Still kickin'

Have I told you all recently that I love you? Because, I do. You have all provided much needed support. I am feeling a bit more on an even keel, despite the fact that we are pretty much snowed in. According to the guy that gravelled our long, steep driveway a couple of years ago, no plow truck could ever hope to make it up our driveway to plow it. He said that he would come dig us out on Saturday with a BACK HOE! Oh my god, what's that gonna cost us?

So I took a taxi into my therapy appointment today, because I really, really needed therapy badly. Glad I did, because along with all of your comments, it helped. Screw the mock trial, I am too busy with real life stuff anyway. If I keep telling myself that, eventually I will believe it. That helps me avoid the idea of running into the main lecture hall, and blowing everyone away with one well placed nuc1ear we@pon. (Please don't call the police, because in reality, just the fact that I thought of that scares the hell out of me. I have a hard time hurting a spider, much less a human being.) Anyway, with my fabulous mental health record, no one would let me have so much as a BB gun. So step away from the phone!

Now I am about to rant about my overly religious, bible thumping sister. I hope that I don't offend those of you who do have faith in a higher being, but I really need to get this out. I have the utmost respect for people who keep the faith, but I consider faith and religion and spirituality a very private thing. I have no problem with people who blog about it, it's their blog after all, and that never offends me. I also am not offended when people say they will pray for me or someone else. It shows that they care in their own way, I am grateful for that. But when someone actively and specifically tells (not requests, but instructs) me to pray, when they know that I don't and won't, it really bugs the fuck out of me. I am an adult, I have made my decision after much deep thought, and I plan on sticking with it. I do have a godchild, and her mother knows my feelings. I see myself as a spiritual person, in my own right, not a religious person. So I think I am up for the job. That said, here goes my rant.

My sister, let's call her Beth for now, she is an elementary school teacher and the 3rd of the four girls in my family. All of us didn't exactly get all of the love and attention that we needed as kids, so we each found individual ways of getting attention outside the family. I chose school and buried myself in it, typical 1st child syndrome. The 2nd, we'll call her Anne, well she chose sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, oh and the occasional beating from a boyfriend or two. Beth carved out her own niche, by attending church pretty much every day from the time she was around 8 years old. She had a friend whose father was a pastor and she attended church with them, every chance she could get. Not a bad plan, if it wasn't to the extreme. She preached to all of us on a daily basis. She told our mother that if she didn't go to church she couldn't continue to be her mother, and she said she would be adopting a new mom from church. Nice, huh? The funniest one, was when she told our mother that when she got married, she would have to sit in the second row, while her "real", church mom would get to sit in the first row. My mother said that if that was in her plans, then she had best ask her new mom to pay for the wedding as well. With all of the trouble that Anne and myself gave my mother, nothing was more difficult to battle than a bible thumping, self righteous teenager called Beth. Nothing.

Beth knows very well that I am not a Christian, I am Buddhist. Period. I don't talk about my spirituality with her unless she asks a specific question. And even then, I limit it to very basic, need to know information. I have asked her repeatedly not to preach to me and to keep her faith to herself around me. Yes, I am a total bitch, but that's just me. As an aside, she does things that I don't usually associate with a devout Christian. Before her wedding she got a full Brazilian wax job. FULL! Now, I really try hard not the judge her, but that just struck me as odd. But hey, what do I know. The other funny thing this kid did as a teenager to demonstrate her faith, she got a tattoo. Not a big deal, except that it's on her ass and is a tattoo consisting of a Jesus fish, a cross, and some other religious symbol I didn't recognize. Anne and I taunt her regularly and tell her she is sitting on God. We're relentless, I know, but it's our job, because we're sisters.

Now Beth is pretty clueless about life's challenges in general. And her awareness of the struggles of infertility is zilch, nada, nothing. Her idea of struggling to have a baby is trying to build up enough funds to buy all the nursery furniture from P0ttery B@rn. That's her biggest concern. So from the land of clueless, she continues to send me updates on 4th sis', Carrie's, pregnancy. In fact, Beth went so far as to announce the sex of Carrie's fetus today and send out a picture of her pregnant belly. Never mind, that Carrie is perfectly capable and probably wanted to do the gender announcement herself. And I won't even go on about the fact that she signed it "Aunt Beth". But the final straw was when she told me to pray for Carrie, her pregnancy, and her baby girl.

It's everything I can do to not send her a picture of my middle finger. Everything.

I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, and gosh darn it nobody likes me.

I used to repeat Stuart Smalley's positive affirmation to fight the negative cycle of thoughts in my head. Today, that strategy has completely fallen apart. I have been riding a high for a few days now, and as we all know, what comes up must come down. Let's here it for the laws of physics!

So, at lala school, the moot c0urt board is sponsoring the first m0ck trial competition in their history. Because of the snow, I couldn't make it to the first organizational meeting. Not a big deal in terms of signing up because they post all the information on their website, but I did want to go so that I could find team members. Each team is made up of 4 members. The competition is open to all 3 classes (1L, 2L, 3L). So there are a lot of people who are going to be part of it. As I said, I wasn't able to go to the meeting, so I didn't get the opportunity to scope out a team. The organizer said not to worry, that there were lots of people looking for team mates. She instructed me, along with many others, to email the school's list serve and to let others know I was looking too.

I went ahead and emailed the list serve on Wednesday night and shot email replies back to the few people who had done the same. I got responses back pretty quickly saying that they already had a team together. Interesting, since I had emailed them within 5 minutes of the time they sent out their request. Since then, I have been frantically checking my email for replies. In the last two days I haven't received a single one.

Brings me back to all those times, I wasn't picked for teams in grade school. Those were the days when the teacher would just assign me to a team to get it over with. It was a real ego booster then, and even more so now. I am a puddle of tears over this situation. I am just absolutely sick over it. I keep thinking, "Why doesn't anyone like me?" Why is lala school so reminiscent of all the terrible moments in elementary, middle, and high school? I am in so much pain, and am having trouble convincing myself that I have any worth at all. If not one person out of about 400 students wants me on their team what does that say about me? I'll tell you. I am not good enough. That's what each and every one of those people and events says. I am nowhere near good enough. Pathetic, pitiful, and puddle making.

Purty flowers.

For now, I don't have a whole lot to say, so I will post some pictures (again, from the camera on my phone, so sorry for the blur). Includes a rare photo of me, but it's from the back. I will likely take it down in a couple of days, so check it out now if you're curious.












This orchid finally bloomed and I am elated. The timing couldn't be better, during this dark and colorless Winter.












My favorite wedding photo of me from my own favorite wedding. ;)
















Here's the main reason that I won't make it to school today. It will likely take the better part of the day to dig out. 10 inches in less than 12 hours, and counting.

Delusions of Grandeur

The weekends are never quite what I hoped they would be. I always have delusions of grandeur on Friday, and I am consistently sorely disappointed. No wild parties, no fancy restaurants, no sex 3 times a day. (OK, so the last one is really my fault since my UTI-like symptoms kind of put the brakes on all that for a bit.) And then you add a big fat negative to the mix, and well, you know. However, sometimes making a few good purchases can rescue an otherwise banal weekend.

Friday, I finally used a gift certificate for T@rget that I received from a friend due to a good deed. I went out a bought a deep electric fryer with it. It's awesome! Never mind that I am really not supposed to eat fried foods because of my genetic predisposition to croaking over from a heart attack in my 30's or 40's. But life is so much better when you include fried foods. So that night, we enjoyed so much vegetable tempura that now I don't even want to see anything fried for a few weeks.

What else did I do that was self destructive? Glad you asked. I ate all the things that you are not supposed to eat if you have a putative interstitial cystitis diagnosis. I consumed 3 cups of coffee Saturday morning after going for a full week without. I had a beer Friday night. I ate a bag of Funyuns, complete with MSG, for breakfast on Saturday. Then for dinner, I enjoyed spaghetti with a lot of aged Parmesan and enough tomato sauce to burn an acid hole right through my bladder. Then that night, I whined and whimpered about how much my bladder burned, and then grumped so much at my husband that he moved from the love seat next to me to the couch on the other side of the living room. Good job, me.

Today, Husband and I went to the Tractor Supply store a good half hour away to buy a maul to chop wood. Of course, I couldn't walk out of there without a full exploration of the place. Turns out I love tractor supply stores as much as I love office supply stores, which is A LOT! We walked out with a big dog bed for our German Shepherd (hereinafter GSD), a mammoth bag of dog food, and a giant Nylabone to the GSD to chew on. Even more evidence of my self destructive mood, given that we really don't have money budgeted for such things.

Here's the funny part, the Jack Russell Terrier was keen on the bed and bone and took over both immediately (shown here). She really rules the roost around here, and clearly has her own delusions of grandeur.














Sorry they are so blurry, but I don't have a digital camera, I only have the camera on my cell phone.

Also, I thought I would share some photos of my kitchen. This is what happens when I am not feeling well. It just hasn't learned to keep itself clean yet. By the way, I know you want to know the name of my decorator after seeing the color of my kitchen walls. You should see the bathroom. It has a pept0 b1sm0l pink toilet, a black counter top and black carpet! Yeah, carpet!

Can do.

When I saw these on the back of my friend's toilet, I knew I had to have some too. Partly because dry toilet paper doesn't always do the job, if you know what I mean, but mainly because there is a picture of a frog wiping his arse, right on the box. Who could pass up the opportunity to adorn their lavatory with frogs practicing proper hygiene? Certainly not me. So I bought not one, but two boxes, plus refills. They even have a lovely cucumber melon scent. No more fishy odor for me, it's all fruit and vegetables down there from now on. To top it off, every time I use one, I can be heard singing in the bathroom from outside the house. It's a simple song, something like, "Caaaaaaannnn dooooooo, caaaaaannnn dooooo, (repeat about 10 times over)." Have I finally lost my mind? Oh yeah, but that happened long ago. I may be the only woman without kids that owns these things. What can I say? I am young at heart.

Since I don't feel like battering all of you, again, with my tales of whimpering woe, I will tell you a story instead. Gotta give you all a break every once in awhile.

When I first met The Ass (aka first husband who doesn't really deserve the title of husband) at the ripe age of 19, he told me that his last girl friend had dumped him. Believing him, we started dating. A few weeks into our relationship, we decided to camp out over night in front of B10ck.buster so we could get tickets to the P1nk Fl0yd concert. By the way, the concert was on April 20th. For those in the know, I think you will find that date ironic, for those who are not please don't ask, because it's not appropriate blog conversation, even on this blog.

Any hoo, we spent a freezing night on the sidewalk, not sleeping. I had to work at 10am the next morning, so around 9am I headed to his house where I was staying for a few days because of a terrible fight with my college roommates. When I came in the door, I saw that my underwear were dispersed about the living room, with a trail leading to the bedroom where my duffel bag was. His dog, Sierra, was not as big on eating underwear as my current dog, but every once in awhile she would express herself by eating the crotches out of my underwear, you know, just for shits and giggles. So as I picked up my crotchless undies, I scolded her and tried to reason with her regarding her behavior. Usually, she slinks away, wagging her tail in an apology, but that morning she just looked confused.

I decided to change my clothes and put on my jeans for work. As I put one leg in, I realized that my leg went through, but not into a pant leg. Staring down, I realized that my leg went through a gigantic hole in the crotch of my relatively new jeans. Again, I scolded Sierra. So I picked up a different pair of pants, and the exact same thing occurred. Then I realized, every pair of underwear and pants were missing the critical crotch component. Where the hell did all my crotches go? Upon closer examination, I realized that this was not the haphazard work of a bitter dog. Instead it appeared to be the careful work of a bitch, of the human species, wielding a sharp pair of scissors. After some investigation, I discovered that his girlfriend, who still lived with him, had come in during the night, when she knew we would be out, and removed all of the crotches from my clothing.

That should have been the first sign that The Ass was a two timing basturd. But, let's face it, I was 19, and I was clueless. Maybe even really dumb.

What did The Ass do when I told him what his supposed ex-girlfriend had done? He vomited right there in the B10ck.buster parking lot. Yep, back then, I really knew how to pick'em.

It can always get worse.

I wish that I could say this post is more upbeat than the last, but that would be an enormous lie, so I won't even bother. My mood is dangerously low at the moment, and I am aching with self defeating circular thoughts. I really want to be funny, but I am not even close today.

As I mentioned yesterday, I went in to have my urine checked for bad guys. To my great dismay, I produced the healthiest urine they had ever seen. A lovely light yellow (due to my 3L water consumption per day), totally clear, and not a bad guy in the bunch. Damnit. The diagnosis: Interstitial Cystitis. It's tantamount to telling me that I have dermatitis, which only means itchy skin and really doesn't tell you much of anything. I fit the profile perfectly, and now I have to find a urologist who works with women. None in tiny town, so I may have to go to the big city. Dr. G00.gle had a lot of info on the topic, but none of it is very encouraging.

Here's the treatment options. There's some weird drug they put you on for 6 months, which helps about 40% of the afflicted. An alternative is to have DMSO (dimethylsulfoxide) injected into my bladder once a week for an indefinite period. No fucking way! I use DMSO in protein extractions and other scary science protocols. I have to use the stuff in a fume hood. Thus, there is no way I am putting it anywhere near my cooter. Forget it. Or, I can have the pleasure of an electrical device inserted into my vagina to send electric current through my pelvis. Not exactly the electric wand I prefer. I prefer good vibrations, not electric shock therapy on my cooter. And then there's the diet option which eliminates things like aged cheese, coffee, tea, chocolate, citrus, cranberry (that explains why drinking cranberry juice only seemed to make things worse), tomatoes, onions, Chinese food, Mexican food, spicy food, wine, any alcohol, and even tofu. I am not sure that it will be worth going on living without these foods. In fact, I am pretty sure it's not worth it.

Then there's my stress. Stress only seems to make it worse. I think that's why it's particularly bad right now. Last night, I had a total breakdown. It's all just too much, way too much. The predominant thought in my head is that "I am bad". From my disturbed stand point, I keep thinking about what a bad person I am. How I really cause more harm than good. I am continuously hurting those I love. It doesn't matter that I don't intend to hurt anyone, because I still cause people pain. Intent is irrelevant. Husband told me last night that I need to act, not react. I completely agree with him, and even though I try to live by that, it doesn't seem to change my behavior. I am still ultimately a destructive person.

Then there's my temper. It's out of control. While I seem to manage not completely losing it and ripping off heads, I still stomp away and play scenarios over in my head until I have nothing left that's positive in me. I am enraged at Dr. Nature for leaving a message telling me that she deserves a vacation like everyone else (guess what? most of us really never get a vacation) otherwise she will burn out. Poor baby, let me squeeze out some tears for her. Never mind that my complaint had nothing to do with her taking a vacation. Then, in my meeting with dean of career services, the dean said I wasn't really employable in the p@tent la field, because my Ph.Duh degree in molecul@r biologie isn't in a hard science. WTF? So I said, you mean, I am not an engineer. He says, "Right". So now cloning genes is a soft science? News to me. Thanks a lot for your help, fuckface. Clearly a man with a degree in la and labor relations knows all about hard and soft science. The kicker is that I didn't even try to correct him or argue, I just accepted it and slinked away.

So, in all of my rage and indignant rantings, I still don't stand up for myself. Worthless, absolutely worthless.

Once again, sorry for all the misspellings, I don't really want non-regular readers to see this lovely post.

Life sucks, and then it sucks some more

Warning: a whole lot of whining going on in this one, all whiners welcome

The top ten reasons why my life sucks right now, in no particular order...

1. Did I mention, I don't have a job for the summer? Oh, I guess I did.
2. Our Jack Russell Terrier has some sort of sinus (do they even have sinuses? I don't know) issue that makes her go through long snorts in reverse every hour on the hour while we are trying to sleep at night.
3. Nothing seems to be making her any better.
4. Our dogs make their own poop snacks while we are at work. Apparently they get hungry during the day. Unfortunately, they leave some for us when we come home. Thoughtful huh?
5. The refrigerator door doesn't close all the way anymore. As if we need to chill the house any more than it already is.
6. Pregnant 20 year old sister will be finding out the sex of her baby next week. AND, her mother in law is buying her and MIL's son a house soon. She is "like, soooo excited".
7. No job, excessive loans, and a bankruptcy in my history means there will be no house-buying in my near future.
8. I am enormous! I wear pants bigger than Husband's AND I weigh more than he does. At my OB visit a few weeks ago, I weighed in at 185 pounds (about 84 kilograms). I am HUGE.
9. I continue to suffer from foot in mouth disease and I am not pregnant, I wonder if the two are related.
10. And for the grand finale....I still have a urinary tract infection and now a hint of a low grade fever. Excellent! Gotta go pee into a cup so I can take some more pain meds.

Nothing tragic, just pathetic.

Out and About

Before I regale you with this new snort, I would like to give attention to an essay written about the expression of grief. It's on the NPR website under "This I Believe". Cortney Davis, a nurse practitioner, says some powerful things in her essay entitled "A way to honor life". If you have suffered loss, it's definitely worth the read. Helps restore my faith in medical professionals.

And now without further ado...

In our part of the country we have a chain of restaurants called "Fr1end1y's". For those who don't have a clue what I am talking about, it's pretty much a family restaurant-diner style-that also heavily markets their ice cream products. On hot summer nights, I love to go there and get something really bad for me. They have a deal where you can get a free sundae if you buy a meal, or something like that. Apparently, their advertising execs don't have the same gutter mind that I do, because they gave this sundae deal quite an interesting name. Here's what the sign said outside of the Friendly's in a nearby town:

"Free Happy Ending with Every Meal!!!"

Clearly, Fr1end1y's has earned its name.

Ah, yes, I am a dirty, dirty girl.

The microscopic fuse

For me, hypomania doesn't mean a good mood necessarily. And lately, I have been doing some rapid cycling. This means that in one moment I feel despondent and without hope, but within the same hour I feel invincible and irritable. It may be an overestimate to say that my short fuse is about a nanometer long. And, my fuse is so combustible that it proves the theory of spontaneous combustion with ease. I'm pretty sure that every seat I plop myself down in turns to charcoal. Here's a taste of char...

I finally decided that the UTI had gone on long enough and called the doctor on Thursday. I have considered my doctor to be pretty good, with the exception of her chronic forgetfulness. But, this doesn't seem to be all that unusual in the medical profession. I have gone to her multiple times for a UTI, so I have proven my expertise and experience in this issue. I know when I have them. Every time I see her, she tells me not to suffer with a UTI and just give her a call, because it's one of the few things for which she will call in a script without a visit. In fact, one time she issued a standing order for antibiotics so I could just fill it when I needed it, but that was over a year ago. I had been taking ur1st@t to deal with the pain while I treated it with water and cranberry juice. Once you have this drug in your urine, they cannot test your urine for a UTI. So I called in to request an antibiotic, but Dr. Nature was on vacation. I described the whole thing to the idiot receptionist and she said she would call Dr. Nature. Six hours later, I get a message that says she won't prescribe anything over the phone and that I should go to convenient care (hereinafter CC). The fuse was lit, and the bomb was about to blow. What the fuck were they going to do at CC that couldn't be said over the phone? As much as I would like to spend $50 just to tell a doctor the same thing I told the receptionist, I was not impressed with this plan. So I called the idiot back, and before I ripped her a new one, I asserted that I was not upset with her, but I had a message for Dr. Nature: "What the fuck is wrong with you? You lied to me multiple times. I am in serious pain; I am not going to CC; this is going to turn into a kidney infection and it is all your fault. Thanks for nothing." Oh yeah, I am a great patient aren't I? A few hours later, the doctor in the same office left another message telling me to just come in and see him. Trying to ramp up their income? I think so. That would have cost me about $200. No fucking way.

From there I called my OB/GYN who I have only seen twice. I got to talk to a nurse who clearly empathized and recognized my needs. She spoke to the doctor immediately and within the hour a script was called in. Hooray for my new doc.

I am still trying to decide whether to call Dr. Nature in a few weeks and tell her to fuck off and die. Oh, and while she's at it, send me my records so I can switch doctors. While I understand the gatekeeping role doctor's play when it comes to prescriptions, but I wasn't asking for Valium, I was asking for an antibiotic. They abused their power on this one just to make some money. I am outraged.

By the way, I just got really pissed off again when I spell checked this post and found that it doesn't know the word "hypomania". Speaks volumes to me. Geeeeezzzze...these horns on my head are getting big!

The Crossroads

I have been here before, at the crossroads. Trying to decide which way to go. The choices are tough and nothing is clear or distinct. I need to make sure that my next big decision is derived from courage, not desperation. Here's the deal...

The running theme in my life is that I really want to help people. Every choice I have made in my career has been with that in mind. First, I wanted to be an oncologist, but decided that I hated doctors and wanted no part of their world. Then, I thought plant pathology, so I could help farmers make the right choices for their crops. Turns out if you are in that field, you work more with fungus than with plants or even farmers. Damn it. I was told that I have a talent for science. So I tried to stay within that area because of other people and what they thought I was good at. My dissertation project in grad school had a downstream environmental application, so I figured I could "make a difference" that way. At the time, I didn't quite realize how very far downstream the difference would be. In basic research, you just don't see your work make a significant impact on the world at large in your lifetime, usually (there are notable exceptions of course). And I never got any thrill at all from my success in science. Publishing papers, getting grants funded, being a recognized expert in the field--none of that did a thing for me. I still came home feeling useless at the end of the day.

I left science behind with the hope that I could apply it in the practice of law. I thought about the money and the power I could have being a p@t.ent att0rn.ey. A part of me thought that money would make it all worth it. In science there is no money. I didn't want money for a big house or lots of toys, I wanted to make money so I could give it away. My dream is to start a trust for grad students in need of financial assistance for medical issues. I received a small amount from the grad school to help offset the cost of therapy (it was not covered by my student health insurance unless I saw one of the idiots at the health center). I wanted to give back. I wanted to help others who found themselves in need, like I once was. A bit corny I will admit, but I am serious about this. I thought being able to give would make it all worth it.

Not getting that summer job blew this whole plan out of the water. It's clear that I am not going to be a high powered woman in the la world. Now, I am second guessing all of it. All of my past choices are clearly based on my desire to make a positive impact, to help those who need it, to point others in the right direction, to fight the good fight for someone who has no more energy to do it themselves. Let's face it, if I became a big player, I would still be making an impact from an arm's length away. Will that be enough? Experience says no.

Then it hit me. Disability l@w. Interesting, albeit frustrating, work that would allow me to help someone, even if its one person at a time. I can tell this may be worth looking into, because I get a little hop in my step just thinking about it. So I ran this by my blind l@w stoodent friend, A. A thought this was an awesome plan and then she gave me the greatest of compliments. She told me that I would be great working in this field. She told me that my personality is well suited to the type of clients I would manage, and that I am good at relating to people who are struggling. I do my best when I am advocating for someone else. I fight harder than I ever would for just myself. For her to tell me this, as a person with a disability, was HUGE for me.

Now, here's the really hard part--walking away, for real this time, from science. Am I exploring this option out of desperation or courage? This is going to take some time and some deep thought. Bring out the wine, it's time to do some thinkin'.