dispatch from a galaxy far far away

so.... this is what people take drugs for...

i've been soooooo out of it for the last two days.... which seems like a week or something.... it's very blank.... i'm not worried about anything.... don't care much about anything either..... it all seems pretty easy.... there's job applications, hospital bills, getting ready for the possible move.... I'm not doing any of it and don't really care.... I've felt very isolated too, in a bubble.... it's an effort to listen to what people say, more of an effort to respond.... very far away.

i can see how people would want to stay here.... also how it would fuck up your life.... i kinda don't want to come back to life/reality and deal with everything............ and there's no "but" ...... i just want to keep floating................

Loopy is currently having a conversation with the mitten she's knitting. In fact, it's sort of an argument; apparently the mitten does not wish to have a lining knitted into it, but Loopy thinks that a lining would be a good idea.

I think I better try to get it together before too much longer.

icing on the cake

so between walking, lying on ice, and taking a lot of pills (it's actually been lovely, the first time I've been pain-free since January 3 - I didn't realize how much pain I'd been in b/c I'd just gotten used to it!) I did some more research on the job situation and finally found a good starting point in chicago.

I figured if I could just find one school that's a place I'd like to teach, hopefully I can talk with principal and teachers there and get their recommendations for other places to try. So today... I found one! Yay!

Check it out... only 18 minutes from our current apartment in Chicago... and at least according tot he website, so close to my whole approach and teaching philosophy that I could just cry!

Although I love the "Six Feet Under" box set (it has furry "grass" on top!!), finding this school is the best birthday present I could have gotten.

Now I have to go lie down. Not only should I do that for my back, but I'm starting to feel queasy.... in addition to all the medication, I ate both the two Vosges chocolate bars Loopy gave me within the last few hours ("hey, it's my birthday!"), and, uh, yeah, that wasn't such a great idea.

birthday extravaganza continues!!

So Wednesday night we had dinner w Miri and Dylan - we shared the "All-American Feast," i.e., heaps o' meat bigger than your head, at Famous Dave's on Park Street. Mmmmm. Gotta love that Georgia chop pork..... second only to the oh-my-god ribs. And we all got extra corn muffins! It was heavenly.



And Thursday night it was a fancy-shmancy spread at Lombardino's w Shamus and Ang... Shamus sprang for some absolutely spectacular wine, which went wonderfully with our appetizers (calamari, cheese plate - w pine nut cake and scrumptious sweet preserves offsetting the cheeses, a spicy pizza, and some gorgonzola-stuffed dates on thin slices of some kind of salami-like thing sprinkled with spicy sprouts) as well as our "primi piatti" (R & Ang had orechiette in some kind of fabulous cream sauce; I had pasta with chilis and MINT - so different and refreshing! - and Shamus had pasta with braised short ribs). And then there was another course, but I'm totally blanking out on it... oh yeah.... I had chicken, two people had pork, and someone had a filet. It was sooo delightful I was in seventh heaven.

The only downer was that we had to go elsewhere for dessert b/c Lombardino's wouldn't let us cut our cake there! Ohhh, and what a cake it was.... "La Brioche," chocolaty chocolate with extra chocolate, which wsa just fabulous. (Loopy said she asked if there was a particularly good cake and the woman behind the counter was so emphatic about this one that it was almost scary).



Today my actual bday I'm spending in bed, stoned out of my gourd on valium & vicodin, trying to get my back pain under control (doctor's orders!). I don't care. I'm so blissed out...

Loopy got me several delightful presents including the entire box set of "Six Feet Under" (yes, Miri, you can borrow the last season!). Yay!!!!

I am definitely the luckiest girl in the world.

hip pappy bithuthday to me, again! :-)

And we're starting the usual week-long celebration with a bouquet of GORGEOUS roses from my Mom!!! They smell so great, they look so great... aw gee... I love them.



Also, check this out...
George Takei responds to pro basketball player's anti-gay comments

It's really, really, really funny.

wow

now there's even a state in Mexico that has civil unions! Dykes from Texas are going south of the border to get married!!

Check it out...

mom, are you reading this?

cuz I'm getting totally paranoid. if you are, just tell me. don't sneak around. it's creeping me out.

more medical drama

so Mom has decided that what's wrong is her gall bladder, but some of the symptoms and tests indicate it could be cancer in her kidneys.

she says "why waste your energy worrying about something before you know?"

that's my mom for you--plan out what emotions to have, then have them, no muss no fuss.

meanwhile I'm convinced that (a) it's kidney cancer, and (b) she's going to have surgery for it between May 5 and 18th, which would be the third time that a family member's surgery has pre-empted my traveling to Iran.

of course, I'm much more sad and worried about my Mom's health than the trip. but damn, that would piss me off.

mommy said a bad word!!!!

Poor thing, she hasn't been feeling well.

On my voicemail, in fact, she described her status as "crappy."

I was shocked.

But it does explain why the INSIDE of our basement door looks like the inside of an old-fashioned icebox in need of defrosting.



Clearly, Hell has frozen over.

boiled potatoes

So I went to the meditation retreat and had a very interesting experience.

Basically, I had what one would be tempted to call "bad meditation" the whole time. I was exhausted and kept falling asleep, and my back hurt unless I sat with perfect posture.

I kept having weird little dreams with my eyes open, like, that the sweater of the person in front of me was changing colors, or that the person in front of me was scratching their leg or talking to a neighbor--then I'd wake up and they were sitting there motionless.

So I felt like it wasn't gonna be of any benefit to me.

On Sunday, toward the end, we got into smaller groups to talk about our experiences and a guy next to me said that he had read that "meditation when you're angry is like boiling a pot of potatoes..."

(What the fuck is he talking about?? I thought)

"...it seems like nothing's changing, but gradually, they get softer."

And suddenly I realized that that had EXACTLY been my experience.

Saturday night after a whole day of hours & hours of "bad meditation," I went home and was able to have a good cry, talk to Loopy, and feel that rage (see previous post) start to loosen and melt. It had seriously not occurred to me that this might have been possible because of my meditation all day, however "bad."

Pretty cool eh... the teachers have always said that there's no such thing as "bad meditation," that it is beneficial no matter whether it feels "good" or "bad" while you're doing it.

Huh.

funny Loopy in her sleep

Last night as we finally drove home after returning from our 12-day trip to PA, Loopy was asleep in the front seat and I was driving. (For years Loopy insisted on driving and I was always the one sleeping in the passenger's seat... it feels kind of nice to switch places... I identify with the protective Dad in the car commercials... it feels nice to drive carefully and gently for your beloved...)

Anyway. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a piece of paper fall out of the sun visor on the passenger's side--it fell onto Loopy's face, then slid down to the ground. Not realizing at that moment that she was asleep, I asked, "what was that?"

"What was what?" she said (asleep, but sounding awake).

Me: "The thing that fell on your head?"

Loopy: "Nothing fell on my head."

Me: "No, there was something, I think it was a piece of paper--something fell on your head."

Loopy (with conviction): "It was just a metaphor."

Me: "What? A metaphor fell on your head?"

Loopy (nodding emphatically, still in her sleep): "Yes."

fury & whining

Lately i've been enraged all the time for no apparent reason. I threw my cell phone across the car because a friend got confused about the time difference between eastern and central time.

Loopy is being very patient with me and I don't feel even the slightest bit annoyed with her... but I'm getting tired of it.

It has been suggested that I'm just sick of being in Hershey, PA, watching wounds drain through tubes for the last 12 days. Could be. Now we're in O'Hare and the whole mess with the planes is such a pain that I'm too exhausted and disgusted/disheartened to even feel like complaining about it.

We'll be home soon. If the above-mentioned theory is correct I will be filled with peace and light. I am skeptical.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I have a whole meditation retreat this weekend where I can go just sit with my enraged self for hours and hours.

Lucky me.