A Ceramic Fish Joint

So I’ve just noticed that my left had feels funny. On the top and middle first third of my ring and middle fingers (wait, starting to creep down to my knuckles too) there is this strange cooling sensation. Like, tingling almost – but actually feeling a little cold. I have total feeling in my fingers, and it seems to just be those two fingers on that hand. Started maybe fifteen minutes ago. I thought I might have gotten some Biofreeze on my hand, but it wouldn’t make sense to affect only that area. Plus, I’m pretty sure I used my right hand to rub it on my back. And I can’t smell it on my hand, either. I’m thinking I probably washed my hands afterwards, too. Before the Biofreeze, I rubbed a little of a sore muscle massage bar over my lower back, Wiccy Magic Muscles from Lush. It’s kind of spicy and I’ve been having weird reactions to things lately. But again, if it’s a reaction – why only that part of my hand and those two fingers?

I can’t detect any temperature difference in those areas. I do have an ice pack on my back (just removed it) but I don’t see why it would be messing with how part of my hand feels.

(This was written this morning, around 6am. I was mid-sentence when Ziggy climbed up on me to nap. It was one of those situations where I had to put away the computer, or rather turn on Boxee to watch something and get as comfortable as possible. I was a little sleepy anyways, and when he lays on my chest with sleepy eyes and a loud purr it just zaps all the energy from me. He makes it known that he will be laying on me and I best make room. He doesn’t even take a long time to find his “spot” like other times when he wants snuggled. He goes straight to my chest acting like he is barely awake enough to stand on his own until I can get myself more horizontal and my arm under him to provide a sort of shelf. I have use of my right hand briefly, which I take advantage of to move the laptop where I can see it, turn on something to entertain me and then quickly switch arm-shelves to turn of my light before switching back – he prefers to be held up by my left arm for some reason and then wants my right hand to just lay on top of him. So that he turns into a Ziggy sammich. No petting, just being held. My cat is a total cuddle-slut, have I told you that? Just like his mama. Anyway, there’s really no hope for me after he gets into position. He’ll lay there at least 15 minutes, but usually closer to an hour. If I put him down somewhere else, he’ll just climb back on me. If I pet him, he’ll readjust into another position on my chest, turning his head upside down to make it clear he’s there for sleep. If I don’t fall asleep with him, which is rare, I’ll be so relaxed when he does get up that I’m totally useless anyways.)

So, yeah. The weird feeling left. While Ziggy was napping on me, I was still freaking the fuck out. Because clearly I was having some sort of angina with a side of stroke followed with a dollop of seizure, hold the seize. I removed the ice pack on the off chance it had something to do with it, but didn’t actually think it was related at all. But it was the only other thing that was cold.

Yeah, less than five minutes after I removed the ice pack the feeling was gone. It had to have been the ice pack. I can’t think of anything else that would have caused my fingers to feel oddly cold inside. It started shortly after I applied the ice to my back, and began getting better as soon as I removed it. It wasn’t immediate, but slowly came on and went with the introduction and removal of the dumb thing. I have no clue how a damn ice pack would cause the first third of my middle and ring fingers to feel cold inside. But I just don’t think the timing for it was a coincidence.

The only other explanation is that the healing power of purring cured my ailment. Seriously. Purring heals. Something about the rhythm of the cycle of purrs. Which is why, apparently, cats sometimes purr when they are hurt or sick. It’s their own mysterious little voodoo that nobody can figure out. I mean, with all we have discovered as people – we still don’t know how a cat purrs. I just think that indicates it’s some sort of special process. In any case, I’ve had my own experiences with cat purrs helping. When I’ve had some of the more severe pain or nausea that’s sometimes associated with gastric paresis, it honestly gets a little better if Ziggy lays on my stomach. And, it seems like when I am having stomach issues acting up, he’s more likely to want to lay on my stomach instead of my chest. Perhaps it’s in my head – which is fine with me – but I do feel better with Ziggy on me. Still, it’s a stretch for me to think that Ziggy’s purr somehow zapped the funk from my fingers.

So this is day -4 I guess. Monday will be day 0, or the day I move. I still have so much to do, and I so don’t feel like doing it. I had spinal steroid injections done yesterday, and it really hurt this time around. I guess getting six different shots hurts more. I can’t really bend over too easily without getting horrible stabbing pain.

Oh, and when I was there? At the surgery center? Having giant needles poked in my back? I developed a new allergy. To betadine. The betadine that they used to clean my lower back – all the way down to my ass. I had this giant area of betadine, and before I drifted off to sleep from the magical milky drugs…I remember feeling a little bit of tingly itching on my back. There was apparently a piece of gauze placed to catch the residual bleeding. I didn’t know it, and so when I came home and changed it fell on the floor in the bathroom. And I didn’t notice it. So my mom found it and freaked out because of how much blood there was. She seems to not understand that these shots aren’t just superficial, they go deep into the spaces between the vertebrae. So, realizing that this had made me bleed so much, she wanted to see it. (Oh, moments before that, she’s screaming at me because I had hives on my neck. She always seems to get mad at me for these things, like I willingly exposed myself to some allergen.) Anyway, it turns out my back, and ass, had hives. Giant ass hives.

Because I’m not allergic to betadine. Lovely. I find it ironic that I was being doused in the stuff while I was talking to the anasthesiologist about my (new) allergy to Lidocaine. I didn’t have it the last time I was there, so it wasn’t an issue. But see, the lovely milky sleep drugs that they give you…they burn. Like forest fire. Bad analogy. But yeah, it burns a lot. Apparently they normally mix lidocaine in with the other stuff so it doesn’t hurt so badly. (Oh, and I had to have my iv on the inside of my wrist – a super sensitive place – because none of my veins on my hand would come out and play. My veins suck and are made of FAIL.) But yeah, irony. Probably it’s not really funny that I developed a new allergy to something as benign as betadine, but I did. This is probably going to be bad in the future. They (those medical people) always be putting betadine on shit before they do shit. Or when you hurt shit, they pour betadine on it. Stupid, stupid allergies.

I’ve told you all that I’m allergic to cows, right? Cows. Seriously – who is allergic to cows? I get having an allergy to milk, or beef or whatever. But the animal as a whole? That’s lame. And slightly embarrassing. I guess I’ll never be able to have a career as a cowboy. Or bullrider. Or torero. And thus I’ll have no real need for red cowboy boots. Every time I’m in Texas (uhm, those two times…) I had to fight hard to resist the urge to buy cowboy boots. Red ones. I’ve always wanted red cowboy boots. I may have had a pair as a child. There could be a picture floating around somewhere of it.

Oooh, that reminds me. My new printer came with a scanner. I never ever have a need for a scanner. Except, it could be totally fun and provide lots of self-deprecating humor if I scanned photos of myself as a child. You could see how I liked to wear my underwear as a hat! Wait, probably I shouldn’t share that with all the tubes of the internet. Probably I’d get arrested for child pornography, with a sub-charge of prostitution. That would put me in a world of Not Fun.

Damn, I’m procrastinating this entry, even. I started out talking about how it’s 4 days (well, 3 now…it’s after midnight) until Moving Day. Then came allergies, cows, (red) cowboy boots and child prostitution. I need to focus!

I’ve done next to nothing to prepare for this move. Haven’t begun packing yet. Or cleaning. Or anything. On Saturday between 8 and 4:30, Salvation Army is coming to get the bulk of my furniture. After that, I will sadly be sleeping on an air mattress. Not Fun. I’m not turning off cable until Monday, so there will be internets and tv until then. The tentative plan is to clean and pack what we can tomorrow. Tomorrow night, I’m taking the time out to spend with a friend as a farewell or whatnot. Then Saturday we wait for the people to come pick up the stuff I’m donating. Then, finish packing. Sunday we’ll clean so I can get as much of my security deposit back as possible. Finally, on Monday, after everything is done I’ll call the landlord and wait for her to come check the place out, take the keys and lock it up. Drop off cable boxes and then drive. Drive for forever, or until northern South Carolina – maybe Southern North Carolina – somewhere close to South of the Border. Then we rest, let Ziggy flip out in a hotel and sleep. Before doing it all over again.

Apparently I have no where to sleep once we get to WV. Through a series of events, I will now have the basement as my home. Except Jeremy kind of trashed the basement before moving into my second bedroom. Tore down a couple walls. And, in my family’s great forethought, they took all the stuff they didn’t have a home for down to the basement. Just like they used to do in my dad’s old bedroom (my second bedroom.) We spent three days clearing out that bedroom for me to use. Except for the clothing. My mom’s dresser was full of clothes she doesn’t wear and dad’s dresser was the same. Except along with clothes, there was/is a drawer full of old newspapers and racing forms. Actually there are probably three drawers with newspapers. A drawer with bills. And then a drawer or two with random crap. I come from a family of packrats. Point is, I will have to sleep on a lumpy crappy couch. With an overweight beagle and a very large cat trying to “share” the space. This after traveling roughly 1100 miles from a place I love to a place I hate.

DO NOT WANT.

Ooh, I just realized that Hell’s Kitchen premiered tonight. And, I had the DVR set up to record it. So, must go procrastinate the packing with some TV.

So I found a lump on the back of Ziggy’s head tonight. Naturally, I’m freaking the fuck out. Mom has said that it’s probably no big deal and that I might have just not noticed it before. Dad thinks that it’s just the way his skull is shaped or something. Neither think I need to take him to the vet. I’m not sure if I agree with that decision, though.

He’s acting fine, which is good. He’s actually been extremely clingy lately. Earlier today, he actually climbed up on my mom and licked her face. He never does that. Well, not to her anyway. As a general rule he doesn’t show her much affection, because she doesn’t show him much. She likes Ziggy well enough, but doesn’t really like to, you know, hold him or pet him or talk to him. All the types of things cats like, she’s pretty much against. And Ziggy is super close to his humans anyway, so he demands all that stuff even more as a general rule. I can’t think of a day when he hasn’t slept on me at some point, chatted with me, headbutted me or stood on my chest while he decided what he wanted to do. In my head, I always imagine him yelling “I’m king of the world!” when he’s in that position. Just like in Titanic. It totally fits. I mean, he would be saying it in an ironic sort of way, not literal. If he were talking, that is. And if he were saying those words.

Yeah, clearly I am a dork.

I found out that one of my friends from highschool got divorced at some point. It’s a shame, a damn shame. He’s such a nice guy. Like, one of those really nice guys who ends up with total FAIL in those movies. That guy. He’s totally that guy. At least, he was when I last knew him. Which, admittedly, was about 10 years ago. Anyway, he had deleted his MySpace account, and just friended me on FaceBook. Ah, the internets. How fun they are. I have to admit that a small part of me was a little happy that he was single again. Not because I’m interested in him, but because it would mean striking up a friendship again would be a little easier. It’s always awkward to be a single chick in a platonic relationship with someone married. Especially since I’m, uh, kinda slutty and have a tendency to sleep with my friends – platonic as they may be.

I kind of doubt that we will be hanging out again, though. I was reading over some of the comments he had made on pictures and stuff, and one was something incredibly rude and just…wrong, I guess, about an overweight girl. Being a fat chick myself, it made me really uncomfortable. Guess he’s not necessarily as nice as I said. It was weird; the comment went beyond saying she was ugly because she was fat, and into an area where her existence as a person was somehow wrong or bad or whatever because of her weight. If that makes sense.

I dunno. It made me kind of sad to see that comment from him. I’m having problems really putting this into words, but I guess knowing that one of my good friends from high school would turn into the type of person that I’ve suffered insults from my entire life, well…it’s not a good feeling. That just sucks. I was actually looking forward to reconnecting with him once I got back to WV. But, you know, too fat to provide interesting fodder for conversation and the immensity of my ass will prevent me from existing in the same room as another person. I’ve likely developed my own gravitational pull by now; beware.

Wow, usually this stuff doesn’t bother me as much as it is tonight. Methinks I’m still a hormonal one. Where has my period gone, anyway?

I got my hair cut last week, but it was bad. Really bad. I had a horrible headache which was affecting my vision, so I didn’t notice that the left side of my hair was a good inch shorter than the right side. Today, I tried to fix it. It’s even, but I don’t like the transition from the back to the sides. I’m wondering if I should pay someone else to try to fix it professionally. I don’t really trust anyone except my old stylist Stephany. But I don’t think she’s cutting hair anymore. I tried to get ahold of her a few months ago, in September and again in October I think, but no dice. I called, texted and even emailed her. She had changed salons when the Toni & Guy in Brandon closed down, and the new salon basically was run by the stylists. Meaning they handled their own clients, did the booking and all that. There wasn’t a main number for the place, you really just had your stylist’s personal number on their business card. There was another girl who had gone over from Toni & Guy that I also liked, but I never bothered to get her number. I always figured I’d be able to get ahold of Stephany.

So, anyway. Back in September or October, I forget which, I had gone to get a pedicure at this little salon down the street. And, on a whim, decided to get my hair trimmed. There is only one stylist at this place and she honestly did a good job with my hair then. When I was sick and being hospitalized every week, my hair was the last thing on my mind, so I let it slide. Then I lost my job, and couldn’t bring myself to spend the 20 bucks for a cheap haircut.

So, fast forward to last week. My mom had been bitching for weeks that she needed her hair cut. And since she refuses to do anything without me, I had to take her. And pick out a haircut for her. But only after she decided that she hated every damn thing I picked for her. Why she bothers to ask me, I do not know. Dad had sent her a hundred bucks to spend on things like cigarettes and meds and haircuts. The day she got the money, she blew most of it at Walmart on who knows what. But, thinking she still had money, I took her to get the haircut.

Yeah, so I ended up paying for both of us. Fun times! And she got hers done first, right? Well, as she was getting hers done, I started having a bad feeling about getting my own hair cut. I really wanted something a little more fun than what I had currently. Didn’t want another “bob” like I usually get. I was actually hoping to get something close to what I got when I had my hair dyed bright red:

I didn’t know how to properly communicate this with her. My old stylist would know exactly what I meant. But, not the same here. And my mom had gotten a book of hairstyles during one of her shopping sprees around Christmas. (Did you know those things cost like 10 bucks?! It infuriates me that I save and don’t buy shit, and she dropped over 400 bucks at Christmas on stupid shit…then another $150 since dad left on 1/6…and THEN I’ve had to pay for stuff for her after she blew all of her money – so I spent over $100 on her this week. She’s completely clueless.) So, yeah. Hairstyle book. I was going to use it to illustrate the type of haircut I wanted, but started to chicken out. After my mom’s cut was finished, she practically shoved me into the chair to have my own haircut. I already told the lady I wasn’t so sure what I wanted done, etc etc. But no. Mom had decided I’d get another bob (the type where it’s shorter in the back then angles down longer in the front to where it hits under my jawline.) Whatever.

So the lady cuts my hair. I had a horrible headache that day, and most every day since, and my eyesight has been affected by it. So I didn’t exactly notice that one side of my hair was a full inch shorter. It looked so bad. There were huge chunks of hair that had been missed that were super long. Then, what would be the lighter side of hair because of my part, was an inch shorter. What really sucked is that the longer side actually looked good at the time! So since then I’ve been snipping away at hunks that are too long. This morning, I finally went at my hair and chopped it much shorter. I can’t decide how bad it looks yet. It’s even, at least. But in some ways it just looks weird. I wonder, though, if it would look better if I had put some product in it and actually styled it. Sigh. I don’t know. Any suggestions?

My dad has left to come back down here. No turning back now. Well, I guess the no turning back part was a while ago.

I’m really worried about the ride for Ziggy. And how the other animals will take to him. That part is probably a bigger worry.

I’ve read a lot of stuff online about how to integrate the cats, and while I’m on board for keeping them apart and doing the introduction slowly, I doubt my family is. They get sick of stuff like that. Actually, it’s likely one of the cats will annoy someone while locked in a bathroom or whatever, someone will then get irritated and end up letting the cat out with the other one. And since my crazy old great Aunt Shirley said she’s had lots of cats throughout her life and she just throws them together right away and they’re fine…well, people will go back to that. She claimed that they hiss at each other for a few days then are best friends.

I don’t want a cat hissing and swatting at Ziggy. And I don’t want him to be afraid of a huge dumb dog. I mean, I think Zig can hold his own with the dog – Max isn’t that bright. Plus, he just wants to play, like a puppy. When the other cat gets sick of him, she just swats him on the nose. Seems to put in back in line.

Oh, Max. Max the giant beagle. It will be so nice to see him again. He’s so friendly and easy-going. And he gives the BEST hugs. He does tend to be a bed hog, though. He likes to sleep with people but ends up using his giant muscular legs to push the human out the bed. When I was last up there, I shared a bed with him most of the time. A queen sized bed. He had allocated most of the bed and almost all of the covers for himself. Actually, he now has his own set of covers for the couch that he snuggles down under since nobody will share their bed with him since I left. I just don’t know what I’ll do with a 60+ lb beagle shoving me and a 10+ lb cat laying on my side, my foot, my stomach. Aye animales!

This post originally written a few weeks ago, but I forgot to finish it. It’s still applicable.

I’ve been incredibly weepy lately. Incredibly weepy. Crying over the silliest things. Movies. Television. Websites. Pictures of kittens. Everything causes me to get that butterfly tingly in my throat and I have a hard time choking back the tears.

I’m pretty sure it has something to do with fucking with my meds. You see, I somehow stopped taking pretty much everything. Every now and then, I’ll remember to pop a birth control pill. I think I’ve had one pack last nearly two months. So my cycle is all wonky because of it. I have no clue when I last even had a period. Apparently if you take like two pills every week, you can just stop menstruating altogether. Though, I’m guessing it’s not quite as foolproof for the whole preventing pregnancy part. Then again, I’m not getting laid quite so often lately.

Along with the birth control wonkiness, at some point I stopped taking antidepressants. I was taking the maximum dose of two meds, one of which is damn hard to get off of. Have you ever heard of Paxil withdrawal? Yeah, it’s a bitch. With the electrical brain zaps, the mood swings…the everything. And the two things I continue to take cause irritability and depression. Opiates depress a person when taken long term. And the pill I take for my stomach…well, it has psychological side effects. Oh, and apparently it can also mess with menstruation. It’s a roller coaster in my head and I don’t like it one bit. I guess I could just take my meds again…but that seems too easy. Plus, I was taking way too much anyway. I think I listed everything before. From pain management, I have five different medicines. From my psychiatrist I have five. From the surgeon, I have four. Then from a general practitioner I have at least three that I can think of. Maybe more. Of course, part of these were taken as needed..but most were not. That’s a hell of a lot of drugs. It’s no wonder I’m an unstable mess. And when you add the whole tendency to take too much, it’s just not a good situation.

cut to current thinking…

Ugh, now I know why I never finished this post. I’ve tried writing stuff for over an hour now, and it’s just not what I want to say. Some things that come along with this, I just don’t want to share. Or can’t share, really. Other things…I dunno. Just seems like the kind of thing people wouldn’t want to read.

So, I’ll go in the direction of the title. The weepiness. Holy hell. I’m even worse than before. I’m completely freaking out about moving. Like, on a level of freak-out of I have rarely experienced. This time? I don’t have all of those above-mentioned pills to help. Gawd what I wouldn’t give for a Xanax right now. With no insurance (and money owed to my psychiatrist) I can’t make an appointment to get more meds. And my mom is having problems getting her pills filled. Actually, speaking of her…I would likely have some of my meds still if she didn’t take them all. My sleeping pills? She took. My Xanax? She took. And after she took them all? She continues to ask if I have any “hidden.” What the fuck woman. If I had any hidden away, don’t you think I’d use them for myself? She always claims to not need pills and such…but it’s totally not the case.

So, yeah. Freaking out. As evidenced by the photo I shared the other night, there’s been crying. Lots and lots of uncontrollable crying. Nobody seems to understand how upsetting it is to GIVE UP MY LIFE. I mean, clearly I totally failed at it. So, as punishment, I get to go live with my parents. I’m turning 29 in a month and a half and my great accomplishment will be…hmm…I went to school for a little while, finally getting my GPA to a C level. I lived in Tampa for a little while, but couldn’t hold down a job, resulting in my dad paying my rent, my bills, my car payment. My parents came down to help me, but decided they liked my apartment, and the city and refused to leave. I’ve not been able to have a worthwhile relationship that hasn’t made me lose my shit. Oh, and I’m about 60 grand in debt right now. Wow. I’m a real winner.

Not only do I get to leave my lovely home behind, but because of expense, I have to get rid of most of my stuff. My dad doesn’t see how this might be upsetting to me. I mean, I had to do it once before after breaking up with Brian…excuse me, after he broke up with me and kicked me out of our apartment leaving me homeless. I lost most of my possessions during that little upheaval. So when I got back down to Tampa last year, I worked my ass off trying to build my life up again. Now, because it costs too much to rent a moving truck, I have to sell/trash/donate pretty much everything I own. It’s devastating. His response to it is that pretty much anything I have here can either be found at my grandma’s house (he’s in the process of selling it so we’ve got to do something with all the furniture and such anyway) or bought. Fuck, I can’t even think about it without crying again.

Also, nobody quite understands how hard it is for me to not have any kind of schedule for how this whole moving thing is going to work. Dad says he’ll be down on Sunday and will take care of everything. We have to be gone by the following Saturday. I have a lot of shit here. A lot. I can’t even talk to my landlord to tell him what day I’m leaving because my dad’s plan is just to see how it works out. When you have panic disorder….you can’t just see how it fucking works out. I’m gripped in fear here. I can’t breathe. I can’t think. I’m so worried about everything. He tells me to enjoy my last week in Tampa. I can’t. I can’t stand the thought of even going anywhere because I know it’ll be the last time I see the place. Besides, I haven’t enjoyed a minute of living here since my mom came. She has totally ruined my life. She doesn’t even care, either. Because, you know…she’s so freespirited here. It’s a lovely vacation. Gah. It’s all driving me crazy.

And the headaches. Oh with the headaches. I’ve had one for a week now. It won’t fucking go away. Sometimes it pushes over into migraine territory. Last night was particularly bad. I actually woke up feeling okay today…but I woke up too early (6:30) and didn’t have enough sleep. And, well, the headache came back after about 30 minutes. I’m sure this is mostly stress related, but knowing that doesn’t help it to go away.

I just want this all to be over. I want insurance again so that I can get my crazy pills again. I want to go to Austin to see my friend Amber. I miss her. I miss having friends. Ever since my mom got here, my own social life is a think of the past. I have literally seen one friend outside of work in the last 8 months. One. And, while the sex on the balcony was a lot of fun…it isn’t the same as actually hanging out with people. I don’t even like to talk to my old friends anymore because it’s too upsetting that I don’t have the life I used to. I’ll likely leave town without seeing anyone. It’s too hard on me. But, sitting on this one corner of my bed is pretty fucking hard too. I don’t even go to my livingroom anymore because Mom’s there. Always. Always there. I can’t get away from her. And, if I do leave the apartment without her, I have to explain myself. Explain where I went. Describe how I got there and back. Despite the fact that she can’t find her way to the store that’s less than a mile away. It’s literally right down the street from here.

Ok, I have to stop talking. This is all too much for me. I hate what my life has become. I hate where it’s going. I resent what I’ve lost. And I just can’t deal anymore. Wake me when it’s over.

Reading: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Harper Fiction)

Watching: The Office: Season Four

Listening: Our Endless Numbered Days

My feelings, let me show you them.