Apologies & Giving Huge Thanks and then, well, Not So Much...
I have great great news for the people who loathe and resent me and must pray daily for me to die (mostly my poor sister and brother who generously send me money even though they loathe me, well, because they pity me, and even though they cannot grasp how hopelessly fucked my brain is now and how often I am not the me of me. Believe me, I understand the loathing mixed with pity. I'm no day at the beach when I'm "healthy", well, healthy for me.) and a hopefully somewhat funny tale of a best of time, worst of times -- God, I love Dickens -- Thanksgiving. Mostly worst of times, which makes for better material and a heartrending life.
First post I've been able to create in a long long time. So many seizures and strokes in a 10 day period. This time I was sure I would lose language altogether. For now, I can use my limited Rainman vocabulary/expressions. Or, and this is the miracle, I can talk into a tape recorder in my stumbling way and an extraordinary friend transcribes it for me. Which allows me to slooowly and painfully and extremely imperfectly edit what is there. My skills are limited and we end up with several versions of whatever I was trying to convey. And then there is the reality that I live mostly in the past, especially when I'm having lots of seiz-strokes, that old events seem current and active to me, that old language presents itself as what I thnk and feel now and that I have huge trouble keeping track of transcribed versions vs. edited ones vs. even more edited ones.
Bottom line being that my brain literally loses chunks of life experience. For example, knitting, which I adored, is lost to me. Gone. Vanished. My poor chubby wonderpups have to wear overtight crop-top sweaters in this cold because I can't make them larger versions. And cooking is gone!! (This will become relevant when I finally get to the worst part of Thanksgiving.) I was always a terrible cook, lucky enough to find men who could/would do it and who would, inevitably, come to resent and loathe me for not cooking well.
All of which means that I get to express myself, well, really myselves, since the past and present live side by side for me, and I have to apologize a lot. This week is about apologizing sincerely and, this time, not defensively, thanks to my miracle friend, to my sister for calling her a c--- of a sister in the Mental Health Checklist, apparently in the Gratitude section, which is an awful awful thing to do, even for someone with a fucked brain. So frustrating too that, as much of an asshole as I am, my fucked brain causes me to be even more so.
My sister and I were estranged for almost 20 years, for excellent reasons, so I got in the habit of calling her the c---sister. C--- is an ugly word that I use for people who are emotionally withholding, for whom it is challenging to be warm, or, God forbid, effusive. I called my father a withholding SOB for years after my longterm college boyfriend broke up with me for a blond physical therapist. I was sobbing hysterically, in huge pain, and my poor psychiatrist father was incapable of comforting me or telling me I was pretty when he brought up, out of nowhere, my looks. I was, he said above average looking and shouldn't worry about finding someone else. Thank God for the downstairs friend/neighbor, who ran upstairs with a valium and her vibrator. So this is old old business for me. And my father was so generous in myriad other ways. I'm 55 years old and should be so so over all that crap. I was actually. My late husband was a safe safe place for me, made almost everything possible. But now my nameless dread of a brain has pulled me back in, a la Al Pacino. I joke because I can, but it is truly hideous.
Out of old/new/past habit and hurt, I used that word for my sister on the tape of the List that got transcribed, and I feel guilty and horrified by this. I know I edited that out once I realized I'd spoken the c--- word into the tape and I know I sent her that version and that I had every intention of posting the edited version because it is inappropriate at best to talk about my sister that way because she, amazingly, overcomes her antipathy and sends me money and because this is old old business for me and probably has little to do with her. And because, while I may be okay with the word, many women/men are not.
But I chose the wrong file out of those labeled MHC, Mental Health Checklist, MHC, versions 2,3, etc. and posted the unedited version and truly only realized it when sister and I were just fighting via email subject lines and she pulled it out of her bag of ways in which I could not suck more. Big big big big bag. Don't know if she saw it a while ago and was letting it fester while a huge resentment built up and up, which hurts my heart to think about. She, understandably, can't forgive me for the vile and insulting things I did and said in the past so I know that this will go right into the bag of suckitude. Or if she, for some unknown reason, wanted to read something of mine, which seems so unlikely. Doesn't matter. I did a bad and hurtful thing out of old habit and did not fix it as I thought I had, and she busted me and I owe an enormous amends and apology!!! Once again.
Shit, I'm so exhausted now from once again having to ponder at length the extent to which I am the giant asshole I am. I'll give a snapshot of the Day of Thanks and write more later, after one more nap with the girls and p.kitty. Bottom Line: the dinner I ordered, that I was so excited about and grateful for, was not only Not Good, but it also required cooking! Arrrrggghhh. Years ago, when Richard and I indulged ourselves with a pre-prepared meal from Zupans, there was no cooking involved! There is no cooking in baseball! Re-heating is something I can do successfully and that is about it. The turkey itself came in an unwieldy thick plastic form-fitting bag. It took two of us -- me and the friend who took me to pick the dinner up at Wild Oats, which I thought was the same as Whole Foods, which is so not true as I/we painfully realized -- to wrestle the slimy supposedly pre-cooked bird into the roasting pan. Said pan was to be supplied by the store, but, hey, it wasn't Whole Foods.
I had naively invited a few friends and reed students to chow down immediately when we got back, still living in the past with the wondrous Zupan's meal. The dread turkey had to be cooked for 2 hours by the non-cook. The garlic mashed potatoes I'd been fantasizing about did not exist in the box o' food, and even if it did, would have had to have been heated on the stove for half an hour, actually cooked. Got two containers of not at all good stuffing. The sweet potatoes with the apricot glaze were almost inedibly sweet and I, when I can afford it, consume way too much sugar. The brussel sprouts with whatever on them were horrible and I actually love brussel sprouts! Even after all the freaking preparation that all of this crappy stuff required. There was none of the promised maple herb butter to baste the turkey with and the pumpkin cream cheese pie was, so horribly sadly, covered and overcome by some brown sugar/nuts/whatever topping. To which I was, as I am to almost everything these days because of my seriously compromised immune system and insane hormones, horribly allergic.
Had to leave the dread cooking to the guests while I retreated to the bedroom with the usual high fever, swollen glands, logy and achy feeling crud that comes over me whenever I eat or inhale or, I swear, stagger by any of the countless things that make me ill. What is so ridiculous is that the regular brain tumor symptoms/side effects don't bother me that much. The massive headaches, the dizziness, the exhaustion, the lost chunks of skills, even the seiz-strokes, this is all part of the deal. It's the cards I've been dealt.
I was supposed to die a year or more ago. I'm supposed to drop dead any and every day. And I live with that, in pain and in poverty -- the money my siblings so generously send me is only a small portion of what it costs me to live, can't even begin to afford to eat the healthy food I'm supposed to be eating or to get any decent healthcare but, shit, that is not anyone else's responsibility. It's that of the fucking politicians, the fucking administration that vetoes healthcare for children and Michael Moore -- one day at a time, keeping my daily gratitude conversation going with God.
GD and I have an extremely contentious relationship -- I will withhold the language I use to him when I'm in despair and confusion -- but it goes along with my theory that he/she/it is so very busy and that you have to be very specific about what you ask for . I did specify a delicious dinner, oh well, but I forgot to mention that it should not involve real cooking. And, shit, I did manage to nag some good-doers to death and line up some low income housing, so, GD willing, if I can get a last chunk of money for cleaning and moving expenses, I can live on the disability funds I get and no longer have to be a burden on anyone but the government. Please, GD, I could actually have a tiny bit of a life with affordable rent, surrounded by other seniors with pets (they are allowed!!) and, at last and hopefully, the time to have cawfee and tawk, a la Mike Myers channeling Linda Richman.
Okay, I"m sorry, this doesn't even begin to be funny. Just bitter and cynical and angry and sad, probably because I am still battling the fever, glands, logy, achy crud/crap and when this is going on, I get so severely depressed that I pretty much just want to die die die, which does not lend itself to anything but the blackest humor. I will edit and add to this later and, hopefully, make it funny and accessible and will put in the best of the day that all happened before we got the food home. Well, the guests said the turkey was good. who knew? and the puppies and p LOVED it. so that is what matters after all. I still wrote a Jay Leno's father you-should-be-disembowelled letter to both the Wild Oats store and Whole Foods corporate because I can't stand to and I cannot afford to waste money on anything that isn't up to par. or above. This was, was supposed to be, the first real whole delicious dinner I've had, never mind gotten to serve, in so long I can't remember. Hey, the turkey was okay.
Coco just woke up and, God, I am so grateful for her beauty and sweetness and all around excellent company. Softest copper/chestnut/mahogany coat in the world. Ella's in her crate and her tiny apple half-chihuahua head just popped up.
Now I edit the ugly c--- out of the damn checklist and then take more painkillers and allergy meds and, hopefully, zone out physically and mentally.
Tomorrow I will be funny again. Time, rest and GD willing.
First post I've been able to create in a long long time. So many seizures and strokes in a 10 day period. This time I was sure I would lose language altogether. For now, I can use my limited Rainman vocabulary/expressions. Or, and this is the miracle, I can talk into a tape recorder in my stumbling way and an extraordinary friend transcribes it for me. Which allows me to slooowly and painfully and extremely imperfectly edit what is there. My skills are limited and we end up with several versions of whatever I was trying to convey. And then there is the reality that I live mostly in the past, especially when I'm having lots of seiz-strokes, that old events seem current and active to me, that old language presents itself as what I thnk and feel now and that I have huge trouble keeping track of transcribed versions vs. edited ones vs. even more edited ones.
Bottom line being that my brain literally loses chunks of life experience. For example, knitting, which I adored, is lost to me. Gone. Vanished. My poor chubby wonderpups have to wear overtight crop-top sweaters in this cold because I can't make them larger versions. And cooking is gone!! (This will become relevant when I finally get to the worst part of Thanksgiving.) I was always a terrible cook, lucky enough to find men who could/would do it and who would, inevitably, come to resent and loathe me for not cooking well.
All of which means that I get to express myself, well, really myselves, since the past and present live side by side for me, and I have to apologize a lot. This week is about apologizing sincerely and, this time, not defensively, thanks to my miracle friend, to my sister for calling her a c--- of a sister in the Mental Health Checklist, apparently in the Gratitude section, which is an awful awful thing to do, even for someone with a fucked brain. So frustrating too that, as much of an asshole as I am, my fucked brain causes me to be even more so.
My sister and I were estranged for almost 20 years, for excellent reasons, so I got in the habit of calling her the c---sister. C--- is an ugly word that I use for people who are emotionally withholding, for whom it is challenging to be warm, or, God forbid, effusive. I called my father a withholding SOB for years after my longterm college boyfriend broke up with me for a blond physical therapist. I was sobbing hysterically, in huge pain, and my poor psychiatrist father was incapable of comforting me or telling me I was pretty when he brought up, out of nowhere, my looks. I was, he said above average looking and shouldn't worry about finding someone else. Thank God for the downstairs friend/neighbor, who ran upstairs with a valium and her vibrator. So this is old old business for me. And my father was so generous in myriad other ways. I'm 55 years old and should be so so over all that crap. I was actually. My late husband was a safe safe place for me, made almost everything possible. But now my nameless dread of a brain has pulled me back in, a la Al Pacino. I joke because I can, but it is truly hideous.
Out of old/new/past habit and hurt, I used that word for my sister on the tape of the List that got transcribed, and I feel guilty and horrified by this. I know I edited that out once I realized I'd spoken the c--- word into the tape and I know I sent her that version and that I had every intention of posting the edited version because it is inappropriate at best to talk about my sister that way because she, amazingly, overcomes her antipathy and sends me money and because this is old old business for me and probably has little to do with her. And because, while I may be okay with the word, many women/men are not.
But I chose the wrong file out of those labeled MHC, Mental Health Checklist, MHC, versions 2,3, etc. and posted the unedited version and truly only realized it when sister and I were just fighting via email subject lines and she pulled it out of her bag of ways in which I could not suck more. Big big big big bag. Don't know if she saw it a while ago and was letting it fester while a huge resentment built up and up, which hurts my heart to think about. She, understandably, can't forgive me for the vile and insulting things I did and said in the past so I know that this will go right into the bag of suckitude. Or if she, for some unknown reason, wanted to read something of mine, which seems so unlikely. Doesn't matter. I did a bad and hurtful thing out of old habit and did not fix it as I thought I had, and she busted me and I owe an enormous amends and apology!!! Once again.
Shit, I'm so exhausted now from once again having to ponder at length the extent to which I am the giant asshole I am. I'll give a snapshot of the Day of Thanks and write more later, after one more nap with the girls and p.kitty. Bottom Line: the dinner I ordered, that I was so excited about and grateful for, was not only Not Good, but it also required cooking! Arrrrggghhh. Years ago, when Richard and I indulged ourselves with a pre-prepared meal from Zupans, there was no cooking involved! There is no cooking in baseball! Re-heating is something I can do successfully and that is about it. The turkey itself came in an unwieldy thick plastic form-fitting bag. It took two of us -- me and the friend who took me to pick the dinner up at Wild Oats, which I thought was the same as Whole Foods, which is so not true as I/we painfully realized -- to wrestle the slimy supposedly pre-cooked bird into the roasting pan. Said pan was to be supplied by the store, but, hey, it wasn't Whole Foods.
I had naively invited a few friends and reed students to chow down immediately when we got back, still living in the past with the wondrous Zupan's meal. The dread turkey had to be cooked for 2 hours by the non-cook. The garlic mashed potatoes I'd been fantasizing about did not exist in the box o' food, and even if it did, would have had to have been heated on the stove for half an hour, actually cooked. Got two containers of not at all good stuffing. The sweet potatoes with the apricot glaze were almost inedibly sweet and I, when I can afford it, consume way too much sugar. The brussel sprouts with whatever on them were horrible and I actually love brussel sprouts! Even after all the freaking preparation that all of this crappy stuff required. There was none of the promised maple herb butter to baste the turkey with and the pumpkin cream cheese pie was, so horribly sadly, covered and overcome by some brown sugar/nuts/whatever topping. To which I was, as I am to almost everything these days because of my seriously compromised immune system and insane hormones, horribly allergic.
Had to leave the dread cooking to the guests while I retreated to the bedroom with the usual high fever, swollen glands, logy and achy feeling crud that comes over me whenever I eat or inhale or, I swear, stagger by any of the countless things that make me ill. What is so ridiculous is that the regular brain tumor symptoms/side effects don't bother me that much. The massive headaches, the dizziness, the exhaustion, the lost chunks of skills, even the seiz-strokes, this is all part of the deal. It's the cards I've been dealt.
I was supposed to die a year or more ago. I'm supposed to drop dead any and every day. And I live with that, in pain and in poverty -- the money my siblings so generously send me is only a small portion of what it costs me to live, can't even begin to afford to eat the healthy food I'm supposed to be eating or to get any decent healthcare but, shit, that is not anyone else's responsibility. It's that of the fucking politicians, the fucking administration that vetoes healthcare for children and Michael Moore -- one day at a time, keeping my daily gratitude conversation going with God.
GD and I have an extremely contentious relationship -- I will withhold the language I use to him when I'm in despair and confusion -- but it goes along with my theory that he/she/it is so very busy and that you have to be very specific about what you ask for . I did specify a delicious dinner, oh well, but I forgot to mention that it should not involve real cooking. And, shit, I did manage to nag some good-doers to death and line up some low income housing, so, GD willing, if I can get a last chunk of money for cleaning and moving expenses, I can live on the disability funds I get and no longer have to be a burden on anyone but the government. Please, GD, I could actually have a tiny bit of a life with affordable rent, surrounded by other seniors with pets (they are allowed!!) and, at last and hopefully, the time to have cawfee and tawk, a la Mike Myers channeling Linda Richman.
Okay, I"m sorry, this doesn't even begin to be funny. Just bitter and cynical and angry and sad, probably because I am still battling the fever, glands, logy, achy crud/crap and when this is going on, I get so severely depressed that I pretty much just want to die die die, which does not lend itself to anything but the blackest humor. I will edit and add to this later and, hopefully, make it funny and accessible and will put in the best of the day that all happened before we got the food home. Well, the guests said the turkey was good. who knew? and the puppies and p LOVED it. so that is what matters after all. I still wrote a Jay Leno's father you-should-be-disembowelled letter to both the Wild Oats store and Whole Foods corporate because I can't stand to and I cannot afford to waste money on anything that isn't up to par. or above. This was, was supposed to be, the first real whole delicious dinner I've had, never mind gotten to serve, in so long I can't remember. Hey, the turkey was okay.
Coco just woke up and, God, I am so grateful for her beauty and sweetness and all around excellent company. Softest copper/chestnut/mahogany coat in the world. Ella's in her crate and her tiny apple half-chihuahua head just popped up.
Now I edit the ugly c--- out of the damn checklist and then take more painkillers and allergy meds and, hopefully, zone out physically and mentally.
Tomorrow I will be funny again. Time, rest and GD willing.
posted by TheodoraK at 2:52 PM
2 Comments:
Reading this was morning time well spent, which are precious few moments around here. See you at the kid's store. ;)
wow, i'm so grateful that you read something on my blog. that is so sweet of you. there are some polished pieces in the August 2004 archive if you ever want to read more.
BUT THIS IS MY CURRENT BLOG WHICH IS WHERE I HAVE BEEN SENDING YOU.
my current blog is at: opensalon.com/blog/theodora_lengle_knight
how did you stumble on this old one? love love love and gratitude
you are a
Post a Comment
<< Home