I know. I know. Yall should be used to the infrequent posts by now, though, yeah? I haven't wanted to write. But four months is inexcusable. Let me catch yall up. 

January. I started the year weighing one hundred thirty-five pounds. This has not happened in well over a decade. Last April I weighed fifty pounds more than now.

The past is prologue: I'd put most of that weight on beginning April five years before and kept it because I had given up on life and love and was waiting to die. I suspect the darkness of the past posts have reflected this well. I'd been drinking much too much during that period, and the more despaired I became, the more I drink. Hello. Alcohol's a depressant. I know this. I knew it would expedite the process of dying. It could not come fast enough.

I'd bought a miniature refrigerator for my bedroom to stash food and canned sodas so I wouldn't have to see my parents so much. And then I stopped stocking the food and sodas I did not need to eat and replaced those with canned wine and hard seltzers. I'd work (this was pretty much all last year), come home to have dinner and watch Fox with my parents, then go upstairs, take the prescriptions to help me sleep (drugs that weren't working--can't imagine why... DUH), grab four cans of wine or seltzer, play Seekers Notes on my mother's computer and drink until I felt I could sleep. Rinse. Repeat.

I couldn't tell you how long this went on... but there came a night when I'd puked up so much red wine I'd disgusted myself. And another night... or maybe the same one, I can't remember... I stumbled (my parents thought I'd slipped on a bath mat and, the next day put those rug holder things underneath them) and landed on my right elbow. Nothing hurt. My cousin, a surgical tech, said drunks often don't hurt themselves because their bodies are so lax. I woke my parents. My father called from the bottom of the stairs (thank you, Jesus, for keeping him so distant) to ensure I was alright, as I wrapped my elbow in an Ace bandage so I wouldn't get blood on the sheets. 

The next morning I woke to see I'd bled through most of the bandage. The cut on my elbow looked much deeper than the night before (can't imagine why). My mother said it needed stitches, and so I got them. 

My father knew I was drinking too much, of course. But he only mentioned it one time, long before this happened. 

I stopped drinking so much after this. I've not stocked alcohol upstairs since that fall. This would be one of the reasons I lost weight. The other is I stopped shoveling so much crap. So... January...

I resigned my job as a tutor because I wasn't tutoring. I had five hours a week to work with children, and the rest of the time I was doing administrative tasks. Part-time tutors were given more opportunity to work with students. My boss, a man who took over management of the center in December because the owner wanted to see a greater financial return on his investment, decided because I showed reluctance to do the work I had not been hired to do that he would demote me to part-time...which meant five hours times sixteen dollars... which means eighty dollars per week... which is sixty-five or so after taxes... and that will buy me one tank of gas because of Biden's inflation. The commute is thirteen miles, which doesn't sound so bad, except it takes about forty minutes, and my thirteen-year-old Nissan doesn't get the best gas mileage. So basically I'd be making money to buy gas to get to work to make money to buy gas... and I loathed the new manager, whose wife is the assistant manager. Neither of these people speak a word of truth, and the things they say to children are flabbergasting. The manager told two unrelated first-graders their parents had named them after a gun and his favorite adult beverage. What man in his right mind speaks to children this way? I quit cold turkey and collected unemployment, which was more than I would've made had I stayed.

I have seen five different dentists in the past decade.

Caveat: I smoked as many as three packs of cigarettes a day, beginning in April of 'ninety-two through June of 'seven. When I lost Adam in 'two and Jon in 'three, for a couple months after each loss, I went days without brushing my teeth. I smoked lots of cigarettes and drank lots of sodas. I have caused all the forthcoming crap with negligence and disregard.

The first of these, and I don't remember how long he "treated" me, loved milking patients for money by doing poor work which necessitated costlier work. One of those faulty jobs resulted in a necessary tooth extraction... I'd posted about this at the time of the surgery, but that post did not survive the great culling of 'fifteen... as far I can tell anyway.

After that surgery, I started seeing my mother's dentist, who informed me the previous one had left drill bits where he'd done root canals, who neglected to adhere to my caution at the beginning about my high tolerance for pain, resulting in the need for yet another extraction.

I was about to lose my job at the newspaper (which I did not mind, by the way, because they were working on moving me to covering news, and I didn't want to write such stories because I knew they would only feed my psyche's darkness, which has become less and less tolerable... I suppose because of the drinking, but more because I've been trying to understand things I should not touch). Anyway... I had nine hundred dollars on an FSA card that I had to use in four days or I'd lose it, and my dentist couldn't see me.

So I found another who extracted, without sedation, that tooth and put a crown on the one next to it.

The next dentist did not think my teeth had issues meriting attention.

The next one seemed better... which brings us to January.

I noticed that the last crowned tooth's gums had receded more than felt comfortable to me and looked gray. I went to that dentist, who said it just needed another crown. It didn't. I knew it didn't... the pain below it was too significant, even to me, and it looked like things were dying down there. She insisted. I went to church to pray I'd find a better one.

Four days before I'd seen that dentist, I drew a sort of barometric pressure map of how my face's muscles feel. That morning, I'm standing in this dentist's lobby, looking at an abstract painting that looked much too similar to that map, only the picture was flipped. Not a reflection of me but as though I'd come face-to-face replica, one that was eye-level. It was like looking at my soul. I'm standing there as an office assistant is trying to get a hold of my insurance company, and tears are streaming... so I go speak to the dentist again and reiterate my concerns and how I think the pain is caused by some sort of toxins. She says, "I'm a dentist. I deal in teeth. I can recommend a holistic dentist for you..." And so I went back to the reception area to stare at the painting some more, to weep some more. It's gray at this office. I see no blue anywhere but in that painting. When the assistant informs they do not take my insurance, I head for church.

When I arrive, the sky blue for what seems like miles. No gray. Anywhere. 

I go to the prayer pastor's office to get the wifi password. She sees I am stressed and offers to help. I tell. She listens. And then she tells me to give her my insurance card so she can make a copy of it and that she wants to find me a dentist. I let her. She texts me that afternoon with four names.

That Saturday, another crown comes off. This one's on the other side of the extraction site. The tooth is black and brown. I am grateful that it's come off so that when I tell the next dentist, whomever that is, of how serious my concerns are he or she might take me seriously. I had ruled out one of the four dentists. I call the others. One of the three doesn't have an answering machine. I rule him out, too, and leave messages with the other two. 

Monday morning, I decide against waiting until they return my call. I go to the one nearest my house. His doors are locked with signage all over them about COVID restrictions. I decide that's not my guy. I go to the other. That office had a cancellation five minutes ago and can see me right now. And I meet a woman who seems genuinely concerned about her patients. She believes she can save the first tooth, even though there's not much tooth left, that it only needs a crown, as the other does. So they put on temporaries. And when the permanents arrive... the crown on the back tooth (not the one that had looked gray) goes on without a hitch. The other one, though... the dentist who put the crown on it (the one I'd paid with my FSA) left little tooth. When the dental assistant goes to fit that crown, it fits so well the tooth breaks down to the gum when he takes it off to put cement in it. So... extraction, but I have to wait until February.

While I'm waiting, another tooth needs a root canal, and she sends me to an endodontist. This one's top left... the other work's been lower right so far. The endodontist says he can fix the root canal, but the guy who did it earlier punctured something he can't fix, and the root canal would be pointless. Another extraction.

Two more teeth need crowns and another needs a cavity repaired, but the extractions take precedence. I schedule the surgery, which would've been done in mid-March, except I found courage to insist it's an emergency... and so it goes on the calendar mid-February instead.

Right around this time I find work at a liquor store. (And before you say, oh shit! This is SERIOUSLY good for me. The more I stock these bottles of badness, the more I see the regular day-drinkers, the greater my resolve becomes to never touch the stuff). I've made all these plans. Fortunately, the owner is good with all of them.

February. Surgery, done Friday morning, goes well. Recovery goes well, I think, until Sunday night I notice something that looks like a pinprick at the broken tooth's surgical site. My jaw hurts, but I figure it's because of the surgery. I shrug it off, but by Friday I figure it shouldn't be hurting so I go back to learn I've got a dry socket.

Don't know what that is? Bone's exposed. The gum's not healing over it. Anything that touches that bone could cause serious infection. Not good. It takes weeks to heal.

I'm feeling as though I'm a nuisance with all the visits to the oral surgeon, the dentist and the orthodontist--I need Invisalign, too. All this work costs, before insurance, some thirteen-thousand dollars. My parents had thirty-thousand save to replace one of their aging vehicles. My father says they'll have to use that money to pay for all this. The guilt for all the work needing to be done, caused by all the neglect from decades before, weighed HEAVY on me. 

And then I go to the orthodontist for a consult. He takes REALLY good pictures of my teeth, and I see that they look SO MUCH MORE disgusting than I'd thought. The weight of all that guilt is crushed by the heartbreak of never feeling so ugly as I did that moment. I felt like monstrous inside and out. I struggled with that for weeks.

I wrote it out and realized all the gains I'd mad e in the past four years, of how this was third and four and I needed to get the first because the goalpost was too far down field. My mind replays footage of quarterbacks throwing balls that don't connect but the ref declares forward progress so they get to try again. I get to try again. And after all this work's done--the cavity, the crowns, the braces, the implants, the crowns--my smile will be amazing again. People used to say all the time my smile's amazing. I've not heard that in too long a time, and I miss the compliment. Anyway...

March. The dry socket heals. I get the cavity fixed. The bottom left molar and the tooth above it, the one next to the tooth that was no longer there, need crowns. The temporaries are put in, though the dental assistant helping this time seems agitated and somewhat inept. She doesn't get a good mold for the lower molar. That temporary comes off about a week later. It's got a hole on the top.  Another assistant fixes the hole, supposedly, and puts it back on over what's left of that tooth. A week later while having lunch with a friend, the lower molar's temporary crown comes off again as I'm eating, and I crush it. 

April. They make another temporary crown. It stays put. I make an appointment to see the orthodontist the day after I get the permanents placed.

A couple weeks later I go to get the permanents. The top one goes on without a hitch.

The lower molar's crown, poorly made by the absentminded assistant, feels terribly wrong in my mouth. I say so. The assistant--there are two I like, and he's one of them--tells me not to move and reaches for some tool to take it out, but my body reacts to the foreign object like you would expect. My tongue pops it off, but the crown lands too far back. He tells me not to sit up, but my body does this anyway, and my tongue's making feeble attempts to get the crown closer to my lips. But my throat is opposed to this. It can't handle that something's so close to it, and as though it's food, swallows it. The crown then gets stuck somewhere around my larynx. I'm coughing and swallowing, and eventually the thing goes down. Amazingly enough, I am laughing about this. I've not been able to laugh about dental work in a decade. I shouldn't be laughing about this, but I think at this point I'm delirious or something. Fortunately, and never has that word seemed more perfect to me, my parents haven't had to pay for temporary and permanent crown recreation. The guy makes a new impression for the permanent and puts on again the temporary. We schedule a new date for the permanent. I reschedule my orthodontist appointment for the day after that.

They tell me, yet again, to chew on my right side. I'm missing three lower teeth. Can you imagine for a moment how hard it would be to chew on your right side when there are no teeth there? And it's barely been a month since the last of those three was removed.

Saturday, the sixteenth. I'm watching Fantastic Beasts: Crimes of Grindelwald with my family. I braved a small bag of popcorn. I'm doing my best to eat on my right side but... I'm halfway through the bag when I feel something that's not a kernel. I suspect I've broken the crown in half. No. Not in half. I've crushed the thing. I fish splinters out of my mouth. 

Monday. I go to the gym and then the dentist. She can see me right then (it's half past nine), but I have to open the store at ten. 

Tuesday, today. They joke that I swallowed the temporary. It's funny, seriously. I laugh. They make me a new temporary, and now I sit at the counter banging these keys.

I have to keep this thing on my tooth until May second. It must happen. Please pray.

I'm in the Dark, Here!

So news first... for the last two decades or so, doctors have marveled at how my heart murmurs and wrote orders for echocardiograms which I neglected to fulfill... and if they gave me the paper copy, I would throw it in the nearest receptacle after leaving the office. My heart's like every other muscle in my body, and it's gonna break just like the rest of them have done or will do. It will do what it wants, and I will not be able to stop it. The latest doctor I've seen marveled at it on my first visit, and we discussed a few visits later... What happens after I get the echo? And since I've no intention of prolonging this life through the means my parents have used to prolong theirs, it's always seemed pointless to me to bother with it. If there's not a pill I can take to make it bearable, why muck with it? 

But this year... the middle of my back been's causing greater pain that normal... kinda near where my lungs are... and my depression's gotten worse, and my meds don't work quite as well as they used to do, and I'm too hopeless these days. Almost as bad as I was four years ago. Four years ago I was in fuck it mode. I was waiting on the good Lord to take me, assuming I was worthy of the rescue. Knowing my history, I'm more likely bound to be raging at the surface or sinking in the abyss of the river Styx. And maybe if I could fix my heart to doctors' best ability, maybe that'll alleviate the depression and the pain in my back. It's in my legs, too. It's basically everywhere. It makes me tired. 

This doctor let me listen to my heart, and then he let me listen to his. Mine sounds pretty bad, yall. Not at all what it should sound like. Not a clean thump thump but a whoosh whoosh whoosh, like the sound water makes when it is pushed through a flapping door. And the thump thump is buried underneath that. I can hear it in my head at night as I'm trying to sleep. He said mine's something like a three or four. I'm thinking of cancer stages... three or four can't be good.

I'm housesitting for a friend. She introduced me to another friend who lives on her street, and that woman asked me to care for her cat, Roxy. I housesat for another friend before sitting for this one, and the cat's needs overlapped. 

I'm barely hanging on to sanity right now. I've quit drinking because the doctor prescribed new medicine to alleviate the rage and firmly ordered me to stop drinking.

In the past few years, I've come to know that I would've been a horrible teacher, and know I'm seeing I would've been a much worse mother. And I can't tend house worth a damn because I'm too concerned with myself and nothing else.

The cat made a mess on the carpet. I cleaned it up but failed to clean out the machine after... mostly because I was too afraid of breaking it. I suspect she'll never ask me to care for her cat again. I can tell you, when I went into the house today to find it still not there (I'd asked her if I could use it the day before), I texted see if I could borrow the cleaner to clean up the piss on the rug of the friend who introduced me to the cat... she texted me: I think I don’t actually want all of everyone’s pet poopoo in it. I’m sorry. It’s hard enough for me to clean it out after cleaning up Roxys messes. The day before she'd agreed to let me borrow it but bring it back so they could use it if the cat made a mess. But today, I got that text. So either the folks who are now watching their cat used it to clean up a mess one of their animals had made in their home OR they'd complained to this woman that I'd left it foul. 

So the three dogs here... they exhaust me, and I'm feeling more like I should ask this friend to find someone else to watch them in the future because I'm doing such a lousy job of it. These are puppies. Can you imagine how shitty I'd be with children??

All these dreams I've had... they die ugly deaths... one by one. 

And so now... now, I very much would love to be that hermit.

When I Was a Child...

That Scripture from Matthew or wherever... it doesn't matter, does it? Yall know what it says... I spoke like a child... 

I speak like a child all the time. Most of the time it's because I am so stinking happy I can't control it. Like I can't control it when I'm mad or sad or bad. I take drugs for that... lots of them actually. So the gleeful gal or the banshee... whichever has the reins... you can only see a small percentage of the giddy or the gorey. On a whim last Saturday, I cut my hair OFF (again)--something I'd not done in almost twenty years. I did it because when I looked in the mirror, I felt like a haggard, lonely woman, and the feeling did not sit well with me... but what finally drove me to do it was the vision that in five years or so my hair could be barely there on the top of my head and straggly threads on the back and sides... and that vision made me feel SO. MUCH. UGLIER. And yes, I know... I'm made in Christ's image, and it's easy to run those words through my head, but as they do so, it's in a tone that's mocking and demented... because I go outside and the words seem to hold no value. And yes, I know that's my faith wavering. I know it.

Once upon a time I worked at a bookstore, and one of its managers told me she thought of me as fearless. When I asked her why she'd chosen that word, she said something to the effect of that no matter how much I struggle when out and about in my days, I get up and go out, and that is fearless.

I do it because I have to do it. Just like when during my school days, and this is something my mother marvels at still, I never said I don't want to go or asked if I could stay home. Yall. My father was the superintendent. OF. COURSE. Like I COULD ask that. Like they'd let me stay home.

We're doing Priscilla Shirer's Elijah study at church. It's a good one--hard-hitting, as a study should be. I hadn't worked on it this past week. One of the questions we addressed today (NOT phrased as it should be because my book's in my car, and I'm upstairs in my room and too lazy to get it because I know yall'll get the point) what's something you've wanted and not gotten? I've wanted requited, romantic love, independence from my parents, and financial stability. I've never known these things. And reading them, I felt like a child. Seeing this in print just drives the hurt in a little bit deeper... and it's been a hurt that's lasted for the better part of three decades. I bent my head and allowed myself to feel that hurt but reined it in just before tears fell. And I carried myself through that study well enough this morning. I'm always SO happy to go to study because there are SO many women there whom I love and take pleasure in spending time with them. But the pleasure and the joy are sucked out like a vacuum at the conclusion... the room gets grayer and grayer and grows more and more silent... and I am there taking out the trash. Just before the last people left, I'd overheard some who lead the ministry talk about needing someone to lead the giving tree and thought, "THAT. I can totally rock that." So eager was I to help, so pleased that I could use my gifts for good, I shouted, "I'll help." Like a first grader eager to help her teacher. Childish. 

Moments before this, I'd marveled at how much more youthful I felt because of this haircut. I feel like I'm ten years younger. At least.

And then the people left... and all the things whammied me. The immaturity of my life--the lack of a spouse, the lack of children, the lack of a romantic relationship, the lack of independence, the lack of funds in my account, the lack of being able to lead when I so often feel called to do so. Who would put a child in charge? That's crazy right? All these women, they have the husbands, the children, the independence (though I'm sure most would say they don't... because of the husbands and the children), the funds in their accounts, the ability to lead (and don't tell me yall don't, because I know danged well who rules those houses).

I cried like a little girl, yall. I walked into that sanctuary, sanitized my hands and let my fingers feel the piano keys played earlier that morning by a gifted man as we'd worshipped. There is so much music in me, and yet, I lack the ability to play it--the hand-width, coordination and strength. I prayed: The highs are so high, Lord, and the lows are so low. And it's hard to dance with the devil on my back, but I do not have the strength to shake him. You do, though. So please, God, get him off me.

My throat hurts. It started, interestingly enough, not long before I joined in a Bible Study Fellowship study of Romans. There's some line in there, something like, Your throat is an open grave.

I try to sing in church, but my throat REALLY hurts after the second song or so. So I sit, and let the music swirl around me... and then I start thinking the devil's sat me down, so I force myself back up and I tell myself to sing anyway. But it hurts, and singing was the thing that saved me in my childhood. Always. I'd walk the streets of my neighborhood and sing Bette Midler's The Rose... and the song was always a prayer, and I had such confidence that in the winter I would know love. And yall, when I'd sing that song, it was always with the love of a good man in mind. I needed to sing it because the boys I knew were so unbearably cruel. The men I've known have been.

Winter's never come, though.

I have buried myself. I have boxed myself in. Stunted my growth.

Yall might think it's easy for me to unload. It's not. I might have shared about my physical aches... it's easy for me to complain about those, yall, because they HURT and are so plentiful that I can't help myself. But once upon a time I was a champion internalizer like my brothers, like my parents. And about five years after I started blogging, I began to use this site as a sort of therapy. I'd type. Lots. And it would help. Hardly anyone I knew read it, and that's okay. That was PERFECT because I didn't feel as though I burdened anyone with any of it. 

I didn't start unloading the baggage upon my friends until about four years ago or so. And there is such guilt and shame in me for burdening them. Such hatred because I cannot carry my cross with grace like all the others do. And I lean heavily on the words they've said back to me... but they are words. And I, like any writer, know words can be like vapor.

Howdy!

I'm here today because I cannot post on my Wordpress site because I haven't been able to pay the webhosting stuff... something like two hundred bucks, which I don't have because I'm a child when it comes to managing money.

I lost one of my part-time gigs at the end of May. The other's hours would've been bumped up to about thirty-five a week, which is more than I've worked in at one job in five years... but the owner keeps a black Lab mix on the premises, and while I can hold my own around other dogs (friendly reminder, I'm pathetically allergic to pretty much everything), this dog makes me vomit so I spent May and June trying to find other work, and those searches proved more promising that in the past, which gave me hope... which was crushed, and every time it was I sunk a lot deeper into depression. At the end of June I gave up. So I'm working at the shop with the dog. If you're the praying sort, PLEASE put some up for me that I can work this job through December because I gave the man my word I would.

Also pray that I can get a better grip on my finances.

My life feels as though it's coming off the rails. Pray for better highway vision. Thank you.

Gibberish

I feel like typing, yall. So here... have some nonsense.

One of my favorite scenes in Top Gun is when Iceman tells Maverick, You can be my wingman anytime, and Mav responds, Bullshit! You can be mine.

My girlfriends can't understand why I'm single. It frustrates them, some much more than others. I want to tell them what I know from what men have told me, but I figure their responses would be to shrug those comments off as idiocy. But yall, it's not idiocy. I don't like wasting people's time. Never have. I'm too quick to move people through the lines as a cashier, too quick to get them off the phone, too quick to get them gone, and I'm good at it--getting them gone. It's my best talent. I can lose a dude in days. Hours. Minutes. Seconds. It's easy. All I have to say is I have cerebral palsy, or I've only had sex with one dude. Poof! I think this is a defense mechanism. I want love, but holy hell does it terrify me--so much more than physical intimacy does, and yall... I'm damned near phobic of that, and it's not just because of what could happen... it's because I'm afraid I can't do it. I'm more afraid that I can't love. That the feelings would be too big in me, and I wouldn't be able to contain them, and... so I say the other... but only when the dude interests me. Never when I'm trying to tell them to fuck off. How weird is that? The ones who don't deserve it get the drama, and the ones who do don't. Maybe it's that the ones worth knowing... I know their time is valuable, and I know I will waste it, and I forget who I am for a second. I forget the fear and the imperfections. And then all the sudden... Poof! There they are again... there I go again. And there he goes.

I say I don't like bullshitting people... I'm the queen of it, yall. I excel at that shit.

I say men have been disappointing. I wonder how many I have disappointed. Or is that hubris in me to imagine that I have that kind of power? Because really, I don't think I do... and yet... still I wonder.

Yall... I don't have much passion for anything anymore. In fact, I don't know that I have any. I can't even rouse some for football and film, and I think yall know how fond I've been of such things. I put a shit ton of Packers crap on my Amazon wishlist in hopes I could rekindled some enthusiasm.

The words a pastor once spoke to me have been circling for days... Go hard after Jesus for ninety days, and see who's still standing. It's a fine idea. I wouldn't know how to begin.

Some dude used the word dastardly in conversation. That's a never-before-seen thing for me. I was impressed.

Five favorite films... there's the five I say are the BEST: Star Wars: Episode V-The Empire Strikes Back (and NO, I have not seen Rise of Skywalker. I WILL NOT. I read the general plot, and it's shit, and it ruins the whole shebang for me, and I'm clinging HARD to the love I've had for this film for practically four decades); Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Director's Cut); Star Trek (2009); Serenity; Steel Magnolias. But they're not my favorites, necessarily. I mean I FREAKING LOVE them. BUT... the ones that have made room in my heart are: Life Itself; Playing by Heart; Steel Magnolias; Dedication; Gifted. But most people will only have seen maybe ONE of those, so... I say the others because they're more commonly known.

Five favorite books: Eleanor and Park and Landline by Rainbow Rowell; The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh; Lovers and Dreamers and Irish Born by Nora Roberts; Right Before Your Eyes by Ellen Shanman. Now here, I don't give a damn that they're maybe not all so widely known. How interesting is that?

Five favorite bands: Van Halen; U2; Depeche Mode; Def Leppard; Tori Amos.

I've only watched parts of No Country for Old Men and The Big Lebowski. The first was too intense for me; the second too bizarre--I think that one you've got to watch with friends, and I was by myself. I did see Alien. That might surprise some of yall--I can't often do skeery, and it was kind of skeery. I damned well won't watch others in that series, no matter how the storyline might intrigue me. And I finally got around to watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles. SO good, yall. I miss John Candy. I am a perfect mix of those two characters. Odd, oblivious and annoying like Candy's character... uptight, impatient and angry like Martin's.

FYI: I just used the above bullshit (and yall, how awesome is it that I don't have to make this shit UP?... because really... what writer could come up with all that tragedy and heap it on a gal's shoulders?) on a dude I have little interest in knowing. Twenty bucks says he's gone by the time I finish typing this post.

I've since changed it again, by the way, from what it was on that most recent post because I got tired of dudes swiping right just because of the words rack and ass--I used a film quote from the film Dedication.

Some dude remarked that my profile had gotten his attention more than most and his instincts told him there was a strong personality there, so he had to see for himself. He thought he was right. I sure wish he was. I sure wish I wasn't.

I like baseball well enough. I can't stand basketball.

The best place I've been is London, England. I'd live there if I could.

That's enough for today. That dude I've little interest in knowing... his mug's still in my Bumblebee line.

I wish I could find Han Solo. I wish such a dude existed. I wish, were he to exist and were I to find him, that I wouldn't fuck it up from fear.

Icarus

I've written about this before. April fifteenth is the day he'd asked me to be his girl. April sixteenth is the day he broke my heart. April seventeenth would've been an anniversary of sorts. April nineteenth is the last day I saw him. And these damned numbers are EVERYWHERE. I really hate it when it they're tied to the month, too. I LOATHE the coincidence. I hate how desperate I've become to lessen its significance. How futile those attempts have been.

Eighteen years ago yesterday I went on the last date with the only man I've ever loved--three days after he'd broken my heart; nine days before he'd crushed it. Would that I could know love. Would that a man could love me.

I lived in San Antonio and worked as the merchandise supervisor at Borders. It was one of those rare Fridays that I didn't have to close--not sure how that happened, actually. He'd called me the night before to make sure we were still on. We went to a Greek restaurant.

And then we went to Amy's at Quarry Market for ice cream. And then he drove me by his parents' house (again)... because he wanted me to meet his folks, and I was willing, but he was afraid to introduce me... and then we went back to his place, only this time I didn't stay for awhile.

But I didn't leave right away. I stood in the parking lot, smoked a cigarette. Decided I wanted a Dr. Pepper. He kept a stash in the refrigerator for me, even though he didn't drink them. He smiled, was happy to see that I'd come back, had thought I'd changed my mind. But I hadn't. I didn't come in, made him get a can out of the fridge for me. That's the last time I saw him.

The strongest memory from that day: when I'd gotten to his apartment, I'd told him I wasn't touching him. He had a goldfish named Icarus. I'd set my things on the counter beside the bowl. We were getting ready to go, and I'd stopped to get my stuff and was staring at the fish, floating the water. I thought of Greek mythology...

I thought, You've flown too close to the sun, Jennifer. And right then, he stood behind me, inches away. If I'd leaned back a fraction, we would've been touching. Those chills you get? They were a flood from head to toe, and I'd wondered if he felt them, and if he did, why they didn't matter.

I'd wanted to weep. Wanted to say I can't do this and leave. I should've. But I tried to play it cool, like a goddamned fool.

How I Feel About Dating

I Can't Do It, Captain. I Don't Have the...

Oh, yeah, that's a big fat F for me with regard to quarantining. Two days. That's the best I've been able to do so far.

Friday, April Third. I had to go to my place of employment and collect my paycheck, then take it to the bank (but I chose the one inside a grocery store because I needed to drop some clothes off at a cleaners and pick up a package at my box, and the grocery store was in the same shopping center as both of those places). So I went to pick up the box, then I went to the grocery store to deposit my check (I did wear a mask), then ordered pizza from Papa John's (also in the same center... a small pepperoni for the gals working The Shipping Store, where my box is, that day and a small pineapple with bell peppers for me--I remembered it was Friday and not to have meat), then I went to the dry cleaners to get bags for my clothes (from the store room--too many to wash, and I didn't want to wash them), then I picked up my pizza and took the girls theirs, then I sorted my clothes and took them to the cleaners. And then I went home.

Saturday, April Fourth. Mom didn't want to cook, so I picked up food from Zanti's Italian Cucina (usually delicious... kind of lacking this time... probably because it was take out), and I was out of Coke, so I hit a gas station on the way home and grabbed some of that and some Aleve PM because sleep is a beautiful thing.

This will last about a week... maybe ten days

Sunday, April Fifth. I ran out of Peace Tea Green Tea. I went to two gas stations to grab some. Which I would not have had to do had I kept my subscription to this on Amazon and had it delivered to my home instead of my box (but to be honest, I would MUCH rather things be delivered to my box).

Monday, April Sixth. I got another package at The Shipping Store--food from Nutrisystem (which I haven't been able to do because our microwave has been busted), and I thought it was the frozen food and had to be picked up today. It was not. It could've waited. I could've called first. I didn't think of that until just this very second.

SO... I am going to do my damnedest to STAY IN THIS HOUSE until Friday, when I get paid again and will NEED to get that money in the bank. Wish me luck.

Quarantine

They say stay home. I’ve not been following orders. I have been one of those miscreants who has run errands, albeit minimal. So I am going to stay inside my home for fourteen days. I will not leave the house.

Day One: Five Loads of Laundry

Day Two: When the World Lets You Stay in Bed All Day

Light in the Darkness

I am clinging... perhaps a little too desperately at the moment... to the kindness others have shown me. The friends who came to help me move my shit the other day. To the brief conversation I had with a Bumbler:

Dude used the word nuanced in a sentence. That's not something I see all that often. Of course... I think he's vanished, but... I did like the momentary distraction. I'm not so experienced with relationships. That tends to be a dealbreaker. So be it.

But mostly... the brightest light has been this comment from one of my freshmen at college:

You're SO good. Not just 'good enough'... NO. You're just Goooooood.

I am leaning on that something fierce right now.

This was in my Facebook memories. Something I'd shared a year ago, and it still rings true for me today. I strive to be open. It's often a struggle for me, to be honest. But I know that withholding my thoughts and feelings doesn't serve me in the slightest.

I'm trying. I'm hoping one day it will count for something. That said... I totally jacked with my Bumble profile. I'm really not in the mood for more disappointment. My plate's full. It's gonna take me a good while to chew on this shit.

Random Quarter

One. Gumbo or bisque? Bisque. Because lobster and butternut squash.

Two. Hallmark or American Greetings? Hallmark. Because I care enough to send the very best.

Three. Photoshop: Yes or no? No. Because it's not easy.

Four. Boutique or resale shops? Boutique. Because I prefer new clothes to hand-me-downs.

Five. Infinity or olympic swimming pool? Olympic. Because I'd want to get a good workout rather than a soak.

Six. Polish or Italian sausage? Italian. Because it sounds better.

Seven. Five minute writing prompt: Foil. So in the past couple of weeks, my father has been diagnosed with heart and kidney failure and cannot get the proper care he needs to prolong his life because of COVID-19 and the measures hospitals have taken to protect their current patients and staff. I have whittled my expenses to half of what they once were. I have spent the majority of the past week at the store room, whittling my belongings and relocating them from a ten by fifteen unit to a ten by ten because it costs half the price to have a room two-thirds the size, and I knew I was wasting money on the larger unit, but I hadn't wanted to jack with moving the crap because I knew it would suck, and it did, especially because the county in which I reside is now on lockdown because of the virus... I'd thought I'd have until the thirty-first, but no... It had to be finished yesterday, and I miraculously managed to find a few souls who were strong and courageous enough to help me. And then on the way home I got a flat tire. This month has SUCKED. Foiled again.

Eight. After work, a woman boards the train she usually takes home. Her car is almost empty, which strikes her as a bit strange -- it is six o'clock in the afternoon, well into rush hour. She shrugs it off to luck and and sets to reading her book.

When the train makes its first stop, however, the woman realizes something is wrong. The stop is not one with which she is familiar -- or indeed that should exist in reality at all.

Because the first stop is the actually the only stop -- the banks of the River Styx, and Charon awaits in his canoe with an outstretched hand for the quarters needed to pass into hell. She has none. But she cannot stay on the train. The conductor drags her from her seat and boots her onto the ground -- her book and bag fly after her, then vanish. She is the last to leave. The train vanishes. She watches as the others board the ferry, and then they, too, vanish. The world is gray and bleak, and she sees nothing.

Nine. A visiting opera gains fame when one of its actors dies on stage, during a live performance. What is more, the cause of death is by no means natural. 

The man died because the owner of the theater where the opera was being performed has been struggling to make ends meet and needed a draw. When the owner learned the lead was deathly allergic to peanuts, he bought a giant bag, crushed them up and hid them strategically in the costumes and props.

Ten. If you had to make a pros and cons list about yourself, what would the top three be in each category? Pros: Resilience, tenacity, and generosity. Cons: Temper, paranoia, fearfulness.

Eleven. What do you think is the most important thing to save money for? Rainy days... like the ones we're experiencing now.

Twelve. Do you think peace is an illusion? No.

Thirteen. What makes you a good friend? Empathy.

Fourteen. What is your most expressive characteristic, and in what ways do you express it?  Crassness, often in the words I choose and the tone of voice I use.

Fifteen. What makes you sentimental? Love.

Sixteen. Dancing or singing? Singing. Because I'm better at it, and it brings me comfort.

Seventeen. Vintage or modern? Vintage in style, but new. Because modern decor seems cold to me, but I don't like hand-me-downs.

Eighteen. Video games or board games? Board games because they're always changing and allow for good competition with others.

Nineteen. Private jet or yacht? I would rather not have either, but if I was forced to choose, the jet because it gets there faster and allows for more convenient travel.

Twenty. Are you a planner or spontaneous? Spontaneous, because plans invite disappointment.

Twenty-one. What is the first thing you notice about other people? Pallor and stature.

Twenty-two. What is the rudest thing a person can do to another? Ignore someone. Fail to acknowledge.

Twenty-three. What's the most valuable thing you own? It's an exception, and that's one of the reasons it's so valuable to me: the antique icebox my great-uncle restored and great-aunt painted.

Twenty-four. Whom do you think is the best Olympian ever? Michael Phelps.

Twenty-five. Do you think artists should censor their work so they don't offend anyone? Hell no.

Silver Linings

Funny how catastrophes can illuminate the past to make it seem glorious. How they can demand action. I was bitching a while back about how life is my problem, how I struggle with loving it and wanting it.

And then some folks in China decide to eat exotic meat that carries a deadly virus, their government covers it up for weeks if not months, and now here we are... the wheels of the world are slowly grinding to a halt. I wasn't worried about this. I had more pressing matters with which to concern myself.

And then, today, I learned that after this week, I will not be working for a while. I'm not being laid off or let go... we're just not going to be conducting business for a time.

So I've spent my afternoon canceling services I've not used in sometime that I've been meaning to cancel, but their monthly charges were so slight I've not bothered with it. Shaving my vehicular insurance's policy and my cellular plan to the bones. Registering for a smaller storage unit--one that's two-thirds the size of that I currently use and costs half as much. Requesting a forbearance for my student loans. Acquiring less expensive health insurance.

I spent most of my afternoon going through the boxes that have, for the most part, been untouched for fifteen years. I purged, and will continue to do so over the course of the next week.

It's like God's forcing my hand. Like He's reminding me that my life wasn't as shitty as I thought.

I keep thinking I've found the bottom, and then CHAOS erupts, and I learn a new kind of misery.

So... hours at the store room today. I pitched four or five garbage bags filled with crap I'd once thought I should keep... or that I'd get around to pitching eventually... some other day.

CRAP, yall. Like cheap promotional materials--pens, magnets, KOOZIES. I don't freaking USE koozies, but for some reason, I'd saved them.

But I got to look at things I've loved, too. Like Pottery Barn's Moss Green Sausalito stoneware. That green! SO vibrant and, simultaneously, soothing.

After those hours... I had a meltdown in the parking lot because I couldn't put the trash in the dumpster on the premises because it's reserved for management. One more inconvenience. One more pain in my ass. I loaded my two-door coupe with four yard bags and four boxes filled with trash and lugged it across town to dump in the bin belonging to the company where I work. My father, my finances, my so-called friends... my faith. All these things are crippling me.

I will be better for all this in the long run. I know it. Oh, but I don't feel like running right now.

Still... the vision of a tidier life does please me.

I've Lost the Light... I Don't Know Where

Some dude on Bumble (because I am that idiotic hopeless romantic and can't hold onto my resolve any better than I can hold onto a dollar bill): Your blog made me laugh. Kind of wondering what I have to do to be a subject.

Me: My blog made you laugh? That's good because I've been feeling like it's been dark lately. To be a subject? Surprise me.

So apparently, all he needed to do was say Picky made him laugh. Except he's not really the subject here, though it did surprise me that I'd made him laugh. I reread the most recent posts the other day and couldn't find much of it amusing.

There is such darkness in my world, and it's gotten darker still.

My father's in the hospital. He didn't want to go. He's not in favor of extreme measures and has the paperwork to prove it. He went to a cardiologist a week ago yesterday, who ordered blood work to be done that Friday. Cardiologist had forgotten something in his office and went back up on Saturday to find my father's lab results on the top of his desk and was alarmed to see how low my father's hemoglobin was. He called to ask my father to come to the emergency room to have the test redone because he thought perhaps there was an error in its execution.

My father didn't want to go. But I wanted him to do so. My mother did. The cardiologist did. I thought it would be in and out fairly quickly. A retake.

It wasn't.

He's been on high blood pressure medicine for quite some time, has been routinely checking it, as well as his blood sugar because his father was diabetic. He's been coughing, badly, for about two years now. Probably more than that. As though his allergies are heinous and he can't quite get the mucus out of his chest.

Because it was fluid, not mucus. He's got aortic stenosis, which means the aortic valve is flapping in on itself or something like that. His heart's overtaxed because he's losing blood because there's something wrong with his digestive system... probably his kidneys. His sodium levels are insanely low, which you would think wouldn't be the case because he guzzles carbonated beverages like they're water. So he's bleeding somewhere... most likely has been for quite some time.

And maybe all of this could be fixed, but hospitals aren't performing surgeries unless they're caused by life-threatening conditions. And hospitals closed to visitors yesterday, so this seventy-eight-year-old man who'd rather be here with us, sitting in his chair watching Fox News and eating my mother's cooking and bitching that he can't hear the television because my mother and I keep talking over the commentators...

Yall, he could barely walk, could barely move, could barely speak. He is positive he's dying.

We made him go. And I'm beginning to think my father's going to die alone in that hospital, and I won't get to say goodbye to him. And all I want to do is curl up in his lap like I did when I was a toddler. I can't because we made him go.

And I keep thinking of when my brother died. Of how he died alone in the dark. How I didn't get to say goodbye. How I had no one upon whom to lean to grieve.

I don't want to do this again. I don't want to have to suck up my sadness so I don't burden my mother and my brother and God knows who else...

I want my father home.

I want someone to make these shadows go away.

* * *

This morning Mom told me his kidneys were failing. I was more concerned that he would die. I texted him and asked him again if he wanted me to bail him out. He didn't respond right away, but hours later, I got a text from him saying not yet. I called my brother on the way to work to ask about his opinion of the situation. Both Mom and he were on the side of hospitalization. I went to work. 

I called my father on the way home and asked again if he wanted me to come get him. He said no.

When I got home, I watered his rather impressive cactus garden. 

Not long after finishing that, Mom came home to announce that he was coming home. Still very sick. Still lots of doctors' care required, but they could do it from our home. He'll be here this afternoon. I am somewhat relieved.

A Girl Gives Her Testimony to a Group of Much Better Women than She and It Is Well-Received

I presented my story at one of those Bible studies in which I participate. I worried over what to write for two weeks. I was asked last night if I could go today instead of next week. I said, "Sure." I hadn't figured out what I was going to say, didn't have any props (because people like to look at things)... I knew it would come to me, but... yall... it came to me at eight-thirty a.m. this morning... sixty minutes before I was to speak. Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator. I thought I'd share what I'd said--most of you who've followed Picky for some time know the spiel, but for the newcomer:

I don't look good on paper. Three years shy of fifty, unmarried, childless, physically and mentally disabled, financially and emotionally insecure, underemployed with no prospects or drive for better opportunities, living with my parents, driving a twelve-year-old vehicle with nearly two hundred thousand miles on it. The longest romantic relationship I've had lasted four months... four months longer than it should have because I had no interest in him. The one that mattered most lasted six weeks... if that... because I had too much interest in him. The worst one lasted three months and ended with him verbally, emotionally and mentally abusing me. If I could manage to find and keep a good man, I've doubted whether I could give him children anyway because I have cerebral palsy: my hips were dislocated at birth; my bones, ligaments, tendons and muscles are poorly-constructed things; and my brain suffers chemical imbalances that cause severe depression and rage... even if I'd been physically capable of carrying a child and having a healthy pregnancy, I questioned whether I would've been sound enough to be a nurturing mother. I've not kept any job for longer than five years, and none of them have paid well; the majority of them have been in retail.

I don't look good in person. My face feels like a Picasso painting: scraps jumbled together and colored red for the rage, yellow for the jaundiced skin, blue for the sadness and the tempest, and black for the fear and the despair. I've had six surgeries, three of which were on my eyes. I bear some thirty scars from those surgeries, and ten of them are above my chin. I've been told of how ugly I am more times than I could possibly begin to fathom. I've been told I should kill myself because I'm taking up valuable air and space and there are more important people who need it. That no one would ever want to marry me because I was too ugly and no one wants to wake up next to something--not someone--that ugly every morning. I had a teacher put my desk in an appliance box because she couldn't stand having me in her classroom, couldn't bear the sight of me, but couldn't put me in another one because I was too smart to be in special education. The world is flat to me--I have no depth perception. I see things like you would see them on a television or theater screen or in a magazine or photograph. I constantly have to guess where things are, and my hands often reach for things to help secure my place--walking in a crowded mall or grocery store is more terrifying to me than driving on an interstate. People move around like gaseous molecules with no regard for others. And when I stop to wait for people to go by or I press myself against the shelves in a store until they have passed, people stare at me and ask, "What the hell is your problem?"

Life has been my problem. Loving it, wanting it. I have battled suicidal ideation since I was eight years old... since that teacher put my desk in that refrigerator box.

I am that electron that doesn't belong anywhere. The free radical floating in the cosmos, screwing things up. The fifth wheel. The black hole. The voyeur. The wallflower. Eager for, but incapable of, belonging. Unwelcome. Unnecessary.

Two and a half years ago, while on a Sunday drive, my father said I seemed happier, that I wasn't fighting as much. I wanted to cry. I wasn't fighting at all. I'd stopped clambering for the surface. I had dreams of an Aggie ring, marriage, family, home, career. One by one they'd died. I'd been mourning their deaths and waiting for mine, knowing it could be decades away. And two weeks or so later... My oldest friend called, inviting me to her classroom to teach first graders how to write. I met a little boy, and then I met his mother, the woman who leads the small group of which I am a member and heads the women's ministry of the church I sometimes attend.

I know the ways I have been blessed. I am here today because of those blessings, those lifelines God has thrown me. He's never thrown me so many as He has in the past two years.