Friday night and the needles are falling off of the Christmas tree. The decorations seem so silly, now. The needles make little pin-dropping sounds as they fall one by one. There is dust on the gingerbread house I made in November when I barely had my face above the water of the semester that I like to call Too Much 2007. And I've been off for a couple of weeks and I never want to go back. I just want to run into 2008 like there's nothing looming there. But there's something looming there.
My mother went crazy tonight. If she weren't menopausal, I'd think she was getting her period. She was telling me to find a new place to live. Saying that if I thought this was such a horrible house to live in, that I should find a new place to live. I have no idea why she said these things to me; I didn't say anything about this being a horrible house to live in. She was on the brink of tears, saying that if I moved out I'd be selfish enough to decorate my own house, but not hers.
"Do you want me to decorate this house?" I asked.
"I don't know," she replied, seeming confused.
I don't know what she was talking about. She said she was going to the food court to eat, and dared us to come with her. My dad stood up and put on his coat. I respectfully declined.
I feel weird and lonely tonight. I'm not sure what it is. It could be that my family is currently eating a tense meal in the food court of the mall while I'm alone with nothing but the sounds that the dishwasher is making. It could be that I had a glorious dinner-and-a-movie date last night, and now I've come off the high. Of course, dinner was gross, and the movie was sub-par, but those are just subordinate details that have little to do with the gloriousness of the date itself. So I'm sitting in the lull of Friday evening, thinking that I wish the next twenty minutes would just fly by so that I can watch Jeopardy and yell out the answers to myself.
I'm hungry, but my sister turned off the breaker in the basement this morning to extract the light fixture from the bathroom. It didn't occur to either one of us that the laundry room, which houses the freezer, is attached to the same breaker. Now the entire freezer, raw meat and ancient bread goods combined, has thawed completely. I'm not sure I want to risk salmonella, so I'll just eat Christmas goodies for dinner instead.
My phone is buzzing on the table. It's Eric. It'll be nice to talk to someone rather than listen for the pin-drops of the dying Christmas tree across the room.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
book of longing
they gave me a medal for dreaming of you.
I've been spending Christmas falling in and out of sleep. I wish I had a million huge books to read. I wish I had a million things to do, but I've got absolutely nothing. I'm just sitting, dozing, wondering about what I'll do next year. I had a dream when I fell asleep on the couch that an alien cut my hair. He didn't look like an alien, he looked like my hair dresser, but he must have been extra terrestrial because he had four arms and was an exceedingly talented hair stylist. He put one drop of colour on the very top of my head and it coloured my hair with all of the light and depth of the darkest, calmest pool. And then I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing and someone turning on Star Trek downstairs.
I've been reading Leonard Cohen's "Book of Longing" and feeling inspired by poetry that I am unable to emulate.
if you knew how much we loved you
you'd cover up
you wouldn't fuck around
with the passion
that killed three hundred thousand people
at hiroshima
or scooped up rocks from the moon
and crushed them into dust
looking for you
looking for you lost encouragement.
I think that's about God. Or love. Or someone else altogether that we just can't find because of our finite nature -- our tight, unstretched minds.
After a while
You can't tell
If it's missing
A woman
Or needing
A cigarette
And later on
If it's night
Or day
Then suddenly
You know
The time
You get dressed
You go home
You light up
You get married
And our lives could be so simple. We follow our hearts or our desires and then we'd know that life is actually pretty fair because we are here, and we have each other.
I've been spending Christmas falling in and out of sleep. I wish I had a million huge books to read. I wish I had a million things to do, but I've got absolutely nothing. I'm just sitting, dozing, wondering about what I'll do next year. I had a dream when I fell asleep on the couch that an alien cut my hair. He didn't look like an alien, he looked like my hair dresser, but he must have been extra terrestrial because he had four arms and was an exceedingly talented hair stylist. He put one drop of colour on the very top of my head and it coloured my hair with all of the light and depth of the darkest, calmest pool. And then I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing and someone turning on Star Trek downstairs.
I've been reading Leonard Cohen's "Book of Longing" and feeling inspired by poetry that I am unable to emulate.
if you knew how much we loved you
you'd cover up
you wouldn't fuck around
with the passion
that killed three hundred thousand people
at hiroshima
or scooped up rocks from the moon
and crushed them into dust
looking for you
looking for you lost encouragement.
I think that's about God. Or love. Or someone else altogether that we just can't find because of our finite nature -- our tight, unstretched minds.
After a while
You can't tell
If it's missing
A woman
Or needing
A cigarette
And later on
If it's night
Or day
Then suddenly
You know
The time
You get dressed
You go home
You light up
You get married
And our lives could be so simple. We follow our hearts or our desires and then we'd know that life is actually pretty fair because we are here, and we have each other.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
keeping all my blood to myself.
There are certain things about myself that I do not enjoy. First, I am overly sensitive and my feelings get hurt easier than I'd like. Second, sometimes I feel that I am struggling to be the best person I could be -- like I've just been trying and trying to be better, to be a role model, to be an upstanding citizen, and I'm just coming up ordinary and ineffectual. Third, I may or may not have a chronic inflammatory disease in my sacro-iliac joints called ankylosing spondilitis. I am in pain every day. I have been trying for months to get a referral to a specialist, but the doctor's office keeps forgetting to fax my request, or accidentally cancelling my request, or some other equally annoying thing, so I can't even find out for sure (beyond my non-specialist family doctor's amateur diagnosis) whether I actually have this disease.
Today, in an attempt to be a better person, or an upstanding citizen, or whatever, I went to donate blood. When asked if I'd taken any aspirin, I answered, "yes." Yesterday I took a muscle relaxant because I went shopping with my sister and my back was aching afterward. When asked why I took the muscle relaxant, I answered, "Because I might have a joint inflammation called ankylosing spondilitis." The nurse's face got all serious, and when she looked it up in her huge Book of Reasons Not to Let People Donate Blood, she nodded.
"Because ankylosing spondilitis is an autoimmune reaction, we aren't certain that it's contagious and therefore you are permanently deferred from donating."
Watch out, I might sneeze on you and your joints will become inflamed!
I felt really disappointed. It makes me sad to think that I can never help save lives the way I could have if I were allowed to donate. And what's even more ridiculous is the fact that I've donated before!
Why would God make me O-negative and simulatenously give me a disease that ensures I can never give blood? What's the point of being a "universal donor" if I can't donate to anyone? -- ever. Isn't it bad enough that I have to be in pain every day of my life, but now I can't even help others with their pain? The nurse told me that I was deferred indefinitely, or for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Given that I'll die roughly 940 years before that time, I think it's safe to say that I won't be permitted to donate, and therefore infect society with my arthritic blood again in my lifetime.
The nurse said it's too bad that it's been more than two months since I last donated, because it's too late for them to recall my blood. She said the people who received my blood (and lived! although, that's my opinion on the matter) would likely be monitered to see if they show any signs of having ankylosing spondilitis. She also told me that my spine was probably curving already, and that my joints were probably stiffening up to the point of disuse. "Aren't they?" She asked. "No. Actually, it's not in my spine, and there's no curvature. It's not scoliosis." I wanted to add that obviously my joints hadn't seized up, as she witnessed me walk right in there. Clearly they're still operational. They're just chronically inflamed and sore all the time. No big deal, right?
So as I drove home, I became increasingly annoyed that I haven't seen a specialist yet, even though my doctor supposedly referred me at the beginning of summer. I had called in October to ask when I could expect an appointment, and the receptionist told me that I had been referred, but that the request for appointment hadn't gone through. She told me she would send it again. I never heard anything about it.
While waiting for the light to turn green, I phoned the doctor's office to ask again about my appointment. The receptionist told me that on October 29th, the referral had been cancelled, and it had been declared that I didn't need to see a specialist.
"Why would Dr. Stansbury do that?" I asked.
"Well, she didn't. You called in and requested that it be cancelled."
WHAT?!?!?!
First of all, I so did nothing of the sort. I called to affirm an appointment. Second of all, don't blame me for your stupid mistake. You don't have to suffer for it. I do. After bitching and complaining, she agreed to send a note to Dr. Stansbury that would ask her to refer me again.
"When can I call and confirm that this has been done?" I asked.
"You don't need to call, I'll send it today."
"When can I call and confirm?"
"Umm... maybe the end of next week?"
I'm going to call on Friday. This is stupid. I'm sitting here waiting for my bones to potentially fuse together. I am deferred from donating my gloriously universal blood for the next 999 years. I am becoming less of an upstanding citizen the more I feel sorry for myself. The more I feel like I'm completely hopeless, the less better person I become.
I am overly sensitive and my feelings get hurt easier than I'd like. I am taking my inability to donate blood personally, which is completely ridiculous, and I am aware of that. Sometimes I feel like I am struggling to be a better person and failing. I have the ability to save lives with my particular blood type, but I can't. I may or may not have ankylosing spondilitis, but I guess I'll never know for sure, and I'll never be able to treat it, because someone at my doctor's office made repeated mistakes, pushing a potential consultation with a rhumetologist further and further away.
What a fantastically useless day.
Today, in an attempt to be a better person, or an upstanding citizen, or whatever, I went to donate blood. When asked if I'd taken any aspirin, I answered, "yes." Yesterday I took a muscle relaxant because I went shopping with my sister and my back was aching afterward. When asked why I took the muscle relaxant, I answered, "Because I might have a joint inflammation called ankylosing spondilitis." The nurse's face got all serious, and when she looked it up in her huge Book of Reasons Not to Let People Donate Blood, she nodded.
"Because ankylosing spondilitis is an autoimmune reaction, we aren't certain that it's contagious and therefore you are permanently deferred from donating."
Watch out, I might sneeze on you and your joints will become inflamed!
I felt really disappointed. It makes me sad to think that I can never help save lives the way I could have if I were allowed to donate. And what's even more ridiculous is the fact that I've donated before!
Why would God make me O-negative and simulatenously give me a disease that ensures I can never give blood? What's the point of being a "universal donor" if I can't donate to anyone? -- ever. Isn't it bad enough that I have to be in pain every day of my life, but now I can't even help others with their pain? The nurse told me that I was deferred indefinitely, or for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. Given that I'll die roughly 940 years before that time, I think it's safe to say that I won't be permitted to donate, and therefore infect society with my arthritic blood again in my lifetime.
The nurse said it's too bad that it's been more than two months since I last donated, because it's too late for them to recall my blood. She said the people who received my blood (and lived! although, that's my opinion on the matter) would likely be monitered to see if they show any signs of having ankylosing spondilitis. She also told me that my spine was probably curving already, and that my joints were probably stiffening up to the point of disuse. "Aren't they?" She asked. "No. Actually, it's not in my spine, and there's no curvature. It's not scoliosis." I wanted to add that obviously my joints hadn't seized up, as she witnessed me walk right in there. Clearly they're still operational. They're just chronically inflamed and sore all the time. No big deal, right?
So as I drove home, I became increasingly annoyed that I haven't seen a specialist yet, even though my doctor supposedly referred me at the beginning of summer. I had called in October to ask when I could expect an appointment, and the receptionist told me that I had been referred, but that the request for appointment hadn't gone through. She told me she would send it again. I never heard anything about it.
While waiting for the light to turn green, I phoned the doctor's office to ask again about my appointment. The receptionist told me that on October 29th, the referral had been cancelled, and it had been declared that I didn't need to see a specialist.
"Why would Dr. Stansbury do that?" I asked.
"Well, she didn't. You called in and requested that it be cancelled."
WHAT?!?!?!
First of all, I so did nothing of the sort. I called to affirm an appointment. Second of all, don't blame me for your stupid mistake. You don't have to suffer for it. I do. After bitching and complaining, she agreed to send a note to Dr. Stansbury that would ask her to refer me again.
"When can I call and confirm that this has been done?" I asked.
"You don't need to call, I'll send it today."
"When can I call and confirm?"
"Umm... maybe the end of next week?"
I'm going to call on Friday. This is stupid. I'm sitting here waiting for my bones to potentially fuse together. I am deferred from donating my gloriously universal blood for the next 999 years. I am becoming less of an upstanding citizen the more I feel sorry for myself. The more I feel like I'm completely hopeless, the less better person I become.
I am overly sensitive and my feelings get hurt easier than I'd like. I am taking my inability to donate blood personally, which is completely ridiculous, and I am aware of that. Sometimes I feel like I am struggling to be a better person and failing. I have the ability to save lives with my particular blood type, but I can't. I may or may not have ankylosing spondilitis, but I guess I'll never know for sure, and I'll never be able to treat it, because someone at my doctor's office made repeated mistakes, pushing a potential consultation with a rhumetologist further and further away.
What a fantastically useless day.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
four christmas things:
Today, I did four things to actively get more in the Christmas spirit.
1. I wrapped two Christmas presents. One for my sister, the other for my niece. I curled ribbon, I strategically placed bows, I chose paper that I thought was appropriate to the personality and age of the recipient -- it was quite the ordeal.
2. I went out to the barn and rode my horse. I know that I'd do this on any day of the year, but for some reason being out there made me feel Christmasy. Maybe it was the wading through snow to catch my horse, or when Laura and I went upstairs to plug in the Christmas lights. Either way, it somehow helped with my holiday mood.
3. I decorated our family's Christmas tree with my sister and my mom. The house smells like evergreen, and the living room is aglow with coloured lights. This is truly wonderful.
4. I watched a children's Christmas cartoon on CBC with my family. The story was magical, and about believing in Santa, and even though I've actually already seen it before, it was still a nice way to finish off my Christmasy day. All I needed was to hear an animated version of Tom Hanks hollering, "We're going to the North Pole, of course!"
And now, though it's still relatively early, I will go to bed -- while sugarplums dance in my head.
1. I wrapped two Christmas presents. One for my sister, the other for my niece. I curled ribbon, I strategically placed bows, I chose paper that I thought was appropriate to the personality and age of the recipient -- it was quite the ordeal.
2. I went out to the barn and rode my horse. I know that I'd do this on any day of the year, but for some reason being out there made me feel Christmasy. Maybe it was the wading through snow to catch my horse, or when Laura and I went upstairs to plug in the Christmas lights. Either way, it somehow helped with my holiday mood.
3. I decorated our family's Christmas tree with my sister and my mom. The house smells like evergreen, and the living room is aglow with coloured lights. This is truly wonderful.
4. I watched a children's Christmas cartoon on CBC with my family. The story was magical, and about believing in Santa, and even though I've actually already seen it before, it was still a nice way to finish off my Christmasy day. All I needed was to hear an animated version of Tom Hanks hollering, "We're going to the North Pole, of course!"
And now, though it's still relatively early, I will go to bed -- while sugarplums dance in my head.
Monday, December 3, 2007
professionalism
This morning when I got to work I found an enormous stack of business cards that the new technical advisor had picked up at a trade show. It is my unfortunate duty to go through our excel database and enter those that are not already in the computer. They are all councillors, aldermen or mayors for small towns in Alberta.
I am so bored. For some reason, this task is exhausting.
Maybe it's because I just finished entering the councillor of Mayerthorpe's e-mail address from his business card into the excel spreadsheet: no1deerhunter2001.
Utmost standards of professionalism, yes?
I am so bored. For some reason, this task is exhausting.
Maybe it's because I just finished entering the councillor of Mayerthorpe's e-mail address from his business card into the excel spreadsheet: no1deerhunter2001.
Utmost standards of professionalism, yes?
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