O! I am fortune's fool...

Whilst running at the gym this afternoon, right about mile 3 and Rob Zombie on the iPod, I experienced that glorious moment when my cluttered brain releases its hold on the superfluous junk lying around and everything seems clear.  I do all of my best thinking in the shower and at the gym; if I could spend more time in these two places, I could probably solve all the world's ills.  

I have been writing so much lately, and sadly, not much of what I'm supposed to be writing.  Andrew told me over lunch a few weeks ago that he was thinking of embarking on writing a novel and I asked him, "shouldn't you be writing a dissertation?" to which he responded with horror and scorn at my goody-two-shoes stance.  "Fuck the dissertation," he said and while I laughed, part my obsessive brain began to worry that he wouldn't get his dissertation written.  Furthermore, if Andrew, the single most devoted student I know is shunning his devoted study for loftier pursuits, then what hope is there for me?  Surely my sheer need to be first, best, and most organized freakshow in my department precludes any shirking of responsibility on my part, but who knows.  As I approach my own dissertation work, and with the recent political drama associated with it, I too have succumbed to fiction writing.  Sitting at my computer last night, I suddenly got the urge to write something and I did - many pages that, upon re-reading, are quite good and sound like the opening of an interesting story.  This just goes to show what I was trying to tell my students on Friday about writing: a writer will do just about anything to avoid writing, and this is precisely why hard deadlines and threats of physical harm are necessary to get writers to write in the first place.  

Speaking of students, my DU class is working on revenge tragedy, and specifically Renaissance revenge tragedy.  It goes without saying that they neither share my passion for it, nor understand my obsession with murder, incest, and dismemberment.  Mostly I like to talk about these things so that they'll squirm and look vaguely uncomfortable - because, after all, that is the role of literature, is it not?  To make us uncomfortable?  Part of what I want them to realize is the notion of the Wheel of Fortune and that Lady Fortuna is blind and spins that wheel at her whim.  Most of them are too young to feel the cold sting of gross misfortune or to understand that life is not fair (despite their often indulgent expressions of entitlement), but I too have succumbed to this lately.  What I realized at the gym this afternoon is that I've been whining about things that just don't matter.  I honestly don't care about this dissertation anymore; it's another hoop I have to jump through and I'm just going to do it; I have no doubt whatsoever that I'm a good professor who cares about her students, that I'll be exactly the kind of scholar I want to be despite what pretentious fucks say about my work, and more than any of this, I love what I do and the only reason I'm putting myself through any of it is so I can keep doing it for the rest of my life.  Ha.  Weeks and weeks of grousing and rage, and all I really needed was a great run.

The smile outside covers lies like the ocean tide

I feel better today.  It's Tuesday morning and I'm sitting at Starbucks near DU after a meeting with my advisor about my dissertation and prospectus.  I think I was right about the tone of the emails I got last week, and he is ever the politician and keeps things in the realm they should stay in when I would just go off talking shit about people.  I appreciate that he confirmed my suspicions without resorting to talking behind someone's back.  That's maturity I often lack and I admit it; I let my anger and frustration rule my mouth and that is something I am definitely going to work on.

I feel a bit more like myself today.  There is still rage just beneath the surface of my skin but I am hoping to keep it at bay for as long as possible in the hopes that, like a toddler, it will tire of trying to get my attention and go to sleep.  Listening to angry industrial music, believe it or not, actually helps this - Nine Inch Nails, Rob Zombie, Rammstein - these are things that my little rage monster loves but keeps me smiling.  I tried to explain this effect to my students last week when we talked about Titus Andronicus and I don't think I've yet convinced them that we like violence because it frees us from having to be violent and that we listen to angry music to keep from being angry, and that kind of thing creates the fabric of our civilized society.  They gave me that blank look that I've become accustomed to and interpret as "what is this insane woman babbling on about?"  It doesn't bother me anymore; it's the one kid who sits in the middle of the room, gets my Douglas Adams jokes and has seen Sweeney Todd on Broadway and in the movie house that I teach to anyhow.  I gave up a long time ago on reaching them all; the average number of students positively affected by my classes is about two per course, and if there are more, I just consider it icing on an already tasty cake. 

See, how's that for positive?  I'm working on it.

But I couldn't conjure tears; they're too good for stupid angels

I met with a counselor who had a doctorate and some age and wisdom; sadly, she only listened as I carried on in stream-of-consciousness fashion about how much my life sucks right now.  Winter depresses me; I don't express this the same way others might, however.  Most people, when depressed, cry a lot, contemplate suicide, or sleep all day.  Not me.  When I'm depressed, all things come down to anger and I'm full of rage all the time.  I still fantasize about hurting people around me when they piss me off; save my friends (who know who they are), that means all people at the grocery store, on the highway, and at school.  The list of people who DON'T piss me off is actually shorter.  I hate feeling this way because by about the middle of the day, I can't even stand myself and my mood.

The thought of quitting school right now also holds a certain appeal; I would love to tell every person in the department who frustrates or angers me to fuck off, shred my dissertation work into confetti, toss it into the air and exit the office in a dramatic bluster and never, ever go back there.  There is another part of the fantasy that includes flaming piles of dog shit, but that's a short list.  Mostly I'm frustrated and because of my recent life trauma, I'm also jaded and bitter about having to work on something so trivial as a dissertation - like it matters or something.  I get angry with myself that I devote so much time and that I bother to rage at all about a matter which has no bearing on anything - anywhere - anytime.  Fuck.  

Don't think you're having all the fun; you know me, I hate everyone

I always get a little nervous when I start listening to Nine Inch Nails with any kind of regularity, and this morning my anxiety was confirmed when I checked in with my regular doctor for a checkup and he all but outright insisted I not leave without talking to a counselor. Ha. I know that technically that's not funny, but perhaps I get a small giggle out of it because of the irony. I've been raging and bug-eyed for weeks now and perhaps when I'm feeling a bit on the other side of it, someone finally perks up to tell me I'm insane or at least well on my way there. I'm sitting in the library at DU now, waiting for said appointment, thinking about what this person will say to me when I launch into all things that bother me at the moment. This amuses me even further because I dare say that whomever the graduate student may be who has to listen to me today will be younger and far less wise than I will need him or her to be. When did I become so cynical that I hate people before I even meet them?

One of my biggest and most intense pet peeves of late is the role of the nurse's aide, assistant, whatever stupid acronym these people with 18 months of tech school to learn how to take blood pressures and temperatures are called. Forgive the elitism here, but what a stupid job (1) to have to go to school for, since I learned how to do a blood pressure in human biology class and taking a temperature is something a monkey could do, and (2) it's utterly pointless and just annoying to people like me. When I went to the doctor's office this morning, a kid - and I stress kid because she couldn't have been 20 - wearing faded jeans, a spiky belt and a fucking hoodie sweatshirt, and a $300 highlights job called me back into a little room so she could ask me why I'm being seen today, which I feel is none of her fucking business. Further, she takes my blood pressure, which is all computerized and I could do myself; then, she needs my temperature - God knows why since I'm not sick - and crams the thing under my tongue, stabbing me with it. I felt the overwhelming urge to hit her. Hard. What is wrong with me? I'm not a violent person; I would like to think I'm reasonably optimistic most of the time, and that I'm basically happy even armed with the knowledge of the world I live in and how it works. But lately, I feel like everything around me is wrong and that people are stupid and that I wish I could make them disappear just by thinking about it.

So I guess I do need to go to a counselor. Maybe I need shock therapy or a shitload of psychotropic medications. Maybe I need a new brain that would allow me to be a housewife and be happy about simply providing happiness for others, get fat and stay that way, resigned to a life in the burbs and unconcerned with the future because once we're dead, what does it all matter anyway? Holy fuck; I'd delete that if I didn't really feel that way.

The latest spiral is that every single good moment I've had in the last few weeks has been almost instantaneously undercut by a piercing blow, either to my emotions or my ego, or both. Yesterday I went to school, dressed up and feeling pretty good after a trip to the salon and new short 'do. It was good to see friends and chat with them and even my class, which I have begun and conducted most haphazardly thus far, went well. I love teaching and it does wonders for my psyche and it nearly refueled my long-empty tanks. I felt so good in fact that I thought I'd get moving on some projects that have been on the old to-do list so long they have cobwebs attached, and so I sent a proposal off for a conference and sent my dissertation prospectus to my first two readers. I should preface this by saying that, as usual in any graduate program, I have had scattered guidance - if any - on how to do this project. The only real help I've gotten anywhere, ever, is from my main advisor, who is amazing and supportive. I wish I could work with just him and get on with it; but there must be others involved, and my second reader is someone I also like, but I'm starting to feel some resentment toward. My theory is that she is pissed that I didn't make her the director of my dissertation and that she is now attempting to punish me for this fact. There is no way to prove such things and I'm certain that I'm paranoid, but that doesn't change the fact that she almost always advises me in the exact opposite direction of my advisor, which makes me so frustrated that I could implode on the spot. She ripped my prospectus in half and basically told me I did it all wrong and I'd need to start from scratch. This is akin to telling a person with a blade to her wrist that she is worthless and ugly and should hurry up with the suicide thing already. Whilst contemplating how I would rid myself of this burden by willing myself into an deadly aneurysm or mental institution, my advisor responds to her comments by arguing some points and trying to mitigate the situation. He does this well and understands his political role, but now I'm more frustrated than ever. I should be perfectly honest that I always expect to hear that my written projects are great, that they need only cursory editing, and that I am utterly validated as a star student. Having said that, I also handle constructive criticism well; because of my perfectionist nature, I listen when people I trust give me feedback which will improve my work. I don't, however, deal well with "start all over" at the height of my anxiety and freakout mode, especially when she mentioned that she was aware that I'd been under a great deal of stress lately. Since she's a rhetorician, I assume the subtext of that is intended, and means "I know you're having a tough time and I'll take that as the good reason why this piece you sent me sucks total ass." Fuck. Sometimes I think I can't do this.

The rest of my day after that looked like the many before it, then. I changed into pajamas, comfort ate a burrito, an entire bag of chips, and two ice cream bars. I'm sure I managed to eat some candy in there too, and I nearly completed a 1000-piece puzzle before going to bed and sleeping fitfully. I'm sick of the fact that the only thing that makes me feel better is eating, and that only lasts until I get a stomach ache and become racked with guilt at the fact that I lost 48 pounds and have gained 8 back. See what I mean? What's eight pounds? Is this worth self-loathing and punishment? Of course not.

I don't care who wants to stare these days

This afternoon, I was freed from my bounds by my dear mother, who came over to the house to sit with Sami whilst I ran errands.  I have never felt so happy to be doing the mundane in my life.  Jamison called to remind me that he was headed out to Matt's tonight, and I thought nothing of it - I did have the pressing matter of a jigsaw puzzle to finish and a date with my pajamas, after all.  It was only later I realized that he was going OUT for his guy's poker night, and I said, with some indignation, "I thought that wasn't until the 11th?"  He smiled and kissed my head and said he'd be home earlier than normal.  How is it the 11th already?  What year is it?  Was I sleeping?  Had I slept?  Is Tyler my bad dream or am I Tyler's?  Holy shit.

I'll ignore for the moment that Jamison is out having normal-person fun while I'm at home listening to my iPod and wishing I could drink myself stupid and repressing intense feelings of jealousy, but I don't dare while I'm in charge of a post-surgical kid.  She is doing much better at home, but there is still a lot of drama associated with this recovery; I admit that being her age is traumatic enough without a major reconstruction of one's spine, but I would like to see a lot less back-of-the-hand-across-the-forehead, movie-starlet-going-for-an-Oscar kind of emotion at the moment.  It's so hard to tell what's real pain and what's frustration - not that either one is preferable - and as selfish as it sounds, I'd for one second like someone to recognize the hell that I am also in.  Of course Sami is center-stage and I am not elbowing for the spotlight here, but if you ever need an example of a completely thankless moment in parenting, this is it, and not just from her.  I don't want a medal or a Mother Teresa distinction, but it would be nice if anyone understood how much this past week and a half has just plain aged me.  I feel older than I ever have; I'm tired and sore from hoisting the kid around, and I am depressed as fuck.  The worst possible thing for a person like me is to be a homebody or a housewife - it's the one thing I never wanted for myself and now that it's forced on me, I resent it.  I resent that I'm at home during a weekday, cleaning house, doing laundry, fetching meals for a kid, hanging up work clothes for a husband, and grocery shopping for a man who won't be home for dinner, and who is, in fact, out drinking beer with his buddies while I'm at home.  This is not good for my rage...not good for my rage....must find new train of thought.

No one knows what it's like...

I'm not self-pitying, that's just the song stuck in my head from being across the street at Moe's Bagels.  Bad seventies music on a snowy Sunday morning when I'm wearing only a sweatshirt and seriously undercaffienated is not a good combo.  

I had a funny realization last night as I sought a place to lie my head for some sleep: this is what it must feel like to be homeless in some regard.  Even though Sami's doing much better and sleeping well, she wanted me to be in the hospital last night, and so I stayed again.  The night before I had found a little bed in the surgery waiting room and I thought it was my little secret.  Turns out that someone had beaten me to it and so I wandered around the hospital with pillow and blanket, seeking a place that was comfortable and quiet enough.  The ICU waiting room was full of people, but there is a sofa in there and no one was on it.  I went in and made a fairly large deal about preparing myself for bed and people started to clear out.  An older woman was sitting in there and when I asked her if she planned to sleep on the couch that night, she replied, "oh no, I just like coming and sitting here in the hospital where it's quiet and warm."  She pleasantly offered me the couch, turned off the lights, and told me the secret of the wall sconces was to unscrew the bulbs since there's no switch to turn them off.  She had a large backpack and wore unmatched clothes and I guessed she was homeless, and that she came here to sleep.  The room was large and I nearly insisted she stay, but she left anyway.  The other woman I've been competing with for the couch the last few nights came in again and quietly took the love seat.  I tucked all my belongings around me, slept on my sweatshirt, and imagined how hard it must be to have to locate a place to sleep and be warm every night, and it made me grateful for a moment.

I'm exhausted, though, and time seems nonexistent here.  Jamison calls it the Las Vegas effect, where you can't tell what time it is, what day it is, or even what time of year it is.  You're caught in a vacuum that feels nothing like reality and yet when you encounter reality it feels somehow even more unreal.  I walked over to the bagel shop this morning to eat and get some juice, and I look like shit.  My hair is flat, no makeup, I'm wearing yoga pants and a tee shirt, and when others look at me outside of the hospital, I wonder what they must think.  In my head, I don't care necessarily, because in my world there is only ICU and my crying/sleeping daughter, but as I see others carrying on normal lives, out to breakfast in their Boulder way - with jogging strollers and North Face jackets, driving Saabs with $500 car seats, planning their day shopping at Wild Oats - it feels like I've landed on Mars it's so unreal.  How can these people live this way when my daughter's in the hospital?  What a strange sensation.

A Desperate Hail Mary

I think I had a nervous breakdown last night, and it was the worst of days since I can recall, and that's saying something. Sami had a very bad day; she was doing well early on and I felt quite positive, thinking she was better than the night before but then she started to stop breathing in regular intervals. Turns out she reacted to the pile up of opiates in her system and it was too much. The general threat of her forgetting to breathe made me hover with the oxygen mask, staring at the monitor so hard I don't think I blinked for an hour. The doctors came, the room was full of people, and in the end they had to give her a bunch of drugs to reverse the effects of her morphine and valium - which in turn reversed her pain relief as well. When she came out of the stupor, she cried and cried and cried, saying "do something, mom" and I could do nothing. As a mother, doing nothing is never an option - if mom can't fix it, no one can. She begged me to take her home, when I told her it was okay she would retort, "no, it's not" and I couldn't take it. After the shift change at about 10, they gave her some benadryl and tylenol to help her sleep and it did for a while. As soon as she slept I left the room and cried uncontrollably for a while on a bench outside the Starbucks booth down the hall. Jamison came and the rest is a haze; I woke up in a fold out bed in the waiting room when my phone buzzed that Sam was awake and asking for me about 1 am. I went to her, talked her back to sleep and returned to the bed because I was so exhausted. The nurse assured me she'd call if she needed anything and for me to sleep. That was 2 am and I didn't wake up again until 8:30, where I was disoriented and alarmed that I had slept so long, fearing I had slept through phone calls, and I rushed back to ICU to discover that Sami had slept soundly, was resting peacefully and that the nurse didn't disturb me because I needed sleep and Sami was fine. I love that the night nurse is also a mother - it's been quite comforting to have someone watching over my child who would know exactly when I needed and wanted to be called in and when I could sleep. She turned me right around and sent me for coffee and food and said to wait until someone called that Sami was awake; I am so relieved that she is resting that the last thing I want to do is wake her. I'm sitting at a public computer now, eating donuts from a vending machine and drinking machine coffee (the cafeteria is apparently not accommodating with regard to breakfast on weekend, those fuckers). I feel like I've been hit by a train, but I'm hoping that we've turned a corner...

I'm looking on the bright side and I'll wear it like a bruise; I've never loved Elvis and I've never sung the blues

I finally dozed off at 11:00 last night, and finally succumbed to the waiting room sofa, where I slept fitfully until just after 5:00.  I feel smarmy and am in desperate need of a shower, but I'm back in Sami's room and she is resting peacefully post-morphine and valium.  I put on the third Pirates movie for her and that also seems to help a bit.  I feel terrible; she's been crying throughout all her waking hours since she got out of surgery and it's heartbreaking.  I can barely stand seeing the blood and bandages and her puffy face and tears.  I know I'm lucky as a parent to have made it thirteen with a child who has always been healthy and has never been in a hospital save the day she was born; many parents suffer like this regularly and I feel ashamed to complain when I think of them.  It doesn't make this different, though.  If I could take all her pain upon myself I would. 

My mission drive is to open up my eyes; cut the wicked lies and all the shite you say

Today, in short, was hell.  Yesterday - the calm before the storm - was a great day and one I must recount anon, but not at this moment.  I'm exhausted and it's only 8:30 at night.

Sami's surgery was this morning, and after checking into the hospital at six a.m., they took her in around 7:15.  I was a nervous wreck, and not in the mood for any of the stupid shit from anyone I have to deal with regularly.  Since this is going to be an old-fashioned and well-deserved rant, I caution you to read at your own risk.  My ex-husband and Sami's father, in short, gets on every nerve I have at exactly the same time; there is a good reason why we're divorced, and it's not because we communicate beautifully.  I won't droll on about this because it's pointless, but the Reader's Digest version of our history is: we split up, he remarried and had other kids almost instantly, and then pretty much decided that making babies is a lot easier than caring for them in a meaningful way.  Don't misunderstand me, he loves them and his heart is in the right place - it's his brain that needs some serious help.  He has been content for the past TWELVE years to let me do every single thing - often with no financial support from his end - to care for our daughter: I feed her, clothe her, provide a nice place to live, a great school, love and support, and a generally healthy environment in which she thrives.  He can't even get a place that allows her to have a bedroom in it, and he spends a paltry couple of hours per month with her and lets his wife and other two kids do most of the family time interaction with her.  Sami loves her stepmother and they have a lovely relationship, which I fully support, and I have also accepted the fact that Jeff will never be the father I want him to be and I am basically in this alone.  I figured that out when she was about five.  So when it came time for this big-time surgery and the decision-making, suddenly he's interested and wants to be involved in everything.  Fuck that.  You don't get to choose when you're going to be a parent; it's an often thankless job that doesn't grant sick time, days off, paid holidays, or options.  Of course I get that he loves her and is concerned, but for him that translates into us suddenly being parents together and he thinks I give a rat's ass about his opinions, which I don't.  I hate that he shows up and wants to be the hero; fuck that.  He hovers over my shoulder, stares at me, and is basically my audience for every single emotion.  In short, I don't want him around me, and I certainly don't want to talk to him or seek comfort from him - he couldn't comfort me when we were married, and I'll be fucked silly if he's going to try to make up for it now.  I guess this story isn't as "Reader's Digest" as I'd hoped, but I'm on a roll here.  

So here's an example of what I mean: Sami is about to be wheeled out to surgery, I can't go with her any further and she starts to cry; I keep it light, tell her it's okay to cry, make jokes about how many beanie babies I can buy her before she wakes up, etc.  I can cry five minutes from now and all day if I want to, but she doesn't need to see it.  She needs strength and reassurance, and anyone who knows her at all would know that.  So what does Jeff do?  He gets this teary-eyed expression, gets all maudlin and shit, and acts as if she's being sent to her funeral.  Grrr... what's worse is that after this moment passes, I want to burst into tears, but he's watching me the whole time, like he's my audience or something, and this continued throughout the day.  Then he wanted to talk about it!  I said, point blank that I had no interest whatsoever in a conversation and retreated to the bathroom to cry for a while.  I know that most of the people in my life count on me to be level-headed, capable, strong, and considerate of others' feelings - often to the point that my own are neglected.  However, today should have been about Sami and ME secondarily, and all pleasantries and accommodation are off the radar at the moment, right?  No feelings were spared today, and few were left untouched by my wrath, and goddammit, I deserve a day like that.  How can I possibly give a rat's fucking ass about how my EX-husband is feeling when my baby is being cut and mangled in some hospital wing, scared and alone?  Whoever doesn't understand that can fuck off as far as I'm concerned.  I don't see where any expectation of sanity or manners on my part falls to me.  I expect a wide berth and a free pass to be unreasonable; it's enough that I'm not in a straightjacket. 

Which brings me to the best part of my day, in which I managed to discover the hard way that I'm allergic to Aleve.  After taking it for my excruciating headache, I had an allergy attack, walked across the street to the pharmacy to get some Benadryl, and by the time I got back - even after taking the medicine - was completely broken out in hives, wheezing, coughing, covered in red splotches, my lips swollen, and I nearly passed out in the emergency room whilst checking in.  I then got to enjoy their hospitality for the following three hours, in which they gave me an unholy amount of intravenous drugs including epinephrine, solumedrol, benadryl, and some other fucking thing.  The best part was that the first round didn't entirely work, so they gave me more.  All in all, it's what I imagine a speedball to be like; I'm tired and sleepy and lethargic while my mind is racing, I have tremors, and I can barely blink my eyes, let alone sleep.  I then had to obtain a prescription for more steroids, which I now have to take for the next five days, and the drug makes me feel like I drank a pot of coffee.  Woo hoo.

The saga continues anon...