Sarcomical

I will put the hurt on you (a bedtime nightmare)...

The other night, as we were getting to bed and the dogs were assuming their regular positions (Lucy & Ricky on top of the bed, Shiloh under it), I crossed the room from my closet and saw something that troubled me greatly. One of the middle support casters under the bed was leaning crooked.

There is a good chance you are possibly already saying, So what? What a stupid thing to worry about. It's not like they are actually bearing the brunt of holding up your bed or anything; it's not like the entire unit is going to collapse; it's not like your bed will split in two...your bed sits on a wooden frame, those frakking wheels might as well be ornamental.

This is basically what my husband was trying to tell me.

However, what I heard was, That caster is the only thing keeping this bed one piece; it is the only thing standing between you and wood-splintered carnage. This bed is going to crr-reak in the middle of the night, and before you realize what is happening you will crush your dog with the very weight of your own selfish, too-busy-to-stop-and-fix-the-vitally-important-caster lumps of flesh. You will crush him and he will die and also you will have to move because how could you continue to live in a house where you killed your dog with your stupidity and carelessness and OH also your body weight? Now, GET UNDER THERE AND FIX IT YOU LOSER!

And so, because I could not be swayed with reason OR cookie bribes, I got down on the floor, sat facing the errant metal leg, braced myself on the carpet, and pushed it back into place with my foot. Aha, sweet safety.

EXCEPT.

Being down on the floor allowed me the opportunity to see the more precarious and more threatening BACK caster. It was practically making a right triangle with the floor. This was unacceptable. THE HORROR MUST BE PREVENTED! Of course, this meant I got down on my stomach and shimmied toward the middle of the underbelly. Now, mind you our bed is quite heavy, being an oversized King, and I could not get myself enough leverage to pull or push this leg back into place. Could you go lift that side of the bed up a little? I implored from under my one-foot prison.

This did not help.

And now, I was battling not only the goddamned caster but also my inner Freakoutometer, which was threatening to bubble and smoke as the floor seemed to begin pushing me tighter and tighter against the roof of my tiny compartment. Be cool, I thought. Just be cool. And I WAS cool. I managed to spin myself around underneath the bed and get myself in a position where I could brace my feet and puuuullllll. Voila! Straight as an arrow. And now...to simply get out. I started to wiggle backward and try to un-twist half-inch by half-inch, like some rewinding earthworm.

This was where my husband for some reason decided it would be a good time to ask over and over Can you get out? Can you get out? Can you get out? and I consequently told him to shut up!!! shut up!!! are you kidding me shut up!!! before I lost all memory of how to breathe correctly.

Yet somehow, as I clawed my way toward light and life, I was able to form this thought:
When I get out of here I am going to kick you in the kneecaps.

A Salute to the Culture of Oversharing...

We love to see the bloopers.

When I get a DVD, which - come on, what with DVR? - is pretty rare these days except in the case of my favorite television sitcoms, I look most forward to seeing the outtakes - the bloopers. I like the idea of knowing how a character is supposed to respond, then being let into those moments when it all goes to hell and an actor breaks character. I like seeing how that person really laughs, how they naturally react after they've made a mistake.

We love to see the bloopers. We enjoy the imperfections.

Sometimes I ask myself why I slowed down my writing here so drastically in the past year or so. I ask myself why I stopped blogging regularly about the mundanities of my life, even though I was able to make you laugh through much of them. The truth is, you aren't the only one subjected to my self-imposed cut-off. Let's just say I developed a distrust of the safety of sharing and of embracing others into my "world", and that's something that I have been wrestling with a lot over this time. 

Accompanying this depression-slash-hermitage-slash-intense level of MEH-ness, grew a general crabbiness each time I tried to sit down to write. The truth was, all that was really going through my head was the mishmash of how I was trying to unravel my own confusion and gain some deeper understanding of my life events, my purpose, my direction, my my MY ME ME ME blahblahblahblech. I really grew exhausted of subjecting this space to what I felt was merely becoming a virtual spewing of self-therapy. And I thought, after FIVE years here, is this all I have to put 'out there' again? I'd really rather be be making you all insanely jealous with some kick-ass project I was taking on or bragging about my clumsy yet successful completion of some marathon or at the very least come off as the Über Sexy Confident Mastermind Take Charge of the World Creative Genius I wish I felt like.

In all fairness, I bet some of you would have really liked if I had borne the discomfort and written it all out anyway. Not that I haven't read about someone's struggle or heartache and felt intensely grateful for their ability to share, their adeptness at putting into words something that I myself had felt yet been unable to clarify so well. The fact is that some of those moments deeply define and even cement our relationships online; that's part of the inescapable nature of this culture of virtual friendships and stranger adoration.

We love to see the bloopers.

If I had been writing more during this time, I would have probably told you about feeling abandoned and betrayed by people close to me, about our dealing with my husband's diagnosis as a diabetic, about feeling inadequate in my talents, about turning into a vapid lump for long periods of time, about compartmentalizing to the point of numbness, about our first concerns regarding the possibility of children in our future, about reawakening, about making new friends, about almost auditioning for a musical, about INSOMNIA DEAR GOD, about yoga's amazing and strange healing, about a quest for mindfulness, about having to induce a little brown chihuahua to...er...regurgitate the ear of a plastic teddy bear and crying guiltily the entire time, about taking on special photographic projects, about learning to say the word "photographer" without a self-deprecating shoulder shrug and a ready dismissal of my abilities, about my hair finally growing to bra-strap length and the trip to the stylist who ripped out about a 1/4 pound of it with her fingernails, about our desire to move ANYWHERE but here, about new dreams of writing and creating...

As I grow past this shedding of skin, yet another stage of life that I suppose I have had to go through as part of my experience...my desire is to make myself Write It Out whether I feel the muse slap me against the head or not. I want to be more wildly open with you again, if only to be more wildly open with myself. Perhaps I'll even tell you the next time I crack open the door of a theater, peek around the velvet curtain just inside it blocking out the sun, barely view some young beauty in a sweatshirt reminiscent of Fame chatting up some guys, and turn & run like hell back to my car with my Singer's Anthology to drive away and get a giant self-loathing Oreo Blizzard from the Dairy Queen drive through.

After all...we love to see the bloopers. We enjoy the imperfections.

asteroid? no thank you.

I'm sure that at least by now you have heard the (disturbingly? I mean HELLO) tiny mentions of the asteroid that missed sideswiping Earth by a decidedly UN-funny margin last week. I do realize that in the grand scheme of the universe, perhaps this was not as massively uncommon or unlikely as I like to pretend it is, but bear in mind that this is a girl who starts to verge into anxiety attack territory when she pauses to seriously contemplate the possibility that she could be hanging somewhat upside-down (or at least sideways) from the planet at a given moment.

Oh, yes, you read that right. I can talk myself momentarily out of my faith in gravity.

It's understandable then, no, that I might get a little twitchy when I, say, do the search to find that link up above and in the process come upon animated satellite images of the earth's tilt changing in a fashion and speed I do not find pleasant.

Also not in the cheerful tidings department, did you catch in that first CNN link how the guy indicated that "oh yeah, there are totally official-type people designated to be on top of all of that HURTLING, MONSTROUS, SPACE ARTILLERY" - lots! of people! looking years & decades ahead! - and yet he just happened upon said Not Tiny asteroid LAST WEEK???

I was not comforted by this information.

Oh, and also. Apparently we have been discovering them more and more, nearly 100 each year. (P.S. - for the love of God, do not type "asteroid 2036" into Google unless you really want to dwell on some unsavory material.)

But listen, I'm not here to be an alarmist...as nervous-handkerchief-waving as this entire entry may seem to have been. Despite my uncanny ability to get worked into a fizz over outer space, deep water, suspension bridges, and The Shining, I don't honestly live my life in fear of things. And really...I'm sure this asteroid-careening business has always been this way. We just didn't know about it. 

...aaand one more point for Ignorance!

Now If My Ass Would Actually Respond to Such a Task...

There was a night last week during which I felt SO wired and a bit anxious SO into the wee hours, and needed to get up somewhat early, that I was practically desperate to calm my breathing, relax and slow down my spinning & whirring brain. So I decided to try imagining myself doing something else, focus only on that mental image, and hopefully finally fall asleep. Kind of like sometimes when you try to picture each body part relaxing at the end of yoga.

I decided to picture in slow detail that I was getting ready to go for a walk. (As I said, desperate.) Ideally, I would have mentally put on my tennis shoes, walked out into the garage, opened the garage door, stepped outside and enter the code to close the garage, then head out down the sidewalk.

Slight problem.

My concentration sucks to a high degree of suckitude, even at times during the day. This little nighttime experiment wasn't going so well. I told myself that any time my mind wandered even to the tiniest degree from the imaginary task, I'd have to start over. I know I was awake at least another 45 minutes.

I never made it to the damned garage.

If you get in a space today where you can try to do something like this, give it a try. Is it just me?

technorati tags: NaBloPoMo

Sigh. This One's a Little Raw.

Okay, this gets heavy toward the end. Sorry, I'm feeling way tired and all other kinds of things.

The Master Cleanse, Day 5 Update:

• Woke up feeling even better than yesterday. Had an appointment to get my hair cut, and then went Christmas shopping afterward (having to skip the original lunch date I had set up with my stylist afterward and rescheduling for next week - I am SO EXCITED TO EAT THAT SUSHI it will be fantastic but not as fantastic as what The Brother-In-Law makes HINT-HINT a Sushi Feast Extravaganza would be, um, really WELCOME, you know, in case you guys are reading and wanting to make me cry tears of Food Appreciation after this is all over).
  
• Was feeling very "up" and brought some of the Lemon Drink with me in the car, but I didn't load up enough between parking lots to avoid the slump I felt after four hours. Uurrrghhh...
  
• I hit the lowest feelings of inability to continue today at around 6pm. It was strange because of how great I felt this morning, even telling my hairstylist that I actually hadn't had any major detoxing symptoms that I've read about. But later, I just felt sluggish and down. I came very, very, VERY CLOSE to veering into any place that would serve me fries or even a sandwich. I read when I came home more about how this could be right before I really clear some toxins, and they could be what are mobilizing and making me feel this way. So, despite the extreme amount of restraint it has taken me not to break this cleanse tonight, I am going to wait until tomorrow to see how I feel before I decide if I can finish out the complete 10 days. If I don't begin feeling better, I will probably end it when The Husband comes home on Saturday. I honestly believe the key is to not stop drinking the Lemon Drink at least every 20 minutes. Because you'll feel great, and not have any for a while, and then it will HIT YOU.
  
• Here's what I had going on In The Brain today - I have come face-to-face with some of my negative thoughts, and in a bare kind of way. While shopping, I was at this mall that tends to have lots of very, very wealthy people shopping in it. I came across a certain woman in a store and she was so put-together, so classy and gorgeous, with her perfect hair and face and shoes, and she looked like she might only have been my age. She seemed to be very professional, and gave off an air like an New York City fashionista. I caught myself being intrigued by her, and wondering intensely what she does for a living, how she lives, etc. I have had this problem with getting pangs of jealousy when I see people like that, who seem to have no financial worry, and it hit hard tonight.
  
  This is especially since another thing that's been on my mind today is our financial situation, and how I am not really helping it in my effort to be this "creative, artist-type" person who can't seem to handle the restraints of normal working situations. (Must be free like a bird! Must have higher purpose! Gah.) I'm still doing some freelance work that's bringing in a (VERY) little money, but I feel very guilty. My husband has a great job, works hard, and makes a good salary, but we can't get ahead...and that just stinks at our age. I really feel that the key to this lies squarely on my shoulders. Tonight I am feeling very bad that I'm not doing more to remedy this. I haven't gotten comfortable with the idea of asking people to pay me to take pictures yet. Hell, I can't even get to a point where I feel finished with my portfolio website. I have to either throw those hangups in the trashcan or saddle up and look for another job very soon, because I don't want it to just be his responsibility.
  
  One thing (which kind of affects above hangup) that The Husband and I talked about recently was how I sometimes literally can not make my mind cooperate with me. I wish I could explain it better, but right now it's hard to come up with the words. Let's just say that there are times when it feels like my brain is fighting against me when I'm trying to do certain types of things. It wanders, locks up, or feels overloaded and I physically feel angry and frustrated because of it. It's as if I can't turn the dial to the right frequency sometimes.
  
  I've been reading a little bit about childhood brain injuries and am wondering if it's possible that the skull fracture I had as a baby caused part of my brain to try to compensate for the part that may have been affected. Some think that while it was previously thought that younger children recover and repair better than people who sustain injury at an older age, that in fact possibly the younger children with moderate brain injury or head trauma may seem to recover normally but because of the young mind's ability to adapt, part of the brain may try to take over for a part that has been injured. This means that later on in life, as they encounter more complex issues around college/adult age, the full impact of how the brain has been affected may become more apparent. (Google "brain injury", childhood, plasticity, etc. and you'll see some of the info come up.)
  
  I don't want to grasp at straws, but I can't lie and say it wouldn't be a relief to me if this may be a contributing factor to my very long struggle with small but specific aspects of coping. I don't know. When I read it, it sounds a lot like what I'm feeling and going through. But all I know is, whether it's simple brain chemistry (ADD/depression) or this, my brain isn't always doing what I want it to do. So after this is over I might consider what methods are out there to help me to finally feel a little bit more normal in addition to the lifestyle choices I want to maintain that may help.

Oh My Good Lord. That was so long. Are you still even here?!?