in the dark
beneath the skin
i wake
lids peeling like oranges
eyes gritty with unslept dreams
in the dark
where i have prayed for release
from unending dawn
i sit up on edge of bed
curl one leg into the comforter
gray cat thuds against my side, purr
rumbling marrow
in the dark
your seige on slumber
rages on, you roll over
small countries shaped like
a green and purple crocheted blanket
breathe deep and deeper
in the dark
i surrender, my war
lost
i rise and pad on pink toes
running from my battlefield
i envy
your fight
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
recess
the word recess always reminds me of elementary school: crisp autumn races around the cement playground, skimming across the monkey bars and swinging wildly, trying to see how high i could get, just flinging myself back and forth on steel chain and a slice of rubber.
recess also reminds me of holes in the wall--a recessed area, for example. when i was young i always wanted to find places to hide, always dreamed of secret passages and hidey holes, like a priest's hole: a spot designated for just little old me to shrug into, and hide from the world.
for the most part i remember this time with happy memories. i was a happy kid, for the most part, but that may have been because i was living about 85% of the time in my imagination.
like a recess in my brain, where i was permanently at recess.
does that make sense?
when i was in third grade my teacher was mr. zagorski. very nice guy--tall, with a good-sized belly, glasses, dark receding hair and a bushy mustasche. we read "call of the wild" by jack london, out of a big book with pictures. my parents went in for their annual conferences and he shared that if i could just pull myself out of my imagination, and apply myself, i could be a very good student.
i now wonder if that's a byproduct of this add, that the dreamer in me is just more focused than the reality-creator will ever be.
right now i'm on vacation--another kind of recess. a recess from work, where i spend weeks holed up in my fuzzy gray cube. i've got lots of plans, probably too many, and i'll probably accomplish only a fraction of what i feel i should be able to.
***
when we read jack london's shortened version of "call of the wild" i took that name and went to the library. i found the real book, and devoured it. i don't to toot my own horn, but by the time i was in fifth grade, i was reading james michener. the reality of that book scared me, probably more than any scary movie could--that people could have things like leprosy, something i'd never heard of.
i think that is when i started to become an anxious person. i've always been afraid of the dark--where i think the well of imagination is disguised, bushes piled up in front of an endless cave. the monster under the bed changed when i started reading things that were probably out of my league, morphed from a dark, toothy blob into germs and the unknown world outside my house.
i started doing things like checking to make sure doors were locked, and only drinking out the family water bottle in the car if i could drink first. when i was thirteen my parents went bowling one night and came home to find me sobbing, sure that i had AIDs. my mom sat me down and said: "kim, are you having unprotected sex? what about using dirty needles?"
when i look back i can see the silliness of it, the ridiculousness of my brain. the structure of school i always felt held me back, when in truth, it kept me in bounds...of some kind.
now that i'm without structure--ie, no work deadlines, nothing to keep me on the tracks--i'm scattered and lost. too many bright and shiny objects on which to focus.
too many projects, too many thoughts.
***
so maybe i'll regress just a little and go find a playground, and sit on the swings for a while. provided there aren't any kids around. (;
recess also reminds me of holes in the wall--a recessed area, for example. when i was young i always wanted to find places to hide, always dreamed of secret passages and hidey holes, like a priest's hole: a spot designated for just little old me to shrug into, and hide from the world.
for the most part i remember this time with happy memories. i was a happy kid, for the most part, but that may have been because i was living about 85% of the time in my imagination.
like a recess in my brain, where i was permanently at recess.
does that make sense?
when i was in third grade my teacher was mr. zagorski. very nice guy--tall, with a good-sized belly, glasses, dark receding hair and a bushy mustasche. we read "call of the wild" by jack london, out of a big book with pictures. my parents went in for their annual conferences and he shared that if i could just pull myself out of my imagination, and apply myself, i could be a very good student.
i now wonder if that's a byproduct of this add, that the dreamer in me is just more focused than the reality-creator will ever be.
right now i'm on vacation--another kind of recess. a recess from work, where i spend weeks holed up in my fuzzy gray cube. i've got lots of plans, probably too many, and i'll probably accomplish only a fraction of what i feel i should be able to.
***
when we read jack london's shortened version of "call of the wild" i took that name and went to the library. i found the real book, and devoured it. i don't to toot my own horn, but by the time i was in fifth grade, i was reading james michener. the reality of that book scared me, probably more than any scary movie could--that people could have things like leprosy, something i'd never heard of.
i think that is when i started to become an anxious person. i've always been afraid of the dark--where i think the well of imagination is disguised, bushes piled up in front of an endless cave. the monster under the bed changed when i started reading things that were probably out of my league, morphed from a dark, toothy blob into germs and the unknown world outside my house.
i started doing things like checking to make sure doors were locked, and only drinking out the family water bottle in the car if i could drink first. when i was thirteen my parents went bowling one night and came home to find me sobbing, sure that i had AIDs. my mom sat me down and said: "kim, are you having unprotected sex? what about using dirty needles?"
when i look back i can see the silliness of it, the ridiculousness of my brain. the structure of school i always felt held me back, when in truth, it kept me in bounds...of some kind.
now that i'm without structure--ie, no work deadlines, nothing to keep me on the tracks--i'm scattered and lost. too many bright and shiny objects on which to focus.
too many projects, too many thoughts.
***
so maybe i'll regress just a little and go find a playground, and sit on the swings for a while. provided there aren't any kids around. (;
Saturday, October 14, 2006
mirror mirror on the wall
i found a mirror at ikea (one of my favorite stores, if you couldn't tell from...well, most of my home...) it's a circle with all these little squares around a large center. the patterns are interesting, as the little squares around the edge are not all glued on perfectly, and pick up light and color at different angles.
then another, at a church rummage sale. and a few more on clearance somewhere else, squares that i have to figure out how and where to place on some vertical area.
at any rate, the garage sale mirror started this afternoon's Attack of the Re-arranging Spasms.
the boys are at a computer thing today, so i've had the house to myself since i got home from work. always refreshing, as i never have the house to myself--don't take this wrong, i've lived my whole life save eight months with two to 8 people, and i like the comfort of having others in the house with me. i think it's the vestiges of growing up in a larger family; i'm most comfortable in the house both when i'm entirely alone, and when i'm surrounded by other people.
the dichotomy is not lost on me.
at any rate, in fall and spring i go through these predictable phases in which i want to clean and junk old crap and rearrange the house. this year i thought i was going to wait until the week after next, when i'm on vacation and plan to take care of a number of appointments, etc, that just never occur during the week.
had to go to work this morning, had to have dan stop in and move a HUGE computer monitor (props to dan for doing so--thanks babe!!!) and then stopped at ikea on the way home. (it's right next to work, honest...) the only reason i stopped there was because the other day we'd been talking about how cold it gets over by the patio doors during the winter, and how much i despise putting plastic up, since the windows are the only source of good light in the living room. dan suggested hanging a blanket, or curtains, instead of our horribly ugly vertical blinds.
so i stopped in with the intention of picking up a curtain rod and such, and then working on sewing the curtains at a later date. of course in the as is section i found curtains marked 60% off, so they came home with me.
now, the garage sale mirror has been sitting in the foyer for weeks. months, perhaps? i can't recall when it made its debut. i was going to wait to put up the curtains until dan got home, since that's a tall person thing and i'm short. so i thought, heck, i'll just hang up the mirror. found a spot, leveled things, got the mirror cleaned up and hung. i think it looks very nice, if i do say so myself.
however after hanging up the mirror, i felt empowered, which is always a dangerous thing, when you're alone in the house with power tools at hand, in my opinion.
i had options: i could clean something, or i could hang up the curtains.
however, to hang up the curtains, i needed to move the kitty tree. to move the kitty tree i had to move shelving units, lamps, plants, and the occasional concerned cat, until things looked more or less the way i wanted them to look. so far i am enjoying the new look--it freshens and somehow makes the living room look more finished, even if it is such a hodge-podge of the new, the slightly used and, in the case of the couch, the broken.
then of course i had to make trips to the garage, to ditch extra stuff, and clean up the kitty poo zone by the back door...so on and so forth. when i finally sat down on the couch to survey the look, i realized that i had two mirrors in the living room, and recalled the others upstairs, awaiting installation.
hello, my name is kim, and i have a mirror problem. i think. i suppose the first step is admitting...
***
mirrors reflect the reality. memory and opinion shift that reality, warp it into something that resembles a real fun-house mirror--stretch me tall, wide, crazy swishes for a face and hands the size of old oak trees.
i've never really liked mirrors, mainly because i don't like looking at myself in them. that being said, i've done a lot of reflecting lately, while working copious amounts of overtime. what can i say, sometimes data entry is like meditation.
(that and i have this theory that stress is like juicing oranges--under pressure, the orange changes and produces something different...follow? if not, oh well. it's my theory anyway. last week my exec T and my old manager S got canned on tuesday morning, out of the complete and utter blue. needless to say the office has been in uproar since.)
anyway, back to relflections.
when i look back in pictures i can see the way that i see the world, at different times in my life. sometimes i took pictures of my feet or hands, sometimes a blurry shot of my self, mostly shots of trees and the outdoor world. lately i haven't done much picture taking.
if you face two mirrors together you get infinity; perhaps this is my inner spirit, reminding me that my reflecting is not done, that it never will be.
***
when i was leaning over the big mirror that started my empowered interior design fit, scrubbing at the sticker on it, i saw my face, determined. that is not the face i always see, in the mirror. i have many faces, many looks, many emotions. i suppose that life does have beginnings and ends to it, just like a length of string, but for the duration, reflecting is a mobius strip, from which i cannot remove my self.
so thus, there is a reason for my multitude of mirrors. at least i think there is. (;
then another, at a church rummage sale. and a few more on clearance somewhere else, squares that i have to figure out how and where to place on some vertical area.
at any rate, the garage sale mirror started this afternoon's Attack of the Re-arranging Spasms.
the boys are at a computer thing today, so i've had the house to myself since i got home from work. always refreshing, as i never have the house to myself--don't take this wrong, i've lived my whole life save eight months with two to 8 people, and i like the comfort of having others in the house with me. i think it's the vestiges of growing up in a larger family; i'm most comfortable in the house both when i'm entirely alone, and when i'm surrounded by other people.
the dichotomy is not lost on me.
at any rate, in fall and spring i go through these predictable phases in which i want to clean and junk old crap and rearrange the house. this year i thought i was going to wait until the week after next, when i'm on vacation and plan to take care of a number of appointments, etc, that just never occur during the week.
had to go to work this morning, had to have dan stop in and move a HUGE computer monitor (props to dan for doing so--thanks babe!!!) and then stopped at ikea on the way home. (it's right next to work, honest...) the only reason i stopped there was because the other day we'd been talking about how cold it gets over by the patio doors during the winter, and how much i despise putting plastic up, since the windows are the only source of good light in the living room. dan suggested hanging a blanket, or curtains, instead of our horribly ugly vertical blinds.
so i stopped in with the intention of picking up a curtain rod and such, and then working on sewing the curtains at a later date. of course in the as is section i found curtains marked 60% off, so they came home with me.
now, the garage sale mirror has been sitting in the foyer for weeks. months, perhaps? i can't recall when it made its debut. i was going to wait to put up the curtains until dan got home, since that's a tall person thing and i'm short. so i thought, heck, i'll just hang up the mirror. found a spot, leveled things, got the mirror cleaned up and hung. i think it looks very nice, if i do say so myself.
however after hanging up the mirror, i felt empowered, which is always a dangerous thing, when you're alone in the house with power tools at hand, in my opinion.
i had options: i could clean something, or i could hang up the curtains.
however, to hang up the curtains, i needed to move the kitty tree. to move the kitty tree i had to move shelving units, lamps, plants, and the occasional concerned cat, until things looked more or less the way i wanted them to look. so far i am enjoying the new look--it freshens and somehow makes the living room look more finished, even if it is such a hodge-podge of the new, the slightly used and, in the case of the couch, the broken.
then of course i had to make trips to the garage, to ditch extra stuff, and clean up the kitty poo zone by the back door...so on and so forth. when i finally sat down on the couch to survey the look, i realized that i had two mirrors in the living room, and recalled the others upstairs, awaiting installation.
hello, my name is kim, and i have a mirror problem. i think. i suppose the first step is admitting...
***
mirrors reflect the reality. memory and opinion shift that reality, warp it into something that resembles a real fun-house mirror--stretch me tall, wide, crazy swishes for a face and hands the size of old oak trees.
i've never really liked mirrors, mainly because i don't like looking at myself in them. that being said, i've done a lot of reflecting lately, while working copious amounts of overtime. what can i say, sometimes data entry is like meditation.
(that and i have this theory that stress is like juicing oranges--under pressure, the orange changes and produces something different...follow? if not, oh well. it's my theory anyway. last week my exec T and my old manager S got canned on tuesday morning, out of the complete and utter blue. needless to say the office has been in uproar since.)
anyway, back to relflections.
when i look back in pictures i can see the way that i see the world, at different times in my life. sometimes i took pictures of my feet or hands, sometimes a blurry shot of my self, mostly shots of trees and the outdoor world. lately i haven't done much picture taking.
if you face two mirrors together you get infinity; perhaps this is my inner spirit, reminding me that my reflecting is not done, that it never will be.
***
when i was leaning over the big mirror that started my empowered interior design fit, scrubbing at the sticker on it, i saw my face, determined. that is not the face i always see, in the mirror. i have many faces, many looks, many emotions. i suppose that life does have beginnings and ends to it, just like a length of string, but for the duration, reflecting is a mobius strip, from which i cannot remove my self.
so thus, there is a reason for my multitude of mirrors. at least i think there is. (;
Saturday, October 07, 2006
through the looking glass
can i just say this? i HATE being on all these drugs. i despise it. i'm sure that there are folks out there who take handfuls more, and i should be thankful that i just take this little bit, but i'm starting to feel like alice--drink this, eat this, grow tall, grow small.
are things better when i am on my drugs? i have to admit that yes, they are.
my blood pressure drug really does lower my blood pressure.
my hormone drug really does control my hormones.
my depression drug really does help keep my depression smaller.
and my favorite drug, my adhd drug, really does keep me focused.
the last time i was at the doctor i said that i didn't think that my cocktail was working quite right. my dr rocks; she pulled up all the visits we've had and went over the little test that i take whenever i go in. i didn't want to be on wellbutrin anymore, because i didn't think it was doing anything for my adhd.
then the world had to show me up. i got this thing from my perscription company stating that i needed to start buying meds thru the mail. why, you ask? because it cuts down on price for them. yay. the new rule was that i could get a refill twice but then after that, the refills would be normal price, and not the price that my insurance company covers.
fine. dandy. i order them by mail.
and in the mean time, i run out.
the pill that scares me the most is my blood pressure tablet. without it, my blood pressure ranges pretty far into the Ick Numbers--the ones where nurses take it and say, "are you feeling okay? you should be having a stroke." i actually stopped by the pharmacy and the pharmacist was kind enough to give me a few tablets to get by.
anyway, i didn't think that not being on wellbutrin would be a big deal. it didn't seem like it had made that big of a difference to me, while on it. however my doctor apparently didn't go to school for nothing: in combination with the lexapro (which is for depression and dysphoric disorder) the wellbutrin really does make a difference.
i think i was out of it for a good solid month. being stubborn i didn't worry, and i certainly didn't call the pharmacy looking for extra tablets.
and things slid down hill: my house kind of has piled up, work showed a lack of focus, and i really have been drifting again.
having since received mail refills and started back on my regular regimen, i can feel the difference. it's a difference that i don't want to feel--i want to be just fine, minus these little chemistry miracles.
i guess what it comes down to is that i'm not. the doctor agreed that next spring we will try to wean me off some of them, see where i'm at, etc.
it's a double edged sword, when and if you find the right combination for yourself. i've been lucky enough to do so.
the double edged sword part comes in when you realize that with this little white pill you feel better. and that you hate that pill, you hate yourself a bit, for needing that pill.
i am having trouble finding a good metaphor for this. it's like and dislike, sitting on opposite ends of the see-saw, having a grand old time.
but i suppose it's more like alice in wonderland than i would like to believe. i am handed a little cup and told to eat, and i eat. the differences are not so apparent as a giant blonde girl, or a shrinking one.
the girl in my head, the one who apparently needs the cup of pills, she is the one who changes, she is the one who orbits the looking glass, wondering which side she is on today.
are things better when i am on my drugs? i have to admit that yes, they are.
my blood pressure drug really does lower my blood pressure.
my hormone drug really does control my hormones.
my depression drug really does help keep my depression smaller.
and my favorite drug, my adhd drug, really does keep me focused.
the last time i was at the doctor i said that i didn't think that my cocktail was working quite right. my dr rocks; she pulled up all the visits we've had and went over the little test that i take whenever i go in. i didn't want to be on wellbutrin anymore, because i didn't think it was doing anything for my adhd.
then the world had to show me up. i got this thing from my perscription company stating that i needed to start buying meds thru the mail. why, you ask? because it cuts down on price for them. yay. the new rule was that i could get a refill twice but then after that, the refills would be normal price, and not the price that my insurance company covers.
fine. dandy. i order them by mail.
and in the mean time, i run out.
the pill that scares me the most is my blood pressure tablet. without it, my blood pressure ranges pretty far into the Ick Numbers--the ones where nurses take it and say, "are you feeling okay? you should be having a stroke." i actually stopped by the pharmacy and the pharmacist was kind enough to give me a few tablets to get by.
anyway, i didn't think that not being on wellbutrin would be a big deal. it didn't seem like it had made that big of a difference to me, while on it. however my doctor apparently didn't go to school for nothing: in combination with the lexapro (which is for depression and dysphoric disorder) the wellbutrin really does make a difference.
i think i was out of it for a good solid month. being stubborn i didn't worry, and i certainly didn't call the pharmacy looking for extra tablets.
and things slid down hill: my house kind of has piled up, work showed a lack of focus, and i really have been drifting again.
having since received mail refills and started back on my regular regimen, i can feel the difference. it's a difference that i don't want to feel--i want to be just fine, minus these little chemistry miracles.
i guess what it comes down to is that i'm not. the doctor agreed that next spring we will try to wean me off some of them, see where i'm at, etc.
it's a double edged sword, when and if you find the right combination for yourself. i've been lucky enough to do so.
the double edged sword part comes in when you realize that with this little white pill you feel better. and that you hate that pill, you hate yourself a bit, for needing that pill.
i am having trouble finding a good metaphor for this. it's like and dislike, sitting on opposite ends of the see-saw, having a grand old time.
but i suppose it's more like alice in wonderland than i would like to believe. i am handed a little cup and told to eat, and i eat. the differences are not so apparent as a giant blonde girl, or a shrinking one.
the girl in my head, the one who apparently needs the cup of pills, she is the one who changes, she is the one who orbits the looking glass, wondering which side she is on today.
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