Saint Delores

Maw

2010-04-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

Oh god the Mean Reds are coming back. No, Capote captured it pretty well with that one, but no, it's not that for me. It's the trap door. The floor tilts and I begin to flail and slide toward its sick maw. "Like the fat open mouth of a grave." If I fall in I won't come out for days or months, maybe never, and no drug can help.

I beat panic attacks. I beat them will study, and with will, and strength and distraction. But now, they're coming back.

Today, my friends, I opened the front door because of white guilt and unresolved fear of men being mad at me.

It ended in a panic attack that is still shaking strings tied to my brain. When the doorbell rings I only open my window, and if it's a salesman...I politely close it. Today I tried to do that.
"Just leave the flier in the door," I said.
He looked like he'd misunderstood. Like I'd said something very rude.
"How am I supposed to do that?" irritation on the corners of his jovial voice.
So I opened the door, to smile at him and reassure him that I meant well.

I opened the door. He was the highest quality of salesmen, a performer worthy of vaudville, squirter his cleanser in his mouth too show it was harmless, wiping finger prints on my glass and volia they've disappeared.

Sean appeared behind me, but out of the saleman's sight, his quiet rage building against my back. I felt...what? A small growing terror. Sean was mad. The Saleman was demanding. The only way to make it all stop was to send this man away and that was to buy his product.

But I couldn't. I searched all over for cash and there was none so I got my card, Sean hissing at my back, "don't use MY fucking card. YOU did this."
I began to shake and stood out alone onto the porch with the salesman, feeling fat and weak and stringy haired, holding the debit card connected to all my writing money. I was shaking and felt tears stupidly STUPIDLY starting to climb.

"I can't do this. I can't give you my card. I don't know you. I don't know where this is going."
His assurances that it was a safe transaction tumbled and swirled out of him, but I heard a threat underneath them. I am prone to hear threats from unhappy men, whether or not they're there.

"I can't! I can't! I'm so sorry." I ran into the house. He glared at me, the mean trick I'd just played on him. He had a right too.

I could here him through the still open window, loud and angry..."white folks so sure I'm here to rip them off...."

Sean was forgiving but distant, possibly for unrelated reasons. As soon as I shut the door the whole in the floor flew open and the floor begin to tilt. There is nothing to grab onto but myself, the things I've learned.

Sean went to work and I calmed myself with method movement. Tearing open box after box in the garage till I found The Books, altogether. Top shelf, at the back, unlabled. I no longer remembered they were there, but I had stored them carefully, always knowing that my newfound strength was blithe and feeble and I'd need them again.

From Panic to Power
The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook
Anxiety Phobias and Panic

Now I've locked all the window and am sitting in a nest of them, Charlie Brown sad and defeated on the television. I know it's partly the Graves Disease, a legitmate cause, and partly the trip to England. But I called the therapist, after a year's seperation from her gentle voice. Its time to go back to the swimming pool, my doggy paddle is weakening.

Tangle

2010-04-21T15:40:00.000-07:00

Comes on like a fever, every few years. Always out of necessity. Change. No more thinking and spending hours in front of the computer researching the funny little possibility. Lets go.

I did it when we switched schools. When we bought a house. Not when we had a baby, that snuck up slow and low. But now is my biggest and best.

We're going on vacation. To England. In a plane. With a 3 year old. And my mother. To a perfect cottage. With a foreign backwards car that I shall drive.

I am going to make all of this happen. The situation is a knot of tangled yarn. Every obstacle (where do you apply for a passport? Where do you get a copy of your birth certificate? What local place takes passport photos? Times 100.) is another kink that I have to fish loose and straighten out.

And when I am done, I will have been fantastic.

I'm terrified of so many different things, of the enormity of it. I'm scared of the plane ride. Not because of crashes. It will be good to die together quickly if we're supposed to die. I'm scared of being exhausted and uncomfortable, of being tired and displaced. Of everything feeling strange and funhouse like in a panic attack.

But if that stops me I am a bad weak person. So it won't.

Micromicromicro brew

2010-04-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

I don't remember what doctor first gave the Klonopin. But it must have been early, because it's one of the reasons I never became fond of alcohol when all my friends did.

How can a person ever enjoy that hot cotton pushed into their brains, that slight sick feeling. That heavy stupid feeling, once they've had something so much better? Klonopin is a wisp, it loosens the wires, your thoughts reach your tongue without getting tangled anywhere between. The fears become ideas. Then it fades away.

The Klonopin was originally to stop my massacre panic attacks. Sometimes it couldn't. Valium shot directly into my thigh in an emergency room couldn't stop them once they started.

I had my last real panic attack on the operating table, when they pulled LE out of me. So terrified I couldn't move or talk. It wasn't just LE's birth, the transfer of focus from my damned precious self to her that cured me. It was knowledge and therapy and study, learning that it was my choice, that panic, and that I could choose to stop it.

But then the klonopin remained. I no longer use it for panic attacks. I use it with my heart pills to stop the mattress from vibrating under my chest. I use it for staying overnight in uncomfortably familiar places. I use it when my mind begins to itch and burn.

And then sometimes I just use it. Because the night is so long.

One pill. The smallest dose they make, a few times a week. My expensive purchase, my glass of wine, my angry jog, my dish of ice cream, my one snuck cigarette. My pill.

My old doctor liked to give out pills, god bless her. But she got flaky and distracted and kept moving to new towns. My new doctor was earthy, kind and maternal.

"You know honey...pills like this aren't something you want to be dependent on."

I clicked on, not meaning to deceive. I told the truth but in the same truth of, "I should exercise forty minutes everyday."

"I know. They're like a bandaid on cancer. You have to find the source of your anxiety and minister to IT, not numb yourself to it with pills."

The doctor nodded enthusiastically while I spoke. We were in agreement, she thought. She gave me a prescription. No refills.

The thirty pills have lasted a month and a half. I have to see her again to get more. I can't make the phone call because I don't know what to say when I get there.

The truth?: "Look. I want these pills. They help me now, and I can't understand how they're different than a beer."

A half truth? "I'm so anxious lately. My heart beats so fast sometimes, because of the Graves."

True, but I think I'd want them anyway. I wonder what's going to happen.

Riding the Trail

2010-04-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

In Oregon, our foodstamps are issued on a discreet debit card, called the Oregon Trail Card. My friend Amy is on Oregon Trail. Her husbandfriend (not officially married, but together since they were 14) works a full time job and is a volunteer fire fighter, but it's not great money. That along with a disabled little daughter, Amy qualifies for more than she can eat. I've never spent more than a moment thinking on Amy's state-welfare. It simply is.

But.

Today the warehouse supermarket we shop the walls were straining with people. More than I'd ever seen. At the checkout I was peevish, having an idea about why the store had been stormed. I wandered while Sean bagged groceries with his Tetris magic. I was able to see four groups checking out. One, an elderly lady, was paying with a check. The other three; a loud overweight group or family of 6 grown people that kept screaming the word, "retard" at one another, a group of silent Mexican men, and a well dressed young hipster couple, took out the Oregon Trail card and paid for their massive massive mountains of groceries.

It's so unseemly for me to notice. To think that if they aren't single parents, children, disabled or elderly they ought not be on tax-supported charity is simplifying a complex subject. Maybe the hipster couple is working their way through college to become doctors. Maybe the Mexican men are. It certainly isn't my business.

Except in that one way that keeps pulling and poking me. That Sean and I make not-much-money, and still pay exorbiant Oregon taxes to laden that Trail with money.

I made the mistake of telling Sean what I'd seen, and I think it ruined his night. He couldn't stop thinking of his money being taken from his daughter to be given to the "retard" screamers and their pounds and pounds of steak. After awhile he said, "Why aren't we on Oregon Trail then? I checked, we qualify for a small amount. "

I said, "Because we take pride in not being on it?"

"Maybe that's foolish pride. Maybe we're the suckers...paying for everyone else to have the free ride, when we could be having it too."

He had a point. If the state gave us $220 worth of free food, we could shop at the organic store instead of the warehouse. Or we could put $200 away each month, for LE's college.

I think they call it The Oregon Trail Card to call to mind struggle with great reward. To declare that Oregon is on your side, during this rough patch. But it wouldn't be a rough patch if we started using it, it would become a way of life, I think. Otherwise, the term doesn't apply very well.

I don't what box to place my emotions in. Is there any point in not riding the Trail? Are we suckers? What do I do with the resentment of seeing those well-fed, abled bodied people buying heaps of steak and potato chips next to our about-to-expire-two-bucks-off hamburger? Whats the high ground here?

What would you do?

Easter Bloodfest: The Saddest Ladybug

2010-04-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

I dressed LE up in black and white checks, red beret and red tights, a ladybug raincoat. I'm not a good joiner, though I try. I tried today. The nursing home in town had hand painted signs and ribbons flying in front of their solid ugly building. Easter Egg Hunt! Prizes and Treats.

I took LE to this cuz I like oldies and I will be one someday. I used to work in a nursing home, and nothing broke up the strain and smell and sadness of those places like a child. Women who threw things at me and jabbed me with their arthritic fingers would turn into Glenda the Good Witch when a baby was near. I wanted to cause that happiness.

The oldies were no where to be seen in the courtyard. It was raining, hard sideways and cold. I thought there would be only a few children there. I envisioned LE tromping a whole square of lawn, littered with eggs, all by herself. Because I thought I was a little special you know? Who voluntarily hangs out a nursing homes?

Over a hundred people, children and their folks were choking the tiny courtyard, standing in the rain. The woman next to me had just been baptized that day, fresh out of an abusive marriage. I didn't know what to say really. I'm not a Christian but I understand how important a baptism is to those who are. She was a total stranger and I learned all this in two minutes. So I just hugged her. She liked that.

When the countdown ended the children and their parents pressed into the ribbonned off lawn. LE was in the 4 and under corner. It was over in 10 seconds. LE didn't get a single egg. Mothers flanked their children and so blocked LE. Whenever an egg was in her sight an older boy next to her grabbed it. The lady I had hugged took an egg out of her boy's basked and laid it on the ground just for LE. That was all she got.

It was primitive, frenzied greed, and I felt the rush of it too. When I saw a child reaching for what should have been LE's egg, to add to the four he already had, I put out my hand to grab his and scare him into leaving it for my child. But stopped myself. Its not like it was the last penicillan vial or the last can of beans in the town. I'd rather be eggless than become that kind of woman. I guess.

I turned and walked away after it was over, immediately. I was a shit sore loser, let me tell you. I wanted to cry. LE was ok, "I gotta ehg! Muh Ehg!" but I was devastated. I took her directly to the store and bought treats, at Sean's insistence. We had a quick little hunt right here for her, in the living room.

Most of those family's looked low income, even more so than Sean and I. LE will get a whole new Easter just for her, when her gramma comes down this week. That might have been all the easter those other kids got, so I shouldn't be sour over it.

Shouldn't be.

Bleah.

Is there some one I can call?

2010-04-02T17:28:00.001-07:00

The boys outside the store don't know I've got a 20 year old chip on my shoulder.

That I'm not a normal grown up, at least not once you make eye contact with me and try to tease me, or upset me, or make fun of me. I react with the simmered-over hurt of a picked-on kid and the words and face of a mother. Terrifying mix. True, the kid wasn't doing much. Making heaving yells, "HEEEEEEH HEEEEEH" to bother people as the walked into the store. For laughs.

I know that now. But when it happens....ug. I am wearing the wrong clothes and my acne is broken out and I can't make my locker open and they won't leave me alone.

I jolted the cart to a stop.
"Honey are you all right???" I asked the boy with a loud concern that startled him.
Sean grabbed the cart, "c'mon" he muttered, "just keep going."
The boy then responded, "HEEEEEHHH HEEEEEEEEEEHHH!" louder, his friend laughing behind him. I left the cart and walked toward him, bending down as if to hear better.

"Sweetie....talk to me! Are you ok?"
The boy's friend started to laugh harder and the boy breathed for another round of shrieks but instead slipped off the bike rack, laughing, no more eye contact.

"Oh dear. DO YOU NEED ME TO CALL SOME ONE????" I shouted.

The boy jumped to the other side of the bike rack and crouched, with his hands over his head, his back to me. He was done. His friend couldn't stop laughing.
"A...awesome," the friend said to me.

By now Sean was laughing to. I felt suddenly relaxed, smiled and waved to the boys, and went inside.

I'm proud of what happened, kinda, and I hope my daughter will grow up seeing me handle things this way. Maybe make her less susceptible to bullies.

But I also know, that it wasn't wisdom or tough love that made me to it, just leathery old rage toward teenage boys. And I DON'T know what I would have done if the confrontation had escalated.

Still. The score.

Delores - 1
Boys - 0
Unresolved childhood issues dictating a grown woman's current behavior - 330,845,3702,43

Afrin and Gas

2010-03-31T08:38:00.000-07:00

This is the third blog. The other blogs stopped, cuz maybe everyone gets to that place. Where it feels like dry masturbation and only a dribble of climax. I believed it was keeping me from 'better things.' These better things, the forests I'm going to tramp and the boats I will sail and, most importantly, the books I will write.

Because blogging is sweet cheap cheating for someone who wants to be a writer. Instant publication and no rejections.

So I stopped and the pressure built. Good, I thought...when the spigot blows it will be in the form of a book, of the first five pages sent to New York in a manilla envelope. And I wrote a book, a slipshod mess of words all in the wrong order, but 50,000 of them. Buried in my hard-drive.

Coming back to blogging was like taking Afrin...the congestion burned away and the oxygen flowing again. Ehh, but its also like passing gas after holding it in for too long, finding relief...but not in any way particularly noteworthy and not something that others around you will necessarily enjoy. None the less, I dutch-ovened all my closest friends with this sucker. They don't need to read it, but I need to worry they might.

Am I the only one who has this confliction with blogging? If you've found a way to feel no guilt, that you should be doing something else...what is it? Teach me. Why do you blog? Not just a diary, not just exhibitionism, what is it to you?

The Last Plan

2010-03-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

I do have a plan though, should I find out I have to die soon. A shotty, slick plan.

I'd have to leave them. LE and Sean. How could I bare it? My body sick and twisting, and then too, my soul being freshly bitten each time my little one walks into the room? Each time she holds her arms out to her Mama, expect Mama to be there.

I'd rather rip out the cord connecting my heart to theirs. Not let each hour bring the electric current, the flow of pain that comes with each stroke of his hand and each smile on her sweet scrunched face.

I'd take the dog when I left. She knows suffering and grief, and she handles them very well. We'd drive. We'd sleep in hotels with orange light bleeding in through fat dusty curtains. We'd unfurl out rank smelling tent in sparse campgrounds, with an air mattress to sheild my rotting bones from the ground. I'd eat in restaurants and from bags in my car, and I'd write it all down. We'd drive until I was too sick to drive anymore. Then we'd go to what ever hospital we could find. Call him to come say goodbye, otherwise would be too cruel.

But he wouldn't have to see me every day either. Decaying, becoming so selfish, forcing the whole house to stench of pain and goodbye. And LE would have a little memory of a soft lady that held her, just a small memory. Not taking up so much room that a new soft sweet mommy couldn't fit inside, fill the space. I'd want that.

And what a relief to let the fantasy toil and spin, and believe now, that that is all there is.

Extremely Hyper

2010-03-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

"Extremely, Extremely Hyper."

My endocrinologist is Chinese, and I like his skin. It's so tight and clean that it shines. When I'm in the room with him I try to be very quiet. Because I bet, deep down, he hates how loud American women can be.

"So you have..." he pauses, shapes his mouth to fit the vagueness of an 'r' "Gahraves Deseez."

Graves Disease.

I know that. I've known that. I have the Internet.

The thyroid controls your system. Digestive, endocrine, vascular. The holy spirit of the body's godhead, Brain, Heart, Thyroid. My thyroid is shooting its holy fire into my system, 8 times faster than it should. This number is one I figured out myself, which I got a special x-ray of my neck a week before. The tech lady told me to lie still for 10 minutes on the gurney, narrow as a picnic bench, under the camera.

I didn't like the look of the gurney. I asked the tech, "What do you do when people are fatter than me?"
"This bench will hold up to 400 pounds!" she said, "They kinda spill off the sides a bit, but it holds 'em."

The device is a special x-ray; it looked like an open MRI machine, and it was going to count the the throbs of my thyroid to a certain number, and then stop.

I lay inside the plastic camera, beginning to Alphabet. Things To Do with Cars. Alternator. Brakes. Carseat. Girl's Names. Alva, Bessie, Caruthers, Dionne.

The whirring stopped and the tech appeared.
"That was 10 minutes?"
"No. About a minute in a half. The healthy thyroid takes 10 minutes. You took a minute and a half. And that's all I'm allowed to tell you. "

My endocrinologist has a name that is just like a sound people make to imitate the Chinese languages. Mei Woo. Mei Woo...bing bong bang. I wonder if anyone has ever responded to his name that way. Let them. 15 minutes of his time cost 100's of dollars. Make incomprehensible noises to the back of his well-earned BMW. He's got better things to think about.

"Now we must discuss treatments," he said.

I know the treatment options from the internet. He can cut my neck open with a knife, or he can poison me with radioactive iodine. They terrify me near equally.

"I want to have another baby. Soon. I'm 32." I jab this sentence in while his mouth is open wide to shape his next slippery english phoneme.

"Ok. Then I will say the medication for you. No iodine, you will not be able to try to have a child for six months at least. And when you take it you must avoid your own little one for a few days." He looks at LE, in the corner chair of the examine room, negotiating in hard fast whispers with her daddy.

"Bob-bob crakr. I want Bob-bob crakr."

What medicine? There is medicine? Non poison medicine?

He hands me the prescription. "You are not getting the baby you want now, because you are too hyperthyroidic. And if you were to be pregnant, you would miscarry. But this will fix, all that."

The medication isn't poison....aside from a little possible liver damage. But thats ok. No bloody gauze against my incision, forcing my head to bend until it kinks. And no radioactive pills, rotting my body and making my skin poisonous to my little girl.

Just pills.

For now.

Good.