Burlap Soul

Working on getting caught up on some art today. Due to all the chaos of the past few weeks, I've missed some good topics, but I wanted to do this one while it was on my mind.

My contribution for this week's Mixed Media Memoirs:

I stay connected with my creativity by.... Viewing life thru a lens. (This was a nice easy one. I liked that.)

I may go back and do some of the ones I've missed, but that's still up for debate. I missed so many weeks that I'm kind of far behind. I want it to feel like expression, not homework, and I fear that's what will happen if I push myself too hard.

Oh, but I did go out and buy a real artist sketchpad. That's the first time I've done that in years - and not used it just for making lists. ;-)

Just for the fun of it, I decided to resurrect an old meme from my archives. (Redundant much?) It's book based because I've been seriously pining for some more reading material lately and I'm planning on a library excursion tomorrow. Woohoo!

So can you tell that I've got nothing tonight? ;-)

Anyway...

Here are the rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that “cool” or “intellectual” book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

My results:
"Put Auntie's cross around your neck," Roland said, "and when you meet with sai Carver, show it to him. It may go a long way toward convincing him you're on the straight. But first you must blow on it, like this."
From Stephen King's The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower. I'm finally getting J. to finish the series, so that I can talk to him about that ending. Ahhh, the Dark Tower. Can you say perfection boys and girls?

And with that, I'm off to (unsuccessfully) go to bed earlier. Nighty-nite.

Well, I think I may have broken/bruised/cracked/injured my tailbone. (Circle any that apply.) I can barely walk upright and I can't lay on my back. Oh, and I am in EXTREME pain. Wonderful.

But hey, I can poop. And pooping's good. Tomorrow I go to the doctor (yay for no insurance!) and find out what really happened. Tonight, I lay awake in extreme pain and curse the condo community assholes that decided "shampooing the hall carpets" also meant "leave the incredibly painful concrete stairs a watery mess." Oh, and I cry. I cry a lot. Because my friends? This fucking hurts. I can't begin to tell you the explosion of pain that hit when I landed. Or the weirdness of passing out for the first time in my life.

Be nice to your tailbone, kids. It's your friend and you really don't want to piss it off. Also, could you be nice to me and send me some "please, oh please, don't let it be broken" energy? I was finally just starting to get some good job calls. Now this. Grrrr. Dammit.

Or you know what? Tell me some good coccyx jokes. That'll do it.

Today was fun. After playing The Idiot Receptionist Game phone tag with my doctor's office all day, I was instructed to go to the local hospital outpatient wing and get an x-ray of my tailbone and lower lumbar area. Can I remind you again to NEVER injure your tailbone? Because let me tell you, leaning and sitting on one ass cheek in the car while your head is out the window and your tailbone is busted is really only fun if you have nice freshly paved roads. Otherwise, those bumps make it feel like an evil gnome is in your ass while laughing and holding a really hot pointy stick.

Anyway, five x-rays and an unbelievable amount of pain later, what we know is this:
Good news: No breakage. No fractures.
Bad news: A slight touch of scoliosis, along with one hell of a bruised tailbone. (Yes, you can actually bruise a bone. That was news to me.)

We'll know more once the "full radiology report" comes in on Monday. (Which begs the question - are we currently just going off the half-assed radiology report? Hahahahaaaaa... oh man, I just made Pun of the Decade!! Hahahaaa! Top that, bitches!)

So yes, upon 1453738 recommendations from everyone at the hospital, we went out and bought one of those donut cushions. Good God, Man! Why didn't anyone tell me that Heaven could look so funny and cost only ten dollars? I can sit upright again! Woohoo! So there you have it. Nothing in front of me for the next few weeks but endless butt jokes, Ibuprofen Utopia and oh yeah, I get to apply ice. to my tailbone. in my crack. twice a day. Discuss.

Or not.

(Yes, I'm making light of it now, but when it happened, it was so not funny. Picture me screaming in the outside hallway for ten minutes before someone came to help me, being scared to death thinking my back was broke, and then later screaming in the condo floor for an hour waiting for J. to get home and then passing out from the pain in the bedroom floor that night. I make fun, but I'm absolutely not kidding when I say do not injure your tailbone!! It will suck!) Ahem. Moving onward....

So I figure since I'm doing nothing but sitting on a giant Butt Donut and taking pain meds for awhile, I'd go ahead and get caught up on a Mixed Media Memoir that I've wanted to do.

So here it is, my MMM for ... I think three weeks ago?

Topic: When I get really quiet I wonder....
if all my guardian angels are watching me still... and if they are proud of what I've become.

For some reason lately, I'm trying desperately to learn how to draw. And apparently it's all about the hands. (Hey, tracing does too count! ;-)

Okay, come on. Throw me all your butt jokes. You know you want to. A limerick about the posterior, a haiku using the phrase 'butt donut.'

Seriously? Bonus points to the first person that rhymes the word coccyx.

Wow, this tailbone thing is a real pain in the ass.

(Actually I totally stole that one from my dad. You'd be amazed at the amount of butt jokes that I'm uh.. a-mASSing. Hahaha, man these things are everywhere!)

Yeah, yeah. So here's a new meme. I like it because it's not another damn iTunes random shuffle thing, nor does it continually ask me what I last said to someone or whether or not I'm wearing socks. Really, do we need any more of those?

Anyway... have fun.

Go to Wikipedia. Type in your birth date (but not year). List three events that happened on your birthday. List two important births and one interesting death. Post this in your journal.

July 29th

Three Events:
1921 - Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party
1954 - The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of The Lord of the Rings, is published in the UK.
1981 - Lady Diana Spencer, marries Charles, Prince of Wales.

Two Births:
1883 - Benito Mussolini
1953 - Geddy Lee (from Rush! Rock on, baby!)

One Death:
1974 - Cass Elliot (Mama Cass from the Mamas and the Papas)
and then I'm cheating a little because there are just way too many deaths on my birthday to choose from, which is both weird and fascinating:
1890 - Vincent Van Gogh (died in 1890 from Suicide) [Dude, what made you choose my day?]

It's always seemed to me that these pivotal world events happen on my birthday or even on other certain days of the year. Sure that sounds vague and crass, but I still feel it's true. It's weird how I can tell you of major days or events in my life and the date is almost always the same as another significant event the year before. I wonder why certain dates seem to have such power around them and others don't. And then why does that date stay the same every year?

I used to be so wrapped up in Astrology (at one point, I seriously considered it as a profession), but I find that in the past few years I'm wondering away from it a bit. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I read a horoscope and if you talked to anyone that's known me my whole life or even me ten years ago, they would tell you that that's insane. I'm just starting to feel that we make our own destinies and choices and whatnot and that the day or the date has nothing to do with it. But I do still believe in the power of certain dates and the personality basics of certain zodiac signs. As with other things of my past, Astrology has become less of an obsession and more of an interesting footnote in the story of my life.

However I do know not to fuck with Mercury Retrograde. That planet is just bad ass.

(hahaha, see? They're everywhere!)

J. actually has off work today and since it's the first time he's ever had Good Friday off, we were so excited about being able to pray the steps this year. We love the fact that this tradition happens at our favorite church, but we've never been able to participate before. Of course, a week before Good Friday, I fall and massively injure my tailbone. So um, this could be interesting. I guess it's a good thing that everyone stops on each step. Otherwise, I'd seriously be holding people up.

As for the tailbone thing, everyone says that I'm getting around better and I know that the pain isn't as bad as it was a few days ago, but it still hurts quite a bit and not being able to drive or lay on my back is getting old. The kicker is that it isn't just my tailbone that hurts. Apparently when I fell, I landed on my tailbone on one cement-wrapped-in-steel-covered-in-tile step, while my back and hip hit the edge of a higher one and my thighs and butt bones hit the edge of a lower one. While I could live with a bruised tailbone, it's the pain creeping up into my lower back that scares me. I know too many people with chronic back pain and I just sincerely hope that that won't be me.

Speaking of back pain, my mom has been coping/struggling with this new excruciating pain in her back since November. After going to various doctors that tell her she's a hypochondriac and physical therapists that tell her she has a pinched nerve, she finally just transferred all her records over to my doctor on Wednesday. You know why? My doctor actually listened to her, suggested something different, told her of new and permanent remedies, gave her hope, and then like all the other doctors before her should've done but didn't - ordered her an MRI. Now that's a lot of backstory, but I'll tell you why that was so important. My mom had to have a special "compression" MRI, which is a fancy term for a simulated stand-up MRI (because she only has the pain when she's standing). The only place we can do this?

Paul Brown Stadium. You know, where the Bengals play? Basically, Mom had to have her MRI done in the Bengals' personal MRI machine. Dude.

We got to get buzzed into massive security gates, given "mission impossible" style directions on secret black phones, picked up in a secret location in the bowels of PBS via golf cart and then driven past signs for the Bengals' locker rooms so that mom could have her MRI done in the same machine as Carson Palmer.

Rock. On.

After living in Cincinnati going on ten years now, I say it's about damn time we got some star treatment.

Now where's my bowl of all green M&M's? And where the hell's my Evian?!

There's a new long entry over at the photolog if you're interested. Oh, and a new design too.

No real updates on the tailbone. It's still a pain in the ass. Only now instead of walking like Frankenstein, I walk like I've been on a horse for twenty hours. Progress, I guess.

Can you believe I'm already bored with this design? It's been up for what, two weeks? Wow. I should've known better than to design something in yellow - my most despised color. I was trying to like you, yellow. Honest. It's not you, it's me. I'm sorry, but I think we should see other colors. In fact, I think I'm in love with something else.

And now for a semi-complete change of topic... People aren't kidding when they tell you that a tailbone injury "hurts like hell and takes forever to heal." The pain is no longer debilitating, but it sure looks funny when I try to walk/move/bend in public. You'd think I was trying to keep marbles from falling out of my uterus rather than just trying to sit in a booth at Subway. The most fun part of all is having to walk into public restaurants with my Butt Donut under my arm. Not only does everyone stare at you, but you also have the agony of knowing that they are staring at you while snickering and thinking, "She must have had hemorrhoid surgery. Ha! Hemorrhoids!"

That being said, I did something yesterday that I haven't been able to do since my injury: I drove, baby. It didn't exactly feel awesome (leaning to one side on a donut isn't so great for checking your blind spots and the bumps suck), but I did drive. I have something like freedom again! Woohoo! Now if I had nothing planned in the next few weeks, I'd be perfectly happy to just lay on the couch with ice on my ass and take time to heal. But of course, the day after I fell, I got offered a damn fine job. The pay's great, the location is cool, the job rocks and it's active, meaning I'm not stuck in a cube all day. *sigh* Of all things, I bruise my ass.

So basically I accepted the job, filled out the paperwork and told them what my doctor told me - two weeks of pain before you might be okay enough to work. I start the 25th. You understand now why this healing and being able to drive thing is coming in handy. More so, why I really don't want to screw it up and injure it even more. The only thing that really bothers me about this tailbone thing at this point is that for as beautiful as the weather is outside, I can't ride my bike. It's just too risky and that really sucks, as I loooooooooove to ride my bike. Especially in perfect weather. The fact that it's sitting in the office taunting me with a pity look and flat tires doesn't help either. Boo hoo. Poor lonely bike. :-(

What else... J. is really liking his new job so far. It's a commute, but it's not nearly as bad as that 90 minute drive he was doing years ago for crap pay. That sucked. Now, he drives about forty minutes for damn fine pay. Plus, he gets great benefits and an awesome discount on some pretty amazing products. Very cool.

Oh yeah - guess who's coming to see me in just over two weeks? Rasee!!!!!!! I get to not only meet my first ever blogger, but I get to meet someone that I've wanted to meet for years. And she's staying the night! Weeee! Can't wait for that one.

My mom's MRI results came back on Monday and it's insane how many things are wrong with her back. Are you ready for this? Herniated disc on each side, three inflamed spinal joints (I think it's the L3, L4, and L5 - basically her entire lumbar region), degenerative arthritis in her SI joint (connects the spine to the pelvis) and narrowing of the neural foramen (like having a pinched nerve between all the discs in her lower back and down into her legs). What absolutely floors me and simultaneously pisses me off is that for the past six months, I have driven her from doctor to doctor and they have all repeatedly treated her as if she is a hypochondriac or an addict just whining and looking for drugs. Not a damn one of them ever ordered an MRI. My mom is a tough cookie. She has been through multiple knee surgeries, hundreds of injuries from falling off Harleys and being in abusive marriages, worked on her feet lifting heavy stuff her entire life and then broke her ankle and didn't even feel it after they drilled screws into it. Her pain threshold is something I can only dream about, but to see her laying on a table and crying in agony and then passing out from the pain in her back - we knew this had to be seriously bad. You can imagine how pissed I was when so many doctors talked down to her and rolled their eyes when we walked into their offices. But really, whether you think my mom is an addict or a hypochondriac or not, is there no reason that they couldn't have ordered her an MRI six freakin' months ago when this all started? What the hell?

Ahem.

Anyway, I'm glad she's found a doctor that will actually listen to her now. It's weird to know what lies ahead of her as far as treatment is concerned - (it's always a bad sign when you go in to get your results and the doctor personally walks out with a serious look and says 'You have to see a surgeon right. away.') - but you can't believe the look of relief on my mom's face when she pumped her fists into the air and said, "Thank God! I'm not crazy! I have herniated discs! ... And lots of other stuff that I can't pronounce! Woohoo!" Incidentally, this new doctor of hers is my doctor too. You know, the one that finally diagnosed me with hypothyroidism years ago? Yes, we love her.

And that's that. I think I've finally updated about all the stuff that's been going on. I probably should've put bullets on this entry because it went everywhere. But... eh. You understand. ;-)

Keep asking if you like. I'll add my answers to the bottom of this entry.

Rasee's playing reporter with me today. Well, kind of. I mean, I did volunteer for some questions. Enjoy...

1. Are you excited about us finally meeting? What are you looking forward to most? Are you nervous at all? Hell yes I'm excited! Honestly, I'm most looking forward to just having dinner with you guys and talking late into the night. That's really just my favorite thing of all to do with anyone. Actually, I'm not really nervous at all. I think I'm mostly just impatient. Like, when the hell is May going to get here already? And, will me working screw up everything? Other than that, I'm totally excited. ;-)

2. You haven't discussed wedding plans in a while. How are they going? What is the wedding of your dreams? I haven't discussed wedding plans in a while because I just don't want to jinx anything. There is the possibility that in the next couple of weeks, something concrete and wonderful will be shouted from the rooftops announced, but we've had our plans fall through so many times in the past year (due to money problems) that I'm just not going to announce anything this time until we're positively sure it's going to happen. The wedding of my dreams? On Mackinac Island like we originally wanted, with just us and some close friends standing on the shore with our feet in the water and smiling into each others' eyes at sunset. :-)

3. Do you plan on having kids? Why or why not? If yes, how many? When? This is a question I've been thinking about a lot lately. I honestly don't know. I would love to just run my own animal business, travel the world with J. and enjoy being childless - but at the same time, I don't want to grow old and have no one. Plus, everyone agrees that J. would be an amazing father and I would feel horrible denying him that right. But then again, I'm just not sure how I'd be as a parent. See? I'm totally undecided on this.

4. What is your favorite thing about being a girlfriend/lover/partner? Being my own person while still being able to be accepted, loved and taken care of at the end of the day. J.'s wonderful at that whole unconditional love thing and I'm a person that really needed that in my life. I really like the little security blanket we've made and how it wraps around us so well. It's like we've spent so many hard years making this beautiful quilt together and now we just get to wear it and let it tell its story.

5. What is sexy to you? When do you feel sexy? When does J. feel sexy to you? Intelligence, a smart sense of humor, the ability to laugh at yourself. I feel sexiest when I'm healthy and proud of who I am. J. feels sexiest to me when he makes me laugh - continuously.

Anyone else want to throw some questions in the bucket? I'm game if you are. :-)

More answers below, so continue with the questions if you like...

-- Going to bed early last night
-- Falling asleep on J.'s chest while talking and laughing
-- The fact that I've found someone that gets my glow-paint idea and runs with it until we can't stop laughing
-- Dreaming of our Mackinac Island honeymoon together :-)
-- I start my new job tomorrow
-- New job = money
-- Money = wedding!
-- I can bend again!
-- Slow but steady recovery
-- Mom inviting us over to her house for grilled steaks yesterday
-- Discovering new veggie "chicken patties" that are great with Canadian Steak Seasoning
-- The fact that mom now has a fenced yard...
-- and Gypsy and Wiley can really play together outside now
-- Watching Gypsy revel in her new friend more every day
-- Getting a second job offer on Friday that I wasn't expecting
-- Having options
-- Finally, Finally, Finally getting the master bathroom painted!!
-- Also, finally buying a very nice bathroom cabinet - no more massive clutter around the sink
-- Red Velvet Cake
-- Trying to eat less junk and stay healthy by not midnight snacking so much
-- New library books
-- New clothes and shoes that make me feel both comfortable and pretty! :-)
-- "somewhere on line".... hahahaaaaa
-- Gypsy when she sticks her head out the window on Kentucky backroads as we crank bluegrass music and sing along with the banjo parts
-- Having long nails again, even if they are weird and crooked and screwy, they're still long!
-- Rasee!! In 10 Days!!! Heeee heeeee!!!!
-- Sandal weather, how I love you
-- Springtime, springtime, springtime
-- Growing catnip and cat grass on the balcony - who says condos have to be stale?
-- "Come Back" by Josh Rouse - looooove that song!
-- Sending cards to friends that I've been meaning to send forever and...
-- sending a little gift to someone special ;-)
-- Get Fuzzy
-- Having a new photo ink cartridge for my awesome "Goodwill find" printer means...
-- I can print good photos again and actually hang them too
-- J. updating his blog
-- Going to DSW for work shoes and finding my wedding shoes already :-)
-- Getting into this whole themed wedding thing without getting carried away - which is rare for me but also liberating
-- Having an awesome "last weekend" and "lazy Sunday" with J.
-- Sleeping beagles
-- Beagles in the sun
-- Beagles in the grass
-- Kitties in the sunbeam
-- Kitties in front of the fan
-- Family
-- Friends
-- J.
-- Me
-- Us
-- Together
-- = Good

I start a new job tomorrow. Oh, but guess what? I just accepted a second job offer for a job that starts on Monday, May 1st.

Now how exactly does one work two jobs in different locations doing different things at precisely the same time? Because really, if I could just master this one task, we would be raking. it. in. Please, do tell.

[Edited to add: Aaaarrrrrrrrrggggggghhhhh!!!!!!!! I hate making big decisions!]

Well, boys and girls, check out my new accessory. Yeah. Sexy, ain't it?

I could tell you the whole story of how I started my new job at a portrait studio today - a job that I was quite excited about and put off for two weeks because of the whole tailbone thing - but it's all overshadowed now by this. I could tell you how right about noon, I was looking under chairs for a baby's lost pacifier after a photo shoot and about how, under about the sixth chair, I bent on all fours, looked as I had five times before in other places, found nothing and upon coming back up, heard the loudest popping and ripping noise I've ever heard coming from my right knee, then promptly forgot everything in an explosion of blinding white pain while screaming in a heap in the floor. I could tell you the looks and exclamations heard 'round the studio as everyone else heard that teeth-grinding Pop/Rip sound too and how they commented on the look of terror on my face. I could tell you about how my mom had to come get me and then how I lived in silent fear as four hours into my first day on the job, my mom walked in and immediately brought up the terms "incident report" and "workman's comp" as she spoke to the vice president of the company on the phone and about how even though my mother means well, I saw the paranoid looks in my nice new young coworkers' faces and felt judgements already being made. I could tell you about how for the third time in as many months, I spent yet another day in the emergency room, filled out yet more non-insured/medicaid forms to hopefully cover 1/8th of the bills, and for the second time in a month I was wheeled into a radiology room to have x-rays that I cannot afford. I could tell you about how many times I absolutely could not stop crying while I thought only of more unpaid medical bills, the fact that I will now always have a "pre-existing condition" because I was not insured on this very day, promising job offers that might as well be shelved, and the ever-dissolving dream of a wedding.

I could tell you all of these things. I could. I could try to make light of it and find the irony, stay positive. I could. But now, on top of the horrible burning pain under my kneecap, there is a talk of "orthopedic surgeons" and "possible torn" this and "dislocated" that. I could tell you so many things really.... but I'm tired, I'm sick of being so damned screwed, so damned uninsured and really, I'm just so damned worried that all I want to do is cry.

I have an appointment tomorrow at 2:15 to see the orthopedic surgeon. I will learn then if this is something serious, if it requires surgery, if it requires physical therapy, if I'm going to be paying monstrous medical bills for the rest of my life, if I'm going to lose an extremely promising second job offer as a result of this, if I'm going to be able to dance with J. again, if I'm going to be able to ride my bike again, if we're going to be able to have the wedding we've been planning for a year, if I can swim in my dad's pool this summer, if I can have a summer at all. This isn't a matter of just healing up after a bad injury. There are so many things riding on this appointment that the timing does not just suck, it's downright pivotal.

Please send me all of your good wishes, prayers, vibes, whatever it is you can channel and send. I would be so unbelievably grateful. I need them now more than you can even imagine.