That's making my arms hurt

So, I love grapes. Cold, round, hard, purple grapes. I can only chew them on one side of my mouth because of the receding gums on the other because the chill of the grapes zings my nerves. Did you know diabetes can contribute to gum disease? As if I didn't have to worry about enough things, now it's gum disease. Diabetes sucks. It's a consuming disease. When I eat something I shouldn't, it's not dieter's guilt or the average I shouldn't have done that and now I'll gain five pouds. No, for me, I wonder if that cookie is the one that will lead to me losing my leg or if that donut will make me blind. Each no-no food can lead to some horror, but some horror I can't resist. Trying to fend off ice-cream cravings doesn't work. I just wind up pacing through the room, thinking "chocolate, rocky road, vanilla with cookies," and on.

An on, we go. I joined a gym. I have a trainer. We created a work out. Now, I just have to do it. Two times this week already. We'll see how the rest of the weeks go. I hope it's something I can keep up. But it's so hard to make myself to there, to make myself walk in the door, and to want to make my body hurt and my lungs wheeze. I must admit, I hate cardio. I like lifting weights. I hate sweating, turning red, and feeling my heart pound like that. It's hideous feeling.

I must speak of other hideous feelings at another time. An office conversation, gone awry.

But I will speak of other feelings, kinky ones. I bought some fun things to wear and try out with The Boy. It should be interesting. A girl at work called me a freak, Andrew called me the freakiest virgin he ever knew, and they are both right. So, let's get it on. Wait, why don't you all get it on with someone else and quit reading this drivel.

Tick Tock Time's Flying By

Le big sigh.

I am melancholy and dull. My senses feel dulled, nothing feels especially, well especially anything. I have once again reached that aching feeling, where I long to do something spontaneous, something different, and as always I sit here with no ideas springing to mind, no intensely bright light bulbs blinding my brain. I sit here wanting to sleep, wanting to escape the only way I know how, by dreaming, be it day dreaming or sleepy dreaming. However, my day dreams have become non-existant.

I have no drive to do anything in particular, yet I want to do everything. However, when given the chance to do something, I do not wish to participate. What a viscious cycle. How does one ever end it? Is it like a dryer when the towels are warm, inviting, and smelling so fresh, that a buzzer dings. Do you smell fresh, warm, inviting odors and hear a beep in your head? Or is it audible?

Perhaps, I'm listening for the wrong ring. For there have been rings, of the phone that is. And I've ignored them. A friend from an old job, who, I am sure I have deeply offended with my poor correspondence skills. However, isn't that how old friends are? You pick up where you left off, that feeling of apartness never complicating matters? Perhaps friends are the warm towels, ready to comfort you and absorb your large tears while you are down, ready to spread warm shivers through your body when you are already happy, making you appreciate so many things, especially fabric softner. Do friendships have fabric softner? Does something coat our inner selves and make us softer, more friendly to the touch? I do not know.

Right now, all I know is that I wish to be sad and irritated. I want to wallow in this feeling of despair. Yet, I cannot. I think of something my mother said. My dear mother who recently had back surgery- 12 inches of her spine cut open and sealed shut like railroad track, with 37 staples holding her shut. Not to mention the pins and rods holding her spine upright. She is high on pain killers and tells my dad things like, "You need to call the decorator to put the salad on your head," I want fairies on the ceiling," and other entertaining bits.

I helped my mother this weekend and in ways I've done before, two times before to be exact. For this is her third back surgery, and so three times now we've helped put her to bed, I've fed her, helped bathe her, and assisted with any other tasks that arose, but I think the most important task she was concerned about this weekend was making sure my brother tried on some shorts I bought him. And finally, try them on he did and he had to parade into the room to show her. The power of mothers... screw the power of clean, that ain't got nothing on mothers.

What's red, blotchy and, no fun?

That would be my tummy and then my thighs.

I tried a new diabetic drug. It sounded too good to be true. It's main side effect is weight loss, oh the horrors. I'm a big girl and no matter how accepting of herself a big girl is, somewhere she wants to be thinner, but it's just not worth the struggle. The drug was made from the spit of the gila monster. I was impressed after only a few days. I was hungry every six or seven hours instead of four hours and I ate about half of what I did before. My eyes were always bigger than my stomach since the medication holds the food in your stomach longer, slowing digestion, so the glucose the flows into your blood after eating is steady and a slight drip, not a gush.

I didn't even mind the needles, the sticking myself, I didn't mind any of it. However, I did mind the red, itchy blotches dotting my stomach. Large red spots, some of them nearly the size of a quarter puffed up and itched like the dickens, whatever dickens are. So, I scratched, made them redder and maybe even itchier.

I went to the doctor, we both said it was working so well, so let's try it again. We decided on a new injection site, my thighs. Now, I looked a little strange itching my fat girl tummy, it sticking out, trying to show itself through my shirts. But now, my thighs are itchy and that looks even weirder. I feel like people think I have far roamning crabs or the clap that's moved too far south.

What's funny is that today in the mail I received my free carrying case for my pen injections, a completely useless item now. But I was put another another oral medication, bringing my total to seven different medications a day with a total of eight pills a day. Does anyone want to study me and drug interactions? I would be an excellent candidate.

Speaking of drugs, my mom is on some pretty strong ones after her back surgery on Friday. Six hours of surgery, four of which was just removing scar tissue. This seems to be another family trait. Why aren't any of my family's traits something fun like athletic prowess, musical ability, or artistic skills, no medical oddities. I think we should be on an episose of Mystery Diagnosis and do a special on shitty genetics. Because we have them. My mom is doing well, though she did try to overdose on the pain medication when she was in control of the pain pump. They soon took care of that problem and put her on oral pain killers. Naughty mommy.

I am joining a gym, or thinking of it. I have an appointment tomorrow for my evaluation, which I am not sure what the consists of other then someone telling me I am fat and/or out of shape. This is information I know.

Do you know what else I know? That I am disgustingly in love with The Boy. Some days it just hits me, that feeling, and today it was strong. This doesn't mean I don't want to poke him in the eye a lot or as I said in front of his mom, his two sisters, and his brother that I will punch him in the bunghole.

I shall continue this later.

Long story, unhappy ending

Last night The Boy and I went to a wedding reception. First we started out by meeting a couple of his friends in the bar of the hotel where the reception was taking place. This was fine. After about an hour or so, we move into the reception hall and found seats near The Boy's sister and other co-workers/friends.

We ate, took silly pictures, they all drank, including The Boy's underage sister (she'll be 21 in two months), and I sat there feeling left out as I normall do at these things. I barely know his friends and most of the time the guys sitting around accusing each other of being gay, of having a dick in their mouth, etc. And it's not very funny after a while, especially since my brother is gay. My brother is a homosexual and I know how much it has hurt him when a group of guys sit around calling each other "faggots" and other things to stop on their masculinity. My brother is probably one of the most masculine men I know. No one would ever suspect. He is not a stereotype.

So, this talk bothers me, but I indulge The Boy because they are his friends and have been performing this ritual, this act long before I came along. I just hope some day they out grow it. I don't see this happening. Also, they drink a lot. I don't really enjoy drinking and even when I was not on a medicine that prevented me from drinking, I rarely took part in it. I don't understand the need to down alcohol, I don't like the feeling it gives me.

The Boy's sister became drunk and beligerant after drinking too many screwdrivers. She made it clear to me that she did not want to talk to me, by stating just that. The Boy left me sitting at the table with his drunk sister and two of his co-workers/friends. I don't know these people very well and when they got up to dance, I felt very lonely. Then his sister went to the bathroom and indeed, I was lonely. I didn't know where The Boy had went, he last mentioned he was going to use the bathroom, which peeing does not take 20 minutes. So, I go in search.

I find him in the bar playing Blackjack with one of his friends. I get on his case for not telling me where he was going. He said, well I told my friend, pointing to the guy sitting next to him. I said, whatever and walked away. I went back into the reception hall, his sister came back, clearly irritated with me, daggers shooting from her eyes and piercing my emotions. The couple was still dancing so I decicded that I was going home. I hadn't driven to the hotel, but The Boy's apartment was a scant three blocks away. I went back to the bar, found him, and announced my intentions. He said, "Sorry. What do you want me to do?" I said nothing, that I just wanted to go home.

I went home, cried, and went to sleep. He showed up around 2:30am. He didn't think I was there, not seeing my car in the parking lot, forgetting we left it at the mall earlier that day. I walked down the stairs to find him dialing my number. We sat together on the couch. We talked, chit-chatted about this and that. Then he told me, "I might have smoked pot tonight."

I lost it. I do not tolerate drug use of any kind. None. He knows I don't like it. I got upset and all he can say is, "I shouldn't have told you." I retorted with you shouldn't have wanted to do it. I cried and yelled at him for about an hour. I went out the door and was ready to walk the 2-3 miles to my car, when he was standing in the window calling for me. I went back in, shaking with angry. I have never shaken with anger, my arms crossed with my fingernails making dents in the soft skin of my inner arm. He said he was sorry, but that it's not like he is an addict, that it was only the second time in his life that he's tried it. I asked why he did it, his answer was the most hideous one he could have given, "Everyone else was doing it." I scoffed and walked away again. Then came back filled with more rage.

I told him why I don't like drugs. That I lived with a drug addict, that I lived with an alcoholic, that I got to have fun at Family Days at rehab, that every Sunday for a year I visited my brother in baby jail because he decided to commit a felony in order to pay off drug dealers. I told him this and said that shouldn't have made a difference in his thinking. I said he shouldn't have wanted to do it. He replied that nothing he said was going to make me not mad, that it already happened, and that there was nothing he could do. I asked how he could do it after he bitched, complained, and moaned about how his ex-fiance used to use marijuana. He said nothing.

Finally, exhuasted, we went to bed. I still love him, but he undermined my trust. He broke something in me. And it will take a long time to repair that injured piece. His nonchalance irks me. I made him promise that as long as he is with me, he'll never do it again.

I am still angry and irritated.

Is it Your Birthday?

Every day at work, a girl, perhaps she's even a woman, her age is indistinguishable, walks around all the cubicles with a highlighter and a printed sheet of names. She takes attendance. This makes me laugh and it makes me feel like I am in elementary school. I keep waiting for her to ask me if I am having hot or cold lunch. However, she doesn't and most likely won't, which is a good thing. Sometimes, she'll also hand out print out of reports that are run each day.

So, when she came to stand near my desk, and I caught the sight of her out of the corner of my eye, I returned to my computer monitor, barely noticing her presence. She asked, "Is it your birthday?" I had no idea why she said that or if she even said it to me, but then I looked over and a tall carboard box was in her arms. I said, "No." No other words came out my mouth. I was so confused as to why I was receiving a box at work. I thought back and wondered if in a stupor I ordered something from the LTD catalogs that float around between cubicles.

She sets the box on my desk and walks away. I open the box and see green leaves and purple-pink flowers. I pull them out and feel something heavy stay in the bottom of the box. When I reach in further, I pull out a pink and red striped pot. I set the Calla Lilies into the pot and then notice the card. I wonder who they are from, I wonder why they have come.

The card explains how he can't explain his love, the card speaks of love becoming more love, and the card is from The Boy. The flowers are for no reason other than to express his feelings for me. I cry and I try to call The Boy. I can't get a hold of him, so I call my mom instead. My voice thick with happy tears. Later, I get in touch with The Boy and the tears stream again, my voice barely audible as I say, "I love you."

We meet for tacos at lunch and I am able to touch him, to know he's real, and I feel giddy. I kiss him and could continue to do so for hours, months, years.

My mom said she would not mind his as a son-in-law. I tell The Boy this and he mockingly says, "Everyone wants you to marry me." I say back, "And no one wants you to marry me." He replies that he was once there, not married, but supposed to be married. I know this, I tell everyone that it'll be a while before we're ready, before he's ready for that level of commitment again. Everyone else seems to want to rush things, want us to put rings on our fingers, and repeat some vows. But I am already committed to him, I am already his. I believe he is mine. If things are meant to be, shiny marriage markers will adorn our fingers in time but until then, I am enjoying living in sin because I am dirty.

It's a mixture called Life

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I am tired of spending my days in the bathroom. I should just move my office and my bed into the bathroom. That way I can just sleep right next to and work right by the toilet so that when my bowels decide to evacuate, I will be prepared and ready. I know my bed won't fit in the bathroom, but I could start sleeping in the tub and at work, I don't think there is internet access and that's crucial to my job. So, perhaps that's not such a great idea after all. I may also mention that since it's become so humid I am having trouble breathing, catching my breath. I don't know if it's anything or merely nerves.

Speaking of my natural disposition, which is a little on edge all the time, I recently met someone who felt that right off the bat. I got a haircut today. I do not have a regular stylist and will go to whomever is open. I saw this woman and judged her, and judged wrongly. She seemed old, too old to give me a hip, modern haircut, she was foreign, her accent seemed Easten Block-ish. Of course, all of this was incorrect. She was a lovely lady, while she is older, her mind is sharp, her spirit is vibrant, and she is Croatian. So, while I had parts of it right, I had the best parts of it wrong. She gave a great haircut and was interesting to listen to. So, I stand corrected.

I am now the proud owner of a bra with its own boobs. I purchased a strapless bra today for a wedding I am a bridesmaid in this summer. It is more comfortable than the previous one I owned and seems much more supported. Maybe my old bra just needed boobs of its own. I thought today about how women's clothing would be so much different if we didn't have breats. Think about all the things that are done to shirts to play-up, play down, play with, the breasts. It's interesting to think about how fashion would have evolved, would we dress like men? Would there be a different in male/female tops? Just a thought.

I was thinking the other day about how everyone is either getting married, talking about getting married, or just became married, and I get a little jealous. But mostly, I think I want the shiny metal that goes around my finger. I've never been a jewelry person, nor a materialistic person. I love stuff, weird, kitschy, ugly, things, but rings have never really drawn me in. Now, they are. I want some bling and I don't know who I am.

Stacy and Clinton

I did not see The Boy last night. I saw one of my best friends instead and another girl I haven't spoken to in a long time. It was fun to be without him, to be the other person I am with the girls. Some people say that you should be who you are around everyone, but each person gets someone a little different, that's just the way things are. I am not the same person I am in front of my parents that I am with The Boy, that I am with a bunch of giggling girls talking about fashion, What Not To Wear, and our lives. It's a different connection, it's a different feeling, and I enjoyed it.

It's been so long since I've spent time with just girls, sitting around with the tv on, commenting on life, throwing out the details of importance and non-importance. It was fun and I hope to do it again soon. I shall be seeing those same girls tonight and we wish one of them a Happy Birthday, which I hope it is indeed.

Currently, I am looking for music online, trying to find something with meaning, with substance, and a sound I like. This is hard and I am not really sure why I am doing this. I no longer listen to music in the car. I strictly listen to books on CD. Each time I enter the car a story plays for me, a story that I recall the last edges of, shimmery edges of excitment, of feeling I didn't want to get out of the car because then the story will end. But I do not bring the tale inside, no. It stays in the car. It is only meant to be heard in bits and pieces, not in long stretches. For I listen to books I would never otherwise read, could never otherwise finish. I would have given up on them in the first few pages, but with a voice slipping from the speakers, the story takes on a lifelike quality... as if a friend is in the car beside me waiting for so she can finish telling her story.

She waits for me. And it's nice. Just like my friend waited for me to ditch The Boy for a night, just like I waited for her to finally have time for a social life, we all wait. And the wait is worth it.

It's memory weekend

The sun shines, the car heats up, and I ride.

The Boy and I went to the Big City this weekend. We took in some sights of life, of real life in some unsuspecting places. (We went to visit his friends and didn't get a chance to see my friends. I think the next trip we take out there will be to see my pals so he can have the chance to do the meet and greet. )

We drove through rain and beautiful sun. Then on Saturday we enjoyed the sun on our skin, too much sun our on pale skin. From peachy tones to red they went. Dreams in the Mist, Miss Blueberry Juice, and Little Wagon entertained us with their strong muscles, sleek coats, and flying tails and manes. They ran for our delight while we tried to bet which horse would come in first. I was often wrong, but was right a few times. I took that long shot and earned two dollars. Count 'em, two. What a booty to take home. Alas, all I took home was a new hat in order to prevent my head from burning and to be allowed the luxury of not squinting into the sun for hours, the Boy still holding my hand, and a new experience. The horses were not the experience alone. I witnessed love in the bleachers. An older couple, two women, both of whom smoked their lungs that day, like jerky, tough and dry women, who held their arms around each other and spoke of the mundaneness of life. It was not that they were lesbians that was new, it was the way they looked at each other, with adoration, that caught my eye.

Another new experience was the Bon fire we went to late that night. While the bon fire itself was not new, getting lead poisoning from a 50 year old picnic table that was destroyed by karate kicks and a chain saw in the dark of night was new. The early morning trip while driving drunk people to Denny's was not new. However, being the only white people in a room filled with 40-50 Black people was new, especially since many of them lived up to the stereotype of "urban black." Baggy pants, huge t-shirts, sideways hats, the n-word flying fifty miles an hour at each other, the man who blames the African-American manager for being an Uncle Tom because the manager is trying to do his job and force an unruly patron to leave, the belly and booty bearing clothes on the women. The girls were quiet, eating their meals, and talking amongst themselves. It was the men, the boys who called attention to themselves.

We sat silent and soaked it in. My French Toast soaked the sugar free syrup. Perhaps the French Toast absorbed more than syrup, maybe it took on a bad attitude, maybe it carried in it's crevices a negative connection, but whatever that French Toast hid in itself, I threw it up four hours later.

We went home on Sunday. I did not feel well most of the day. A slow nausea wandering around my body, coming to roost here and there as if my elbow would suddenly be on the verge of throwing itself out or my hair desperately wanted a hat in case it had to purge excess oil or something. We stopped by an outlet mall, picked up some clothes for The Boy and a shirt for myself. I will write more at another time.

Baby Bubbles

'Allo,

Sometimes, I feel otherwordly, maybe in this case other-country-y. I hear myself in an Australian accent in my head. I think I am just trying to make myself feel more exotic than the boring Midwesterner that I am. Accents seem so much more exciting, offering an imagination to those around you. Ah, the excitement, the enticement of lilting languages and drawling diction. I do love illiteration. I think it's marvelous.

I recently made the drive to my grandmother's house again. This time to say goodbye to her things rather than her body. It is a daunting task to clean her house, for it is not a normal house. There used to be paths in the house, things piled to the ceiling, boxes filled with unknown treasures, but mostly unwanted junk. Everything could be used for a part, everything had a purpose to someone. However, logic fails when you have to find that perfect someone in the midst of the nearly seven billion people on the planet.

During this last trip I looked at dolls. As a child, I did not care for dolls and the imaginary play that accompanied them. For me, dolls were boring as they did not do anything. Unfortunately, they still do not do anything. Even more unfortunate, there were boxes upon boxes of them. When I left after a long weekend of peeking into boxes hoping something else would be found in them, there were 50 boxes of dolls. When my father finally finished going through all the dolls, they would total 78.

One would think this would be a child's dream, a doll collector's paradise, and it would have been. However, these dolls were the neglected children of the doll world. Matted hair, pen inked onto their peach bodies, not even done well enough to be considered cruse prison tattooes. Merely, ugly, sad, worn out dolls that one their owners were done abusing them, were left for dead. They were sold for a quarter, they were given away, and my grandmother was the one who scooped them up.

I remember getting these dolls from her when she would visit. She would hand one to me so happily, as if I were getting a grand gift. As soon as she left, my mother would make me throw the doll away and wash my hands. I would gladly dump it into the trash and feel dirty, sullen just touching the one arm I limply hung onto while my grandmother was in sight. A soiled doll, with crusty hair, and eyes that no longer blinked open and shut, just one open and one shut, a nightmare of a doll for a gift is something I did not understand.

These dolls are something I still do not understand. I don't know why my grandma would be so interested in keeping these, in buying them, and then throwing them into boxes. If she were wanting to love one, wanting to relive her own harsh childhood in which she had no doll, I do not know where these come into play. I merely know that they do not come into play with me, they did not then and do not now.

This daunting task haunts us. We wonder why she kept these things, not just the dolls, but other things. We wonder so many things and in these boxes, these piles we do not find answers. Just dust and someone else's memories.

I fail

This blog so often is a review of how often I fail at trying to better myself. Once again, I had started skipping my medication. I became a crying, sad-eyed, pathetic sack of life. I didn't laugh, everything hurt my feelings, I wasn't fun, but through that The Boy stood by me. He said it'll take a lot more than that to drive him away. Odd, Andrew was the complete opposite. I drove him away with that, however, that result was entirely appreciated. The Boy is my love. Andrew was but a mere stepping stone to get me to the point where I could meet and fall for The Boy.

Opposites indeed. Another opposite occured this week. I went to the doctor to have my diabetes checked. I again informed my physician (yet another new one albeit in a new town) that I a naughty, eating things I should not, not testing my blood, not taking my medicines, not caring for myself the way I should. She admonished me as she is supposed to and we moved on. My period was late and I thought nothing of it. A week late is nothing to me, well, it wasn't before I started having sex. Now, I suppose it should be a concern. However, when I informed her of the date of my last period, she proposed a pregnancy test. I agreed to one, just to be sure.

My period has been absenst for four months at a time before. If I am in any way stressed more than normal, I will be late or miss it entirely. If I am sick, it will be late. I was stressed towards the end of April, with the death of my grandmother and trying to clean her house out. More on that later. So, I peed in the cup, which I had to do anyway for the diabetic check. I went back to the office and sat there waiting for the results. I wasn't scared or nervous. I guess I figured I'd have to handle it one way or the other. I would have no other options but to deal with it if the test came back positive. So, I waited and twiddled my thumbs while pretending to read a magazine.

The nurse came in and gave a brisk smile, she whispered "Negative" and said I could go back to the lobby to make my follow-up appointments with the nutrionist and the diabetic educator. I left feeling fine, no different than I felt before the results were given. No huge sigh of relief, nor no sad feelings that I wasn't. Just neutral. Then, I started my period about three hours later.

I feel that irony and if it's not, it's sure something.