Fear: That I am going blind. In the morning I see everything as though the room is filled with smoke. It takes about 10 minutes for the haze to clear. I am no longer allowed to drive without my glasses. Without them, I cannot make out the color of a stoplight. A few years ago, the woman at the BMV told me to read the fourth line and I told her I could barely make out the first line, and so restriction 'D' on my license represents my failing sight.
My sister in the wheelchair has lumps in her breast. The doctor has told her they are most likely precancerous cells and that she may already have developed breast cancer. They are doing several biopsies for different lumps. My sister started crying hysterically yesterday, understandably, because she is a grandmother now and why, why now, and what will happen to her children, and when will all of her continuous illnesses end, and why can't it be someone else for a change, and why does she even get up in the morning anymore, and who does she have to talk to, and why isn't there anything that can be done, and how will she survive chemotherapy with her compromised immune system, and why aren't any of us as angry as she is? There are no words.
Disgust: Our landlords have decided not to renew our lease. We must find a new apartment. My parents have told my brother and I (who are just us) that we can come with them for now. They have told my sister, her two sons, and their two girlfriends that they cannot come. They are why we lost our lease. They are five people. They pay nothing. We all know this. They are pissed! It isn't fair! In the meantime, none of them have looked for jobs nor have they actively sought an apartment. For years now, my sister in the wheelchair has told my other sister to apply for government housing because it's a long wait. Other Sister did not do so. Wheels (she calls herself that for all you PC people) pays $120 in rent. And her apartment is nice. Other Sister refused because it was beneath her to be on Welfare. Beneath her.
I cannot just jump in. To anything. If someone asks me if I want to go out to lunch with them in an hour, I will say no. An hour is not enough notice for me to change my routine of...doing nothing. I also cannot jump into a project. I wanted to start a quote journal. But I could not use one of the many, many journals I had. No, this one is for thoughts and feelings. This one is for reading notes. This one is a bibliography. This one is a 'random titles for stories' journal. I also cannot get up in the morning if it is 6:57 or 7:02. It must end in a 0 or a 5. It is limiting, each her own OCD, and disturbing.
Sadness: The cat. The cat is gone. Sometimes I come out of the shower and expect him to be lying on my clean clothes. But he is not there. I gave my mom a flash drive to transfer pictures from her computer and when she had them developed, she noticed I had pictures on it, too. So she developed them. She was really excited because one of them was a picture of me with the cat on my lap. Except it wasn't the cat. It was Cat Lady's cat. And that made both me and my mom sad. We yell at people about leaving the front door open, but there's no longer any reason; there's no cat trying to escape.
The man I'm in love with is married. I see him about twice a week, but not like that. It's a business relationship, strictly. I am awkward and geeky and he knows I'm in love with him (someone let it slip). He talks to me about his guitar and his pets and I talk to him about how Queen Elizabeth was once a truck driver. He is super handsome and brilliant. And taken.
Anger: A girl at work, who only works (on average) two days a week, has taken to pointing out when her statistics are better than someone else's. Especially if that other person is in management. Now look, I don't need to be the best. I'm not and never will be. It isn't that she congratulates herself or expresses relief that she has performed as expected. She will say, "Oh, look, my stats are way higher than yours. It seems like mine are always better than yours." At first we thought it was because she felt the need to compete with the manager she could have replaced if said manager had left earlier this year. But it has begun to leak to everyone. We try to throw it back at her whenever we're better than she is, but she has some magical ability to sell with minimal effort. We run up and down for people and they buy one shirt. She stands at the desk and her customers bring her twenty items they don't need to try on. It's driving us nuts.
I suffer from acne. Bad acne. I have gotten it under control recently but occasionally I still have breakouts and when I do, they are extensive and painful. Right now the weather is nice enough at times to be wearing sleeveless shirts. My back is riddled with bumps and scars. Sometimes it is covered in Band-Aids. When I try to talk to someone about being self-conscious, they try to show me the little bump they have on one of their shoulders, or the little, tiny blackhead they have on their nose, or the little, insignificant red mark they have that could turn into a pimple any day. It is like when a woman who is a size 20 talks to me about her muffin top. I have muffin top too, but I don't point that out to her. Because hers is a real problem, and I am a size 5, and while it is the one area of my body I consider 'fat,' I will not point out my
Happiness: I went on a trip to Seattle for the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference. I went by myself! I had a nice hotel room to myself! My time revolved around my priorities and schedule! I went to some useless seminars! I made connections with an awesome book press! I walked around the big city! I spent over 40 hours in the airport or on a plane between my two flight days! I saw Frozen and Thor: The Dark World on the planes! When it said it was 35 degrees, it was actually 35 degrees! I visited the Space Needle! I didn't really have the money for this trip but it was a kind of 'now or never' moment in time. I'm glad I did it.
My niece had a baby girl! She is adorable. She has the roundest head ever on a child born into this world. Other people comment on the roundness of said child's head. She sleeps a lot. We try to take pictures of her with her eyes open, but she sleeps on, then we look away and she opens her eyes. Just as we notice and get ready for a picture, she closes them again. We tickle her and call her name and are extremely annoying, but she is persistent. It is a frustrating game of peek-a-boo. But it is also very cute.
Surprise: That there are people who consider leggings inappropriate. Maybe others feel they reveal too much of a girl's curves, or maybe there are girls who wear them too tight and create camel toe, or maybe some are a little too see-through, but if they are thicker or black or the only thing wrong is they frame a girl's butt and thighs and leave little to the imagination, I counter with the miniskirt. I recently read a fashion book where the author talked about what a revolution the miniskirt was for sexuality, but I have also read this person's disdain for leggings as inappropriate (as pants themselves). I just don't get it. To me, it's a clothing item that fits some bodies but not others, looks fine in some colors/patterns but not others, and is totally appropriate in some situations but not others.
That I enjoy having a budget. Because I have a new car payment, I have to pinch pennies a lot more than I previously have. I actually like putting change in a piggy bank. I like transferring my tiny amounts to my savings account whenever possible. I like seeing what my grown-up bills are and preparing for the month ahead. I think it is good for me to have limits. It's true that you enjoy things you feel you earn more than things that are free.
Randomness: At work, when we have a damaged item, we have to send a report to the home office. One of the blanks we have to fill in is "Country Description." What they mean is the country of origin, where the garment was made. I have taken to filling in this category with random facts about the country in question. For instance, "The guillotine was last used in Vietnam in 1979." I imagine somewhere, someone with the boring job of collecting/analyzing these reports will notice, chuckle, and wait for the next tiny ray of sunshiny knowledge to come randomly each day.
If you want me to eat WHATEVER you cook, put it in a tortilla. Call it 'Liver Pate Soft Tacos with Onion Relish' or 'Bratwurst Balls Burritos with Yellow Mustard Drizzle.' No schizzle, I will clap and be merry.
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