50x365 #334: Cheli

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Will you be my lover? you asked.

Have I told you about the time I ran into a bear?

You looked at me quizzically.

I read a book once called "The Bears and I".

Bears, huh? you said.

Afterward, every time there was an uncomfortable silence, someone brought up bears.

I am a participant in x365 and Blog 365.

Labels: x365

50x365 #333: Michael

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

After nearly four years alone, I clung to you. I craved a sense of warmth and kinship that you were unable to offer, but rather than leave you, I waited for you across rooms and tables, looking for anything that felt like connection. My unreasonable heart folded in upon itself.

I am a participant in x365 and Blog 365.

Labels: x365

Help! I've Pooped Illegally!

Oskar, showing off his case of Stink Foot

Oskar ran into the room a little while ago, whining at high volume.

Yeow! Mmm-yah! [Seriously, human,] Mow-ow-ow-ow!

What is it, Oskar?

Mow-ow-ow-ow! He lifted one foot and then the other, doing the Dance of the Great Emergency. He originally invented this song and dance number to express his distress about the first time he puked in my dirty underwear.

Oh, crap, I thought. He's had another poop emergency. He has these occasional poop emergencies lately, because we fed him too much soft food last week, and it is taking his sensitive kitty digestive tract a while to calm down.

I rose from my chair, and he turned 180 degrees to lead me down the hallway to the Palinode's office. The closer we got, the more awful the stench became.

Christ, cat. What the hell did you do in here?

I grabbed a bag and the poop scoop and set about cleaning out the litterboxes. He kept doing the Dance of the Great Emergency in the middle of the room, though, which alerted me to the fact that I was not fixing his situation as he had hoped. Damn. That could only mean one thing. It was indeed a poop-related situation, but it was not a poop-in-the-litterbox-related situation. Damn.

I took the baggie of litterbox poop down to the dumpster and came back up to the office. The stench seemed to have grown. It was soupy thick. I walked in a spiral from the outside edges of the room inward, trying to sniff my way to the source, but it was like searching through a thick fog. Suddenly, I was right in the middle of it. It was intoxicating, but in a bad way, like if you were a Mormon who'd found themself accidentally drunk and was trying to bargain their way out of hell.

It was coming from a black garbage bag that the Palinode had begun to fill with the myriad useless papers we collect. I bent down, lifted the edge of the open bag, and was met with the horrific site of the Great Emergency. Oskar, a cat who, even in times of disruptive bowel issues, is fastidious about doing appropriate things with accidental poop, had crawled inside the garbage bag to unload when he couldn't make it to the litterbox. He had then pushed some of the papers inside partially on top of it to bury the slimy mess as best he could.

I gathered up the disgusting scene, shoved it inside another garbage bag, and made a second trip to the dumpster. Upon my return, I found Oskar lying belly up and purring for my love from the top of the bookshelf.

I fixed it, I said, which is what I always say after fixing whatever has caused him to do the Dance of the Great Emergency, and he squinted his eyes affectionately at me.

If there was ever a cat who could really use his own opposable thumbs, it's Oskar.

Labels: the pets, the photographs

50x365 #332: Zeke

Monday, August 18, 2008

I arrived home to find you sitting naked in my living room

Who's this? I asked my roommate.

Zeke, she said.

Please give me my pants, you pleaded, whining with your hands cupped over your penis.

I don't think so, I said, walking away. Does your girlfriend know you're here?

I am a participant in x365 and Blog 365.

Labels: x365

Wah. Wah. Call Me A Wahmbulance.

I have been to see my family doctor about my current condition (anxiety and depression), and he prescribed me a higher dose of my present medication, put me on a waiting list to see a psychiatrist, and filled out a form that grants me a couple of weeks of stress leave from work.

My adjustment to a higher dose of medication has left me dizzy and emotionally numb, it turns out that the psychiatrist will not be able to see me until October, and the two weeks of stress leave is slowly dwindling itself down to nothing while I get no better and may, in fact, be worse.

There are good things happening, though. I have lost six pounds, which means that my inner thighs are not tossing themselves up against in each in great slapping waves as often as they used to. I have more colour in my cheeks than I have had in months. I feel physically healthier. I even sleep through the night now.

Still, though, I am spending my days staring at the furniture and feeling completely impotent as far as accomplishing any of the projects I have on the go, AND I WANT TO COMPLAIN ABOUT IT.

REALLY LOUDLY.

A LOT.

I want to be a big howling, spoiled baby and throw myself on the floor. I want to reject everyone's attempts to pacify me. I want to cry so hard that my nose starts bleeding. I want to take my brain, psychiatric drugs, the psychiatric system, and all this hot, sweaty weather to court for being entirely unfair.

Plus, I'm drinking so much tea that I am peeing constantly, and we are out of toilet paper.

And I found a pile of stinky cat poo that one of those buggers we keep around here tried to hide under two of my favourite shirts. I'm taking that poo to court, too. It was nearly inexpungible.

Also, sushi isn't free. I'm broke. I hate my new antiperspirant. This first-world pissant is ANNOYED.

-----------------------------------

(That orange masthead I had at the top of this website was killing me. I don't know why, but it kept stabbing my brain, so I gave it the boot. If you're reading this in a feedreader, click on over to check it out.)

Labels: the crazy, the metablogging

50x365 #331: Mr. Peters

Sunday, August 17, 2008

I'd been told to watch out for you. I didn't know why until I was stretching your legs for you while bopping to some big band number. You grabbed the pendant on my necklace and pulled. A nurse had to disentangle us to stop you from looking down my shirt.

I am a participant in x365 and Blog 365.

Labels: x365

50x365 #330: Louise

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Your multiple sclerosis had paralyzed you. I asked questions while you ate through a straw, and you blinked answers, once for yes and twice for no.

Does your family ever come to see you?

Blink. Blink.

Not even your children?

Blink. Blink.

I held your hand.

I am a participant in x365 and Blog 365.

Labels: x365

Swearing Can Change Your Life

Back in the days when I said words like "freaky deaky" and "wicked" to describe my world, I was the tightest ball of anxious insecurity you could imagine. Holy bejeezus, did other people knock my poop out of its group. I lived only half a block from my elementary school, but there were three miles of despair and imagined social hell between my house and that schoolyard, I swear.

Let's face it. Kids can be mean. Most kids are born megalomaniacs who have to be goaded/admonished/grounded into a more civilized state until their brains are mature enough to figure out that being a decent human being has its rewards. The kids in my grade were mostly in that pre-trained state and took joy in subjecting others to ridicule and derisive rumours. I was an easy target. I was gentle, buck-toothed, philosophical, myopic, and most of my clothes were picked out by my grandmother from the thrift store she volunteered at in a small prairie town. We've all seen how some people can dress in backwater farming communities. Now imagine that, only three years even further out of date. I was a hick-looking woodchuck in Holly Hobby glasses.

I was in this pre-pubescent haze of painful self-discovery and was working myself into a terrible state. Who was I? What did I want? What could I do to garner more respect? What the hell was wrong with everyone? The times, they were a-killing me.

Even my best friend, Laurie, had begun to take a tone with me. She had suddenly started to make mocking comments about things I did, said, and wore. My last safe place, my best friend, was turning on me. I knew I had to do something before everything fell apart and I ended up like that other nerd, Peggy, who roamed the outfield alone, toeing the dirt at recess, but what?

I loved Laurie, and there was no way I was willing to lose her as a friend because I couldn't find the courage to put her in her place. I knew that I was somehow allowing this behaviour in others and thought it was up to me to change it. I am a self-blamer. What can I say? I worried over what course of action I would take for weeks. When Laurie would toss out comments like "Nice pants. Are they from your grandma?", which was true but irksome nonetheless, I could feel my anger burning up my spine, but I kept my eyes downcast. I was going to surprise her. I didn't know with what, but I was going to shock her with the fact I wasn't going to take it anymore. I was a coiled cobra in a seventy-pound body.

I had been given this pair of baby blue running shoes by a lady who lived down the street from me. She was an adult but tiny, and I needed shoes. I really liked them, despite the fact that they were two sizes too big for me. I loved lacing them up and feeling the soft terrycloth on the tongue brush against my fingers. One day, as I was tying my shoes before recess, Laurie came up to me in the hall and said "Are those your mom's shoes?" She had this smirk on her face like she thought she was so brilliant with her rudimentary sarcasm.

I felt my anger rising in my chest. It literally felt like there was this bubbling heat filling my chest cavity. I could barely hear with all the blood racing through my ears. I raised myself to a standing position, fists clenched at my sides, and did something I had never before done. I had not planned my course of action, but the time was upon me, and I acted spontaneously straight from my gut. I SWORE. OUT LOUD.

Fuck, I said in the lowest, throatiest voice I could muster.

What did you say? Laurie asked, clearly disbelieving her own ears.

FUCK YOU, I repeated the word. I couldn't believe it, either. You can't talk to me that way anymore.

My muscles jumped and twitched. I was in brand new territory throwing words like that around. I half-expected some adult to walk by and knock me upside the head for my indiscretion.

She stood there for a moment with blushing cheeks. I had heard her say "shit" before, but neither of us had ever delved so deep into the four-lettered no-nos. This was new and slightly embarrassing behaviour for both of us. These were words that, when hefted, came down like sledgehammers to our nearly virgin ears.

Alright, alright, she said, trying to laugh it off but looking nervous about my sudden show of backbone. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or anything.

I was four-feet-five-inches tall, but I felt gigantic at that moment. My body was a powerful muscle of torqued force. I was someone who had to be reckoned with. I'd had my first triumph over personal adversity. I was someone who had to loosen their shoelaces, because tying them while angry meant that I had cut off the blood supply to my feet.

It turned out that swearing wasn't a sinful activity reserved for kids with bad parents and immature grownups, as I had been led to believe. It turned out that swearing helped me fight my first real battle to stand up for myself, which gave me more confidence than anything that had come before. Laurie never spoke to me in a condescending manner again, and she actually offered me a sincere apology at the end of the day.

Suddenly, I didn't have to be so insignificant all the time. I could be large when I needed to. I could change things.

Swearing changed my life. Thank fuck.

Labels: the past

50x365 #329: Angela

Friday, August 15, 2008

I might have liked you if you didn't insist that we call you Angel and constantly mention your so-called modeling career. If you were a model, it was for your hometown drugstore. I know we were a tough crowd, but your glaring insecurity was enough to put anyone off.

I am a participant in x365 and Blog 365.

Labels: x365

50x365 #328: Sarah

Thursday, August 14, 2008

I was rabidly envious of the freedom with which you expressed being queer and lived your life like you were dreaming out loud. The night we danced and everyone in the room disappeared, I wanted to consume you, like parents who love their children so much that they eat them.

I am a participant in x365 and Blog 365.

Labels: x365