Burlap Soul

You may have noticed that Staz has not updated in a while. You might also notice that I am not Staz. Nope, it's me, J. And if you're thinking that for me to be updating for her, something must be wrong, well, you're right.

Staz is sick, very sick actually. Sicker than either She or I have ever seen her. What started as a severe cold, then turned into possible flu has become full blown bronchial-infection-incessant-coughing-asthma-symptom-inducing...something, that has had her bed ridden for days, with little strength, and little stomach for solid food. We just returned from the emergency room where all seemed well and we were give some powerful medcine to combat this thing. But now, the coughing fits have resumed, accompanied by nausea and weakness and she is utterly miserable. Having been laid off this week appears to be an unlikely Godsend in that I was able to care for both her, the animals, and the apartment through all of this.

I'm telling you all of this because, well, 1) She asked me, and 2) so that you would all keep her in mind when you read this. If you're at all religious, say a little prayer to whomever is in charge of such things for her health and well-being. If you're not religious, then just think good thoughts in our direction, as we could use as much postive energy as we can get right now.

Wow, the week I've had. Broncho-dialators, inhalers, prescriptions galore, shitty-ass fill-in doctors, doctors too busy to figure out what's really wrong with me, doctors that take time to figure out what's wrong with me but only because I'm sitting in the ER unable to breathe and then the insanity of having to be in an emergency room for the first time ever while sitting and discussing payment options with a medicaid coordinator because I have no insurance.

Oh, and did I mention that I'm extremely sick?

On behalf of my sickness and the inability to get any decent sleep and/or get better, I bring you a very long meme. Woohoo!

Enjoy....

Say hello to my life. After a return visit to my primary care physician today, it was determined that not only did the ER doctors give me incredibly high doses of the wrong drugs, they also didn't bother to taper them off as they should've either. So uh.. dizziness? Check. Nausea? Check. Withdrawal? Yeah, baby. Wonderful. So now, after yet another nebulizer treatment and fifteen more rounds of inhalers and asthmatic drugs, I am home in bed unable to sleep with the worst case of the shakes that I've ever had in my entire life. Not to mention the other prescriptions that J. is currently picking up for me at the pharmacy. It's a good damn thing my doctor understands what 'having no insurance' means and tries so hard to give me samples and cheap drugs whenever she can. Otherwise, we'd have no food.

Speaking of food, it turns out that soup is the only thing I can seem to keep down today. But what I love most of all and what I never want to forget is this: For the past week, I have been too winded and short of breath to even blow on my soup, so without a second thought, J. keeps automatically leaning over and blowing on my soup for me, spoonful by spoonful. It is such a simultaneously pitiful and sweet gesture, that I often feel as though I could cry from gratefulness. Give him some props, please. He is tired, unemployed and worried, but he is what's keeping this place together right now, not to mention my morale. So I just want to say thank you to my sweetie. I know I wouldn't be able to beat this thing if it weren't for you.

That's all from me tonight. Enjoy your health, boys and girls. It is a precious and beautiful thing.

Here's a cool thing that I found over at Shelby's place. It's called a Johari Window and it's used to compare how I see myself with how others see me.

Your job? To go on over there and click a few things that you feel best describe me. It doesn't take two seconds and I promise you I will find it endlessly entertaining. Plus, you know I will return the favor when you put it on your own blog. ;-)

Also, as a sidenote: How about those opening ceremonies? Personally, I loved the idea of a Formula One car spinning out on the ice. Rock. And brushing up on my Italian is always molti divertente. :-)

Yeah, it's been too long since I've done positives. Here goes...

-- I can breathe...
-- ... without coughing
-- Discovering that pinching that little piece of skin between my eyes really does cure the constant dizziness - hoorah for home remedies
-- J. has two interviews this week with good places :-)
-- Being well enough to make my yummy grilled veggie subs last night
-- Liking that 'I just ate healthy' feeling lots
-- Surprising myself by becoming the 'let's just see what we can mix up in the pan' kind of cook that I never thought I would be
-- Having J. to stand, lay, sit by me these past few weeks and then...
-- even hold my hair and wipe my face after the vomiting
-- The way I was so weak that one morning that I couldn't lift my arms and he not only fed me soup for strength, but he blew on every bite too
-- Inhalers
-- Extra pillows
-- Libraries
-- Having the love of reading that my mother instilled me with just for times like this
-- The joy of going through three great books in as many days
-- Being with someone that loves to just sit and read as much as I do
-- A woodburning fireplace to accompany all that reading
-- Other entertainment for when even the reading became too tiresome
-- J.'s uncontrollable laughter when I made my 'pissy with a side of bitch' comment at the Arby's drive-thru
-- There are yet new wedding plans afoot - that I absolutely do not want to curse by sharing here yet ;-)
-- Family that call to check on me...
-- without accusing me of excess drama
-- Snoring beagles
-- Kitties that love to share the blanket with me
-- Emails from wonderful friends all around the globe
-- New music
-- How hard J. works to keep this place clean and running smoothly, despite his new head cold
-- Good drugs
-- Bad tv
-- Good tv
-- Fun little online games to keep us amused
-- Possibilities
-- The slow, slow art of recovery
-- Music
-- Medicaid
-- Oxygen
-- Pudding
-- Bagels and flavored cream cheese
-- Vaporizers
-- Soup and sandwiches with someone you love
-- Clean water to drink
-- Good food to eat
-- Fresh air and being able to breathe it
-- The ability to heal
-- Him
-- Us
-- You (yes, you)

Friday's Feast:

Appetizer
If you were a color, which color would you be, and why?
(Am I in a job interview?) Probably a million shades of blue because it's a color that's just me. But lately, I'm seriously getting into the hot pink. Rowrrr.

Soup
When was the last time you went to the doctor, and what was your reason for going?
Hahahahaaaaaa.... oh how funny. Let's see.... last Wednesday? That was the last time I went and yet again had to be put on a nebulizer for this breathing/asthma crap. However, today I'm feeling quite good and hoping to be tip-top shape again very soon. (At least I was feeling good until I got my emergency room bill in the mail and now I'm damn near unable to breathe again. Gasp.)

Salad
What do you collect?
Do you know what you're asking? Okay.. Garfield memorabilia first and foremost. Then black cats (for Halloween), snowmen and penguins (for the holidays), hippos and Pez dispensers (for any occasion). I like collections it seems. In my family, we all collect something.

Main Course
What were you like in high school? Name one thing you miss and one thing you don't miss about those days. (If you're still there, imagine how you'll remember it in the future.)
Six months ahead of everyone else. I was goth before it was goth, baby. ;-) No seriously, I was annoying and loud and dramatic and moody and dark and twisted. No wait. That was yesterday.
What I miss? Um... nothing.
What I don't miss? Everything.

Dessert
Pretend you're standing in front of your home, with your back towards your home. Describe the view - what can you see? Trees? Cars? A zoo? Wal-Mart?
A very steep hill covered in evergreens that goes up to another giant building of condos and then lots more woods going up and up and up and up. Have I mentioned that I love Kentucky?

Wow. I can't believe it's Friday. With J. being out of work and me having been too sick to do much of anything, we've lost all track of days and dates around here. We both just sit around in our pajamas and get lazy about our hygiene and scratch ourselves and then have to stop and think really hard when someone asks, "What is today?"

"Ummmm....." (checks the calendar), "I guess it's Wednesday."

"Oh. Hmm."

"Yep."

Welcome to our exciting life. Really, I should be charging admission for a show like this.

I just went to visit the Martha Stewart website and what comes on my iTunes but Patty Griffin's "Making Pies."

I'm sorry, but I'm just dying laughing here. Irony is something that will always make me laugh until I pee. Yeah, yeah, I'm a dork. What's new?

Wanna see something cool? Head over to the photolog for a limited time and enjoy a video of us - with no animals whatsoever! Oooooh.

;-)

Another new entry over in the photolog. Not photos necessarily, but a collage that I did tonight. For some reason it just felt too personal to post here, so I put it over there. I guess I just needed to unload some stuff and was lucky enough to have lots of construction paper and markers on hand. Ahhhh, sharpies. ;-)

Some more art for you tonight. Though not so personal that it can't be posted here. :-)

Inspired lots lately by Mixed Media Memoirs. This week's topic is "The trajectory in my life changed when _________" and then you fill in the rest with artwork (obviously).

So here goes: The whole piece.

And the rest of it zoomed in and in order so you can actually read it:

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Six - vertical

Again, not fishing for compliments. Just genuinely curious as to your feedback.

Nite-nite.

Things I feel I should tell you about even though I'm too tired to tell you about them:

-- My mom apparently broke her ankle while we were iceskating and the doctors were amazed that she actually walked on it to the car and didn't feel any pain, even though it was a lovely shade of swollen blue

-- Friday morning, after being forced to meet with a bone specialist just a day earlier, she was admitted for a sudden surgery and is now recovering from having five screws and a metal plate drilled into her ankle bone for a hairline fracture

-- Today I had to help her shower and then stayed with her and helped her wrap her stapled ankle and then we worked on a puzzle all day while I brought her books to read and ran her errands for her because she is now out of work for six weeks all because we took her iceskating and I feel incredibly fucking guilty, even though she says I shouldn't be because as she puts it, "I wanted to learn it and I had fun. I just fell wrong because I'm not 20 anymore."

-- Friday I "shadowed" at a vet clinic for a few hours to see if I would like to be a veterinary technician and even though I kind of liked the work, I hated the annoying-ass immature employees and the way they treated the animals (and myself) as mere problems to be solved and consistently acted as though comforting animals that are scared shitless is somehow an "inconvenience" and should be avoided not because it can sometimes be unsafe, but because it's stupid and pointless

-- But then I got to bring a kitten to life.

-- No shit.

-- There's more to that story that's simultaneously cringeworthy and awe-inspiring, but I don't need anymore nightmare material this week, so I might tell it later if the trauma and humiliation dissipates enough and I'm not so damned tired

-- In other news, I think I might stop trying for crappy jobs that pay the bills and instead start marching into photo studios saying, "Fuck it. I'm going to be damn photographer and I don't give a shit what anyone says about it. Here's my resume. If you don't hire me, you're an idiot."

-- But then again, I really want to have a wedding this year and be married so that we can get on with the rest of our lives and travel and honeymoon on Mackinac and eat fudge with our wedding bands on.

-- It's all about choices, I guess. I just wish the right ones would come a little closer and the wrong ones would just stay quiet until I am no longer stupid enough to keep choosing them.

And that's the news. As you might have noticed, I'm in serious need of some sleep.