And Yet Somehow Life Goes On

I'm sorry for the melodrama (GETTIT? GETTIT? *MEL*odrama? BAW HAW HAW!) of the last few posts. Losing a long-term friendship that was more in your own head than in reality, and then finding out that it was more in your own head than in reality, can tend to unhinge you.

Okay, not you, me, but you knew what I meant.

In other news, since I reallyreallyreally don't want to go into that at all, I finally had to break down and go to the hospital for the tooth situation. Those of you who've been following the bouncing ball for any amount of time will know the story - I have very bad teeth, and one very bad tooth in particular. I've been self-medicating with alternating doses of Tylenol and Motrin for over a year just so I can function.

(Hey, guess what the ER doc said about that? He said I had been systematically overdosing myself for ages, which could have killed my liver, and that I was very very very lucky the tests came back fine. READ THOSE LABELS, FOLKS, AND DON'T GET COCKY.)

(Oh, god, how they tested me. Also, a CT scan. Good thing I'm poor enough to qualify for financial aid, because otherwise I'd be hyperventilating right now.)

ANYway.

My tooth got so bad that it created a swelling along my entire jaw that stood out a good two, three inches from my face. Yeah, sexy, right? So I caved and went to the ER on Friday, since I didn't want poison in my brain or an eaten-away jawbone or a heart attack because of poisons in my blood stream (all of which oh, so many people delighted in telling me about over the last year, thanks guys for the paranoia).

After a blood test, a pee test, and a scan, it appears that I am a lucky, lucky sunuvabitch and that I may yet escape death because of my teeth. Also, that I'm way healthier than I deserve to be. Also, I'm not allowed to take Tylenol for at least 6 months, and Motrin only in a pinch. Also, Oxycodone will indeed make you barf if you take it on an empty stomach with Penicillin.

Long story longer, I got a list of places that will take me on a sliding scale (FINALLY! Some light at the end of the tunnel. I guess all I had to do was potentially bankrupt my ass to find out where to go), and so what I'm doing tomorrow is calling all these places to see who will see me and help me get back to a decent level of dental health.

Hasten that fine day.

In the meantime, thanks for being there and listening to me. You guys are the truest friends I have. Except my brother, who is just the best, most loyal and true friend I've ever had. It only took a minor emotional apocalypse to figure that one out.

And The Hits Keep Coming And Coming

Problems with the rent check. They need their money NOW. As far as I can tell, we've paid these dickwads every cent they were owed, and now? They're after us for HOW much more?

I can't stand it.

I'm thisclose to laying down and giving up. And I'm not a big one for giving up.

On the surface, I'm calm and serene. Under all that, I want to throw chairs and kick holes in the walls.

I can't stand the idea that I was worth so little to someone I would have gone to the wall for. I can't stand knowing that this person would crawl over my dying body to grub for a dollar.

Sick. Sick, sick, sick.

But it's nothing new. I really need to reevaluate my friendship criteria.

Silence

I really wish I could say things here in interesting ways. I wish that every time I sat down to these keys and confronted this blank space I could write something worthy of your time and attention.

I can't.

It seems like every time I try, even on those days when something noteworthy has happened, I become overwhelmed by this colossal sense of futility, this absolute certainty that my words are nothing more than noises off, that my presence in the ether is just that - ethereal, ephemeral, futile, fleeting.

I tell myself that words have weight, have value, that the words I put out here are a sort of triumph over the entropy of my day-to-day, that writing online at least has the merit of telling the world that, as Celie says in The Color Purple, "I'm here. Dear God, I'm here!"

But I don't believe me.

This whole world of words and web logs and forums and chat rooms and memes and viral videos and all, all, all of it - well, hell. It's so transitory, it's so easy to erase yourself. And when I erased myself, I made myself sick inside. I tried to carry on, but there was a ghost at the feast. I was sick, sick to the heart about all the things I just decimated, let go, eradicated. I thought drastic measures might help.

I killed my MySpace account. I didn't feel better.

I killed my Twitter account. I still didn't feel better.

I think I know what the problem is here, why I can't seem to fall in love with the words like I once could. I am still so furious that my words could be taken from me, taken by my own hand, even, and just removed from the place where I thought they'd live forever, floating eternally on a sea of bits and bytes and swimming on the surface of an ocean of pixels.

I am betrayed by my own hand.

I am a coward and a fool for letting someone drive me off my own ground.

I want my blog back. I want my identity back.

And, now more than ever, I can't have it back. Because now someone I loved so deeply they were like a part of myself, someone I trusted and knew online and off, someone who could and did read that other space, is no longer someone I trust.

So right when it would be the best thing in the world for my well-being to reclaim my space, I can't.

My heart, my heart. I feel like I'm alone in the world and my dearest friend is the one who cut the lifeline. And I can't go to the safest place, the strongest place in me, my words, to heal the gaping wound.

I hate this. I don't even like this template. I want my old cruddy gray one, and my Flickr badge, and my blogroll (and oh my GOD, that's gone forever, FOREVER), my comfy, ratty sofa, my armchair with the stuffing exploding out of the back, my threadbare carpets, my portraits on the wall.

See? Disjointed mess that I am, I can't even be kind of cohesive. This is going nowhere. I'm stopping. I am stopping.

But oh. Oh, how this sorry state of exile is making me sick with silence.

Terror

So tonight I go and sing at a wake. A biker wake, but a wake nonetheless.

Sweaty palms, goosebumps, the shakes, rapid heart rate, and utter conviction that I'm gonna blow it big time.

Good god. What is wrong with me? Why did I agree to this?

Fuck.

Still Around

For a minute.

So, for that minute, let me tell you what I'm thankful for, okay?

I'm thankful for my friends here online, who have always been so kind and supportive, no matter how crabby and bitchy I've gotten, and no matter how many times I've been a broke-ass chump and lost the Internet. Thank you, all of you who kept coming back. You're awesome.

I'm thankful for my brother and his indomitable will, because, when faced with some bad news about his dreams, he stood up, rolled up his sleeves, and started finding alternative ways to get there from here. The pride I feel in this guy is too big to be contained. Ever.

I'm thankful for the resiliency of my children, who, when told that some of our vacation plans had to be canceled, said, "That's okay, mom, we can have fun here in town," and promptly revived my own optimism and recognition that life is only as hard as you think it is.

I'm thankful that my fridge is stocked and my cabinets have dry goods in them, and that I can cook. Because if I were a "from the box" mom, my poor family would be some unhappy campers over the next month or two while we had to go back to basic fare.

I'm thankful that the Internet isn't how I make my living. If it were, the loss of the cable would be a disaster. This way, it's merely a small hiccup in the progress of my life from one day to the next. And I can live with that.

And lastly, tempting fate though it may be, I'm happy to have my health and my family. I'm happy to still have one of my parents in my life - and a wonderful parent, at that. Looking around at the trials and tribulations some of my friends are having with their aging parents, I have to be extremely grateful that my dad is so great. So great.

Being thankful, I have to say, feels a hell of a lot better than being sorry for myself. So there it is.

Thanks, Universe, for not flattening me like a bug. I know you could if you wanted. So thanks for not doing it.

Going Offline

Can't afford the bill right now.

AGAIN.

Plus, in my frantic efforts to ignore the suck, shit and fail that is happening all around me, I am whipping around my favorite sites over and over and over and over, like a manic hamster on cocaine with a quad latte chaser.

This will not do.

Since the Internet can't keep up with me ANYWAY, I am better off paying some other bills first and returning when I'm stable.

In every sense of the word.

In the words of the noble and valiant Jerry Springer, take care of yourselves... and each other.

ETA: HEY! My friend Matt just posted something on Facebook that cheered me ENORMOUSLY. So I'll leave you with this pure goodness right here:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Oh, you are SO WELCOME.

Plus And Minus

Plus: We went to the Oregon Country Fair this weekend and had a great time. Lots of beautiful people, neat costumes, and great music.

Minus: We couldn't find a motel room within a hundred miles of Veneta and so we slept in our car and then I, even I, the most body-conscious woman on Earth, took a communal shower at the Fair. Coed. Yes, that's what I said. That was... tough for me, but I did it for the sake of clean hair. Baby, I'd do a lot for clean hair.

Plus: My bro has jumped through all the hoops required to start going to PSU for his art courses! All he's waiting for is the confirmation letter from the college.

Minus: My phone is out so I can't call and check the status of that. Hopefully it comes soon!

Plus: My house is clean due to having minions! Brell and the Little Missy went through this place like a tornado, and I flatly refused to clean up their messes. They recognized the necessity of cleaning up after themselves, then went one better and just cleaned the whole place! W00T! Yay, minions!

Minus: I can't think of anything else to write about today, so a boring update is all you get. Next time, perhaps?

How was your weekend?

So!

Ever since I had that lengthy stretch of non-internet time, I've been feeling more philosophical about everything that happens on the web. That isn't to say that the people on the other end of this series of tubes aren't just as real to me as they ever were; it's more that I had to go reclaim a life AFK, and when I did that, the intense attachment I felt to everything that happened on the internet diminished a bit, shrank back into a proper perspective. The people I know and care about on the web became more like pen-pals; when I get online it's like reading a letter from someone who moved away from my town.

And really, for me, that's the best way. I have a tendency to live inside my head a little too much; I read, I knit, I... sit on the internet and update Twitter. And Facebook. And three or four forums. And when it comes right down to it, that means I have little time where I sit with actual live adult humans, face-to-face, and interact.

And despite the fact that I regained some perspective during my recent absence, I have found that it's beginning to slip again. About a month ago I started a little knit group, and on the first night I felt awkward and estranged. From people I've known for almost 20 years. That isn't okay with me, and I decided, again, that the internet was eating my life.

The thing about living so much in my own head and spending a lot of time on the internet is that I start losing my reality filters. For a person who spends so much time quietly thinking anyway, it is very easy to form deep, passionate attachments to people online, because in my opinion, a relationship formed and carried on through the internet is the perfect example of a purely mental and emotional relationship. Except that it's an idealized relationship; almost everyone presents their best self online, removing and editing and self-censoring all the things that could be construed as negative by the groups they're in.

So I become entranced by these thought-relationships, these semi-mind melds of the online community. And then the relationships I have with these folks, who I may or may not ever meet in the flesh, begin to supersede the relationships I have at home.

(See there? I just typed "at home." As if the Internet is another place, a mappable place, a place where I physically go. Do you know where I go? I go to my living room, sit down at my desk, and jiggle my mouse to wake my PC up. That's where I go. Not Bimini, or Dublin, or Schenectady. And it's hard, friends, hard for me to remember that. And that's bad.)

Anyway, all of that is a twisty way of coming to the point, which is that I may or may not elect to continue getting cable, the means by which I access the internet. If I choose to stop my cable (we've been wanting to kill our television for about a year now, anyway), it won't be because the 'net is bumming me out; it won't be because none of my dear, good friends are important to me anymore (because you ARE, you ARE, oh, man, you ARE); it will be because, when it comes down to it, the deep attachment I feel to the internet is unhealthy. And expensive.

And I can't seem to cut costs in this area... in any sense of the word.

What Do You Think?

I found a template I like! I love that it's colorful; I'm not usually a big one for bright and cheery, but in this case, I think it's fun and friendly.

Not much new over here at the moment, but I feel a little more creative with such a neat "face" on my blog. We'll see whether that translates into more posts in the long run.

Holiday Weekend!

Which is incredible and awesome, because 1) my guy gets Friday off so we're all staying up way too late (note the timestamp on this post), and 2) it's a gorgeous excuse to eat lots of stuff that's no good for anyone. And, since I went from being thirty pounds overweight to roughly ten pounds underweight (this allergies/cold/whateverthehell thing has really been kicking my ass, appetite-wise), eating lots of anything has an undeniable attraction. Unless it was, say, brussels sprouts. Them I could live without.

Other than that, I am about to go on a template quest for this blog; plain white isn't my favorite look. However, I strongly believe that that gray thing I had before was kind of boring. Maybe I'll try on a few designs before I settle. (No worries, Fern; I'll make sure to keep it eye-friendly, no matter what.)

Suggestions? Do you want to cast a vote? Like, say, I change the template once a day for a few days and then ask for input? After all, I usually only see the blog from the "Create Posts" page, so it's really kind of more for you than anything.

Anyway. I ramble. Good night, and happy Fourth of July weekend!

What A World, What A World...

So basically, it comes down to this. I do NOT have a cold anymore. The thing would be ridiculous. So what is this crap that is hanging on for dear life, clinging to my face like an octopus with an anxiety disorder? What is it that's causing my lungs and throat to tickle, prickle and itch?

Dudes, it's allergies. I held out for as long as I could; I pretended there were no such things; I called it a "summer cold," a "bug," a "virus;" but friends, I have actual real allergies. No, seriously. I KNOW.

Do you know how I know this? My friend D offered me a Benadryl yesterday, and once I got used to thinking in slow motion and walking into things, I realized that my nose was clear. I was not coughing. And this meant only one thing. If allergy medicine worked like magic on my symptoms...

Sigh. I guess I'm a goddamn delicate flower.

In other news, the car? Possessed. Possessed by the devil. No, wait, it IS the devil. The devil made out of car. And it is mine. Golly, what a lucky gal I am.

The alarm problem, we thought, was solved, after a nonstop blaring session at a local mall and a frazzled call to the car dealership. They told us how to reset it, and we did. And there was peace in the valley. Right up untilllll.... now. When I got home from dropping my guy off at work, I locked the car. And accidentally set the alarm. And then, in the process of trying to UNset the alarm, I set it off. And it just kept on going off. And a call to the husband, who was in the barrel last time this happened, informed me as to how to make it reset.

Except it didn't work. Didn't work. DIDN'T WORK. Any of the EIGHT times I tried.

So now the car's down there with a battery terminal off. I wish a mofo WOULD try to steal it right now. I'd laugh and laugh and laugh. And also point while I laughed.

So that's my week so far. How are you?

Today Is The Second Day...

...of the rest of my blog life.

(Not to be, you know, melodramatic or anything.)

I am still completely pissed off and - yes, offended that the one person in all the world whose input I desired the least (well, excepting maybe my MIL) thought it was acceptable behavior to come and comment on my blog. It offends my sense of common intelligence. But then, this particular individual isn't the poster child for exceptional genius. So. There you go.

Moving on!

I am possessed with the most hateful death-bug of all time; my nose is now parched and chapped and sore from the blowing and blowing and (crying from the pain of) blowing that it's endured.

I also have a faintly worrying cough, although it's much less upsetting tonight than it was yesterday. Yesterday I was all whistly, which, if you've ever had the pewmonia, you just went, "uh-oh." Yeah, uh-oh. So I slathered Mentholatum (Medical pundits forsooth! It has always, always worked for me) on the soles of my feet, chest and back, drank lots of hot beverages, and sat around sweating while the whistling subsided and the movement started happening in my lungs. Today has been a gross-out-fest, but I'd rather be grossed out than hospitalized.

Aren't you glad I started a new blog? Now you get to hear about my cold symptoms! Woohoo!

In other news, Kate is working on something frabjous and awesometastic for - oops, can't use the old aliases anymore, so... hmmm. How about Brell? Brell will be the older kid, and Little Missy will be the younger? Okay. Kate is working on something truly cool for Brell because I won a contest. I did! I KNOW! I never win anything, and yet here I am, all winning a contest! Schweeeet!

So now, however, I have to come up with something groovy for the Little Missy. Something groovy that a knitting n00b like me can make. Uh-oh again. Oh, dear. This should be - entertaining. For other people to watch, that is. Not for me to try. Because that, that will not be entertaining for me. Unless I - I'm rambling. I'm going to stop rambling. That would be best, I think.

That's it for the moment; I shouldn't even be awake right now. Going to bed. Talk to you later!

Why The Title "Auspex"?

Because of this poem, by Robert Frost:

Auspex

Once in a California Sierra
I was swooped down upon when I was small,
And measured, but not taken after all,
By a great eagle bird in all its terror.

Such auspices are very hard to read.
My parents when I ran to them averred
I was rejected by the royal bird
As one who would not make a Ganymede.

Not find a barkeep unto Jove in me?
I have remained resentful to this day
When any but myself presumed to say
That there was anything I couldn't be.

Nobody, through word or deed, will be allowed to keep me from doing or being that which I love. So I've moved house and am back in business, with the caveat, of course, that my blogging will be limited unless I have something worthwhile to say.

Talk to you soon!