Wednesday, December 31, 2008

the year in review

2008 can eat a dick. It was seriously a crap year, as far as I'm concerned. A deployment, a miscarriage, exploding eyeballs, and chronic illness. Hot damn! Here's the year in review, hashed out one last time for posterity's sake:

For starters, in January... goddamn, what did happen in January? That was kind of a dead month, really. I started this blog, and that was about it.

In February, I got glasses. I could see the tv again! I could drive without endangering humanity! Life was good! Then Sid was sent on deployment and it kind of killed my buzz.

March was kind of a dead month again. I warred with myself for that whole month over whether or not I should consult a doctor over the wonkiness that had plagued me for years. Sid wasn't around to talk me out of it, and I made the call. Which leads us to...

April! I found out I have hypothyroidism, and this whole month was spent adjusting to Life With A Chronic Illness. My beloved veggie burgers could no longer be a staple of my diet. Vitamins were no longer something to be taken whenever I remembered, but in the morning or not at all. Coffee was suddenly something I couldn't have whenever I wanted. My daily levothyroxine was not something that I could just forget about: it had to be taken regularly. That was a hard thing to get used to. But I hardly did any bitching about any of it: I felt better, and I was so grateful.

In May, I was still waking up from a hypothyroid haze: suddenly I was no longer foggy and tired, and what the fuck, THIS IS HOW NORMAL PEOPLE FEEL?! I spent most of May marveling at that.

June. Boring. Nothing to mention.

In July, Sid returned from deployment and we spent a few weeks getting used to sharing living space (and a bed) again. That adjustment is always rough, I don't care who you are. I thought I handled it like a fucking saint, but maybe I'm just biased. We decided to try to have a baby, and for once in my life, things felt like they'd all be okay.

August. The day Hurricane Hannah hit the coast, I got a positive pregnancy test. A very clear, but faint, positive sign on my piss test.

September. Miss P comes to town and takes no prisoners: it is the worst I have ever had, the most painful and unbearable period I could have imagined. I realize it was a chemical pregnancy, an early miscarriage.

In October, Sid bought a new television. I spent a lot of time being emo. My mother says that my youngest sister might have an eating disorder.

November was the month of the conehead. Our siamese gets an ulcerated cornea and has her eye sewn shut for two weeks to keep it from exploding, which leads to her moping around with a plastic cone collar, looking miserable. I have to wipe her ass for her, which Sid seems to find hysterical.

In December, since we were having no luck making a devilspawn, Sid got paranoid and went to have a semen analysis, which revealed that his sperm are really kind of gimpy. This is the month we give up on devilspawn (for now), and when Knut finally ditches the collar and the pirate eye, it is a cause for celebration.

So here we are. A year of major fail. And minor win. Here's hoping 2009 is better for everyone.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

the fail, it is catching

Apparently people think my bad luck at spawning is contagious. The minute my friends find out they're pregnant, suddenly it's like they don't want to talk to me anymore. I have been feeling uncomfortable with this for a while, but tried to blame it on some failure on my part. Maybe I was a bitter wench? Maybe I was being a stupid asshole? But I wasn't. Or at least, I don't think I was. I think a few times, I tried to steer our conversations away from their gestating sprogs and toward a topic everyone could partake of. Like, you know, something not about pregnancy? They seem to be having none of it.

So yeah, at first I thought it was my malfunction. But I'm beginning to suspect that it's not all me. Because they've been making comments that I think are in extremely bad taste: things like we're just so lucky it happened right away, and we didn't have to try for ages and I don't know what I would have done if we found out we couldn't conceive. Like they don't know the trouble Sid and I have had. They might as well just say Oh, that poor unfortunate bitch in the corner over there. What a sad sack of FAIL, and it would have the same effect.

I keep telling myself that I'm overreacting. And sometimes I can make myself believe it. But then it's a huge wake-up call when I realize that if our situations were reversed, I for damn sure would not be making comments like that around them. I FOR-FUCKING-SURE would not be bitching about my terrible pregnancy to a friend that I knew was having spawnage issues. It's rude, for one thing; and for another, it's just a downright douchebaggy thing to do. I never bitched to them about MY EPIC FAIL. I told them about it, but I didn't rag on and on about it, or make every conversation we had about THE FAILAGE. I have a life outside that bullshit - I know reading this blog, it seems like that's not true, but this is where I go to vent. My friends aren't verbal punching bags...this is.

Maybe I just need to stop having friends.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

seven years

I am not okay today. I just want to start by saying that. This is not a good day for me, not at all, and I am not okay. Whatever I say here, I won't mean it tomorrow. Tomorrow I will regret everything. But not today.

When I was in the bath earlier, I kept imagining what would happen if I just put my head under the water and didn't come back up. Where the fuck did a thought like that come from?! It scared me, and now I'm sitting here crying because I don't know what the fuck my problem is, and I don't want to be around anyone right now, but I don't want to be alone.

I wish I could be somewhere else - I just typed "someone else" and I guess that applies as well. Where can I go to get away from everything? Where on this earth can I go where the demons from this day won't find me?

It's been seven years, and in so many ways, it's like it all happened yesterday. Merry fucking Christmas.

Friday, December 19, 2008

happy anniversary

For our anniversary, we found out that Sid's not quite up to snuff in the baby-making department. Yes, the results of his semen analysis are in, and some of his numbers are way off, His doctors are going to be doing more tests.

So yeah, happy anniversary to us... right?

I'm actually not really bothered by it, I just wish the timing had been a little better. When asked what we did for our third wedding anniversary, I will ever after be forced to reply, "we found out that we suck at making babies."

HAR.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

stop the world, I want to get off

Another one of my friends is pregnant.

Seriously.

I couldn't make this shit up if I tried.

At this point, it's safe to assume that if you are a female of childbearing age who is even an oblique acquaintance of mine, you're going to find yourself knocked up. I think it would be best for everyone if I stopped having lady-friends, yes? Solve that problem in one fell swoop.

I would feel better if even one of my friends could just manage to avoid fecundity, but that seems unlikely in the extreme. And this whole situation might be kind of amusing to me, if only it could manage to be slightly less pathetic.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

nothing

I must have started this post and abandoned it four times now. Things have been pretty boring around here - then again, things always are - and there hasn't been anything I've particularly needed and/or wanted to document.

One of my friends, someone who has been a fucking rock for me throughout my EPIC FAIL mess just told me she's pregnant. And I'm happy for her. That's kind of bland. I'm ecstatic; she's wanted this for a very long time, and I am so glad she has finally got it. Buuuuuuut... I can't help feeling a little down that I can't go through that with her.

That feeling will pass, it always does. But it always returns, as well.

The Christmas party I was dreading so much was kind of a bust. It was excruciatingly boring, and the drinks were horribly overpriced. I got semi-wasted and decided I should thank Sid's XO for sending him home from the boat in September. Even after the wicked buzz wore off, it sounded like the right thing to do. So I did it. Yes, I actually brought THAT up among company, of my own free will, without being totally wrecked.

At least I'm not a nasty drunk.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Knut's update

I forgot to mention it, because it was so anti-climactic.

Dr Proctor kept saying her stitches would start to come out over Thanksgiving weekend and that I'd either have to take them out myself or drive out to the clinic in Powellsville to have the vet there do it, because he was going to be out of town. I said I'd do it myself and spare Knut the forty minute drive. The conehead was given the heave-ho, and we agreed that I'd bring Knut back the Monday after Thanksgiving so that he could check her eye.

But the stitches never came out. They remained firmly in place until December 1st. So Dr Proctor took them out himself. And I could see right away that Knut's eye was healed: the big ugly scratch, the ulcerated divot, was gone. The official all-clear had to wait until contrast dye was put in and the site of the ulcer had been inspected under a magnifier. But in the end, the general opinion was that Knut is fine, and the surgery worked.

But Knut is still a pirate. I don't care what anyone else says.

Monday, December 8, 2008

the firing squad

Sid's Christmas party is fast approaching. I've decided that I'm not being nice: if any of the other wives want to talk to me, they will refrain from asking (yet again) about The Manson's Continued State of Childlessness. And if they are unlucky enough to want to broach the subject, I'm not afraid to tell them OH, MY KID? FLUSHED IT DOWN THE TOILET. HOW'S THINGS WITH YOUR SPROGS? I suspect I'll be the life of the party with a sunny attitude like that.

You know, in the military, having a kid really is kind of a status thing for the wives. It's the one thing they all have in common, the one thing they can safely talk about when they secretly hate each others' guts... so where does that leave me? I don't want to tell them if they ask, but I'm sure they've heard: it's why Sid was sent home early from that hurricane bullshit, after all. They know.

I hope to FSM they have the good sense not to open THAT can of worms at the fucking Christmas party. Because if they do, well, I'm going to make damn sure it's the most socially awkward moment of their adult lives.

Monday, December 1, 2008

the end

It was our last chance. Our last.fucking.chance for me to get pregnant. And naturally, with what felt like EVERYTHING hanging onto the slim hope that maybe this time will be different, this time was really no different at all. So that's it. Five months, six counting the time before deployment, and nothing at all to show for it.

We've begun to think something is wrong with one or the other of us. Everyone else we know got pregnant right away, and we didn't. It's not rocket science; it shouldn't BE this hard. It's sex, right? It's nature. How can you fuck up something like that? Trust me, the Mansons can. And we did.

Sid's got an appointment for a semen analysis coming up later this week, and if that comes back normal, it's my turn to go to the doctor and start asking questions. And you know what? I'm deathly afraid that something else will be wrong with me, something else besides my thyroid. Something I can't fix with a pill.

I hope that Sid's the one who's messed up - and isn't that fucked up? - because if he's not, that means there's something wrong with ME. I don't want to say the word, I don't want that label...infertile. I don't want either of us to carry that burden, but if someone must, let it be him. Sid said the same thing: "If it has to be either of us, I hope it's me, because if it's you, you'd never forgive yourself." And he's right, I wouldn't.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

confession

I'm getting a bit jealous of Knut.

Sid is constantly checking on her, making sure she's okay, and giving her attention. Normally, I'd think it was cute, but for some reason, it's just really, really, aggravating me. Perhaps my memory is skewed, but I don't recall him treating me like that, ever. Not even after MY EPIC FAIL. Matter of fact, if I recall correctly, in the weeks after the failage, he hardly said anything to me at all.

I don't know if this is my malfunction or his. But either way, it really pisses me off.

And then I start thinking, if I were pregnant, would he be so loving and attentive to me then? and would he hover over our baby like that? and it breaks my fucking heart. Lately, I've been feeling like I was over the worst of it, and that I had finally made some semblance of peace with all that bs. It didn't really hurt to look at babies, I didn't want to cry when I saw pregnant women. And it's shit like this that makes me realize that hey, you know, it's not that fucking simple. Bitch, you thought you were through the worst? Now you're jealous and resentful of your fucking CAT, and doesn't that just make you feel like a piece of shit all over again?

Monday, November 24, 2008

omg wtf knuty-q

Knut knows we feel bad about her pirate eye (and the conehead), so she's milking it for all it's worth. Usually, if she wants attention, she'll come to you...but that rarely happens. Lately, I can't sit down without having to guard my lap, because she'll come slinking over bonking her conehead on everything, and want to sit on me. Last night, she tried to act all pitiful and mooch Sid's ice cream. I find it hilarious yet maddening. This morning while finishing up my Yoga Burn dvd, lying down and doing the ending relaxation bits, she climbed right up on my stomach and started poking around. On my bladder. Which was very, very full.

Any other time, I wouldn't mind lavishing attention on Knut. But right now, I'm constantly weeing. I'm on the run up to that wonderful time of the month, and the bloat is going away, which means OMG, STAY NEAR THE POTTY ROOM. And my boobs are fucking sore as hell, and she wants to root around at my chest and sit on my bladder? Hell to the no, Knottyhead.

It's just the weirdest thing, having a siamese that constantly wants to cuddle. Dare I say, it's wearing on the nerves, too?

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

my cat is a pirate

Knut has always had a wonky right eye: when she was a kitten, she had some sort of infection that left it looking...kind of gross. Her cornea is scarred to high heaven, and her sight is very likely smeary and clouded on that side. But it never seemed to bother her, and it never bothered me. She is my one-eyed Knut: my furry, bad-tempered pirate baby.

Last week, as best I can tell, she scratched that eye somehow. Maybe she was fighting with one of our other cats, maybe she just did the kitty equivalent of poking herself in the eye. I don't know. But she had a scratch on her eye, and it didn't seem to bother her. One of my guinea pigs had had the same thing happen once, and there was nothing we could do about it except make sure it didn't get worse. Well, the guinea pig's eye healed. Knuty's did not.

I took her to the vet yesterday (shout out to the awesome staff at Ahoskie Animal Clinic!), thinking that I would be getting some eyedrops for her or something. Well, it turns out that Knut's scratch ulcerated, and she has lost at least half of the layers of her cornea in that spot. The pressure inside her eye could cause the remaining layers to rupture. Which, even to the layman, sounds every bit as bad as it really is.

The vet said that her best chance of keeping that eye would be to use her third eyelid as a sort of eyepatch: pull it up, stitch it there, and give the cornea some time to try and heal. There's a good chance that this will work, and she'll be fine. But if for some reason it doesn't, she will have to have that eye removed.

Ho-ly shit.

I was dead calm as the vet was telling me all this: composed as I said goodbye to Knut and they took her back to prep for surgery. It was only when I got to the lobby to fill out the consent forms that it really hit me, and then I started to cry. Knut has never spent a night away from Sammy, never spent a night away from people who loved her. And now she's going to be doped up, stitched up, and wake up surrounded by strangers? It broke my heart.

Sid has been kind of a mess. He's never had to deal with something like this: hell, neither have I, but if you've had as many pets as I've had (and buried as many as I have), you learn to just roll with the punches when it comes to the furrybutts. An injury is not.so.bad. It definitely could have been a lot worse.

Right now I'm trying to find the funny in this situation, and the only thing I can come up with is that now my Knut really is a pirate: an awesome hardcore pirate, because her eyepatch is made with her own living flesh. Doesn't get much more hardcore than that, does it?

Monday, November 10, 2008

a new low

This month is NaBloPoMo, and I was going to participate. That shit lasted about zero seconds. I haven't had the energy, or anything to blog about. I sat around in my pajamas for a week, and bathed only because it warmed me up: what the hell does someone like that have to say, anyway, that warrants a blog post every day for a month? The winter blahs have hit me hard.

I feel like total fucking shit. Right now, my world is pretty colorless. The food I normally like is just...gobs of goo. It doesn't have any taste at all. Yesterday I ate chocolate chip cookies, and it was just like sawdust. Even spaghetti with cheese, the food of the gods, has been reduced to nothing but it's texture. And to be honest, it's texture is pretty gross.

Everything feels so pointless, petty and motherfucking futile. Why should I get out of bed? Why should I eat? Why should I take my vitamin, or my thyroid pills? Why should I get dressed, or do yoga, or ride my bike? Why should I even fucking bother?

Is this what depression feels like? Seasonal Affective Disorder? It's not as crushing as last year. But then again, last year, food was something I still took pleasure in, so I don't know where that leaves me.

The part of me that lives to kick my own ass is insisting I'm being stupid. That I'm little better than a sulking child. That I need to snap the fuck out of it. Because you know, it's supposed to be that easy.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

(not so) well played, America

Tuesday night, I passed out early. I wasn't up to see the election results. Sid was. He woke me up and asked, "Guess who's President?" and I said "John McCain". Looks like I was wrong.

Well played, America. It's nice to be pleasantly surprised for once, so thank you for finally getting your head out of your ass. I was beginning to suspect that you never would.

The anti-choice initiatives that were put on the ballots in many states were shot down. Again, well played, America. Wimminz is people. Fertilized eggies is not. Good call. Pats on the back all round.

But, America, what the fuck were you thinking when you voted for every bit of gay-discriminating bullshit that was put on the ballot? Seriously, what the fuck were you thinking? Can you give me one good reason, one solid, irrefutable reason why gay couples cannot marry or adopt children? One that doesn't come from the bible? Because if you can't, if your whole argument boils down to "the bible says gays are icky", that's unconstitutional, innit? That blows the bit about the separation of church and state right out the fucking window, doesn't it?

I do think we're moving the right direction, though. Things like this are horribly discouraging, and sometimes it's hard to hang onto hope. But change happens slowly. Even 50 years ago, no one would have imagined that a man of African-American descent would win the presidental election. 50 years ago, gays outing themselves to their families would not expect love and acceptance, or even just tolerance. We have come a long way in that respect. But we still have such a long way to go.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

bad luck is still luck

My period, my reliable period, never showed on Halloween like it was supposed to. The last time my periods went funny like this, it was because my thyroid was fucked. Not so this time, so omg, what could it be? Could I really and seriously finally be pregnant? Piss test said no. I waited.

Saturday, the first of November, still no period. I feel just like it's going to start, but where is it? Could I really and seriously finally, even though the piss test said no be pregnant? I dared to hope.

Sunday, today. Third day of the wait. I wake up at the asscrack of dawn with a mess to clean. It seems I am really and seriously not pregnant. It seems no-luck fucks like me don't ever get a break.

I'm angry. At myself, for actually getting my hopes up, and at the world - at good old Mother Nature - for piling one more shitty thing on my shoulders. I'm angry at the women who get oopspregnant, at the women who get pregnant their first try. I'm angry at the crackheads who have babies, when I can't even have one when I stop drinking my morning cup of coffee and the occasional glass of wine.

I guess it goes without saying that I'm hurt, too, for all the same reasons. What makes me so different? Some would say that it's just not god's plan for me. I would say that god can go fuck his fucking self, because his plan for me is SHIT (mmmm, sacrilegious).

What could be the second reason? Anyone? ANYONE? Bueller? Bueller?

There is no reason. I just have terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad luck. And there is nothing I can do about it, except wait. Wait, for three years, five years, whatever, until Sid decides to send me back on this rollercoaster for the THIRD FUCKING TIME. I don't want to do it again. I don't want to give up and wait. But I don't have much of a choice. And I'm so fucking mad at him for it.

I think that's the worst part of it.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

random snark redux

Sid is so impatient to get his new television. Why isn't it here yet? It should have been here by now! for the past two days, and I'm fairly sure he'll get it sometime this week, but STILL. Why is it okay for him to draw up a fucking diagram on how he wants to place the tv he hasn't received yet, but if I, or any woman, really, wants to look at clothes and toys for a baby they haven't conceived yet, we're fucking loons? We're impatient and crazy and why are you so impatient? Why is that? I seriously want to know. The double standard makes me crazy. I can't wrap my mind around it. I'm crazy for coming undone over some shit that I can have sometime in the future, and I'm crazy for wanting to talk about it, ever. And yet he's not crazy for feeling unadulterated technophilic lust over some shit that he can have when his old tv breaks, and he's not crazy for bringing it up every damned day?

Well fuck me blind. Isn't that just the damnedest thing? Does some magical element of the penis - or is it the scrotum - grant one the Right To Be Impatient? Is it just not ladylike to deport one's womanself in such manner? I'd very much like to know.

I feel like shit because Miss P is coming, and besides the normal hormonal batshit crazy that comes with it, I am unable to talk to Sid, or anyone, about how disappointed and sad I am. And that makes it worse. What really drives the salt into that huge open wound is the woman who got pregnant at the same time I did: it's all she talks about. "Oh, thank god for this, thank god it's a healthy pregnancy." Well god can go fuck himself. Bitch, you just.got.lucky. There's another woman who tested 10 dpo just like I did, and she got a positive just like I did, and she was so over the moon about it (just like I was, even though I didn't tell every-fucking-body). Bitch that I am, a very small part of me wanted to see how she would handle the disappointment if she ended up with a toilet full of blood. Of course, she didn't. She.got.lucky. And she has no idea. No idea at all. And it's okay for them to come and piss in my cornflakes, but if I bring up the fact that you know what, I really do feel like shit and I wish you'd shut up I'M Debbie Downer.

Well fuck me blind again. Isn't it just the damndest thing?

Monday, October 27, 2008

denial

One way I'm just like my mother is that I have a tendency to ignore a problem, outright deny that there is even a problem at all, until it is so bad it can no longer be ignored or denied. It evolves into something that becomes so massive that one can no longer look away. The problem must be confronted, after being allowed to grow into something huge and terrifying.

My sister, her fiance, Sid... even I have been wondering for a very long time if my youngest sister has an eating disorder. She used to be such a little meatball, and all of a sudden she lost all the weight and started looking...well, for lack of a better word...scarily tiny. Yesterday, my mother admitted that she thinks Abbie has bulimia.

When Abbie came to visit over the summer, I watched her like a hawk. I had my suspicions. But she didn't go to the bathroom after meals, she ate her food just like everyone else, so I figured I was being paranoid. Jessica tells me now that yes, Abbie came back from summer vacation having gained weight. But she lost it all immediately. And now Mom says that yes, there might be a problem.

If my mother is admitting that there is even the possibility that something is wrong, it is bad. This is the woman who denied having an ear infection up until her eardrum almost ruptured. If she says she thinks there is a problem, well then, there damn well is a problem.

Jessica asked me, "what do I do?" and I said I didn't know. She said, "how can we make this better?" and I said I didn't think we could, on our own. She asked, "where do I turn to get help for her?" and all I could think to suggest was to call the local hospitals and start asking about ED counseling. I feel helpless. My baby sister is sick, and I can't help her. All I can do is sit on the sidelines and hope that for once, for-fucking-once my mother will be able to get her shit together and do something for her youngest daughter before it's too late.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

wanting

The difference between Sid and I, the one huge difference that I am constantly aware of, is how we handle wanting. You know, how we deal with wishing we had x, y, or z and knowing we have to wait to obtain it. I bide my time quietly until the rage at having to wait boils over, and then I get angry and want to air my grievance. Then I go back to waiting patiently again. Sid, on the other hand, lets everyone know just how much he wants that thing, and how it would be great to have that thing, and man, doesn't that thing look spiffy? It is never far from his mind.

For the past two years, he's been wanting a new television. When we first moved into this house, we bought a 52" rear-projector (at Sid's insistence), and he was happy for about 0.5 seconds, before he started finding all these things about it that he didn't really think were so great. He wanted another tv. And I said no, we would not be buying a new one, as this one was functional.

Since then, every time we go to an electronics store, Sid goes to drool over the televisions. He scours all the electronics websites for good deals. He mentions at least once a week how he'd like a new tv.

Two days ago, I finally caved and told him that if he could find a new tv for a decent price, he could get it. I'm sick of being the Grinch. But goddamn, he was the one who told me that we should be putting money back for when he gets out of the Navy in August. The only thing I've purchased recently was a 5-pack of undies, on sale, because my old ones were full of holes and falling apart. I've done my part: I wore my raggedy underwear until there was nothing left of them rather than buy new ones. What has he done? Bought a $1,400 television.

And I'm the bad guy, here.

He didn't understand my frustration when I remarked that I wished the things I wanted were so easy to get. He offered me the same prosaic bullshit as Riot: "You have YEARS yet!" Knowing you have 10 or 15 years in which to obtain something that you want now doesn't make the waiting any easier.

And that's what Sid doesn't grok. The two years I made him wait to buy a new television didn't stop him from wanting it: he wasn't content to sit back and say "Fuck it, I've got years to buy a new tv!" I didn't tell him, "Let's go buy a tv," and wait until we got to the store and he'd picked out one he liked, and then say, "Ooh, you know what, we can't afford it, and you'll just have to wait. But hey, you have like 10 or 15 years yet to buy a new one!"

It is the closest comparison I can think of. Anyone in that position would be justifiably angry at having to wait. So why do people assume that just because I have ten or fifteen years left to have a family, I should be happy to sit back and wait for it?

Monday, October 20, 2008

this is why I stop at one glass of wine

My mom is a raging alcoholic. She will get shitfaced and say and do things that no healthy, sane person does when sober. Recently, she propositioned my sister's fiance during one of her drunken episodes, and this has sparked much drama. She is a diabetic, she does not need to be drinking like this: no one should, first of all, but for someone who is supposed to be strictly monitoring their blood glucose, this is definitely not okay.

This, all of this, is the reason I do not ever get shitfaced. I will not be my mother all over again. I'm like her in a lot of ways, but in this? I refuse.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

two things

Thing the first: An asshole in an SUV tried to hit Sid up for some money today. Keep in mind, Sid was just coming back from some bullshit Fleet Week thing, so it was obvious he was military. This dude starts talking incoherently about how he needs gas money and something about "rich men". Sid handed him a five dollar bill, and the guy says "That's it?"

THAT'S IT? Motherfucker, are you for real? Hitting up a military guy for money, first of all, like he makes bookoo dough or something, and then having the gall to complain when he doesn't give you a blank fucking check? You're lucky it was Sid standing there, and not me, because I would have grabbed my money back and gone home.

Thing the second: a woman I know just found she's having a girl. And she's SAD, you see, because she wanted a boy. Right about now, woman, I am having a hard time managing any sympathy. You see, lady, you're lucky. You don't know it, but you're lucky: you have had nothing in your pregnancy or your time trying to conceive that would allow you any bitching. No disappearing babies, no health scares, nothing. You have been lucky. And now, oh noez, you're having a girl? BUT YOU WANTED A BOY! Boo-fuckity-hoo. Cry me a river, why don't you?

Friday, October 10, 2008

left out

Two more of my friends are pregnant. This makes - what - five? Six? I saw one of them typed an announcement on one of the message boards and it was like a punch to the gut. It hurt, and a tiny little strangled noise came out of my throat when I exhaled, and then suddenly, I couldn't draw another breath without sobbing.

I have two tries left; next week, and next month, and then that's it. If it doesn't happen then, it just isn't going to happen at all. I don't even want to try, because I feel like if I have to go through the disappointment one more time, I will break. Once when I was little, very little, I wrote a story about someone who cried until they until they died. I didn't know I was writing about myself.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

a post about starky's epic fail nothing

This will be the fourth or fifth post that I have started and then deleted. What the fuck? I want to make a post that isn't about STARKY'S EPIC FAIL, or any of that attendant mess. And yet... it's the biggest, most personal, most taboo thing in my life right now, and while it doesn't occupy my every cognizant moment, neither is it ever entirely forgotten. It isn't something that I feel I can or even should talk about, because to an outsider, it will seem kind of silly. To someone who knows me, it will just be excruciatingly awkward. And besides, I asked Sid not to mention it. Ever again. He must have seen death in my eyes when I basically demanded he keep his mouth shut on this particular subject, because he has not once brought it up since his first night back from the boat.

But more than that, it's just pointless. What is there to say about this whole clusterfuck? Seriously, what is there to say?

"Sid, (or Riot, or Spartan, or Floyd...)I'm actually pretty pissed at myself about this whole mess, and I feel sick when I think that I could have finally had our own (my own) family, but instead, it literally and figuratively got flushed down the toilet. Every time I see a pregnant woman, or a baby, it's all I can think about. I look at babies, and all I can think is that I could have had that, but IT GOT FLUSHED DOWN THE MOTHERFUCKING TOILET."

"How depressingly morbid, starky! Do go on!"


Yeah...no. My social skills are a bit rusty, but even I suspect that that's just not acceptable conversation, right there. Who seriously says shit like that out loud? Seriously. Because even typing it seems like too much.

I am not one of those people who think that life starts at conception, and I will be the first to admit that I am only mourning what could have been, because I never actually had anything. I never had anything beyond that positive test. And to be honest, I think that is the worst kind of loss. I started with nothing, and I ended up with nothing. I have no proof that any of it was real, that I ever had anything to lose in the first place: I have nothing tangible that I can present to say "this is what I lost". I have nothing.

And it feels stupid to be dwelling on nothing.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

I can't get away from it

The universe, god, or fate, whatever you call it, has one fucked up sense of humor. How do I know? Oh, it's easy. You see, right now, I am feeling a just a wee bit fragile: the sight of pregnant women or babies just breaks my heart. I can't bear to be around either right now, and so what happens? Every woman in the tri-county area is dragging around eleventy-three crotch droplets, or is expecting a few. Either way, fun times!

Sid took me out to eat on Monday, and our waitress? Was hugely pregnant. I almost cried. I kept my eyes to the table, or stared out the window, rather than look at her. I just couldn't take it. Petty? Sure. Painful? Hell yes.

Afterward, we did some game shopping, and again, with the pregnant women stalking me. I could have screamed. Did I just not notice this before? Is it just now, because I'm so sensitive to it, that I notice? Or am I being kicked while I'm down? Because that's what the fuck it feels like.

Anyway, the very next day we were expecting to have a quiet day at home. Sid didn't have work, and we were just going to sit around the house and have fun. But his temporary cap shattered, and we had to make an emergency trip to the dentist. While he's in the back getting his gold toof, in walks a couple with a baby. Couldn't have been more than three months old, this little girl, and she was the most beautiful little thing. I couldn't stop staring. And I didn't know that anything could be so hard as sitting in that waiting room and trying to pretend that I was not absolutely shattered.

Every little noise that baby made, my heart would start pounding and I'd feel that weird sense of needing to do something, but not knowing what. The only thing I can compare it to is when you're young, and you start having sex dreams: you wake up all in a sweat, with your heart pounding, and there is such a sense of excited, sad yearning. You wake up feeling as though you have missed something terribly important, something that would have absolutely changed you. You know that you are missing something, but you don't know what it is.

Oh, it doesn't make any sense. I'm not sure that even Sid would understand. He seemed to think it was kind of amusing, when on the way home, I offhandedly mentioned the cute little baby in the waiting room. He asked me "You really want a baby, don't you?" And of course, instead of opening that can of worms, I brushed it off: "No, I just thought she was really cute. I wanted to pinch her fat little arms." I think if he knew the truth, it would wound him terribly, and I don't want that. He always says he wants to make me happy, and in this, he can't just go out and buy something, or take me away for a weekend, or do whatever it is that he thinks I want, because I never ever ask for anything.

But what would be the harm in just once acknowledging it? Just once? I came close at the restaurant. I told him pretty much the same thing that I said in the opening paragraph: "The universe has a sick sense of humor, Sid, because right now, I can't stand the sight of pregnant women, and remember the day my 'period' started? The pregnant woman at the mexican restaurant? And now this server, here? It's fucked up." And he agreed that yes, it was fucked up, and that was as far as the conversation went. What would be the harm in just one time telling him, "Yes, I want a child. I want to make a better family than the ones we came from"? If he's read this blog, then he already knows. And in that case, we're both passive-aggressive shits, because I haven't brought it up, and neither has he.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

*insert swear word of your choice*

Sid told some people on the boat about my Epic Fail at Spawning. And somehow, in their minds, this means that I am an inconsolable mess, sobbing over my stained panties or something. Because they are sending Sid home early.

Shit, I think even Sid thinks I'm an inconsolable mess, sobbing...(and so on and so forth) by the way he's been talking. Hate to burst your bubble, silly menz, but either you don't know women, or you don't know this woman. Because it has been business as usual at Manson Homestead, thank-you-very-much.

I mentioned it to him once, one time, just a simple and matter-of-fact "hey, I thought you should know..." and every single time he's called since then, that's all he wants to talk about. Which is really starting to get to me: I want to put this shit behind me and just move on. Quit bringing it up, already! In the grand scheme of things, what happened was not a huge deal. Quit treating it as if it is.

I'm actually not really looking forward to Sid coming home, because if he's going to keep bringing it up, I don't know if I'll be able to restrain myself when the urge to hit him with my Frying Pan O' Doom strikes. Also, I'm indescribably mad that he is blabbing our personal business all over the boat, because seriously, I haven't said a word about it to anyone that I speak to face-to-face. Because telling people on the internet is not the same as telling people in real life: on the internet, it's not so personal. On the internet, you don't have to put on a brave face.

Anyway. Yeah. I'm really super pissed about all this. It was no one's business. If I'd known that he would so freely discuss my Epic Fail at Spawning with TEH MENZ, I never would have said a word to him. I wouldn't even have mentioned it here, where he could have seen it. It would have stayed private. It would have stayed personal. And it wouldn't be a huge deal.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

a real fucking laff riot

This explains the positive pregnancy test, and the killer cramps. As if I needed to feel any more like shit. It is a real fucking laff riot over here, let me assure you. A veritable carnival of hilarity.

With Sid gone, there's no one to talk to. I wasn't going to tell him at all, because this is shitty news to have to hear while you're deployed, but I couldn't keep it to myself. I had to tell someone: I had to hear myself say the words out loud, just once. And goddamn, do I wish I had just kept it to myself. Having to explain it to him, having answer his questions, having to cut short the conversation... was harder than staying silent. And he just didn't seem like he really cared. I could have been telling him about the weather, and his reaction would have been exactly the same.

The thing that pisses me off the most about this entire situation is all those assclowns who want to try and tell me that everything happens for a reason, this was meant to be and all that other saccharine bullshit. Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you. How fucking dare you say that? Telling me that I am not meant to be a mother, that Sid is not meant to be a father, that I was meant to lose a pregnancy I wanted with all my heart is probably the douchebaggiest thing I have ever heard. And I've heard more than my fair share of dumbfuckery.

One of the women who has told me that shit time and again is pregnant, and is distressed about all the miscarriage stories she's heard. I want to be an asshole right back to her and tell her that "everything happens for a reason, right? If you're meant to have that baby, you will. If you're meant to miscarry, you will." But that snark will look like it's coming from nowhere, so I keep it to myself rather than start drama. But god, how I would love to shove her shit right back into her face.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

giving it up: a rant

So, we're done trying to have a baby. Sid has been sent away for a little while, to do some military bullshit, and this was supposed to be our last crack at trying, and we no longer even have that. We're done.

I had hoped that this month we would get it right; I had held onto the hope that these past two months were just shitty luck, and this time, this last time, we'd finally get it. Apparently, we are not even being allowed that final bit of hope. Fate, Mother Nature, or the military has decided that the Mansons just aren't worthy.

Surprisingly, I'm not really sad...yet. Right now, I'm just really fucking pissed. There is a tension in my muscles and a heavy feeling in my chest that will have release, whether by kicking and screaming, or manic exercise. I'm thinking exercise would be the least destructive, most adult choice, but I surely do feel like choosing the first option.

I tried to explain to Sid last night that I wasn't mad at him, just myself, but I don't think he really understood. Maybe I shouldn't be so disgusted with myself, but I can't help but think I was some kind of idiot to hold onto hope. To really think, deep down, that we could have that kind of happiness. Yes, I'm angry at myself because I feel like I was stupid. Like I should have known that I wouldn't have that one thing I dreamed about for what feels like forever.

The last time this happened, I told Sid I would never get my hopes up like that again, that it hurt too much to be so disappointed. Apparently I lied, because I did let myself hope. And it fucking blows to be back in this spot again. This year, though, I will try harder to keep myself out of that holiday slump; when Thanksgiving and Christmas roll around, I can't let myself get back into that bad place, where I keep thinking that this should have been the year we celebrated new life, I should be pregnant right now, we should be so fucking happy...and we're not...I'm not.

Sid didn't seem all that fussed with our failure last year, and this year is no exception. He just seems so...unruffled. As if it doesn't really matter to him, as if it's not really something that he wants with all his heart, like I do. Not that I want to see him crushed, but I'd at least like him to express a bit of remorse over the fact that all our baby plans have once again blown up in our faces. Because it bothers me, a lot, and I don't understand how he can be so lackadaisical about it. I want him to at least acknowledge that, yes, it's fucked up that we're back here again, and I am once again hurting and bewildered, and I'm not crazy for feeling this way. Because I get damned tired of spilling my guts to him and having him just make fun of me. It's hard to remind myself that he's joking. I'm dead serious, and in a matter like this, I want a serious reply. When he's upset about something and starts berating himself for whatever, I don't echo his sentiments, I tell him what he needs to hear: that he's not crazy, it's okay to feel like shit. That he's not wrong.

I guess that's why I blog: because a fucking blog doesn't call me crazy. If I felt like I could tell Sid any of this stuff, I would. He's my husband, and I don't like keeping secrets. But in this, I just can't talk to him. I get so tired of being called crazy, or fat, or whatever the barb du jour is, when all I want is his support.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

my emo is showing

Yesterday, I told Sid that I couldn't remember the last time I cried. Which was a lie: I remember quite clearly the few times in my life I have truly broken down and sobbed. Yesterday would have been one of those times, had I been alone. But I wasn't. All day I'd been fighting tears, and in the evening, after having fought it all day, after being exhausted by pain, I momentarily lost control. In front of Sid. He asked what was wrong, and I said nothing. But everything is wrong, and I don't know how to tell him.

I thought I was pregnant. I pissed on a stupid home pregnancy test and got a positive. And Miss P showed up just as prompt as you please, with cramps that are truly breathtaking. I might go so far as to say these are some of the most exquisite and body-locking cramps I have ever had. If Sid were in this kind of pain, I have no doubt he'd be writhing on the ground, screaming. Because I surely want to.

So there was that; that disappointment, that feeling of failure. But then two of the women who post on the same online community as me have just found out they are pregnant, on their first tries, no less, and it was like salt in an open wound. Here I am at home, hardly able to breathe around the pain, and these women are exulting in the very thing I thought I finally had.

Now, usually, I'm not a very jealous person. When I was little, that wasn't true. It has taken me a long time to reach this point, where I can say "I'm okay with not having that thing," and mean it. But this is not one of those times. And while I don't doubt that these women very much want to be pregnant, that they are looking to the future with hope and promise...I want it, too. It's base jealousy. I'm not proud of it. In fact, I think it's stupid and petty of me to cry over probably one of the happiest moments in the lives of these women. But this feels like one of the lowest in mine, and there's no getting around that.

I have not forgotten how bad I felt the last time we had to put off having a baby. That kind of low, you don't easily forget, okay? I was fucking devastated: I cried for weeks, and I'm not sure Sid ever really understood how badly it hurt me to have to put that dream aside. I don't know how I'll be able to do it again. And I know it's selfish of me, it's a stupid and selfish thing, and I'll admit to it. I very much want the honor, the absolute privilege, of looking into the eyes of a child and knowing that that little girl or boy is absolutely depending on me to show them right from wrong, and help them as they grow...fuck, I just want to give a child the love and acceptance I never had when I was little. I want to make a better family than the one I grew up in. I want to look into the eyes of my child and know that I have broken the cycle of violence passed to me by my mother, and wherever she got it from, all the way back through the generations. I want to look at my child and know that I have finally banished that demon. It's vain. It's unnecessary. I should just let it go. But I can't. I can't. How do you let go of a desire such as that? How do you do it?

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Siddy's gold toof

Sid's got notoriously bad teeth. Like, nightmarish redneck teeth. If he didn't go to the dentist with such alarming frequency, I'm convinced he'd be sporting one fucked up grill. As it stands, he's got a cracked tooth and requires a crown. Given the choice between ceramic and gold, he chose gold. Thus Siddy the Pimp was born.

He only has a temporary crown for now, no flashy gold to speak of, and yet every time he opens his mouth to speak, I find I have to fight the urge to make a "ding" sound, just like the sparkly sound effect used in cartoons. Just the mere prospect of entertainment is enough to keep me occupied.

In other, not so entertaining news, there has been much drama over our desktop monitor. I'm seriously not going to get into the whole story right now, because even just thinking about it makes my blood pressure go up. For now, I'll just say that it has been made clear to me that in matters of Computers and Other Tech Related Shit, my plebeian opinion matters not one whit. If memory serves, Sid's exact words to me yesterday were "It's my computer, I just let you use it." Which was probably one of the greatest variations on "stfu" that I have ever heard from him. Surprisingly enough, I still get along just fine with him, but as soon as he starts talking about the computer, I find myself at the end of my patience. The other day, Cory was over when Sid started going on about it again, and I had to walk away. Literally. I went outside and wandered around in the yard until I felt like I could keep a lid on my temper.

So pretty much, things are back to normal at Manson Homestead.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

an atheist through and through

When I was younger, maybe about eight or nine, my grandparents took my sister and me to visit my great-aunt. She lived in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere, and it was the first time my parents had not accompanied us. My grandmother told us to go for a walk, follow the fence up onto the mountain and back. And I didn't. I led my sister up the path onto the mountain, and forgot all about following the fence. After about half an hour of talking and playing and wandering around, I realized we were lost.

I knew that I should have been able to get a general idea of where I was by the sun, as it had been on our backs as we walked up the path. I knew that if I walked back toward the sun, I would find our way back home eventually. But there were so many trees I couldn't orient myself. We had stumbled off the path, and could not find our way back.

My sister was the first to panic. I had been holding it together for her sake, but when Jess started to freak, it was nearly impossible. I told her that we would find our way back, that all we had to do was follow the slope of the mountain and we would find a road, and from there we'd have no trouble finding our way back. When we did that, and only ended up in bushes, not a paved road, I lost it.

Like the good little Christian children we'd been raised to be, we cried and prayed for help. None came. Finally, I told Jess that we would go back the way we'd come and try to retrace our steps. By this point, the sun was beginning to set, and I knew that Jess was imagining a long and fearful night on the mountain, because she kept asking about bears. I didn't have an answer for her, and so we stopped talking, lost in our own anxieties and imaginings. In the silence, we could hear a voice shouting, so far away as to be almost inaudible.

Our grandmother. We followed the sound of her voice back over the mountain until we ended up in the road almost a mile away. I think that was the moment my faith in the Almighty began to crumble. And I realize that I must not have been very strong in my faith for it to be so irreversibly damaged by something so minor.

The killing blow to my religious leanings came when I was sixteen years old. I prayed that God would make me a better person. That God would teach me something that would change me profoundly for the better. And then my very first boyfriend raped me. On Christmas Eve, of all nights.

For a while afterward, about two years, I told myself that it had happened for a reason, that it was all part of The Plan To Make Starky A Good Person. It was my crutch, my lifeline. It was my delusion. It was the only thing that kept me sane during that dark time. And I knew that I was starting to finally heal and move on when I realized that if there really was a God, He had one hell of a funny way of answering my heartfelt prayer.

Some people will say that I turned away from God because I was angry at Him for answering my prayer in such a way, that it has made me a better person and I am blind to that fact. I will admit that at first, I was angry. I felt betrayed, by the boy who said he loved me and the God who was supposed to protect me. I won't deny it. But when the anger faded? There was indifference.

I no longer care one way or the other if there is some higher power guiding my life. It won't change the way I live, or the things I hope for, or the way I treat others. It doesn't matter what pretty words I offer up to the heavens.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

a bitter pill to swallow

This article left me in tears. I don't understand how people can be so cruel to the children they are supposed to love and protect and care for. I don't want to know what kind of sick fuck you've got to be to be so cruel to a child. And it's shit like this that makes me wish I believed in hell. There is no justice in the world, none at all.

Maybe it's just because I'm crazy hormonal, and suffering a huge disappointment, but seriously. I can't take the bullshit. Miss P is officially late, and shows no sign of wanting to show up. And Sid doesn't know it, but I took a pregnancy test yesterday. It was negative.

I will say no more about it.

This means that I am probably hypo again. Which I also don't want to say anymore about, but I need to get this out. If I tell Sid what I'm feeling right now, he won't understand. And I can't handle that right now.

I hate being sick. I hate that it makes me different. I don't mind it, usually. Normally, I'm just happy to be feeling okay again, and I'm eternally grateful that I have an illness that is manageable. But I hate that every month, I have to walk to the pharmacy to pick up my levothyroxine, and that everyone can see me walking home with my pill bag. I hate that I have to plan my meals around that pill, that I can't eat when I'm hungry if I'm in that three hour window, that I can't just up and go somewhere without dragging my medicine with me in case I can't get home in time to take it. And when I think these things, I feel so ungrateful. I should be glad that I am so lucky: I have insurance that pays for my bloodwork, I live in a country where I have access to the medicine that will make me feel well again.

So right now I'm feeling a little bit a lot like shit. Compounding that, Sid doesn't know I took a pregnancy test already, and he's trying to be helpful by telling me that starky, you never know, it might not be your thyroid, maybe you're pregnant. I don't have it in me to tell him I do know, I am not pregnant, it has to be my thyroid. As much as it hurt to tell myself that, I don't have the heart to do it to him.

Monday, August 4, 2008

the Mansons talk spawnage

A few days ago, I came up with a title for an entry, and it was, to my mind, perfect. And now that I actually have the time and the privacy to write, I can't remember what it was I'd thought up. And I don't know what's happened lately that I feel the need to record for posterity.

OH, let's start off with a gem: if my period is late this month, I'm either hypothyroid again, or pregnant. I don't know which at this point, all I do know is that I'm pretty icky feeling and waiting to see what happens. For the past week and a half, I have been nauseated and miserably tired. You see? It could go both ways. Either way, methinks I'm going to end up getting my thyroid checked, so in that respect, the situation is lose-lose. I'm going to end up with needles in me either way.

The second gem: if I am pregnant, it was entirely planned. Oh yes, you read rightly. Part of me is scared to fucking death at the decision. Another part of me is insisting that Sid and I are doing something very stupid, and that I should bail now while I still have time. The third part is just sitting back in disbelief at the fact that Sid has come around to the idea of spawnage. I imagine I will have more thoughts on this matter if/when I get a positive test.

Giving up my four-cups-o-caffeinated-goodness-a-day habit has been excruciating. Literally as well as emotionally. I loves me some coffee, almost as much as cheese or chocolate or ice cubes. Going without makes starky a sad panda! At first, that's why I thought I was tired and sick, but once the unholy headaches eased up, I still felt like shit, so I tossed that notion out the window. I still allow myself one cup a day, but to me, that's like taking just a bite of cheese, just one ice cube, just one little piece of chocolate... It's just a tease.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

catching up

Sid came home on the 11th.

I wish it had actually been as simple as saying it makes it seem. The week leading up to that was filled with bitchwork, and the day before homecoming was insane. Insane. The cats picked up on that and vomited all over hell's half-acre as soon as I finished cleaning.

The morning of, we were expecting rain. When I woke up at 6, it was drizzling, and everything was wet. So instead of my white dress, I wore my black one. With that long black thing on, and my hair curled (THAT was interesting), I thought I bore more than a passing resemblance to Mrs Lovett from Sweeney Todd. Indeed, that night, Sid mentioned unprompted that I'd looked just like her. Minus the whole dark eye-makeup thing; that look has not been my thing for years now.

Cory came with, as it's not every day a friend of yours goes on deployment, and on the way to the base, we got stuck in traffic. A real gridlock. A car had broken down in the downtown tunnel, blocking all lanes of traffic. The cars were backed up for miles. And we sat with the car shut off for nearly half an hour, with me freaking out the whole time. I was convinced the Nassau would come in and the sailors disembark before we could get there.

I was wrong. By the time we got on base and found a place to park, the Nassau was pulling in. We were not as late as I'd imagined. For the next forty minutes, I stood in the baking sun...waiting. Did I mention I didn't wear sunscreen? Pasty-white starky, standing in the direct sunlight for a prolonged period of time? You know where this is going. I got good and fried.

Apparently new parents get to come off the boat first, and normally it wouldn't have bothered me, but for some reason, that day it really stuck in my craw. What a meager way of making amends for forcing these men away from the births of their children. "Oh, hey, we'll let you schmoes of the boat first, so you can finally see your new sons and daughters, and fuck the rest of the childless assholes." Yeah, that day it was really like a punch in the gut. Kick me while I'm down, why don't you.

It didn't matter, though, because Sid was right on the tails of those guys. As the crowd started to cheer, I turned to Cory and said, "we should get closer to them, Sid's expecting us to be over at the tent," and on the way over, I saw a bald guy, who could have been Sid from the back, but I wasn't sure, and I gave him a good look and noticed the blue platinum wedding band. It was Sid! Totally serendipitous, how that happened. We found each other right away in that big crowd.

Anyway, he's home. And while I'm happy to have him back, don't get me wrong, I wish that he'd stop spending so much time with his computer or his video games and do something with me. Anything. I helped him wax his car yesterday, just so I could spend time with him. Last night I broke down and told him how I felt, because it was obvious that he was not going to stop with the ignoring me unless I made him. And I didn't want to make him. But it's been almost a week. And I missed him. And I think that after five months apart, he can deign to put the controller down, shut off the computer, and spend some time with his wife.

Oh, and remember all that shit I wrote that I didn't want Sid to see? Stalking-ass motherfucker found and read this blog. Yes, that's right, Siddy, I called you a stalking-ass motherfucker. I only found this out because he teased me about my Brad Pitt dream.

AWKWARD.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

searching for reason where there is none

A few months ago, a friend of Sid's was raped on the boat. I'm sure he spared me the full drama of the entire situation, but needless to say, there was a span of time where she didn't want to be around any men, and he called me asking for help.

Like I was supposed to know what to say and do for this woman. Because being raped suddenly gives you magic mind-reading powers, usable only on other rape victims or something.

News to me, I tell you. I wish I'd known about this sooner.

I told him to just be patient with her. After something like that, it's hard to know who to trust, and he should just chill out. If she wanted to talk to him, she'd come to him, but to just back the hell off in the meantime and give her some space.

Apparently she's talking to him again. He's told her a bit about my own experience, and asked if, when they get back, she would like to talk to me. From what I understand, she's open to the idea.

I don't know how I feel about that. On one hand, I wish someone had been there for me after what I went through, someone to tell me that it would get better, and listen if I wanted to talk about it, and not judge me and tell me that I should be feeling this way and not that way, and why didn't you press charges? I would like to be that person for her, if I can.

And on the other hand, I'm afraid that I may do more harm than good. After all, I'm not a psychologist. I'm just someone who's been there, in that spot where you don't know who to trust, or what to think, and nothing makes sense, and everyone is telling you how you should feel. What can I do for this woman? Who do I think I am?

Someone who hasn't been there just doesn't know what it's like. Sid surely doesn't. As sympathetic as he is, and as understanding as he tries to be, he just doesn't get it. It's been six and a half years; I've accepted what happened, made my peace with it and moved on as best I can. I can explain to him what occurred, I can tell him how I felt and how it affected me, but I will never be able to make him understand why I said and did and thought the things that I did. I have stopped trying. Things like that don't have to make sense to anyone. They don't have to make sense to you, the person who is going through it.

Sid keeps asking me, "Why does she still have feelings for the guy?"

I don't know, any more than I know why I still had feelings for my boyfriend when he raped me. It just is. Fuck the reasons why. Sometimes there isn't a reason for things.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

sick to death of talking about my thyroid

With less than a month (OMG!) left in this deployment, the home stretch seems to be an eternity. And I am tired of talking to Sid about my medication, my bloodwork, my symptoms, my side effects... I'm just tired of it. He's not here to see the changes that have taken place, and he asks about it constantly. He's operating under the misguided impression that I am not the same person I was before, which is not something I ever actually said. I had made a blog post about it, and (stupidly) cross-posted it to a site I frequent and that he sometimes checks out, and he blew it all out of proportion and now, to his mind, he's coming home to a Pod Person or something.

The post in question was made in the depths of absolute alienation and discovery. I wrote about what I was feeling at the time, and it was by no means an objective look at my situation. Cory, who has been around to witness my subtle metamorphosis, assured me one day, unprompted, that I have not changed so terribly much. I relayed his words to Sid, who apparently never heard a word of what I said, because he's still convinced I've been replaced by a perky, cheerleader-type version of Starky.

I made the mistake of telling a few relatives, with the stipulation they never tell my mother, because she would blow it out of proportion to the point where, if I didn't get hold of the rest of the family before Mom did, she'd have everyone under the impression I have a goiter the size of a baby's head or something. Gory, false details are very important to my mother. The truth? Not so much.

Anyway, so now I've got a handful of people inquiring after my health, not including Sid, who asks nearly every day. And it's getting old. I know...everyone means well, and they are trying to understand what I'm dealing with. I understand. And I appreciate that I have people who care about me. But I am sick to death of talking about my thyroid.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

something so simple, something so symbolic

I'm ready to cut my hair. My ponytail is 10 inches, long enough to be of use to Locks of Love, which is the only reason I have let my mop reach this length.

It drives me crazy. The longer my hair gets, the more temperamental my scalp gets. While I do think my hair is beautiful, and I love the way it looks when I wear it down, it's just not for me. It gets to tickling my face, and the skin on the back of my neck breaks out, and when I try to sleep at night, the fan kicks up stray hairs to tickle at me and make me think there's a spider in my bed.

This has been quite an experience for me, letting my hair grow long for the express purpose of giving it to someone in need. I always regarded my natural hair color as boring. And I find that it isn't! I stopped dyeing it so that it would be all one color when it grew out, and I see now that it's natural color isn't a mousey and drab brown, but a beautiful shiny deep brownish red.

Through something so simple, appreciating my natural hair color, I've actually come to appreciate myself a lot more. Instead of wishing for some aspect of my body to be different, it's easier now to focus on the good things about myself.

And of course, there is a deeper reason why I have decided that now is the time to cut my hair. It wouldn't be Starky's Emo Moment of the Day otherwise! This is my way of letting go of that "baby dream". I'm tired of hanging on to the hope. I'm tired of feeling as though it should happen to me and feeling pissed off and sad when Sid changes his mind or something. Because in all my pregnancy dreams, I've had long hair. And so cutting it short is like cutting loose the dream, you see?

I am so ready to take this step. Growing my hair out has been so symbolic of my journey of self-acceptance and healing, and cutting it feels like the next step down the path of accepting what is, rather than longing for what what should be or could be.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

when diarrhea is the lesser evil

Levothyroxine causes insomnia in some people. Apparently, I am one of them. It was headaches for a few weeks. Then diarrhea. Now insomnia.

I'd really, truly, rather have diarrhea.

A few nights ago, I reached the end of my rope. I was exhausted, and had not heard another human voice in almost a week, and I was seriously reaching my breaking point. And the little water fountain for the cats decided to crap out and stop working. It was the THE LAST FUCKING STRAW. I put a bowl of water out for them and went to bed, because I couldn't handle anymore bullshit. It was 11 pm. 4 am rolled around, and I was still awake.

Yeah, I'd rather have diarrhea.

Add to that these anxiety attacks or whatever the hell they are, I'm really reaching the end of my endurance. I could be doing anything; walking down the street in broad daylight, lying bed in the dark, sitting at my computer, doing housework, ANYTHING... and suddenly it's like someone's tightened a belt around my ribs and I feel like I can't breathe. I can, it's not that I can't draw breath, but it feels like I can't. And I know it's all in my head, because it never happens when I'm with someone else.

This happened the last time Sid was gone, too. And my dad wanted to come and visit, and I wondered to myself how I was going to hide the fact that I couldn't function. But I was fine for his whole visit. I had someone to talk to, something to distract me, and I was fine. And as soon as he left, it started up again.

I don't know why this happens, I just know that it does.

Now, I'm not a very social person. I don't know many people in this town, and I'm not so close with my family I can just call them up for a chat any old time. I used to be friends with the neighbors, but I guess they thought I was too...needy or something. Jesus christ, I was lonely, Sid was away for six months, and they were the only people I could talk to, and they basically said, "you need to find something else to do, because we don't want you coming over here."

There is no one to talk to. No one to turn to. If I didn't talk to my cats, the silence would be deafening. And I have brought this on myself.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

america, fuck yeah

There's only a month or so left in this deployment. The dates could change, and I'm not supposed to share them anyway. "A month or so" will suffice. Because THE TERRISTS might be reading! Not to poke fun at what some might find a sensitive issue, but I don't hold such a high opinion of myself that I think anyone, much a "terrist", is reading this. But I'll keep my mouth shut just the same. My husband is already unpopular among his peers and superiors for not believing in The Christian God (or any god, what a dirty atheist) that I don't want to make things worse by COMPROMISING SECURITY. (AMERICA, FUCK YEAH, guys. Kiss the fattest part of my ass and smile while you do it, because freedom of religion also means freedom from religion. Just because you believe in the Judeo-Christian sky-daddy doesn't mean you're any better than the godless heathen you serve with. I suggest you get the fuck over yourselves.)

Sid's emails have been getting progressively more emo as the days go by, and while I truly do appreciate that he feels he can tell me these things without fearing ridicule, I have to admit, it has pretty well established itself as something that IS SURE TO RUIN MY GOOD MOOD, SHOULD I HAVE ONE. I don't send him morose emails about all the shit that goes wrong in my day, or how depressed I am, or how I WISH HE WAS HOME. I could, but I don't. What purpose would it serve? I know he feels bad enough without me making it worse. So I keep it to myself.

I'm not saying this to be a bitch, though it's inevitable that's how it will come off, but I'm doing my best to shield him, and I wish he would do the same for me. I know it's got to suck being out there. I know. But does he know it sucks being here all alone? I don't think he does. By the tone of some of his emails, he seems to be laboring under the impression that it's all sunshine and roses and laughter over here, and all I do is sit around with my multitude of friends, eat ice cream and talk about sex.

What friends? What ice cream? For heaven's sake, what sex? Where was I when this all went down?

This entire deployment has brought out the angst and the emo in both of us.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

dreaming: better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but only barely

First and foremost, Sid, if by some strange chance you have found this blog, for the love of cheese, look away now. Just stop reading and go find something else to do. Please.

I had some weird dreams last night, and they weren't your standard "oh, how STRANGE" kind of dreams, oh no, that would be too simple. In the first, I had sex with Brad Pitt. And I don't even find Brad Pitt to be attractive. If it had been a lucid dream, I assure you it would have been Alan Rickman as Severus Snape. Most assuredly, it would have been.

But yeah. A sex dream. A STARKY FIRST. The worst part is, in the dream, I was still married to Sid. Fuckin' A, I cheated on my husband in a dream. If it's any consolation, which it isn't, Brad Pitt was cheating on Angelina Jolie, so it kind of evened out.

I woke up feeling awful. Because I cheated on my husband in a dream.

Believe me, I know it makes no sense.

So when I feel back asleep, I dreamed I was pregnant (ooh boy, that can of worms again). I'm not going to get into specifics, because it's really unimportant, but goddamn it, I was so happy. That's what sticks out to me. I remember telling someone that I was having twins, a boy and a girl (which is another can of worms, believe me). And I was happy, did I mention that? Truly, genuinely happy. Despite all the problems that were happening in the dream, which very closely mirrored my real life worries, I was smiling and not faking it. I was hopeful in a way that I have not been in a very long time, and that I fear I will never again experience in this life.

When I woke up, I seriously thought I might be sick. I felt like such utter shit, it seemed like vomiting was the only way to express it besides tears. And I am done with crying over stupid shit like this. Done, I tell you. There is no use crying over something so idiotic. There is no use dwelling on it. There is no use in even thinking about it for another second.

So I move on. To what, I have no idea. I'm still searching for that.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

the Sadim Touch

You know, the opposite of the Midas touch. Apparently I have it.

Seems whatever happened to our crappy old lawn mower rendered it beyond repair. And I so desperately wanted to believe that I could fix it that I put off buying a new mower. Well, the grass - more precisely, the weeds - reached thigh height and I started getting nervous.

In a town this small, nothing goes unnoticed. Everyone on Liberty Street knows that I am a recluse, and that when they see me out of the house...it's a cold day in hell. They will actually comment about it to my face. Everyone in this town knows who I rent this house from, and they know where she lives, and they know that if something's amiss at Manson Homestead, they get better results when they bypass talking to me and just go straight to the lady that cashes my rent checks. So I knew it was just a matter of time before someone called her up and complained that the crazy, shut-in cat lady on Liberty Street was trying to see how tall she could get her grass before the city got sick of it and came to mow it for her.

Believe you me, as much as I would like to have the stooges from the city mow my grass while I sit on my shrinking ass and watch, I saw what they did to the foreclosed house next door. They scalped that yard. Thank you, but I can push a mower myself. Sid and I spent way too much time spreading grass seed last year for anyone to come along and scalp our (finally) beautiful lawn.

Anyway, like I said, the grass was thigh height, and I knew that if I didn't soon work myself up to do something drastic, like buy a new mower, the whole neighborhood would be ringing up the landlady, demanding my blood. I wasn't just putting off buying a new mower because I couldn't bear to spend the money, but because I knew I would have to use Sid's car, and that meant taking off the stupid cover and getting pollen and birdshit all over myself.

But I did it, and it was even worse than I had imagined. It's rained a lot lately, and that cover did fuck-all to keep the water and dirt out. That car was caked in yellow pollen. It was embarrassing, even to me, and I usually don't worry myself over the dirtiness of a car.

But that's not the best part. Oh no, the best part was when I got to the store and picked out my new mower, and had the guy bring it out and put it in my trunk for me. He says, "You know you got ants in here?"

Yes, you read that correctly. There were ants making a nest in the metal framing around the trunk. I feel no further comment is necessary on this, as thinking about it makes me twitch.

So I get the mower home, get it out of the trunk, and get it assembled. I fill it up with oil and gasoline and I'm psyched. I put together a lawn mower! I'm independent and industrious! Yay starky!

And then I couldn't get it started. I primed that thing, and yanked at the pull cord for a good ten minutes before I decided that one more failure would result in me taking a mallet to this spiffy new mower. In desperation, I went across the street to beg help from the neighbor man.

He started that thing on the first goddamn try.

It's the Sadim Touch, I'm telling you.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

an unforseen side effect

I am finding out that all the weird things about me that always sort of defined who I was are not really me at all, but my hypothyroidism. And now that that's not a problem, I get to go through that whole teenage phase of "finding myself" all over again. Because this has apparently been going on for years, unnoticed, I do not know who I am without symptoms.

Take, for example, my sex drive. Nonexistent. Never had any libido to speak of. Ever. It didn't bother me, it was just who I was, and I accepted it. Well, now that the synthroid has had time to render some major changes, I'm finding out that hey, you know there really is something there.

And my god, I'm freaked out. This is the strangest thing to me. This is like being 12 years old again and going through puberty. It's alienating. I don't know my body anymore, this isn't the one I'm used to. My husband is coming home to a wife he has never really met before.

For the past few weeks, I've been taking my pill every day and seeing gradual improvement, and I was totally okay with having a chronic disease. It didn't bother me. I was not my disease, you know, it didn't define me as a person. And I'm finding out that I was, and it did.

It is extremely humbling.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

there is symbolism here, I just can't see it

I dreamed about my grandmother last night.

I was walking through a wasteland of dead trees and destroyed buildings. The ground was cracked and parched and craggy, there were steep cliffs on all sides, some rock pillars standing in the middle with ruined houses on top of them... I was with my sisters, and we were trudging through this mess, and staring at the trees, and discussing what could have happened to the landscape to make it look so ruined.

We weren't scared, though perhaps we should have been, considering the desolate area we were stranded in. We were simply awed at the way nature had reclaimed everything around us.

In the middle of all this wreckage was our grandmother. She was sitting in the wheelchair she'd been using in her last years, her hair just as white and long as I remember it, pulled back in a bun the way she always wore it, and she was smiling at us holding her arms out to us and telling us to come to her.

So we did. She hugged us and said, "I think of you girls often," which was exactly what she did and said the last time we saw her alive.

I woke up bawling. I'm crying now, as I type this, and I don't understand why, because it wasn't a sad dream at all. She was waiting for us in that awful place, and was so glad to see us...what is sad about that?

Saturday, April 26, 2008

so tight my ass squeaks

My mother said that once about my father: "he's so tight his ass squeaks". As you can guess, they argued about money a lot. Or maybe you can't guess. It does sound a little...risque.

Food prices here are not so terribly bad, but I'm still alarmed. So I've been looking online for ways to save money on groceries, and one way I've found is to use powdered milk for cooking. This sounds like a really good idea, as that's usually the only thing I use milk for. It's fairly cheap, cheaper than regular milk, so what the hey? I'm going to try to find some next time I go to the store, and see how I like it. Maybe, if it's not so bad, I can put a few drops of vanilla in it and it will be good for regular drinking and breakfast cereal, too. We'll see.

And I'd like to start stocking up on non-perishables now, while we have the money, because Sid's talking seriously about trying for spawnage when he comes home in a few months, and I'd like to have some stuff put back so that if/when I get pregnant, we've got more money to spend on baby stuff.

Now that the weather is getting nice, I wish we could plant a garden. I'm sure our landlady wouldn't mind, but at the same time...this isn't our house. I'd hate to put all that effort into a garden and then have to leave it. So in the meantime, I'm looking at little window planters. At the least, we can grow our own spices and stuff. Maybe some little window tomatoes!

When I go to the store next, I plan on buying the ingredients for bread. I can easily make my own for lots cheaper than storebought bread, and it will be lots yummier, too. When my father-in-law asked us what we wanted for a wedding gift, and I told him we wanted a breadmaker...it was the smartest thing I think I've ever done. That poor breadmaker gets so much use, just like our crockpot.

Sid has expressed an interest in "eating healthy". I'm not sure what else he'd like me to try to do, besides stop cooking pizza. We already eat lots of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. I make my own soups, we don't buy the canned kind (less sodium and fat that way). When we need ground meat for something, we always try to get turkey instead of beef because it's not so fatty. Really, the only thing that needs to change is Sid's insistence on buying snack foods.

Friday, April 18, 2008

shenanigans!

So it's been a week and a day exactly since I started taking Synthroid, the super-cool synthetic thyroid hormone, and I must say, for such a teensy little pill, it has already effected some big changes in my life. I can ride my recumbent bike without nodding off. That horrid mental fog is lifting, so that I can form coherent thoughts with no effort (for the last few months, playing sudoku was totally beyond me). And the numbers on the scale, for the first time in over a year, are not moving up, but down.

I felt so good the other day I mowed the yard. Now, this is misleading, because it needed to be done, but the great part was that I enjoyed it. I didn't feel like pushing the mower and taking that next step was going to kill me; it felt pretty good, until the pollen had me snotting like a crying toddler.

The bad part is that in my overzealous need to GET THINGS DONE, I tried to replace the old gnawed up blades with some spiffy new ones. I don't know what went wrong, or where, but the mower runs like someone's dragging it over rocks. Oh, and did I mention the billowing smoke? Yeah, it's blowing like a fucking smokestack. And I'm no scientician...but that can't be good.

Circumstances around Manson Homestead are rapidly improving; Sid has reached the halfway point for his deployement, and I feel like a whole new person. Now if only I could do something about the box elders...

Monday, April 14, 2008

the hypocrisy, it burns

Sid sent me an email today, and it contained a paragraph most interesting:

I've also met some good friends here on the boat.. most of them females as they seem to be more mature than the guys. So yes, when i go to ports, i'm usually around a girl. Just wanted to tell you that so you know. I'm obviously not doing anything but when you see pictures and its me and a girl.. don't freak out ok?



Like I'd not noticed that the pictures he was sending me of the last four ports he's hit had the same smiling women in them. Like I'd asked about them. I had not. I knew exactly what was going on, but I didn't say anything. But he felt the need to bring this up now, after a month and some odd change, for what reasons under god, I cannot fathom.

But this is what I sent as a reply:

Let's reverse the situation for a minute. Would you be okay with me hanging out with a bunch of guys? Going places overseas with guys you didn't know and had never met, while you sat at home with the phone and waited for me to call? Can you honestly say you would be fine with that? Because somehow, I'm not seeing it. I don't care what you do out there - well, I do care, but there's nothing I can do about it - but if you admit to yourself that you would not be all right with me doing the things you're doing, maybe you need to change your behavior.


I have not forgotten the last time he was gone for months on end, how he flipped out when Cory asked me to come to Zakk's Coffeehouse to see his favorite band. Nor have I forgotten the screaming fights, as Sid went to the movies with his (girl) friends, and yet wanted me to stay home alone. It was epic, one of those things that we were either going to hash out and work through, or it would destroy our marriage completely. We'd been screaming at each other for so long it seemed like that was the only way we could speak to one another, and finally, in sheer desperation, I asked him "how would you feel if our situations were reversed?" and that was turning point. He had not stopped for one moment to see the situation from my point of view, until I asked him to. And when he did, he realized he'd been something of a douchebag.

Not that I'm accusing him of being a douchebag this time, but the idea is the same. Until I make him walk a mile in my shoes, he will not stop to think of my perspective. As he was the youngest child in his family, it was always about him, and as I was the oldest child in my own, it was always about everyone else, and unlearning those behaviors and ways of thinking is hard.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

a bullet dodged

It's hypothyroidism.

I feel as though I have dodged a bullet. Here I was, for a week, thinking, "okay, if it's fibro, at least I'll be able to manage it somewhat..." and trying to acclimate myself to possibly never really feeling 100% ever again, and it turns out I have a wonky thyroid.

Even though in the back of my head, I find it incredibly fucked up that I am celebrating having a disorder that will require a pill a day for the rest of my life, I am ecstatic at the fact that I have something that is treatable.

I am looking forward to the big bear hug Sid is going to give me at the pier: for the first time in my life, he's going to hug me and it won't hurt.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

the things we take for granted

Sid, when something humorously unexpected happens, will shout, "surprise, cockface!" and it never fails to crack me up. He has a certain tone of voice he uses, and a certain inflection, and I can never reproduce it when I try.

And yesterday, of all the godawful things to miss about him, I missed his "surprise, cockface!"

I'm almost ashamed to admit it. But then I got to thinking about all the other things I miss about him, all the stupid things that annoy me to no end, and the stuff that makes me grit my teeth...and I miss all of it. Yes, I am even humble enough to admit that right now, I harbor fond recollections of the way he belches and blows his gutrot in my face.

Although, if I'm being really honest with myself, one thing I don't miss is how he likes to put off taking a poo until right before I take a shower. Mmmm mmmm, nothing quite like bathing while the gentle smell of rancid pig manure blends with your scented soap...

Something tells me that when he finally comes home, there will be a span of about a month were Sid can do no wrong. And then the novelty will wear off, and it'll be back to shenanigans as usual at the Manson Homestead.

I can hardly wait.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

on tenterhooks

Since my appointment on Thursday, Sid has called every day to ask about the lab results. And while I'm glad he's doing his best to be there for me, I can't help but be irked at the fact that it took a doctor saying "Yes, there is something wrong with you," for him to sit up and take interest. Because I feel the same as I did yesterday, or even a month ago, which is to say I feel like shit, and he never asked how I was feeling then. Maybe he thought I was pretending?

Right now, there's a few things that the doctor suspects, namely hypothyroidism and fibromyalgia. I'd be lying if I said I was relieved, though. I don't want there to be anything wrong with me at all! But I keep telling myself that a diagnosis, one way or the other, isn't going to be a huge deal. It's going to change my life, yes, but not in a bad way. Whatever's wrong with me is the same thing that's been wrong with me for a while now, and that's not going to change. What is going to change is the way I feel right now. I'll have a name for this, and a way to deal with it, and that will make all the difference. A year ago, I didn't feel this bad, and hopefully, a year from now, I'll be able to look back on this moment and say I'll never feel that bad ever again.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

a vagina isn't like a tire and other revelations

My friend Cory came over last night, and somehow we got to talking about "girls". He made the remark that "I thought the girls in Roanoke Rapids would be nice, you know, but all my friends tell me they've been around."

From me, a stunned silence. I literally stood there, speechless, for at least two minutes while he waxed poetic about "girls who've done it, and girls with VD" and the first words out of my mouth? "Cory, a vagina isn't like a tire...it doesn't lose it's tread." The second thing? "Where do you think these women are getting these diseases? From each other?"

He admitted that I had a point, which was gratifying, considering my brain feels like half-set Jello.

Somehow we got to talking about being groped, and he said that someone touched his balls during a pat-down once. All I could say was, "Maybe this gives you an idea of what it's like for women every day." Don't think I haven't had my ass grabbed in line for Space Mountain, okay? Groping is ubiquitous for women.

I'm consistently shocked and appalled by the things Cory says concerning women, but at the same time, I'm grateful that he's saying them to me, because it's pretty much impossible for me to just sit down and shut up when something's got me riled. And rile me he does. I don't think he realizes that his narrow view of females is what's keeping him from forming relationships with them, and it's not something I can just out and say.

Saturday, March 29, 2008

sometimes you can't win for losing

Sid called today. First words out of his mouth? "Hey, uh, are you spending anything this weekend?"

What do you mean, Siddy?

"Are you going to be spending any money this weekend? Because Rome was expensive. So if you've got to buy something, wait until I get paid again."

OH TEH IRONIEZ. This from the man who made it abundantly clear that this deployment was the perfect opportunity to put some money away. I checked our bank balance. Last week, we had over $2,000 in there. Today? $200.

He spent at least $1,000 without batting an eye. It wasn't like he had to pay for lodging! What the hell was he doing? While I realize he wanted to have a good time, I'm sitting at home talking myself out of buying a $70 shirt! How is this fair? All the money I've taken out has been for the car insurance, groceries, and other utilities. I've not spent a single dime on a gift for myself yet.

I'm...just a little pissed off right now. Just a little. Maybe just a teeny-tiny bit. Maybe.

Was I going without just so he could buy hookers in Rome? Jesus. I was like "Sid, I need to pay the rent! I'm going to the doctor! The water bill is due!"

"Yeah, it'll be fine, I'm getting paid on, like, Monday."

So that makes his thousand dollar splurge a-o-friggin'-kay, does it?

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

an admission

For about five or six years now, I have been tired. Exhausted, even. But it was always something I could ignore: I could always get up and do the things that needed to be done, and the fact that I was tired was nothing more than an inconvenience.

During this time, I noticed my muscles hurt. When I shaved my legs, the pressure of the razor on my flesh was painful. When I started dating Sid, I became aware of the fact that his arms around me sometimes was pretty hurty. If he got to tickling me, I would laugh for a few seconds, but then it would start to be really painful, and he didn't understand that my begging him to stop wasn't because it was tickly.

About three years ago, it started to hurt when he would hug me. He'd just come up and wrap his arms around me and I would have to ask him to stop. Sometimes he'd just playfully run a finger down my arm, and I'd say "ow, that hurt!" and he would reply "but I barely touched you!".

I think it was about this same time, I started feeling foggy. I can only describe it as an exhaustion so total that my mind simply fades out. I don't feel smart anymore: I struggle for words, and my joy - my writing - is nearly impossible because I can't focus for long periods of time. I feel dull and listless and stupid.

And I've put off seeing a doctor because I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I will be told that this is all in my head. Sid tells me that all the time, and he has no idea how damaging and hurtful that is; to be told that I'm tired because I don't "get up and do things." To be told that I claim to hurt just because I "don't want to be touched."

I bike ten miles a day. I do yoga. I can swim faster and farther than Sid - and he's pretty fit. I do get up and do things, every day, even though I feel like it's going to kill me. And I wish to high fucking heaven that I could be touched by my husband without feeling physical pain. Why would I make this up?

My menstrual periods are spotty and irregular, and no matter what I do, my weight is just sloooowly creeping up. I am never warm. This is not how I should be feeling, this is not normal. I don't feel like the same woman from even a year ago. I feel like shit, utter fucking shit.

And even though I'm sick of feeling this way, and I've called my doctor, I'm terrified. I'm afraid it's nothing. And yet I'm afraid it's something. And even though I hope with all my heart that I will finally have answers, I dread hearing an actual diagnosis.

I am so scared.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

in need of a stiff drink

For whatever reason, I can't stop being anxious about everything. Literally everything. I couldn't go to bed until 4 o'clock this morning because I was absolutely convinced that if I went to bed at the usual time, something bad would happen. Never mind I don't know what that something is, it was something and it was bad. Had I not been so damn tired, I probably would have stayed up until sunrise, but exhaustion won out and I very reluctantly gave in to it.

Last night, I was so sure there was someone looking in at me through the crack in the blinds that I had to go window to window through the whole house and make sure all of them were closed, and there were no gaps. The broken blinds in the kitchen freaked me out so badly I couldn't even walk by it, I ran with my eyes shut tight.

What the fuck am I so fucking afraid of? I don't even know, myself.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

good times for all

I've been freaking out recently about the recession: how bad will it be? Does this have the potential to become as bad as the Great Depression? And I keep telling myself, you know, even if it is every bit as bad as some people are saying it's going to be, we have friends who'd be more than willing to pool all our resources together and find a way through this. Worst comes to worst, Curt stays in the military, and a few of our friends come along for the ride, and we grow a garden to stretch food. It would suck, and it would be less than ideal, but I don't think we'd be living in tents.

And then, in the middle of all this deep thinking, Sammy walked in from the porch (I left the door open because it's nice outside) and startled me right back to reality with her moaning, shrieking meowing. As soon as I'd got up to see if she was all right, she threw up grass. Everywhere. It's no wonder her stomach hurt, as much green as that cat puked up! So then Knut decided she was going to belly up to the trough and then hurl up a hairball. That cat had stuffed herself like a damn turkey, and here it is all over the rug with a big old hairball winking out of the middle of it.

Good times are being had by all.