A Christmas Wish

I'm completely exhausted and posting from my Kindle because I'm too tired to start up my laptop.

But I wanted to post this before I passed out for the night.

Wherever they are--the three of them (well, I know where Kitty is, but whatever because this applies to her, too)--wherever they are this Christmas, I hope more than anything that they are happy.

And even if they don't consciously recognize it, I hope they know in the backs of their minds that somewhere in this world, there is a little girl who truly loves them.

That is my Christmas wish.

And The Stockings Were Hung By The Chimney With Care....

I am going to my parents' tomorrow for Christmas. As such, I had to get my shit finished tonight.

I made a coconut pie. While it was baking, I wrapped presents. Then, I made a chocolate meringue pie. I wrapped more presents while it baked Then, the meringue on my pie cracked in half down the middle while it was cooling, which it's never done before. While I was trying to hide the crack, I got some meringue on my fingers. When I licked it off, I realized it tasted horrible. I'd put too much baking powder in it (to keep it fluffier).

So I stripped the old meringue off and made up some more. Then, I stuck the damn pie BACK in the oven. Then, I wrapped more presents. Then, I made oatmeal cookies. Then, I wrapped MORE FUCKING PRESENTS. And I don't mean I stuck them in gift bags. I ended up with 32 packages, and all but one of them was hand-wrapped and decorated with ribbons and bows and name tags. The other was a couple of pairs of earrings for my mother, which were put in those boxes that look like Christmas Chinese takeout, packed with tissue paper, taped down, and decorated with bows and name tags. Oh, and then the little handle things were tied together to make it one present instead of two.

Then, I picked up all the wrapping shit in the living and stuffed it back in the closet. After that, I finished cleaning up the kitchen (which, admittedly, wasn't much because I clean as I go--I just had to wash the last cookie sheet, stick a couple of things in the dishwasher, and wipe down the counters and stove) and put the cookies in a Christmas carrier thing. I also put the pies in the refrigerator. Then, I packed up everything I won't need tomorrow morning that I need to take with me.

It is now 2 am. I just got out of the shower and turned the dishwasher on. I am so exhausted. My back hurts so bad I can hardly sit up straight. Oh, and did I mention I started all that shit at 6 pm? Yes, it took me 8 hours to get ready for the holidays. Not to mention that I had to paddle around in the monsoon before that to finish my shopping.

Oh, and to add insult to injury, because I was mixing everything up with the mixer they gave me and wrapping Kitty's presents with the same rolls of paper I've been using for the last 3 years or so (which means it was what I wrapped *their* presents with a couple of Christmases ago), I couldn't stop thinking about any of them.

*Sigh* I need the thing from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

I'm going to eat something and go lay down. I hurt so bad. And I need to get up tomorrow and go home. I have to meet my daddy halfway to pick up the curio cabinet we had commissioned for my mother's birthday, which is on Christmas Day, and I have to get there in time to load the thing up, drive home, and get it in the basement before she gets off work.

****

I wish I could tell them Merry Christmas. But I also know that it'd be a total douchebag move. Well, except for Kitty because she and I are cool now. But still...I hope they have a good Christmas. I know I'll be thinking about them, despite all efforts to the contrary.

Ok. Leaving you with my favorite Christmas song by one of my favorite singers. Bed now.

Stay Awhile, And Maybe Then You'll See A Different Side Of Me

I have started this post and erased it several times over the past few weeks. I've also got several drafts of it saved. Probably the only reason that this one is going to survive where the others haven't is that I've made a pact with myself that I'm going to say it tonight if it kills me.

You can only live with something buried away inside yourself for so long.

I'm going to try not to be too self-aggrandizing here. Partly because I'm trying to get away from that in the process of trying to change my life and partly because it detracts from what I want to convey. But I do feel that I have to say a little something about myself to provide context.

I've been crazy for a long time. Probably my whole life. I didn't realize it for a long time, and it was either not recognized or ignored by the people around me.

I have been overtly batshit for at least 5 or 6 years. Long manic spell that started no later than August 2005 (but probably sooner). Black, black, black depression that began in September 2007. Another long manic spell that began in mid-2008, culminating in the mixed episode from hell last fall. Rising into another mania that wasn't quite as bad as the two before it because of the meds that lasted until about...August? September?

In essence, I have been in a non-altered state of mind for roughly 3 months. Minus a few blips along the way. But yes. Euthymic/stable. Three months. Not too long, comparatively speaking.

I feel like I have come a long way in a short period of time. I've got a level of insight I've never had before. And that's what brought this particular post on.


I know perfectly well I've alienated people. I know that every criminal who never thought he'd get caught used the "but I was insane" excuse when his deeds finally did catch up with him. I know that there are people in this world who will probably never trust me again.

But I also know I was absolutely, medically, batshit-out-of-my-mind, convinced-the-government-was-spying-on-me, crazy. I did things that hurt people. Lots of people. Most of the things I did were spurred on by nothing but crazy person logic--the same logic that told me that the government was aware that I "knew too much" and that my own assassination-by-sniper was imminent, after which the Devil himself was going to come and personally escort my soul to Hell.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I know. But through it all, I swear by all things holy, I never meant to hurt anyone. It's not much consolation. But it IS the truth. Still, I fucked up. I fucked up so bad, so many times. I don't know how to live with that.


Kitty used to tell me regularly that she wanted things to go back to the way they were before. I didn't know what she meant. I asked her, and she couldn't articulate it. I even got angry at her because I thought she was being unreasonable and expecting something from me that I didn't even know what it was.

But I see it now.

She wanted back the life she and I had before I went completely insane. She wanted to be able to spend time with me without me flying into inappropriate rages over things I can't even fucking remember now. She wanted me to be at least semi-rational. She wanted me to stop the violent rages and the abusive behavior. She wanted me to stop accusing her of either being complicit in or actively participating in whatever my current delusion of persecution happened to be.

I didn't understand then, but I do now.

I know that Kitty and I may never be close like we once were. But I also know that she's granted me a precious gift by giving me the opportunity to at least attempt to make up for all the crazy I perpetrated for so long. It's a gift I don't deserve, but I refuse to be a dumbass and throw it all away again.

Maybe one day, she can even learn to trust me again.


In a similar vein...I often think about J., the other person I know I hurt badly. I am not shirking responsibility. Not in the least. I know how badly I fucked up over and over and over again. But I also know that, unlike Kitty, she never knew me when I wasn't batshit out of my mind insane.

In spite of that, I think she did like me at one time. I was crazy, scared to death of her, angry at her because her husband treated me like shit, delusional, full of rage/abusive (see above), and doing things that, again, only made sense to a crazy person. But I do think she liked me, even with all that shit.

I liked her, too. I was--am--in love with her. And that's completely outside of anything related to her fucking douchebag husband. But I hurt her, too, because I'm an idiot.

I wonder how she would feel about me now. I know she wouldn't trust me. But if she could like me when I was as fucked up and cracked out on my own brain chemistry as I was when I met her, I wonder what she would think of me now, insightful, medicated, no longer completely absorbed in myself and my own delusions.

I tried to convince her back in the summer that I wasn't nuts anymore. But I was. True, I wasn't AS nuts, but that's like saying you should think of me as a Tour de France winner because I can ride my bicycle with training wheels. I mean, hell, I can go back and look at the things I wrote back then and can see that I was still pretty...off. And justifying my behavior with crazy person logic. As usual.

She said that the things I'd done despite all the medication and whatnot further convinced her she couldn't trust me. And, despite my lack of insight about it at the time, she was right. She couldn't trust me then. Hell, I couldn't even trust me then.

But I feel that a great change has taken place inside me since then, for various reasons that aren't really relevant here, and I can't help but wonder what she'd think of me now.


I suppose I should wonder why I still care...but I don't. I care because I love the two women mentioned above. And only God knows how deep it goes and how much regret I carry in my heart for the things I've done and the way that everything went. And God, at least, bears me no ill-will for it, for, as Dostoevsky said, "Love can never be an offense to Christ."

I have to get off of here now before I get overwhelmed.

любовь?

I've been downloading a lot of the "classics" to read lately on my Kindle. This is for three reasons.

1.) I feel there are lots of holes in my education, regardless of all the English classes I took, and I'm one of those people who never wants to stop learning.

2.) Ok, admittedly, they're all from the same time period--the 19th century--because I have a fetish. I have, however, branched out into literature that's not American or English now that I've more or less exhausted the Victorian canon from those two countries.

3.) If it's more than 100 years old, chances are, the copyright's expired, and the book is public domain. This means free or less than $2 Kindle downloads. For a poor person, this cannot be emphasized too much.

I've been working on mid- to late-19th century Russian literature lately. Chekhov, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Goncharov, Ostrovsky, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Turgenev. (Ok, that's who all is in the collection. So far, I've hit Chekhov [Ivanov], Dostoevsky [The Brothers Karamazov], Tolstoy [Anna Karenina], and Turgenev [Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories, a short story collection]. I'll get to the others eventually.)

Allow me a small digression here. The Russians are...interesting. Actually, I don't even say that in a disparaging way. They really are fascinating. Russia is on my list of Top 5 Places I Want To Visit.

The Russian Empire was awfully similar to the antebellum American South. In Britain, for example, serfdom was basically obsolete by the 1600s. In Russia, however, serfdom--which is basically just slavery--persisted until the tsar freed them in 1861, fearing a peasant uprising if they were not freed. 1861.

When the serfs were freed, things went more or less from bad to worse. The former serfs ended up being sharecroppers for the same people who'd owned them before; it was just another form of slavery, basically.

And there you have the history of the 19th century American South as well, from the pre-war slave-owning plantations to Reconstruction, only colder. Much, much colder. The only difference? The Russians eventually had a revolution. The South "found Jesus." In the end, the Communists and the Baptists fucked us both.

Anyway. Back to what I was saying about literature. Russian literature is very different from what you'll see from other places around the same time period. That's pretty much because Russia made the jump from the Middle Ages to modern times in the course of about a decade. Time travel like that is sure to set everything off-kilter.

But when I read things by the authors of the so-called "Golden Age" of Russian literature, I notice something. You see them talking about love in a completely different way than, say, the British or even the Americans. The Brits, especially, wrote these fanciful, idealized love stories, which I like to read, but aren't very realistic. The Russians, though, they write about love being mixed with hatred, about loving someone so much while simultaneously wanting to kill him/her.

The Russians get it.

I've been told over and over that love and hate can't exist together, but that's not true. They aren't mutually exclusive opposites. They're opposite sides of the same coin. The more you love someone, the greater your ability to hate him/her. The Russians embrace it and look at it as a more pure, more real kind of love.

The passion that's contained in that kind of love makes most of the ruminative, almost courtly love written about in British novels of the same time period (the Brontes excepted) look wooden and artificial. The love of British novels is like an actor who's never felt any emotion at all trying to abstractly portray what he thinks love is. Russian love is diving headlong into a freezing ocean, knowing you're going to get hypothermia at best or die at worst, but not giving a shit because it's there and it's real and it's pure, and, goddammit, that ocean means something.

Fuck me. I'm obviously Russian.

Up For Air For A Moment

I've finally regained some semblance of wellness about me again. I still feel like I've been hit by a bus, I still cough, and I still have some congestion, but ANYTHING is better than what I felt like at the beginning of the week. I'm slowly starting to catch up again, too, which is good. Of course, I'll only manage to catch up just enough to get ridiculously behind again when I go to my parents' for Christmas, but that's par for the course, yes?

I have so much to do next week, anyway. I have to finish my Christmas shopping once we're paid. I have to wrap everything. I have to clean up a little before I leave. I have to do as much work as I can before I go, so I don't feel so bad about not doing shit over the holiday. And there's something else that needs to be done, in the spirit of the season.

This song about sums it up for me right now.

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream...In Raving Delirium

The good news is that we got the payment thing straightened out with the company, so that if we stick to our original Monday due date, we'll get paid in time to buy Christmas presents.

The bad news is that we STILL have to finish by Monday, and I haven't done a damn thing since the beginning of the week because I've been sick. So I have to finish 13 essays by Monday.

The ugly is that I can't work on them now, either, because I'm delirious. My hair's soaking wet from where a fever I didn't know I had apparently broke. I'm also having a hard time concentrating on anything. So despite the fact that I went to sleep around 7 pm last night and didn't get up until about 2 pm today, I think I'm going back to bed again soon.

Oh, God, I Didn't Want To Die Like This

It appears that my allergy/asthma hell has turned into some kind of legitimate sickness now, too. I was pretty sure around 2 am that I was breathing my last. I felt better when I woke up, but now my whole head is congested. Hurts like a bitch.

I went to Wal-Mart to do something for ChaosKitty, and I wasn't sure I could get back out to my truck. And then once I got home, I had a hell of a time unloading the few groceries I bought. So yeah. I now have a cold or some shit on top of the coughing that makes me want to chop my head off.

Needless to say, the work is not going to be finished tonight. As a matter of fact, I'm probably going to lay back down for a little while. Maybe I'll feel better when I get up again.

:(

I hate being sick and alone. And whiny. I need attention and love. *Cries*

I Once Was Lost, But Now I'm Just Blind

I think I just a wall.

I don't give a fuck anymore.

I have beat my head against the wall for these assholes we work for, only to be told right at Christmas time that they're going to fuck up our pay, so that we have two days to finish 30 750-essays if we want to get our money in time to do our Christmas shopping. I have done all I can do. I have jumped through hoops, dropped everything to please them, and they still keep jerking us around.

I'm done.

If I'm not going to get paid either way, I don't give a damn if you NEVER get your motherfucking essays. As a matter of fact, you can take 'em and shove 'em where the sun don't shine, lady.

In addition to that, there's the other asshole who keeps bothering us to do his site work, but won't pay us. I'm tired of jumping through his hoops, too. Either ante up or fuck off. I don't care anymore.

I've been so goddamn sick with asthma for the last two weeks that I can barely hold my head up. I cough so hard, I give myself a headache. I can't make it through more than 2 or 3 minutes without having a coughing fit. I cough so hard and so long that I come close to blacking out ****TMI**** I'm coughing so hard that I lose control of my fucking bladder from time to time, which is disgusting. ****End TMI**** My whole body hurts all over from hacking my goddamn brains out.

The albuterol isn't helping. Cough drops help some, but only while I have them in my mouth. As soon as they dissolve, it's back to the same old shit. If I sit in the hottest bath I can stand and draw the shower curtain, the humidity eases it for a bit, but as soon as I get out, I'm doing it again.

So I'm sorry if my fucking asthma INCONVENIENCES these sonsofbitches. But I'm going to bed. The coughing and the steam from the bathtub and just the general exhaustion from, you know, lack of oxygen has worn me the fuck out.

I have in my hands an iced cherry Pop-Tart and an iced chocolate Pop-Tart. I am going to eat them because they are warm and full of goodness. And then I am going to bed.

And fuck anybody who doesn't like it. If they have a big enough problem with it, they can spring for a fucking lung transplant.

****

I know this couldn't be more pathetic, but...I need someone to take care of me. :(

*Cries*


Edited to add: Oh, God. The fucker who didn't want to pay finally paid. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'm going to go die now. And fuck that other company in the ass with a rotten 2 x 4 with rusty nails protruding. I can buy presents now, so I don't give a FUCK if they never get their shit.

Ok. Bed.

Letters To Teh Bunneh

Dear Self,

After a week of serious wheezing, chest pain, coughing, post-nasal drip, and other lovely allergic reactions, you sound like a 90-year-old. However, attempting to redneck things up doesn't always work.

For example, "Well, if honey is good for a raw throat, pancake syrup oughta work, too," was a MASSIVE fail.

Remember this next time you decide that you can fix *anything*.

~Teh Bunneh

I Have Returned Once More

I'm home now. Not that it matters.

It's cold. So cold. My daddy says it doesn't really get cold here--which is true, at least in comparison to most of the rest of the country--but that it's the humidity in the air that makes it feel so cold. I have no idea what it is, but it gets in your bones, and then it never goes away.

I don't think I'll ever be warm again.

And why does it have to be so dark? It depresses the hell out of me. I HATE fall and winter. HATE THEM. I wish I could turn into a bear and hibernate.

I was going to write more, but Daddy called, and I lost my train of thought. I'll try again later. I really need to work, anyway.

The Bunny Has Nothing Of Importance To Say

I'm still at ChaosKitty's. My intention was to go home today, but it's rainy and foggy as hell, so I stayed. I'll probably have to stay again tomorrow, too. I will be heading back on Thursday at the latest, though.

Work is getting increasingly hard. We're behind by two days on our deadline, though they assured me it wasn't a big deal. It's kind of a big deal to me, though, because I need the money. I hope like hell we can get all this done by tomorrow.

I also started today, so I am obviously hating life right now. I love hanging out with ChaosKitty, but I would love to have my own bed since my back hurts so much.

In other news, ChaosKitty and I have found a slave boy to share (we think). He seems nice enough and clearly obedient, since we had him write an essay for us because we were so behind, LOL. I think we plan on continuing to talk to him online for now, to make sure he's not a tard, and then maybe meeting him after the holidays. He lives in Atlanta, so she'll see him more than I will. I'll definitely take great pleasure in having someone to kick in nuts, etc., though. And, yes, he DOES sound like a painslut. Yay, LOL!

But, yeah, we'll have to see. I'm just sad that douchenozzle still has my fucking strap on harness. And my nylon hood. And my rather expensive armbinder. And probably some other shit, too, but those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head, since I don't keep a running tally of my sex toys.

I'm not, however, sad enough to bother speaking to his hypocritical ass in order to ask for them back. I feel certain that hell will freeze over and the devil will be buying ice skates before that happens.

Fucker.

Not that I'm bitter.

*Eyeroll*

Cough, Wheeze, Cough, Ad Nauseam

Well, we didn't meet our deadline. Or, rather, we aren't going to. ChaosKitty still has 11 750-word essays to write, all of which I'll have to proofread and format and add all the links that they want done in the most confusing, roundabout way. I have one more essay to write, too, but maybe that won't take long.

I'm so sick. I've been struggling with allergies/asthma all weekend. My albuterol inhaler won't kill the cough. Cough drops sort of work, but only while I have them in my mouth. As soon as they dissolve completely, I start hacking again. My throat is sore, and my voice is wrecked. My whole body aches all over from the strain of coughing so much.

Every time I lay down and try to sleep, I cough and cough and cough some more. Then, I wheeze. Then, I cough. Then, I cry. Then, I cough even more. I suck on cough drops, but I'm afraid to go to sleep with one in. With my luck, I'll choke on it and die. *Eyeroll*

God, this sucks. I've walked around in a fog all weekend from oxygen deprivation. As soon as we can finish this, I'm going home, and I think ChaosKitty is coming with me. But we have to finish first, though I'm afraid I won't be able to get it done if I can't breathe.

I hate my life.

Sadness

I should be working, as my deadline is tomorrow. But what am I doing? Sitting here in ChaosKitty's bedroom, sharing old pictures. Her with her ex-husband; me with them.

*Sigh*

I feel like I'm a million years old.

Well, now that I've sufficiently depressed myself, I think I'll go try to write more bullshit. :(

I am still livin' with your ghost....

How?

How do you tell someone how much you care about them and how sorry you are if that person thinks that every word that comes out of your mouth is a lie?

:(

On The Road Again

Turns out poor Kitty is sick this week, and she's not going to be able to make it on Friday. :( I hope she starts feeling better soon. Maybe so.

ChaosKitty's broke, having given the entirety of her last paycheck to her parents because THEY didn't have any money. I have her medication for next month, and she doesn't know when she'll be able to come here. So I'm going to go take it to her. She's also having some serious problems, so I'm going to see if we can't find a Georgia mental health clinic to shoot her into.

I don't think the Lamictal is helping her like it helped me. We're going to see if we can get her on something else that will work better (and faster, so she doesn't have to wait so long to see if it's going to help or not). Trileptal, Depakote, Tegretol, lithium, even, if we have to. Or an antipsychotic. Or both. We'll see. Too bad most of the atypicals are still under patent and most of the typicals are fucking ridiculous when it comes to side effects.

But she's going to get help. I'm not abandoning someone who genuinely needs help. I've been there--sick, scared, no one to turn to. Fuck that. I won't let it happen to someone I care about if I can possibly do anything to stop it.

Ok. Going to finish packing and get out of here.

I Hardly Know What To Do With Myself

Ok, so I spent the evening working on some shit that should drive traffic to my sites, rather than working on clients' shit. I know I probably shouldn't have done that, but if I'd had to write one more 750+ word "essay" today, I might've shanked someone. Probably me, since there's no one else here, LOL.

Anyway, since I'm not in the mood to inflict stab wounds on myself tonight, I decided I'd work on something different for a change.

I've finished all I set out to do tonight, which is sort of odd, given that it's barely after midnight. I don't want to start on anything else, though, so I think I'm going to call it a night a couple of hours early. It'll probably do me some good.

When I go to bed, I hope I can avoid the nightmares. They're hardly ever very far away, but lately, they've been a constant companion. I have no idea what causes them. I mean, I'm sure it's because I have shit on my mind, but when DON'T I have shit on my mind? Why has it just gotten so bad recently?

Also, could everyone I love stop dying in my dreams? That'd be great. :(