juushika

TW emetophobia, pet injury, cancer, death, suicidal ideation, fucking hell what a really optimistic opening to a post!!



A belated but sincere thanks to those that commented on my post about my father's cancer; that I haven't responded is just because talking (in general, but about that in specific) is hard, and not especially personally productive. But one-sided condolences are. Cancer has been the worst thing in my life for too many years now—

which is such a truism: cancer, this one equalizer, this pinnacle of disease; I've never read it and now you could not pay me to do so, but I always hear in my head "the emperor of maladies." Not because cancer is worse than other diseases, but because it's so prevalent and diverse and always life-changing. It killed the first pets I ever looked after on my own (rats); killed my grandmother, killed my family's dog, killed Mamakitty; changed my sister's life; and now this. It's so common as to be memetic, which rouses its own sort of anger as I transform into the person whose anxiety is triggered by "this post is giving me cancer" jokes

—so it helps to have it validated as being as awful as it feels. I mean, I know it's awful, insofar as I can internalize anything. But validation and confirmation helps, even (especially!) from halfway-strangers who have no reason to lie to me about how awful cancer is.



Cancer on the day-to-day is pretty unremarkable, though. Chemo is going; I'd hesitate to say "going well" because my dad doesn't cope well with discomfort and has always aggressively treated his health concerns, and now here's something effectively untreatable where discomfort is a baseline. ( Borderline navel-gazing re: chronic illness. )



We had a traditionally non-traditional family homemade pizza night for Thanksgiving; my uncle flew in for the weekend. And because literally nothing can go right, Devon got sick that evening with a stomach flu! and then I caught it a few days later, despite that we spent like four days in separate rooms with zero in-person contact and I was really lonely. Mine was comparably mild; either way I think we both prefer this to a chest or head cold. Throwing up sucks, rather a lot, but there's almost a sense of pleasurable privation to be limited to broth and eggs and crackers, and being able to breathe while sick makes it far easier to sleep it off.

Prior to that, Gillian had bitten his own damn self while going after a flea (and I knew cat mouths were full of nasty, but had somehow assumed that they were immune to their own nasty even though that makes very little sense; and indeed, I was hugely wrong because) and gave himself a huge abscess! which cleared up on its own, and in fact the vet didn't even treat it*, just the fleas (thank goodness, as Frontline/Advantage weren't working); so while the bald patch is now growing in beautifully and the fleas are almost dead and none of the cats are, my summary here is

could unrelated things stop being shit for, like, five minutes

we are all very tired, all the time.



* The vet ripped out mats and with it fur surrounding the wound, ripped off the scab that was forming, and said that because it was plenty open and the tissue looked healthy we could let Gillian look after it just like cats had been doing for thousands of years, not even an ecollar required. A vet after my own heart! as I am also of the school of "supervision is good but nature knows best for dumb stuff like this".

At the risk of jinxing myself again: a little better day by day. Today I cleaned Kuzco's cage and came down for dinner, which is actually an improvement, and I feel like a living Amanda Palmer song (let's, er, ignore the slideshow). I'm also in a wrist brace for repetitive stress issues (just the right for now, but the left should kick in soon if pattern follows), but an anti-inflammatory has helped reset the back pain, which probably helped to alleviate my mood; bless Devon for forcing me to take one. Good is relative—three spoons instead of none—but, aside from my usual if-I-were-really-depressed-then-I-would-never-feel-better emotional veracity/self-doubt anxiety, any good is welcome. Maybe someday soon I'll be able to figure out what day it is and/or wash my hair.

I've been sleeping crazy hours (no really Juu you don't say), which is disturbing August's schedule. She still sticks to me like my own small shadow—except much fluffier. A few early mornings ago I drifted out of a doze with a cat pressed to my chest, warm and soft and full of purrs, nudging and snuggling me until I was awake enough to check the time and serve her a slightly belated breakfast.

So some of this, some of that, I guess. The idea that this too shall pass raises my hackles for too many reasons (first above all at this particular moment is the above anxiety of emotional veracity), but it's still true. Misery, and a warm black cat. It could be worse.

Do you remember back at the beginning of the year when I got sick for the second time and was like "wow, this is unusual, how about it NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN?"

Man am I having the worst sort of déjà vu.

So I sort of feel like death on a stick; whatever. Last night I watched Heavenly Creatures (based on the Parker-Hulme murder), and it amazes me that it took me so long to discover the film: the style is comically overblown but the acting strong, which more or less evens out; the content is so perfectly to my taste that it's almost disturbing. It's the very definition of an unusually intimate relationship, with consequences that are at once understandable and incredible, sympathetic and adolescent and terrifying. The film itself is fantastic, if you're me, but now what I really want is the story behind it—or, to be precise, I want to read Pauline Parker's diaries. I'm not particularly interested in the true crime, court case elements of what happened. I want the personal, private, subjective story—I want that sort of true. The diaries haven't been published in full, however—and only a fraction of them remains, after the originals were destroyed post-trial. There's excerpts and plentiful commentary, and I may poke at that when back in Portland* and can read comfortably on my laptop (and breathe through my nose at all, and sleep through the night, and do other things that make reading easier), but what I really want is that whole story, that personal retelling, and it disappoints me that it's not available.

For now, while I recover, I think I should find another movie. I hope it's half as compelling to watch.

* Oh, hey, I'm in Corvallis for a few days, for a belated Father's Day visit home and because Devon won't be coming up next weekend so we thought we'd spend a few extra days together here. If there's a plus side to this cold thing, it's that this house smells perfectly fine when you can't smell anything at all!

I have been having one hell of a roller coaster ride over here man let me tell you.

Devon was up on Saturday, but didn't stay until Sunday because he's fighting some sort of cold/allergy/sinus infection thing of ick. It was fantastic to see him and I spent half the day in tears. So I said that Portland and I have unfinished business. Devon-long-distance and I have unfinished business and Whitman and I have unfinished business too, and this last week has been a particularly strong reminder of all of that. Normally I have a poor memory, which I may call a pain in the ass but actually rely on to protect me because as it turns out, the last (oh say) ten years of my life? really not worth remembering. This last week has been nothing at all like those years, but there's been so much emotional turmoil that sometimes it's hard to tell, and...

It's just that I remember it all.

Examples wouldn't help you or me—because they aren't your memories, and because fuck no I do not want to dwell on them. But all of it, everything about my time here in Portland, everything about seeing Devon this weekend, reminds me of something else, some random thing that I've done a perfectly good job of forgetting these last few years. Not every memory is awful, but each one is tied a past that is, and so all of it, even the nostalgia, it fucking hurts and scares me.

But after Devon left, Dee hung out with me in the living room for a few hours and we just talked. I talked, I rambled, I touched on some of why this is so difficult and scary, and it was distracting and cathartic and wonderful bonding time. I didn't have to ask for it, I don't know if I expected it, but—ah, this is what friends do, isn't it? They're there for each other. That's still a revelation for me, a surprise—that I have friends; that this is what that means. On Sunday we went walking, in the glorious and gentle overcast weather, we went to Starbucks and poked at awesome stores and had that sort of perfect day where you do exactly what you want, purely because you want to, and come away feeling satisfied, which is no small thing. At night we watched The Dark Crystal and it was fucking fantastic. These things surprise me, too. Happiness always does.

And then today I thought I'd ride on that high—the high of discovering that Devon can leave without the world crashing down upon my shoulders, the high of having loved ones and being happy—by writing a book review and making dinner and attempting my version of productivity, and instead I was singularly nonfunctional and after a mini-breakdown I just decided to lock myself in my room and pretend I didn't exist anymore, at least for a few hours, and ain't that just the hallmark of mental fucking health. It's hard for me to talk about these things with her—to talk about the wild ride of the brain crazies, because I find it difficult to work these things out in words; to explain the effect they have on me and why I don't want to leave my room, because I fucking hate to admit the truth about myself because I just don't like that truth very much, you know? And so I repay her love by being the bad non-communicative friend ... but on the flipside I come out feeling a little better, a bit more prepared to try again.

I feel it all I feel it all
I feel it all I feel it all
The wings are wide the wings are wide
Wild card inside wild card inside

Oh I'll be the one who'll break my heart
I'll be the one to hold the gun

I've sort of flayed myself alive here: I've opened myself up to the thin air and it hurts like a motherfuck, believe you me. And when I see in there, I don't like it all. It's almost enough to make me wish I didn't know it was there. But I did this to myself and so I can't regret it—and not just because I don't want to look like an ungrateful coward, unhappy even when she gets what she wants; but because I did it because I wanted to. I want this opportunity and this pain. I want to work things out and embrace these new experiences and give myself the chance to become myself. (I want the dog days to be over, if you will.) That doesn't make it any easier, though.

I love you more
I love you more
I don't know what I knew before
But now I know I wanna win the war

So it's been an intense couple of days is all I'm saying. And beautiful. And awful. And intense.

And I think I caught Dev's cold thing.

P.S. Sometimes in the process of writing all these things out I manage to resolve them, at least a bit, at least temporarily, in my head. Almost all the time I manage to tire myself out. That can make my replies to comments absent and/or slow. But those comments are still so welcome and productive and beloved, and I don't want anyone to think otherwise, even if I can't always express it.

Also, as a side note: I am plagued with a lingering cough and a touch of congestion, but otherwise have finally (knock on wood) recovered from this bug. Devon is (knocking again) on his way there a bit faster than I made it, congested but otherwise fine. So yay!

I have, on the other hand, been down with a bad case of the lumps. All I ever want to do is lie on bed under the covers (like, well, a lump). Sometimes this is a bad thing—I may be a bit depressed, and I've certainly been unproductive. Just as often this is perfectly fine, for it is very comfy atop my modal sheet. Either way I've been a bit AFK, playing (tons of) Pokémon and reading and sometimes poking at the internet but doing little more than browsing, because, yes, even sitting up in bed with the laptop is effortful. Thus we explain yet another silence that probably no one noticed because they're hardly uncommon around here.

The health update is more important. It is nice to have some health again.

So we're one week into this thing as of today, and I am congested and I lost my voice yesterday. ( The congestion ain't fun, but: icky cold TMI. ) I've had an almost entirely unproductive, actually fairly minor cough over the last few days, but it aggravated my already sore-throat. If I talk I sound awful and it hurts; if I don't talk, there's no pain. So I'm not talking as of midafternoon yesterday, and I'll keep it up until I can talk without sounding ... well, like this.

There really is no better time to have a DS at my bedside (Pokémon Black, hello! I caved and bought it, and I'm enjoying myself muchly. Is anyone else playing BW?), because the screen is a perfect scribble pad; I've also developed a complex, off-the-cuff form of sign language that's one part logic, one part charades, and one part head shaking. Being verbally silent is actually quite strange, because it also makes me textually silent, and vice-versa: if I'm trying to remember not to talk, I start making my IMs as short as possible or type entirely in emotes (/me does something or another—a leftover habit from my years playing Second Life); if I remind myself that that's stupid and typing is safe, then I'm like to start talking aloud when Devon's in the room without even realizing it. Written language is just as important to me as verbal language. I would say also that it's inextricably linked, but of course it is, it is for almost everyone—but for me it's more than just a link: it's more or less the same thing.

Anywho. Remember when I said that this was a wonderfully light sickness thing, almost magical in its way? The fever was still a damn cool experience, and I much prefer this to what I had in January (this is tolerable, even functional; January's turned me into a pile of mush for a few days), but this illness and I are officially no longer friends and it is welcome to bugger off whenever it so pleases. Just so as that it knows.

Sometimes I think I could blog about just the weather. That's ridiculous, of course—I go for days without seeing the world outside, hermit that I am. But when I'm out like this, sitting before wide windows, I'm in constant awe of our weather. It rains for the majority of the year around here, and I imagine you have to be someone like me to think that beautiful—but the constant rain isn't boring, it isn't dull. Every moment is unique. Right now we have sunshowers—a silver cloudhaze, but the bright sun beginning to burn through; the light shining through clear, clean air; a heavy sprinkle, a light rain, pinging on the sodden brick sidewalk. The foxes are preparing for their wedding, and the air is sweet.

The sun just broke through, and the rain has slowed to the rare drop.

Give it five minutes, and it'll be something entirely different.

I am doing well today! I have some minor, lingering congestion, so mild that I'd doubt I'd notice anything outstanding if it hadn't been preceded by a fever. My throat is slightly sore, and my lymph nodes swollen. This is the best cold I've ever had, insofar as there is such a thing. (On a surreal note, Express, far away in California, reports a sore throat and fever. This I can't explain even with a long incubation period—we've never even met in person! So ... yeah. At this point I'm thinking nationwide conspiracy, what about you?)

On the flip side, we have Company. Boy's father's friend is staying at the house following a motorcycle accident and preceding knee surgery. I am sure that he is a wonderful person, but the house is small and full enough as it is; right now, he's staying in boy's brother's room, boy's brother and his girlthing have been pushed to the living room, and the house is packed. Worse still, boy's computer is currently in pieces, so the room is a mess, there's little ambient noise, and I have few distractions. In a word, I am miserable: stuck in a tiny back room, hearing every goddamned sound of the constant noise in the rest of the house, with little to help me pretend I am the only person there.

Is this the selfish response to someone else's health emergency? Yes, yes it is. I have no excuses for that.

But there you go. I'm in batten-down-the-hatches emergency mode, desperately trying to stay distracted, often failing horribly. I have little social energy, because I am overwhelmed and scared. I am taking every chance to get out of the house that I can get. Starbucks today is a blessing, even if there are approximately a million college students here.

Clear golden sunlight, now; the sidewalk is drying, and the puddles in the street shine.

Today I am wearing a runched, burnt orange shirt and an unabashedly fluffy cream scarf; my hair is down and slightly waved and everywhere, and an amber necklace peaks from my neckline. It's weird, to have another day when I feel lovely, but this is perfect timing for it, in the pale yellow sunlight, when everything else is so appropriately bitter and sweet.

Sending an introduction to Florence + the Machine email to my father, who keeps asking "What is Florence + the Machine?" given that he keeps running into her—on my shirt on the cruise, on TV during the Oscars when we were over for dinner last night. Crying like a child (well not a child, of course: like a woman, growing) while I listen to "Dog Days Are Over" from the list of videos I've dig up videos to include. Ah, what else is new? You'd think eventually this would wear off, this unavoidable swell of emotion but ah—not yet. Despite myself I'm not really complaining, but it did make it ... well, difficult really, to include that track in my email. It felt almost too personal, almost too raw.

Have yet to reach sniffling, but I'm miles deep into the land of shivering and aching. I'm probably running a fever, but I don't know for sure. I much prefer this to mucus: I have a lot of experience dealing with pain, especially muscle aches and general stiffness. With pain, I have high tolerances and many ways to cope. Mucus: less so. But I tell you, today of all days? Today, the one day in my menstrual cycle where I get cramps? When my cramps always show up not in my stomach but my lower back? Fuck you too, body; fuck you.

At least my chocolate is dairy-free and therefore safe, because I need it today.

Ironically, I look lovely today. My hair is gorgeous and my pain-drained (even) pale(r) skin tone is quite flattering against it, and despite the discomfort of today I slept well last night and my eyes are clear. I tend not to think I'm beautiful, in part because few people, especially women, in this culture ever do, in part because I don't fit my own aesthetic taste. But I am sufficiently divorced from my appearance, for better or worse, that sometimes I see my reflection and know, objectively, that I look pretty good. Today has been like that all day long. I guess ... uh, I'll just have to come down with colds more often?

I am Posty McPosterton today, I know. Tumblr has been teaching me to think it little blurbs as well as overlong essays, which is an improvement I suppose—but it does mean you all have to suffer my list of A Billion Things To Say.

I've recently playing Yume Nikki, which is a small, free, independent game made by one person using RPG Maker, about the unusual dreams of a woman named Madotsuki. I'm enjoying it immensely, and as usual I've been blogging about it if you want to hear all my thoughts on this strange and brilliant game.

Unfortunately, Yume Nikki is a PC game, and keyboard controls—combined with IM, email, journal posts, and some original fiction I'm writing—have been enough to trigger my intermittent wrist issues. I'm being good and wearing my braces and typing only infrequently, but I can't for the life of me compose anything while chicken-pecking* and everything, everything, is sitting half done: emails and posts and that wonderful, painful video game. It's amazing how much of my life circles around a computer and keyboard. And, of course, the less social I'm able to be, the more social I want to be.

So this is part rant and part PSA. I am part of the tech-gen wounded: my rigorous computer use has put me temporarily out of commission, and it's driving me batty. (And if you were ever thinking there was something you wanted to send me that didn't require immediate response, this would be a wonderful time. I want to interact with people—I just can't talk.) So now we all know.

* This has certainly driven home the connection between mind and motion: when the physical process of writing changes and deteriorates, so does the mental process of composition. This only makes bad things worse, because it means I can't even get thoughts on screen one index-poked character at a time.

Well, denial only works for so long because I am most certainly sick. It's pretty mild, insofar as I'm cognizant and actually have a the drive to get out and do things, if only to distract myself from the annoyance of my symptoms, but my constant throat tickle has morphed into congestion from stuffy nose to sore throat, my hearing and taste are a little dull and I'm a bit achy especially in my joints (which is almost redundant atop my back pain—seriously, body, where has your originality gone?). It's annoying, and it makes me alternately desperate for distraction and allover grumpypants, but it's not really all that bad.

Mostly I'm bitter. I feel like I'm being punished for going on the damn cruise. Rational? Well, yes, that's probably where I picked up this bug. An unrealistic personification of the random whims of nature? That too. But damn if it don't make me bitter. I was good! I traveled and attended and saw people and did things, and I made sure never to touch anything in public bathrooms with my bare hands, and now I'm being struck down by the annoying cold of doom.

Sleeping is the worst time, because it gives everything a chance to settle and go from stuffy to helpIcan'tbreathe. If that weren't bad enough itself (because I'd love nothing more than to sleep all day and hurry this cold away), last night I dreamt of returning to college and the night before I dreamt of a neverending cruise. The first is my standard anxiety dream: some people end up naked in public places; I've gone back to college a hundred times. This time, I went to a school where the dorms looked like hotels and I had failed to sign up for classes—intentionally so, because classes are half the part of college that my brain is convinced that I Cannot Do. After my first day of wandering around without a schedule, fellow students took me out to lunch in this mega city where you had to wait in line for half an hour before even coming into sight of the fast food restaurants.

The endless cruise was more or less a normal cruise, except that each time we flew home something would go wrong. One time we were at luggage claim and our bags were missing, so we turned around and climbed right back on a plane to fly back for another cruise so we could find our luggage somewhere on the journey. One time we had made the entire drive home before remembering that we had to turn around and do the whole thing all over again. It was all of it, no annoyance skipped, the car ride and security and plane ride and week-long cruise and return trip and then the whole thing over again and again until I woke up.

If cruising becomes the new anxiety dream, I will not be pleased.

So yes. I am sick and bitter and grumpy about it, even if I shouldn't be surprised. Now I'm going to go read while I wait for Devon to wake up and play distracting video games and maybe feed me alphabet soup.