This, I think, is a perfect encapsulation of 2011: the year of suck. Just when you think things are going to get better, you’re cleaning half-digested Cheerios off the carpet.

It wasn’t all bad. Our new book came out, and it rocks out loud. We moved to Sellwood, where we have friendly neighbors and a yard and a house that no one lives above. The kid started kindergarten (!!!), which is just crazy talk, because wasn’t he just a tiny little thing that I could fit under my chin? And we got a new cat, because cats are all good things, even when they pee on the rug, Maru.

So, yeah. Not all bad.

The rest of it was pretty roundly awful, to varying degrees, and who wants to hear about that? Instead I will just refer you to the encapsulated version, above.

I’m not doing any resolutions this year. Fuck resolutions. I’m just working on getting out of bed on a regular basis. Honestly, when you find yourself saying things like “No, I get dressed most days,” there might be some sort of issue there. And maybe not having to declare bankruptcy. That might be awesome, too. (Or maybe bankruptcy is awesome, and I’ll be all, you guys, why didn’t you tell me how great bankruptcy is? And you’ll be all, dude, you just screwed yourself out of all your credit cards, and then I will cry.)

Next year will have to be better, because honestly how could it not? That’s how optimism works, right?

Happy New Year, kids!

It only lasted about two hours. Only. Then The Pain turned into just regular old non-capitalized pain, which is where I am right now. Hurts to move, hurts to stand up, hurts to cough, but if I’m very still it’s kind of OK. I’d complain somewhat more vociferously about how my entire abdomen feels like someone beat it up, but since I’m not writhing on the bed in acute agony I figure I ought to be pretty grateful.

Pain is stupid. Why couldn’t I be one of those creepy people who you can poke with knives and they don’t even notice?

So, to recap: in the last month I’ve had a nasty cold, two migraines, a two-hour Pain extravaganza and also my left wrist hurts like whoa for no discernible reason other than HA HA your wrist hurts.

YOU WIN, November.

UPDATE: I went to the doctor, who sent me off to have a CAT scan. So, see, I’m not TOTALLY dropping the ball here.

UPDATE #2: The CAT scan said (CAT scans talk, you know) that I do NOT have appendicitis, and also that I DO have ovarian cysts, and also that the ovarian cysts did not cause The Pain, because of reasons. HOWEVER, new Kaiser Doc is an internist & will be doing ACTUAL TESTS to figure out what IS causing The Pain. So yay. Ish.

If I were keeping a chart (which I am not, thank god) I’d probably notice that I have one or two relatively OK days and then a string of OMG WHY WHY WHY days, punctuated by the occasional panic attack or major fit of body dysmorphia (don’t ask). So it hasn’t been boring, at least.

I’m lucky. I have a job that is doable from a reclining position and which does not require me to change out of my pajamas or interact with anyone else on a regular basis. I have a family who does not expect much from me and so isn’t particularly disappointed when “not much” is all I can manage (actually, I think they’re relieved, because at least when I’m not doing much I’m not actively fucking things up NO WAIT THAT’S THE DEPRESSION TALKING, PROBABLY). I’m not into any of the more grievous versions of self-harm (booze, drugs, cutting, whatever) and really, if the worst thing I do is loathe myself all the time and eat too much sugar, it’s probably not that big of a deal, except for the part where I’m FUCKING MISERABLE but whatever, you win some, you lose some, am I right?

It would be LOVELY if I could take a pill or a handful of pills to turn me into a normal person, but the pills just make me worse in some (or lots of) new and exciting ways, AND ALSO don’t fix what was wrong in the first place. It would be even lovelier if I could afford therapy, but, well, there’s a reason for the panic attacks and that reason is entirely comprised of money and the fact that we don’t have any. So.

Hey, you are saying to yourself. This post is not particularly funny, or clever, or uplifting. To which I respond WELCOME TO THE INSIDE OF MY HEAD. But! Lest you think that I have abandoned all sense of personal responsibility, I will share with you now the varied and multi-hued coping strategies I manage to employ for much of my depressive experience:

1) Find something to obsess over. Currently, that something is The Vampire Diaries, and the point of The Vampire Diaries is Ian Somerhalder. Next up: watching all the other things I can find that he is in, except Lost, which I have seen (and don’t get me started on the ending you guys, for serious, or the lack of cohesion in the plot lines, or HEY WAIT A SECOND I THOUGHT I WASN’T GOING TO GET STARTED), or Tell Me You Love Me, which I did watch, actually, except it made me feel creepy because UNEXPECTED SOFTCORE PORN IS UNEXPECTED.*

2) Write. As I am doing NaNoWriMo again this year, I choose to look at it as a form of self-medication. Let’s just hope we don’t have a repeat of ’08 (or was it ’09?) in which I failed to finish my novel AND quit taking Prozac all at the same time and had a complete psychotic break.

3) Avoid talking to people. This one is easy. Except that sometimes I think it’s acceptable to do things like go out for a drink with a friend and decide that I’m going to SHARE, and then, you know, AWKWARD. My depression is AWKWARD. Also I’m not nearly as funny as I think I am, and when I drink, I think I am REALLY FUNNY.**

4) Bathe regularly. This one is a work in progress. (See above re: working in bed without changing into pajamas. What’s the point of bathing, really?). I do tend to feel better when I am not wallowing in my own filth, so there is that.

5) …I don’t have a number 5. Sorry.

*Not that I have a problem with porn, softcore or otherwise, but give a girl some warning, is all I’m saying. It reminded me of when I watched Sex, Lies and Videotape with my high-school boyfriend and his MOM one time, and every time there was a sex scene or someone talked about masturbation (which is THE WHOLE MOVIE) I was so exquisitely uncomfortable I was sure I would actually lose the ability to speak and possibly I would also die. Except when I watched Tell Me You Love Me I was alone, so AT LEAST THERE IS THAT.

**And LOUD. Oh my god, I can barely even THINK about how loudly I talk without breaking out in metaphorical hives. I mean, my social skills are few on a GOOD DAY but WHY? WHY DO I HAVE TO TALK SO LOUDLY WHEN I DRINK? …I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

THREE WEEKS.

…And counting. (I know this because I was juuuust coming down with a funny little cough when I started Health Month on the 1st. Ha ha, I thought, how funny that I should have a cough that coincides with starting Health Month! It has only gone downhill from there.)

Despite the fact that I have allergies and asthma and migraines and ovarian cysts and – need I go on? I’m almost never sick with a cold or flu for very long. I know, it’s ridiculous, but there you go. My immune system is mighty, as long as it is not confronted with pollen or tree mold.

Ever since the kid started preschool I’ve been catching more colds/flus/whatever – because, let’s face it, small children are disease factories – but I still usually only sit around feeling miserable and snuffly for a couple of days before I’m up and about again.

NOT SO THIS TIME.

This time, I’ve been so tired I can barely get out of bed, coughing so much my ribs hurt, and having to suck on my inhaler two or three times a day just so I can breathe. This time, my lungs make noises typically reserved for malfunctioning engines. This time, every time I start to think I’m getting better has ushered in YET ANOTHER round of the sort of coughing that has strangers asking me (from a safe distance) if I’m going to be all right. So this has been…interesting, if by interesting you mean purgatorial and annoying and vaguely infuriating.

I am getting better, of course – the rocky Kathleen Turner voice has been replaced by my normal valley-girl chirp, and the cold air from the snowpocalypse-that-wasn’t didn’t make me feel like I was trying to breathe underwater. SO. YAY.

But I will still be VERY glad when I can make it through a whole day without needing a nap.

Even though you can't see it, that finger? HURTS.

I am not flipping anyone off in this picture, but you can still see my poor wilting middle finger.

So I messed up my finger a couple of weeks ago. The left index one. I guess I cracked it sideways while I was lifting something? Sounds like a thing I would do, and in fact was a thing I did. Also: ow.

My point being, it still hurts, internet. Still. And I can’t crack it without blinding pain, which is just ridiculous, seeing as I am addicted to knuckle-cracking. Also, did I mention it HURTS? It hurts when I type. It hurts when I hold hands with my kid. It hurts when I point. IT HURTS WHEN I FLIP PEOPLE OFF. (Also, my middle finger – which isn’t even the one I hurt – doesn’t stand straight anymore. It sort of…wilts.)

Is this what getting old is like? BECAUSE I DO NOT LIKE IT AT ALL.

So, um…good?

I mean, good, obviously, but you know what would be better? If I didn’t still hurt so goddamn much. Seriously, figure out a) why I’m in so much pain every couple of weeks and b) how to make that not happen anymore, and I will be in a really fucking good mood. I promise.

(Actually I’m in a pretty good mood currently…but still.)

It turns out I’ve got hemorrhagic cysts, which typically reabsorb or something, but in my case have merely proliferated and grown fat and lazy. They’re harmless, if by “harmless” you mean “extremely painful but not actually going to kill me.” Ask me how much I like the idea that my body spontaneously creates things which cause me excruciating pain! Because, seriously.

And it wasn’t like I’d planned on spending the first full day of my New York vacation being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance while I sent a pain-muddled text to my poor friend, due to meet me any moment, saying “I’m so sorry I can’t meet you but I’m on my way to the emerg room w/ severe abdom pain” – which, I would like to point out, is NOT THE SAME AS SPENDING THE AFTERNOON AT MOMA, thanks a lot, ovaries.

*Have I mentioned I don’t like morphine at all? I mean, yes, it took away the brunt of the pain, which was definitely of the good, but it gives me the spins something fierce and just makes me want to sleep for about five years, which isn’t exactly helpful when hospital-folk want questions answered in a competent manner. Then again, my gasping in agony wasn’t exactly helpful, either.

I’m starting to feel a little bit like our lives are getting managable, which – hey, there’s a reason I take meds, you know? When just getting out of bed in the morning seems huge and untenable, it’s kind of a big deal to think that things might actually be okay, kind of. It was cleaning the house that did it. We’ve got this great apartment that I love unreasonably (well, except for the permeating smell of Rice Junkies that greets me every morning), but it’s jammed so full of stuff that it might as well be a storage unit. But Not So went all MacGyver on the stuff in Ellison’s room this weekend, so not only is all our old crap hidden successfully in the closet, we finally got to assemble the kid’s toddler bed! And, dude, don’t even get me started on how exciting it is to think that someday in the possibly near future I may be able to sleep through the night again. In any position I want. I can barely contain my potential bliss.

Next step is to get our room whipped into shape. This is a bit more complicated than it sounds, since we’re waiting to be able to afford these cheap-but-cute wardrobes from Ikea so that I can stop keeping my clothes in a big ol’ Rubbermaid storage bin and actually explore the idea of drawers.

I was trailer trash. Those kids running wild in the mobile home park with their dirty feet and their ratty clothes? I was one of them. We weren’t even financially solvent enough to own our own trailer. We rented, and we rented the cheapest trailers we could find, which were somewhat…less than posh. I rocked the louvered windows with the hand-crank. I was accustomed to the entire house moving when someone walked from one room to another. I was dutifully impressed by the weird indoor-golf green that covered the “porch.” I shared a mattress (box springs were a luxury, but sometimes we’d find them behind someone’s dumpster – lucky day!) with various siblings, often sans sheets because hey, who had money for laundry?

And that’s just the nice parts.

You know what else I was? Smart, artistic, talented. I was in the GATE program. I read constantly. I was accepted into the Johns Hopkins Program for Gifted Students when I was ten, after scoring the prerequisite over-1100 on my SATs. Is that incongruous? Because…I was poor, right? That meant I must have had bad grammar and enjoyed brawling and graffiti. And possibly marrying my cousins.

I don’t get how people can be so casually judgmental about the poor. I was part of a conversation recently in which a woman was talking about how dirty – physically covered in dirt – the kids were at an elementary school out in the sticks, and the other person (I am being intentionally vague) replied “That sort of thing comes from the home. They must have learned it from their parents.”

Okay, what? I’m sorry, do you honestly believe that the parents of impoverished children actually teach their offspring to be dirty? Or are you suggesting that the parents are just too lazy to teach their children to wash?

Because, when I was a poor kid (and I am aware that my situation was much, much better than some) there were times – months, sometimes – when we couldn’t afford propane, and that meant no stove (we cooked everything with an electric frying pan), no heat, no hot water. Bathing in cold water? Not a hell of a lot of fun, especially in winter. Did I wear my hair in a ponytail for the better part of seventh grade so that no one could tell I hadn’t washed it? Yes, yes I did. Did it work? Uh…

When our clothes were dirty, it wasn’t because we were ignorant of the inner workings of the laundromat or too busy watching daytime TV to wash them. It was because we could either have clean clothes or eat that week, and I’ve got to tell you, eating won out pretty much every time.

Don’t get me wrong. There were plenty of stupid, ignorant, horrible people who perpetuated the poor-people stereotype. But you know what? There are plenty of stupid, ignorant, horrible people who make a decent living. Money (or lack of it) doesn’t dictate how intelligent or free from prejudice you are.

And yeah, we were on welfare. You know what welfare gets you? Not a hell of a lot. As a family of four (three kids plus a father) we got around $200 in food stamps a month, plus a few hundred dollars for rent and utilities. The food stamps? Always gone in the first two weeks. Always. The money? Gone even faster.

Kids are expensive. Food is expensive. Gas is expensive. It didn’t matter how we economized or what we spent the money on – sometimes you’ve got to feed your kids meat so that they get enough protein, and if there’s a baby in the family, you needed diapers. Or shoes. Or coats. We bought our clothes at thrift stores and counted our pennies at the store, but – look. Take my word for it. It wasn’t enough.

We always had to supplement our income by setting up a stand at the flea market and selling cameras my father had refurbished, which meant we were always looking over our shoulders because the welfare department? Does not allow supplemental income. And then sometimes the cameras wouldn’t sell, and we’d be out of food or unable to pay our rent, and my dad would have us call his mother (who he refused to speak to) and beg for money, and…it sucked. And we still ended up without propane, or eating nothing but bread for a few days, or having to pack our stuff in the middle of the night and move.

It sucked, but it’s not like we were doing it on purpose. It’s not like we had a choice. We weren’t stupid, and we weren’t lazy, and we weren’t bad people. We were just poor. I’m not a better person now because I can afford to pay my rent and wear nice clothes. I’m just luckier.

Yeah, well. They’re back.

Uploaded with Skitch!

Stupid hives. At least this time I won’t be consumed with guilt for taking Benadryl.

technorati tags:hives