zeptember

Just finished my first full week on the new job.

In one week I’ve gotten plugged ears from having to wear earplugs all day after having my eardrums pierced by screams of a 6-month-old for two days straight. She screams all day because she misses her mother. She’s inconsolable. I’ve tried everything within humane ability to calm the child - to no avail.

In one week I’ve gained weight rather than losing it.

In one week I’ve gotten very sore calves and shins from hiking with a stroller up suburban sidewalks and roads that I estimate to be 10 to 15% gradient steep.

So I should be losing weight. But I get home from work and chow down on fatty and sugary foods for comfort. I’ve been officially depressed since Wednesday, the day of my birthday. My man took me out for drinks and dinner that night, and I overdid it. I woke with thee worst headache and the spins around 4am. Great going.

I don’t think I’ve had a healthy meal once this week. This child doesn’t even let me have time to eat a meal in silence. Even when she’s sleeping, unless the stroller is continually moving, she wakes up and the screaming starts again. So I get no break. I have to move the stroller. It’s hard to prepare food for lunch and type up how the day is going when having to keep a stroller rocking to and fro. I can’t make any phone calls because the slightest murmur out of me wakes her up and she begins screaming. But noise from passing trucks outside when I’m walking her, or noise from the TV when I’m rocking the stroller back and forth - those are fine for her.

I had a heart to heart with the parent of the child I’m working with, and told her that if the baby doesn’t begin adjusting to me and getting better bottle training from mom and dad this weekend and continuing nightly when I’m not there, then the absolute most I can last will be to mid-October.

I have bruises on my inner thigh where it nearly meets the pubic area because that’s where the baby pounds her feet on me when I’m trying to put her to my shoulder and rock her to calm her down. She has slapped me repeatedly on the arms and face, and has spat food and milk on my shirt, my face, and my coat. Her screams are with such force and shrill that I crack after an hour and a half. I got two full days of work in this week but the other three, I had to call the mother home because I just couldn’t handle it anymore. And to be extra cruel, it’s as if the baby knows I’ve just called mom home, because she settles down in time for mom to walk through the door and give me that look like I’ve just cried wolf.

So today I let the mom hear her baby by phone, rather than texting her or Internet chatting with her about how the day is going.

On Monday, the mother is sending her friend over to give me a break for a bit and we’ll see how that goes. Gotta see if this will be a daily thing or what. I guess it all depends on how it goes on Monday. And on Friday, my friend is bringing her baby over to see if another baby’s face might help calm the girl I’m caring for. There are no parks nearby where other babies would be found playing. There’s an elementary school up the hill, but the kids are not available to play with a baby off the street. They’re in school.

Oh and there’s the bees. I get chased by yellow jackets every fucking time I set foot outside of that house. The hills and brush around where that family lives, all the way down to the shoreline, is teeming with yellow jackets. If they’re not after the milk on the baby’s breath, they’re after my sunblock or my hair or something.

While rushing uphill away from a yellow jacket yesterday, I stepped in dog shit. I began cursing and this woke the baby and for the next half hour, I now had a screaming baby that I had to take back down the 15% gradient hill. People on the street walking their dogs or tending their lawns kept looking at me. They’d look away, then back again as the child screamed and screamed. I would stop the carriage, peek in at her, and she’d scream even harder.

She wants nothing to do with me. So long as I’m behind the carriage, she’s more fine than with me in front of it, but the screaming is a given. This all started on my birthday, because on Monday and Tuesday, I was able to rock her to sleep and she slept on me. I don’t know what the change was.

All I know is, if she doesn’t get used to me soon, I’m resigning. And I’m only doing babysitting gigs until the wedding is over. Maybe even take a break til the end of the year. Who knows.

On a bittersweet note, I like all the exercise I’m getting, and the ocean view I get is really awesome. I will have to take my camera with me next week on the job. Hopefully there will still be some sunny days left, cuz that area is usually fogged in for most of the day. When I used to live down the road from this area back in 2000, I used to joke that I lived in Alaska because of the constant gloom, the fog so dense that it felt like it was raining all the time, and then the rain in wintertime pelting and accompanied by gale force winds.

There is truth to the saying, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.'’

Back in high school, I was that kid who listened to the propaganda that drinking alcohol and/or doing drugs would always result in fatal car accidents, miscarriages, murder and retardation.

Growing up, I got to see my aunts and uncles in action at all the family gatherings. They drank until they were drunk and looked and sounded goofy. They always got red-faced from the drinking. Some of my aunts and uncles smoked pot and got even more stupid. Then there was this cousin of mine, who was doing hard drugs of some sort. He was downright scary and the family shunned him. But one time he came to our house to “borrow” my VCR and pissed himself right there on the porch when my Ma started lecturing him.

I lived in the poor part of town. I grew up dirt poor with my Ma during the week, and upper middle class with my father for one day on the weekends.

My dad was always a social drinker. He’d work 50+ hours per week at Ford, then go with his work buddies after work to the bar across the street and get hammered. He’d come home from work, get about five hours of sleep, get up and do it all over again. For about 35 years. And on the weekends during the summer when we were on the boat with him and his best friend, he’d drink kahlua and coffee for the first part of the day, and then move on to rum and coke or vodka and cranberry in the mid afternoon.
Now in his retirement, he just drinks. Bugger the fact that he’s on all kinds of meds for heart, blood pressure, anxiety and who knows what else. That doesn’t stop him from drinking.

When I was in high school, I was militantly against drugs and alcohol. I was somewhat angry towards but mostly afraid of people who drank and/or did drugs. I remember I had a pin for Students Against Drunk Driving.

Which is funny, cuz when I’d get really stressed out, I’d swipe a swig of mouthwash because I knew it had alcohol in it.
Then one day, I found my Ma’s stashed bottle of Johnny Walker Red. So I started taking swigs of that when I got really stressed out. In high school, stress for me consisted of being one of the most picked on kids of the entire high school. Kids two grades younger than me were taught to throw stuff and shout obscenities at me by kids in my class. People called me Carrie, after the Stephen King character. It’s because I had long straight red hair that I didn’t style. I also had braces, wore Salvation Army clothing because my Ma was too poor to afford the latest in-style clothes, and I had huge “welfare glasses”.

As we got older, the other kids in my neighborhood, one by one, sank to the embarrassment of poverty and dysfunctional families. By the time I graduated high school, people my age were getting knocked up, already looking like they were 40 years old from all the cigarette smoking and drinking they did from gawd knows what age, and in some cases, were ending up dead.

I think it was my senior year of high school when I got drunk for the first time. I didn’t know what was coming. I was at a friend’s house in her bedroom and she and a male friend were giggling. They handed me a glass of orange juice. They said it was a screwdriver. They told me flat out that we’d get in trouble if we were too loud, so I knew booze was involved. I took a drink of it. It tasted good. I drank some more. Pretty soon, my friends were laughing hysterically at me, because I couldn’t get up off my friend’s bed without falling down. I was so dizzy. I laughed a lot. I cannot remember if I was afraid or if I puked. I just remember the happy and dizzy.

There goes the militant “booze is evil” mentality.

In Michigan, when you turn 19 years old, it’s party time for real. That’s the legal drinking age in Canada, which is about an hour’s drive away. My friends and I were drunk every weekend. Rum and coke was our friend.

I didn’t drink through the week because I was too afraid to steal from the drugstore I worked at, like some of my former classmates who also worked there would do. And I was afraid my Ma would find out and kick my ass.

I began dating my neighbor in 1991 when I was 20 years old. His mom and uncle smoked pot every single day. I found out the neighbor on the other side of us did, too, and she would buy from my boyfriend’s mom. My boyfriend’s entire family were also hardcore alcoholics.

Within a year and a half of us dating, my brother fell in with a drug dealer, and together they started dealing pot. My brother was friends with my boyfriend. For about a year, behind my back, my boyfriend and my brother would go to parties where pot AND cocaine and speed were sold and used. They were doing all these drugs.

Despite the fact that I was now a drinker, I was still militantly against drugs.

Until my boyfriend thought I was onto him one night - I guess the drugs made him too paranoid or something - I really was too dense and too naïve to have suspected my own boyfriend of doing drugs.
Anyway, he broke down in tears and confessed to me what drugs he and my brother had been doing. I recall punching the fuck out of him while screaming in rage at the betrayal.

He sobbed and promised to quit it all so I wouldn’t leave him.

I trusted him.

Then a few months later, I found out he was still doing the drugs, AND also fucking the neighbor. AND he’d fucked some of our mutual female friends, too. And they all did drugs together. Isn’t that nice?

He told me that because I was so against drugs, and everyone else he knew was doing drugs, that I isolated myself from the group. He felt lonely without me at these parties I never knew about. He wanted physical affection. He wanted me, but I wasn’t there you see… how could I be … I’d only get mad at him … etc etc etc.

This was the point in my life that I woke the fuck up and took a look around me. And all around me I saw people doing drugs, drinking until drunk, and joining gangs. I’d been oblivious to it. I’d been blissfully ignorant to it all. I’d still been a child in my head. The world had been rainbows and unicorns. And then I was smacked awake, and the world around me turned dark and repulsive.

I tried violence. I used to actually beat the shit out of my boyfriend. He wouldn’t just sit there and take it, oh no. We beat each other when we fought. But he never allowed himself to fuck me up. He allowed himself to take the beatings I gave because he knew I wasn’t strong enough to fuck him up, but he felt so guilty for all the lies. And he knew that I’d always come back to him. And I did. For four years we did that.

I tried sobbing. Begging. Please change. Please stop. For me. etc etc… That never works.

I tried the ‘getting even’ route. I fucked one of his good friends. Found out he was dirtier than my boyfriend. I got tested for STDs and AIDS after that one. Jesus.

Every time I broke up with that boyfriend, I’d find another boy to date. And without fail, the boy would be into doing drugs or drinking until drunk or both.

So one day, I gave up on the little world around me. I declared to my boyfriend and our friends that I wanted in. I told them that if they were going to fuck up their lives like this, that I wanted to join them. I told them they weren’t allowed to leave me alone to be the only sober person alive, watching in horror as the world spun around me with everyone riding this fucked up lifestyle. I didn’t want to be like a survivor of some big storm that wiped everyone around me off the map. I wanted to go with them.

They looked at me in shock. They had sorrowful looks on their faces.
What? Did I ruin their fun of being able to have someone’s back to go behind? Was it that they’d be forced to tamp down their carousing with each other with me around as the newbie fiend?

I tried buying pot from people I knew had it. They always told me they were out, sorry. Out of frustration one day, I screamed at people to just GIVE me SOMETHING, that I was tired of this bullshit hiding and secrecy. My boyfriend told me that my brother informed the surrounding three counties’ worth of people he ‘worked’ with that if they dared sell me any drugs of any kind, they’d wake up dead. Apparently this threat worked. My brother was pretty intimidating and violent back then. Maybe had something to do with the fact that he was doing steroids on top of the pot and cocaine.

So, flash forward many years - zooom - and here we are - I have stopped drinking again. I go through sobriety phases every year, now. This phase is firstly because of my history of getting blacked out drunk and pissing off B when I do so, and secondly because it makes the endometriosis pain worse when I drink around ‘that time’, which is right now.

But what is significant - what is a major breakthrough for me - is that I have realised consciously that when I see other people drinking when I can’t, I get bitter and jealous because I go back to that time when I really saw my peers around me for the first time, fucked out of their heads on one or more substances, and I got mad - REALLY FUCKING MAD, and then scared - scared that they’d all leave me behind because I wasn’t doing what they were doing. And scared because I couldn’t relate - I wasn’t on the same trip with them, and it was obvious to them as well as to me.

…

Around 4pm this afternoon, our neighbor had a BBQ in the backyard. We went back to join them for a bit. Once I started really noticing the drunkening, I excused myself, because I don’t like being around intoxicated or drugged people when I’m sober, because to be honest, people get kind of lame when drunk or high. And so if I can’t dull my brain along with them, I don’t want to be around them.

I excused myself probably around 6pm. But B stayed at the party.

He came in a couple hours later, noticably intoxicated. I admitted I was upset that I couldn’t drink. He gave me the sad pouty face, and went right back out to join the party.

Bad move, dude.

It’s now going on 10:30pm and B is still out there, drinking and having fun. And I’m in here, stewing with rabid jealousy. What tons of fun has he had all night that I couldn’t be there to join in with? Will he suddenly not want to be with me anymore because he can’t stand ME when I drink but he wants someone he loves with him when HE drinks? Will he turn into my ex? Do you see the previous psychological scarring at work?

Don’t worry though, I am NOT going to forbid him from having any fun just because I can’t. I am smarter than that. I did learn from past relationships. That’s why this relationship has been strong for 8 years and counting.

HAY! B’s home! Gotta go hug my man tight.

This morning my man woke me up accidentally by caressing my hand. Startled, I awoke panicked, “What? What? What’s going on!?”

My man told me in a soothing voice nothing was wrong, he’d just come into the bedroom after his shower and noticed that my hands were all tensed up as I lay sleeping. So he caressed them to help me loosen my grip.
I told him that I usually sleep with balled up fists - that I’m high strung and never really know how to relax, even in my sleep.
After that, I couldn’t get back to restful sleep. But I did focus on keeping my hands from balling up as best I could. Didn’t always work. After an hour of twilight and irritable sleep, the floor began vibrating, which vibrated the bed. My eyes popped open. It wasn’t an earthquake - the city crews were jackhammering the street again - they’ve spent the past month replacing the main sewer lines. But this was the first time I’d felt the house actually vibrating. Ugh. Now worry overcame me - would the toilet suddenly fly off its foundation? The sinks shoot out water? Do these assholes know what they’re doing?

So I got up, and was greeted by cranky meowing cats, demanding wet food.
This week I stopped feeding them wet food in the mornings, because they’re getting fat, and I don’t want that. A few months ago, my boy cat had some kidney distress - the vet said he needed a lower protein diet, and had me put him on the lowest protein content wet food I could find, twice a day, until I could decide what low protein kibble I wanted to go with.
Well I’ve since chosen a kibble, but kept giving in to the cats’ demands to be fed wet food twice daily. No more. I put my foot down this week, but cats are like cranky two year olds - unrelenting. And when my boy cat doesn’t get his way, he scarfs a bunch of kibble and then goes and pukes it around the house - much in the way a two year old child having a temper tantrum will cough and sputter until they force themselves to puke.

So I had interrupted morning sleep, I woke up irritated with the city crews, and now I’m met with cranky cats. I go into the kitchen and see that there’s a message on my cell phone. Two messages, in fact. Both are from the daycare agency.

Goddammit, this means they tried to call me in to work today. I specifically called them YESTERDAY to request work, and they told me they were waiting on a daycare to confirm with them before they could officially assign me out NEXT WEEK. I specifically told them “I am looking for work on the 4th, 8th and 11th.”

I never heard back yesterday.

This morning, I checked the time of the voicemails - they occurred two hours before I got up. I called the agency. The woman sounded upset with me. I told her point blank that I’d like more notice, please, and that today wasn’t on my list of requested days because I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled anyway. She was not pleased, but she asked if I’m still available for next week. I told her yes, MONDAY AND FRIDAY ONLY.

I’ve told these people several times I am only available those two days right now. Who wants to lay bets that she’ll try to call me in Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, when I’m at my other job?

This is the same agency that let me go for AN ENTIRE MONTH without an assignment, before calling me in to work ONE DAY - this past Monday. And they had the audacity to get pissy with me when I told them I couldn’t make it to their annual employee appreciation BBQ in July?
These people can suck a big, hairy, sweaty nad.

So after all that this morning, I’m in a right foul mood. Add to that the fact that my tits are bugging the hell out of me just by being attached to my body.

Yep, that’s right boys and girls, it might be time for zept to go through gender dysphoria again!

It started when I began wearing my training corset. Corsets make a woman busty - and I’m already busty enough at 38C.

I’m not feeling the need to put forth a male persona or even a butch persona at the moment. I’m just angry with my tits is all. And my posture. Two nights ago as I sat in my training corset after work, I noticed how awkward my body felt, and that I wasn’t sitting like a lady - I felt like a man in drag with the corset on. My man replied, “well your posture looks better”…
Sure yeah my posture LOOKS better but I feel like crap because I’m not comfortable and don’t know how to sit like a lady! I don’t know how to hold my shoulders and arms. I don’t know how to position my ass on a chair, or my legs - do they always stay crossed? I hate forcing my knees to stay together when my legs aren’t crossed - doing that actually hurts my hips.

I really really hope I don’t get the full on gender dysphoria. I so do not need that right before the wedding, when I’m supposed to be a fucking princess in a frilly dress in front of everyone.

GAH.

Today’s gonna suck if I don’t take charge to put myself in a better mood.

I’m playing my catalogue of Minor Threat on iTunes while journaling - that is helping somewhat.
I’m eating more than just gluten-free waffles and syrup for breakfast.
I’ll give myself a break from wearing the corset for at least part of today, if not all of it.
I will shower after I’m done eating, and put on a sports bra to flatten down my tits and bind them to me so I’m not all bouncy wouncy today. That’ll help, too.
And I need to either hit the gym or go for a bike ride to let some aggression out. Must force myself to make time for that today.

Today is my doctor’s appointment to discuss my social drinking problem related to the social anxiety. I hope to get a referral to a substance abuse counselor and also get some valium type medication. From now through the end of the wedding planning and activities, I’m going to NEED the fucking meds. Have I gone off about some of my family yet and how they’ve pissed me off re: the wedding?
*checks*
No I guess I haven’t.
Probably because I can’t be sure they haven’t found my journal.
feh.

Overall, I had a nice weekend!

Friday in particular was great, because I got a lot of good news that day.

I was told that the company that fired me will settle for the last dollar figure I threw at them, PLUS they will revamp their disability training, PLUS they will remove the ‘fired’ status from my record and call it a ‘voluntary quit’, PLUS they will give a good review for me if employers call for reference check.
HOLY CRAP THOSE THINGS ARE THE VERY LAST THINGS I EVER EXPECTED TO COME OUT OF THAT COMPANY. This excites me to no end to know that they will restructure how they treat disabled people.
I can’t help but wonder if fellow coworkers finally found the bravery to step forward and also complained about how they were being treated.

On Friday, I was able to get a wagon and a boombox on loaner from a friend to use on the AIDS Walk, which I participate in every year.
Also on Friday, I went and did what I threatened to do - go looking for a wheelchair. I posted on freecycle.org looking for a wheelchair - someone actually had one right here on the island! I went and picked it up - it fits in the trunk of my car! I nearly cried, I was so relieved at having found a wheelchair, that it was free, that it was local, and that it fits in my trunk. I had no idea the amount of stress that would be lifted from me in just knowing I have a wheelchair handy in case I’m too debilitated at any event now or in the future. It’s not admitting defeat to my illness - it’s being prepared. *big happy sigh* I just didn’t know what a weight that would lift. I’m so happy.

We spent all of Saturday running around town, preparing for the AIDS Walk and a friend’s birthday party. And then we stopped in at the local German restaurant to see a friend who was celebrating her graduation from massage school. It was a coincidental delight to also see my other friend’s friend playing there that night - his band is called the Frisky Frolics.

We got home with sore feet last night and wondered if we’d be up for the AIDS Walk, after having such a long exhaustive Saturday running all over town. Our feet already hurt from that alone.

But we did it - we got up bright and early this morning and packed up my car with the wagon and a portable ipod speaker system that we got (we decided that would work better than the old boombox, and we can use the ipod thingy for the wedding, too), and we drove off to San Francisco for the AIDS Walk.

We met up with our friends - there were only six of us this year but we still got recognition from some of the other walkers who see us there every year, and we got compliments on our team shirts as usual.

I have blisters on my pinky toes after completing the 10km walk, but otherwise my feet and other toes survived just fine, as did my calves. All that walking the baby around town for my job has really paid off!

I had mild cramps on and off today - mostly when I *wasn’t* walking, but taking a rest. George showed up when I got home and went to a friend’s birthday BBQ party. I have been premedicating with Motrin so when the cramps did finally hit this evening, it’s been mild overall.

Two people were at the birthday party whom I wasn’t expecting to see. Well, one of them I should have known I’d run into sooner or later at this friend’s house, but I just wasn’t thinking. The other one - complete surprise - as I thought she’d moved out of state.
I chose to talk to her - we’d been roommates for a short time, and it went really really badly and I left the situation, and we’d not talked since that time. We never really shared the same circle of friends aside from the second person I didn’t expect to see today, because they’d dated at one time - that’s how I came to know her.
Anyway, she had moved down to L.A., then moved back again. Apparently she’s dating someone within my circle of friends, that’s why she was at the party - she was his date. She told me she was a bit unnerved to see this other person at the party though, too. She chose to talk to him - I chose not to.
It was a decision I made on the spot as soon as I walked into the house and we laid eyes on each other - I just decided to keep smiling like I’d been doing when I walked in, and just walk past him. This means I’m still not ready to talk to him after the big fight we had what was it, six years ago now?

I will respect my decision not to talk to him. One day I may be ready again, but today just wasn’t the day. I was never catty towards him - I simply avoided acknowledging his presence and it appears he did the same. Perhaps he did this because he saw my initial reaction - my smile and eyebrows faded slightly before renewing in a “keep it up, just keep it up, keep walking” giveaway.
Perhaps he’s still mad at me after all these years, too. I’d prefer it if it were mutual, honestly. But then I know I’m not one to let go of grudges very easily. Oh hell who am I kidding. I just don’t let go of grudges.
The fact that I know all this means that maybe one day in the not too distant future, I may acknowledge him, should I run into him at this person’s house again. Maybe. We’ll see how I feel that day.

When I got home, I had an email reply to a video I posted on youtube about a year ago. In this video, we’re at the person’s house whom I did not speak to today. It’s Halloween and another friend is telling a funny filthy story. The person whom I am not speaking to is prominently displayed in the video, standing behind the storyteller, grinning.

So weird that I’d get that today on the same day I ran into this guy. I checked out the youtube comments, it doesn’t appear to be anyone I know or anyone in our circle of friends.
Since I do not believe things JUST happen coincidentally, I ponder, and say again, maybe one day in the not too distant future, I may acknowledge him, should I run into him at this person’s house again. Just found out from my man however that he’s still willing to punch the guy in the throat and had to really restrain himself at the same party today. Still overprotective as ever, I see.

Oh! One last thing! This weekend I went to two different places where alcohol was present, and I did NOT take a full drink. I had nothing to drink last night, and today I only had a couple sips of peoples’ homemade vodkas, just to see what each tasted like. Never even came near catching a buzz. Even in the highly charged social situation where I ran into two unexpected people who at one time hurt me (one much worse than the other), I was not driven to drink. I am very proud of myself for this.

Now if I can just get through the wedding and dealing with family without needing to get drunk. Shit, THEY’LL be drunk, they’re promising it. They’ve said it’s not a wedding if people (themselves) aren’t trashed. Emotional cycles with certain people take longer to change than with others.

Every month, right before george, I get the sudden urge to exercise, to watch my diet while simultaneously bingeing on junk food and caffeinated drinks.

This month’s sudden urge manifested in the area of wanting to get back into relaxation breathing (which I still haven’t done, despite owning a book and still borrowing a friend’s tapes), and also manifested in wanting to know about how drinking affects my uterus and ovaries immediately. This is because after I had my two binges this month, I had ovarian and uterine pain for up to three days following. I’m very worried that this month’s cycle is going to be very painful as a result. I’m also worried that my cycle will be disrupted (early or late).

I had only one glass of red table wine last night before bed, and it calmed me down immensely, but the sulfites made my face so red that I looked sunburned. Today I am dragging and I feel that feeling where george could be here any second, and I have to keep checking. Ugh.

I really really think I have to permanently cut alcohol out of my diet. I’ve said this repeatedly over the years, only to keep going back to the booze, especially in social situations. Blah. What do I do at our wedding? I want to be at ease. Maybe I’ll just take .5mg valium to chill out. Blah. Wish I could say I’m strong and don’t need anything for nerves or anxiety. I know I’m not strong and won’t be for some time.

I didn’t have pain on Friday morning, though I was still bleeding. So I had really bad pain and bleeding for three days - on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday - this time around. That for me is about right. A five-day cycle overall, with three really bad days.

I did go in to work at the new assignment on Friday. This place is a government-run facility, I’m told. There was order, stability, curriculum, and professional staff. I asked if they’d need me again soon. By lunchtime, they asked me if I really did want to come back, because they saw how well the kids responded to me, and said they liked my work.
Even though I have social phobia with other adults, and even though I felt extremely awkward, I really liked that center so much better than the first one I was assigned to.

By the end of the workday on Friday, I’d had a child plop down in my lap during story time, and another child drew me a card with flowers on it, and yet another child grabbed hold of the back of my shirt and decided to be my shadow during recess. Mad giggling ensued when I turned around and asked who was behind me - she moved with me every time I twisted and turned - obscuring her identity. I figured the only way to get her to let go of my shirt was to climb the monkey bars and go down the slide. It worked - and I “ran” to get away from her again, but she’d catch me every time and we’d have to repeat the scenario. After the second time around, I had upwards of six or seven children playing this game, running after me, giggling like crazy.

George went away by Friday evening, and just in time for a cold to settle in. I woke up in the middle of the night with phlegm and a very sore throat. Ugh. I began taking 1,000mg vitamin C and popping the Cold-Eze cough drops again (this cold tried to settle in a week or two ago and I thought I’d fought it off).
I’ve had this sore throat on and off since Friday, and today it turned into a cough. Great. Good thing I have leftover codeine cough syrup from a year or so ago when I was sick. Hopefully I can fend the cold off again.

That’s the risk you take when working with children. Their germs are evil little mutating bastards. I have this saying - “children will kill ya!”

Friday night, my man took me out to dinner at our favourite Thai restaurant, and afterwards, we walked around town a bit.

On Saturday, I attended a friend’s birthday party *and* another friend’s wedding. So much stuff seemed to go awry - I rememebered then that we’re in the middle of a mercury retrograde. Ugh! Poor bride and groom! I don’t think they believe in that sort of thing though, otherwise they’d have steered clear of the retrograde. But for me, I’ve been to several weddings in my life, and clearly something was amiss with this one. But then I should probably go back through all the other weddings I’ve been to and see if any of the others were in mercury retrograde to ‘prove’ my theory, here. Hang on…

…okay. So here are some weddings I’ve been to, dating back to the year 2000. None of them fell on a Mercury Retrograde. None! And none of them had the obvious and brutal problems that this one had.
Here’s one site that shows the Mercury retrogrades, and here’s another.
In my book, point proven.

I don’t force my way of believing on others. All I can do is observe, and report my admitedly unscientific and oftentimes seemingly superstitious and very subjective findings here for myself, for posterity.

Today, we gathered at the bride and groom’s house for brunch, and watched them do the official signing of all the documents. I got to hear funny stories about the groom - I always like to hear families tell such stories. I’m a huge genealogy fan, so hearing anyone’s history, no matter how embarrassing or not, holds a lot of interest for me. I am fond of seeing families together, chatting, hanging out - doing what our family used to do before gramma and grampa moved back to Kentucky and the family fell apart without their parents as a solid rock and anchor nearby.

Bah, but I digress.

It was when we were on our way home from our friends’ house that my cough set in. And now I’m back home again, and I’m depressed all over again. I have our own wedding to continue planning. I feel alone in this planning.

I still haven’t called together our ‘inner circle’ and I feel like I can’t fully do this until we have a caterer to let us know how many people we can add to our list of people we want to have. We only have 80 right now. We want up to double that amount. We can’t have that unless catering comes in low, budget-wise. We think the last caterer we saw can do that. But we still have to finish tastings and such with other caterers, first, before just rushing into a contract with the first dude who says he can make our budget happen. He was very disorganised for our tasting - our table wasn’t ready. We had food delivered before plates and utensils. One of the glasses was dirty and we had to wait to get another because they kept forgetting. The ceasar salad had been soaking in dressing for I don’t know how long - it was horrible. And on top of it, he didn’t listen to my warnings for gluten-free and yeast-free options for me to try. I asked how many other events he had scheduled on the day of our wedding and he couldn’t tell me - said he’d get back to me on that and never did. These things are HELLO, CRITICAL to me.

Bleh. I’m so glad I don’t work tomorrow. I’m so glad I insisted on a 32-hour work week. I need tomorrow as a mental health day, and actually, I wonder how much sicker I’ll get with this cold. It’s definitely not helping with my depression. I’ve been depressed since the beginning of June - at least, that’s what my diary says.

I don’t know what else to say. Journaling got a lot off my chest, but I’ve not solved anything and I don’t feel any better emotionally like I usually do through journaling. I don’t know what else I can say or rant about in an attempt to make myself feel better.

Hmmm.

Maybe drinking a lot of alcohol socially over the past two weeks hasn’t helped my depression, either. :p

I know what would make me feel better. Winning the friggin’ lottery would make me feel better. I don’t want to work anymore. I don’t want to worry about rent and bills anymore. I don’t want to stress over wedding finances anymore.

In my natal astrology chart, I have Saturn in the 2nd House. Saturn is the planet of karma and lessons. The 2nd House is the House of finances and possessions. This means that my whole life is spent in financial hardship. Much of one’s chart is flexible, malleable. Except for Saturn. Saturn sets things in stone. It’s a harsh monster - a mean bitch of do0m. In the Tarot, Saturn is associated with Satan.

*sigh*

One last thing, just so I have it preserved here - my thumb is doing much better. Ever since yesterday morning, or was it Friday night?… I’ve been constantly applying Curel lotion to my thumb. It’s healing up nicely, and much faster than applying that stupid steroidal ointment I was given from my doctor. I wonder if I’m also allergic to that. Wouldn’t surprise me. My ma is allergic to cortisone, and only found out when she had it injected for back pain. She can’t even have it topically - it makes her rash out and also look like some kind of leper.

Righto, that’s all I got.

Last week sometime, my man and I visited several hotels for pricing of rooms for guests.

Friday I:

• Visited a friend I’ve not seen in a long time!
• Bought candles and holders for table centerpieces
• Bought ribbon to add to hair falls (still need to learn how to make ‘em)

Saturday my man and I:

• Met with a caterer and went over menu options (tasting to be scheduled)
• Met with a baker and tasted cake
• Visited two wineries for tasting/pricing of cases
• Visited hotels for pricing of rooms
• Had two members of our wedding party over for game night

Last night, I had two glasses of white wine and a half a glass of port. Of course this means I got drunk. I didn’t get falling down slobbering drunk, but still. I woke up dehydrated and sugar crashing this morning.

Note to self: YOU GOTTA STOP THIS.

This morning my man and I:

• Went over all the hotels we’ve looked at to rank them best to worst
• Picked out the hotels that still need pricing on and put it on my to-do list for Monday
• Went over menu options from the caterer we met with on Saturday so we can schedule a tasting

I just sat down to organise some of the hotels we do have pricing on our wedding website, and BAM, I started having a panic attack.

First reaction? Reach for the bottle.

BUT I STOPPED MYSELF.

I know this will make it worse.

Instead, I popped a vitamin C, a vitamin B-100, and a milk thistle supplement, and started chugging water.
I then opened up my sing-a-long playlist on iTunes and began singing songs.
The reason for the sing-a-long is that it forces air in and out of the lungs so I’m not holding my breath and continuing to panic.

But I was so far into the panic mode that now as I sing, I’m so emotionally charged, I am choking back tears. I think the best thing for me is to just allow the meltdown.

I’ll post an update if this happens.

Note to self: you’re also PMSing, as george is due in T-minus 3 days. Along those lines - I started getting slight pelvic pain yesterday.

My friend emailed to say the coroner says it was Xanax and alcohol. How much I wasn’t told.

How many times have I taken Xanax and had a glass of wine to go with it over the years?

Too many times to mention.

After the scare with my liver in Janaury this year, where my doctor suspected Tylenol 3 and alcohol, I went clean for a few months.
I hadn’t been mixing the two on purpose, but it was around NYE when I was in pain and of course also wanting to party.
I’m sure the meds weren’t all out of my system before I had booze to drink over a period of a few days around that time. I’d also been sick through much of December. My doctor says that alone could’ve spiked my liver enzymes.

Though I got a clean bill of health this month, I won’t be mixing pills and booze anymore - not together and not remotely.

I had two glasses of Chardonnay with dinner on Sunday night. It was the first time I’ve had Chardonnay in months. I’ve determined that one glass is good, two glasses are bad. I got drunk off the second glass, and didn’t like how I felt. I didn’t like the wine headache that was forming within a matter of hours, either.

I am learning new limits for myself again. This is a good thing.

B and I went to MEAT vs. Death Guild last night and had a great time! It was my first night out at the club drinking again in three months.

I started off with absinthe, and it was really tasty, but I could only get in about five sips before I could feel the effects of the alcohol and the stimulant. This unfortunately had a bad effect on my social anxiety, and I could feel that flutter in the back of my throat - the one that wants to say rrrrrrRRRRRAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH!!! OMG GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE WHAT IS HAPPENING THERE’S HUMANS ALL AROUND AAAGGGGGHHHH …

So luckily Lord Drakon appeared and I gave my drink to him.

After ten minutes or so, I couldn’t handle the anxiety, so I opted for a depressant effect - straight up booze. I got a black russian in honour of dhog.
Well, the way the normal world makes black russians is a bit different from the way the DNA Lounge makes black russians. The DNA makes black russians in a pop cup instead of in a rocks glass. Holy moley - waaaay too much booze. I had about a third of that before I started feeling that blah feeling in my stomach area - probably my pancreas going HAY WTF QUIT IT WHAT ARE YOU DOING GODDAMMIT!?

Problem is, when I went to give the drink away, the DJ started playing Siouxsie and my friends all rushed to the dance floor. I tried the old fashioned way and tried to suck down the drink quick before hitting the dance floor. I left about a third of the drink and set it on the bar. I can only hope that some babybat lush saw me set the drink down and scooped it up immediately to finish it off, just like I used to do in my early twenties.

Sucking down the drink so fast calmed me down, but made me off balance. I decided I no longer like that feeling. I didn’t want to dance, now, because I didn’t want to be wobbly on the dance floor. Bugger the fact that most everyone else is drunk and wobbly on the dance floor. I just don’t like to be that person anymore. So I hung out on the sideline, so to speak.

Later, Lord Drakon spotted me and bought me a drink cuz he wanted to repay me for having given him my absinthe early on. I got a vanilla stoli and cranberry juice, thanks to input from both Ms. Chaos and Lord Drakon.

Free drink, how can I refuse? It’s so easy to go back to the old ways….

But as you might guess, I could only get through less than a third of that drink as well, also served in a pop cup, before I could take no more. By now I was full on buzzed. The buzz felt good, yes. But I just didn’t like that I was becoming more chatty about nothing in particular, and more off balance. So I gave the drink to Lupo.

And then I accidentally knocked Simon’s drink out of his hand while gesturing. Poor Simon. He looked down at the floor in abject horror and screamed NOOOOOOOOO!!!

So I bought him another of course - I should’ve bought him two on the spot.

Ok off to brekkie, then helping ppl move, bbl