21 April 2005

Day Trip to hell

Darkness everywhere today. Driving back from dropping four babies and a fierce mom kitty at the vet, "Low Spark of High Heeled Boys," Traffic, 1973. The last time I heard that song I was standing on a balcony in college, having been unceremoniously dumped by my boyfriend. It was after I'd been raped and the rejection was somehow more than I could bear.

It was less about him than about my personal history. I was only 19 and I couldn't see it then. The ways my early years stole from me the possibility of uncontaminated love. Virtually every thing I did was infected with the past.

It's just been one of those weeks when darkness has overtaken me. I'm still taking antidepressants, but sometimes they don't help at all. I'm not sure why. Well, there are so many reasons. I miss my friend who died last year. Musculoskeletal spasm, always good for a little emotional day trip to hell. I don't know. It doesn't do me much good to speculate and examine.

20 April 2005

Rushing into Darkness

In 1968 on an empty two-lane highway, I was riding in the backseat of my dad's Candy Apple Red Thunderbird. I had rolled the windows down in an attempt to pretend I was anywhere but there. As usual, I wasn't very effective at blocking out reality. As the cool, humid night air whipped my hair around my face, in between thinking up new reasons to hate my dad, i wrote a poem. I didn't need any new reasons to hate him. I had plenty already.

We were coming back from Kountze, Texas. A small, red-necked town located squarely in the anus of Texas. I even hated the way it sounded. My father had insisted I come with him, for reasons I can't figure out to this day. I could speculate, but I won't because speculation will only lead me to some conclusions I'd really rather not dwell on. Anyway, on the outskirts of this podunk town, we turned down a dirt road. We hadn't gone very far before I saw an abandoned house in a clearing up ahead. There weren't any other houses around, just trees and underbrush. The windows in the house were all gone and I don't think it even had a door left. My dad parked the car and then I got it.

He was meeting his 17-year old wife there. I was immediately enraged....that he had brought me along, that he was married to someone only three years older than I, enraged that I had probably believed she was out of my life for good. Right up until that moment. There she was, waiting for him.

They went off into the woods to fuck. Pretty romantic, right? So what was I supposed to do? There definitely wasn't any television or radio. I hadn't brought a book along for some reason, probably because he had lied to me about where we were going. He must have lied because otherwise I most assuredly wouldn't have agreed to come. I hated her. I hated him.

I explored the empty house and came upon some letters left in a closet. I can't imagine why they were still there; the house had obviously been abandoned for some time. They were love letters written by a married woman who was carrying on an affair. Okay, I could be mistaken about that. It just all seems a little too coincidental.

I hung around, thinking about how much I wanted to murder my father. That's not hyperbole. If I had known of a way to do it so that I wouldn't have gotten caught, if I'd had the means and the opportunity, I would have killed him. Have no doubt about that. Luckily, I didn't have any of those three things, so I spent a lot of time nursing my anger and hatred. To this day, when I think about these memories, I'm almost overwhelmed by the intensity of my anger. As I reach back into the heart of the nightmare I used to live every single fucking day of my life, I want to back away. The only way out of pain is to walk directly through it.

They wandered back after some time. More kissing and hugging. I hate you, hate you, hate you. I hope you die and burn in hell. I hope your dick falls off. It was time to go. I got in the back seat of the car, knowing that I could erase my present circumstances from consciousness only if he wasn't sitting there beside me, a gigantic piece of stinking shit. I think it pissed him off that I wouldn't sit in the front seat. Excellent. My father hadn't hit me for a couple of years and he'd already isolated me from my friends who knew about the situation, so I wasn't too concerned about his anger. At that point, if he'd killed me, it would have been a relief. I had nothing to lose, so I maintained my position in the back seat and proceeded to ignore him.

I composed a poem. All I remember now is the lines, "We are rushing into darkness, we are rushing into nowhere." Scant comfort at the time.

Menu recap from yesterday: Burgers and canned sweet potatoes.

Here's the quote of the day:

"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations." ~ Anais Nin

America held hostage day 1,925
Bushism of the day:
"I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the Mother in me." —Washington D.C., April 14, 2005
Important note:For more defining Bush moments, please check here: http://slate.msn.com/id/76886/

Website of the day:
CALM Research Center
http://www.calm.com.au/

18 April 2005

It's Hard to Hurt Me Now

As of last Thursday morning, I've been having a musculoskeletal spasm. Yes, it hurts as bad as it sounds. Luckily, it's consideraly better than the ones I used to have when I'd be lying in bed for five to seven days with a crushing headache. In the bad old days, it felt like there was absolutely no padding around any of my skeleton. Everything hurt. The current manifestation includes pain whenever I move, but it's defintely bearable. Oddly enough, people keep asking me if my back hurts. I guess I'm moving a bit more gingerly than usual. The spasm has lasted through the weekend and I'm still in a moderate amount of pain. That might actually be a lot of pain for everyone else. I have a very high tolerance for pain. I guess you could say that's one of the up sides to having been abused. It's pretty hard to hurt me now. Woo-hoo.

Early Sunday morning (5:00 a.m.) I heard Ruski making some noise in the living room. It sounded like he just needed to have some help getting up. I went in to check on him, lifted him up and he started going into seizure. This one was probably a grand mal seizure because his limbs were moving violently, he lost control of his bladder and peed on me, made some weird vocal sounds and was frothing a bit at the mouth. The brilliant one here was afraid he was going to bite his tongue, so I just stuck my fingers in his mouth. He bit my finger instead. It was over very quickly and I brought him some food and water, thinking that might make him feel better. He seemed to be better then and I debated spending the rest of the night on the sofa, but ultimately I decided to go to bed since I could hear him if anything else occurred. He moved around just a little after I went to bed and, each time, I called out to him so that he would know I hadn't completely abandoned him. It was one of the worst things imaginable, feeling so helpless when he needed me. He's been fine since then and has been eating regularly. His doctor is not helpful at all. She thinks he has too many symptoms. (What???) I'm considering switching to another vet I've come to know because of the feral kitties.

Okay, speaking of dogs and cats, that new program called "Showdog Moms and Dads" is just the sickest thing I've seen lately. (fyi: calling something "sick" isn't necessarily bad to me) Having seen those people, who treat their dogs like children (or better than their children in one case), I'm a lot saner than that. It's funny really--I take enough psychiatric medication to kill a proverbial horse, but even without medication I'm more mentally healthy than they.

Running a little late today, so no more time to write. Tomorrow. Here's the quote of the day:
"The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven." ~ Mark Twain

America held hostage day 1923
Bushism of the day:
"If they pre-decease or die early, there's an asset base to be able to pass on to a loved one."—On Social Security money stored in private accounts, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, March 30, 2005

Website of the day: Contents @ the informal education homepage
http://www.infed.org/