Sunday, April 21, 2002
01:17 p.m.

Went to see Edna yesterday. Have I introduced Edna, the shrink? I have now. So anyway, I went in with no idea what I was going to talk about, because that's how bewildered I've been lately. And it took her maybe ten minutes, tops, to get to the heart of what's going on:

If I don't spend more time out of this house, I'm going to go fucking bug-fuck nuts.

I've gotten to the point where I take dirty dishes as a personal affront. Where washing my hair takes some kind of Herculean effort, playing the Sims takes too much thought, and I resent the very idea of cooking. This can NOT continue.

Of course, it IS continuing, because it isn't something I can fix in a day. I actually broke down just a little in the Hell-Mart checkout line today just out of sheer exhaustion and the back pain that went with it.

Edna wasn't at all surprised that I'm this little ball of fury lately. The resentment especially seemed familiar to her. What she pointed out was that, duh, when you do this mindless crap over and over and OVER again, and the mindless crap keeps having to be re-done because dishes get dirty, clothes need to be laundered, dust comes back, beds are just going to be un-made within a matter of hours---well, when that is what you allow yourself to get stuck with, of course you're going to start losing your cool after a while.

So this week I have some assignments. I am to get out of here at every opportunity. Drive Mom around, spend a morning at Dad's, go to the library, whatever, but get the hell out of the house.

Oh, and the other assignment is to at least make an appointment with a GP this week. I'm to have a thyroid test and (my suggestion) also be tested for anemia. This weariness and bruising can't be normal.

I've always bruised easily (thanks, super-white British ancestors! Thanks so much!), but lately...well, just for example: because I STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN THAT HAIRCUT, I usually keep one of those thick rubber bands around one wrist so I can get my hair out of my way in a hurry. They're fairly strong bands, but should not be strong enough to actually bruise my wrist when I pushed the band up my forearm a little too far. I mean, that's ridiculous.

Someday I'll have a happy happy blog! And then you'll all come back! Wheee!

Saturday, April 13, 2002
08:14 p.m.

Bitch and moan, bitch and moan. And yet I leave this stuff up. (For what? Posterity?)

Today's been fairly cool. Better than the past few days, anyway. First of all I went to the chiropractor and Peggy popped me and cracked me and twisted my right knee every which way before putting me under the electric muscle stimulation pads for twelve minutes, and although I came out feeling horrible at first, later I felt much better because of it. Let's see, can I possibly go back and edit that sentence to make it any longer? Nah.

Then I discovered that my left ear is swollen and a tiny bit sore, which is actually a good thing because it explains the off-balance, light-headed feeling I've had all week. So I used some eardrops and THAT improved a bit.

The weather was phenomenal. It rained off and on, but the temperature was perfect and the breeze was mild. We got the sort of rain that makes the hostas open their leaves, makes the little branches sprouting on my rosebush seem to grow from hour to hour. Soft rain and lots of it.

This afternoon I was energetic enough to go to Kroger's on a cookie run, which Kev and I had been discussing for several days now. Mmmmm, cookie. He got chocolate chip. I bought the chocolate peanut-butter-chip kind. The BEST PART, though, was that he checked the mail when we got home. Not only did I have a hilarious postcard waiting for me, but a certain friend had sent me two CDs containing the works of Frederick Delius.

For over ten years I've had a tiny scrap of music---maybe five minutes at the most---on an old cassette tape. The tape's mostly full of things like INXS and the Who and Heart, but for some reason I recorded this gorgeous little scrap of classical perfection from NPR one day. Ever since then I've despaired of ever finding out the title, the composer...anything at all.

Then my friend informs me that he bets he can identify it. I send a copy of this itty bitty fragment of music and within like three days of mailing it off I have all the info a person could need. And today, I have the piece IN ITS ENTIRETY on CD. That made the day considerably better, I must say.

I did some laundry and felt like maybe I could summon the energy to do some studying. At least a little reading. A couple of hours later I was nearly finished with the segment of the lesson I was working on, and was happily drafting rooms and wielding door templates while simultaneously cooking dinner and listening to my new CDs. (This is an enormous improvement. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.) Somehow I managed to get zinged by a random explosion of oil, so I've got several blisters. Even that didn't really piss me off like it would've, say, yesterday.

Oh, and I didn't cry. Heh.

Now I'm not positively certain the meds are at fault for the past week's horrors. Wellbutrin certainly didn't keep me from hitting bottom, that's for sure, but if I've just been that sick all week, who's to say Paxil would have been any better?

We shall see. In the meantime, I think I'll attempt a mini-workout. Workout, then cookie.

Friday, April 12, 2002
12:03 p.m.

SO sick of fucking doctors' offices but I'm just back from the dentist anyway. Then there's tomorrow's appointment. Then probably I'll wind up going to Edna's early because I've got sort of an emergency on my hands.

Okay, maybe not emergency, but it feels that way. Five or six crying jags in as many days is not normal. Neither is this horrible fatigue that makes me have to stop and sit and pant and rest after climbing a flight of stairs. Nor the depression, the feeling that nothing is good even though I know better, and the wish that I could just sleep away the long, long days.

In other words, Wellbutrin is obviously not for me.

My stomach's wrecked, my brain is wrecked, I don't give a damn about cleaning the house and yet I'm obsessive and paranoid enough to worry about it. No way am I waiting until the appointment on the 27th to change my meds. No way in hell.

See, I didn't start this bloggie to complain! But I either write this or nothing at all, I suppose. This is what's going on with me. Take it or leave it.

The hair has lightened a bit, by the way. Could be the INTENSE DAILY SOAKING AND SCRUBBING WITH SHAMPOO. I bought a lighter shade of dye last night, but it won't make much change so I'm trying to wait as long as I can, and fade this color as much as I can, before applying it.

Maybe I could add just a little peroxide to my shampoo today, hmm? [insert sound of horrified stylists passing out] Just to hurry things along. And then I'll give it a lovely olive-oil conditioning treatment (if you haven't tried this, do; plain old olive oil is fabulous for your hair) while I soak in the tub and read or something, and then wash again and condition. Maybe? Maybe.

I've more or less given up on getting ahold of my stylist anytime soon. I don't want a drastically different color and a drastically different cut at the same time, anyway. And when it's time for Kev's hair to be cut, HE can call her. Then while she's here we'll see what happens.

Bah. I said BAH!!

Wednesday, April 10, 2002
11:27 a.m.

Just back from the chiropractor. Apparently I have a bit of what is called a "military neck"; I have an extra vertebra(!), and my shoulders and hips are just a bit out of alignment.

All this took about an hour and a half to determine, and then the doctor was getting ready to put me on the torture rack and fix a few tight areas in my neck and back, when I couldn't take anymore. The little case of stomach trouble that kept sending me across the hall to the bathroom was getting out of control. Luckily she understood and made me an appointment for Saturday morning.

Monday, April 8, 2002
10:54 p.m.

Is not, it's 9:54. Or so my head tells me. 'Course we all know how reliable THAT is. I mean, it can't even decide what color it wants to be.

Right now my head is sort of auburn. It's wet and I shampooed the daylights out of it in hopes of lightening the color. Those boxes LIE.

The cut still hasn't happened. I think I'm being avoided. What a pain in the ass. If she's afraid to do the cut, or just doesn't want to do it, I wish she'd say so. I'm tired of listening to her voice mail message.

I can't imagine why she wouldn't want to do it. She comes here to the house to do our hair, which means no salon owner is around to get a cut of the profits. That's why I wonder if she's afraid to tackle it. Huh.

ANYhoo, we took some "before" photos. No, that's too simple.

1. Kevin loaded new film into the camera.
2. I brushed my hair about fourteen times.
3. Kevin then waited approximately fifteen minutes.
4. I moisturized, concealed, contoured, blushed, powdered, and generally accentuated the positive anywhere I could find it.
5. We did a mini photo-shoot in the dining room, mostly involving me romping with Speck. But I think (hope) it'll be a fairly accurate portrayal.

This shit's drastic, yo.

The second installment of my Sheffield's course arrived today. This one was jam-packed. We're talking lots of goodies---a full drafting kit. This is getting interesting, kids...stay tuned.

Thursday, April 4, 2002
10:08 p.m.

I think I'm going to do it again. My emet. "project", I mean. It could hardly be scarier the second time around, could it. What I need to figure out is what went wrong and why. Should I drink more beforehand? Eat something like Cream of Wheat?

I can't imagine how bizarre and freakish this has to seem to you.

Just think, though, what if---what if I could take this phobia that's been torturing me since early childhood and investigate its very depths and become inured to it? Can you imagine the freedom? No, because you've no idea of the limitations. I don't talk about those much. I fight them instead.

It occurs to me that with the phobia gone, and presumably all its accompanying tics and habits and patterns of thought, that maybe there's not much of "me" left to work with. When your entire personality has been molded around something, what happens when you remove that something?

I'm being dull tonight.

My grandmother sent me this fabulous photograph:

My paternal great-grandmother, Marie McClain Ferrebee. This shot is from 1929, when Marie was 21. On the back there is very faint pencil scrawl that says "And I just look like Jane West in this one. Marie to Bernice". Jane West was the local hottie at the time, apparently.

I can see so much of my family in her, when I look closely enough. My uncle Richard's eyes...the saucy grin of an aunt...those cheekbones my mother so proudly claims. "They say as long as I'm alive, Marie Ferrebee will never die," she likes to say.

Anyway, my job is to print copies on my best photo paper. My grandmother is delighted by the idea of being able to give copies of the photo to other members of the family at the McClain reunion this year. I'm just thrilled at the idea of archiving all this stuff. My grandmother has an absolute treasure trove of albums and documents and crumbling photographs, and I want to get as many of them copied and stored safely on CD as possible.

What an enormous job. I think she has 30- or 40-odd photo albums stacked in a closet.

I've decided, then. In that little space of time when I could focus on family and my great archival project, the subject of the emetophobia test has been decided in the background of my mind. I simply have to do it again. And again. And however many more times it takes, because I have every intention of being fearless. Fearless! I've missed too much of life already not to be fierce when I get 'hold of it.

Then comes the anxiety of putting myself back together, bit by bit, without having to run every thought through the filter of whether or not such and such will make me sick. But what an opportunity!

All right...I can see I'm typing under the influence of Klonopin. Good night.

Tuesday, April 2, 2002
11:13 p.m.

Today was gorgeous. It was as if every time I breathed I was thinking BEACH!!!! I generally want to spend April through September at the Outer Banks.

Instead of packing for a road trip, though, I tackled some of the landscaping. Last weekend Kevin and his dad were kind enough to saw down the wildly overgrown shrubs out front and haul them into the woods. You see, in front of our house there is a terraced area built from railroad ties and painted a baby-shit yellow which I suppose is meant to approximate the color of the townhouses. The terraces run the length of two houses---about 48 feet---and there are two of them. In the beds were planted:

Azalea. Ornamental evergreen. Azalea. Ornamental evergreen. Azalea. Ornamental evergreen. Azalea. Ornamental evergreen. And so on. The azaleas are fine; aside from the fact that they HOARD dead leaves like crazy ladies hoard cats. They need a bit of shaping but I love them.

The ornamental trees had grown far larger than the previous owners had ever dreamed, I'm sure. Finally this year a heavy, wet snow came and split several of the trees down the middle with its weight. Bingo! My excuse to cut them down, finally.

So they're gone, and we can all now see the parking lot from our houses, which is always nice. Particularly with folks of the convict persuasion in the neighborhood.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Anyway. There were years' worth of leaves and old mulch and junk in between and under the azalea bushes, and with a rake and a spade and a good pair of gloves, I cleaned out the lower terrace (the top only seems to collect dandelions). When I'd finished I was left with four or five enormous piles of dead leaves, plus some interesting finds: a tiny billiard ball, a child's plastic shovel, and the paper wrapper from a First Response pregnancy test stick.

Kevin came home and helped me transfer all the leaves to their new home past the treeline, then dug a hole so I could plant my newest rosebush, then covered the smaller flower bed with cedar mulch. It looks and smells amazing. The red-and-yellow tulips are beginning to bloom and the blooming almond is doing its thing. It was worth the work, I think.

Now---flashback to yesterday. Mom keeps telling me that she has no soreness after our workouts. So I'm going to work her hard, right? I start her doing concentration curls, beginning with a ten-pound dumbbell. I sit down with her and do them myself, dropping to five pounds when I can't lift the tens anymore (someone remind me to buy some 8-lb. weights, okay?), then to three pounds to finish up. Mom follows my example. By the end of that, three pounds feels like ten. We work each arm. She claims to feel "a burn".

Today: I get up feeling more than a burn. My biceps are just shredded. All day long I'm stretching my arms behind my back. Mom's all Huh, I'm not sore.

She's either lying, or she's taking Vicodin, or something. I've been doing curls regularly for the past several YEARS and she hasn't done any...but who gets the aches?

I am my mother's voodoo doll.

Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow she wants to show up here bright and early before work and I am going to change my angle of attack. Think you've done all the bench presses you can stand? Squeeze out one more, old girl. And stop counting the reps, you tend to stop at even numbers and I KNOW your muscles do not automatically tire on "twenty". Done enough wall squats? Do three more. Now back on the bench. What, you thought you were finished?

Two words, Mumsey, wherever you are: multiple sets.

As for me, I'm off to lie on the heating pad and dream of hiring a gardener, preferably one who looks like Jared Leto. Good night!

Sunday, March 31, 2002
09:12 p.m.

Confidential to Cleo J.:

Thanks.
P.S.: I love-a yooooooo.

The hard drive has now been formatted four times. [insert rant about software companies and their compatibility issues here] Now we have Windows XP. And a partition. With Win98. Some things work with 98, some with XP. Kevin has spent the weekend in various states of disbelief and frustration.

Things seem to be working now, though.

Today has been the worst, most heinous, egg-sucking, mind-numbing day I can remember having in a LONG time. It started out well enough, with a little morning fun while Speck was out front doing his...morning ablutions, and then eggs and bacon and coffee and a big fat navel orange and slivers of the big candy eggs Kev's mom sent us. Then the day sort of stalled out and went downhill from there.

The biggest deal, of course, was whether or not I was going to be able to drag my agoraphobic ass all the way to Kev's sister Teresa's for dinner. I hate that kind of pressure. It just simmers back there in my head and by the time the dread event comes around, I'm trying to hide under the bed an' shit. I decided to give it a go, though. Practice. Guhh. We got three exits down I-64 before I said I wanted to go home. Speck was in his crate, crying piteously. Before long I was crying too. Kev was trying to analyze why I wasn't able to make it---did I feel panicky, did I just not want to go, what? All the way home Speck cried. I cried. Kev probably wanted to cry, or smack us both around a bit, but instead he calmly drove us home.

On the way he said, "D'you mind if I stop at this Exxon up here and get gas?" and I answered "No, I don't mind a bit," and he said, "Never mind, I've got enough to get home." So I'm all "No, stop and get gas if you need it, it's fine with me, seriously" and he drives on past Exxon. The reason I tell you this will become clearer later.

We get home. Speck is freed from the crate and goes zinging off the walls like a racquetball. I make a pot of coffee, fill a cup, spike it liberally, wash down three different meds with it. That's cute, the label on the bottle that tells you not to drink alchohol with Clonazepam/Wellbutrin/Paxil. Fuck that noise. I then proceed to spend the next hour or so listening to sad songs and stitching a baby bib for a friend and trying to stay awake. Eventually the boo-hoo songs are replaced by Jimi Hendrix and I sing out loud with "Red House" and have a fine time, because by this point the crushing guilt and failure and whatever other feelings have faded a bit. Oh, and then I call in my birth control prescription at Rite-Aid in Cross Lanes, about ten minutes from my house.

And now I change tense again, just for fun.

I really didn't feel like going anywhere after this morning's disastrous anxiety-ridden trip to nowhere. By this time I had some kind of stomach cramps and mild back pain and a fair amount of fog in my head from the alcohol/Klonopin cocktail, but you don't just leave the birth control waiting till it's convenient for you to pick it up, you know? So we take off for Cross Lanes. The only thing that kept me from saying "Let's go back" at the first exit was the thought of Kevin having to take me home, then go back out and get my damned Pill himself. The idea of a second "failure" wasn't exactly nice, either. So I just chilled in the car. We got to Rite-Aid, went through the drive-thru, headed home.

And that, see, is where shit got hairy again. Because as we started up a little rise just outside the Rite-Aid parking lot, the car started choking and hacking and complaining. We were either out of gas, Kev informed me, or maybe the engine was blowing up. "That sounded like it threw a rod." And all the time I'm going, Oh, my god, this can't be happening. Not today.

Somehow he got that car to the top of the rise, where naturally it stopped coughing and started running normally again, and we got $5 worth of gas (no point in filling it up in case the motor really HAD blown, right?) and went home with no further incidents. So far.

Har! Mom just (meaning 9:55 p.m.) called from her car phone. "Are you guys in for the night? Because we're headed for the Dunbar Shoney's..."

I passed.

Friday, March 29, 2002
01:56 p.m.

Do you ever read your previous day's log entry and decide that you are an ass? Just curious.

Thursday, March 28, 2002
03:35 p.m.

Another Day of Wonkiness. See, this is what happens when you have too much coffee, PMS, and the frickin-frackin need to format your hard drive TWICE.

We backed up the computer onto 8 CDs, formatted, had more problems, reformatted, installed Windows XP. Then we discovered that the HP CD-writer we'd used to make those 8 CDs would no longer read them, because now we're running XP instead of 98. For a small fee, however, HP will MAIL you the drivers needed to upgrade. What, they couldn't make it a simple download?

Anyway. Wonkiness. First I got up early (after staying up way too late alphabetizing and shelving CDs) to get a training session in with Mom on her way to work. She still wasn't sore. We'll see about that, Mrs. Thang. Meanwhile I'm walking all carefully to keep my right knee happy.

She bench pressed and extended her quads and ran off to work and since I was up, I stayed up. So---breakfast and some catching up with online stuff. Speck gave me a scare by getting his choker chain twisted around the recline lever under my chair. I managed to get him loose (with plenty of "bad mommy!" thoughts buzzing through my head) and took the damn thing off. Poor pup.

I started looking for photographs to show my stylist tomorrow, and that triggered a mini freak-out about cutting my hair that went something like oh my god I can't cut my hair off especially right now I'll look stupid in a bikini no one will think I'm at all attractive they'll look at my BODY oh god no what if it takes forever to grow back and I hate it and Kev hates it and everyone thinks I look 12 and it looks stupid and all I can do is wait and wear do-rags---OHGODICAN'TCUTMYHAIR!!!!

My hair and I have some identity issues, you see.

'Course, I got over that pretty fast. That whole stream of thought just proved how much I've hidden behind having all this hair. The stuff has practically taken on a life of its own, it's such an issue.

Plus, the bikini thing? I can't even believe that crossed my mind. WTF do I care what anyone looks at? The important thing is that at the beach and the pool and the lake, I won't need hair bands and I won't need hours to dry it. Whoooo!!

Wednesday, March 27, 2002
03:05 p.m.

On this particular gray, dreary day, I'm sitting here in my cushy chair being very thankful that I don't have certain jobs. Like, say, coal truck driver, or jackhammer operator, or furniture mover. Not that I'm likely to saunter up to a construction foreman in all my 5'3" glory and seriously discuss employment, anyway.

The point is, I'm sore. I had a great workout yesterday---wall squats, bench presses, a bunch of stuff I can't remember at the moment. But then Mom decided to come over. I am Mom's personal trainer. Mom and I did more squats. She did biceps curls and whipped out a huge set on the butterfly press and improved her form doing deadlifts. She did hammer curls. She did kneeling mule-kicks. I did a few reps of some of the stuff she was doing, to introduce a new move or correct her form. Oh, and then since I was there, I figured I may as well eke out a few shoulder flyes.

This morning I get an e-mail from Mom:

"Dahling,

"I'm barely feeling the effects of last night's efforts. My back and neck are a little sore, but only as if I'd slept wrong. (Not that I'm asking you to step up the routine. I am, after all, a firm believer in 'no pain, NO PAIN.' And who knows, it may hit me later today.)"

I pulled on my knee bandage, rotated my shoulders a bit, and tried not to make any snarky faces at the computer screen. Oh, we'll be stepping up the routine a bit, you betcha.

"I'm going to hate you by the time this is all said and done," she said yesterday, after I'd demonstrated hanging knee lifts to give her some idea of the torture to come.

"You're going to love me by the end of this," I retorted. "Okay, here's what's next..."

It could be worse! Sore butt-muscles are a good thing, I figure. And none of this kept me from dragging the CD tower from the basement to the top floor, even though that bastard is heavy and I literally have to drag it because I can only lift it enough to hoist it up one step at a time.

So I'm feeling all buff today. I'd be feisty too but give me a break, I'm on Klonopin.

Oh! By the way. The Haircut has been approved. Some of you are like, get over it already. I probably went on at too much length--length! I made a funny. Hahaha! (Why not, motherfuckers?)---about it yesterday on the Island. Please pardon me. It was the Major Haircut Jitters and I may be mildly retarded.

Anyway, I outlined the Plan to Kevin this morning. According to the Plan, I cut my hair off. Maybe even up to my chin, who knows? Whatever is swingy and sassy and cute. Then I start letting it grow out...and grow out, and grow out, and grow out. My stylist refuses to put any sort of curl into my hair because it's been lightened, and I refuse to grow long hair while it's straight because it's flat and annoying, and Kevin refuses to deal with the short hair I've dreamed of for years unless I agree to go back to long hair afterwards. Ideally, this will satisfy everyone.

Har.

It's been a battle, though, honestly. There's more to a haircut, in this situation, than just a change in appearance. In part it is a declaration that I can do what I like with my own head. That I am no longer sixteen and a giggly date, no longer eighteen and a clueless young wife, no longer twenty-one and a terrified, dependent spun-glass personality. At twenty-four, I look around at others my age and think, We're still babies, really. Changing rapidly, but very young still. I am still endlessly eager to please, just not at the expense of my own rapidly-changing self.

Could I BE any more clichéd?

Anyway. A lot is changing. I'm learning a trade that will allow me to become less dependent, financially, on anyone else. I'm getting stronger physically and mentally. I'm changing my hair and wearing nail polish called "Firecracker" simply because the name and the color now fit.

I just want to do this all without alienating Kevin. I married as a child, really. Can I do my growing up without too much damage?

Gaahhd, I hope so. In the meantime, if you need me? I'll be doing my nails.

Monday, March 25, 2002
10:05 a.m.

Ye gods, what a week.

Sure, there were parts of it that were life-altering and parts of it that were beautiful and parts that were super-fantastic. (Just because I can't bring a specific super-fantastic thing to mind right now doesn't mean there weren't any, right?) But man, I'm tired. I need to start a new week, because the past few days have been...real. Real something, god knows what.

I did yoga instead of weight-training Friday. It will stretch out my hamstrings, I thought, and stretch and strengthen my back and abs. Well, I'm sure the session did all that, but boy did it exact a price. I dragged through yesterday's grocery shopping longing for a place to sit down and sort of using my shopping cart as a walker. My lower back kept screaming "YOU BITCH!!! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE A DEMON FROM HELL??"

Okay, not that last part, but buy yourself a cookie if you recognized the source.

On Saturday I decided that all the carpet needed sweeping, and that the carpet in the basement needed it worst of all, so the logical thing would be to carry the vacuum cleaner to the basement and work my way up from the bottom to the top. When I got down there, I remembered that the laundry room needed to be swept. There was this incident involving my elbow and a 48-inch flourescent bulb, see---but enough about that. I dragged all kinds of junk out of the laundry room. Carried Blue (that's my bike---the BMX, not the MTB) OVER a bunch of junk into the family room. Carried flower boxes and buckets of putty and baskets of clothing and the WaveRunner anchor ("pop!" said my left shoulder) and Kevin's tool box and an old vacuum cleaner and various boxes and bags and buckets out into the hallway. Got my trusty broom and swept the bare concrete. Oh, but it needed mopping. Okay then! There was a plan forming in my little mind. I sloshed water and scrubbed at unidentifiable stuff on the floor and wiped down the washer and dryer. Then I went upstairs and collapsed. The vacuuming didn't happen, obviously.

You're probably thinking: Dumbass. The girl just does NOT know when to quit. Right you are! Yesterday morning, after sitting for a while with the heating pad applied to my lower back, I decided to act on the little idea that had begun forming in my brain the day before.

I painted the basement floor. On my hands and knees. With a roller.

By some miracle, I woke up this morning more or less painlessly. I think I can do deadlifts again, but the yoga's going to have to wait a few days. Besides, the floor needs another coat of paint, and all the edges and corners have to be done.

2:49 p.m.

This thing was on my mind earlier but I was feeling too cheerful and light-hearted (light-headed?) to write about anything heavy. Now I've had a Klonopin and a peaceful hour or so painting (watercolor, not the basement floor). I'm going to try to suss this out here first, not in a paper journal or a private journal or a session with Edna. So bear with me.

I've been emetophobic for almost as long as I can remember. That, in case you don't feel like reading the page I linked, means that the very idea of vomiting has pretty much terrified me since I was around 6 years old. That sounds simple enough, right? After all, a healthy person isn't going to be throwing up often enough for that sort of phobia to be a major obstruction in her life, right? Right?

Wrong. Phobias can come with a set of neuroses you can't even imagine. To make a long story short, I eventually became house-bound because of it.

Well, I've fought my way up through THAT. I can't do everything I'd like to do, but I'm getting there. Anyway, I've been dealing with this thing, and the other day I came across this story from Katy, a girl I'd known of a few years ago before I quit the emet. mailing list. The first thing I saw at the top of the page was

That piqued my interest, for obvious reasons. So I went on reading about how she'd eaten a Brie and bacon baguette and started to feel sick and how she fought the inevitable for seven hours before finally nature took over and the poor kid was able to puke.

She felt better. And she had her "Eureka!" moment. A phobia is a big-ass sham. Vomiting has never been as bad, for me, as the build-up to it, and yet the fear always remained. (After all, phobias wouldn't be phobias if they were rational.)

Anyway, I came to this paragraph Katy had written:

"If you choose to face your phobia by making yourself vomit through artificial means, it won't work. When you're vomiting because there's truly something wrong with you, there seems a purpose to it, and the purpose is to get better. But if you cause yourself to vomit making it 100% likely to happen, you will feel strong self-blame and very strong doubt and probably have a panic attack. This will worsen the whole situation, and far from helping you, will only make the experience more terrifying."

Um, I beg your pardon? "It won't work"? And what's with this self-blame? In short, WTF?

I went around in a very foul mood that evening. I suppose I thought that this chick had just informed me that my last resort was a no-go.

Luckily I was to see Edna the next morning, and after explaining the situation, I read the excerpt to her. She calmly informed me that I'm taking this stuff too much to heart. That what Katy wrote was just her opinion. That there actually were people out there who would feel guilt, shame, etc. for making themselves vomit in hopes of ditching the phobia.

I can't identify with the guilt and shame crowd, so I asked if trying a little experiment of my own would do any harm to my situation. "It won't hurt anything," Edna answered. "Even if it doesn't help, it won't hurt anything. Just don't go doing it all the time"---hah!---"and don't do it alone." Fair enough.

I mulled this over for about a week. Friday night I sat down by the bed with a towel and a pitcher that just happened to be handy, a glass of water, a glass of iced tea (for afterwards), and a cool, damp washcloth. And a spoon.

Gagging yourself with a spoon works. It's not fun in any way, but it works. And goddammit I hung with it until I was retching. Eighteen years of fear and limitation had built up behind me and I was going to get this over with or else.

Except...I couldn't bring anything up. I could heave until my eyeballs bulged but that's all I was rewarded with---a dry heave. Which, according to Kevin and both my parents, is worse anyway.

I guess I tried about four or five times before taking Kev's advice and taking a break. The next day, and on Sunday, I felt pretty good, mentally, when we went out. (What's the worst that could happen? I could heave! Bwahahahaa!!) By last night, though, my confidence was shaken again. My stomach felt uncomfortable for dog only knows what reason, and I asked Kev if we might go for a drive. As before, I didn't push myself as far as I should have. I was too afraid. The question is, afraid of what?

Now, I'm aware that agoraphobia doesn't disappear overnight, and that it's a separate problem from the emetophobia. I'm also aware that I'm sensitized to the point that riding in the car with even faint stomach discomfort makes me anxious, which causes more discomfort, which causes more anxiety. That's not going to go away instantly, either.

What now, though? I keep wandering around my house, asking myself this and a ton of other questions. Could I repeat Friday night's performance? Sure---I don't particularly want to, but it's not something I'd panic and refuse to do. All right then---could I try it while actually feeling nauseated and anxious? I don't know. I'd like to think so. Is it really the intense nausea I have a phobia of? Am I going to continue to doubt myself and the enormous milestone this is because I didn't, technically, throw up? Oh fuck, who knows. Who knows. It's making me crazy.

So now that I've aired some of the most embarrassing and candid dirty laundry I've had in a long time, I feel a little better. I don't object to input, though, if anyone has any thoughts on the subject. After all, you guys were trusted with this excruciatingly long tale because I have come to trust you and your opinions. Thanks for being around.

Thursday, March 21, 2002
02:56 p.m.

What I have done so far today:

*Was awoken at 8:15 by a wiggling pup with a sock in his mouth. Somehow he’s learned that it’s possible to lick my ear without dropping the sock.

*Had breakfast; made coffee.

*Caught up on Pancake Island.

*Gave myself a facial.

*Went on an imaginary Victoria’s Secret catalog shopping spree. Spent 1,055.55 imaginary dollars. Sourly admired models’ legs.

*Did some weight-training: wall squats (easier on the knee), kickbacks, deadlifts, some shoulder and biceps work, crunches and knee lifts. My gams are all achey now.

*Did laundry.

*Took 100mg Wellbutrin, 0.5mg Klonopin, O.25mg Xanax, 20mg Paxil, and a vitamin E capsule.

*Cleaned up the dog poo out of the flower beds.

*Put the cooler upside-down on the sidewalk to drain while I transplanted a rosebush from pot to flower bed.

*Crossed my fingers. Warned Speck off rosebush.

*Hauled dead hibiscus plant and pot, little bag of dog poo, two medium-size boxes and the last of a bag of Ol’ Roy dog food to the Dumpster.

*Read a bit on Salon.com. Please, please, baby Jeebus, don’t let Dubya decide to destroy Iraq.

*Buffed my nails.

*Discussed landscaping with the next-door neighbor.

*Went over to Anju’s to see if she’d like to go walking. Turns out Daud is sick. Anj didn't look so healthy herself. Walked Speck alone instead.

*Folded laundry.

*Folded laundry.

*Folded laundry.

Now I'm sitting here eating a big bowl of white rice and dal. I've got to learn to make this stuff myself. I've got more coffee, too. Who knows what I'll get accomplished during the remainder of the day.

Part of me (somewhere in the region of my lower back, specifically) wants to flop down on the sofa and watch Christopher and work on an embroidery project I absolutely have to finish within the next couple of weeks or someone will be pissed at me. (Hee!)

Hmmphm. Too much rice. Time to re-heat my coffee and get my study on.

Wednesday, March 20, 2002
11:04 p.m.

I saw Edna yesterday. We got a lot of things talked out, and I left feeling much better. One of the main subjects was this stupid phobia I've been saddled with for years. No pun intended, but I'm finally just sick of it. I'm fed up. I've got things to do and places to go and I don't have time for limitations, irrational or otherwise.

I played around a bit this evening, testing my gag reflex. Ironically, I'm one of the people in the world most afraid of vomiting and with one of the least sensitive gag reflexes. I can have castings done at the dentist's (we did at least four the last time I was there) pretty calmly. So it took a little exploration, but I finally discovered that two fingers on the back of the tongue could probably do the trick.

It sounds insane, doesn't it? Well, I certainly feel better since I decided to try this. For one thing, the fact that I'd even consider facing this fear head-on is so new, so different from what I used to be. But then, I'm not what I used to be. This Me Thing changes all the time and lately it's in an ass-kickin' mood.

Anyway, in somewhat-more-normal news...

I've been working happily away at my studies. Believe it or not, I already have a confirmed client. (Okay, so it's my mom, but she's willing to pay and a job is a job, dammit.) This whole thing is so exciting. FINALLY, I found the thing that I'm really interested in. THANK DOG for the Sims.

No, really, there's a connection. When I got the Sims, I got into designing and decorating the houses and downloading new furniture and stuff far more than I did the Sims themselves. Then Mom mentioned interior design and the lightbulb finally went on.

Wooo! I'm having a Cleo-on-too-much-coffee moment.

On yet another totally unrelated topic: I'm still thinking of getting my hair cut. It's down to my bra strap again, and I just had 4-5 inches cut off of it in January!

I'm thinking cute little platinum bob. I'm thinking razor-cut ends. I'm thinking shorter showers, less conditioner, less weight on this head. I'm thinking Kev will have a conniption fit.

But you know what? It's my head. Short hair isn't as sexy, he says. We'll see. Besides, it's sort of a declaration of independence. I'm an adult, I can have all my hair hacked off without anyone's permission.

Just once in life, before I'm old, I want to experience short short hair. Then I'll let it grow back and all will be well. I just can't resist the call of adorable cuts like these:

Friday, March 15, 2002

Sunset Beach is, ironically, really beautiful in the mornings. I watch from a cam that is apparently set up on the porch of someone's house, right on the shore. Just around noon Eastern, the sun starts to peek out from behind, and from my porchfront perch I can watch its rays work their magic. The water goes slate-colored; those first rays cast the palms in bronze and lend a pink glow to the whitecaps. The sky turns purplish-pinkish peach.

I love morning. Especially at the beach.

(How long is a flight from WV to Hawaii, I wonder?)

Later in the day you can watch Waikiki Beach, and maybe catch the Na Hoku II loading up with tourists for a two-hour sail. She pulls right up onto the beach, drops a ladder between two mustard-yellow hulls, and sits rocking gently until one crowd has disembarked and the next has loaded up. The people usually seem thrilled. I would be too, to cruise off the shore of Waikiki on a big golden catamaran.

Back to my current reality. Last night I sketched an imaginary room, from an overhead view. Today I need to finish up the elevations, then measure and sketch an actual room in my house. This should be interesting. Do I measure a simple rectangular room like the master bedroom, or really test myself by doing the living room?

Royal Purple, Lilac Creme, and Firecracker. Don't let me forget those. When I can spare a few dollars for nail polish, those are the ones. They look a lot better than they sound.

Thursday, March 14, 2002

I keep having "falling" dreams. Like I have to fall a frightening distance---nothing huge, but further than most people could drop without breaking an ankle or something at least. But I always land safely. The landing may jar me, but I land on my feet.

I keep dreaming about high school, too. Not necessarily my high school, although naturally elements of the grounds creep into the dreams...just school. Somehow it's a positive thing now, as opposed to my usual dread-filled school dreams.

All that is pretty easily interpreted, I suppose, if you want to be literal.

So much is beginning. There's the interior design thing, for one. (I got the first installment a couple of days ago, and am learning to make an accurate sketch of a room.) There's also a phase of therapy I'm determined to make work. It's very simple in word, a little less simple in deed. It has to work, though. Has to.

Maybe this weekend I'll mess around and get my learner's permit. Just for fun and a handy ID card, you know. That is if Kev can find the right insurance info to get a new sticker put on the T/A, because we can't just roll up into the DMV parking lot with a glaring red dead sticker.

If I'm going to get a nap in before Kev gets home, it's going to have to be now. Until next time...

8:36 p.m.

Spent $160-odd dollars at the pharmacy tonight. Two out of the three prescriptions I only got half-filled or less, and still they cost that much. Ouch.

I suppose it all evens out. Yesterday we went to one of the smaller local groceries and paid a whopping $2.76 for four gallons of spring water, a bottle of Lectric Shave, a dozen eggs, and some garbage bags. "Is that right?" Kev asked the cashier, when the total came up.

"Prob'ly not," she said with a shrug, and bagged our groceries.

Back to today: The short ride to the pharmacy and back was educational, anyway. I followed some good advice and ignored the churning of my stomach. Maybe "ignored" is the wrong word---I just told myself that it was okay, that I could function with it, that it was just a feeling. I don't know how close that is to total acceptance, but it's a start...and boy, was I exhausted when we got home. I mean physically exhausted.

So---dinner, coffee, some practice drawing the layout of a room, a tough workout in the weight room...and now I'm here listening to the few Tori Amos songs I actually like. I do love "China" and "Honey".

I'm going to get over this, aren't I? The fears and limitations, I mean. With enough hard work, can I do it? It's so scary. But the alternative is scarier. I wish it wasn't getting late. I'd call one of you and break this isolation I'm feeling.

Tuesday, March 12, 2002

Whoot! I may wind up having a life after all.

I've enrolled in a correspondence course from Sheffield School of Interior Design in NYC. After all my agonizing about what I wanted to do for a living, I think I've finally found it. One day Mom mentioned a friend of hers who is an interior designer and suddenly it just clicked: Bingo! I'd love to do that. In the days that followed the decision seemed so obvious. What do I watch on TV? House Beautiful. Christopher Lowell. Trading Spaces. Even Martha. What is the one magazine subscription I never let run out? Victoria. (And Ride BMX, but that's a whole 'nother story.) My favorite stores? Lowe's, Pier 1, and the local fabric store. What do I daydream about most? Re-decorating my house. It's hard now to believe I didn't catch on sooner.

Anyway, I've received my student ID and the names of my instructors, paid the enrollment fee, and shortly---maybe today!---my first package will arrive and I can get down to business.

I wonder if Kevin will be cool with me painting the living room that light coffee shade I've been thinking about?

In other news...my love handles hurt. Poor little things. I used ten-pound weights last night when I did side stretches, and boy can I feel it. The only other soreness I have is in my glutes, apparently from the hamstring curls. I'm a little disappointed that my hamstrings themselves aren't sore, so I'll probably do a few more sets this evening. Kevin and I are planning to go bike riding tonight, and if my knee isn't too sore afterwards I need to do some leg extensions.

Isn't this fascinating? I'm sure you all want to know about the condition of my glutes and love handles.

At least I'm able to work out. The fog seems to have cleared a bit, and the apathy's not all-consuming anymore.

Dr. K switched ALL of my medication last weekend. I have to taper off the Xanax and Paxil and build up the Klonopin and Wellbutrin...which means I'm taking all four of them at once. This should be an interesting ride.

I need more juice. Ciao.

Friday, March 1, 2002
3:29 p.m.

Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out Of My Head 40,166kb 31% complete 4.0kb/second

Must.Have.This.Video.

So. I've been trying to remember to sit and stand up straighter, and my back is complaining. Like, screaming. Back muscles don't like change. I've got to do it, though. All these years I've spent protecting a turbulent tummy, curled around myself. It's causing all sorts of neck and back problems and I'd like to change things before suddenly I'm an old woman with a hunchback.

Plus it just looks bad. My slouchy body language certainly doesn't fit my personality.

I just took two Advil. Growing pains, that's what these are. I've been working out and I'm loving the results already. Yesterday as I climbed out of the bath and stepped in front of the vanity I noticed that I have what may be the roundest booty of any white girl alive. It was kind of disturbing. I don't want to be bootylicious, thank you very much. Now how the hell do I tone that particular area without turning it into something you could set your drink on?

Aiyeee. If you've made it this far, bless you.

There's no one around to talk to, so I'm rambling like...a big old thing that rambles. Mom's in Iowa, attending my stepbrother's graduation. He's a chiropractor. (God knows we can use as many of those as we can get around here.) She was excited to have had her first glimpse of the Mississippi. Dad, on the other hand, is pretty much bedridden with a pinched sciatic nerve and a herniated disk. He went to work one day last week and endured two hours being shaken around in that damned dozer before being taken out of there in an ambulance. War is hell, but the mining industry runs a close second.

39%. My download is bottoming out at 0.2kb/second.

KD Peters - Mar 1, 2002 12:56 pm (#438 of 443)
War. HUH! Good God, y'all.

Cleo J. - Mar 1, 2002 1:08 pm (#439 of 443)
What is it good for?

`e - Mar 1, 2002 1:15 pm (#440 of 443)
absolutely nothin'.

Tuesday, February 26, 2002
10:34 p.m.