Posts
All Comments
When he can't make you come
Your practicality
would have you
carve carefully
but maybe you'll
take the lathe out this time
and shave until the blade
is as dull
as you keep
your nails...
Please:
Try it all
with sap
still running...
Try working
alive.
Mixx it!
In the sandbox
you were the
firemanson
But now you're
afraid to smile
because it shows
the creases life has
made in your face
though you know
everyone around you
wherever you are
in the small town
and the only
way they know
your face is by lineage
you know they
hunger to see
your face crumple
that they
delight in
the signs dying things
give
and you try not to.
Mixx it!
After I
swipe off
your wing-feathers
You're
interesting
only for as long
as you face
gravity
like the fucking
rest of us.
Mixx it!
I switched my account from AOL to Gmail because my AOL account, lately, has been hiccuping like a sot on his fifteenth beer.
Please send any/all correspondence to calvinbandini@gmail.com from now on.
Love and kittens
--CB
Mixx it!
My lawyer called me yesterday to let me know that, now that a psych picked by the Social Security admin. has examined me (what? three weeks ago?), the SSA is going to have me see an MD of their choosing. Hopefully soon...
I'll have to be sure to list all the stuff I have -- you can't say "I have fibro" to a doctor and expect them to know that that means you have a disorder that is comprised of various other diseases/disorders, plus the pain everyone knows it causes, I've discovered. I also need to list all the medications I've taken and treatments I've been through, too.
...With all that, plus the doc's personal findings, I can't imagine he/she reporting to the SSA that I should be put to work in a coal mine immediately... Or saying I could be hired by any company for anything. Like my personal doc said -- "I hope your book works out [I'm writing a book... Seems important to note that, here], because once you fill this you'll never get hired by anyone for liability reasons" (then he wrote me my first Oxy script).
"Hi! -- Calvin Bandini, here for the interview..."
...
"So what you're saying, Mr Bandini, is that you're pretty much on something like heroin, plus uppers and tranquilizers twenty-four/seven?"
"I guess, yeah. But, I can't get high from the stuff. I take it out of medical necessity."
"...Yeah... Huh...
"Um -- Do you think your medications would affect your ability to do you job?"
"Only in that they would allow me to do my job. --Provided I can get a one- or two-hour-long nap in sometime during the day, don't have to remember anything said to me five minutes after it's been said, don't have to walk, stand nor sit for more than thirty minutes at a time, and can have anywhere from four to ten days off per month, depending on what treatments I need at any given time.
"...You know, pretty average stuff.
"--Oh! I can bring in my own hammock! It's one of those you can set up anywhere you have the space! So the nap-thing is really a non-issue!
"...And you guys have a three-day workweek, right? Because I need to rest four days out of the week or I just get completely messed up."
"...Huh.. Well... Yeah.
"...Thanks for coming in...
(This is the next thing the person would say if he/she were able to be honest:) "We'll call to tell you we can't hire you as soon as our lawyers come up with sufficient grounds on which to deny your application that also preclude you from suing us under the Americans with Disabilities Act."
Mixx it!
I saw Dr ML&S this morning. I thought I was going to have a problem waking up early (I had to leave the house at 9:00, and I've been awakening at 11:00 or noon lately), but did not. I woke at 4:00. ...That would mean I got five hours of sleep.
I don't know what the hell that is about... Some nights my person seems to love sleep at least as much as it loves oxygen, but other times it wants out of it like a college kid wants out of the drunk tank as soon as he wakes up. (The three-inch thick foam-rubber mattress you're given to put on the concrete floor isn't comfortable once you've sobered up.)
First we discussed the results of my allergy test. I told him I immediately cut yeast out of my diet, and that what I had thought was IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) was actually my gut's response to its yeast allergy.
So I have no more IBS-like symptoms (which I won't discuss here -- eeeeeeww)! However, that's the only thing wrong with me that has been put right.
After that discussion, Dr ML&S asked me to rate my pain throughout the day. I told him that, since I take all my meds on time and on an exact schedule I make every morning, based on when I wake up, it's a 4.5/10 all day long.
He said "Then I guess we have a ways to go."
...On my way to see him, today, I hadn't even thought about increasing my OxyContin dose, but the doc doesn't seem like he'll be happy until my pain rates 0/0, if that's possible to attain.
When he asked me if I thought taking 10mg of Oxy every five hours instead of every six would further reduce my pain, I said yes. Thirty mg/day decreased it significantly (from 50/10 to within the scale), 40mg/day decreased the agony maybe two points more, and so now I hope my pain decreases even further.
...Perhaps I can get to a 2.5 or 2/10... If that happens, it may no longer hurt when I sit back in chairs!
He also asked me to tell him how my pain has been since I began seeing him.
"Well... You saved my life."
I explained that going from 50/10 to 4.5/10 was something so tremendous it hadn't even occurred to me that we should try to bring it down further (maybe I should work on this post so I don't restate that)... That he had improved my life (reduced my pain, etc) so much that I'm still in shock due to how much better I feel. (Which isn't to say every moment isn't agony...)
I know this seems like I'm simply blowing smoke up my doctor's ass, but I have no reason to: very few people know about this blog (PLEASE DONATE!), including him.
I'm simply grateful that this guy saved my life. The day before I saw him I was thinking up different ways I could kill myself. The very next day a smile crept on my face for the first time in forever.
...Dr ML&S also increased my Ritalin LA (long-acting), so now I'm taking 30mg to get me out of bed, and 20mg later in the day, about eight hours before I plan on going to sleep.
I think it could work out... And if it doesn't the good doc (I think that is the first time I've used that phrase without sarcasm) and I will fine-tune things when I see him in about a month.
...Hopefully all this is leading to me getting on some sort of sleep schedule... That's eluded me for a very very long time.
May Dr ML&S live a thousand years.
Mixx it!
It now has been exactly two weeks since I was examined by a psych. chosen by the Social Security Administration. Someone I know, who succeeded in getting disability benefits, said he received his decision within a month. Perhaps I will get mine within two weeks.
Now would be a good time to have patience, which I've always sorely lacked...
But, on the bright side of the I-Can't-Eat-anything-With-Yeast-In-It-Anymore situation, I've been so preoccupied with watching my diet and its effects (minimal: It's easier for me to wake up now, but still very hard for me to stay awake, even with 40mg Ritalin and all the green tea (which has caffeine) I'm drinking... Green tea being my sub for coffee, the latter of which I'm also allergic to... It's a good thing I've always liked green tea) that I haven't had much time to think about the forthcoming decision from Social Security. Also, I've lost seven pounds in one week. Perhaps because my diet, now, is a hell of a lot like what people in the first two weeks of the Atkins program are supposed to eat.
...Waiting is boring. So is this post. How fitting...
Mixx it!
Mixx it!
[This is a comment from David at the LifeTrek blog re my 10 Commandments post that needed to be more visible than it is in the Comments section, followed by my response:]
By no means am I deeply religious, but I did do some online research.
Typically much of Galatians (try 3 and 5 for starters) explains some of what you're asking.
It appears to be a common misinterpretation when questioning the bible piecemeal, but that is answered throughout the New Testament.
Here are some summaries online of the bible in whole:
The coming of Christ made parts of the Mosaic law unnecessary.
In order to understand this, we must realize that the Law is made up of three parts: ceremonial, civil, and moral.
The ceremonial law related specifically to Israel's worship. Since its primary purpose was to point to the coming Savior, Jesus made it unnecessary. He did not abolish it, in the sense of destroying it; he fulfilled it. Nowhere do we read that Jesus thought that the ceremonial law was wrong. The principles behind the ceremonial law are still applicable to us today -- that is, the principles of worshiping and serving a holy God.
The civil law prescribed rules for the Israelites' daily living. These laws separated the Jews from the Gentiles, and gave the Gentiles the example of how a holy people should live. Since much was given to the Jews, much was expected. But God gave a new covenant in Christ, and there is now no distinction to be made between Jew and Gentile. We are still to follow the requirements of this law as God's people, but the punishments are not for any nation to impose on its people, because we are no longer separated by nations but by God's grace (Christians and non-Christians).
The moral law is basically the Ten Commandments. We are still bound by these laws, not for salvation, but to live a holy life. Jesus not only desired that His followers adhere to these commandments, He wished that they would go above and beyond them. He said, "Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment..." He desired not only an outward observance of these laws, but an inward observance as well.
---
"If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law" ... "therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a sabbath day -- things that are a mere shadow of what is to come," and "For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under Law but under grace."
Keep in mind who Paul's talking to: young churches, mostly of Jewish backgrounds. When he speaks of "the Law", he's referring to Mosaic Law. When he speaks of "the law," he refers to state law. (I say this so nobody thinks I'm claiming Paul says to disobey all laws.) Jesus clearly states in the the Gospel of Matthew that He came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. He didn't destroy the Law of Moses, he completed it. He fulfilled the prophesies of the coming messiah, He became the very essence of the suffering servant.
---
The Ritual Decalogue is the list of commandments in Exodus 34:10-26. They are generally viewed as having minor significance compared to the Ethical Decalogue. Although the Ritual Decalogue appears in the text at the point where the Ten Commandments are inscribed into the second set of stone tablets, and it is them, rather than the Ethical Decalogue, which are there identified as the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:28), it is the Ethical Decalogue which is commonly believed to have been inscribed on both sets of tablets.
---
I also read in one of my searches that the reason for the differing translations for commandments, but I can't remember where I found that and am lucky to have kept these straight through the fibro fog.
So, maybe we aren't all going to hell. Hope that helps.
David
My response:
Re your comment on the "10 Commandments" post. Put simply: you got me!
Ha!
From a strictly Christian standpoint, you've got me dead to rights. The only thing I would point out is that it is Christian tradition that makes the ethical commandments those written on Moses' tablets. I maintain that the commandments I list in the post are, in fact -- based on reading the Bible alone -- the ones that actually went on the tablets.
However, your comment goes on to make the above point... pointless.
Since I am a former Catholic, you reminded me of what I already knew: That Jesus fulfilled certain parts of scripture, and went so far as to remind the people that certain laws were to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah, and that those specific laws no longer needed to be followed in his presence which, it can be argued, Christians remain.
I'm also very happy that your comment is so erudite and learned, when usually the kind of bile I spit in that post (I admit it: I wrote it in haste and with with a certain gleeful meanness) only causes more bile to come forth from readers. Which would be my fault, of course.
But you took a much higher road, and I say well done.
Mixx it!
FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.
Yeah. I can't eat bread. It turns out I'm INCREDIBLY allergic to yeast (including brewer's, so NO MORE BEER... NO MORE BEER!), so I can't eat anything that has it. This includes all breads. I can't eat fucking bread!
...Weeks ago I had a blood test that determined what and how much I'm allergic to certain things/foods. It turns out that yeast is a huge no-no for me.
The good news is that, by cutting out of my diet everything that has yeast (just about everything), I should feel better.
I'll still have fibro -- neither my trigger points, the alpha-wave intrusion into my delta-wave sleep, nor the constant pain I live with are going to go away as I exclude all yeast-containing products from my diet -- but I may feel more awake, and maybe even a little better overall.
I'm also supposed to avoid sugar and pretty much all sweeteners. Eating properly is going to be very difficult, but worth it if I can feel a bit better. Especially if my allergy is making my chronic fatigue worse. (It's been horrendous lately, as up-to-date readers know... I've even been able to sleep for hours after taking 20mg of Ritalin for crissake!)
But oh well. Like I've said since I was diagnosed with fibro: I'd walk The Mall (in DC) from Congress to Lincoln barefoot over broken glass to feel better.
...It's too bad that's pretty much what I have to do now.
But I will. I feel so bad all the time that I'll do whatever it takes to improve my condition even slightly.
I was sent the info on my allergies yesterday, and immediately went on a short fast. I ate lunch today, and realized that from now on I will have to cook, myself, almost everything I can eat. Almost everything has yeast in it.
This afternoon I spent 45 minutes cooking a chicken breast. ...I haven't cooked in a very long time, but give myself kudos for my improv skills. I don't measure anything, nor do I know how I'm going to prepare what I'm going to cook when I put it in the pan (I have always stayed away from ovens). I just look in the cupboard and pantry and pick out whatever spices/herbs/oils/etc smell like they'd work together.
I ended up with seared garlic and rosemary chicken with a red wine (though I'm not supposed to drink wine anymore, I figured it would be OK to cook with it since I reduced it to practically nothing... Maybe that just made it all the worse by concentrating it, though) and roasted peanut oil sauce. (The two don't seem like they'd work together, but I added the oil after I had added the chicken back to the pan and the wine had reduced to a tablespoon, so I needed just a touch of oil in the sauce.) The finished product somehow turned out quite well.
...Perhaps I'll eventually get incredibly tired of preparing everything I eat, and wind up having to be fed intravenously...
But until then I shouldn't have a problem losing the rest of the weight I want to. (I dropped twenty-five in the month after I stopped taking Lyrica, but would like to get rid of another twenty-five or so.) That's another plus.
I will keep you posted on my yeast-free existence... It will be interesting to see if I begin to sour on having to live with this allergy (did I mention I can't eat bread, the very thing that allowed humanity to cease living as hunter-gatherers?), which is yet another kick in the nuts from a professional field goal kicker.
Mixx it!
[I have recently been prescribed double the dose of Ritalin previously prescribed because each pill keeps me awake for only eight hours. I'm trying to be awake for sixteen daily, like a normal person. So I called my doc and now am to take one in the morning and one later in the day.
Which I am very happy about, but may worry a friend of mine. I e-mailed her -- a postscript to an e-mail I previously sent to her -- explaining why more Ritalin is a good thing, though it's likely she doesn't think so.
Here's the e-mail:]
I wonder if you think more Ritalin is exactly what I don't need -- more drugs of any kind exactly what I don't need.
It's important to remember that my disorder is rather serious (the pain medication I take is the same given to terminal cancer patients... And not because I love painkillers but because I'm in equivalent pain), even though I act as though it's anything but. It affects every single facet of my life... And the drugs I take I take to attempt to crawl into the shadow of my former self.
I don't mean to put words in your mouth -- I just wanted to prevent you from worrying about my drug diet.
I wasn't able to talk to you for a month because I was sleeping so much (and so very very tired when I wasn't asleep). I finally was able to call you after I was put on Ritalin.
Everything I take I take to feel more normal... Not exactly better.
Mixx it!
I call her after I drink the fifth of Stoli to a certain level.
She doesn't notice I'm drunk and continue to get more so.
Her: "My ex is stalking me..."
Her, later:
"I think he's gotten over it..."
Me: "The last thing you want is for him to get over it. The last thing you want is for anyone to get over anything. You need power over everyone. That power turns the crank that juts out of your back."
(I don't know if I just came up with that or if I'm reiterating it.)
Later, me:
"The fact remains that if he showed up at your door and said he'd really try this time, you'd take him back. You love the fat, small-dicked fucker because he's broken... And it isn't that you want to fix him: You love playing with the pieces."
"You think I'm incapable of loving someone who isn't fucked up?"
"You know you are."
The conversation goes on until I find myself sinking too far into self-loathing.
...I need her.
I must love playing with the pieces...
And I must be shattered for her to listen to me...
The realization scares me as it did the first time and I beg off the phone quickly with a limp excuse.
We'll talk when the bottle of Stoli gets to the proper level.
Maybe the next time I call she'll have some other guy. And then I'll hear about all the ways in which he's inadequate, and mesmerizing because.
Then maybe her ex will begin stalking her in an obvious manner, out of jealousy.
Then maybe they'll get back together.
Mixx it!
[I got into a hyper-religion-investigating mode yesterday and thought I'd post this instead of my own ranting. And I also promise to get on some other topic after this post.]
From Exodus 34:
1. Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves
2. For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods
3. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods
4. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt
5. All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty
6. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest
7. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end. Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year
8. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning
9. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God
10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk
There are twenty-one or twenty-three edicts given by god in all, but these are the only ten called "commandments" in the bible. Therefore, these are the ten commandments.
Christians, you'd best start to observe passover! Also, what the hell is with the faithful no longer making sacrifices? God nothing more than the smell of burning animal entrails! Observe the feasts! (Maybe the fact that you do not is the reason god obviously did not keep the promise he makes in this commandment.) On to numbers eight and nine: Get with the freaking sacrificing, you're pissing god off! Finally, keep kosher!
It's good to know that I'll see everyone in hell because they fail to keep the real commandments.
Feel free to blubber and make lame excuses as a way of sliding yourself through the closed pearly gates, but by doing so you're basically saying "god didn't really mean it." But sorry: God meant everything, and literally, in Exodus -- and he killed and ordered to be killed a hell of a lot of people for much much tinier infractions than not keeping the commandments.
We're all lucky we haven't been struck dead already.
HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
Mixx it!
[I know the proper saying is "...tree." The reason I modified it will become clear.]
I was sent an e-mail that had a bunch of cool pictures of rock formations that looked like animals. After the pictures was this plea: to take ONE MINUTE to say the lord's prayer, to not be ashamed of your love for god, and to show it by passing the chain e-mail along.
My response to the sender:
[The creation of every formation is] explicable by natural phenomena. Cool though.
I take this e-mail as an attempt to illustrate that god is the creator of all things, and only god could make the rocks, etc look the way they do. And that its creation is beautiful.
The flip side being: If god is the creator of all things we must also give ONE MINUTE to god for the Holocaust.
We can't just give god credit for the beautiful things; it has to be given credit for everything. Otherwise it is not god because it is not all-powerful.
One can make an argument that god is unknowable, and all the evil that is done is done for a purpose only god can understand; the beauty must be taken with the horror. And one cannot lay blame for evil on free will -- on people choosing to do evil -- because mankind was created in god's image and likeness.
Further, just as people are capable of wrong, so is god. A reading of the Old Testament (Torah, Hebrew Bible) shows that god is capable of error -- it admits to erring on a few occasions (oops! Hundreds of thousands dead!). Ergo, he is not all-knowing. God endorses wholesale slaughter of entire cities and the men, women and children within them. It endorses slavery. On and on.
God made a rainbow, and rainbows are beautiful things. Before it made that, though, it wiped out almost every single living thing on earth, without remorse. The people drowned to death -- one of the worst ways to go.
The foundation of my life is, irrefutably, my parents, and I give thanks to them for my life. I don't have god's genes.
And you'll excuse me for being ashamed of a mass-murderer. I'm ashamed of Ted Bundy, and he killed far fewer people than god ever did.
You can choose to divorce the Old Testament (Torah, Hebrew Bible) from the New Testament, but then you are not following the god of Jesus, the Jew, who gathered followers through his superior understanding and (strict) interpretation of the Torah.
Either god has done it all or he has done nothing. We can't pick and choose.
To quickly sum things up and give you the short version of the argument against the existence of the Christian god:
1. If evil exists and God is omniscient, then God knows about it.
2. If God knows about evil and is omnibenevolent, then he wants to prevent it.
3. If God wants to prevent evil and is omnipotent, then he can prevent it.
4. Therefore, if God is omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent, then evil should not exist.
The Christian god is defined as being omniscient, omnibenevolent and omnipotent. He is everywhere, he is all-good, he is all-powerful. But he cannot be all these things if evil exists, which it does.
But if "evil" is really "good" -- a necessary part of god's giving mankind free will, etc -- then there is no point in worshiping such an entity, for why kneel to something that allows us to suffer? That makes us suffer?
And if the devil causes evil, then god is not omnipotent, for he cannot defeat the devil. If god chooses not to defeat the devil, then he is not omnibenevolent. If god is unaware of the devil, then he is not omniscient.
Sorry to belabor the subject. I added this last piece because I needed to address specifically Christian conceptions of god, and not just the god of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible/Torah, who was undoubtedly evil (commanding the rape of 32,000 women from one city, for just one example).
Still, to not-love the god of the Old Testament is to not-love the god of Jesus, the Jew.
And to love the god of the Old Testament is to love a dictator/fascist who commanded the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, the rape of hundreds of thousands, the enslavement of hundreds of thousands, to love a being that did not frown upon the incest committed by Abraham's (the patriarch of Judeo-Christianity) daughters, and on and on.
Personally, I'm incredibly relieved that such a god does not exist.
Mixx it!
I'm having mixed results with the extended-release Ritalin. Yesterday I awoke at two p.m. but had to go to sleep at ten p.m. last night. I was freaking exhausted, despite having taken a Rit promptly upon waking.
Perhaps the release isn't so extended...
But the previous day I couldn't get to sleep until six or seven a.m. I had been awake for what felt like forever, but was probably about sixteen hours.
And now I'm awake and it's eight a.m. However, I woke up at three.
Perhaps in the struggle between Ritalin (amphetamine) and Klonopin (tranquilizer), the Klonopin wins... But K hasn't made me tired for about a decade.
I can't make sense of this.
Perhaps I'm being worked over by the impending decision from Social Security re whether I'm disabled according to them. The sound of the executioner sharpening his blade sings beside my ears...
In other news, I think I could go for a nice round of marcaine shots. My neck isn't as flexible as it used to be and the trigger points in my back make it painful for me to sit back in chairs. Also, my migraines are worse than they used to be.
So it may be time to see Dr 9 for the only thing he's good for and believes in: those damn shots of his. ...My TENS unit just isn't a good enough proxy for those shots.
(Man what a boring post. I should have waited for the Ritalin to kick in before writing.)
Now I have to go hide my drugs. A certain person is visiting today, is a fucking pill fiend, and would rather I wish for death due to lack of narcotics than he be high.
He does have a legitimate problem with his back, but won't get his own Oxy prescription, which he has said time and again his doctors are more than willing to give him. Instead he sticks to taking overdoses of Tylenol through taking assloads of Vicodin and his liver must be as black as our lungs by now (each of us has been smoking for about fifteen years).
How am I to sympathize?
...And now I have Ritalin, which he would be more than happy to ingest like a behind-schedule trucker...
One's possession of heavy drugs easily turns certain of one's friends and loved ones into con men and snakes who search for your the pills you hide and protect like unhatched eggs...
Mixx it!
[From now on all short stories, like poems, will have titles in all-lowercase so you can easily tell the posts that have to do with fibro -- the diaristry (I like making up words) -- from the ones that (usually) do not. A new blog devoted to shorts and poems to be announced soon.]
It Could [Have] Be[en] Sweet
(please begin playing thePortishead selection below)
Stereotypically, I developed a huge crush on her because she pushed me away for so long and that crush went away as soon as we slept together.
So many idiots make the mistake of waiting to sleep together. Get it fucking the fuck out of the way. The first time is horrible. You hardly even want to be naked with the person.
And christ, being told that sex was to be "something special between us" -- at our age (thirty-ish) -- was just laughable.
At thirty you damn-well-better know that all sex is is two people getting off together. Trying to make it something else corrupts the act itself and the people who buy into the idea that it's more than what it is.
...After a full month we were finally fucking and it was awkward and bad, despite the athleticism involved. I came three times, trying my best to remember each picture in the Kama Sutra.
It was nothing but a goddam performance piece... She was too loud to be believed... Then, anyway. If it had been weeks ago I would have bought it. I would have loved it. I would have joined in. ...At that time her wailing, and my belief in its contrivance, almost made me limp. I practically had to close my eyes and think of England...
All this despite the fact I had nothing but admiration for her only minutes ago. She was too like me for me to not love her (which is the more honest way of saying that we had a lot in common and I loved her because). We had already started communicating just by looking certain ways at each other.
...Naturally, after we finally had sex, that fascination with one another turned into the love one has for a sibling. And the third time we were screwing it was almost as weird as having sex with a goddam relative (I'll point out, here, that I come from a family of all [hetero] boys and unattractive cousins).
I began to think of how we were missing Aqua Teen,* and became sure she was thinking the same thing. So I pinned her knees by her ears and came within minutes, playing "Common People"** in my head to drown out the screaming of my name.
Then we lay on the bed, naked, sweaty, exhausted, the room stinking of vaginal and seminal fluid. I grabbed the remote from the floor.
The box flickered on and I was relieved to discover I had caught the last few minutes of Aqua Teen.
She curled herself around me, sighed loudly into my ear "Mmm god aren't you so glad we waited!"
She held me everywhere with all her limbs and kissed me on my face, neck and chest while I watched television, using her pillow to prop up my head.
Within thirty minutes she had put her clothes on and we lay next to each other, not touching, staring at and laughing at the television together.
*Aqua Teen Hunger Force (number one in the hood, G): see Adult Swim listings, Cartoon Channel after-hours
**Pulp
Mixx it!
Well, who the fuck knows how that went. ...I just know I don't.
The psych who administered the exam seemed sympathetic, but the cognitive memory disorder test was too easy. Every psych (two prev.) but this one asked me to remember three or five very specific things, and let me know I would have to recall them after five minutes of conversation (which I cannot do). Didn't happen this time.
I was asked who the current president is (and had to taste his name in my mouth as I said it... I need to rinse with Drano) and who the previous president was, then asked to count backward from one hundred, subtracting seven on the way. I've always failed the shit out of that one. The psych let me flounder for about five minutes before turning off the embarrassment.
And then I was asked to interpret three metaphors! I have a BA in English! I was a professional copy editor! NO FUCKING FAIR!
"What is the phrase 'The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence' meant to convey?"
Who the fuck doesn't know that?!
If we're testing to see whether I have opposable thumbs just have me hold up the fucking digits!
Maybe testing the mental acuity of someone who has spent his entire life studying all the goddam nuances of the English language is not best-done by asking him to interpret common goddam metaphors!
Gr.
...Me telling the story of getting fibro, showing him my current meds, and answering the five memory questions. That was the visit.
(It's important to note that I have nothing against the psych, but know it's the Social Security Administration that sets the questions.)
Too much of me thinks I'm fucked...
Also, the Ritalin seems only to work for about three to four hours. I'm fucking tired.
Gr.
FUCK!
Mixx it!
I feel like I'm beginning to live a childhood I never had, having just been prescribed Ritalin, since I never had ADD/ADHD/whatever the hell kids who won't sit at their desks and shut the hell up are "diagnosed" with these days. (The real problem: The kids don't function at all well in a stupidly structured environment and parents and teachers don't have so much as the inclination to deal with them on their wavelength. Thank you DSM-IV for letting bad parents and teachers off the hook... And I swear this is the only swipe I'll take at you.)
...Now, with any luck, I'll be able to reverse the cycle I've been in, and sleep for about eight hours a night and be awake for about sixteen during the day! I'm sure I won't know what to do with myself... But fear excessive masturbation may be involved.
...I took my first extended-release Rit about a half-hour ago, and drugs take one-and-one-half-hours to kick in for me. So I'll see if I can stay awake today.
Until it does kick in: Still so very, very tired...
UPDATE!: Here are the drugs I now take for fibro, generalized anxiety and chronic fatigue disorder:
OxyContin, 40mg daily
Klonopin, 6mg daily
Prozac, 30mg daily
Ritalin, extended release, 20mg daily
With any luck the Ritalin will help me take another pained step toward the shadow of my former self...
Mixx it!
It seems the long wait may finally be nearing an end... And what I call my early retirement near its beginning.
I am to be examined by a doctor who will then report my status to the Social Security Disability Administration. I'm sure to be diagnosed with cognitive memory disorder, which fibromyalgians lovingly call fibro fog, because I've been diagnosed with it twice. Said disorder is the reason someone I know was awarded disability, so I feel pretty good about my newfound idiocy being just cause for "awarding" me benefits.
(This is a snip of a conversation I had with the first psychologist who diagnosed me with cognitive memory disorder:
"So basically I'm a moron now."
"That depends on what your IQ was before you got fibro."
At the time -- and this one -- I'm still intelligent enough to find the above hilarious.)
Also, there's the fact that no one will hire someone who has to eat OxyCodone and Klonopin like candy and that, for months at a time -- times like now -- I have to sleep for sixteen hours of every day.
I would be a total liability to anyone who would hire me... Whacked on Oxy and Klonopin (most people think of these two as incredibly debilitating in and of themselves... However, they allow me to function. Still, no one would put me at the helm of a steamroller... I'd be a lawsuit waiting to happen), unable to remember what happened or what I was told to do any given five minutes ago...
I'm unemployable.
I feel reasonably certain that will be the finding of the doctor I see Wednesday.
...It's an odd thing, to hope that this will be his conclusion.
But there is no other to draw.
Mixx it!
