’t have any super powers – i’d just reflect everyone else’s.”

oh dear

i’ve become one of those people who has questionable cell phone conversations at top volume while standing in line at the local electronics store.

of course, it’s not my local electronics store…