20 things : losses and gains

1. I've been out awhile, and struggled with how to tell people exactly why, and what I've been up to, and when I should come back to blogging, if at all.
2. The other day a friend told me she missed my blog, and so it was motivational.
3. I'm trying to participate in my life again, on a more social scale, after nearly a year of grieving.
4. For a long time now I thought we lost Ravi on August 8, but I look and it's actually August 22.
5. That's almost exactly a month before my mom did what she did.
6. I'm thinking a lot about anniversaries, because I'm being transitioned out of IOP round two, and because we are closing on our house --selling it --on Friday.
7. I dreamt about Ravi for the first time in a long time last night.
8. Around the time he went missing, a friend said, If you're dreaming about him, that means he's gonna come back. I had been.
9. I understand that's just some BS that people tell other people b/c they want it to be true, but I still wish she hadn't said that.
10. Sometimes when you love someone, they go away and don't come back. I had two someones who went away.
11. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be over it.
12. But I have to start rebuilding my life somehow, some way.
13. At first I was pressing myself to do this really hard, like I had to score an A+ on a test and the test was My Life.
14. But now after a raftload of therapy, I realize that the rebuilding will occur in its own time, and, although it doesn't hurt to encourage them, certain aspects of my life aren't going to come back before they are ready.
15. For example, I've been making status updates on fb in the past few days, and now I'm making this blog entry. But I wasn't doing those things for a long time.
16. However, if I choose to envision these things as a dramatic re-launch of Me in Social Media, then I will crawl back under the couch.
17. In other news, I'm doing a reading this weekend. When I signed up to do this reading months and months and months ago, I thought I'm gonna be so much better by August! 
18. There was another reading, in June, that I'd signed up for and actually had to withdraw myself from, because I wasn't ready. Now I think I'm sort of ready. We shall see.
19. It's hard to tell when to push and when to just let myself be. I used to think the answer was always push, and I would feel guilty every time I did not push. I don't think that anymore.
20. So this is a post. It's not an epic post. It's not an official re-launch. It may be a "soft open." But I don't even know what those words mean, when you're talking about a person. I hope I'll post again soon.

Here's a painting; click to see larger:

Stripped

20things : odd farewells

1. So I've gotten emotional over this whole house / history / house story aspect of moving. 
2. I have a lot of narrative that took place here; it makes me unexpectedly emotional.
3. And a lot of stuff I've been dragging around since before I lived in Ohio, which takes the narrative back further into the past.
4. I sort of cried a little when I separated out the majority of my carefully curated collection of costume and handmade necklaces vs. the ones I could still wear with the arthritis in my neck.
5. I donated almost all my cds and over half of my books.
6. Probably about nine bags of clothes and random baroque costumery, also gone.
7. My cassette collection (laugh and I'll cut you) went into the trash.
8. Juno and Ravi's medical records --trash.
9. But then I got emotional about something that surprised the hell out of me.
10. I said goodbye to my makeup. (I don't really wear 90% of anymore. Well, aside from a few basic items and nail polish in summer).
11. And not just "bye bye makeup" {trash}
12. No, I said goodbye to items as individuals.
13. Cranberry colored lipstick : you were a couple of really good office temp jobs."
[INTERRUPTION as I am writing this] : Luna, stop shredding that box.
14. Kohl eyeliner : My favorite eye pencil! You went to a lot of clubs and fancy dinners.
15. Liquid liner: I never really got you. You were always good for drawing on other parts of my body than my eyelids.
Luna, we actually paid someone to bring us that box, stop using it as a scratching post.
16. Raisin colored lipstick : Thanks for the help when I had to retake my photo ID when I moved back to PA. Everybody comments on the good picture.
17. Blue lipstick : You were years of clubbing, and a matching blue wig. Your wig-friend has already gone.
18. Roll-on glitter : That raver thing was more than a phase. Or else it was a very long phase.
Luna, I swear to GOD. {I finally just hoist the cat from her site of bad behavior and into the dining room.}
19. China-blue nail polish : I got inspired to get you after Ava and I had our first pedi together. It was the second time I'd ever had a pedicure, the first being my wedding.
20. I don't think I realized how symbolic and laden stuff has gotten for me. Like, individual items all have a story, and I'm remembering that story as I'm sorting them into donate, trash, and (the rather smaller) keep pile.

That is all.
Still not eating great, but I had a sandwich yesterday and nothing bad happened.
Luna is now back on top of the Forbidden Box, gleefully attempting to maul the tape with her teeth and claws.

Seriously reduced jewelry collection. If you are interested in knowing about / examining any part of the rest, please comment or send me fb mail.

How many bottles of nail polish can one like, legitimately have before it gets to be, arguably, too many bottles of nail polish?

20things : motivation routine waking sleeping

1. At 6:35, my brain turns on. This is the absolute latest it has turned itself on in months. This is how late I sleep, and I have no reason to get up this early. This is off-time, healing time. I don't have to go to work.
2. Telepathically, Rus knows I'm awake and so comes over and yowls for breakfast.
3. I don't want to wake Mike up so I get up.
4. The moment my feet hit the floor I'm like fuck, another day. Weren't we just here yesterday?

A flower I clipped from the long-lasting Valentines bouquet to cheer myself.

5. Get up make coffee cat meds cat food human food computer facebook email blog surf internet until my conscience says I can't possibly procrastinate anymore shower start day.
6. From within my metaphorical nautilus, last night, I wrote down a list of things to do in the morning before I have to leave the house.
7. I put cardamom and ginger in the coffee this morning. Also to cheer myself.
8. It's sort of working.
9. Today I have to leave at 12:30 and I won't get back until 9:30.
10. Nine hours is a long time to be out for someone with fibro, okay, for ME with fibro and attendant visual difficulties that make me so tired. Nine hours is a long time to be up w/o a nap.
11. Okay now you know one (another?) of my embarrassing secrets.
12. On a normal day, I can't go more than nine hours w/o sleeping.
13. Today I will have woken up at 6:30 {math math math} I think that's 15 hours.
14. Most people go w/o sleeping for at least 15 hours.
15. Right now at this very moment I can hear a little voice going there's nothing wrong with you; you're just lazy.
16. But shit, there's a DBT skill for that. It's called "non-judgmental stance." It's like "be aware of when you're judging and stop that."
17. Easy, right?

Luna stole my flower.

18. I'm excited about my impending haircut.

19. Anybody wanna go with me to a reading at the Sphinx tonight? That place is designed to kill me, with its dim light, cramped space, and many overlapping floor rugs that stick to my feet, causing me to wobble.

20. Except it also has the atmosphere of an opium den, which is very relaxing, which is what I want my whole house / apartment to look like. The end.

Surely this is making me late.

To sit here and blog because we have to leave for the airport in what sounds like a lot of time, but is actually only a little when you consider it's me having to do the preparing of myself for it. Meaning I'm bad on traveling days. I orbit around, quasi-useless, getting little bits of tasks done and going on to other little bits but not finishing anything.

We are going to Georgia for the memorial service this morning. My dad is not coming. He wanted to but is not. I am reading a statement. Then part of a poem. Not one I wrote. The poems I write are too dark to be read at funerals.

Ruskin scared me this morning by making some sort of weird cat-noise that I've never heard before. Like an exhaled hiss through the nose? With his mouth shut? Not a cough? He only did it a few times but.... I know last night we put more flea topical stuff on them and he wasn't pleased. I think he scratched his head and then licked his paw or something. From having Mike as my decoder-of-all-things-technical-whether-I-wanted-to-know-it-or-not, I learned that apparently Advantage is a nicotine-derived pesticide that is lethal to insects but not harmful to mammals. Or that's what I can remember. He (Rus) also puked in Mike's slippers during the night. Mike says I think he's mad at us. It's true, by 14 years of experience, Rus recognizes the suitcase and is Not Pleased.

I am in the Process of Conserving Everyone. It's like invisible rosary beads where I worryworryworry about them so they will be safe, even though I know that worry doesn't do crap. You can never prepare for what will actually happen or who it will happen to. I can't lose any more cats. I can't lose any more people. No we haven't found Ravi. If we found Ravi it would be a big blog post entitled WE FOUND RAVI.

Yesterday I mouthed off to a few neighborhood drunkards (that sounds like I know them personally but there are so many that they are anonymous to me and it's actually two neighborhoods) who were attempting to micromanage my street crossing and bus disembarkation, and would not take no for answer. I think they might have perceived me as Uppity (Hi Kathi if you are reading this).

I'm doing okay on countering my newfound agoraphobia but not great. I am fallible failing fallen falling. My psyche is slowly falling through space, trying to relocate its tether. If you see my body, that's what's going on inside of it.

There's a splinter in your eye and it reads react (R-E-A-C-T)

Haaaaay internet bitchez what up?

Okay, I tried being casual just there (which I mistyped causal) but I like you. And I'm not casual with people I really like; I'm serious. 

I've got this serious dilemma. 

You may have already been caught up with my life to date, or at least the one I share in blogland, but if you're not, maybe you should read back a few entries until you are caught up... if you want to help me make this choice. If not, fuck it. Keep reading voyeur. I know you're there.

This house here that I'm sitting in right now is a safe place because Pam says it is. I think stepmom Pam may have been created from part-goddess parts.

Then there is my dad who, when I said, pre-morning-coffee: Gee I'm sorry I slept so late; I was up all night worried about my kitty cat.... responded with YOU KNOW I FEEL A CERTAIN WAY ABOUT PETS SOME PEOPLE MAY THINK IT'S HEARTLESS OR CRUEL BUT YOU REALLY HAVE TO LOVE THEM IN THE MOMENT AND THEN WHEN THEY DIE OR RUN AWAY YOU NEED TO JUST REPLACE THEM AND LIVE IN THE MOMENT YOU CAN FORM THE SAME LOVING BOND WITH ANOTHER PET SOME PEOPLE MAY SAY THIS IS CRUEL BUT FOR EXAMPLE [..... minutes pass ......] YOUR MOM AND THAT DOG OF HERS WERE REALLY CODEPENDENT TO THE POINT WHERE IT JUST WASN'T A NORMAL SCENARIO dad you know mom herself isn't a normal scenario BUT WHAT I'M SAYING IS IT WAS UNHEALTHY NOW INSTEAD YOU SHOULD..... 

My dad actually talks like that. His default unit of communication is The Lecture. It lasts from 5-10 minutes. I have gotten good over the past few days at not giving a crap. Or rather at fake giving a crap. This is different from when I was growing up. Then I really gave a crap about everything that came out of his mouth because he was my dad. And I was raised to do so. Ditto mom. She really isn't a normal scenario. I don't mind faking it. I love him. He's my dad. I love mom too. They did some pretty stupid things back in the day, but I love them. Pam has semi-reformed my dad. My dad is driving me to Pittsburgh for a thing. He's good. We just don't see the same on a lot of stuff. Mom is still doing stupid things. But I love her anyway. Yes, I'm being vague here. The stupid things they did aren't really relevant to this post. 

Anyway dad in this particular cat lecture kept rolling on like a 18-wheeler that's lost it's brakes and is on a slight slope downward. When I was younger I would have freaked the fuck out that he was talking about my cat that way, because I depended on my dad to understand me. Now I'm 37, I have a load of friends that I pretty much consider my extended family, and also did I mention, right now I'm on lots of medication. So I was like in my head: hm dad, fuck fuckityfucknuts where is the coffee.... 

But it takes little pieces of me away, whenever I have to fake it. My dad says ridiculous things all the time. I mean reeeeeee DICK ulous. His views on gun control and immigration are... ahem, they do not match mine. And without Pam there, he feels free to expound even if I ask him not to. Because he speaks in the all-caps voice, and I speak in the regular typeface with lots of dashes and interruptions-of-myself / or / slashes / like this / voice. 

If dad were the only thing getting under my skin (HA I made a joke there b/c my skin was all scabby before my dad got under it), this trip would not be making me so crazy. But there's one more leeeeettle straw that is breaking my back.

Back, back, back in the day I used to live here. In this town. And when I wasn't living here, I was living about 15 minutes south.

Some crimes were perpetrated against me by a certain man. Not a relative.

And this town holds all these memories that I didn't even realize would come up when I was by myself, under a fair amount of stress.

I thought this afternoon hm this could be a clue as to why I don't visit here that often.

I feel like to go outside I should dress up in a floofy head scarf and big sunglasses (sunglasses, check). Like Jackie Kennedy.

I don't believe this person, this man, is living here anymore.

But when you have, for example.... say you have a really ugly dresser. 

I have a really ugly dresser.

Say it was bought for you by your dad who has very masculine taste in furniture when you moved into his bachelor apartment when you were 17 because mom was not a normal scenario.

It was bought for me by my dad..... 

and I was looking at it when... this man... not a relative... was perpetrating crimes against me. Not crime, crimes. Repeatedly for several years.

This dresser is still in the room where I'm staying now. This dresser has followed me through 1, 2, 3 yes I believe it's three homes in the Allentown-Bethlehem area. 

And it's not the only scenery that surprise-haunts me.

My dad and I were doing some errands today in the car. Vroom, drivey-drive. You don't walk anywhere around here because you drive. Dad likes to drive. He likes to drive scenic routes sometimes. Todays scenic route, featuring some of the best scenery of Allentown-- it is seriously nice scenery --took me past several places where I remember the details of certain crimes. 

Last night, before this all even happened, I dreamt about him. The man. I dream about him in Pittsburgh sometimes too. But not very often. And when I dream about him in my own house, I wake to my life, my independence, my I-can-leave-if-I-want.

So I'm thinking about coming home. My dad already agreed to drive me back to Pittsburgh and back in a few weeks to do an important poetry thing. Nobody besides my dad and Pam (and Jenn?) know about this because it's been all Ravi Ravi Ravi where the fuck is Ravi. But I could just not go back with him. I would stay a week at home and then come back with Mike for the shore trip at the end of that week. 

But I am worried about incurring the, I won't say wrath, because my dad doesn't do wrath anymore... incurring the pissed-off of my dad.

*     *     *

I can't take this shit anymore. I'm going to list the shit now, just to recap.

1) We got fleas.
2) My OCD, the fleas, and the extreme heat of August interacted very badly, creating lots of scabby wounds all over me which I imagine are all flea bites, but which, in fact, are most likely not all flea bites.
3) I retreated to my parents' villa in sunny A-town which is well-appointed, cold as a fridge, and has stepgoddess Pam.
4) Back in Pittsburgh one of our cats vanished.
5) My husband starts freaking out and we are apart. I mean he is being really productive and amazing, but he is still hurting too.
6) I start freaking out here but in a slower, more protracted manner, including varied and sundry elements of PTSD badness, remembering crimes, etc.
7) if I go home, I will have to face the reality of my gone-cat-gone, and the imaginary but sort-of-real fleas.
8) if I stay here I will have to deal with the PTSD and to a much lesser extent my dad.
9) Either way I have at least another week of here. Which has goods and bads that even out. If you look at it as T = 7 days.

Am I still making sense bloggerinos? Help me make this choice? Deliver me some insight? 

A fist fight is brewin at my house, my house

So apparently the fact that I was not a hysterical wreck upon hearing of Ravi's disappearance was my mind's way of protecting me from emotional fallout. I recognize the signs now. The false I'm fine now. But that, truly, is a load of crap. I've been trying to be equanimitous. Is that a word? Anyway, trying to keep an even keel, stiff upper lip, and all that shit. Because that's what my heavy doses of DBT (it's a type of cognitive therapy for people that have had problems with severe emotional dysregulation) have taught me. But there's some cracks in the armor or something. Gee I can't imagine why.

Now I'm cycling through some emotions. They just needed awhile to get to the surface. I'll share them in alphabetical order, because hey, it's orderly.

Anger: Goddamn it I would have locked up the cats for the moving. This would not have happened on my watch because my special unique brand of cynicism and mistrust will keep everybody safe. Except I hate everybody and don't want to keep them safe right now.

Fear: He's somewhere and needs help and can't get to safety. He's hung himself on his collar somewhere in our house and is slowly suffocating. His body out back below the bamboo strata, disemboweled by a badger. 

Guilt: If I hadn't abandoned my cats to serve my own pathetic needs then... [see the rest under Anger]

Positivity: I love my husband and my two cats and Ravi could still come home and he might even been hiding within the many holes and weird unsearchable alcoves in our large old home and ANY MINUTE he will shimmer into existence and we will be sooooo happy and in the meantime we have all these friends who our offering their goodwill or advice or practical help and yay friends yay enduring love. Unfortunately this emotion does not manifest as often as the others.

Remoteness: My heart is craggy mountainous snowcovered waste and the only thing that grows there are those trees that look all scrubby and can survive in unforgiving climates. And I want the universe to obliterate it with a comet.

Sadness: I just love him so much all the way from his hoppers to his branches to his little schmutzface and I want him back soooo bad.....

Annnnnnd shuffle.

Day 3 oh my

So the first few days in A-town have been eventful. Maybe a little too eventful. What I need right now is some calm and happy instead of intense and OMG, OMG. But the latter seems to have followed me from Pittsburgh.

In good news: I just got tapped for an amazing opportunity in the realm of disability poetry. Like in my lap, out of the blue, and all the other cliches. And at first I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it, but my dad, of all people, provided the help that I need to make it happen. And by help I mean he can drive (unlike me) and he's going to drive me a long way to do this thing. It's seriously one of the kindest, most generous things he's ever done for me. I don't know if I'm allowed to blog about it until it happens, but I'll fill you in more later. This not-allowed aura comes from all Mike's classified projects at work. It makes me think about what I say and to whom very carefully. As if things I did were so important that they had to be classified. Poetry espionage! 

In not-so-good news, our middle cat Ravi got out yesterday when Mike was having some haul-away guys move junk out of our house in my absence. Mike is a trusting, optimistic person. It's this quality that made me fall in love with him. It balances out my more cynical, skeptical nature. He stood by the door and carefully guarded each item on the way out. Also he told the moving people to watch out for escaping cats. I would have locked the little devils up. But Mike is doing seriously everything-and-more to try and get our boy back and I'm so sorry this had to happen on his watch. It is a rather bizarre scenario. If you know Mike, he can tell you all about it. 

This is Ravi: 

He's not really an escaper, anymore. He's more of a hider-from-big-scary things. They searched through the house and porches and all around outside and put up posters. I feel so powerless that I'm "stuck" here when my boy is gone missing, but honestly my eyesight sucks. The only thing I could add would be my familiar voice calling to him and my presence, which would probably be comforting to Mike and Luna, who is following Mike around crying. She is Ravi's cat-friend and misses him greatly. Also, she is probably wondering... first Jill, then Ravi... wtf wtf wtf??!!

The two of them (Luna and Ravi) eat together upstairs away from Ruskin who is a hoover while Luna and Ravi eat more moderately. It's a game to actually get them up the stairs. Which means it's a pain in the ass for us and super-fun for them. They resist coming when called and then chase each other up the stairs and get distracted by The Cat in the Mirror and invisible things floating through the air. Often Ravi will be more resistant than Luna because he doesn't get as hungry for the wet food. Also hiding is one of his favorite games. So often I will go through the house calling Ravi Ravi, and Luna will follow me around meowing. I wonder if she is calling to him too. I think she did that with Mike last night (at least while he was searching the house) and it's heartbreakingly adorable. 

I wish I could be there for them.

I wish I could be there b/c I think my presence would somehow magically bring Ravi back, ha.

Anyway, safe travels, boycat. And come home soon damn you.

PS this has not really helped my stress-related skin crawling / itching from going away. I think I'm gonna need more Neosporin soon. And some bandages. And a giant bath full of oatmeal. I know they say "oatmeal bath" is soothing to people with skin irritation. Of course my imagination interprets that as boiling up a cauldron of Scottish steel-cut and dropping it in the tub, then climbing in after.

goodbye / hello again

"It's the first day of PItt." The vivacious girl with blonde wavy hair and a college t-shirt says this to the slightly harried woman with short brunette hair and a polo shirt. All across the streets of lower Oakland are ad hoc artifacts of car and crowd control. The roundabout in front of the hotel near this coffee shop is high-traffic right now. Sandwich boards made out of plywood and newsprint say NO PARKING in hastily scrawled sharpie. 

The blonde girl is head of a dorm check-in operation that she's running from the big wooden table near the door of the Caribou. I'm sitting a few seats away, contemplating my own ... new beginning isn't the right word for it. I'm telling myself this stay with my folks is kind of like a writing retreat. I've never been to one. Maybe I will have the time to do some research / application while I'm chillin in Allentown. It feels like a new beginning though. I could sense my flea-stress palpably release as I was dragging my much-too-heavy suitcase over the busted sidewalks on Meyran. 

The airport peeps are totally gonna weigh that shit and charge me an extra fee, then mark it with a big bright tag that reads HEAVY. I always used to make fun of Stina b/c her luggage would get tagged like this routinely. Stina, if you're reading this, it's karmic payback time for Jilly. 

I've never been on vacation for a month. My vacations are more in the weekend mini-break range. Two weeks is really luxurious / the amount of time I can be away from my cats before going a little insane with missing them.

Right now they are making me a little insane with their presence. I feel bad about that. They are the equivalent of my kids, because I don't want to have kids, yet I have this maternal affection that needs to go somewhere. But the OCD has really gotten in the way with loving them right now. I feel bad because they can't understand why I've been avoiding them and I can't explain it. Our relationship is based a lot on touch-as-communicatin, on soothing, comfort and mutual purring. 

The oldest one, Ruskin (he turned 14 last week) is probably suffering the most, because he's the least likely to go to another person besides me for affection. Also, after Ravi's territorial marking problem (yes, he's neutered; no, we don't know exactly why he's doing it) we've kicked all cats out of the bedroom. Rus would snuggle with me at night. It was one of his great joys. Some cats are joyful naturally. Rus is not one of them. 

It's funny. Rus would herd me off to bed. Like when he knew it was time for bed, he would follow me around meowing as I was doing the whole brush-teeth-wash-face thing. Mowwww. Mowwwww. You're taking too long! Sometimes he would get on the bed before me, right in my spot, nailing down the covers so I couldn't get in. And sprawl there. Like you had your chance but you were toooooo slow. And we would play a game to get him off the bed. He would resist jumping down for a few moments and then huff off in a grand display of huffiness, only to return the second I got in and pulled the covers up.

I hope when we replace the rug, seal the floor, and cover it with laminate or some such, we can let the cats back in and Rus can resume his snuggling. 

It hurts both of us that I can barely touch him.

I can't help but wonder how OCD would affect my loving of a baby. I mean, my physical loving. Babies can get really realllllly messy, and you're with them 24/7. I don't want to dwell on that too much, because it makes me sad. I would like to think I'd get desensitized. And bugs, one of my major triggers, on a child, are far less likely. Anything a child can produce is not nearly as triggering for me as bugs. 

I sincerely hope a month away with Mike working on the flea issue will help this whole crazy situation. 

I never used to Frontline the cats consistently. That will change now. 

Anyway, I'm looking forward to my month away, at least right now. There will a lot of stress taken away, by being gone, but some stress added. I hope to spend more time writing, reading, submitting, working out, doing yoga, and then holy moly I GET TO GO TO THE SHORE. It's been forever. Like almost ten years since I've gotten to go. 

Gotta sign off now. Time to go to airport.

Aiton sent me this & I heart it: 

Taking stock halfway through the year

It's about quarter after four in the morning. I can't sleep because the cat has parked his large self in front of the window a/c and is taking up all the good cold air. Why, you may ask, do I not just toss him? Because he is older, and his kidneys are iffy, and he sort of has this grudge against the world, and I am his favorite person, and he only lets two people pet him besides me. He is a huge cat, with large intimidating fangs that he has used in the past. I can wrap my arms around him, play with his paws, look in his ears, feed him unpleasant things. He will snuggle with me in the bed. Not at my feet like many cats, or in the crook of my knees, but he wants his back against my chest. His head under my chin. And then he purrs.

It is rather flattering, in an odd way, to be the preferred, nearly exclusive  company of such a... I don't want to say unpleasant, because he's not unpleasant to me... such an idiosyncratic animal. I know that he wishes he were the only cat in the world, and that I were the only human. He's really neurotic. The vet says he should maybe be on prozac. But I've held off. I worry about him in the heat. He's spent most of the last two days wrapped around the water bowl. I'm scared that somehow the heat is going to make his kidneys go south. I will dip my hand in the water and spread it over his ears, his head, down his back to cool him off. I am probably the only person he would let do this. So he has discovered the window a/c we've turned on for sleeping, and he's, like, RIGHT up in there. And he is a huge cat. Long, tall, broad, muscular. Some people think he's overweight but I don't think he technically is any more. Still, he takes up all the damn room. So I can't sleep. I came down to get an ice pack for my neck, which has been in pain since this afternoon. Oh bones. Oh muscles. Oh delicious cold.

What does one do with insomnia? I don't have it too-too much anymore since the med switch. Years ago, I used to do dishes in the middle of the night. Ha! not anymore. So of course I just sit in the dark and think and think and think and think and think.... and apparently tonight I blog.

June just ended. It's halfway through my year of not-working. It's easy to go down the vortex of rumination tonight.

A surprising envelope arrived in the mail yesterday. Shocking, really. After I politely declined to teach this past spring (which was really really really really hard to turn down), *and* they took my picture off the adjunct faculty page (you can see a little blank space in the web page where I used to be), lo, do I get a contract for the fall. Mind you, I've never spoken with anyone about my schedule or whether I was teaching in the fall. The contract just mysteriously showed up.

It's still sitting on my desk.

The familiarity of it, the structure, the certainty of what I would be doing, is appealing. Without teaching, somehow I don't feel legitimate --although I am starting a temporary CW teaching gig on Monday that makes me super-excited (not comp! not comp! not comp!). But, my neurotic brain says, it's not at (cue choir of angels) the Almighty University. I don't know when I'm going to have another university job. I don't know when I'm going to want said job. Adjuncting was absolutely draining for me.

And, I'm going to say this next part out loud (well, type it out loud) even though it scares the crap out of me: I don't know, with the combined forces (forces? sigh. it's 4:30 am) of my multiple disabilities, if I will ever be able to handle the rigors of a full-time university job. But I probably won't ever get to teach anything but comp without one. Thinking about this for too long takes me to a very bad, lonely, anxious place. I cannot predict the future. So I just need to not go there.

[I push off with my feet so that my desk chair rolls to the low spot in the floor --this house is 100 years old; nothing is plumb. Away from the monitor, I can't see anything in the absolute darkness of the living room except the amber globs (globs?! it's 4:55 am) of the streetlights, or maybe those lights are from the cemetery...]

I think about turning off the monitor and lying on my back on the floor in the very-dark. Sometimes my back likes the unyielding wood surface. But the other two cats will think this is a game. They will come and climb on me. After 5 now. It's their hunting time. They amuse each other but I am the ultimate amusement.

I am trying to keep the following things in mind. Since January (the start of my year off)

Sent to 45 journals. 34 rejections, 9 pending, 6 acceptances, with 13 poems taken.
4 MSS sent. 2 rejections, 2 pending.
Readings given: 4, with another one tomorrow night. And I have another tentative thing lined up for September.

I always want more than I have. I always know I could be doing more. Those journal subs fall short of my goals. I should have sent way more than 45 by now! And the MSS total... sad. The damn thing will never get published. I rarely pause and think, how great this is. I've accomplished more in six months than I did in six years of adjuncting.

I will turn off the monitor now after I press the "publish" button. I will lie on the floor in the dark to ease my back and neck. And the fucking cats will think it's awesome, and I will not think they are awesome. And I will stay there for as long as I can stand it. And then I'll get an ice pack, de-hair my shirt, and try for more sleep.

It wasn't a lifestyle choice; I was born bi-visual (pt. 2)

In the second installment, I talk about getting my cane.

So, to pick up where I left off, I was feeling anxious and angsty about not going outside, and I googled and found my blog and it just made a meta-mess in my head. So I texted Mike asking if my new cane had come yet. I don't get packages sent to our house because of this ridiculous UPS injunction that was put there in response to a previous tenant, where they ALWAYS required a signature upon delivery. And we can't lift it. Even though we own the damn house. Anyway... Mike texted back Probably? A package for you from the blind something or other came and I was like !!!!!!!!!! NEW CANE.

When he got home he gave me the package and suddenly I had my doubts. It weighed nothing. Like when you are expecting your new laptop and Apple sends you this laptop-sized box but all it contains is the paperwork for your extended AppleCare warranty. I was like ... this is paperwork for my cane? A slip to say it's out of stock? It didn't help that the outside of the box said FREE MATTER FOR THE BLIND OR HANDICAPPED. In retrospect, maybe they get a discount postal rate or something if they put that on the outside. When I opened it up, I found MY NEW CANE. And a very brief instructional sheet labeled Shipping Type: Free Matter.

So, first of all, the new cane comes in a velvet case. Like something you might to cradle a small musical instrument... like a piccolo maybe? And it really does weigh nothing. Though the new cane is six inches longer, it weighs a little over 3 oz. The old cane weighed 9 oz.  Here are some pictures of the new cane. It's quite sophisticated looking. 

In the first one, you can see how long it is but also the clean design scheme. It looks like the tuxedo of canes. In the second, I'm trying to get a close-up of the words on the first section. It says Designed by Chris Park, Carbon Fiber, and gives the NFB address. 

And lastly, I like this detail: The little icon depicts the action of the blind person using the cane as one of elegance and grace. I appreciate this gesture, as I don't often feel elegant.

When I tried to use the cane, however, I felt quite less elegant and wanted to request an immediate in-service with Mr. or Ms. Park. This cane is gorgeous, ultra-light, and elegant-looking, but the telescoping aspect is going to be difficult to master. Also, I worry that the supremely broken sidewalks of my neighborhood are gonna reduce this baby to a bent length of awkwardness in about two minutes. 

See how cute the new cane is? With the elegant tip on the end? Much nicer looking than my old canes' "pencil tip." The picture below shows what a pencil tip looks like (except my tips were narrower, more like the diameter of the cane itself). Thanks to The Carroll Center for the Blind for "letting" me borrow their image. The cane below more-or-less looks like my old cane(s) except mine were made from aluminum and I'd decoupaged the handles so they weren't so ugly.

Anyway, that pencil tip was rugged. And see how thick the overall cane body is? My cane(s) took a beating. I'm really concerned that this new one is a bit of a hothouse flower. Now, on to the concept of telescoping. The instruction sheet reads:

YOUR NEW TELESCOPING CANE

We hope that your new telescoping cane will serve you well. Here are some tips for extending the longevity of the this cane.

Correctly Extending and Collapsing a Telescoping Cane

To extend the cane, pull out each section fully; then twist it with the section above it to tighten the connection.  To collapse the cane, untwist each section to loosen the connection.

NOTE: Do NOT attempt to collapse the cane by banging the cane straight down on the ground, [I admit I thought about this within the first five seconds of deploying the cane before reading the instructions] as the pressure may damage the cap! Always untwist the sections to loosen them! 

At this time we do not have replacement caps available for most types of telescoping canes. However, replacement tips are available. 

I had to read the last sentence several times because at first I thought it was directly contradicting itself. I still haven't figured out the difference between a cap and a tip. And after practicing with the cane so that I wouldn't look like a megadork in the field, so to speak, I'm still either tightening those sections too tightly, so that when I need to put it away, I'm standing there trying to un-tighten the sections for whole minutes OR I don't tighten them enough and the little lowest section collapses as I try to use it. I seem to have more of a problem with the former (over-tighten) than the latter (under-tighten), but internet searches reveal that some people have a chronic problem with this type of cane collapsing as they are using it.

I may wait on Part 3 of this entry (where I finally talk about Cathy Kudlick and her epiphanic DSQ article) because my eyes are really tired after doing these two. I may just go upstairs and watch some tv while practicing the tightening / untightening thing again. I searched for videos on precisely how to do this, but nay. 

Do they mean give it a little twist or really screw it in there? 

Are the insides of the sections in fact threaded or do they achieve tension by some other means? 

Have I, in fact, completely lost my ability to perform so simple a task as righty-tighty-lefty-loosey? 

Let's just hope the box doesn't end up being the best part.

(That's Ruskin, my oldest. Don't disturb him in his new bed.)

It wasn't a lifestyle choice; I was born bi-visual (pt. 1)

Okay, this is gonna be an epic blog entry. First, two things. Wait, three. First thing)) this is who I have sitting in my lap as I type.

It's Luna, my youngest. Isn't she adorable? She likes to recline with her lower half and then cling to my boobs with her front paws (claws, really). Ouch. But it's nice to have such a supportive friend around when confronting heady topics on one's blog, such as this concept which I have termed for short-hand purposes, bi-visuality. It's Cathy Kudlick's term. I'll say more about her later in part 2 or 3. You know I've been exploring this same concept. What I've found out over the weekend is that there are many blind people doing the same. I read a stat that 85% of blind people who use white canes have some usable vision. I think I got that right. I'm sure about the number at least. Bad academic --I'm not going back to re-locate and document my source.

Second thing)) waiting for my cane and angsting over the vicissitudes of bi-visuality, I found out that there's a list of blind bloggers. I added a link so you can see who they are too! I thought, when I found it, this may be the beginning of the support I'm looking for. And then I promptly "forgot" about it.

You see I have this avoidance problem. Sometimes it manifests as "I forgot." Am I making sense so far? I'm only on my starter coffee, and the adorable kitty that I snapped just moments before is now dismantling the dining room piece by tiny piece, and I'm distracted putting all this effort into ignoring her.

Third thing)) NEW DEFINING EXAMPLE OF IRONY : Yesterday I was practicing another one of my avoidance strategies, procrastination, and I was procrastinating going outside. Some days I just don't have the psychic energy in me to deal with the strangers who make my life-with-cane difficult. And it was raining. And I was doing a LOT of house chores. But I still was feeling bad about myself for not going out. Calling myself bad names indeed. And so, looking for some internet support / advice  I googled  "white cane" "social anxiety." The third and fourth hits were THIS BLOG. I was like really? Universe? Really? 


In Part 2, I finally get my new cane... and wish it came with better-than-IKEA-quality instructions.

Vegas Postponed

So my husband and I postponed our Vegas trip after he had another, worse, gall bladder attack than the one on Friday. This one had the pain plus nausea, fever, and the shakes. We worry because he is prone to infections. Also, he would have just been miserable trying to be careful in Vegas. The whole point of a trip like that is the hedonism of it all. I'm sad we couldn't go, but a vacation when you or a loved one is sick is often not a vacation at all.

I channeled my Vegas disappointment by getting up early this morning and doing some work in the studio. Made a new prototype for the kind of necklace I'll be focusing on as the first product to be offered on my (as yet to be gotten) Etsy store. It's drying right now. I painted some pendants. I organized all the drawers in the main bead box --it's like one of those Craftsman tool boxes only plastic, not metal. I re-wrote some worn labels, shuffled some wrongly filed beads into place ('pearls' have a whole separate bead box now), and generally cleaned up the work table area.

Surprisingly, all three cats were in the studio at the same time and yet none of them bothered me. Luna and Ravi, at least, are usually up in my stuff. Shiny? Small parts? Pointy? Breakable? Toxic? It's their favorite. But Ravi was in the carpeted window seat having a snooze, Luna was sitting on the back of the brown armchair looking out the window, and Rus was sprawled on top of one of the giant Rubbermaid crates that hold my off-season clothes. So cozy. I wonder if we will have a day like that again soon.

Mike is watching the second Lord of the Rings movie on Blu-Ray. Crispy-clear! Ugh, that movie is sooooo boring. Orc hunting. Now they're walking. More orcs. Etc. I think it picks up at the end but I'm usually so dead that I never remember the end. I wonder how many times he's seen the trilogy. I know this version is a special extra-un-un-cut, 16 hours of special footage one.

jeff noon

So I was gazing idly at my bookshelf the other day, wondering what happened to this amazing magic-realist-scifi(?) author, from whom I've read Vurt and Pollen. But then he fell off my radar. So I looked him up and found his website: Metamorphiction. There are boundless goodies within, but my favorite was  this article "The Ghost on the B-Side: Remixing Narrative," in which he claims to take techniques used when mixing dub-step and apply them to the craft of fiction. Now, his fiction is quite lyrical, so this technique works for poets too. If you like creating odd juxtapositions of language (and I do) and you have some drafts hanging out that are behaving more like day-old coffee cake than the sweet tartlets you know they could be, perhaps his technique can kick start a revision. I've tried it with only one poem of mine so far, "Full-Blown Sugar," as yet unpublished... it's in the mail!

Have to sign off now because the cats are wreaking havoc on this warm rainy day. It's like they know it's almost spring or something. They are positively deviling my morning. Slam-crash-thumpythumpythumpy. I thought perhaps a generous infusion of catnip and "new" (marinated and then re-introduced) toys would let them let me write. I thought they might go crash around upstairs, but instead they're crashing around near the irreplaceables.

ravi thinks he is a book

Tuesday's journal submission

… is to Prime Number. This is a nifty online mag wherein they feature several linked poems by 5-ish poets, followed by a Q&A —a brief interview with the poet. It would SO rock to get my work in here.

Amidst this, they are finally installing the home security system. There is a lot of beeping and banging. The kitten is far too interested. The gentleman doing the installation is personable though. It’s cold and blowy out; thus cold in here. I wish I could go to bed now. Just for a little while. I squoze a submission out. Yay me.

I would never do this but

… right now my one cat, the grumpy old man on a diet, is yowling for his dinner which isn’t due for another hour. And I would like to shove him in a burlap sack. And tie the sack up really tight. And then when the bus stops outside my house (there is a bus stop outside my house), run onto the bus, drop the sack, and run back into my house.