When We F**K We Hear Beats

So, i'm here in sunny chicago. the phrase "camille, you are a miracle of affliction" kept running trough my head as i struggled to stay upright, pack a weekend of clothes and generally ready myself for travel. I learned that phrase from the book The Color Purple by Alice Walkr and I do believe it is one of the most descriptive colloquiallisms I've ever heard. Usually it is applied to others, as in, "Joe you sho is a miracle of affliction" meaning "Joe you have annoyed me beyond all human reason and now I'm thinking your fate lies with the woodchipper." Instead I apply it to myself.

I did get a new prescription last night, this one to calm down the small-print-fast-talking side effects off all my other medications. The small print fast talking thing applies to the miniscule print they put on products such as mcdonald's french fries that warn of the high caloric content, or on diet aids that warn it may cause the development of a tapeworm, or on the pharmaceutical commercials when a very pleasant-voiced peson mentions that if you use their product (as they have encouraged you to do for the pst 29 seconds) you are at risk for pulmonary embolism, anal leakage, kidney failure, blindness, losing all your limbs and the gums falling off your teeth. That's the small-print-fast-talking side effects stuff.

Before getting my new scrip I really was a miracle of afflication, even to my own self. I scared the heebie jeebies out of the boyfriend by falling alseep and missing about 20 phone calls from him and the offie so he rushed home to see if something was REALLLY wrong. I was so whacked and dehydrated - I must hae been a sight. I felt as though I had already been admitted to the doggone hospital. BTW, in the hospital although they are pumping you with IV fluids you get hella dehydrated, your mouth goes perma-dry - it's like sucking dry ice all the time. You even get a little foamy. It is the antithesis of sexy.

I spent most of yesterday doing mental pep talks "tomorrow is another day, you will be back on your feet in 3 days or so and you'll not miss a single trick, tricklicious. Then i would wobble, decide i was better on my back or just lying on my side and fall asleep there.

But now I got the new scrip and I'm in C-H-I with MayaShea (www.myspace.com/mayashea) and we're going to make some music. She's the instrumentalist and I'm the lyricist. We ain't Floetry, we're something else. As soon as I got semi-settled into the house she was asking if I wanted to hear new tracks and started the time-honored tradition of self-abuse about the music not being good enough and not having lyrics. I love passive-aggressiveness sometimes.

Anyway, as I was soaking in the tub I realized I didn't need to hear the tracks, i just need to know what she was feeling when she was creating them. That's where the lyrics will come from, the feeling that was existing when she played the chords, brought in the flutes and synthes and whatever else. It's great to have a partnership like that. When I look at those with whom I am closest I see the theme recurring, it's not so much that I pay attention to all the other crap (though I do tend to get distracted by their loser boyfriends, but that is another story altogether), it's that I plug into their emotional outlet and like the feeling and I decide to stay. Occasionally I run across people whose wires are seriously crossed, so the output starts out cool then runs at warp speed into something deeply traumatic. I've yet to have one of those crazy emotional outlets fail to come from someone who didn't experience severe emotional trauma at a young age i.e. sexual abuse, incest, physical and/or emotional abuse at the hands of some tortured adult.

Incidentally, Maya and I were re-hashing the "ex-factor." The small things that people who pass through your life teach you. These are small things, not the biggies like "when someone says they are bipolar you should believe them or "independent pharmaceutical representative means drug dealer" or "don't buy your significant other a $10,000 Ducati just because they whine a lot especially when you already know you want out of the relationship."

It's the smaller, better things. Things like learning how effective Orange-scented Formula 409 is in cleaning the fridge and other kitchen areas. Or that Simple Green is used by the Navy because it is completely biodegradable but can remove oil from the deck of a aircraft carrier. Another interesting tidbit gleaned from an ex-along-the-way, college football players are often enrolled in ballet classes to become more graceful. Someone else taught me that women are better fighter jet pilots because our bodies can withstand greater g-forces than our the vast majority of men. And tangentially related is the fact that liberal arts majors make better fighter jet pilots because they think creatively and access their right brain with greater ease and being a fighter jet pilot is nothing if not a creative endeavor. A one-night stand taught me what a gherkin was. He cooked something inedible with gherkins included and I was sick all the next day. I learned EXACTLY what a freaking gherkin was after that.

There was an ex who told me I could actually major in English in college and skip political science and another who stayed on the phone with me for 4 hours nonstop while I sobbed uncontrollably upon finding out that my stepdad had euthanized my dog and best friend Princess.

It's the little things.

Just woke up, how bout you?

Well, there's exciting news on the medical experiementation front: Testosterone given in significant amounts to young women already on regimen of medications induces vomiting. Non-stop, without ceasing vomiting.

As with any other area of life, you can decide just how miserable you want to be. Personally, I don't wanna blow chunks so the complete liquid diet is in full effect. And i'm opposed to bile. Bile sucks, you don't want to taste too much of that either. Gotta line the stomach with something stickin' and liquid and sleep off the rest.

There is a sweet, well-produced song on right now "I don't want to stress" with Jaheim, Anthony Hamilton, Musiq and maybe someone else. I like the strong, rugged voices of Jaheim and Anthony Hamilton, they are traditions within the black community. I remember reading an article with Jaheim a while back where he was introduced to Teddy Pendergrass and Jaheim was being mouthy, young, and stupid all in the same breath and Teddy just dismissively said "I've already done your sound...30 years ago."

Ooooaaaaahhhhh - a moment! The Song Blackberry Molasses. The guys who made this Mista were so young but had incredibly control and soul. Strong voices "don't want to hear bout your hardships cause i've been there myself a time or two." That's a line from the song. They probably got lost in a label war or merger, they were on a small label.

Well, for now, since I'm just waking up this is about all I have in terms of thought. that and I need to pack for my trip to Chicago tomorrow. We'll see what happens in the C-H-I since I'll be with Maya and she tends to bring out the songwriter in me. I look forward to singing with my cousin. I've decided she's Shakira and I'm...Minnie Riperton without the range. I'll work on that comparison.

It's Two Ayem Thursday Mornng, What are You Doing?

I'm watching Ice Cube in XXX: State of the Union. Cube works. He started with NWA. Niggas With Attitude. And he fell out with Easy-E, I think they made up after Easy got really ill with AIDS. You can fact-check me on that, I'm still on my meds and tha means I don't give a rip whether I'm right or not.

Hmmm...welll...what happened to me today? Jack shit. I slept 14 hours of the day away in a sweaty, sick-person haze, woke up to do some of massa's bidding, then overdid it just a little being gregarious over the phone and spent some quality time with the porcelain goddess.

I managed to be high and tak to my grandmother until she ran me off the phone (highly unusual, by the way, as it's usually the other way around), and I provided telecom emotional support to the boyfriend during funerary proceedings for a patient and frat brother of his (PBUH).

I picked up the PBUH in Egypt. It means Peace Be Unto Him and it's used always when mentioning the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH). See how that works. I learned this while vacationing at the Conrad Hotel in Egypt (I can't honestly say i vacationed in Cairo because i spent 98% of my time lounging around the hotel, I commmuted occasionally tot he marble tub big enough for a party of 8 and made 4 ayem visits to the steam room and sauna atteneded by a 24-disinterested gay dude). There is a magazin, produced by Brits, alled Egypt Today. Hmmmm...do they have a website? If you're a go-getter you can find out.

Well, time for me to return to my drug-induced haze. Lovie, lovies!!!!

Darvocet, Diazapam, then MORE Darvocet

Well, the painful period has begun. My title is the list of pain meds I take to take the edge off. Once I laughed until I cried as I thought of the medical adage "stay ahead of the pain" like it's a relay race. If you can just hand off once things start getting a little weird, then you might not suffer the stuff that renders you mute and paralyzed.

So, I'm working on staying ahead of the pain. Tomorrow I start my testosterone. My (male) surgeon says I should become more rational, logical and less likely to commit a homicide than I was on progesterone. We shall see, i reserve judgement on that. I may also start growing a beard. We shall also see about that.

Despite being notoriously slow on the uptake, I have managed to oufit my myspace page and my blog with jukeboxes. I just love reading with good music in the background. I hpe it makes the reading better, perhaps lends a certain je ne sais quoi to my words that make them more compelling or funny or interesting, like, maybe you'll read for 10 seconds instead of 4.5 (cause I know you landed on this page by mistake).

The painkillers also lower my inhibitions and they open doors in my memory that I can usually ignore or keep closed by a chair propped up against the doorhandle. Life is less messy without all those errant memories. A few minutes ago I remembered my plans to kill myself if my surgeon at Stanford turned out to be as big an asshole as every other doctor I'd met with to find out what the frick was wrong with me was.

Needless to say, he wasn't. I was going to jump off the golden gate bridge, it was very popular among the war protesters at the time and it was pretty much a sure-fire way to get life out of the way. Initially I planned to drive off the bridge, but since that had become popular as well, they'd started constructing these concrete barriers and i figured i would drive into one, ruin my face, break my sternum and still be screwed six ways to sunday.

My books on endometriosis say feeling hopeless, anxious, fearful and suicidal are perfectly normal, so I am reassured. Plus, I haven't made any attempts on my own life in heck...not concious ones at least. I had lunch the other day with a really beautiful woman with whom I have business interests and I was just chattering on and on about the surgery and the journey and she listened, she was a great listener and she knew of my surgeon and she knew enough about my disease to be a good listener. And at the end of the conversation I remarked on her license plate and she told me her husband had bone cancer. And she had already remarked how you can look at a person and judge them and never know what they are living, enduring or have lived through.

It made me think of all the people I've worked with over the years who when i made a comment like "my bad is murdering me" would tell me I was too young to have any serious medical problems. Proved them wrong, i did. I knew a girl, a woman who was at least 5 years my senior a couple of years ago who spent her childhood battling leukemia. How many people are walking around on the sidewalks with lacerations to their spirits that have maybe healed over but the scar tissue is at least as big as milwaukee? I try to be a good person in the world, when people get angry with me I'd rather take the emotional blows because i figure they might have some demon that makes them take aim at whoever seems least likely to understand their pain and anguish.

We all just want someone to see us. Even if they can't tell us it will be alright, we want someone to recognize the personal and individual hell we are suffering. I'm no saint and I will drill someone a new asshole if I'm in the right, or wrong, frame of mind, but generally, I like to be the good-time girl, life kicks the shit out of us enough without my adding to the fray.

ah, i'm ahead of the pain again. time to get some work done. love.

All Apologies to Bridgett

I don't know how I happened upon "Don't Bother" must have hit the MTV button by mistake, but there I saw that entrancing Shakira singing in a camisole in the shower and some hot model guy with a great car driving up to her house. Looked interesting, right? Then I listened to the lyrics of the song, I really like lyrics. Shakira's voice is compelling as well, it's deep, like my cousin maya, i think shakira ventures into the realm of the baritone without trouble.

So, this song "Don't Bother" starts out discussing all the qualities another girl has. And to be honest, they are all qualities I've spent a good hunik of my life wishing I'd had access to. Lifelong private school, perfect everything and perky friends.

I like my friends, cynical and crazed as they are. They are especially amusing because none of them have filters that operate between their brains and their faces/and/or mouths.

Here are my favorite verses:

She's got the kind of look that defies gravity
She's the greatest cook
And she's fat free

She's been to private school
And she speaks perfect French
She's got the perfect friends
Oh isn't she cool

She practices Tai Chi
She'd never lose her nerve
She's more than you deserve
She's just far better than me

***I take exception with the 'she's just far better than me,' but that's for tonight. There was a time not so many years ago (one or two) when that line would have been just right for where my head and heart were. I still get minor palpitations when I think of the great loves, the ones I was afraid to reveal how much I cared in case they said I wasn't good enough and every blink of their eye seemed to confirm my worst fear. And the other women didn't help.

I laugh now because my rather flexible morality and ethical personality never considered other women in my league - amazing the duality of complete arrogance and insecurity - but c'mon, I knew what I knew. I did wonder what made them interesting beyone the physical occurence of womanhood and maybe an attractive face. They seemed like clams, no chance of a real pearl. But maybe they were only clams around me, I tried to sidle up, get an idea of their charms, maybe learn something or at least gie a passable imitation - that was rough going. People dont like to share their secrets when they feel they are in competition with you, even if it is for the affections of a confirmed playboy. Note to the world: The only way to win is to pool resources, not rest on your own intellect and wiles. We could have had those boys running in circles and howling at the moon - I did enough of that on my own - but with the numbers we could have had: oh the fun! Sensual, mental, emotional and spiritual penance, torture and ectasy.

Ah, the road less traveled.

Well, I've taken my valium and its calming my muscles. a final note from that lyricist Shakira:

The promises I made to you went down the sink
But I really hope I haven't HARMED your self esteem
I'm not a virgin, but I'm not the whore you think
And I don't always smell like strawberries and cream

Aint Nothin Free But jesus

Or so says the folks from the south. Maybe your people say it too. So, here I am, reading over writings at least 10 years old, sometimes more than that and I'm not old enough to feel accomplished by all of this. More relieved. I can meet the minimum numbers required by all the writing competitions. If you can't impress them with the quality, then at least overwhelm them with the quanitity, right?

Okay, that may work for the already wealthy and accomplished and the preponderance of spoken word "artists" (hint: most people aren't really listening so just scream the most incendiary phrases and you'll get ego-soothing applause). Instead, I'm going for quality and quantity. Suddenly I have faith in my faith of my words. heck, they are more dependable than my entire reproductive system - at least they are predictable and while they are often the result of pain, they are never a source of pain.

that Neil Gaiman's laid-back style is really rubbing off on me. I like the way some writers approach the craft. I would tend to say everyone except Americans, who are entirely too self-concious about being artists, but there are tortured artists the world over. But when I think of the writers i admire for just writing and approaching the whole venture the way one would approach cleaning the carpet after a year of college partying or refinishing a chair by Home Depot instruction - I like the idea of the simplicity of it all. You have a vocabulary, you use it, you expand it, you get curiouser and curiouser about the world and at the ned of the day you're trying to lie without showing the fierce machinations behind your poker face, though sometimes you smile at the shared joke. I like that approach to writing. Bono once said he admired hip hop artists because they understood capitalism - you wanna a hip hop branded chair - have a hip hop branded chair. it's a communal art form without the airs and snobbery of rock, classical music blah blah blah.

maybe i am a hip hop writer. in spirit. i mean, i am of the appropriate generation. we shall see.

Back To Life

That Soul II Soul song always gets me. I was having a Pity Party this morning, replete with pinata, imaginary friends and mourners and even a black-clad band playing a funereal dirge. Now, i'm feeling a lot more up. I have a great life. I'm preparing for a surgery that could very well change my life - or at least my quality of life - forever. I'm opening myself to greater professional and creative opportunities. I turned 28 - and i Never thought I would get this far.

My sticking point is a one-night stand I had 3 years ago. I've never gotten hung up on a one-night stand before. Usually, I'm over the experience as soon as the experience ends. There are notable exceptions, I dated a one-nighter for a few months because that person was worth the time. And there was a flight attendant on Air Jamaica who was so atrocious that I mentally admonished myself for the entire bus ride to the airport and scandalized my friends with the tale which was still pretty funny despite the wretched performance.

Just saying that this is a sticking point, and putting it in historical perspective, makes the idea that I'm "stuck" on some one-nighter pretty funny. HaHaHa I'm laughing because I'm having a stupid human moment. One of those moment that a buddhist monk would not condone where I'm looking so hard and squinting so severely into the past and projecting with such force and verve into the future that I'm skipping over a few moments in the present.

And 40 oz. for Freedom just came on my jukebox. Enjoying the present is paramount.

I Have A Cold

Ah - I have nasal congestion and severe fatigue. It is fun to write though, especially while watching Elizabeth I on HBO with Helen Mirren? But I'm cranky and ... oh why dwell?

Today I left the house chauffered by my friend Jennifer the Massage Therapist. We went to East Atlanta Village and hung around the new shop where she will be managing a spa. It was wonderful to walk around the sidewalks and enjoy the sunshine. Then this beautiful woman with two babies in a stroller - they were the most beautiful and calm twins on earth. Twin girls, i do not wish to be in her place 15 1/2 years hence.

Well, it is early but feels late to my body and i cannot keep my thoughts in line enough to share them sufficiently. In fact, my wit seems to have left me entirely. The good news is that applied for a freelance writing gig today - step of faith and plenty of fun I'm sure if only because I love the words. And the words love me....

Now I'm watching Poseidon, this is much more exciting and inspiring. I guess I needed a little adrenaline to feel the need for blathering on as i tend to do. It was interesting visitng the Barber Shop/Salon/Spa, the owner was a tall, relatively handsome, quiet younger man. I liked the way he carried himself and I think we developed a mutual admiration. But he's that quiet, driven type. I'm in bed with that already, I'd only be losing 20 - 25 years and maybe some maturity. Not worth the trouble, but a girl can hope for a productive, interesting friendship at all times. I don't often meet people who arouse my sense of curiosity.

It's quite the fun and fantastic thing not to have the weight of responsitility on my shoulders. It is nice to let go, not to just proclaim I will "let go" and then start obsessing about things that seem of paramount importance, but tend to work themselves out just fine without my guidance or interference. Of course, I've worked hard to get to this point where guidance and interference aren't needed, where other people know how I think and have been encouraged to use their best judgement for themselves and to evaluate and analyze a situation for thhe best possible outcome.

It's really nice not to have to do alll that thinking any more. It's like having 98% of my brain and emotions freed up for myself. A truly luxurious experience. I even listen to pop music and enjoy it. Like Fergie and Diddy's Press Play. They are on heavy rotation.

Goodnight.

Borscht & Jell-O

I think the title says it all. I made borscht tonight. There was a time, years ago, when I didn't know borscht from a hole in the ground. Then I moved to Manhattan to work for the Times and New York hated the girl from Florida. I showed up with 10 pairs of flip-flops (you know, a pair for every occasion from semi-formal to hella casual) and it was all of 55 degrees. Oh, how i Pained and cried and sobbed over the phone until Rue saved me with a stolen blanket fromt he Lowes hotel. Warmer and with some Kathy Ireland socks from K-mart around the corner, I trundled my confused flu-wracked body two confusing blocks until I ran into Veselka, the Ukrainian diner. It was 4 ayem. And the cooks only spoke Ukranian, the servers were surly and the only soup I saw on the menu was Borscht and I ordered it and I felt instantly better. Ta-DA!

So, i kept getting borscht - hot, cold, with that wheat stuff that makes it taste like sawdust. My homie Tony even loved me enough one Christmas to get me an entire set of Veselka plates, bowls and coffee cups. Heaven is borscht. And jell-o is yummy, especially when the company prepares it for you.

And now I'm into watching Dance Movies. Oer the weekend I watched Step Up, Centerstage, and Take the Lead is on now. After surgery I'm going to take Tango lessons and I'm going to dance my stupid heart out again. It's been...5 years since I danced my heart out because something was wrong just a wee bit south of the heart. But now, more than anything I want to feel that fire in my blood. I'll not get ahead of myself, but dammit I'm going to dance again!

Love, kisses and Merengue!

The Joy Inside My Life

So, I just saw this link of a girl in a human slingshot and it looks like SO much fun. It was really, really some WPS (for the uninitiated that is White People Shit - not necessarily linked to white people, but indicative of the lack of slavery and consequences that generally get linked to the lives of white people in the U.S.) Anywho, here is the link:

http://geekologie.com/2007/01/girl_in_human_sling_shot.php

Today I felt so special and so slick because I went to the doctor's and only spent 15 minutes there, so I didn't have to pay for parking (you pay for parking after 30 minutes). Oh the Glory of cheating the system! I won't bore anyone with the details of the rude lab tech who refused to honor my discount rate for bloodwork yesterday, forcing me to make the drive north to the lab where they would honor my discount.

And now Y Tu Mama Tambien is on and though there is sadness in this movie, there are also sexy Mexican actors and sex and it's great sex displayed in a film. It's honest and it's hilarious. Oh and Geal Garcia Bernal who is on everyone's sexy baby daddy list. And full frontal nudity of both sexes - hurrah!

And I am so hungry. But I want some exquisite Thai food. And I want it delivered. Oh, the pain of hunger for something you don't know how to get. Actually, upon deeper thought, I really want some Vietnamese Pho, so hot, so tasty, with basil you put in all by yourself and hot-hot-hot super hot TEA.

I think i'll go handle my hunger. maybe somethng later, probably not. It's Friday night, I'm not that lame.

Ginger, Cinnamon, White Tea Bath Water

It's like going to a bath house, all calming and luxurious. And here I am two winks from falling off the edge of conciousness. good lord...today 16 people looked at my blog. What on earth are ya'll looking for? I have no juicy gossip - okay, I'm lying, I always have juicy gossip, but I'm too sleepy to pass it along.

For the past couple of days I've been thinking a lot about discipline. The profile pic I have up now is from my 2nd birthday (knobby knees were SO in in 1980!) and the man beside me,leaning down trying to get me to participate in my 2nd birthday festivities is my father. I think I called him Daddy back then, now it's Papa, but in my head he's always Daddy. Anyway, he's been in martial arts since he was 10 - nearly 50 years now. And he's always been an extremist of discipline - of the mind, body and spirit. It's difficlt to be the child of such a person. The most mortifying moments of my life were spent in class with my father, the Sensei, after having been introduced as his child and feeling as though I should know something beyond saying "Hi-Ya!" as everyone else flipped, turned, rolled and blocked.

My Stepfather is a career military man. and a Nazi at that. Oh, the discipline I have known. And now, at 28, i find myself returning to discipline as a way of life. I threw off the mantle of "what i know is right" somewhere in the junior year of college - i was 19 or 20 and decided it was high time to make up my own rules. I've always been fond of making up my own rules, but I wanted to take the rule-making to all new levels. And here i am, returning to the discipline that I despised so much as a child growing up. I know the way to do things and slowly I am returning to those ways.

There is great peace in finding your path again.

Anyway, part of my thoughts on discipline came from one of the most unlikely sources - socialite and rich old lady supreme Brooke Astor. Mrs. Astor is at the middle of a truly unfortunate and disgusting elder abuse scandal at the moment. Her son left her in a New York flat with very little nursing care, if any, and she's 104 years old. She is now in the care of Oscar de la Renta and his wife while charges are being brought against the son and his wife (maybe grandson, at 104...)

Anyway, in this wonderful book by Bruce Weber - the photographer who 'discovered' Talisa Soto, exalted Kate Moss, and worshipped the sculpted male physique (praise GOD!) of athletes and models alike - Mrs. Astor has a page in which she reflects on her life. She says she has been spared no pain, no heartache, no discord but somewhere along the line she found although her surroundings could not be controlled SHE could be disciplined in the face of all that occurred around her.

In light of her present situation it rings ever more poignant. But, really, that's the essence of it, isn't it? Life slings shit right, left and center. You can't escape the crap parts of life, especially if you really want to relish the beauty and pleasure of life, such as bath water that smells edible and transports you to another place and time. However, you can exert within yourself a certain amount of discipline, a resolve that you will behave and treat yourself in such a way that no thing will dissuade you from your chosen path.

Discipline is essential for the soul. I hope I don't forget that when life eases up again.


"Discipline" by Brook Astor - http://www.beliefnet.com/story/78/story_7876_2.html

Discipline

I am old and I have had
more than my share of good and bad.
I've had love and sorrow, seen sudden death
and been left alone and of love bereft.
I thought I would never love again
and I thought my life was grief and pain.
The edge between life and death was thin,
but then I discovered discipline.
I learned to smile when I felt sad,
I learned to take the good and the bad,
I learned to care a great deal more
for the world about me than before.
I began to forget the "Me" and "I"
and joined in life as it rolled by:
this may not mean sheer ecstasy
but is better by far than "I" and "Me."

Birds Are Out To Get Me

Not actually. I'm listening to Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. He is a recurring theme in my blog, isn't he? Just the same, one of the characters just said "Birds Are Out to Get Me" and in truth they are out to get him.

Just over a year ago, they were out to get me, too. There I was, enjoying the warm Orlando sun at Disneyworld, buying a yummy Churro from a vendo near It's a Small World and there was a great flapping of wings and batting of something heavy and unforgiving across my forehead. Then my Churro was on the ground and three seagulls tore it into three pieces and flew away sqawking with victory.

To my credit, I did not cry. I was merely stunned into silence and trembled violently until a very nice janitor came over (having witnessed the entire traumatizing event) and fetched me a new Churro and reassured me the seagulls had gotten their fill and would not be back. Incidentally, they did not sream "Mine Mine Mine" in english as they did in Finding Nemo.

The truly sad part of this story is that I spent at least 12 years of my extreme youth in Florida, laughing none-too-kindly at snowbirds who brought picnic baskets to the beach only to be set upon by a crazy flock of mafioso seagulls. It was practically a pasttime: Suntanning and watching seagulls in killing mode.

Now, I'm a snowbird, or something incredibly close, too loose with my churro and all the sorrier for the experience. however, there is some consolation in the fact that I own a couple of gold teeth (if you look closely at my latest profile pick you can see them gleam on the left side of my mouth).

I think I will spend the rest of the week playing dress-up. My doctor has declared I'm no longer allowed to drive as *technically* I drive as a functional druggie. I'll be cabbing and training it for the next 4 weeks - I'll probably see more. Just today I took my very first walk around my neighborhood. It was amazing. People were friendly and lots of other people were out walking. They've been gentrifying and the crackheads are losing their toehold on the community. I even had marriage proposed by a nice homeless guy who swore blind he would change his ways and become the man I needed him to be. I do enjoy casual marriage proposals. It's no secret I like getting married, the staying matrimonied is something else entirely, but the wedding party is just fun like no other. New clothes, lots of friends, singing, dnacing, drinking, eating obscene amounts of food - ah, a good party!

In fact, I think I'll plan a pre-surgery party at a local club. Good way to get out of the house and actually see a nightclub in Atlanta. I'll be the sober one weaving in my chair, hopefully all of you who are of age (little sisters not welcome!) will be in attendance. Otherwise, I'll throw another Post-op Party in Europe sometime around Christmas. All my European friends can come to that.

Well, now we have plans. And I have a surgery date. April 17th. Remember me that day, I'll remind you closer to the date.

Back in the Saddle Again

Well, after a lazy, wonderful weekend in the country - the real country where you don't get cellphone or internet service - i'm back in the city for my big appointment with my big-time surgeon. Maybe today I'll get my surgery date. I hope, i hope, I hope.

I have to give a shout-out to le petite soeur cuz she drove me to the Super 8 Motel last night to get my Wi-Fi pirate on for wirk. Poor thing was drooping over the steering wheel while I flashed off quotes for the business website. Bless her heart!

I'm not all that excited to be back in the "city." yesterday I met one of my uncle's 20+ kids (yes, he pretty much stuck it anywhere he could) and this guy has lived in the ATL all his life and he's like "so do you go out? to the clubs? 112? Visions? Any of the strip clubs?" I'm in the hammock soaking in 75 degrees of pure sunshine and smelling bbq I cannot eat and I'm saying "no, no, yeah, i went there in college, but not since i've been living here for 3 years and strippers are usually exploited."

My one interesting tidbit was that the girlss in the Atlanta clubs inject saline into their asses to make them jiggle more. My father, wit that he is, thought this was effective and very, very funny. All I can think of is Hepatitis, cause they aren't going to doctors for the saline treatment, they are filling a syringe and going from girl to girl. Somebody's gonna get something, that's all I'm saying. And for a jiggle that barely yields $5 per song...I've written about this earlier - not enough money for the kid.

Anyway, the boyfriend/boss was being his regular asshole self and that bothered me and I'm just thinking "shit, I don't have any friends around this place, I barely get out of the house and that's just sad because I'm a person with very little sense of stranger danger. I'm the girl who gets into the car with a friendly stranger and ends up in some hole-in-the-wall club dancing and having a good time and gets home safely."

Oh well, I have to focus on the positive. i was so annoyed earlier that I turned to Papa and demanded "say something positive for me because I'm having a really hard time right now" and he simply smiled at me. *Boom* the tension - emotional, mental and physical began to dissolve and he laughed and said "see, that's all you needed. Sometimes there are not words that can do more than an action."

So, to all you out there, I send a smile, a genuine warm caring smile. Best day to you!

Heaven is a Hot Water Bottle

I have long held this belief. In lieu of having my personal space invaded by some person of either gender after an evening of romper room activities, I've found a hot water bottle at the bottom of the bed lends all the warmth a security this girl need. Add in a little D'Angelo or Prince and I've transcended mere humanity and elevated to the rarified air of gods and goddesses.

Here is a question, instead of clinging to the obviously self-destructive Marvin Gaye archetype, why didn't D'Angelo just get a perm and go the Prince megalomaniac route? Prince is still around, I still scream like a damn fool when his music is on or he is in concert, he's a sharp businessman with heart for his predecessors (artists from the 70s and 80s are able to record at his Paisley Park studios gratis) and barring that unfortunate bare-assed yellow ensemble a few years ago, he's generally a very sharp dresser, though I have preference for his renaissance period a la Purple Rain and When Doves Cry.

And this is something really cool from Neil Gaiman's blog: http://www.dylanhearsawho.com/home.htm

/Users/CJ/Desktop/DylanHearsAWhoCDInsert-704535.jpg

I hope the picture shows up. I've never tried with blogger.com to insert a picture.

Margarita Jell-O with a splash of Silver Patron

Yeah, I'm on the "alleviate all pain" program. You would be, too, if you'd had my evening and morning. A lot of times in college my friends in engineering talked about their professors giving it to them up the ass without vasoline or the simple courtesy of playing a Barry White album. yeah, well, I can relate, but in reverse. My doggone "exit" system is on the fritz in such a major way. I have a bladder infection - urine is torture. All other activities left me with the distinct impression I was giving birth to twins - quintuplets - there was variation based on the amount of pain and potential for complete nervous breakdown.

But after two hours I decided I would not allow myself to be cowed by the staggering pain. I decided, sweating and panting in pure exhaustion on the bathroom floor, that I would push and labor until whatever was killing me inside came out. I figured I would feel better to get the monster out, no matter what had to be hemorraghed or torn. And since it was such an ordeal I also resolved that if anything essential accompanied the monster, I would try not to bleed out on the bathroom floor, but remain concious long enough to walk across the street and (hopefully) have them sew back in the missing part. Thank god for living across the street from a hospital.

After all was said and done, with a minimum of blood loss, I staggered to the couch with a fever, sweat running in cold rivulets down my face, had a valium and passed out for four hours. Upon waking I limped to my car and trundled to the urologists's office. He's a really nice doctor. And competent. That, for all those who don't spend much time with doctors, is a very, very rare combination. He's actually honest enough to say "well, I can't empathize with you on that." Honesty is refreshing and sometimes nothing with replace it. Anyway, he gave me the good news that I've developed a bladder infection. I wonder if this is like death, you know how they say it travels in threes. Are my exascerbated symptoms going to come in multiples of three? This is madness and very, very funny, even when I'm being tortured by my own body, it's very very funny. There are moments when I wonder "why didn't I ever get myself a raging drug addiction? I could go through withdrawal for all this drama." Or I think "for this amount of pain I have earned my place in heaven."

And, I learned in an email today, that March is Endometriosis Awareness Month. Hurray! I now have anohter club to join - the "Women in Perpetual Pain" club. I'm racking up the honorary memberships: The People Columbus Killed with the Pox Club, the "We didn't land of Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us club," the "My gender is greater in numbers but still used as carpet for others to walk on club," and the "Victims of intraracial Colorism Contingent." Woo. Thankfully most of these gorups don't charge dues. I wouldn't be able to pay, what with $20,000 of surgery on the horizon.

Lord, the fever is back. i'm hot as all get out. Must turn on the A/C.

Update on Wear Them Down

First, there is an owl hooting outside my window. If I were to give into my superstitious side I would wonder if it was a screech owl. They say that when a screech owl hoots it's foretelling the death of someone. Not encouraging that the damn thing sounds as though it's directly overhead.

So far my diabolical plan to get emotional support is going swimmingly. I started out by announcing I needed a hug. Hugs are addictive! I would not be surprised if I started soliciting strangers for a hug. I've had three or four in the past 4 hours, every time that man moved I was up and asking for a hug. 1:00 am, 4:00 am, 7:00 a.m. - got my hug on. It was wonderful.

I also decided that I can work from home. Mainly because getting out of the house seemed a little out of my league this morning, but just the same, this is progress on my part. I'll call one of my specialists and see what they have to say about my newest discomfort and if they have me come in maybe I'll solicit hugs from the doctor (he's very nice, i don't think he would turn me down). Even the postal deliveryperson isn't safe at this point.

Also, I'm reading "Don't Panic" by Neil Gaiman (www.neilgaiman.com) about the author of the Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/), Douglas Adams and it is phenomonally funny. Gaiman is a masterful writer with a keen sense of humor and Adams was just a ridiculously funny and intelligent bloke. I would have loved to drink tea laced with rum on a beach somewhere with him. Anyway, Adams had a terrible time with deadlines and one passage in the book details the promotional work done for his 3rd of 4th book in the Hitchiker's series. Basically, the publisher sent out a flier that announced they knew jackshit about the book because it hadn't been written although every imaginable deadline had long-since passed and the book was *supposed* to be on shelves already. In addition, they detailed the daily prayer meetings in the editorial department (not a religious lot, but they were turning to the only help they could get at this point) that went a little something like "Dear god, please help Douglas Adams finish this manuscript. And in addition to his daily bread please help him find inspiration..."

that's really, really funny to me because I think that might be the universal creative artists' prayer. Dear God, let me eat and give me inspiration and enough pride or humility to start and finish this work. I hear it all the time - I feel it all the time and I love stringing words together. I've been editing through some of my stories and there are spots where it's obvious I was in such a tizzy to put words on paper that I literally put anything down just to fill the space. I'm amazed when I look back on it now because the story will just be swimming along and then - whammo - you know exactly when i ran out of steam and story and started grasping about for something, ANYTHING to say. My giveaway is a string of adjectives to create a strange image. Poor me.

Well, that's the 12 o'clock update. More later.

Wear Them Down

Today my little sister sent me an email in which she detailed her plan for "silent rebellion" against the food-related tyranny of her grandmother. This amused me very, very much. I have my own silent rebellion in process, after all. You see, for all my illness and pain and general misery and the very strategic move of dating a doctor, I find myself living with someone who is marginally aware of the effect of chronic illness on my general mental and emotional health.

I've tried letting all the fury and angst and anguish out. I've been on valium for a few years now, that actually makes me laugh out loud, because it makes my emotional upheavals bearable, but it doesn't mean they stop. In fact, thinking on it, the valium just takes the yen for personal destruction out of my emotional lexicon. I knew something was missing, funny that I should just realize what it is.

Anywho, now that I am certifiably sick and shut-in, the house we share is quiet most of the time and I'm beginning to suspect my significant other is somewhat relieved. I also think he is concerned about my upcoming surgery and has chosen, rather childishly, to withdraw emotionally when I need him most. Note to all people: This is a shitty way to treat a sick person. Sick is just an adjective, it's the person who needs you, not the illness. I guess even when doctoring is your profession it is difficult to face physiological mayhem and upheaval in your own house.

I probably need to refill that valium prescription. In the interim, I have decided the current state of affairs is completely unacceptable. I need some emotional support and way more hugs than I am currently getting. So, I have decided to wear him down. Talking doesn't get us anywhere and we always end up saying "well, maybe we shouldn't be in this relationship." That is useless times 100, if we were going to quit we'd have every justification in the world, the least of which is the ocean of years between our ages.

My first line of attack is professional. Oh, did I mention we work together, he's my boss. So, since most of the time I barely have the energy to hobble from the bed to the kitchen, much less get dressed, pep talk myself into breakfast, bully myself across the street to work and then collapse in a chair for the duration of the day -occasionally snarling at people who call or stop by for whatever reason and disturb the silence, I have decided to become a model employee. Except, i refuse to speak to him. Everyone in our organization knows I'm a walking time bomb, they know the meds I'm taking and the toll the meds are taking. For some reason he is reassured to see me in the office, no matter how loopy and checked-out I am. So, show up I will. Today i broke a stapler and said 5 words in 3 hours that were addressed to him. Revolution!

At home, I'm going to become what I've worked hard not to be: Needy. I'm turning up the heat on the whole "hold me, comfort me, baby me" thing. I read somewhere (some medical or psych text) that when facing illness independent people become more independent and needy people become needier. Well, i fall into the first category and I've been soldiering on bravely for 4 years now. I'm letting the wall drop and I'm going to focus on becoming a hot mess. That's slang for letting it all fall apart. It's in the name of science and a healthy relationship. Stoicism is for sissies. Being needy is going to be the real hard work.

i don't know if I'll be able to whine - high pitched anything makes me think of knives, but I may mewl a bit.

Updates to follow.

My houseguests have left

Oh, to lose your houseguests! it's a terrible feeling, when they bring their bags down and start heading for the door and you were thinking "i'll slip a little *** into their tea and they won't leave for a good long time!" I like houseguestss who teach me new things and the dynamic duo of Cluck and Bridge are the best at teaching me new things.

that and they make me laugh until I vomit, which is no small feat, but not uncommon in our decade-long friendship.

For instance, they taught me how to use Bonjour on iChat with my Mac, so i can have conversations with other Mac users who are in the same 100 sq. ft. area as me without talking. There we all were, sitting ont he couch, watching the Smurf's and Deputy Dawg remixes chatting without saying a word. there was a lot of laughter. Communication is a beautiful thing.

Then, when we are talking, we are usually re-hashing some muddled, mixed-up story about some mutual friend who is a walking disaster and just too much fun to observe or leave alone. And since my boyfriend is a doctor, which by association makes me a Medical Professional (MP vs. MD, though I'd wager I have more sense than a good many post-residency MDs) we can also discuss everyone's many and varied medical ailments and conditions - including but not limited to bipolarity, CSF leaks of indeterminate length, halitosis, jacked up jawlines, impacted ear wax of decade-long accumulation, sinusitis, herpes...the list goes on and on.

And Bridge is a English-Lit degreed Librarian which means she has the power of infinate information at her fingertips! Now I want to grow up to be a singer-actor-UNICEF fundraising-Politician-Librarian which Executive Producer power in Hollywood and at the BBC. It's not too much to ask of life, I just can't figure out how to get started in my multiple-career of choice. Hopefully I'll focus better post-operatively.

Cluck is a good 50% of why I graduated college. 10%, incidentally, is directly attributable to my lack of desire to live with my parents again and the remaining 40% was 424 Crew. Anyway, after 3 months of freshman year I'd been attacked, moved, displaced - basically, I was a one-woman/girl (still wasn't 18) refugee camp.

And Cluck moved me in, gave me a bottle of southern comfort with a straw, let me eat everything with chopsticks (cereal included), read me wretched, terrible bedtime stories that were really biographies of incestous, crack-addicted inner-city families, and played along with my FAVORITE game: wake me up for class.

It's one of those classics where you tell someone who actually attends college to call and wake you up, or reach over and wake you up, for class. they know and you know that when they try to wake you up, you will roll back over and say "not today, i can't do sunlight today" but they gamely agree to do it time and time again. That's true friendship. Chuck did it for 2 years until I grew up enough to make other friends and move out of his bedroom.

And now they are gone. A whole 4 hours away back to their home where they will make other people laugh and dredge up information for others who will not appreciate the arcane knowledge nearly as much I would.

Perhaps I should move closer to where they are or find out how much a puddle-jumping plane would charge me to visit on the weekends. You just don't find people who love you for you every day of the week. and when you do, you have to stay until they get sick of you.

Sometimes, if you're very lucky- and I am - they never, ever do.