like i said

the lowdown:
day 3 of no lex, feeling good, and aside from the fatigue which i'm certain is brought on by the insomnia, no brain zaps (yet), and no anxiety or moodiness.

i rerereactivated my fb account for about 12 hours today, upon hearing that someone i once knew was lurking around, but they didn't find me, so i busted out again. another someone i once knew well became engaged, and finding that out made me smile a lot. i always think it's really interesting to live the reality of a situation that i thought once might upset me. m was my first many things, first boyfriend, first kiss, first love really, a relationship way ahead of its time, and too adult for a 13 and 14 year old to consider practical. i mourned the ending, though for less time than i thought i would, but always wondered how i'd feel knowing how his future would play out without me. and i'm happy for him, which is a rare feeling when finding out about anyone's decision to formally celebrate their lives together. i guess when it comes to engagements and weddings and shit like that i really don't care, probably because it doesn't hold the same meaning for my relationship, and partially because it's only a tradition, and one that isn't holy and sanctimonious any longer (thanks, modern society).

i mentioned how i hated my high school years. who doesnt? but i'd venture to say most everyone has a pleasant memory or several dozen of the excruciating time of their lives lived between the ages of 13 and 17. even i have a few. but mostly it was really, really hard.

here's why:

i went to a high school in long island. a big high school, my graduating class was nearly 400, which i know doesn't compare to some urban and even suburban high schools with a thousand kids in each grade, but it was big to me. i should have gone to a smaller college...i blogress. my high school was filled with middle and upper class privileged white kids, with a smattering of a few other racial and socioeconomic minorities here and there. the neighborhoods we all came from ranged from modest to posh, with pockets of extreme money and pockets of poverty. we were a mixed bunch, which is good, but a fairly separated bunch. and the cliques. oh, the cliques.

the summer before i started high school, subsequently, the summer i started dating m, he told me that his grade had broken social barriers and united in a way. the groups formed in middle school melted into a truly friendly, synonymous with utopian grade. i tried to imagine my grade moving in that direction. i could not envision it. i don't think it ever happened, for me at least.

at the ripe old age of 13, i considered myself an introvert. it wasn't until my second myers briggs (yes, a highly reliable source) at the age of 24, that i even considered that i might be a social being. back then, i preferred quiet activities, small groups or even just 1 on 1 interactions. i avoided big gatherings, loud places, and people who claimed to have to buy more than one package of invitations when planning their birthday parties. i soon found myself feeling this new overwhelming sense of loneliness, pretty frequently. especially on weekends and during vacations.

i was lucky (does this qualify as luck?) enough to run with a group of girls during my high school years. i recall there being as many as 13 of us at one of many counts. the thing i always thought different about my group, though now i realize was probably parallel to most other social groups, was the way the group split from within. at any given time, a&b might not be getting along with c&d while e&f were off doing their own thing and not inviting anyone else including g,h,i, or j along for the ride. i floated amongst the group, having my own favorites, never feeling even for one second that i was anyone else's favorite, finding myself floating outside of the group for weeks at a time, floating back in, but never firmly making a decision to stay or go. high school didn't work like that. you are who you associate with. i felt like a nothing, so what did it matter? a continuous flow of ambiguity, muddled with a continuous flow of girldrama, gossip, twofacedness (one of my favorite terms), hormonal imbalance and social climbing.

i was never entirely comfortable with myself in those angstful early teenage years. how could i expect anyone to be comfortable with me? i grew angry at the conformity. i lashed out in my suburban middle class ways. i stopped washing my jeans, i traveled to the city to get away from the island, i hacked off my hair, i shopped only in secondhand stores, i pierced parts of my face, i went after boys who treated me badly and turned them into jokes in my head. i withdrew. i felt hated and grew hate for others. i ached for a best friend, someone who could understand me, who would not betray me for someone else, someone who valued the same things i did. i was seeking validation for who i was. nobody was going to give it to me, but me.

i remember very little from those 4 years. i remember arguments that seemed to go on forever, not understanding what i had done wrong, not knowing when it would blow over, not knowing what i was supposed to do to repair things. i remember being told with relative frequency from my group of girls that so and so hated me, and so and so just didn't like me. for as many individuals i saw every day that i 'hated' or 'just didn't like' it seemed there were just as many, if not more, that were openly advertising their dislike for me. it wore on my ego. it made me question my humanness. i'd always known i could fall into a depression, but around sophomore year, depression was less of a pms related, infrequent affliction we all suffered vocally, and more of a private function. i'd always been able to talk myself out of these tiny pits of despair, but around that time i stopped trying to. i accepted that this was just me, and i attempted to be alright with that. i started looking forward to having my license. i wanted to be able to take long drives, alone, with company, i just wanted to flee.

i'm going to end here for now, in the attempts of getting to actually sleep tonight. if i can't, i'll be sure to continue.

and there is much more to be said - i'm not quite sure how to say it yet. it's hard, reliving these times. it makes me appreciate my life now, what i've got and who i have in it. more to come.

in sawm knee ack

it is very strange
that once a week
(and hopefully not more)
i find i can not sleep
until it is daylight out.

the drugs like me

around a year ago, i'd spent a month barely sleeping
barely eating
and barely functioning moment to moment.

around a year ago, my anxiety was up
my self confidence down
and my sense of stability was all shook up.

around a year ago, i was searching for friends
searching for myself
and keeping my calendar as full as possible so i didnt have to stop to think.

around a year ago, i started taking lexapro
5mg a day (i know, nbd)
and it slowed my head down and made me feel normal.

and now, a little more than a year later
i feel ready to stop taking it
and every doctor i know says don't do it
but i did it
2 days ago
and so far i feel fine.

onagain - offagain

i'm off facebook for the time being.

not that it matters but i'm assuming that if you found this blog, you found it because i linked to it over there.

i can't handle being washed in memories of high school, a highly unpleasant time in my life.

unlike most people i know, i'd never want to relive those days and am so thankful that they're in the past.

more on that to come.

eddie waits, for the first time

so today,
after some seriously overdue gettin' it on
d and i agree that it is suspiciously quiet in the hallway
so i open the door to see what's up.

eddie had pooped in the hallway, which he's never done before,
but that's not the worst of it.

d had brought back this brick o'fudge from vermont, which she was saving for a special occasion
or perhaps a serious chocolate fix.

eddie has pawed his way into the package o'fudge
completely eaten the entire thing.
my little 13 pound pup.
ate half a pound of chocolate fudge.

thinking back to the time the needle popped off my sealant adhesive at the dentist's office when i was 9
immediately i grabbed eddie, shoved my finger to the back of his tongue and throat, and tried to induce vomiting.

apparently dogs have gag reflexes but because they gag does not mean they'll hurl.


puppy poison control asked that we feed him some hydrogen peroxide and see if that would get him heaving.
which, after a trip to the beauty supply store, it did.

after the first dose of h2o2 mixed with milk, eddie was not wont to ingest more
and so when d came at him with an eyedropper of the stuff
he started this intense snarfle, complete with bared teeth.

after the first round of vomit
there was another round.
then another
and another
and then one last one
which contained some blood.

we'd determined that enough of the fudge had come back up that he wasn't in immediate danger of poisoning himself, but the blood worried me and so we went to the 24 hour vet in cobble hill.

eddie received a charcoal elixir, (lord knows how they managed to get him to drink that stuff) an injection of fluids under his skin in his neck, giving us reason to call him eddimodo, and something to take the edge off the nausea. all for the low low price of $200.

i think the fudge ran d around $11.

he's ok.

hopefully he'll think twice the next time he decides to tear open a box of treats that don't belong to him.

but probably not.

if asked of the state of my heart

sinclair asked and i respond:

more stable than ever
and yet surprisingly fragile at the moment
the perfection of love
versus the torment of hormonal imbalance

insomniac

i'm not really an insomniac

i just need to stop taking 4 hour naps at 1pm.

but when the breeze is right

and the dog wants to cuddle

it's an offer i can't refuse.


d will be back friday

thursday if i'm lucky

i miss her a whole lot more than i thought i would.


this time apart has been affirming and great for us, like we've needed it for months.

i miss her and can't wait till she's home.

dogs and cats

yesterday
jack and eddie
sat on the same bed
eating the same treats
both patiently waiting for more

upon being put on the floor

eddie jumped back on the bed
causing jack to jump back in defensive terror
causing eddie to jump closer
causing jack to bat his arm, claws exposed
causing eddie to take defense stance
causing jack to fat tail and hiss
causing eddie to bark
causing jack to run slink under the dining room table
causing eddie to follow
causing me to intervene.

i'm trying to see if jack can establish dominance without eddie getting hurt.

but these encounters so remind me of my relationship with my sister.

i don't know if i'm the cat and she's the dog, or i'm the dog and she's the cat, but i know our peace doesn't last long and is fragile at best.

i'm probably the dog, lumbering about, making brusque statements, being completely insensitive to anything other than myself.

eddie's always the one to approach jack, though jack's been showing his face a tiny bit more this week than last.

mom always said someday we'd be friends.


boy those chicken treats taste good.

5 mile days

i've made some type of vow that every day of summer vacation i will walk at least 5 miles. my cell phone has a pedometer in it, though i'm not banking on accuracy, and today we hit 9,857 steps, which is roughly equivalent to 4.8 miles. i was talking on the phone for a bit while walking, so i'm going to say that i met today's goal.

eddie seems not to mind 5 mile days, though today he lies down mid-sidewalk, sweetly looking up at me. donkey dog, let's go. he actually asked if i'd carry him. since i had a free arm i didn't mind for a block. that seemed to satisfy him, and we continued our walk home at a slowed pace, so as not to wind puppyface.

d left for vermont today. i'm home alone until next friday. if you want to pass the time with me, i have air conditioning, iced tea, and nintendo.