Now I can’t breathe, no, I can’t sleep, I’m barely hanging on…

I’m not sure what’s going on lately in my brain but something isn’t right.

I think my problem is that I haven’t been sleeping well.  I’ve been pretty much a mess since I’ve been home from Europe, but I feel like my internal clock should be back to normal by now.  This weekend, I pretty much just slept when I felt tired, which was at weird times. And then Sunday I basically slept all day.  I don’t think that’s a problem though because I was still suffering from jetlag then.

Lately, things have just been cray cray.  Weird stuff has been happening, stuff I haven’t experienced in my sleep before.

Usually, when I sleep I never remember my dreams or even really feel like I had been dreaming. Lately, I wake up and I know I’ve been dreaming. I still never remember my dreams but I think that’s because every time I wake up, I’m waking up in a panic so the memory of my dream gets pushed away quickly.

In the past, I don’t even really remember waking up in the middle of the night all that often.  Sure, I’d wake up right before my alarm went off, but that is totally different than waking up at 3am and wondering what the hell is happening. It’s not even like there’s an alarm or a noise or some kind of event that occurs to make me wake up in the middle of the night. I just all of a sudden become awake and freak out because I don’t know what’s going on.

For instance, last night, as has been the pattern for the last three or four nights, I wake up at, like, 3am and have absolutely NO idea where the hell I am. I wake up all confused and disoriented and it takes a hot minute to figure out that I’m at home in my own bed, sleeping alone. I don’t really know where I think I am when I wake up all confused, but I know that it’s very disturbing.  I am so confused that I literally sit up and try looking around, and then get out of bed to get my bearings. That’s when I realize, Oh, no, it’s okay. Go back to bed, you’re fine. You’re at home.  On another note, I also am not sure why I start freaking out about why I’m in my bed alone. I wake up in a panic because whoever I think is supposed to be next to me suddenly isn’t anymore.

I’m not even kidding. I spend a good five solid minutes every night, in the middle of the night, trying to figure out what the fuck is happening. And then because I get so worked up, I have to spend another five minutes trying to calm the fuck down and coax myself back to sleep.

I guess I’m just gonna hope for the best and keep my fingers crossed that this behavior eventually just stops and I can resume my normal sleeping behavior.  And quickly.

Please keep your fingers crossed that I can sleep through the night.

I see you, baby, shaking that ass.

I have been sitting on my ass all day.

It’s a little hard since I have a bruise the size of my palm on my right ass cheek and it hurts really bad.

I’m sure you’re wondering why there’s a giant bruise on my butt. Well, dear readers, today is your lucky day.  I’ll tell you.

Last night, there was a mini-bar crawl kind of thing that went down in EL for Sully’s 21^st birthday.  Everything was going well, except there were a couple times when I wished I was wearing different shoes.

The first instance was when Seneca and I went to the bathroom.  There was a part of the tile floor missing, creating a little lake of mysterious liquid.  My basically naked foot ended up in said lake.  That’ll teach me to wear flip flops.

Before I tell you the second time I really wished I was wearing different shoes I need to preface it with this question. Have you ever been walking on a wet surface while wearing flip flops? Have you ever had that moment of panic that comes when you feel your feet slide because the wet surface and the poor traction of the flip flop?

I promise that this injury had nothing to do with the level of intoxication. It has everything to do with the fact that flip flops fail in the face of liquid.

When I jumped down from a ledge that I happened to be standing/dancing on, I bit it.

My flip flops hit the water/beer/liquor/mixed drink wet spot and my feet flew out from under me.  There was nothing I could do.  I slid into my brother’s friend, slammed my ass on the ledge and scraped the hell out of my elbow.

I couldn’t decide what hurt more: my pride or my body.

The verdict: my body.

Must I always be waiting, waiting on you? Must I always be playing, playing your fool?

Sweet baby Jesus. It is currently 11:34 pm Thursday, June 9.  I just realized it is Thursday and I hadn’t posted yet.

I’ve been working on a finance case study and feeling anxiety about my final project for my econ class.

I’m also getting sick again.  It started with a stuffy nose yesterday. I woke up this morning feeling like death.  I decided to skip the gym and sleep until I felt better. I finally got up at 11am because I was already disgusted with myself for sleeping that late in the day, despite the fact that I was not feeling well.  All day long I felt extreme sinus pressure and my voice sounded a little off.  Now my throat is killing me and I just hope this goes away before Thursday, when I board my plane for London.

This is how today began:

Strugz City!

Today, obviously, didn’t go as planned.

When I went to get my oil changed, I realized that the hood of my car wouldn’t pop open.  The dude at the oil change place was little to no help and when I called my parents (yes, both of them), they didn’t really tell me anything I wasn’t already thinking.  I decided to take my car to the dealership and be like WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?! Except, I didn’t tell them about the scary noise it makes; I didn’t want them to take my car away from me! I just told the man that my little latchy-thing didn’t work and that the top part of my car wouldn’t open.

I spent the next hour and forty-seven minutes of my life listening to the Doppler radar report in the sitting/waiting area in the car dealership and reading the latest Newsweek.

Turns out the latch for the hood was corroded (or something???), so, for $20, they repaired that for me.  Then, they changed my oil because the man knew that I needed to get that done.  And they replaced my air filter because mine was apparently “pretty nasty looking.”

I mean, I guess I could have said no, but meh… if it’s something I’m breathing on a regular basis, I suppose I would like that to be clean.

So, 75 dollhairs later, I left the dealership and drove like a bat out of hell to Best Buy.

While I was waiting Janine (my car) to be finished with her high-maintenance bullshit, I had received a phone call from the Geek Squad at Best Buy, alerting me that my computer (JOY!) was ready to be picked up.  When I got there, I had to wait in line (Sucktown!) but I had ample time to people-watch, one of my favorite activities.  Finally, I was reunited with my computer, who had gotten a brand new motherboard.  All of my data remained on my hard-drive and everything was normal and perfect.

Obviously, the day turned into this:

Now I’m going to continue with my finance case study and drink some tea to ease my sore throat.

Please think happy thoughts and send me some “get better” vibes so I won’t be sick while I’m in Europe!! Also, thinking some “I hope you get the job you interviewed for this week!” vibes wouldn’t hurt either.

Believe it or not, I really am trying to get all my ducks in a row…

Close enough to start a war, all that I have is on the floor. God only knows what we’re fighting for. All that I say, you always say more… I can’t keep up with your turning tables. Under your thumb, I can’t breathe…

 

I don’t know how to reach you.

I don’t know how to be there for you. I don’t know what to say or how to talk to you.

I know that you’re going through something and that nothing I say or do will make it hurt less.

You’re my best friend and I love you. I love you beyond words and it hurts me that I can’t help you.

Because you’re hurting, I let the fact that you hurt my feelings go.  I didn’t tell you that it hurts me when you don’t tell me these things. I didn’t tell you that I can still hear your voice in my head, replaying that time you told me I’m not good at feelings and that I’m the last person on earth with whom anyone should talk about emotions. I didn’t tell you that hearing about what happened after the fact, after you had already spilled your heart to the other leg of the Tripod, as you do every single time you have any real emotions, I felt sad and left-out.

I don’t tell you these things because, this time, it’s not about me.

You were there for me when I needed you. When I cried countless times because my heart hurt over the complete deterioration of the friendship I had with my so-called best friend, you were there. Even when I repeated myself and when you couldn’t understand how I could be feeling the way I was, you listened. You listened, and you cared, and you showed up when I needed you.

I’m so sorry that you feel I haven’t done the same for you.

I wish you’d talk to me and stop shutting me out.  I wish things didn’t feel so weird. I don’t understand what happened or even how to make it better.

I don’t know what to say.

Sometimes people just need space. Sometimes it just takes time to sort through all of those thoughts and feelings. That’s what I thought I was doing, giving you time and space to feel sad and mend your broken heart.  But it’s been a few days now and I haven’t heard anything and we haven’t talked.  I don’t like how we left things.

I don’t know how to make this better. You know I’m no good with confrontation, not when it’s something like this.  Not when it feels like there’s something as awesome as the Tripod at stake.  Things feel fragile and I can’t see where to step to make a move.

For once, I feel like I don’t know you. I feel like I don’t know how to read you. You feel so far away. I can’t figure out what you’re thinking or try to guess how you’d respond to any of the actions I have almost made.

I just miss you is all. I want things to go back to normal, and I want you to talk to me. I want to be there for you. I want you to tell me that you’re hurting but that our friendship matters.

I don’t know how to reach you.

Let the rain fall down & wake my dreams, let it wash away my sanity ’cause I wanna feel the thunder, I wanna scream! Let the rain fall down… I’m coming clean

Since I started blogging, almost a whole year ago, there as not been one day that I have missed.  Every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, like clockwork, I have showed up and put something out there for someone, anyone, to read.

Yesterday, for the first time in almost a year, I went AWOL.

I just didn’t show up.

So, for you who were waiting with bated breath, I apologize. Similarly, if you were worried I had died or had been sucked up by my chest (please reference Dane Cook) by aliens, I’m glad to inform you I am just fine.

What happened is that I actually just got swept up in the long, holiday weekend and forgot it was Sunday.

In fact, this weekend is a whirlwind of activity.

I showed up to my dad’s house ready for a weekend of drunken debauchery with friends and family by the pool in his backyard. But what actually happened was that I arrived at the restaurant for dinner like an hour later than I had originally told everyone I would be in town. Only, after I arrived, I promptly informed my dad that I felt like I was going to throw up and then I peace’d out.  I went back to the house where I found a bathroom just in time to puke my guts out. After throwing up nothing but water and bile (and oh yeah, those two or three Advil I took on an empty stomach- I’m an idiot), I ate exactly two and a half saltine crackers and fell asleep for an hour. When I woke up, everyone was arriving back home, with the food I had ordered in hand.

After that, Seneca and I went to bed early and watched some Forensic Files.

Saturday was even more of a blur.  The day lasted for-fucking-ever.

In a nutshell, the rest of the weekend happened as follows: I probably caught cancer from this shady-as-fuck restaurant called Hibachi Sushi Buffet (it was not my choice), hit my face against the bottom of the pool,  actually won a couple rounds of flip-cup, my computer died/broke, we ate our weight in pulled pork sandwiches, Megan accidentally dumped her almost-entirely-full drink in my lap at the bar we went to, Drew and I got into a physical altercation, Megan walked out at 2am with no word to Seneca or myself, both Seneca and I ended up in tears at some point, made weird references to Hilary Duff for no reason, saw Hangover II, and when we were alerted of bad weather we played a rousing game of Life where I pretended I found out I’m barren and will never bear children(LOL), we also watched a fuck-ton of Lifetime (yeah, including William & Kate, the movie), I quoted William Shakespeare to Seneca in a normal conversation, and I fell in the lake again tonight while trying to get in the kayak.

WINS ALL AROUND.

I promise things will go back to normal.

Look at me, you can take it all because this face is free. Maybe next time, use your eyes and look at me….

Going to the dentist no longer upsets me. Walking into a doctor’s office does not make me nervous. Make me go to the eye doctor, and you might get a slap across the face. I fucking hate going.

It’s not like I’m freaked out by eyes or think that it’s gross to touch my eyes or whatever.  I wear contacts- it’s a way of life. I just hate everything about the experience of going to the eye doctor.

It goes back to a few years ago, probably. Maybe even when I was in high school. To be quite honest, I’m not sure when it happened, but it definitely started when I had boobs. And could go places without the help of my parents.

Clear as day, I remember making an appointment to get my eyes checked to get another year-supply of contacts. I wasn’t PO’d about going, in fact I was pretty okay with the whole thing because I actually enjoy trying on different frames to see what I’d look like if I had cooler glasses than the pair I currently have. Anyway, everything was going just fine until the part where I actually go called to go into the tiny little room where the eye exam is actually conducted.

I don’t know what it is, but the most important requirement for becoming an eye doctor must be that you’re creepy as fuck.

I swear to God, it doesn’t matter how many places I go, how many times I switch carriers or even what day and time I make an appointment. Every single time, I get a new eye doctor. It’s always a dude and there is always something slightly not right about him.

It seems like every time I go, the guy is probably the same age as my dad, and is always just… inappropriate. For example, as he speaks to me about his wife and teenage daughter who “probably isn’t much younger than you haahaha” he just stares directly at my boobs.

No thank you!

We are not in any place for that to be okay with me. Please look away, sir, and behave as though your wife and teenage daughter can see you. Meaning: get the fuck away from me.

I can think of one- ONE!- who was actually hot and I didn’t mind that he was all up in my grill as he was asking me, “One, or two? Two, or three?”  We laughed over stories of drunken antics and quoted lines from The Hangover. Him, I was totally fine with. I didn’t even hold it against him when he had to drop that sticky yellow stuff into my eyes and then poke at my eyeball with a plastic instrument.

The man who checked out my eyes today at least drew attention to the fact that he may be a creeper.  He told me he was going to “tuck in a little closer” for the part where he flips his little lenses in front of my eyes to see how blind I am.  He told me to move my hand so he didn’t “seem like a pervert” or “creepier” than I already thought he was.

I laughed awkwardly but really just wanted all of it to be over.  Too right he was.

I mean, I wasn’t sexually harassed or anything but it’s just so uncomfortable. Too bad it’s something I must put up with once a year.  A necessary evil.

C’est la vie.

You don’t want baggage without lifetime guarantees. You don’t want to watch me die. I just came to say goodbye, love. Goodbye, love. Came to say goodbye, love, goodbye.

I have a problem with roadkill.

At 23, I should probably not think of wild animals in terms of Disney creatures that have homes and families and feelings. I know it seems ridiculous, but I just can’t help it. In my head, I only see Bambi’s mom, or the Beaver family from the Chronicles of Narnia, or Simba and how he ran away from Pride Rock after Mufasa’s death. These poor animals have others counting on them; they have responsibilities and a family to come home to.

When I see a raccoon’s guts splayed on the side of the road or a deer laying broken on the shoulder, my heart breaks.

On my way to work last week, I burst into tears when I saw a black cat squished in the middle of the road.  I cried for the little girl who loved that cat with her whole heart, I cried for the other kitty cat friends that Blackie had, and I cried for the person who hit the kitty and killed it.

It’s so sad to me and I can’t help but be really, really upset by it.

I hoped that I had hit my quota for roadkill for the week, but it seems that the universe had other plans. Yesterday, I experienced the most traumatizing roadkill event to date. I probably won’t tell it right or be able to express how deeply upset I was by this, but I’m going to try.

I was driving to meet my brother for dinner when this occurred.  I was driving happily, listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on CD, and I was halfway to my destination.  Just as I was picking up my phone from the passenger’s seat of my car to call Drew to ask him where he wanted to go for dinner, it happened.

By chance, I happened to notice a deer on the shoulder of the highway.  I can’t remember now what it was that made me come to this conclusion, but something told me that something wasn’t right about this deer. For one, it was not dead.  I could see its eyes and they were wide open.  Then, all of a sudden, it was picking itself up off the pavement, only it wasn’t going as it should have.

It all happened pretty fast, and I was driving as I was watching this, but I did see enough to be traumatized.

Poor Deery was having trouble standing up and I could tell that something was very wrong with her (I’m assuming?) hindquarters.  Deery couldn’t put any weight on her back legs. She began dragging her back legs as she tried to get away from the highway and the cars driving so fast past her. I had passed her and my vision was blurry with hot tears when I had dialed Drew via speed-dial on my phone.  By the time he picked up the phone, I was in the throes of a full-blown grief-meltdown.

What was so upsetting to me was that I did not see any vehicle near her that looked like it had been hit by a dear.  I didn’t see anyone around other than me and the other cars driving past this suffering animal. I couldn’t understand how someone could hit a deer and leave it to die in such a painful and agonizing way. The fact that where she had been hit was on top of a hill worried me.  Without the ability to use her back legs, how was she to navigate that hill to get back into the wooded safe haven? I think about it now and my heart hurts. I imagine that she fell down the hill and lay at the bottom, wishing to die because of the pain.  It is terrible, but I would have preferred someone shot her or something, to put her out of her misery.  It isn’t fair.

I explained what happened to Drew through thick sobs. He laughed at me.

After crying my eyes out and having him listen to me wail wordlessly, I tried to change the subject. He didn’t because he probably didn’t want to seem insensitive since I was so obviously upset. He’s such a good brother.

When I finally got the words out to ask him where we should go to dinner, he replied, “Well there’s this new venison place…”

That’s when a sob escaped and I hung up on him. I grabbed a mostly clean napkin off the passenger seat and wiped my eyes and blew my nose.

He called back.

“That wasn’t nice,” I cried.

He was joking and he was trying to make me laugh, but I wasn’t ready yet.  So I cried on the phone some more, cursed society and contemplated calling the police (or ANYBODY!) to have them come rescue Deery (or at least end her suffering).

I didn’t call the police, but I haven’t been able to get the image of that poor deer dragging its back legs out of my head.

I just can’t handle roadkill. It really hurts my heart.

Look at the world, so close, and I’m halfway to it. Look at it all, so big, do I even dare? Look at me, here at last, I just have to do it! Should I? No. Here I go! Just smell the grass, the dirt, just like I dreamed they’d be! Just feel that summer breeze, the way it’s calling me! For, like, the first tiem ever, I’m completely free! I could go running and racing and dancing and chasing and leaping and bounding, hair flying, heart pounding, and splashing and reeling and finally feeling that’s when my life begins!

I have talked a lot lately about how sick I have been.

The thing is… I really thought I was getting better.

Even when I went to hang out with Grandma yesterday, I kept talking about how much better I feel from the misery I experienced last week, when I thought I wanted to die.  No matter how many times I watched Tangled, I still felt like death.  I still went to bed taking a pretty intense drug cocktail and woke up each morning taking that same mix of medications.

I have since weaned myself off of most of the drugs and have been living life among the living and well. Finally.

Except a couple days ago, I noticed that every time I yawned my throat screamed at me to stop doing that. It was always like, Bitch, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. But, like, sometimes you just gotta yawn. Just like sometimes, when I’m at the grocery store and I am reaching to the top shelf to try to grab a box of risotto and a stretch comes outta nowhere, you just gotta go with it. So yeah, I just stood on that bottom shelf at the store and stretched my body all over the other types of rice on the shelves. I didn’t care that it was a Saturday afternoon and there were hoards of people walking by. You just gotta go with it. You can’t fight it. Because it just feels too good.

So as I was sitting on the couch, just doing nothing and basking in my unshowered sickness, I yawned. I disregarded my throat’s warning and immediately wished I had stifled the shit out of that yawn.

My throat is on fire.

At first it was just when I yawned or when I swallowed. And it came and went, or I just didn’t notice it.  But tonight, the fire is raging unapologetically. My throat is not speaking to me other than to say fuck you; I hurt, too.

So we’re both very unhappy and I’m at a loss. I took some Tylenol to help with the pain, but it hurt going down and I just want to find a garden gnome and drop kick it. I feel like that sensation would make me feel better. I mean, I’m trying my best to not yawn. And not swallow. (Not in a dirty way, you sickos!) Which, let me tell you, is difficult.

I keep being told to go back to the doctor, but I’m seriously avoiding that. I just found a doctor locally and I don’t want them to think I’m using them to get drugs. I’m really not. I just haven’t been this sick in a while and it’s not my fault that I had a muscle spasm and then got a really nasty sinus infection and that my muscle spasm didn’t go away for, like, two weeks. I can’t help it that now that all of that original stuff seems like it has finally sorted itself out, my throat is filled with the wrath of the devil.

My life is so hard.

And so I have to say before I go that I just want you to know I’ve found a reason for me to change who I used to be, a reason to start over new, and the reason is you

I am finally on the mend from being sick but still don’t feel normal.  I’m still a hot damn mess. My daily drug cocktail is outrageous and I am still amazed that I can take so much medication and still feel this awful. My body hurts. I have gone through at least three boxes of Kleenex this week. I have a really sexy cough that sounds like my lungs are rattling.  My voice is all snorkly. I sniffle and breathe out of my mouth. It’s disgusting.

I will take this time to tell you that I am well aware that my posts of late have been lacking, even prior to the sickness I have contracted.

To say the very least I have been extremely uninspired. I have come to dread having to sit down to write something.  I don’t know what has changed or what is different that has made me feel this way.

Probably four weeks ago, I had my first very serious thought of ending this.  I keep thinking I should just give up, quit. And then sometimes I reel it in and think perhaps I’d just take a break, a little hiatus, if you will. But I always talk myself out of it and convince myself that next week, next week will suck less and I’ll churn out something funny or worth reading.  No such luck.

So, let me just put it out there: I am so sorry.  I am sorry that coming here sucks now. You, my dear reader, are wonderful, and every time you visit my blogy-blog, I am so grateful.  Truly.  Even when you just pop by on accident or when you click on over and read without comment- I appreciate it. Even when you search something weird, like “dogs pooping on couch” or “grandma is obsessed with me” and end up here wondering what kind of fuckery is this?!, I’m glad you came by at all. If my words matter to you and/or if you look forward to getting a glimpse at how I view the world, I am sorry I have been really sucking it up lately.

I just wanted to acknowledge to you that I am well aware that it hasn’t been good lately.

Or, if you’re thinking it’s never been good and why do I even bother, then, well, uhmmmm… I guess this is just confirmation. So, good job! Go me, for reinforcing your original thought.

Here’s my promise: I will start putting forth real effort.  I will try to feel excited about blogging again. I will plan ahead. I will recapture my child-like wonder.  I will tell you about my love of Smokey the Bear. I will tell you things I’m excited about.  I’ll reinvest myself in you. I will reinvest in accomplishing a personal goal.  I will follow-through. Even when I don’t feel like it.

I feel good about this.  Thanks for listening!

Check back! Hold me accountable! Harass me when you hate something I do or say! Tell me what you want to read about! Let me know if something makes you laugh- or if you feel the same way!

My mind’s all screwed and upside-down, but my heart’s on overdrive

I can’t blog today. I’m sick.

I’m fairly certain I’m dying. And if it’s not that I’m dying, I wish it was because I am miserable.