Inexplicable

March 8, 2010 | Filed under: Strait-jacket

“I didn’t want my picture taken because I was going to cry.  I didn’t know why I was going to cry, but I knew that if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I’d cry for a week.  I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full.”  ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

On my left arm I have these four small, circular scars. They used to be dark and noticeable and in the six years since these marks were made, they’ve long faded to the point where I don’t notice them. But for the first days, weeks and months they were made – self inflicted, of course – and quickly covered with Neosporin and a bandaid. There were long sleeve shirts during a warm DC spring and when they were finally healed enough, my mother demanded that I purchase makeup so that I could don my fanciest dress to an Ellis Island ball. People think that they’re chicken pox scars. I had the chicken pox with no residual effects. No these are cigarette burns. The kind you get when you are walking around Spring Valley alone. You smoke your Marlboro Light down to the very end and pause for a beat before holding your breath and pressing the burning end of a butt down on your flesh. It never hurt probably because I had spent months feeling nothing but complete despair. So I suppose I was relieved to feel something? I don’t know.

What I do know is that in the years since burning myself in order to feel something. And a brief digression to see these words written in a Word document and to realize that I am totally one of Those People, well, that is a shock in and of itself; regardless in the years that have passed there have been therapists and medication and coping mechanisms. They say that it’s ok to feel sad at times but I know the difference between feeling genuinely sad and an intense struggle against yourself as your head says, “Fuck it. I can’t do this anymore”. It’s isolating. You want to reach out and have someone help and yet to put your finger on exactly what is wrong is next to impossible. Because it’s nothing and everything bothering me. This feeling that I’m not doing something right and I don’t know how to fix it and so I wallow.

I thought writing right now, in my office, with The Feeling hanging over my head, nudging me on would force me to come up with the words of what this feels like. How everything seems impossible and the struggle not to look forward to the end of the week but to just get through the damn day. It’s terrifying. It’s isolating. It’s as if there is no way to stop It. I knew this is what would happen; when you are diagnosed with something that actively takes you through a roller coaster of emotions because that is what Bipolar Disorder does. One day you can do anything! And days later it’s a struggle to do one thing.

I don’t know why I’m telling you about this. Perhaps if I get it out I’ll feel better? It’s not pity I’m looking for. It’s just…sometimes you feel that you need to say something. Anything. And this is one of those times.

There will be photos

February 27, 2010 | Filed under: Humdrum

“The act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium.”  ~Norbet Platt

Ahoy! Holla! Hola! Oh my fucking hell, what day is it? The fine people of Apple still have my laptop in some special laptop triage where it will soon be bandaged up and given back to me with a brand new hard drive. Which is fun because it’s like starting over again. I’m ignoring the fact that I will have to sift through an external drive to find the things that I want/need again. Instead I will appreciate that I was smart enough to use an external hard drive. Joy?

Oh and then there was NOLA. Which is where I’m supposed to be headed [looks at wrist] as we speak but I am not headed there due to weather and other circumstances beyond my control but that’s ok because this means I can get shit done around the house. The things that I have been ignored in my absence. Like the cat who keeps pawing my face and kneading the fleshy parts of my body as if to say, “It’s YOU! You’re really here!” He’s missed me.

A digression: Do you see how I’m being optimistic and finding the opportunities in rather shitastic situations? Isn’t that so very refreshing of me?

Anyway, upon receipt of my laptop and the reinstallment of photo editing software there will be photos from Houston. It was lovely and perfect and wonderful and all of that ooey gooey goodness one might expect from being around smart women who want to do great things. Also, I’m aching without my laptop. I’m aching with the need to write and vent and divulge. It’s a feeling I’ve been missing over the last few months as my life has been on a constant spin cycle. I’m happy to have that part of me back.

Do you see that photo above? Karen took it. That’s how I’m feeling right now. A little saucy. A little wily. A little ready to be back to my old tricks.

Argh! And GRR!

February 17, 2010 | Filed under: If I'm not here...

“There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them.” ~Sylvia Plath

In the past 36 hours my iPhone and MacBook have blown up in my face. The former makes no sound and the latter has a hard drive malfunction. I’m going away this weekend to Houston, TX to speak at the Mom 2.0 Summit. Please come say hello. I’ll be the grumpy one planning a Normandy-esque attack on Apple.

The Letter B

February 8, 2010 | Filed under: Fotografias, Grace in Small Things, Whoopdie Doo

“Friends are relatives you make for yourself.”  ~Eustache Deschamps

I know you didn’t ask but my weekend was wonderful. Alana turned Amazing Years Old and to celebrate her husband, Matthew, threw her a fete fit for her lovely self. Now I, being the misanthrope that we all know and try like hell to love, had misgivings about attending this party. Though Bill and his wife would be there for me to lean on along with Alana’s sister whose face lit up when she saw me and went in for that full body hug; I was still nervous. I can’t help it and I’ve finally succumbed to an overwhelming, heart racing, palm sweating, reaction to social situations. Especially situations where I’m surrounded, like sardines in a can, by people I’ve only recently met. It’s like, “Hello, I’m Heather. I know we just met but I’m going to stick my elbow into your slice of birthday cake.That cool?”

But God. Those people down there. And I knew – KNEW – this would happen, but they were all so nice and wonderful. We talked kids and jobs and the difference between Upstate and Downstate. They were the type of people that you wanted to spend Saturday nights with drinking prosecco, talking politics, art, pop culture. Anything. I couldn’t help but think today even that I want a dinner party with everything in miniature and hugging a friend of a friend. That was how the night ended. The hostess, Emily, wrapped her arms around my waist and told me how glad she was that I came and that she finally got to meet me and I hugged Alana’s dad and high-fived her Uncle Dan (Dan who is married to Jill) and that night, it really was one of those nights that keep you buoy you when you think that things are so so bad.

Now may I be narcissistic for a second? For Alana’s birthday her husband had her friends and family and Katie Couric leave blog entries of sentimental things about The Birthday Girl. I taped mine right before I left for the party so I didn’t say everything I wanted to say. The truth is that I love that lady. So perhaps I throw the word ‘love’ around a lot. Perhaps you just don’t notice. But I do love her. She is one of those people that make the Internet good and a happier place to share and be. It’s something I don’t say enough to so many people who prove what the Internet really is: not some scary bad place full of evil people who want to kidnap you but maybe, just maybe, the Internet has some gems. And when you find these gems who get you in a way that so many never did and never will…well… it makes life that much sweeter.

My descent into fogydom

January 31, 2010 | Filed under: La Madre

“Age is an issue of mind over matter.  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”  ~Mark Twain

First of all, quick story: I’m sitting in my office Friday afternoon when Peg pops in to tell me that she’s written something to guest post. Actually let me back up further than that to the morning when I was at the Opthamologist. A coworker texted me to tell me how ‘cute’ my mother looked that day. I was half blind due to dilated pupils so I was like, uh, sure. I got into work later and my mother stops by. There she is with skinny jeans tucked into boots and a scarf artfully draped around her neck in such a way that even Susan would be jealous. I poo-poo’d her away so I could do work. She left and I wondered where she got that sweater. Also, how could I go about taking that sweater off her hands. Such is the relationship between mother and daughter.

“OMG what are you doing!” (OMG what ru doin)

“Looking up the phone number you want. Why are you yelling?”

“Yeah, but you’re using a phonebook. Nobody uses a phone book anymore.”

So went the recent exchange between my 20-something daughter and me.

Give me a shout out if you’re a parent who never thought you’d be hearing these words directed at you: nobody (FILL IN THE BLANK) anymore.

Wait; nobody says “give me a shout out” anymore. What I meant to say was, give me a holla. Wait; don’t think that means the same as give me a shout out.

What I really meant to say was raise your hand if you feel me…

Enough of this drivel. It struck me like a lightning bolt—or a static shock when I touch the television after walking across the floor in my stocking feet—I might be a fogy.

But, when did it happen?

I’m cool. I’m not my mother’s 54. No babushka tied under my chin. I don’t wear men’s white socks with black lace-up walking shoes. I don’t even own a housecoat, let alone a duster.

I know how to text. I drive a Jeep. Damn it, I wear Uggs with my slim leg jeans tucked in. I am not a fogy.

Yes, I still have a land line. I prefer to look up words in my hardcover dictionary. I can do math in my head. I wear reading glasses, but only the coolest eyebobs* for me. I am not a fogy.

So I groan a little when I stand up after sitting for a long time. I wait a bit to make sure my knees are ready to move with the rest of me. I forget your name, but remember your face. Yes, that’s why I’ve taken to saying ‘hey, girl’ and ‘hi, handsome,’ but you never hear me calling anyone ‘hon’. And, occasionally the wrong word pops out of my mouth—but you know what I meant to say. Isn’t that why we have words like doohickey, whatchamacallit and thingamajig? All probably invented by someone over 50 …Oh yeah and my mind strays…and my hair is gray…and I start conversations with my kids’ friends with, “I remember when you were born…”

I’ve never followed anyone on Twitter, and I have no friends on Facebook because I’ve never been on Facebook. I no longer threaten to quit my job, but to retire. And Eileen Fisher is my favorite designer!

OMG, I really am a fogy! But I’ll be damned if I let someone call me old.

*For the record, I own eyebobs as well. And I got the idea from her. Peg 987, HB -45. Well played, mom. Well played.