Goodbye, Old Friend

I've been putting off writing about this for multiple reasons that will rapidly become clear. But it finally caught up with me yesterday, so I know if I don't go on and do it, it's going to dog at my heels 'til I do. Not that this will necessarily make it better, mind you, but it's damn sure not going to make it worse.

Last Tuesday night, my mother sent me an email, asking if she could come up Wednesday. (She only works half-days on Wednesdays.) This isn't exactly something unusual for her, so I just told her "sure" and didn't think anything else about it. I met her Wednesday afternoon at the appointed time so that she wouldn't have to drive all the way across town to pick me up or whatever. I asked--out of curiosity, not douchiness--what brought her up that day, and she kinda dodged the question. I didn't think too much about that, either. I figured she just didn't really have anything better to do but didn't want to come right out and say it. So I let it go.

Anyway, we went to eat, and when we finished and got back in the car, she told me why she'd really come--to drop this bit of bad news.

Last Sunday evening, after Daddy'd left to go back to work, she got a call from (someone, I forgot who) saying that one of our horses was down in the pasture. So she went out there, and sure enough, Fergie was down. She called a couple of people, and they were able to get him up, but he went back down shortly thereafter. She said he was lying funny, not like horses usually lie when they're uncomfortable, but on his back with his legs splayed out awkwardly.

More help arrived. It was determined that my baby boy had had a heart attack--or possibly more than one--and wasn't getting back up. Because of his age, the decision was made to put him down.

Luckily, my parents have wonderful friends because all this was taken care of for my mother, and he was buried in the pasture immediately afterward. Also luckily, he was found within an hour of going down the first time, so he wasn't out there suffering an inordinately long amount of time before he was found.

That is literally the only good news about this situation.

Fergie--who also had an incredibly stupid name he was registered under, but we always called him Fergie--had been with me since I was in the 9th grade. I'd had one of my show horses (Bubba--yes, we like to give our horses stupid names, shut up) for a couple of years, and we'd decided that it'd be cool if I had another one, too. Daddy found an ad in one of those Trader's Helper/Bulletin Board/whatever type of papers about a 5-year-old registered Tennessee Walking Horse gelding for sale for a reasonable price. So one Saturday in March, Daddy, Mother, Crazy Trainer #1 (yes, I've had more than one), and I went to bumfuck Beulah, Alabama, to check out said horse.

This was 1999, but it seems like so much more recently than that. Weirdly enough, I remember that that morning, I was changing the sheets on my bed when my trainer called to say we could head down to see the horse that would become Fergie later that day. I only had it half-done, so the quilt and comforter were lying on the floor when the phone rang. I tripped over them on my way to answer it and broke one of my toes. So when I met Fergie for the first time, I could hardly walk because my broken toe hurt so bad. Funny what sticks out in your memory. (Although me breaking toes--then and now--was hardly anything unusual. I've broken all of them at least three times apiece because I'm clumsy and have a propensity to gravitate toward things that induce bodily harm.)

Anyway, when we got there, the dude, who was a horse trader, pointed to a terribly dirty, pitifully thin horse standing in the middle of a muddy field. Seriously, he was so skinny that I was afraid to test-ride him and could only be persuaded to do it for a couple of minutes. Daddy said later that he had serious doubts about buying him because he was afraid he'd be dead before summer.

But there was something about this poor, ragged, filthy, scrawny-ass horse. And I was a sucker for hard-luck cases (which is something that hasn't changed a bit, incidentally). So in a day or two, we went back down there, picked him up, and carried him home.

We ended up being right about him. When he got healthier and shed his raggedy old winter coat, he was a gorgeous blood bay. "Bay" doesn't so much describe a color as a pattern; a bay is a horse with a black mane and tail, black legs, and a black nose. Most bays are a kind of dull brown color, but Fergie was a slick, fiery red (hence, "blood bay") with the aforementioned black points and a mane and tail that grew insanely long. He topped out at about 16.2 hands (which is about 5 feet, 6 inches at the top of the back) and somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 pounds. He was a big boy.

On the other hand, he was built really funny, so he wasn't exactly a majestic steed, the poor thing. His head was about two sizes too large for the rest of him, and his ears were too long, and his (lovely) dark eyes were too big. Otherwise, his front end was built more or less correctly, but his back was too short, his butt too cramped, and his lower legs and ankles much too thick. But I didn't care.

He was pretty if you didn't care too much about conformation, but in the summer, his slick fiery-red coat and sparkling black mane and tail made up for his weird build, God love him.

It became obvious pretty quickly that he'd lived a rough life on top of the near-starvation. He was nervous, high-strung. But he'd been trained as a show horse, you could tell. Apparently, he hadn't made the cut at whatever trainer's barn he'd been at, and they sold him, which is how he ended up half-starved to death in a shithole in Central Alabama.

He may not have made it there, but he was the first "real" show horse I ever had. Bubba, I had made into one. But Fergie was bred to be one, born to be one, trained to be one. So to my 15-year-old self, he was, of course, the second coming.

I'll spare you all the stories of the things we did together. But I will say that even though he was high-strung and would never be the kind of horse you could plop a beginner on safely, he was also uncannily intelligent for a horse, and he never once lifted a hoof to hurt anyone. (Well, except for that one time when he ran away with my college boyfriend who just knew he could handle Fergie and nearly decapitated the dumb bastard by running under a clothesline, but I think he was just trying to keep me from suffering said idiot's presence any longer.)

He'd do anything you asked him, and he was never afraid of anything. Seriously, I used to take him for rides down the side of the road. My other horses would spook at oncoming cars or other people's asshole dogs coming out to terrorize us, but he never batted an eyelash. I knew that when I was riding Fergie, I never had to worry about anything extraneous because he had ice water in his veins in that regard. He'd even terrorize people's asshole dogs back when I let him. You have no idea how much fun it was to chase them on this massive red horse and listen to them yelp and run, after they'd chased and snapped at my other horses who'd shy away from them. (Still hate fucking dogs to this day, by the way.) I always secretly thought that we must look like the First Horse(wo)man of the Apocalypse to those fucking asshole dogs, with me on the giant red horse, bringing War to other people's shithead canines.

I also may have been entirely too prone to flights of fancy...which is something else that hasn't changed.

I had all kinds of insane mishaps on other horses, but I owned Fergie-man for 16 years and never once even thought that I might fall off of him. He was a fucking rock.

We eventually became the terror of show rings in our part of the country for awhile, too. My parents never had the money to really finance a push toward the big-time for me (even though if you had asked anybody at that time, they'd have told you I had the talent--this isn't bragging, just observation), so I had to settle for the small-time.

And the greatest moment of my life took place on Fergie's back. I was...17 maybe? We were at a horse show somewhere near Sylacauga, and we'd made the (frankly bizarre) decision for me to ride in the Championship because fuck it, I guess. Fergie performed even better than usual that night, and in the middle of that thick, hazy summer night in a show ring on the other side of the middle of nowhere, everyone fell in love with us. The whole crowd, every single fucking one of them, was on their feet...for us. People I'd never met before in my life, people I'd never see again, they were standing up, cheering, screaming, applauding, shouting my back number to the judges, and every time the announcer called for a gait change, it just got louder.

That had never happened to me before, and it has never happened since. We won the Championship class (and I've still got the giant ribbon they hooked on his bridle for our victory lap). And there was a guy there who had, just earlier that week, basically told me to my face that my horse and I weren't shit, watching every minute of it. According to my father, this dude looked at my trainer (Crazy Trainer #1) and admitted that he was painfully wrong.

(Well, naturally. It couldn't have been the greatest moment of my life if I hadn't been able to spite somebody in the process. I just hate I didn't get to see it.)

Every moment of my life since then has been nothing in comparison. Nothing.

Eventually, Crazy Trainer #1 ended up ruining him--show-horse-wise, I mean, not life-wise. Crazy Trainer #2 only made it worse when he claimed he could fix it. So for the last ten or so years of his life, Fergie never saw the inside of another show ring. But it was ok because he'd been amazing in his day, and it wasn't exactly his fault that my parents entrusted my horses to idiots. I just rode him at home, and it was fine.

I've had lots of horses come and go since then. He and Bubba were the only ones I couldn't bring myself to sell. (Bubba and I have done plenty of crazy shit together, too.) And even though he was a couple of years younger than Bubba, I always knew that Fergie would probably be the first to go because he'd had such a hard life before he came to live with us. Baby boy never forgot going hungry when he was young because he would absolutely eat his weight in food and never slow down. But, hell, I don't blame him. I'd have done the same.

I hadn't ridden him in years, but that was fine, too. He deserved his retirement. And when I was down there at Easter, I went to go visit the horses (which is not something I do often anymore because it's a reminder of things I always wanted and could never have). Now I'm glad I did because I don't think I'd seen them since Christmas at the time. I'm glad I got to see him one last time.

Anyway, Mother had come that day because she didn't want to text me or email me or call me to tell me what had happened, and she knew enough people around home knew, so she didn't want me to accidentally find out some other way. So she came to tell me. And she was so upset, both at what had happened and having to be the bearer of bad news, that I did my best to not act completely devastated. I didn't want to make it any harder for her than it already was, and it wasn't like it was her fault. Say what you want about her--and I will--but nobody can ever say that she was cruel to the horses. I know that whatever decision she made, she did it with his best interest in mind.

He'd gotten sick a few times over the winter. I'd told her then that if something happened, and I wasn't there, to please, please, please not let him suffer. I didn't care if she had to call someone to come shoot him--which, while she didn't come right out and say it, I'm almost sure is what ended up happening because they'd have had to wait so long for a large-animal vet to get there (assuming you could find one who'd even come to start with)--I just didn't want him to suffer. I could stand anything but that. So she knew how I felt about the issue. And while I wish baby boy could've stuck around a little longer, there was no way in this world that I could have possibly insisted that she keep him alive and in pain just so I wouldn't be sad. I'm selfish, but I'm not that selfish.

He died just a few weeks short of his 22nd birthday.

Baby boy lived a (relatively) long life, and I'd like to think it was pretty happy for him, for the most part. It was only right that he got to go out with some amount of dignity. He deserved that much at the very least. I hate that I didn't get to see him and say goodbye, but I don't hate my mother for that, either. She was trying to spare me, I know, and I wouldn't have wanted them to wait while he was in pain just for me to get there. That wouldn't have been right, either.

I guess the only good thing is knowing that, since he was never afraid of anything in life, he wasn't afraid in his last moments, either. He was always fearless.

I tried to hide how fucked up I was over it when my mother was here because, like I said, she already had enough to deal with. And afterwards, I just kinda tried to bury myself in my work and other things. I made it a grand total of four days before it broke me. I lost my shit yesterday, and I'm still mostly losing it now. It just doesn't feel right to be referring to him in the past tense.

You know how people always say that they don't have a favorite child or whatever, but secretly, they always do? I love all my horses, but Fergie was the one that I loved the most. I tried to not treat any of them differently, but he was the one with the special place in my heart, and I like to think that he knew it, too.

I've had animals die before, never a horse. And I don't care what anyone says, it's different. I guess it's because they live so much longer and remain in your life so much longer. I had him for 16 years. That's more than half my life. And while I knew he (and Bubba, too) were getting old, I guess I never wanted to think that one day, they might be gone.

So, yeah. I'm not ok. And I probably won't be for a very long time. And this on top of the fact that my father fell at work a few weeks ago and broke his wrist/arm in three places (and narrowly avoided having to have surgery)...well, it's just a lot to deal with. (And also knowing that Bubba, too, just turned 25, so I'll end up going through this again in the next few years. Fuck.)

It just doesn't seem right that the next time I go down there, there will only be four horses in the herd instead of five....

God, I miss my baby boy. This is so much rougher than it has any right to be.

Rest in peace, Fergie-man. You've earned it, my precious baby boy. You've earned it.

Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Writers....

....'Cause they never leave home, and they're always alone, even with someone they love.

It occurred to me that I haven't written anything here in a while, so I figured I probably should. Not that there's a whole lot to say, but eh.

I managed to push my way through yet another year of the winter depression bullshit. It lifted a little while back (but I'm not exactly sure when because my memory is atrocious). Spring officially begins today, and y'all have no idea how happy I am about it.

It was a long winter.

Oh, and I coughed my brains out from that cold I had at Christmas until, like, the end of February. That was lovely.

So how am I coming along with the handful of goals I had for the year?

Well, I finished the entirety of the DuoLingo Spanish course tonight. Yeah, like, the whole thing. I've been working on it for several months, so it was nice to finally finish it. I'll review a little every day, of course, because if I don't, I'm going to forget. Oh, and I started doing the "English for Spanish speakers" course a little while back, too, and I'm about three-quarters of the way finished with it. Yes, I realize I'm an English speaker, but the reverse course teaches some things that the "Spanish for English speakers" course doesn't, and that's what they recommend you do if you're serious about it.

In addition to my progress in Spanish, I'm about a quarter of the way through the Dutch course. That doesn't sound too impressive, I know, but I started with literally zero knowledge of Dutch. At least with Spanish, I was able to test out of about a third of it. I had to start from the very, very beginning with Dutch. I like it, though. It's kind of batshit, but I like it.

Also, now that English-to-Spanish is done (and Spanish-to-English is mostly done), I think I'll add a new course at some point. Probably not until I get farther along in Dutch and finish Spanish-to-English, though. They've currently got a "Russian for English speakers" in the works, and it's supposed to be ready in...August, I think it is? Anyway, I've always wanted to learn Russian because I have this really bizarre fascination with Soviet and Russian history and culture. (So much so that FangBunny periodically threatens to get me a Russian mail-order husband. Or husbands, actually. Plural, because she knows me well.) And I suppose I'm a glutton for punishment because that shit's supposed to be hard. But you know what? I kinda like challenges. So, yeah, I'm hoping to pick that up when it becomes available (and I should be finished with Spanish-to-English) by then, too. (And after that, I have no idea. I haven't thought that far ahead yet. And who knows? I may be bored with by then, anyway.)

Also-also, I'm on a 70-day streak on DuoLingo now. So yay?

So that's how it goes on the language-learning front. How goes it on the writing front, you ask?

Well...there's a reason I've been talking about language-learning for the past ten minutes: I've actually made progress there. *Eyeroll*

Actually, I've kinda decided to put writing on hold for a little while (with the exception of a project FangBunny and I are trying to get off the ground) to get my work shit together a little better. I let all my websites go about a year or so because I couldn't afford to keep them all running anymore, and they weren't making me any money, anyhow. I have two new ones now--one of which just launched this week--and I'm trying to start taking this shit seriously again. Luckily, this is the time of year that people are a bit freer with their money than they normally would be, so it's a good time to try to do it. It'll slow down around June or so and then slow way down in August. Maybe by then, most of the things will be running on their own (and I will be making a reasonable amount of money again), and I can write.

I mean, probably not, but maybe.

As far as mental stuff goes...I'm ok. Spring is a good time of year for me. The biggest problem I've got at the moment is a completely fucked up sleep schedule (hence me writing this blog post at 4:30 in the morning).

Um, let's see. What else?

Oh, yeah, pretty sure I'm going mostly vegetarian. There are multiple reasons for this, but the biggest ones are that meat is fucking expensive, and I don't like most of it, anyway. I've never liked *much* of it, but the older I get, the less of a taste I have for it. (Meds probably have something to do with this as well.) So why waste what little funds I have on something I don't care for that much, anyhow?

Well, that's pretty much all I can think of now. I will end by saying the same thing in three languages and wowing everybody with my fantastic (haha) language skills.

"Hi, I'm Bunny. I speak English, some Spanish, and a little Dutch. I also can't sleep, and that's why I'm writing this."

"Hola, me llamo Bunny. Hablo inglés, un poco de español, y un poquito de Neerlandés. Tambien no puedo dormir, y eso es por que estoy escrito esto."

"Hoi, mijn naam is Bunny. Ik spreek Engels, sommige Spaans, en een beetje Nederlands. Ik kan ook niet slapen, en dat is de reden waarom ik ben aan het schrijven dit."

Dazzled yet? You totally should be.

Something, Something, Slings & Arrows, Something About Fortune...Whatever

I've been mostly useless for...weeks now, I think it is.

I caught a cold right before Christmas and spent the whole time from Christmas Eve 'til nearly New Year's Eve feeling like death. At its worst--which, I think, was the day after Christmas--I wasn't able to sit up for longer than about an hour at a time...and nearly passed out more than once because if you're going to be ill, why do it in half-measures? (*Sigh*)

As an aside, this is why I hate hearing people complain about their "weak immune systems" and how very sick this always makes them. The cold virus doesn't actually cause any tissue damage, so any symptoms you have are just immuno-responses. And as I'm multiple autoimmune disorders on legs, my symptoms--of anything, not just colds--are disproportionately bad in comparison to whatever bug I've got. So while the people who whine about their "weak immune systems" sneeze and sniffle a little and manage to go on about their daily lives, I'm laid up in bed like I'm dying. (And, yes, it was definitely just a cold or something mild like that, not the flu. The flu hits me even harder than that. Ugh. I don't even want to think about it.) So kindly don't ever mention your delicate constitution around me unless you want me to shove my foot right up your poor, delicate little ass.

*Eyeroll*

Oh, well, it was still a better Christmas, illness-wise, than last year. Last year, my daddy and I had to take my mother to the emergency room in the middle of the night the day after Christmas because she'd gotten some godawful stomach virus from my aunt and was so sick that she was getting worryingly delirious. (Somehow, miracle of miracles, I managed to not get that particular illness, for which I will be eternally grateful.)

Even now, though, post-cold, I'm still coughing and have that weird warped-sounding voice you get after you've been sick, along with a still slightly-stuffy head. It's not enough to really impair me, just enough to annoy me and make me feel like I'll never get enough to drink.

Still, though, even as the great respiratory virus of 2014 moves on (thank God), I'm left with a sort of bone-deep exhaustion that's not readily explained away. Well, not readily explained away if you're not batshit crazy, I should say. It's the kind of tired that can only come from my illness. The first symptom is the feeling of moving through molasses (and the second is apparently the use of needlessly poetic language of the "terrible" variety).

In addition to feeling like I'm trying to move with cement blocks chained to my limbs (and talking like I've stepped right out of some third-rate Shakespearean rip-off), I've got that "looking (and thinking) through a haze of cotton candy and Quaaludes" feeling, too. Oh, and I'm losing time, too. I have no idea how it got to be 11:10 at night.

All in all, I've been pretty unproductive. What I really want to do is sleep for about a hundred years, but I also know that won't help. (But, lord, is it tempting.) What I really *need* to be doing is sleeping considerably less because that would probably make it better. But curling up in bed has pretty much always been a favored activity for me when things get too loud in my head to deal with, and sleep, when it'll come, has always been a refuge that I'm loath to give up.

See? Bad Shakespearean rip-off. I can't even do iambic pentameter.

I'm going to have to do it, though, or the world will be at risk for once again being subjected to my crimes against the English language.

Nonetheless, I'm going to bed. Maybe falling asleep early (for me) will lead to getting up early (for me). Or something.

The Year In Review & All That

I suppose it's time for the obligatory "year in review" post, hmm?

About the only thing I can say for 2014 is that it hasn't sucked quite as bad as 2013. Anything beyond that would probably be too generous.

I spent roughly half the year--from March until probably September--in what was, in retrospect, a really severe depression that took a turn toward suicidal ideation there at the end. I fought it for six months, and all it took was a doctor's visit and a med adjustment (and a few weeks afterward for everything in my head to settle down) to fix it. Hopefully I'll remember that the next time this happens and not screw around so long before I seek professional assistance.

Hopefully.

The only real thing I wanted to do at the beginning of the year was to write. And I did. Not nearly as much as I wanted, of course. But I think I've probably written more, quantity-wise, this year than I ever have, despite the bullshit depressive episode that took up half of the year. (I've currently got a stack of poems that need editing, several short stories, and roughly one-third of a novel.)

Yes, I would've liked to have written more. (I posted some on my writing blog, but the majority of it has never seen the light of day beyond my computer, except perhaps the few I sent to FangBunny.) But even with what little I've done, I can tell that it's getting better. My prose is tighter. My narrative style is crisper. And despite the fact that something in my subconscious must think I'm Faulkner, given the length of the sentences that I tend to write, I'm getting better about not wandering around the point so much. My narration is less ADD now, I suppose you could say.

Still, my writing's not anywhere near good, mind you. It's just...less shitty than it was. So...progress?

The only other thing I've really managed to make much progress with is improving my Spanish. It's also not anywhere near good yet, but it, too, is less shitty. (Bless you, Duolingo and YouTube videos.)

So there's my year in review in a handful of paragraphs.

What am I expecting for 2015? Nothing in particular, really. I learned my lesson in 2013 about being like "ZOMG, THIS IS GONNA BE MY YEAR!!!!" or whatever, so I won't be doing *that* again. Instead, I'm just hoping to do some more writing--maybe get a good bit more done on the aforementioned novel--and brush up some more on my (not so great) Spanish. Oh, and I think I'm going to pick up Dutch, too, because fuck it. It's not like I have anything else to do with my life. (Bless you, Duolingo.)

So those are my plans. We'll see how well they work out, I suppose.

Adios, 2014.

If You're Wondering Where My Head Is Now, Pt. 2

I saw this on Tumblr and reblogged it there, but I know it'll get lost in the flood of shit I reblog there every day, so I'm putting it here, too.

He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.

~Jean-Luc Godard

I have my pen--or, more accurately, my keyboard--and I've jumped.

Y'all motherfuckers can just stand and watch.

But me? I owe nobody anything.

If You're Wondering Where My Head Is Now

This is my current desktop background. Click to enlarge if the words are too small to read.

I leave it without further comment.

The Laundry List Of Bullshit

I'm back to not being able to write--again.

I know, right? Surprise, sur-fucking-prise.

FangBunny says I have a mental block. She's probably right. She's always right about everything else, so I suspect she knows what she's talking about this time, too.

She suggested that I try to think--to really think--about what's holding me back. My knee-jerk response is always "laziness," but she said she'd stab me if I said that again, so in the interest of keeping all my blood on the inside where it belongs, I'm going to try to puzzle through it here. In theory.

(I'm aware that every bit of this is the very definition of First World Problems, and for that, I apologize.)

First problem is that, once again, I'm having to ration meds and will rapidly be out completely. That turns me into a bigger mess than I already am. I don't know when I'll be able to get refills, but I hope it'll be soon.

That, at least, is easily remedied--or it would be if I weren't broke. So we'll set that one aside for now.

The rest of it is just a big fucking quagmire where each part of it feeds into the rest until it becomes practically insurmountable.

If I were the main character in some sort of classical or Shakespearean tragedy, where the lead character's downfall is because of some flaw within him/herself, then mine would be my complete inability to follow through on anything. Macbeth's was his ambition, Hamlet's was his indecisiveness, Julius Caesar's was either his own hubris or his terrible taste in friends, depending on how you want to look at it. Mine is paralysis in the face of...well, anything. If it can't be finished in a single fit of passion, it's not going to be finished--at least not by me.

I'm pretty sure there are multiple reasons for this. The truth is, when I was younger, I never really had to try. (Yes, I realize that's not going to get me much sympathy, but it's the truth.) For the most part, I was able to half-ass my way through everything because I was surrounded by people so stupid that I looked fucking brilliant in comparison, even when I didn't really even try.

But even that's not the whole of it. When I was very, very young, I tried hard. At everything. Even if I was bad at it. I remember hours upon hours of practicing softball in my parents' backyard because I was shit at it when I first started playing. (To this day, if you run your hand up my lower legs, you can still feel all the knots in the bones from where I got nailed in the shins a million times.) I'd say I wonder where that sort of determination and ambition went, but I don't. I already know.

Again, I know some of this is not exactly going to win me any friends here. But that's not the point, is it?

At some point--probably around the age of 15--I flat stopped fucking giving a shit. Why? Several reasons, really. Some of this probably won't seem like it has anything to do with anything, but I think it does...eventually.

All my life (up until that point), I was never really allowed any autonomy. I was almost never let out of my mother's sight, and even when I was, there were always people around spying. I couldn't have friends. The only times I really got out of the house were to go to school and to be dragged various places by my mother. I was a good child. I made good grades. I never caused trouble. I didn't drink or smoke or do drugs or any of that shit (partly because I was never anywhere beyond prying eyes and partly because I'd been bullied and terrorized into fucking submission before I was even old enough to start school). I never gave her any reason not to trust me, but it didn't matter. My phone conversations were eavesdropped upon. (I don't mean she listened outside my door. I mean she would go into another room and pick up the phone and listen to all of it.) My shit was regularly ransacked, in search of some evidence of what a horrible person I supposedly was, under the guise of "cleaning." If I liked a boy and he happened to express interest in me, something I would never find out about would happen behind my back, and he'd inexplicably stop speaking to me. (This happened on more than one occasion.)

This isn't me just talking shit. I had no idea what was going on until my granny took pity on me and told me when I was 15 or so. I was treated like a prisoner, and I'd never done anything whatsoever to justify it. Even now, at my age, I still have violent knee-jerk reactions to people looking at my stuff without my permission. It's not that I have anything to hide. It's just--touch my shit, and I will cut your fucking nand off. It's not yours; don't touch it.

It's the principle of the thing.

So, naturally, I made very few decisions myself. In addition to living with the equivalent of the CIA, I was also driven hard for years and years and years. No matter what I did, it wasn't good enough. I was terrorized, bullied, back-stabbed, and gaslighted until I couldn't even trust my own perceptions anymore. I was either yelled at or given the silent treatment for weeks on end over nothing. What was ok yesterday was completely unacceptable today. It was mostly my mother, but my father knew what was happening, and he did nothing to stop it. It was easier on him to just sit back and keep his mouth shut, so I was the one who suffered for it. That's one reason I have a hard time summoning up any sympathy when he complains to me about how terribly she treats him now. Not so much fun when you're the one on the receiving end, is it?

Anyway, I was pushed so hard for so long that it just broke me. Between having to watch my back constantly, having everything I did belittled, and struggling with the yelling and/or the silent treatment bullshit, I couldn't do it. I was fantasizing about suicide by the time I was 12 years old. It might not have affected most people as deeply as it did me. Surely, a tougher kid wouldn't have been so petrified by it. But I was a sensitive child, and it didn't take much to destroy me, I guess.

I had no agency of my own. I lived my whole life backed against a wall. And because I was not a stupid child, I eventually realized that if it was going to be hell, regardless of what I did, it'd be a hell of a lot easier on me if I just didn't bother. If you're going to be terrorized whether you do something or not, why waste your time doing it if your actions will have absolutely zero effect on the outcome? Fuck it, I'll just lay in bed and read.

(As an aside, I once came into the possession of a "how to torture prisoners and suspected terrorists" guide--don't ask how--and I realized that about 90% of the shit that was being recommended in that particular guide was shit I had lived through until I fucking left my parents' house. Hell, who am I kidding, I still go through some of it now. Is it any wonder that my particular form of psychosis tends toward paranoia when my illness gets out of my control?)

So I learned not to trust anyone, not to ever give anyone any kind of ammunition that could be used against you, how to lie and manipulate my way through the worst situations (Truth: I'm actually a terrible straight-up liar, but I'm really goddamn good at the "I have no idea what you're talking about" or "No, I haven't heard anything, but if I do, you'll be the first one to know" bluffs.). But worst of all, I learned that nearly everything was out of my control, and if I was going to be treated like I had failed no matter what I did, it was just easier and less painful to duck out of responsibility altogether. At least if you get yelled at/hit/silent treatment-ed for not doing something, you sorta deserve it, whereas if you did your best, you didn't really. Negative reinforcement at its finest.

It just so happened that I was smart enough that when I stopped giving a shit in school, I still managed to coast my way through with no problems. I coasted through high school, coasted through college, and half-assed my way through grad school until I lost my mind and couldn't do it anymore.

I'm a classic case of external locus of control and learned helplessness. I know this, but I'll be damned if I know how to fix it.

In addition to that whole crock of shit--or perhaps because of it--I'm also terrified of failure. Again, it's better to not fucking bother than to do it badly, at least in my world. So people think I'm lazy (and maybe I am). I'm not nearly as good at writing as I'd like to be, and while I understand intellectually that the only way to fix that is to keep writing, something inside screams every time I try and fail.

I have only ever wanted to write, but I tie myself up in knots and make myself sick even thinking about it most of the time, much less actually trying to do it. So I don't. Textbook escape behavior.

Another thing is that, at some point when I got older, I realized that one of the only ways I could have any control in my life was through what I suppose is some kind of weird innate sensuality. I didn't know what it was at first; it was something that came naturally. Then, I learned how to harness it and use it to my advantage, and I did it so much that it became second nature. So it went full circle, I guess, and I have no idea how to turn it off.

It was nice at first, knowing that I could make men make absolute fools of themselves for me. For someone who's never had any agency at all, that kind of power is heady. And it probably would've been ok if I had the ability to say "no." But I didn't. It was bullied out of me before I was even old enough to walk. I got myself into shitty situations that were entirely my own making, and then one day, I woke up and realized that all the "power" I thought I possessed was false. I wasn't a strong woman who could hold her own. I was a whore, and all that I had the power to do was make men's dicks hard, and nobody gave a fuck about me beyond that.

I'm educated, well-read, reasonably intelligent, and quite funny if I do say so myself. I can converse intelligently about a number of things--books, poetry, history, economics, comic books, world religion, horses, the sea, psychology, the Interwebs (and that's just off the top of my head). I love trying new things, and I don't mind making an ass of myself as long as I'm having fun in the process. But ultimately, none of that matters because somewhere along the line, I turned into nothing more than a life support system for a pair of tits.

And then work just reinforces that feeling.

I suppose it's stupid to want praise at all, but pretty much the only things I've written that I've ever been praised for were sex things. I'm a slut, and I'm not taken seriously in any aspect of my life, my writing life included. At some point, I earned the label, and it feels like it's all I'll ever be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not whining that I'm not the type you take home to mama. I don't want to meet your mama. I just want to be taken seriously. That's all.

There's a reason I only ever wear jeans and t-shirts (or sweaters when it's cold) and glasses with my hair up and no makeup when I go places, and it's only partly laziness. I know what kind of attention I draw when I do otherwise, and I don't want it anymore. There's a giant flashing sign over my head that says "HO!" that everyone but me can see, and people treat me accordingly.

I'm tired of it. I want to be good at something other than sex and/or giving sex advice or playing therapist for other people. I want to write something that people will love as much as my porn is apparently loved. *Eyeroll* I want to be something other than a fucking blow-up doll for other people to project their fantasies onto.

But I'm not. I'm just...not. And I'm reminded of it every time I sit down to put pen to paper.

And finally, nearly everything I've ever wanted in my life have been things that are bad for me. (Apparently I was born with a death wish.) Sometimes I have to wonder if this stupid dream of writing isn't just another one of those things that I want that'll ultimately destroy me. It'd be just like me.

Do I want this because I really want it, or do I want it because some part of me thinks of it as vindication and validation? I make jokes about wanting to be rich and famous and party with (and fuck) other rich and famous people, but I think that if I ever wrote something that was published (and I was paid for it), I'd be ok with nobody ever knowing I'd done it. I think.

*Sigh* This is all I've ever wanted, but I'm terrible at it. I'm also facing a mountain of issues that looks insurmountable from here. I need a fucking therapist, and I need job that doesn't chip away a little more of my soul every day I live. But I feel like I'm trapped, and I have no idea how to fix anything.

I just...I wish I could write. I desperately wish I could. But it makes me feel ill to even think about it for the most part. And I guess I feel like, if I don't do it, I can always tell myself that there's hope for the future. But if I try and fail, I'll know that I can't do it, and then there's no hope for anything. Everything I touch turns to shit, and I don't want this to do it, too.

I have no clever ending to this disjointed rambling. I just wanted to get it out 'cause FangBunny thought it might help. So...here it is, I guess.

FML, it's 4:30 in the morning. I'm going to go lay in bed and hate myself some more until I can't hold my eyes open any longer.

Brief Observations

It took about a week on the new meds for me to feel even somewhat normal again. This is what I get for letting it get so bad, I suppose.

The "sleeping pills" don't work worth a shit. I'm going to have to call the doctor's office and ask for something else.

I'm better, but I've also been better--much better--than this. Sleep is still an iffy thing. I rarely eat more than one meal and one snack per day. Nothing sounds good. I'm at least getting my work done, though, so there's that.

I did some work on my writing blog in hopes of guilting myself into writing more often. We'll see how that goes.

I walked two miles today at the park. Hope to continue doing that, too. I don't give a shit about losing weight, not really. I just hope the exercise improves my mood. If I lose weight in the process, fine. If not, that's fine, too.

Lamest update ever, but I'm too tired to really care.

Chronicles Of The Crazy Person

This is a weird thing for me to say, but it's been a pretty bad summer.

I've been depressed since at least May. I didn't realize how bad it was, though, until I quit my job last month. (Long story short: Fucking boss went off the deep end, accused me of doing some shit I didn't do, and cussed me like I was a dog in the process. I don't know if she was off her meds or what, but I live with one crazy person--me--and the last fucking thing I needed in my life was another one to deal with, so I bounced. Which set off another round of cursing and nasty emails that I ultimately ignored because fuck her--ain't nobody got time for that.)

She said some pretty horrible shit to me, TBH. Normally, I would probably say something about "crazy, jealous bitches" and let it roll off like it wasn't a thing, but, like I said, I've not been in the best shape for months. It didn't help that all the awful shit she said to me is the same awful shit the demons that live in my head say to me, too. Intellectually, I know she said it because she knew it would get to me, but knowing something intellectually doesn't mean it won't still affect you emotionally.

On top of that, I've had a couple of "friends" do some pretty shitty things to me lately, too. I don't feel like getting into the specifics of it all because what's the point? But I'm right fucking tired of being used as a therapist/free place to stay/fallback when people have nothing better to do by nearly everybody in the goddamned world.

I realized I was getting dangerously depressed when I realized that I didn't even want to eat anymore. For a fat bitch, that's always indicative of a problem. Combine that with my complete inability to read or write more than the absolute barest minimum required for life, and I knew it was bad. Then Robin Williams killed himself, and it was kind of a "There but for the grace of...something...go I" moment, and I knew it was time to do something.

So I talked to my friend Wazoo (B. in Huntsville, who I decided needed a name for me to use here that's not just his fucking initial, and since I call him that half the time, anyway, we'll go with it) last Sunday night and came to the conclusion that I was going to swallow every last bit of pride I had and ask my mother to take me to the doctor.

Surprisingly enough, she was not a total asshole about it.

So she came and got me last Tuesday after she got off work because I was too broke to even buy gas to drive down myself. She only works half a day on Wednesday, so after she got off, she wanted to go get a pedicure and then ride dirt roads in her Jeep with the top out (because that's something she fucking does--don't ask). I tagged along because she likes company when she does it. And now I have a pedicure. Like, a professional one. It's only the third one I've ever had in my life. Thursday, I went to the doctor, where I got a refill on my Lamictal (I was out), my Wellbutrin raised to the maximum dose that they're allowed to give people, and a prescription for trazodone because my doctor's not writing prescriptions for Ambien anymore, alas. She recommended the trazodone because it's an old-school antidepressant that has the added effect of making you sleepy. So antidepressant plus sleep aid in one, basically. For those of you keeping score at home, I'm now on the max dose of Lamictal that my doctor will prescribe, the max dose of Wellbutrin that's safe for human consumption, and now another antidepressant as well. *Sigh*

Friday, I pretty much just fucked off until my mother got off work; then, we went and got haircuts. I now have a wonderful cut that, while a tiny bit shorter than I would've liked for it to have been, is still pretty much exactly what I wanted. Saturday, my mother wanted to go Jeep-riding again, and she offered to take me to Flat Rock because I'd said Wednesday that I would like to go. It's the only lake in the entire world that I'm not completely disgusted by because, as the name suggests, the entire "beach" and bottom of the lake is granite and therefore not muddy and vile to me. Barring some amazing and miraculous circumstance, that's probably as close as I'm going to get to going to the beach this year, so I took her up on it. I didn't swim or anything; we probably only stayed about 10 or 15 minutes. Long enough for me to wade out ankle-deep and most of the tension in me to ease, I guess. (Water does that for me, and the bigger the body of water, the better it works.) I also took this picture while I was there.

We rode around most of the afternoon, and then when we got back, Daddy came in. All three of us ended up going to the top of a mountain in Clay County that night in the Jeep again to look for meteors. (And that is, hands down, the best fucking place I've ever found to stargaze. I will be going back.)

Apparently, they, too, realized I was in trouble because they didn't give me any shit and actually humored me for the most part. So yeah. It must've been pretty bad.

Yesterday, Mother brought me back, and I did my work and shit. I took the trazodone for the first time last night. I only took half of one because I was afraid I wouldn't wake up until next Tuesday otherwise. But...it didn't really do anything. So tonight I'm going to take a whole one. If that doesn't work, I'll take two tomorrow night because the doctor said I could take either one or two. If that doesn't work, I'll probably call down there and sob on the phone until someone writes me a prescription for something else.

Today, I went to Walmart, bought groceries and hair dye, and worked. I dyed my hair earlier and am waiting for it to dry before I take that trazodone so I can touch it up before bed in case I missed some spots. I stepped up my game a notch and went for "Natural Blue-Black" this time instead of the usual "Natural Black" because fuck you, that's why.

Once all the dye that I smeared all over myself in the process of dyeing my hair (because I'm a fucking spaz) wears off in a few days, I'm probably going to take some new pics of myself. Not because I feel particularly pic-worthy at the moment, but because of the new haircut. Its perfection must be documented for posterity because I now have 100% bitch hair.

Unfortunately, though, the step up in my Wellbutrin dosage hasn't seemed to have any effect yet. I hope that changes soon. Usually, I can tell a difference in just a day, but...maybe it's because it hasn't been this bad in a long time, so it'll take a little longer to get better? And maybe the trazodone will help, too, after a little while? I think it takes it awhile to, like, build up in your system to be effective or something. Fuck, I don't know. I just desperately need to believe that it'll all get better soon because the alternative is...ugh.

I have to go back to my phone work tomorrow. Not thrilled about that, but I'm even less thrilled about having my lights turned off, sooooo...yeah. Back to work.

I also intend to reorganize my writing blog in the next couple of days and start using it as a dump for things other than my terrible poetry. Short fiction, my own thoughts on writing, and perhaps some discussion of other people's poems or something. Pretty much anything to guilt myself into writing again, since I haven't updated that stupid blog since March. I've done a few things that I haven't posted anywhere, but not a whole lot. FangBunny has overhauled her writing blog and is doing weekly prompts, book reviews, and such, so I'm going to try to overhaul mine, post stuff more often, and maybe even try to write something for her prompts. Maybe.

If it'll ever stop raining, I'm also going to start walking at night again. Exercise is supposed to be good for depression, right?

*Sigh* It's gotta get better. It's just fucking got to.

Brittle, Bitter, & Battle-Hardened

I have come to the conclusion (again) that whether I like it or not, I desperately need therapy.

Medication has helped. A lot, actually. But the truth is, I think it's gone about as far as it can go on its own.

I am broken in a number of ways, and I don't think that type of shit heals itself. It's like when I broke my hand falling off a horse (naturally) the summer before my freshman year in college. I shattered the bone in front of the knuckle of the little finger on my left hand. Not only did the break go all the way through, but there was also a piece of bone that splintered off from the rest and settled away from the joint. It wasn't treated properly because the doctor I had was an incompetent piece of shit--imagine that--and so even though the break healed, the hand still doesn't work the way it's supposed to. I can't straighten that finger out all the way (eleven years later), and I'm relatively sure that arthritis has set in now because it bothers me a lot more than it used to nowadays.

But, again, it's been eleven years. The only thing anyone could do now would be to do surgery to go back in, re-break the fucking thing, pin it back together, and wait for it to heal. Even if I had insurance to pay for that, it wouldn't be worth the trouble.

I think this thing inside me is the same way. The bone--so to speak--has knitted itself back together, and there's no longer an acute, oh-god-this-is-a-fucking-emergency kind of pain. But it didn't heal the way it should've, and it doesn't work the way it's supposed to. It still hurts, but it's a dull, chronic ache rather than a stabbing pain.

Or something like that.

I have long been open to the possibility that there's something else wrong with me besides the bipolar. I don't doubt for a moment that I am--or have, depending on how you wanna word it--bipolar. "Bipolar I with psychotic features" is a diagnosis that fits all too well for me to argue about it. But it's hardly unusual for mental illnesses to come in groups. In fact, it's more unusual for someone to have only one, I think. Certainly, there are things about me that can't be explained away by the bipolar.

I'm angry. I, like the Hulk, am always angry. The difference between now, when I'm decently medicated, and then, when I was at my sickest, is that it's not as intense. If anger is a fire, it was always burning when I was at my maddest. All it took was the slightest gust of wind to stir it, make it flare up, and burn everybody in shooting distance. I used to terrify people with my fury. I know, because they told me so.

Now it's more like a smoldering ember, hidden under the burnt-out ashes of the conflagrations that came before. It's there. It burns hot. But a gust of wind is no longer enough to stir it up. There are too many ashes laying atop it for wind to have much of an effect. You have to throw gas on it to get it to flare now. But it's always there, nonetheless.

It manifests itself mostly as bitterness now. Cynicism and bitterness--the last refuge of the disillusioned.

Sure, most people will never notice. I'm charming now--charismatic, even, when I want to be. (That I rarely want to be is beside the point.) Eventually, when enough shit happens to you, you lose the ability to give a fuck what people think about you and then just say and do whatever you want. If you're interesting/intelligent/quirky enough, people find it charming. Works for me.

But I know--and I suspect my closest friends know--that it's not a confidence borne of something healthy. It's fatalistic. Nothing ever changes, so what does it matter? Why throw up false pretenses anymore? It's not as though it'll change anything, not as though the end will be anything other than what it's going to be, anyhow, not as though my life will ever be anything other than a massive shitstorm. So fuck it.

I think that's the motto of my life now: Fuck it.

I'm old and weary and brittle and bitter and battle-hardened, and nothing matters anymore.

And still I push on, some inner stubbornness or spitefulness or hyper-developed sense of self-preservation spurring me on to whatever other shitty surprises life has in store for me.

I have long feared that I'm cursed with the personality disorder that strikes fear into the hearts of clinicians everywhere: borderline personality disorder. I can usually reason myself out of the belief if I try hard enough. I am exceptional at lying to myself, after all. I can create an entirely new reality in my head if I have to, if the "real" one is too much for me to face...and don't think I haven't made use of it on more than one occasion.

But I'm currently reading something online--something that's too embarrassing to admit to out loud, so we're going to skim right over that part. There's a character in it who's as mad as a hatter, who has borderline. It's absolutely fucking scary how familiar the behavior is, how perfectly the mindset matches up, how the beliefs and rationalizations are the same fucking things I tell myself--have told myself--for years and years and years.

Admittedly, I don't exhibit some of the more dramatic symptoms. I never was a cutter, for instance. (Why hurt yourself when you can find someone else to do it--and do it even better--for you, I always thought.) And a lot of the overblown bullshit is tamped down by a combination of my meds and my own fear of the monster that lives in my head. I guess I'm what happens when someone who's that sick starts burning out.

I'm not going to be that asshole who self-diagnoses and then runs around using it as an excuse to do...whatever. I suspect that's another one of the things that's wrong with me, yes. It would explain SO much. But I'm not particularly eager to claim the label, for one, and for another, I would rather let a professional diagnose it. I've never been known for my sound judgment, after all.

But still...a lot of the stuff--including the anger--fits.

So that brings us back to "Bunny needs a therapist." Which brings us back to the same thing we always come back to. In order to go to a therapist, Bunny needs money. In order to have money, Bunny needs to work. In order to be able to work without being a train wreck, Bunny needs a therapist.

So, yeah...seems like fatalism is really the only path one can take when faced with that particular set of circumstances.

Eh...fuck it. Not like it really matters, anyway, I guess. Eventually, the whole world will burn, anyway, with or without my help.

*Sigh*

Fuck it.

The Difference

I'm back on meds...again.

Wednesday is my one day off work, so I took some of the money I got paid for some blog work I did and went to my parents' house Tuesday night after I got off. I tried to go to the doctor on Wednesday because I need some new prescriptions, but that ended up being a clusterfuck, so I'm going to try again in a couple of weeks, I hope. I've been without Ambien for way too long, and my sleep just does whatever it wants.

But I had, like, nine refills on my Wellbutrin and one more on my Lamictal, so I took my ass to the pharmacy--where I used to work in the freaking soda fountain when I was 18--and got my refills.

I still struggle with my illness, even on meds, but sometimes all it takes is having to go off your meds for awhile to see how far you've come.

I'd been off for nearly a month, and I hated everyone and everything, and I desperately wanted to watch the world burn. I was angry--God, so angry. That was the depression. It came first, bringing the anger, the lack of motivation, the tears, the despair, the effed up sleep patterns, the leaden paralysis as it's called, the inability to get out of bed, the serious suicidal thoughts. (Re: suicidal thoughts: After Wednesday's failed doctor visit, I was extremely upset because I really do need to see the doctor quite badly. In order to get from my parents' house to the doctor, one has to cross a bridge over a river. I was so fucked up and desperate and hopeless on my way back that I came within a gnat's ass of stopping and jumping off the bridge. NB, I am rather afraid of bridges, so I was clearly out of my goddamned mind at that point in time. The only thing that stopped me was not an overwhelming will to live or fear of what my death would do to the people I left behind. It was only the fear that the bridge was not high enough for me to die when I hit the shallow water beneath it, and I thought a life as a quadriplegic would be worse than life as a crazy person. I'm sharing that because I can never tell anyone, couldn't stand for anyone to know how weak I am, and my secret is safe here.) But I'd run out of Wellbutrin first, so it only made sense that that was what would come first.

When I ran out of Lamictal, I didn't notice much of a change...at first. Then, my sleep got more and more erratic, and by the end, the paranoia was creeping back in.

Even my mother noticed how bad off I was, which is saying something, considering how she tries to make out like it's all in my head.

As soon as I got the bottles from the pharmacy, I ripped the bag open and popped one of each. I'd only slept about 3 hours the night before, so I can't say that I noticed a huge change because I was too tired to feel anything but exhausted. But I came back home Wednesday night and slept for about 12 hours. After another dose of medicine in the morning, I felt better. Not back to normal, not yet able to ready be productive, but no longer actively wanting to kill myself or someone else.

Finally, today, it clicked. I caught up on everything I was behind on, even after a miserable 24-hour shift (ugh). I cooked (miracle of miracles), cleaned my kitchen, did dishes, washed all my bedclothes and replaced them, and wrote ten client blogs. (Now I'm writing this and am about to go to bed and read until I fall asleep.) I'm sure tomorrow won't be even half as productive, but I don't care. I'm more than caught up now. I'm slightly ahead. :)

I can see colors again. I am no longer demanding to bathe in the blood of everyone who vaguely annoys me. And, yes, I may be mildly manic--and almost surely am--but I've gotten so behind on everything for lack of motivation that I'm just going to ride it for the handful of days that it'll last before the Lamictal catches up with it and knocks it back down.

But it does bring up an interesting question: If the difference between "not depressed" and "depressed" is so blatantly different (or the difference between "mixed state" and "no longer actively batshit," your choice), how come no one--my friends, my family, anybody--ever tried to help me during all those years that I struggled so hard?

Oh. Because it never benefited them to do so. Duh.

That's frustrating to accept because my life could've gone so much differently. If someone had had me in the doctor's office at 13 or 14, when it really started becoming noticeable, I sincerely doubt I'd be in the shitty situation I'm in now. If someone had had me in there at 18 or 25, even, it would've stopped the downhill crash, I think.

But, oh, well. What do you do? It's done now, and I'm crawling back out of the hole again. Or trying to, anyway. *Sigh*

On the other hand, it does bring up another interesting point. I wonder if, when I'm feeling really depressed in spite of taking my meds, it's worth going off of them for two or three days or so and then starting them back again. The shock to my brain, the difference between "medicated" and "unmedicated" after I restart my meds when I (involuntarily, I might add) have to go off of them, is so profound that I think it would stop a depressive episode in its tracks. Or at least make it seem better than it was before.

It's not the ideal solution, of course, but it might be something I can try until I can do better.

Next step? A new Ambien prescription and birth control. It's not that I need the birth control for its original intended purpose (broken innards FTW!), but I think something like Nuva-Ring would do wonders for getting rid of the usual premenstrual depression. I mean, if you're not having a period, it's hard to fall into a pit of despair the week before it starts.

Ok, I'm rambling. Bed now.

I Have No Idea What To Title This

My friend L. sent me a text today, wanting to know what I had planned for tomorrow.

Nothing, I replied. (I have to pull a 24-hour shift from 2 pm on Thursday to 2 pm on Friday--more on that bullshit another time--but after Princess Asshole takes the lines back on Friday, I'm free until I have to go back into work on Saturday afternoon.)

Then I asked her why.

She replied that she was hoping to come up and visit and that maybe we could go out tomorrow (Friday) night. I'm broke as shit at the moment--I literally have two cents in the bank until payday--but it's possible to go to a bar and spend zero money, so I said that'd be fine with me.

She waffled back and forth for awhile, claiming that I'd need to sleep and so forth, and I told her that I would sleep while I worked because that's what I always do. There's no way in hell I'm staying awake for 24 hours straight just because Princess wants a day off, after all. Then I told her that I'd love the company, etc., etc.

I still don't know if she's going to come or not. Part of me hopes so because she's my friend, and I miss her, and I miss being able to do shit like normal people do. But another part of me knows I need to be working my ass off tomorrow. But whatever happens, happens, I suppose. I won't be too upset either way.

Before we stopped talking, though, she said something that really fucking bothered me. I don't know if it's because I'm off my meds (not voluntarily--two cents in the bank, remember?) and possibly oversensitive or if it was actually insensitive of her. But it's been bugging me ever since she said it.

It was a couple of things, actually. I said I would DD (partly because I am broke and partly because I don't need to drink, even if I am on a heavily rationed med regimen at the moment because I'm too broke to buy more), and she was more or less lamenting that things couldn't be like the good old days, when I regularly drank grown men under the table, blew through money like the Russians were at the front gates (as my father would say), got completely hammered nearly every time we went out, and did lots of questionable things with lots of questionable strangers to make the screaming in my head stop for a little while.

I'm (almost) certain she didn't mean it the way it sounded. But that doesn't make it any less painful to me. I mean...I'm sorry that my recovery from crazy inconveniences you, but fucking deal with it. I assure you, it sucks a lot more for me than it does for you. At least the not having money to piss away part, anyway. I could live without the alcohol and the random strangers, unless they're tall, beautiful, and European. And rich. Definitely rich.

It's not that I'm opposed to going out or anything. I would love to, if for no other reason than to just get out of the fucking house. It's just the way she said it, like, "Oh, hey, you were WAY more fun when you hemorrhaged alcohol, money, and sex to anyone who'd stand still long enough to grab it."

Yeah. No kidding. Seems like everyone feels that way, given how many people bounced when they realized they weren't getting one or more of those things from me anymore.

And while I know she's not one of those fair-weather friends, not really, it still hurts because it reminds me of how many people were. All the shit I did for quite a few people, the debt I went into, the parts of me that I sacrificed--and where are those assholes now? Gone. It was all well and good to take and take and take from me, to bleed me absolutely dry, but when Bunny needs something, they're nowhere to be found.

Imagine that.

But you know what? Even if it takes me forever to recover financially, and even if I'm always a lot warier about the people I let close to me, I'd still rather it be this way than the old way. Why? Because the screaming's stopped (mostly), and I don't feel like my goddamned head is on fire anymore. Well, not usually, anyway. There are reprieves, at least, let's put it that way.

Peace is worth losing a lot of shitty, toxic "friends" for, y'all. It really is.

Spring

I find it...amusing, I suppose...how some things never change.

This is the beginning of March. Aside from the fact that it was bloody fucking cold Monday, the weather is finally starting to resemble something I can tolerate again. And Daylight Savings Time begins this weekend, too. (I actually don't care that much about the time change, since I don't keep "normal" hours. It's the total length of the daylight hours that matters when it comes to me not being crazy, not the clock.)

Pretty much everything in my life is completely different, both from how it used to be--which is to be expected--and from how I always thought it would be. But still, to this day, when this time of year rolls around, I am filled with this deep, inexplicable need...to go out and play softball.

Yes, I'm aware that it's fucking retarded. Yes, I'm aware that I haven't seriously played in about 12 years and that I haven't even picked up a glove in 4 or 5. But still, every year, without fail, I want to hit the diamond so bad that I can taste it in the back of my throat.

Alas, no matter how badly I want to, I can't. Even if I weren't in the worst shape of my life, even if I weren't too old for such things, I couldn't play. I blew up my shoulder--my fucking throwing shoulder--nearly 9 years ago, falling off a horse. The saddle was loose, the horse went around a curve, the saddle slipped, and I got too overbalanced to stop it. So down I went, and the only thing that kept me from landing on my head and cracking my own skull open was this bizarre sense of self-preservation that I apparently have that made me throw my shoulder out to take the brunt of the fall. I still wonder if that was a mistake....

I wish I had done what I wanted to do and gotten my shoulder repaired while I was still in college. There's a hole in the soft tissue big enough to drive a truck through. (I've seen the MRIs.) The humerus will slide right out of the hole with very little provocation, and suddenly, my whole shoulder is subluxed.

I have not been kind to my body over the years.

So I'll do what every washed-up old has-been does and sit back and think of my glory years when I wasn't an obese crazy person with a body that's falling apart and a mind that goes on the blink regularly.

But even so, even if I can't do what I want to do...spring will be here soon, and it'll all be all right once again, just for a little while.

How Bunny Won The Internet

Step One: Take sleeping pill.

Step Two: Doze.

Step Three: Awaken with two separate ideas for poems.

Step Four: Write them on your tablet.

Step Five: Sleep.

Step Six: Look at what you wrote the next day.

Step Seven: Cringe.

Step Eight: Post the first one on your poetry blog against your better judgment.

Step Nine: Keep the second one hidden, as it contains no capitalization, punctuation, or even coherent thought toward the end.

Step Ten: Confess your sins to your writer friend, FangBunny.

Step Eleven: Hold your breath while she reads your blog to see the bad--but at least properly punctuated--poem you posted.

Step Twelve: Cackle like a madwoman when she says, "It's not awful at all. But god...all the points to you for brooding spectacularly."

Step Thirteen: Post your friend's comment on your OTHER blog for posterity, duh.

Be Careful What You Wish For....

Remember how I was bitching that I had no ideas for writing? Remember how I said the Universe was strangely silent on the matter? Remind my ass to never do that shit again.

A one-off comment to FangBunny earlier today sparked an idea for a short story. I wrote 14 pages of the story--some 5,000 words--and realized, nope, there's no way this is gonna be a "short story" because I wasn't even halfway through it at that point yet. So I was all, "Ok, this is gonna be a novella." Then I wrote another 2,000+ words' worth of notes for it and realized, FML, it's going to have to be a novel to make sure all the threads I've picked up are properly tied up in the end.

So...I have an idea for a novel ON TOP OF the blog/novel thing I'm already working on. Apparently, poetry has been abandoned for the time being while I'm the Universe's bitch again.

My biggest fear is that I'm going to lose interest and not do this thing. I hope not, but I may. I usually end up doing just that. I suppose, though, if the Universe is making me its bitch once more, it's not going to let me give up on it. It'll squeeze me until it wrings the whole fucking story out of me, drop by drop. Part of me hopes it doesn't because that is one PAINFUL ass process, let me tell you. But a bigger part hopes it does because I'm really excited about this. Hopefully, the excitement will last 'til I'm finished. Or at least until I'm far enough along that I can't justify quitting.

I'm also terrified because this is a daunting task that I may or may not be up to, but I'm going to throw everything I've got at it and hope I can handle it.

No, goddammit, I'm going to fucking handle it because I can't handle anything else in my life, and I refuse to fuck THIS up, too. Why? This quote by my idol, Sylvia motherfucking Plath herself, is why:

"What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well-educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age."

New Motto!

Things Got Bad & Things Got Worse, Guess You Know The Tune....

So...I have worked 37 of the last 60 hours, and I am on the overnight again tonight. And possibly tomorrow. I am apparently the only dispatcher who works at this joint now.

*Sigh*

I am bordering on delirium.

Hell, maybe I should try to write.

I'd laugh, but I haven't been having any luck with it otherwise, so it's not like I could do much worse at this point, I suppose.

I did manage another short chapter of my experimental novel thing--the fourth one since I started it last month--so I am clearly making blazing progress there. Last Wednesday, I also wrote an 11-page conversation with Lucifer which I intended to turn into either a short story or a poem, but it's pretty obvious now, looking back over it, that it was written in a sort of feverish haze, so I'm not entirely sure I can do anything with it at all.

It's been so long since I tried to do anything real, anything with meaning, that I don't know that I can still do it. I was never that good to start with, but I've deteriorated over the years. Now I have a brief flash or two of something that's decent, but it's buried underneath mountains of bullshit to the point where I have to wonder if it's worth even attempting to dig it out or not.

Blech.

The Universe is being strangely silent on the matter for now, though, so I'm having to muddle through this alone at the moment. I feel like I'm having to relearn how to do something that I was, perhaps, never that good at to start with, and I hate it.

I've been trying to read more. The 19th century--the Victorians, mainly. They're the ones I love the most. I'm also reading a Kindle book that my dear friend L. sent me for Valentine's Day. (I sent her back the first book of the Grisha trilogy on Kindle as her Valentine's Day gift because I desperately want to addict other people to this freaking series, too.) I was doing well with the reading, too, until I started running out of meds. I've been rationing again because I don't know when I'll be able to get more because I'm broke as per usual, and I'll be goddamned if I'm asking my mother to get them for me again, given how much bullshit I have to take from her every time she does.

I have 3 Wellbutrin left in the bottle. I haven't had one in 2 days. Still plenty of Lamictal, thank God, but it's the Wellbutrin that I, arguably, need the most. I rarely get very manic nowadays. It's either a decent mood or black, black despair. Because, you know, why not?

Blinding headaches. My ADD is off the fucking charts. I can't even read anymore. It's so hard to love the English language like I do--flawed though it may be, though I am, too, so I suppose it's fitting--and not even be able to fucking read.

I talk to FangBunny nearly every night about writing. Well, and other things. Writing. Books. Angst. Our own pretension. Beautiful men. That kind of thing.

Last night, I ended up on the phone with my friend B. in Huntsville for two hours, from like 2 am until 4 am. About a third of the conversation was me being bitter and angsty because I have apparently reverted to my teen years or something. Another third was me drifting in and out of sleep. And the last third was me sending him fucking Tumblr links on Yahoo and listening to his reactions because yay, Internet? But at some point during the "drifting in and out of sleep" portion of the conversation, I said one of the most insightful things I've come up with lately. Ok, well, I didn't say it; I slurred it. I was about three-quarters asleep, after all. "I wish brooding were a sport," I said, "'cuz I'd win, like, everything."

Eloquently phrased? No. A wonderful assessment of the reason for a lot of my problems being because I stay in my own head too much? Yes.

But, alas, all my friends are asleep now, and I'm here listening to CCR and being angry because I can't write. Well, anything other than this shit, that is. *Sigh*

The good news, I suppose, is that L. is coming next week to spend several days. She's going to dye my hair black for me again, since it's been, like, 9 months since it was last dyed. I took some pics with my new webcam for Facebook last week, and it is painfully obvious in those just how two-toned my hair currently is. We may even go to the bar for old time's sake. I won't drink, of course. Well, no more than a daiquiri, or maybe two if they're particularly good that night. She can do the drinking. I'll drive. I don't need to drink, anyhow, and I get no pleasure from it anymore, anyway, (fucking meds), so there's no sense in wasting liquor. Besides, it's not like she hasn't driven my drunk ass around a million times over the years. It's the least I can do.

But until then, I'm stuck here with my own thoughts, and that can be quite dangerous indeed.

Oh, well. Maybe I can actually read tonight? Who the fuck knows anymore?

I Hate Everything, Most Of All Me

Well...that lasted real long. *Eyeroll*

Sometimes, I get going well and start feeling good about myself. You'd think I'd stop doing that after a while, considering that every time I do it, something happens to remind me that I'm a fucking emotional cripple.

I don't even know what caused it this time. I was doing ok, and now I hate everyone--especially me--and everything--especially my writing.

Ok, that's not entirely true. I've been catching shit from my parents (my mother, especially) lately, and I can only let it roll off my back like raindrops for so long until it starts seeping in.

"You're so smart, and you went to school for so long. You could do better if you would."

"You can do anything you want, if you just want to bad enough."

"There's nothing wrong with you. You just think there is." (That got an "And I suppose I convinced the doctor there was something wrong when there isn't, too?" out of me. I should've known better than to say anything, though, because the answer was "Yes, you did.")

"You need to get out and get a job." Because, clearly, all these 14+ hour days I pull do not count as a "job" in her world.

There's a lot more, but it's all along those lines, so there's not much point in rehashing it over and over again.

You know, I don't talk about what's wrong with me to people often. And I pretty much NEVER say anything about it to my parents because that is the exact type of bullshit I get. I'm not asking to be coddled. I'm not asking for pity. But it would be nice to have it fucking acknowledged when I point out that the reason I'm 30 years old and completely and utterly fucked is that I'm having to start my life over completely from scratch because I was sick and blew it all to hell. But, no, it's not that. I'm just lazy, just like I've been accused of being my whole fucking life.

On one hand, I'm glad that people don't get it because it means they've never been there. They've never had to live with a fire burning in their skulls while the reactor melts down, to borrow a metaphor from one of my shitty poems. They've never stared into the abyss and had it stare back. They've never cried out to a God who either wasn't there or didn't fucking care enough to help. They've never hated everyone and everything in the world (but never as much as they hated themselves). They've never had to deal with side effects of pills--thank you, Lamictal, for the vicious acid reflux that makes it impossible for me to even eat or sleep sometimes--or with other people being dismissive of their problems or with the despair that comes with being 30 years old and worse off than you were in college.

But on the other hand, even though I wouldn't wish this shit on anyone, it WOULD be nice if they could spend 10 minutes in my head. I expect they'd STFU then.

Hell, maybe I do use it as an excuse. I don't know. I don't think I do, but I'm not exactly known for my insight into my own behavior/thoughts/emotions/motivations. I just...I've lived without hope. Completely without it. There is nothing in the world worse than that. I don't want to go back to it. It's a wonder I lived through it the first time. Just the thought alone terrifies me. I will do anything and everything to keep from going back to it, and if that means leaning on crutches more than I should, then so be it. And fuck you if you don't like it.

Normal people can cook and clean their houses and take care of themselves and have jobs and pay their bills and have friends and just generally do the daily tasks of life. Hell, even sick people can do it. So why can't I? Am I that broken? Am I that afraid? Or is it some innate character flaw inside of me? Maybe it is. I don't fucking know.

Do normal people live with the specter of their own suicides hanging over their heads all the time? Not their own deaths, mind you. All of us live with that. The thought of dropping dead doesn't really bother me that badly. What terrifies me--what wakes me up in the middle of the night in a cold fucking sweat--is the thought that all hope will abandon me again and I will once more be driven to that place where I can't live with it anymore. Is it normal for people to always have at least 3 easy methods of killing themselves in the backs of their minds all the time, anytime, just in case they can't take it anymore? I suspect not. But maybe it is, though. What the fuck do I know about being normal?

The absolute worst thing of it all, though, is the struggle to write. I want to so badly. There's so much in my head that needs to come out, but I can't do it. I'm overwhelmed by my own words, and none of it comes out even remotely like it needs to, and I just hate myself for it. Everything I write is shit, and I hate it, and I feel like there's some demon or other standing back and laughing at me because I agonize so heavily over something I'm so goddamned bad at.

It's the same old refrain that's been playing in my head my whole life: You're not good enough. You never have been. And no matter what you do, you never will be. You're not good enough.


Well...that was thoroughly uplifting, wasn't it?

Books Are Important, Kids

I am posting this for multiple reasons.

1.) Because it is true. This IS, in fact, the way I like my men.

2.) To make FangBunny have a heart attack next time she happens across my blog. :D

3.) Aaaaand maybe a little so I'll have it here in a place where the feed is much slower than either my FB or my Tumblr so that I can easily find it again when I need to drool over someone. Just a little, though. *Ahem*

He's not even my usual physical type, but fuck, he's hot, and even more importantly, fuck he's brilliant, and he READS. I don't even know what to do with that. For the longest time, I just thought he was a moderately attractive man who was a little too thin for my taste...and then I saw him quoting metaphysical poets on his Twitter account and promptly dropped dead. When I was revived, I was in love with him, LOL.

I BLAME FANGBUNNY FOR THE ENTIRETY OF THIS.

There's actually a small point I'd like to make, though, aside from the eye-candy bit, which alone makes this whole post worth it. I have never, never, never, never dated a man (or woman) who really read. Not really. And I'm coming to see that that was a huge mistake. Literature, especially everything from the 19th century, and poetry are really, really goddamned motherfucking important to me, and I've basically had enough of being mocked for it.

Don't get me wrong. I am perfectly happy with being alone. In fact, I prefer it because there is so little drama in my life now, OMG. It's glorious. I'm happy, and I get to spend time with my friends who are as well-read (or more so) than I am, and we get to be book snobs, and I don't have to front like I give a shit about things that "normal" people like that bore me to tears, and I don't have to dedicate my time to dealing with other people's issues. You have NO IDEA how amazingly freeing it is.

I love being alone. I love books. I love my friends. And most of all, I love writing. Ok, well, most of the time I love to hate it, but when it's finished, I love having done it. Some people might think it's sad that this is the way I've chosen to go with my life, but I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I'll write, and I'll be happy, and that's all I need.

On the other hand, should I find the one man in the world who didn't watch the Super Bowl yesterday because he was too busy reading Byron and simultaneously rebuilding his old-school muscle car, I might deign to be interested. Especially if he looks like THAT. ^^^^

;)

Conversations Between Writers At 2 AM

FangBunny and I are talking writing on FB, as per usual.

I'm currently discussing my crushing insecurity and totally overblown defensiveness when it comes to my own writing.

Me: Like, in my head, I'm somewhere between Vonnegut and Joseph Heller, but on paper, I can't even manage drunk Jimmy Buffett on a bad day.

Although the more I think about it, the more I think that's an insult to Buffett. Love him or hate him, the man can write amusing and ridiculous novels. Where Is Joe Merchant? is a big favorite.

*Sigh*

By contrast, the last thing *I* wrote was a poem with a "Uranus" joke in it.

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