Rhythms from The Offbeat Drummer

Seizure the Day!

2012-02-10T17:27:00.010-06:00

Well, I had my visit with Stosh this afternoon. He deduced that what happened to me last Tuesday morning had to have been a seizure. I don't have diabetes. The glucose tolerance test was relatively normal. My sugar didn't plummet all over the place; in fact, it rose to 152 during hour 2 of the test, which is high. I'm a little anemic right now. Could be because I get 3 periods a month...Otherwise, I'm doing alright, though I was chastised for driving myself to the doctor when I'm not supposed to be driving. Whoops. So the list of possible diagnoses grows: I could have epilepsy, which would be very manageable, MS, which would suck but would be manageable, or cerebral vasculitis (which would suck the most royally of all 3 possibilities). Tatus said "Yeah, YOU on steroids...." Ya'll want to see me turn into a 200 lb stark raving maniac bitch? Put me on steroid therapy. It'll happen, I guarantee. I'd sooner die. Hopefully, MS research and treatment has come farther in the last decade than I was able to discern on the internet.

Patti brought up a valid question. A couple weeks ago, (TMI ALERT) I had diarrhea in my bed sometime overnight. Woke up rolling around in it, which was fucking disgusting. She wonders if I had a seizure during the night that could've caused me to lose control of my bowels. Losing control over bodily functions is another symptom of MS. So is the double vision, black outs, pass outs, double vision, the pain I experience in the morning that was chalked up to fibromyalgia. So all of these symptoms could point to MS.

Tatus and I finally connected via phone. I'm bummed out because he invited me to a museum shindig with a group of people tomorrow (including The Wife and his sister and possibly one of his children and assorted friends) but alas and I can't go because I have to be at band at 4:30, then I have to help out with the (ick) Sweetheart Dance (a fundraiser for Luke's work camp this summer) after church. We were both disappointed at the missed chance to get together, but solidified plans to get together the week of my 4-year sobriety anniversary, though he's having 2nd thoughts about taking me for a tattoo. A) Yes, he's a doctor but squeamish about needles (MAN UP!) and watching a tattoo and B) he's squeamish about ME getting a tattoo. (He sort of flipped out when his daughter came home with one.) So he's giving me the parental "We'll see about that" to that part of the plan. Fuck that. I know he's my father "figure" but I'm 39 years old. Plus, he usually gives in when I want to do something, so I think I can wrangle him into it. If he won't, I know Christa will be happy to go along with me to get inked. And by God, I'm gonna get inked if it's the last thing I do. Anyway, Tatus worked long hours all week and didn't get a chance to call me; I was erroneous in thinking something was awry. As usual.

Tonight is band practice where we'll be practicing 2 new songs. It's something like if you aren't prepared to practice these 2 new songs, you'll have to sit them out during practice. I've listened to each one extensively, but I honestly have been, suffice it to say, a little busy to practice my drums, so I don't know them all that well. I've notated my music, but I never played them physically on my drums. That's always challenging and my guitarist/leader's just going to have to understand that. I have an upset stomach just thinking about practice tonight. So does one of my vocalists, who can't get the opening of one of the new songs down. It'd all be totally worth it if the songs weren't utter and complete shit, but that's just my personal opinion.

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

Well, practice went about as well as could be expected. I was having GI issues all evening, which hindered my performance, there was discontent between the singers, the keyboardist got frustrated with everyone for not know knowing their parts on the new songs, and with the exception of continuing to come in late on one of the new songs, I rocked it out, totally improvised with no practice in the month I've had the CD's with the music on them. I do alright making up rhythms as I go along with the band and just pay attention to the breaks in the music. You'd never know I hadn't been at church all month to practice the songs, but it's been a helluva month. I've said it before and I'll say it again--I play by ear. I make up my parts as long as I go along with our band, not the professionally released recording, not even with the guitarist and keyboardist playing the song and giving it to me on CD. My health was simply too messed up to practice drums this month, something that I'd hope my band would understand. Meh, same old band bullshit. Egos, egos and more egos. And it's volunteer work! For God! For Crissakes!

(Pandora perfection: The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" just as Luke emerges from the bathtub.)

Seizure the Day!

2012-02-10T17:27:00.008-06:00

Meanwhile back at the ranch...

(Pandora perfection: The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" just as Luke emerges from the bathtub.)

Gosh Darnit, Anyway. And "This Was Spinal Tap"

2012-02-10T05:51:00.006-06:00

I woke up at 5am, having missed a call from my Tatus at 10:30 last night, by which time my cell phone and I both petered out. He asked me via text if I'd be up past 10pm and I said yes. I didn't indicate, however, how long after 10pm I'd be up, so I don't take all the blame. He said he'd had a crazy week at work, which I do understand, though I texted him that I'd been feeling decidedly neglected. He didn't sound particularly happy in his voicemail that I didn't answer my phone, so this morning, I just texted him my apologies and to try me again later today. I hate missed connections. That sort of shit happens all the time with my best male friend, and it's very annoying, admittedly. For both parties. Ah, well, we'll connect again soon, I'm sure. I have so much to catch up on with him, the least not being when we're getting together for dinner and my tattoo for my 4 year sobriety anniversary.

I never even made it into my pajamas last night. I slept in my 5 layers of go-outside-and-smoke clothes, instead of my Steven Drozd's face on heroin "Christmas on Mars" t-shirt and little gray shorts that I normally wear. Though sometimes I rotate the Drozd shirt with the Keith Richards' "Too Tough to Die" shirt. It depends.

The spinal tap turned out to be a breeze. I was nervous as hell, but I had this humorous, kind old doctor who wore bow tie doing the procedure. He was a radiologist. I had been in and out of consciousness all morning, having taken a nighttime dose of my anti-anxiety medication before the tap to stay calm, and man, it worked. I lied flat on a table, the doctor looking at my spine and counting "1,2,3,4,5...and BINGO." He marked the site he planned to stab with his 25-gauge needle, which made me jump, and he was like "It's a PEN, Andrea." "Ok, whew." Then he went in with the local anesthetic after cleaning me off with something other than topical iodine, to which I'm allergic, which hurt and burned like an SOB, and I winced in pain. He waited a couple of minutes, wrapped the area in plastic or some other sterile wrapping, and went in with his needle for the tap, which I didn't feel at all. Soon thereafter, he said, "We're all done, Andrea." "You are?" I said. Mazel tov! I was rolled back onto my back and taken to same-day surgery recovery, after having been visited by Pastor Dave in the immediate recovery area. I was in and out of consciousness, but I do remember him being there, which was very nice of him. I totally missed out on the bow-tie wearing radiologist who gave me post-op instructions, such as no bending over for 2 days and lying flat the rest of the day (not a problem--I was so sleepy). My mom kept rudely awakening me all afternoon pushing fluids down my throat. I had some soup in bed and drank some tea, and back to bed I went. All in all, the procedure, though uncomfortable, wasn't scary at all, and I came through like a trooper, not leaking any cerebral-spinal fluid in the process. So we're all good. We should have the results by no later than Tuesday to find out which debilitating disease I have with this no-blood-flow-to-the-brain nonsense.

Oh great. Ma's up and it's 6:30. Evidently, she came into my room at 3:30 am to shut the light off and take my phone and computer off my lap. See, Tatus, I was waiting for your call, but I slept on and off all day and I just conked out before you called, with a critically low phone battery. Sorry, darlin'.

"I wonder if you'll stay awake today," she said. One can hope, as I have to see Stosh at 2pm and pick up Luke and his best friend, Adam, who's coming over to play after school.

Like a dummy, I went and bought Luke a package of Transformers valentines to hand out to the class on Valentine's Day. Apparently, this was a critical Mom error, as he's far too mature to hand out kiddie Valentines. "I'm not handing THOSE out, Mom." he said. I emailed the teacher to find out what the Valentine's Day protocol was, and she said they're not having a party, per se, but I was welcome to send Luke with candy to hand out to the class. Well, I'll have to buy another bag, because between the 3 of us in the family, we've eaten through the entire bag of peanut butter cups. Sorry. And apologies to Luke for potentially causing him great embarrassment in class. How was I supposed to know?

YAWN!

George Michael's "Father Figure" is playing on Pandora. I can never figure out if that song is hella sexy or totally inappropriately perverted. In any event, I gave it a thumbs-up! Wow, they followed it up with Michael Jackson's "Dirty Diana." This must be the "Inappropriate Andrea as a 15-year old song mix." Thumbs up!

Well, apparently I have been commanded to take a shower by Ma because the bathroom remodeling guy is coming over sometime this morning, so I'll close this entry of the Rhythms.

Perfect Pandora send off? Best Coast's "Boyfriend."

Until next time....

Ira Glass on The Creative Spirit and WORK

2012-02-06T19:38:00.002-06:00

This is most certainly true. People jokingly complain that I write SO many blogs, and some, to me anyway, turn out to be awesome while others are total shit. I turn out vast volume of "product," I realize that.

For all intents and purposes, my personal opinion is that the humorous post I wrote about "Escape: The Pina Colada Song" (http://www.theoffbeatdrummer.blogspot.com/2012/01/shouldnt-these-two-people-be-really.html) was a well-written piece of mock criticism; a piece of work of which I was proud. Some of my manic, not-so-lucid transient thoughts strung together in paragraph after paragraph are often at least entertaining, but definitely not prize-worthy.

(Aside: Pandora went from Rush to Van Halen to Cinderella (??) to Dio (???) to Ravi Shankar. It's as manic as I am. Yes, I "thumbs-downed" the Cinderella and Dio, muted Pandora and threw my iTunes on for a while.)

I don't expect all of my readers to keep up with every post I publish. Who on earth would be that interested in my life, other than perhaps some of the 21 brave souls who publicly subscribe, most of whom are very close friends of mine? And the US Senate Sargent at Arms? And the California Fair Political Practices Commission? And my former so-called superior? And my ex-boyfriend? And the friend from college who hates me? And other various curious snoopers? I sure get a gaggle of unusual visitors to Rhythms from the Offbeat Drummer. I find it fascinating and inspiring to write more. More of what, I'm not sure.

Ira Glass himself advocates producing a LOT of product. That's the only way to hone your craft. That's how you grow as an artist. Kate was telling me about the formal methods for producing a painting she learned when she was at RISD (the Rhode Island School of Design). It's sort of like writing multiple drafts of a piece of writing, which I never, ever do. Kate would do a series of sketches, pick from a handful of those sketches that were good, re-sketch them, pick the best one, and replicate that in paint. (I think that was the sequence she told me.) I don't draft my blogs or any papers that I would write for school. Poems, when I was concentrating on them as my specialty in college often got re-worked per the professor's insistence, though sometimes it went against my grain.

Kate asked me recently how long it took me to write the "Pina Colada" blog. I told her about half an hour from start to finish, not counting the time I spent listening to the actual song. But sometimes more difficult blogs take hours, or a whole day, to complete. A lot of that depends on the subject matter. The more difficult the topic, the longer, obviously, it takes to compose something I'm satisfied with.

I hope my readers enjoy what I write. Suffice it to say as of late, I have a lot of time on my hands, so I've been writing more. I re-read the blogs from the recent hospital stay, and they were as manic and disjointed as I've ever seen my writing. Next time I'm an inpatient? Ask for a nicotine patch, for one thing. And typing them took me forever because I was shaking and trembling so badly, for a number of reasons. Yet will I eradicate them from the Annie bio-log? Hell no. I feel bad enough having deleted some very well-crafted pieces of writing from the blog because I was afraid of what my former so-called superior was doing with information from my blog. At this point, I have little, if nothing, to hide, about anyone or anything in my life.

Unlike Glass, I don't give myself a one-piece-a-week deadline. I continue to write whenever an idea strikes. It's up to you, dear readers, to decide which ones to which you pay attention and which ones you ignore and say "that's just Annie rambling." I'm done trying to taunt the powers-at-be at Balderdash & Verities HQ. It's turned into a colossal waste of time and I'm not having fun with it anymore. To some of you (especially Miss Thang II) this may seem disappointing, but my life is raft with other items of interest, so please do stay tuned.

I couldn't have said it better than Ira Glass. If you call yourself a writer, fucking write. A lot. If you're a musician, write and play a shitload of material. If you're an artist, paint and draw and set your spirit free. If you're the US Senate, seriously, you have bigger fish to fry than my personal bullshit.

Peace and love,

Annie

Trapped No More

2012-02-05T14:21:00.010-06:00

The following story is a verity, not balderdash. The last several months I spent with my ex-boyfriend, Chris, were miserable. On the one hand, I craved his companionship and attention. I loved having someone to go places with, a pal to hang around with who liked to do mundane shit like going to Target together, to hold hands with and walk around the Lake. Someone to cuddle and watch Doctor Who with. Some place to go that wasn't home a few times a week where he admittedly did keep my favorite seltzer water or whatever I was drinking (non-alcoholic, of course) at the time, and snacks I liked. Someone who would, by virtue of him being unemployed at the time, could accompany me for tests and procedures at the hospital, though it wasn't *his* face I wanted to see when I woke up from anesthesia. When I was a "good girl," I was richly rewarded materialistically. When I was, in his opinion, a "bad girl," I was punished. Badly.

On the other hand, I was tired of being one of many women in his life, tired of his verbal abuse, his blaming me for any emotional issues I'd had before I became sober, which he took credit for, or before I was medicated for bipolar, when he said I was literally acting "crazy," emotional mindfucking, massive control issues, and physical and sexual abuse and manipulation. I felt like I was being used. Rather, I *knew* I was being used, yet I kept going back. I can't say why I put up with it all as long as I did, but it was obvious to literally everyone else I knew that I HAD to get out of that relationship. The first person who told me to get out was Craig when I told Craig that Chris had slapped me in the face. Yet, I couldn't break away. Intellectually, I knew it was grossly unhealthy. So did Chris. But he kept me strung along as long as he could, which I can only chalk up to the fact that he had a steady supply of getting laid whenever he wanted, which in my psychological opinion, was something *he* was addicted to.

If you look at pictures of the two of us together for the last year of our relationship, we both look uncomfortable. I look apprehensive and he looks obligatory and distant. We didn't look like a couple in love, because, as per a previous blog, Chris said that never was "in love" with me.

I had a fervent hope that he'd change his mind, change his ways, and treat me the way I deserved to be treated and would decide to love only me. I was stupid enough to want to marry the guy. I prayed that he'd leave the other women behind (all of whom I knew about without even having to ask him, and he eventually did tell me). He tried dating other women on the nights he wasn't with me, but after a while, that "wasn't working" for him anymore. I was becoming a dating liability to him, not a loved one.

I remember one memorable night out to dinner when he told me he wanted to see this particular woman on a regular basis, and that they were close to being "in a relationship." (That poor, clueless woman.) I asked what that meant for me, where I stood. "Am I still your best girl?" I asked Chris. And the answer was no. I looked up at him with hollow eyes and what he described, if memory serves, the saddest look on my face he'd ever seen. Even with that reality facing me, I wasn't ready to let go. Even with everything he was putting me through--mentally and physically (I was frequently hospitalized for pancreatitis and GI issues that several doctors believe was my body's response to the abuse I was enduring), I still wanted to be his girlfriend. But I wasn't anymore. I was no longer the most important person in his life. I'd been replaced, abruptly and rudely.

At that point, I'd decided I'd had enough of it all. When I was in the hospital and Aliya (a friend who's a psychiatrist) and her cousin (who's also a doctor), came to visit me, we talked about me finding the strength to walk away from Chris for good, for cutting him and his toxicity out of my life. I wasn't sure I could do it. Aliya knew what Chris had done to me and offered practical advice that was similar if not equal to what other friends and family had told me, but she finally got through to me. Not sure why other than to attribute it to divine intervention. (She had, after all, given me 2 get-well gifts: a Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Awareness hoodie that said "Kindness rocks" on it and a mug that said "With God, all things are possible.")

Soon thereafter, I packed up what I had left at Chris' house (which wasn't much, some clothes, and then he packed that scary box full of unmentionables in polite conversation that he wanted me to keep, that I mentioned in a previous blog, that I had to have a friend dispose of for me, because it sat in my truck for 4 months and I was afraid to even touch it) and we parted company for the last time some time in March or April of 2011, I don't even remember. With lofty ambition to "stay friends," I finally saw the reality of what kind of man he truly is, and wanted nothing to do with him. Nasty, malicious emails were being exchanged. He'd been nitpicking my personal life, asking me questions about my separation and divorce from Craig, and generally harassing me.

I started telling my doctors, closest friends and family what he was doing to me, which is old news to those of you who read my blog regularly, which was when I was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result by my psychiatrist and primary care physician, with the help of my psychotherapist.

Why do I drudge this story out of the archives yet again? Because I heard a song on Pandora today. A Bruce Springsteen song that reminded me of the latter part of my relationship with Chris, for about the last year and a half we were together, after he "broke up" with me and told me he wanted to date other women. It's a rather rare song, that I first heard, of all places, on the "We Are The World" album from 1985. It's called "Trapped." It conveys exactly how I felt with Chris all that time. Hearing this song gave me literal chills. I think it's a valid song for anyone who finds herself (or himself) in an abusive relationship.

Today, I'm free. I got away and I'm lucky. I no longer have bite marks and bruises and burns all over my body. He had taken a shitload of pictures of me, that I wanted put on a disc and sent to me, and erased from his computer forever. He claimed that his computer at the apartment in the Loop crashed during a storm and the hard drive fried and he couldn't retrieve the pictures. I'm not sure I believe him, for he's a photo collector. It sickens me that he could verily still have hundreds of photographs of me in his possession. That's one of his idiosyncracies, to put it nicely.

I'm learning not to be so scared of Chris and retaliation and that he'll harm me ever again. The PTSD is still there; it doesn't just go away. I still have no desire to date anyone and am afraid of strange men I don't know. At least the list of men I'll allow to hug me is expanding, though I have virtually no desire to be intimate with anyone at this point. I am too damaged. Hopefully, someday that'll change and I'll be capable of being in an actually healthy relationship with a man. Not in the foreseeable future, though. Thanks, Chris.

Bruce Springsteen

"Trapped"

Well it seems like I'm caught up in your trap again
And it seems like I'll be wearin' the same ol' chains
Good will conquer evil and the truth will set you free
Then I know someday I'll find the key
Then I know somewhere I'll find the key
Well it seem like I've been playin' the game way too long
And it seems the game I played has made you strong
Well when the game is over, I won't walk out a loser
And I know that I'll walk out of here again
And I know that someday I'll walk out of here again

But now I'm trapped...oh yeah!
Trapped...oh yeah yeah!
Trapped...oh yeah!
Trapped...oh yeah!

Now it seems like I've been sleepin' in your bed too long
And it seems like you've been meanin' to do me harm
But I'll teach my eyes to see beyond these walls in front of me
And someday I'll walk out of here again
Yeah I know someday I'll walk out of here again

(chorus)
Well it seem like I've been playin' the game way too long
And it seems the game I played has made you strong

Because I'm trapped...oh yeah!
Trapped...oh yeah yeah!
Trapped...oh yeah yeah!
Trapped...oh yeah!

I'm trapped...oh yeah yeah!
Trapped...oh yeah yeah
Trapped...oh yeahhhhhh
Trapped....oh yeahhhh
I'm trapped.

Watching the Wheels

2012-02-03T08:43:00.004-06:00

My mom says I'm a lot more alert this morning. I guess that's a good thing. I'm not on any mind-numbing narcotics, for one thing. Also, I got a solid night's rest after several nights of either too little or too much sleep, and it feels good not to be in a hospital bed under 6 blankets, shivering with a high, inexplicable fever.

The withdrawals are being managed with OTC medications and my anxiety drugs. God only knows why I didn't ask for a nicotine patch while I was in the hospital, for I was going through awful withdrawal from that too. (Yes, I lit up as soon as I got home.) I feel much, much better than I did the last couple of days. WD's, as they're referred to in drug culture, or as Steven always referred to them as to me, are a tricky motherfucker. They don't usually hit until 4-6 days after you stop the drug and it's out of your system. My doctor was skeptical of the Immodium cure--essentially you take about 40 mg of Immodium 3 times a day to ward of the WD's, because Immodium is a morphine-based compound that doesn't cross over into the blood stream, thereby keeping it over-the-counter available, but it a) stops the diarrhea and b) eases up the shakes, the chills and the other uncomfortable symptoms. But he said that as long as it seems to work, it won't harm me and that it was ok to try. He's not real hip to junkies' ways of managing junk, so he had never heard of this solution before himself. But it does indeed work. And it doesn't constipate you at all--rather, it gives you normal bowel movements, instead of constant diarrhea. That being said, my diarrhea as of late was blamed on an intestinal virus, since I'd been running a 102 fever and had a highly elevated white blood cell count, which meant I was fighting an infection somewhere.

Now, with school out of the picture, what the fuck do I do with myself? Yes, take care of getting my health in order. That's the first priority. But everybody's got a fucking opinion of what I should be or could be doing with my time and my life. Everybody. Friends, family, doctors. Taking the course was my chief source of purpose this semester. Something to keep me busy. And more fun and interesting than going from doctor to doctor, certainly. Everyone had an opinion about me going off the narcotics. Some wanted me to medically detox, when they don't DO that for narcotics, or go to rehab, which wasn't necessary because I wasn't addicted to the narcotics, I was simply physically dependent on them, which was natural given I was on them for a year. Your body's response to a substance it's used to is to go into withdrawal when that substance is suddenly taken away. And to be in the hospital on the day my dad died from DT's from withdrawing from alcohol was not a pleasant thought yesterday. I was NOT going to spend February 2nd in Resurrection Hospital.

Christa, my best friend from high school, suggested she and I look into some volunteer work, which is a promising idea. We are signed up with Chicago Cares, and they have hundreds of volunteer opportunities in the Chicago area that would look quite good on my grad school applications, so perhaps we'll do something like that.

I need work done on my car and I can't drive anywhere. The air in one of my tires is almost flat. How the fuck am I supposed to get my car to the service station to get it fixed? Ma is going to ride with me to the service station tomorrow to at least put air in my tire, which has a nail or something in it that I have to add air every few days for, but now that I got my tax refund, I can afford to have the car fixed. I need stuff from Walgreens and to pick up my heart meds at Osco. I need $$ from the ATM. Ma's hesitant to leave the workers on the bathroom alone in the house for some reason, so I guess the requisite errands will have to wait until tomorrow.

I'm staring at the neurologist's card waiting for his office to open to schedule the spinal tap for next week, which still scares me half to death. I'd be more comfortable with the neurologist if he wasn't so freaking WEIRD. He carries a little medical bag with him that has only the following in it: a pen light, a reflex hammer and an otoscope. And he just looks weird. I'm sure he knows what he's doing and he's on the right course, and he's nicer than the bitchy Polish neuro I saw a few years ago, but sheesh. The guy didn't know what an eyebrow ring was.

(OK, I called the neuro. His uber-bitchy receptionist asked me if the doctor gave me an order for the spinal tap. No, he didn't give me an order. I was IN THE HOSPITAL at the time. They're giving him my name and number and he'll call me back. Argh, red tape! Medicine! This is what I'll be doing with my semester, I guess!) UPDATE: He never called back after I left him a message this morning. He ASKED me to call him this morning to schedule the spinal tap. Assface. I may seek another neurologist and take my MRI results elsewhere if this doctor can't even return a fucking phone call that HE asked for.

As usual, I digress.

It was awfully nice of Pastor Dave to come and visit me twice while I was in the hospital. I really dig the guy. He's got a lot of wisdom for a kid of 32-33, or however young he is. He lets me swear in front of him and doesn't chastise me for it, and says things like "I bet you want to get the hell out of here." Damn straight, Dave. His prayers are honest, to the point, and not lofty or conceited. He speaks from his heart, which I appreciate. I've connected to him, which I honestly didn't expect to, given I really liked Pastor Todd, our interim pastor he replaced. But Dave brings a fresh, modern vibe to St. Paul and is doing a great job as our shepherd.

I listened to John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" this morning, and the song so aptly describes what people are doing to me right now. Like I said, everyone's got an opinion as to how I should be living my life, what I should be thinking about, how I should progress with my future, etc. As if I don't get a vote. As if I'm not an adult capable of making adult decisions. Whether it's my mom (who will always naturally tell her kid what to do, not her fault), my friends or other loved ones, who I'm sure all care deeply, but really, people. I've got it covered. I need a little space and to draw those in closer who I think will be of the most use and comfort to me now. I don't need chastising and disdain and accusations.

If you're not familiar with Lennon's classic, fucking listen to it. It makes perfect sense to me...

Home.

2012-02-02T20:19:00.004-06:00

Stosh released me late this afternoon. THANK GOD. Because I was having the world's worst anxiety attack at the thought of spending the night in the hospital on the night my father died in THAT hospital. Bad vibes all over the place. He was comfortable with me going home--my fever broke finally, he finished all his tests, the exception being the SCARY SPINAL TAP the neurologist needs to do next week.

Having 3 places in my brain where there's no blood flow certainly explains the blackouts/passouts/double vision/depth perception issues/wanting to nod off constantly, etc. I can't be trusted to drive a car, so I'm a no-drive mandate until further notice. Which sucks, because losing my independence really royally blows. I feel like I'm 85 years old and I'm not even 40.

I thoroughly fought staying in the hospital one more minute this afternoon. "STOSH!" I called out the door when I saw my doctor walking down the hall. "GET IN HERE!" I told him. He had the glucose tolerance test completed, the neurologist ran his 50 blood tests, and I was ready to bolt. I went so far as to take out my own IV (which I don't recommend, wow, blood everywhere) and removed my heart monitor out of haste. He agreed that I was stable enough to go home and wrote the discharge orders.

My days of taking Norco for pain are over. It helped serve a legitimate purpose for a great, long time, but I became physically dependent on it, which is only natural given the nature of a narcotic. There's a delineation between addicted and physically dependent on a drug, and Stosh knew that. He knew this would happen and promised me he wouldn't leave me high and dry, and while tapering me off the drug would've been safer and certainly more comfortable, we went cold ass turkey. That's part of why I was such a physical wreck the last few days, shaky, nauseated, cold, all the signature withdrawal symptoms. It was helped a little by some infrequent Lorazepam, but I'm much better now that I'm home and can regulate my medications on my own. They didn't give me my anti-psychotic this morning because I was fasting, which threw me into a psychotic tail spin as well. It was just a BAD DAY in general. I feel good being clean again and I'm not getting fucked into dealing with narcotics again, though I don't know what's going to happen when I have my hysterectomy. We'll cross that bridge when we hit it in May, I suppose. I managed the pain from my c-section just on ibuprofen, so we'll see how I do when I have the surgery.

I made the very difficult but necessary decision today to drop my Abnormal Psych class for the semester. I can't rely on Ma to drive me out for a 3 hour class at night, and the class is uber-demanding, and if I have shit going on with my brain, I'd prefer my brain to be fully functional at the time, because I want to excel at school. It breaks my heart to miss this semester of school, but I have to get my health back on track. Whether I have MS or vasculitis, no one knows yet. That's what the spinal tap is for. And we'll deal with that when it happens. I might opt to have the hysterectomy sooner than May 14th since I now have a plethora of free time, though it's not a good time for Craig to have Luke as he is looking for apartments with his girlfriend for her, Craig and Luke.

I'm getting Luke for half the weekend this weekend (Sat and Sun) and it feels like I haven't spent any time with him in like 2 weeks with all the hospitalization and the bathroom remodeling (which still isn't done, Jesus). I just want to see my little boy and reassure him that I'm ok and I will be ok. Like I said before, he doesn't like to show his fear when I'm sick, but he had to be freaking out. And thank GOD he wasn't home when the paramedics came and I was unresponsive. And thank God Ma was home to call the paramedics, or God knows what would've happened to me.

I thank all of you for your continued good thoughts and prayers. I thank Pastor Dave for his visits, for Kate calming me down and sending me roses which are beautiful and being the best friend I could ask for. I thank my mom for helping me out and keeping it all together given the circumstances. I thank TOC for making me laugh yesterday. Thanks to Christa for her wisdom and honesty and for not abandoning me when she found out I was dependent on the pills. I could honestly care less if my blog stalker reads all these things that are wrong with me. If nothing else, it'll help explain that I wasn't in a drug-induced fog the last several months--for I was found with no narcotics in my system...I have a brain condition. So there!

I'll still have 4 years clean of alcohol on Feb. 21st, and I'm going out to celebrate that. Nothing and no one can take that away from me. I worked fucking hard to accomplish that though the road's been bumpier than I'd have liked it to be, but I'm human and prone to making mistakes.

Ok, it's rounding closer ever to 9:30, when we received the phone call that my dad had his massive heart attack and died from DT's in alcohol rehab. Glad to be home with Ma but feeling melancholy and weepy all of a sudden. I promised my son years ago that I'd never leave him like Grandpa did and I will hold true to that promise. If my fucking brain cooperates......

Peace, love and the serenity prayer to all of you.

Everyone I Know Goes Away in the End...

2012-02-02T06:29:00.011-06:00

It's 10:40 at night and I'm lying in bed in Resurrection hospital, watching an inpatient channel, a show on the 40 yr old BABY BOOMER WOMAN's body changes. I may be turning 40 in a few months, and I'm certainly no spring chicken, but a Boomer, I'm NOT. I have body piercings for Christ's sake!

I think I've been here since Tuesday morning, when my mom says I was "unresponsive" and she had a gaggle of beefy Park Ridge paramedics hoist me to the hospital in the way only they can and not mess up anything in my room. She didn't know if I was in a diabetic coma, if I OD'd, what the fuck happened to me. I did NOT want to come here. Coming to the hospital was made to feel like punishment; in fact, it was called as much when I asked my mom to bring my laptop and psychology book for school. "No, you're being punished. You just sit there." 'Cause that's real fuckin' productive, Ma.

Amidst the infectious disease specialists (fever? elevated white count? chills? elevated blood sugar? unable to rouse? You must have a virus. Bye!), the shrink who everyone hates because he never calls anyone back, his nurse practitioner who I snowed in intelligence in about 5 minutes (it sure sounds to me like you OD'd!"and I'm like "Duh, my tox screen was clear!"), the fruity neurologist ("She wears an earring, just not on her ear, it on her eyebrow! And she needs an MRI. and we all in unison, the nurse on the phone and I say "TAPE IT DOWN!") , everybody's had a fucking opinion about what's wrong with me, and NO ONE KNOWS.

Ma even summoned the Pastor, for surely there were evil addicted demons inside me that had to be exorcised. God bless her, she tried everything. Pastor Dave had some words of comfort but i was more interested in hearing if he had a functioning car that would get me the hell out of there.

At least the most humorous, if not the most productive visit was by way of TOC, who at least made me smile, and made an honest and fervent offer to go to my house and get my laptop from the clutches of my mom who refused to give it over. I've got homework to do, professors to email, blogs to write!! Shittttt. He said she'd let me back in the house sometime after the new bathroom was done being installed, which at this point is close to never, so we'll see about that. If I had shoes, or a coat, I'd probably sign out AMA, and walk home. I'd stop at Walgreens for some fucking cigarettes first but by golly I'd get home.

I received very beautiful roses from Kate and Tim yesterday.Yellow roses. They're already starting to open up.

I've deduced that the reason I can't sleep for shit is that I don't have my Curious George. I have nothing to clutch in my arms, in the crook of my neck, when I sleep, and it's causing me to wake up at 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7 am, usually when they're bothering me to do something anyway but still. I MISS GEORGE. I should've sent TOC home to my house to get George in addition to my fucking laptop and homework.

Fast forward to 6:25 am on...Thursday, I think. I'm still running a fever on/off and am presently sweaty with horrible chills. Meh, I don't really care. They were kind enough to give me 625 mg of Tylenol instead of my pain pills w/APAP in them, so we'll see if they work.

Anyway, I hate this day. This is the day Dad died here in this hospital with TOC's dad pronouncing him dead, and here I lie, with nobody having a fucking clue as to what's wrong with me, but goddamnit, I want to get out of here today, if for no other reason than to have like 3/4 of a pack of cigarettes in my dad's honor. Because that's healthy. Well, at least I ain't drinking, so cut me some goddamn slack.

I'm sure I'll have more to say as the day progresses, but now at least my blog stalker can know we're in the same building! If she looks at my records on the hospital computer, I'll have a shitfit. Which goes along nicely given the US Senate Sergeant at Arms checked out my page a couple days ago, Lord only knows why. What the hell does the Senate want with an apolitical apathetic anarchist? I get the craziest motherfuckers following me around on here, like worse than Arlene. As long as I have the US Senate's attention: Be kind to struggling single moms, I vote Democratic, thanks for the Medicaid and give Obama another chance.

Stosh came by and ordered a 5 hour glucose tolerance test on me today, after which he thinks I may be able to go home. He said it's unlikely the paramedics were wrong in their sugar count of me at my house, I have all these crazy sugar issues w/passing out from hypoglycemia, let's see what happens with a massive sugar rush for the whole fucking day. He said today's the 1st day I haven't had a fever, my blood tests are all coming back more normal, and despite the fact I slept like shit and am freezing and want to doze off uncontrollably.

So pray I get to go home after all this happy hoohah is done today and that the fever stays away.

Well, Pastor made another appearance, remarking how hot it is in my room. I have the thermostat set to 80 and I'm freezing. Hello, drug and nicotine withdrawal (I should've asked for a patch). I can't wait to get home and work through getting over my junk with OTC things that I know work, and my benzos, and lots of Immodium, and smokes, because right now I'm pretty fucking miserable. At least Pastor didn't come during the Hindu Indian Ragas portion of my Pandora rotation.

The MRI is back and there's some if not bad, disconcerting news on it. I have 3 areas on my brain, 2 on the left and one on the right, that aren't getting any blood flow. Call me coconuts, but that can't be good. Even the faggoty but decent neurologist was worried about that, saying that I need a spinal tap asap. I told him bluntly that there was no fucking way he was doing it today, and that I was going home today. Period. Plus, it was inconvenient to the neurologist to disturb the spinal tap by having to have my blood drawn once an hour for the glucose test. I need to fucking deal with the grief of it being Dad's day, and work through the junk and get closer to taking an actual shower at home. The neuro thinks I either have cerebral vasculitis or multiple sclerosis, hence the need for the spinal tap.

Perfect Pandora Send off for this juncture of the morning: Eric Clapton's "Cocaine." No, I'm not, never have been, and don't plan on being on cocaine, but a song about narcotics only seemed apropos. Again, no opiates were found in my blood or urine when I got to the ER. I was clean except for the benzos I take to sleep and chill.

She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie...

Dancing Naked in the Living Room Window

2012-01-26T21:15:00.012-06:00

Writing is a craft I've honed since childhood. It's one of my artistic expressions, like my music. It's my passion, my greatest love, my purest source of self-proclaimed talent, if I can lay claim to any. Ever since I was a little girl, I've written short stories, stock-piled memories, poems, journal entries, and the like. It's always been an outlet for what's going on in my complicated brain. It's just that now it's out in public for the whole world to read, and criticize (and stalk!).

Lately, though, I feel I have lost sight of my art in an effort to appease or dampen the temper of someone who is obsessively following my blog's every word. I find myself censoring, editing and flat out deleting posts that had creative merit behind them purely out of fear of retribution by another party--someone who has absolutely zero power over me anymore. Someone who's opinion of me means nil.

And it's not Chris.

Am I capable of seeing virtually every visitor to the blog, what pages he/she read, where the reader started and stopped, and if my posts are being emailed to outside sources? Yes. I've made that abundantly clear in other blogs. I hate having to police my site like this day after day. Yet this particular reader persists in checking in on the blog multiple times a day to see if anything new has been posted, and I'm quite honestly tired of it.

I installed the blog tracking software because I was afraid of Chris. But that fear has literally transposed into the back of my mind, for I no longer fear he'll come after me personally, physically. Through a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy, I've learned simple tasks like going into the alley at night alone to take out garbage without worrying if Chris is going to emerge from behind the dumpster and attack me because of something I've written about him. I highly doubt Chris, at this point, would physically harm me again. (After all, he did promise he'd never do anything to permanently physically harm me, and to date, he hasn't. Temporary wounds, however, were fair game.)

Honestly, I'd rather have one engaged reader who checks into the blog regularly than a dozen curious onlookers, searching for a lynch pin. I've written deeply personal posts about my mental illness, struggles with addiction and substance abuse, my family and friends, medical problems and about my life in general that are all MY stories. Not all terribly riveting posts, unless you have some vested interest in my ramblings.

Rhythms from the Offbeat Drummer is my intellectual property. The ideas and words herein belong to me. They are, unless quoted from outside sources, my own opinions and feelings.

Some blog readers have met me with constructive criticism indicating that they prefer my blog to be a cohesive, character, story-driven piece of prose, as opposed to a sequence of random (I hate that word) thoughts strung together with no theme. Sometimes I'm able to do that; other times, not so much. My brain's not wired to tell fantastic stories at great length with moral overtones, though I can do that; rather, it's (by virtue of my insanity, partially) wired to display snippets of dialog, which I have a knack for remembering verbatim, and I can remember things that happened 20 years ago but not what I had for lunch 2 days ago. I can go into great detail about a certain subject if I focus on it long enough, but not if I'm writing while I'm manic, in which case, you get the non-linear strands of witty and charming, if not a little scatterbrained material.

I want to be able to dance naked in front of the windows again, unafraid of what the neighbors will think about me, in the uniquely Annie way that I do. I want the freedom to express myself artistically without abandon, which I honestly feel I've been holding back since I lost my job, out of fear. Totally unnecessary. Those who love me encourage me to keep writing, and to pay no attention to the person obsessed with my blog. I am earnestly trying to do that. But imagine how difficult it is to be yourself around someone when you're nervous about what they're learning about you? Anyone of us would be a little more than paranoid. That's an unusual sentiment for someone offbeat like me, who typically doesn't give a shit what other people think about me OR my eccentric lifestyle. Yet I found myself censoring my writing, which is WRONG.

So let's open the curtains back up and commence our usual ridiculousness.

Wandering Uterus? (Another Great Name for a Band.)

2012-01-26T15:17:00.012-06:00

The ancient Egyptians believed that psychiatric disorders in women were caused by a "wandering uterus." Interfering with her other organs, the uterus would produce what the Greeks subsequently termed as "hysteria" in the woman's mind. Later, Greeks would come to believe that hysteria could only be cured by the woman inhaling strong-smelling herbs or substances to "drive" the uterus back into it's proper place. Nowadays, "hysteria" is meant to refer to any physiological symptoms that probably are the result of psychological processes in both males and females.

Naturally, modern medicine rejects the idea that the uterus "wanders" anywhere but still, it holds a unique place in women's anatomy as being one of the major components that separate women from men. It's where we grow our babies. It's from where we shed our menses for upwards of 40 consecutive years on a monthly basis. It regulates a bunch of our female hormones. It's part of what makes us uniquely female.

So what's one left to think about when faced with having to have a vital organ like the uterus removed? A wave of conflicting emotions, that's for sure. On the one hand, the argument is cheered upon, as it means the woman no longer will have to deal with a monthly period, which, guys, gets really old really fast after the onset at adolescence novelty wears off. It's a costly pain in the ass (or thereabouts) that is accompanied by erratic waves of emotions and hormone fluctuations. It's especially annoying the closer your edge towards menopause, when bleeding becomes more irregular--I was getting 3 periods a month, leaving me with only one week's grace per month--and thus, the onset of natural menopause is frequently something a woman sort of looks forward to, the hot flashes notwithstanding.

When it happens *naturally,* note. So, like not when you're 39, like me.

On the other hand, some might say it's tantamount to a man being castrated. Sure, female sex organs aren't all external--the uterus can't be seen by passersby. You can't tell, by looking at a group of women, who has a uterus and who doesn't. But it's still an essential part of womanhood.

And while my fair uterus has served me well, providing for me the greatest miracle my body ever produced--my son--it's time the organ and I parted ways.

My OB/GYN must have asked me a dozen times, "Andrea, are you SURE you're done having kids?" and yes, I was sure. I was done after Luke was born; my body just didn't know it yet. I miscarried before Luke, was lucky enough to have Luke, and could have no subsequent offspring, even with the aid of fertility drugs, after Luke.

I'm facing a hysterectomy dead in the face right now. If I elect not to have the surgery, within 6 months to a year, I will have full-blown uterine cancer, which would NOT be cool. It's an aggressive but slow-growing cancer, and my cells, as I asked my doctor to stage them, are at a stage 3 of 5. But as I understand it, it's one of the, in the annals of cancers to get, best cancers you can get because it's largely self-contained to the uterus. It typically doesn't travel to other parts of the body, such as thy lymph nodes. But already having had cervical issues and a good chunk of that body part removed, I'm more than a little apprehensive about finding out that I have yet more "girl-area" problems.

I'm taking a huge risk to my health waiting until the planned date of the operation, which is May 14th, because I was determined to finish my Abnormal Psychology class prerequisite for my doctorate program. I didn't want to be yet another semester behind in school, though everyone tells me I should put my health before my education. Yet they go hand-in-hand. The sooner I an earn my PsyD, the healthier I believe I will become overall. I'm not working, so the thought of sitting home going literally mental is not terribly appealing. That being said, Abnormal Psych will be a challenging class--just based on the amount of material we need to cover during the course of the semester and all the projects/assignments the professor threw into her 13-page syllabus. ("...I haven't got time for the pain....")

The doctor seemed okay with me waiting 4 months to have the hysterectomy, but definitely no longer than that. She wanted to do it now, and I had to make a case for waiting. Others in the know advised me to have the surgery right away and I, quite honestly, don't know what to do. I'd like to get a second opinion of either another OB/GYN or an oncologist, to see what he/she might have to say about waiting versus having the surgery now, and what my ultimate safety will be if I decide to hang on until Spring; specifically, a week after I turn 40. I better have one humdinger of a freaking birthday party because the FUN. IS. OVER. on the 14th of May.

As I've mentioned previously, my OB/GYN isn't optimistic that she'll be able to do the hysterectomy laprascopically, which would only require a 2-week recovery period. There is such a build-up of adhesions and scar tissue from my c-section with Luke 12 years ago, that she fears she'll have to re-open the c-section scar, dig around and *find* my uterus to remove, which carries with it a 4-6 week recovery time, during which you can do nothing--no driving, no shopping, no taking care of your kid, no cooking, no laundry, zip. Zilch. Zero. (Had I still been working, I'd have to take an unpaid medical leave, after which they'd have to give me my job back, but alas, that's all unnecessary now.)

All things considered, I'd rather recuperate from surgery in May, when at least I can go outside and get some fresh air amid my loafing around; whereas, if I elect to have the surgery now, thought safe(er), it's not a good time of the year to be cooped up in the house for upwards of a month. I've already forewarned my band that they'll be without a drummer for most of half of May and all of June. Craig is on-board to help out with Luke, who will be wrapping up his school year and out of extra-curricular activities by the middle of May, so that's good. And school for me wraps up on May 11th, so mazel tov.

The other big question is whether or not it's a sound idea to leave the ovaries in or to have them removed as well. I just like the name of that operation: an oophorectomy. Leaving the ovaries intact will allow me to go through menopause when my body's good and ready, which could be anywhere from 10-15 years from now. Having them proactively removed would cut the chance of developing ovarian cancer, which is often found too late, and would liken me to the body of a 55-year old woman. I'd need to take estrogen replacement therapy, which carries a whole other set of risks/complications not limited to illnesses such as breast cancer. I've been told that if the bad cells are confined to the uterus, I will not need either chemo or radiation after the hysterectomy, depending on what the pathology finds once they do the hysterectomy. So that's a bright side, at least.

So there are a lot of conflicting feelings going on here for me. 1) Keep the uterus and die of cancer? 2) Get rid of the uterus, live, but develop ovarian cancer and die? 3) Remove both the uterus and ovaries and be totally stripped of my womanhood but live? I don't know how to feel about any of those choices and it seems the key men in my life with whom I'd like to talk about the whole thing are being awfully tight-lipped, which is frustrating, especially the one from whom I want an educated medical opinion.

An Open Plea to my Blog Stalker:

2012-01-24T06:40:00.000-06:00

Must Be a Slow Day at the Office...

2012-01-23T16:31:00.002-06:00

The gang at Balderdash & Verities is checkin' in on company time again...tsk tsk.

Once via phone (oh, but that tiny print is SO hard to read, so annoying) at 3:06, but see, I hadn't posted anything all day and now at 4:13 pm using the company IP address. Things must be wrapping up for the afternoon, with only one doc working, you get that afternoon boredom lag thing going on, it's almost the end of the day, not everyone's looking around....just checkin' in with the Offbeat Drummer....well, my internet was out most of the day, which prevented me from posting anything of breadth and tremendous wit. And I had a LOT of psychology homework to read for tomorrow, which I'm taking a brief break from right now, as I sip tea and take another dose of Norco because my freakin' tailbone winces in pain every time I cough, because I have pneumonia, which is clearing up smoothly. Had to take 2 more Lomotil too, since it's been one of THOSE days as well. Fortunately, I have a plentiful supply from my primary care physician.

The nice old ladies at church just dropped off a bouquet of leftover Sunday church flowers to my house. Kind of them, but where shall we put them, given the house is in upheaval due to bathroom remodeling? They're amazingly well-preserved, like a, say, dead body at a funeral home, another favorite stalking haunt, I've come to discover.

Tonight, I shan't be home, as I'm dining with one of my best gal pals, the irreplaceable Super Juls. We'll be in Uptown Park Ridge in case you want to follow me there and keep tabs on me in person. If you do, pick up the tab. Unemployment doesn't pay terribly well, and you know me...I don't eat much anyway.

Five Management Practices That Kill Employee Productivity

2012-01-22T16:03:00.003-06:00

Visit http://bit.ly/yD8k14 (you'll have to cut/paste the URL, sorry) for some great tips and information on how *not* to gaslight your employees as a supervisor.

By Marissa Brassfield, this article is concise and basic enough for even the most idiotic of supervisors to comprehend. It's about team-building, not destroying, and how to do it effectively. This would include, but is not limited to, spending half your work day stalking your former employees on their personal web sites. Though unemployed at present, I highly recommend these practices and wish they were adhered to even in the smallest of companies. It's not just about big corporations. While you're all at it, perhaps a poster in the common eating area about the Heimlich Maneuver just in case someone eating an apple, let's say, chokes on company time and nobody knows what to do, you know, so the EEOC doesn't come in and fine anyone unnecessarily.

Brassfield writes:

"Effective leaders set their teams up for success. This requires that they avoid any management practices that could potentially kill employee productivity. Inept leadership styles come in all flavors, from the disorganized or forgetful boss to the extreme micromanager. Here are five practices that are guaranteed to sink your workers’ efficiency — and the alternatives to supercharge it."

*I found this particular tactic very important, as I had experience with it....**

**1. Fearmongering

Fear is a powerful motivator, but managers who regularly threaten job security and employees’ livelihood run the risk of paralyzing their team. Employees who are afraid to lose their job may bow under pressure, waste company time looking for jobs “just in case” or gossip with coworkers — all activities that kill morale and decrease productivity.

Instead, cultivate a culture centered on trust, respect and engagement. Such a work environment encourages growth, learning from one’s mistakes and effective communication. Engaged workers who aren’t afraid of being fired can relax and focus on doing their best work. Similarly, disengaged workers can destroy team morale from within.

Don't Even THINK About Putting Up A Site About Me Like This, Freaks!

2012-01-22T14:55:00.006-06:00

A fellow courageous blogger whom I respect highly, Natasha Tracy (natashatracy.com), is encountering a HELL of a fight from a site that was put up specifically to hurt and badger not only her PERSONALLY but also the already misunderstood and miss-and-falsely-judged bipolar community online.

Natasha, like me, blogs under her real name. She is unabashedly unafraid, and I have nothing but praise about her blog. It's been a life-saver for me. She's won awards online for her healthcare information and her heartfelt posts about living with bipolar disorder.

Instead of sympathy, empathy and understanding, we who live with bipolar and struggle on a daily basis are teased, looked down upon, modeled as "crazy," and that's not only by the professional community--our own families and friends are capable of gross insensitivity as well.

Natasha's fight back is located here: http://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/breakingbipolar/2012/01/hatred-towards-the-bipolar-community/ Natasha says, "Bipolar hurts. Bipolar is pain. Bipolar is, at times, unbearable pain. Anyone who would make fun of that isn’t funny. They are sick. And I am tired of their sickness."

We refuse to divulge the URL of the hatred site. The last thing it needs is more fodder for making fun of bipolar patients.

I was and continue to be the recipient of enough flack and misunderstanding about my condition from people I know. I don't need to take part in a site that promotes hatred of bipolars, when we're not asking for the moon. We're not asking to be treated any differently than anyone else. When we're manic and/or depressive, we're not begging for sympathy. We just wanted to be treated normally, within the realms of reasonable accommodation in the home, the workplace and socially.

**And as a sidenote, to whomever Googled "Miklasz Affair Boss," you're REALLY on the wrong track, there, pal. At 6:41 in the morning? Who wakes up and has my personal affairs, legitimate or illegitimate on their minds other than someone who's clearly sick in his/her own head? That's starting to fuck around with me and MY friends, and that's just unacceptable. Just like I will not stand for hatred towards the bipolar community, I will stand solid against being even remotely accused of having an affair with anyone I may or may not have worked for.

I can't conclusively prove that it was my usual Ms. Blog Stalker who performed the search, for the ISP was hidden, but the person was directed to a blog I wrote about the fact that I indeed do have an APPROPRIATE, solid FRIENDSHIP with one of my former bosses, point blank, and what became of our Christmas gifts to one another ("If I Fell," 12/30/2011). To he and I, it's no secret nor should it be. We are not ashamed of our friendship. We aren't overt and gooey about it, but we certainly deserve no flack as a result. All water under the bridge at this point, since now we're free just to be friends without the hassle of protecting our professional relations, which was always paramount in our friendship, and doesn't have to be a constraint we worry about anymore. The blog was entitled "If I Fell" and included the Beatles' video as a flip on words--because I'd fallen down the stairs recently, fracturing my tailbone, which the practice asked me about the night they fired me and I said that it hurt. A lot. It had nothing to do with falling in or out of love...with anyone.

The blog above "If I Fell," called "I Got the Blues," (also 12/30/2011), referenced a Rolling Stones song that my best male friend had sent me that he dedicated to me, my Tatus, and loosely, to my ex-boyfriend, Chris. He wanted to make 3 things clear: he wished we were together and was feeling down that we weren't and he had the blues as a result, he was wishing I was safe in the arms of a guy "who will bring you alive," (my Tatus, who does, as a friend) and "won't drag you down with abuse," (like my ex-boyfriend). That is all.

HA! What just popped up on Pandora? Animotion's "Obsession." Perfect end note right here.

Again, visit natashatracy.com for the Bipolar Burble and take a stand for those of us whose voices are not being heard about the facts and fallacies of living with bipolar disorder, and if there's something you're dying to know about me and my life, just fucking ask me. Quit googling and searching and nitpicking my life to death.

"I Refuse to Be Discouraged..."

2012-01-21T22:36:00.002-06:00

I Refuse to Be Discouraged

I refuse to be discouraged,
To be sad, or to cry;
I refuse to be downhearted,
And here's the reason why . . .
I have a God who's mighty,
Who's sovereign and supreme;
I have a God who loves me,
And I am on His team.
He is all wise and powerful,
Jesus is His name;
Though everything is changeable,
My God remains the same.
My God knows all that's happening,
Beginning to end.
His presence is my comfort,
He is my dearest friend.

When sickness comes to weaken me,
To bring my head down low,
I call upon my mighty God;
Into His arms I go.
When circumstances threaten
To rob me from my peace,
He draws me close unto His breast,
Where all my strivings cease.
And when my heart melts within me,
And weakness takes control,
He gathers me into His arms,
He soothes my heart and soul.
The great "I AM" is with me,
My life is in His hands,
The "Son of the Lord" is my hope,
It's in His strength I stand.

I refuse to be defeated,
My eyes are on my God;
He has promised to be with me,
As through this life I trod.
I'm looking past all my circumstances,
To Heaven's throne above;
My prayers have reached the heart of God,
I'm resting in His love.
I give God thanks in everything,
My eyes are on his face;
The battle's His, the victory is mine;
He'll help me win the race.

Author Unknown

My Route To Help. Another Route for You to Stalk!

2012-01-21T21:31:00.003-06:00

Today is my 47-month sobriety anniversary. You know what that means next month, don't you? The big 4 years!!! You'd have to go back away's in my blog (which I'm sure at least one of you will) to find the counter I snapped into the blog that counts how many years, months, days, hours and seconds it's been since my last drink. It's always fun to see. I think that blog was called "But Who's Counting?" or something like that. Anyway...

The UK-based blog to which I contribute has it's own URL now...

http://www.myroutetohelp.co.uk/author/anniearchy/

This is strictly a drug/alcohol/recovery web site for those of you who are following up with my recovery stories, articles and reviews I stumble upon regarding treatments, experiences, et al. After all, recovery and addiction are two of my passions, what I am making a career out of...my calling from God above...to help out people who were in my situation.

A lot of my articles on My Route to Help will just redirect you back to this blog site after you read my drug and alcohol related posts, so for those of you who are obsessed with me, I've just given you another avenue by which to stalk me, which I can, naturally, still track. Even on smartphones! I know, on smartphones, the type is so hard to read, and when you blow it up, it's all messed up with the blog background, so sorry for that.

And you have to click "continue reading" to read the whole article..only the 1st paragraph is shown on the author page...just trying to make things easier for ya'll!

Seriously Another 1 hour, 3 minutes and 50 seconds reading 16 of my blog posts tonight from your other computer, presumably at either your other job or your house? Plus 3 visits from the smartphone? Must be one slow life...

Luke vs Larry Hagman in The Growth Battle

2012-01-20T14:36:00.005-06:00

Sequentially, the photos of Luke on his 10th, 11th and 12th birthdays at TGIFridays...no fair on his 11th birthday, because he was leaning on one knee on the bench, but look at how tall he's getting! And he's losing that "little boy" look in his face and is looking closer to a teenager (not to mention acting like one). "Big 'Dallas' fans, are you?" the manager asked us this year. "No," I said, we just always take his birthday picture next to the Larry Hagman picture. It's a tradition," I answered. The manager thought we were nuts. "Is that a 'Dallas' t-shirt you're wearing?", he asked Luke. Luke said, "Uh, no, it's DOCTOR WHO." "Oh, old or new?" "New," Luke said. (As if this manager had a semblance of a clue.) "Heh." And we walked away.

People keep telling me Luke's starting to look more like me and less like Craig. But I'm sorry, I still think he looks exactly like his father, and nothing like me, except for his hair and eye color, and totally my personality (hoping to God he doesn't get the crazy-nutso-addict genes activated during his lifetime; otherwise, he's totally cool.)

Craig's girlfriend mentioned they're bringing "Dallas" back to television, and that Hagman will reprise his role as J.R. Ewing. "He got a new liver!" I told my mother. Hagman is a recovering alcoholic like me. Normally, alchys don't get new livers after cirrhosis, so apparently money and fame CAN buy you a second chance at life...

For Christopher...

2012-01-20T11:53:00.003-06:00

You pretended to be a noble man,
A rescuer of tortured souls.
But yours was not a selfless plan,
Your quest was actually rather bold,
You are in fact a very selfish man,
And your heart is empty, dark and cold.

You told them that I am crazy,
That I'm an evil thing who lies.
Then you told them you're amazing
You even let them see you "cry".
But I know what your game is,
And I'll not let you fool them twice.

You see, I have a plan in place this time,
And wisdom strengthens my resolve.
I intend to lay it all on the line,
My whole story must be told.
So I'll not sit alone in fear and cry,
I'll show my courage, I will be bold.

Your past success was in fooling people,
They were shown a gallant knight in armor.
Now my knowledge and understanding is deeper,
And I can expose you for what you are.
This time I won't be meek and feeble,
I'll prove that you're a tin-foil-clad retard!

(A fun but genuine tribute to the Facebook page "Sometimes your knight in shining armor is just a retard in tin foil", AND to the ex's of all those women who can relate to that statement };-D
Copyright © 2010 Mel Stewart, "safe-at-last" and Licensors Nodtronics Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.)

By: STOP the Violence Against Women & Children

Nothing is Real. And Nothing to Get Hung About.

2012-01-19T16:05:00.012-06:00

Luke stopped at home to pick up his stuff for Daddy's for the weekend, and was exuberant to rush into the house and find me a) here at all and b) awake in the dining room. Despite my best efforts to shout "STAY AWAY FROM ME!" he hugged me with tear-jerking enthusiasm, saying that he'd written a note on a piece of paper, having given it to his teacher, to pray that I wouldn't have to go to the hospital today. He doesn't like to admit it, but it scares him a lot when I take my all-too-frequent trips to the hospital, and believe me, I narrowly escaped it this time. He said he needed an extra-big hug when he left with The Other Grandma (the Jack Daniel's slinger) for the weekend. Thank GOD I don't have to take care of a child this weekend and can recuperate in relative peace, as every time I cough, I wince in the pain of my busted tailbone. One. Hot. Mess.

It started out with a little case of the sniffles a few days ago. Now I have bacterial pneumonia. My oxygen saturation was at 90% on room air today, which isn't terrific, but it was enough air flowing through the lungs not to require me hooked up to oxygen. Stosh asked me *how* I felt, given he said I "didn't look all that bad." (High praise, since I was in my pajamas and didn't do my hair and was wearing my dorky hat and had glazed over eyes. I had to point out how swollen and icky looking my right eye still looked from last week's me vs. bathtub whacking pass-out incident.) I told him I felt like shit. He listened to me, and said, "You're right. You sound like crap." But I must say, since the 103 fever broke into the 99's, and the cough got baby-shit green productive (TMI), and the antibiotics and steroids are starting to work, I feel marginally less-like-death. I've been up since 5:00 am, when I woke up and heard my lungs creaking like an old door, barely able to breathe until I reached for my albuterol inhaler in the dark.

I have a dinner planned with Super Juls on Monday night, that I hope to at least be 75% for, and school Tuesday, therapy later in the week...just so much on the agenda that I don't have time for this. I had a grand plan of going back to my favorite AA meeting tomorrow night with my high school best friend, and we set up child care and everything for her baby with my mom, but I'm too sick to make it, so alas, it'll have to wait until the next weekend I have neither Luke nor band. I should be on a plane checking in on my sick best male friend, who's in trouble, and I can't do that either. I feel helpless.

Ma and I spent the morning at the hospital/medical offices building dodging anyone and everyone who might be associated with the HQ of Balderdash & Verities, who at this point CLEARLY have absolutely NOTHING better to do than nitpick the fine-haired details of my life and loves. I just want to go to grad school and raise my boy and get healthy and be left alone to get better, not to be made worse, either physically or psychologically. Pneumonia is sidetracking me now, and appointments with my Stephen minister had to be cancelled, I haven't been able to practice my new drum tunes for church (partly because of how much it hurts to sit on my drum throne and partly because of the pneumonia), blah blah blah.

Granted, the head of HQ did say that I was the most interesting character to ever walk through the doors, but really, am I *that* interesting? To me, anyway, it's all just semantics. It's just "stuff." It's over. Move on. Instead of turning this into a giant pissing contest of who did whom wrong first and whose sin was worse than the other's is irrelevant. I'm quite busy rebuilding my life AGAIN and trying to get where I want and need to go, and I left there with one true friend, who I want in my life forever. That's about it. My former so-called superior spent 1 hour, 24 minutes and 31 seconds on my blog on company time this morning, followed by another 7 minutes right before lunch. That's just bullshit.

Some might accuse me of cross-obsession about this particular person who is stalking my blog. Why did I employ blog-tracking software to begin with? Because I was scared of my ex-boyfriend. It's a natural component of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Chris was many things, but dumb was not one of them. If he's still reading the blog, he's at least, and it's not difficult, figured out how to browse it anonymously, or at least from an IP that my host doesn't recognize and I can't take the time to research. Quite frankly, I'm still scared of him and what he's capable of, and I wish to GOD I could warn any woman in his path about what a jerk he is.

I'm not boasting when I say that I firmly agree that I was, in all likelihood, the most interesting character to ever work for Balderdash & Verities. But that's exactly what I am: a character. the main character in a years-long battle with life.

This blog, Rhythms from the Offbeat Drummer, could be an online diary of sorts. It could be a play-by-play of my entire life, out there for the whole internet to read. Sometimes there is a point to the story and sometimes, ultimately, the point is nothing at all. The stories are vibrant, colorful, vivid and imaginative, well-told and quoted. But what in this entire blog, on this giant websphere, is truth and what is fiction? What is conjecture and what is factual? What is balderdash and what are verities? I have a degree in creative writing. Hence, only I know.

Yes, my real name is Andrea Miklasz. What I write, what I express, is my own personal creativity and opinions. Those of you who read me regularly and are my close friends can easily and readily separate the bullshit versus the truth. Those of you who *Think* you know me well will have to guess.

Through insider information, I found out that personal internet use at Balderdash & Verities has been totally banned, and that if certain parties want to read my blog, they'll have to do it at home and clock out of work, or do it on their own, not the company's time, and that no one at the company has the right to spy on a former employee's personal life. Clearly broken down, my blog stalker spent an additional 31 minutes on my blog at her 2nd job last night, emailing more of my posts to people and reading my missives (including one I wrote about actor Daniel Craig in 2008 or something-whoa going back in the archives, I see!). I can't stop her from spying on my blog at her 2nd job or at home, though I can track those as well, but at least I feel free to write again, without worrying about being blackmailed. A small victory for me and a larger victory for personal privacy of bloggers in general, who want to be read but don't want to be harassed.

Hooray for personal privacy and a large victory for the little blogger girl!

I was assured that no one at Balderdash & Verities was out to get my on anything, and that calms my soul and re-opens my heart to posting my thoughts and feelings again, instead of drowning in a sea of doubt and fright of "Oh my, what will they find next to use against me?" The answer is nothing. It is all none of their business.

Now back to our regular story telling! :) :)

Shouldn't These Two People Be REALLY Pissed Off At One Another?

2012-01-18T20:10:00.005-06:00

The pros/cons of listening to the "70's Lite Rock Radio" channel on Pandora: They play a lot of cheesy oldies that I admittedly do still enjoy, and it's sometimes a nice mind-numb'er after listening to the more intricate melodies of the self-designed Flaming Lips channel I created. The bad part? Ok, you can either "thumbs-up" or "thumbs-down" any given song. If you thumbs-down it, Pandora won't play it again. But you're only allowed, through licensing and copyright laws, to thumbs-down like 5 songs every hour or two, after which Pandora apologizes but tells you "you're sort of stuck here until the song's over...either change the channel or go to the bathroom or DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE WITH YOUR LIFE INSTEAD OF DICKING AROUND ON THE INTERNET."

I made the mistake of "thumbs-upping" "Escape: The Pina Colada Song" by Rupert Holmes. It's a song I used to roller skate to in my basement when I was a kid. It's a gooey, sentimental wonder that admittedly makes me lose ANY shred of punk street credibility I had going on, but whatever. I heard it today, and took the time to actually listen to it. I analyzed it a little in my mind. Here, take a listen for yourselves:

I was tired of my lady, we'd been together too long.
Like a worn-out recording, of a favorite song.
So while she lay there sleeping, I read the paper in bed.
And in the personals column, there was this letter I read:

"If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
If you're not into yoga, if you have half-a-brain.
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape.
I'm the lady you've looked for, write to me, and escape."

I didn't think about my lady, I know that sounds kind of mean.
But me and my old lady, had fallen into the same old dull routine.
So I wrote to the paper, took out a personal ad.
And though I'm nobody's poet, I thought it wasn't half-bad.

"Yes, I like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
I'm not much into health food, I am into champagne.
I've got to meet you by tomorrow noon, and cut through all this red tape.
At a bar called O'Malley's, where we'll plan our escape."

So I waited with high hopes, then she walked in the place.
I knew her smile in an instant, I knew the curve of her face.
It was my own lovely lady, and she said, "Oh, it's you."
And we laughed for a moment, and I said, "I never knew"..

"That you liked Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
And the feel of the ocean, and the taste of champagne.
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape.
You're the love that I've looked for, come with me, and escape."

"If you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
If you're not into yoga, if you have half-a-brain.
If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the cape.
You're the love that I've looked for, come with me, and escape."

1. The couple is lying in bed...she's asleep; their dog, Bingo, is happily wagging his tail lying betwixt the seemingly happy couple, and he's looking at her like, "Enough of you and your string of pearls, Leather Face, I'm gonna scope out riot grrls in the paper and if you wake up, well, at least I've used the cover of the NY Times Book Review section as a distraction. If I have to hear about what's on sale at Trader Joe's one more fucking time or how our dry cleaner couldn't get the wine stain out of my white shirt, I'll drown myself in a tub full of bourbon."

Listen, I know all about being tired of your old man/lady after too many years together, and I'm all about following your bliss and if you meet someone else who knocks you out, do what you WANT, not what puritanical society thinks you SHOULD. Some relationships either burn out or just fizzle to a complacent friendship, especially once your brood is all grown up and the kids don't need Mom and Dad to take care of them anymore, which admit it, was half the reason you were married and tolerated one another that long to begin with. That's nobody's fault, per se, and it doesn't happen to everyone, and maybe I listen to too much John Lennon, but that's just my opinion.

2. Assuming they're still even *having* sex, wouldn't it stand to reason they would both *already* know they enjoy making love at midnight, with or without the "dunes of the cape?" Oh wait. Neither of them has watched "Annie Hall" in 20 years. Never mind.

3. The husband/partner takes out his own personal ad. Aren't they now fighting over who gets the personals' section first to check on their respective ads when the paper comes in the morning and they're having their coffee and kissing one another farewell for the day? Oh wait. They stopped THAT bullshit 15 years ago, when they were too busy carpooling and working and walking Bingo to enjoy quiet morning moments together. Never mind.

4. Her personal ad declares a distaste for yoga practitioners. His personal ad reveals that he eats like a pig and snarfs down champagne. I'm not sure that's what she was looking for, but what the hell? She is so out of sync with her fella that she doesn't already know what he likes? *I'm* a lot more simpatico with men's tastes and tendencies with men I've never lived with. Let's face it , honey, this has DEAD SHARK written all over it.

5. So he's at O'Malleys, after essentially telling her in his response to her ad that he wants to cut the crap and get it on with her. Now, if I were the guy, and my wife didn't know I was already looking for a new partner, her appearance at the bar where I said I would meet my soon-to-be affair partner would SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF ME. But Holmes' Lothario remarks about the blessed discovery of seeing his wife at the bar, and they glibly retort back to one another "Aw, it's YOU!" This is the big point of discontent I have with the story line of this song. This is where I envision the two of them ripping one another's lungs out for planning on cheating on one another.

6. And what, now she's "his own lovely lady?" Just weeks (presumably) before, he was trying not to sound mean, but that he and his old lady's fizzle had fuzzled and it was time for him to seek out some new excitement without her. He's not mad at her for placing the personal ad in the first place, and she's not mad at him for responding to a (lie) single woman's personal ad.

7. We never find out what happens to the couple after their meeting in La-La Land. Keep in mind, this song was written long before the term "friends with benefits" was coined. This was more in the wife-swapping or key-party era for those into such kink outside of their main relationships. But if that were my husband, and I actually gave a damn anymore, I'd make sure that when he touched the feel of the ocean with his glug of champagne, I'd put cement boots on him and cast his sorry ass away to be eaten by sharks. If I didn't give a damn, I would've just left him at O'Malley's and wished him good luck, whilst going home and starting to look for apartments on Craigslist.

Call me crazy, but if I were part of this couple and I wanted to maintain my relationship with my husband, I sure as hell wouldn't want to get caught meeting HIM on a blind date in a bar where HE is looking for a hookup. It just sounds so fucking complicated, you know? They need therapy or to get a separation/divorce, point blank. Because if he scoped out one babe in the papers, chicky, he'll scope out another one, most likely when he's drunk on champagne and you're at work.

It's too bad the song ends before you can see if they ripped one another's throats out and speed dialed their respective divorce attorneys after they got back home. The most knowledge that was garnered for them as a couple through this experiment was for each one to find that a) they both like Pina Coladas (eeew, coconut!) and making love at midnight. My best to them if they succeed under such strained and unusual conditions. Did they ever forgive the other for the attempt at cheating?

What the fuck?

SOPA Breaks the Internet

2012-01-18T19:02:00.003-06:00

On the topic on censorship, I'd just like to say █ █████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ████████ █ █████ ████ ███uckin██ ██ ███████████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████ █████ ███████ █??████ ██ █ ██████ █ ██ ███████████ █ ███████ █ ██ ████████ █ ████ █████therless███ ███████ █████ ██ lene██ ███reading my blog for 19 minutes███ ███████ ███████ ███ ██ ██ ██ards█████ ██ █████ ███CKING!!!█ ███ ████ ██ ████████ █ █████ ████ ██████ ██Balderdash & Verities ███████████ ██████████ ██ ████ ████ █████ ███████ ██ght?!

This About Sums Up Today.

2012-01-18T15:54:00.000-06:00

Rescue Me

2012-01-18T13:34:00.007-06:00

I'm supposed to take my rescue inhaler every 4 hours as needed, 2 puffs. But whaddya do when you have intense shortness of breath, a 103 fever, you make loud noises in your lungs when you exhale (rattles) and your doctor is booked for the next 2 days? Back at Balderdash & Verities (my new nickname for the medical practice), we'd advise the patient to go to the immediate care center or, if it was really after hours, the dreaded ER, unless they waited for a call from the doctor (which I am now). I know what'll knock this out of me--a strong antibiotic, a week's worth of Prednisone (a steroid), and lots of rest. My cough is productive, so I don't want a cough suppressant. I can never just catch a cold like Luke does....colds go right to my lungs and I have asthma and I smoke, so that's a whammy of ick stacked against me and I end up like death within a quick shot of time. Had I been working, this would've definitely been a sick day. But alas, I'm offered the luxury of staying home in my multiple clothing layers left alone, except for my mom, who is so germ-a-phobic, she handed me a cup of soup with gloves on.

Poor Luke. He was extra love-a-riffic this morning. I woke him up at 7:15am, and told him to please be a good boy this morning and get ready for school because I was really sick. I told him how high my fever was, and I could barely move. I got his clothes out and he got up like a trooper, didn't dawdle and got ready for Grandma to take him to school. "Is this my fault?" he asked me, because he had a cold all last week. "No, honey, it's not your fault," I sympathetically replied. "I'm asthmatic and I smoke, so any cold I get goes right to my lungs," I told him. (I was TOO SICK TO SMOKE THIS MORNING. That's pretty fucking sick.) I was falling asleep on the couch as he got ready for school, so when he left he kissed my forehead and said, "I hope you feel better, Mommy." I thanked him and he worriedly left for school. He's coming home in less than an hour and I hope when he at least sees me upright (for the moment) that he'll be reassured that I'll be ok. My fever went down to 100.4, which is better, but I still feel like crap.

Depending on how late Stosh calls, I might end up at Immediate Care tonight. That would suck, but I'd get a breathing treatment out of it, which would be nice. Every time I cough, it hurts my broken tailbone. This is so not-pleasant.

I had no idea this was coming on, apart from the slight runny nose I had over the last week, that I thought was either a) just being out in the cold or b) a little cold from Luke. I had no idea it would transform into such a severe case so quickly.

I felt fine at school last night, which, by the way, turned out to be a total bust. The class patiently waited half an hour for the professor to show up, only to be stranded. A student went down to the office and asked what we should do. We were instructed to all write our names on a piece of paper that we were in attendance, and come back next week, turning that sheet into the office, so we all did. Got an email from the professor this afternoon that she "transposed" her class days, thinking she had class on Mondays and not Tuesdays, and apologized for not being there last night. She still assigned the first 2 chapters of the book to read for next week. Great. Between that and her 13-page syllabus attached, this is one tough cookie. But come on, the only prerequisite for Abnormal Psychology was to get a D or better in Intro to Psych, and I got a 99%, an A. I should do just dandily. Poised and ready to go to school last night at a campus I've never attended, I arrived an hour early, parked strategically near the smoking-friendly area, walked up the stairs and magically, my classroom was right there. It couldn't have gone any more smoothly. Well, except for that whole no-professor bullshit. That wasn't cool. But I got caught up on my texts for the early evening while waiting, and while one student was busy perusing the textbook, I leaned over and said out loud, "You know, I *have* half of what's in that book, just sayin'." Already labeling myself as the class lunatic. That's ok, I came out to my class as an alcoholic during my oral presentation on Antabuse the 2nd week of Intro to Psych last spring.

Despite my coy sort-of-warning, my blog stalker (see "I Love My Blog Tracking Software, Part 3"), who is too dense to apparently realize that I'm watching her, still checks in on my blog like 4-5 times a day, which seems excessive, doesn't it? I write a lot, but sheesh, give me a chance to do an update already, sister. I've chalked it up to either a) she's really, really dumber than I gave her credit for being in the dumb department, knowing I'm tracking her visits, or b) she's doing it just to fuck with me and be a bully and creep on my blog. She's over at Balderdash & Verities and I honestly would hope she had better things to do than creep on cute pictures of my nephew, pour through comments about my Luke birthing story or whatever-the-fuck it is she thinks she's looking for or wants to incriminate me with. My cousin Paul was right, the internet is free and public and I have no right to police who reads my blog or anything, but I know who this particular person is, and frankly, she's icking me out. And she KEEPS Googling my name misspelled. I don't know what's the most irritating about the whole situation--her creeping or not being able to get MIKLASZ down after spying on me since the first week of January. Seriously, today alone there were 7 visits from the office ISP to my blog, the longest being a 19 minute visit. Hmm, well, when we'd get caught staring out the window of the office for 20 seconds, we'd get into trouble, but I guess since she's in charge, it's ok for her to spend half the work day (and you'd think they'd be swamped without me--I guess I was that expendable!) creeping on my blog.

Most people think I should be a lot angrier at my Tatus than I am, given he was one of the kingpins who worked to get me fired on a technicality, and the more I think about it, it was sort of a gang-up, minus the one guy who had the issue with me in the first place, who magically had thrown his back out that day and wasn't in the office to give me the boot. Had he been there, I probably would've had it out with him, if the shock had worn off, and I would've defended myself a lot better than I did at the gang confrontation with all the doctors, my Tatus included.

But I'm not mad at him. I wanted to go to school and get my doctorate and do what I was meant to do, not stay there for the rest of my life in a go-nowhere position and this was the time and opportunity for me to leave and be forced into jump-starting my REAL career. Instead, I miss him fiercely, though we talk pretty regularly, though we haven't seen one another since that awful night, when I flat out asked him if he still loved me, and he told me he did, but that he was disappointed in me and thought I had my shit together more than he thought I did. An unfair statement to make, since in the historical annals of Annie Having Her Shit Together, I'm about at peak performance right now. Time is flying in January and it's looking like my Tatus and I won't have until February to get together, despite our best efforts at scheduling, when we're getting together to celebrate my 4 years of sobriety with dinner and my first tattoos at some point when he's not on a men's retreat with his church. A men's retreat for Catholic guys? Sounds like a lot of beer drinking and ice fishing and a chance to get away from the missus for a few days, I don't know. I wonder how much of the Bible will get employed. None of my business; I'm just curious. I'm holding him to the promise of never abandoning me and still being my friend. I took those sentiments very seriously.

It was a simple lack of or miss-communication that I couldn't have any refills of a mild, innocuous diarrhea pill that's more effective when over-the-counter Immodium doesn't help your atomic diarrhea that's the bottom line at Balderdash & Verities. I researched the drug in question, Lomotil. You'd have to take like 30 at a time to get any kind of buzz off them, and the other inert ingredient in Lomotil, atropine, would give you a heart attack in the meantime, so the drug is marketed as nearly abuse-resistant. I found that on the internet in 5 minutes. The doctors I worked for didn't know that off the top of their heads? I guess when you get your medical degree in Guadalajara, like the one with the thrown out back...

I have some meager profit sharing due me, and I'm having trouble getting it out. This-broker-needs-to-talk-to-this-accountant-then-call-me-back bullshit. So I wait. I was only vested for a few months, so I'm sure I don't have all that much saved in it, and I could honestly use the dough to live off of now, as opposed to rolling it over into an investment, even given the hefty 10% tax from the IRS.

It was great at Luke's birthday dinner at TGIFridays on Monday night with me, my mom, Luke, Craig, his girlfriend, and The Other Grandma, who is fucknuts. After being told she wasn't welcome in my home until she apologized to my son for yelling at him when he was coughing and had no control over his actions, she didn't show up to his kids' party on Sunday. At dinner, we were forced somehow to sit next to one another, whereupon she decided to order a Jack Daniels on the rocks just to irritate the fuck out of me. Had she ordered a more socially acceptable drink like a glass of wine, I wouldn't have seen it as a big deal at all. But no one else was drinking. It was a 12-year old's birthday dinner. Don't think her gesture went unnoticed by either myself or my sharp son: he came up to me as I was getting my coat on and said, "How about Grandma's gratuitous cocktail?" and I just shrugged. I texted my best high school friend, also a recovering alcoholic, to tell her what was happening, and she just responded, "Bitch." Exactly. The whole dinner was tense, though when I'm out with my ex and his girlfriend and Luke, I do just fine. I really like the girlfriend, it's just The Other Grandma that drives me crazy, because she's bipolar and refusing treatment, relying on voodoo shrinks and new-age seminars that don't seem to be working terribly well. We started talking about her Twitter account, where she keeps up with other fans of American Idol winner Lee DeWyze's life and garbage, and tweets to him like she's a teenager in love with David Cassidy. Luke asked her how many followers she has, and she said something like "28." "And who are they?" Luke asked. "All 'Lee People'," she said. She can't tell that I, with my full, real name, am following her on Twitter and laughing hysterically at her posts? Silly, silly woman. Maybe she can't see I'm a follower since my Tweets are protected and secured, and only people given permission by me can see what I tweet (you think I swear a lot here and on Facebook? Fuck.)

The upshot of the TGIFridays experience was that we got Luke's annual "How Tall Am I in Comparison to Larry Hagman" photo, as seen here. He was measured at the doctor on Saturday, where I took him only to find out he indeed had a cold and there was nothing I could do about it, and he's officially 5'3" at this point. No wonder he's got growing pains in his knees. Big fella, our Luke's gonna be.

Hire This Young Man To Model..

2012-01-17T08:30:00.004-06:00

I'm a little bit biased because I'm his aunt, but I totally think my nephew, Jake, who is 19, should be modeling for J Crew or something. He's just so damn photogenic!

Hey, Cindy Crawford was originally from De Kalb too!

Hire this young man--he needs a new set of wheels!

With No Disrespect to Martin Luther King, Jr, BUT....

2012-01-16T17:04:00.003-06:00

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

How does that explain my careening down an entire flight of stairs? It sure as shit wasn't a leap of faith. I thought I was awake and just hunting for the light when I slipped and missed the step and fell down the whole flight of stairs. My doctor argues that I passed out again, thereby breaking my tailbone. When I knocked my head on the tub, THEN I KNEW I blacked out, because the only thing that woke me up was the head bash. Otherwise, I was clueless.

Oh, if it's faith, I've got plenty. People at church keep calling me Job. "You're Job." "Read Job." My girlfriend said that Job went through all this horrible shit (she didn't say "shit," I'm paraphrasing) yet never lost his faith in God. I haven't lost my faith in God, either. If anything, I think God is being really fucking obvious with me in twisting my life into a new path, albeit a difficult and challenging path.

My best male friend is on a very dangerous and daunting path right now, and I'm trying my best to love him and support him without compromising my own health and stability. What started out as a silly, random but valid little argument about my family spiraled into drunken calls at 3am (his drunkenness, not mine), arguments on a grand scale and more ick than I care to delve into in this medium. Suffice it to say, he and I have been through the Heaviest of Shit together since the inception of our kinship, and this test of our love for one another is a) huge and b) drama I don't need right now and c) it'll be a miracle if we come through this both with our friendship, our romantic entanglement aside, intact.

Tomorrow, school starts. That's a very good thing. Unemployment is rolling along. Sweet. Pretty soon, I'll file my taxes and get some dough rolling into the camp, not that I'm not capable of surviving until then. My Tatus agreed to accompany me to a tattoo parlor. I reunited with my best high school friend. Tonight, I'm celebrating not only that my son turned 12 today, but that I fucking survived to see it happen, when the odds were immeasurably stacked against me time and time again.

I don't have to deal with the the multiple, constricting verities and balderdash of the medical practice stressing me out anymore, and can concentrate on my studies and career, my health, my kid, my sobriety and AA, my writing & music and my therapy.

So, MLK JR, I'll keep taking those leaps of faith, now enhanced by a nightlight in the bathroom that illuminates the hallway, and I'll refresh my knowledge of the book of Job, but I'm not giving up just yet.

Reflections on Luke's 12th Birthday

2012-01-16T08:13:00.009-06:00

Today, my son is turning 12. This is his last year of childhood and next year, he'll be a teenager. An adolescent. Oof.

Craig, my ma and I spent the evening of January 15, 2000 at my Aunt Pat and Uncle Jerry's house for dinner and to go through some hand-me-down baby clothes (onesies, useful stuff) from my cousin. I honestly thought I'd have the baby that night, the contractions were so strong that we were timing them. I remember being on the floor, hunched over my aunt's ottoman in pain. But the contractions went away. It was a Saturday night, so I didn't go get checked out at the hospital, plus I wasn't due for another 2 weeks, so I chalked it up to Braxton-Hicks contractions and went back to my meatballs.

That baby REFUSED to move out of the breech position, with his head cramped into my rib cage for MONTHS. The OB kept telling me the longer I was pregnant like that, the less the chances were that the baby would turn and be head-down and I'd be able to deliver vaginally. I guess I know where Luke gets his stubborn streak from.

So on January 16, 2000, Craig and I decided we'd get out for one more "date" before the baby came. The nursery was ready, the bag for the hospital was packed, and I was dying to see the movie "Magnolia," by one of my favorite directors, Paul Thomas Anderson. Craig and I went to the 12:30 showing of the film, and I inhaled some popcorn and purchased a 44 oz vat of Coke.

The film is 3 1/2 hours long. I was sitting uncomfortably in my theater seat, unable to get into a pleasant position. The contractions were starting again, but I didn't want to alarm Craig during the movie, and I damnit, wanted to see how this film ended, so there we sat. I was fidgety, and going "ooh" and "aah" quietly to myself. The film finally ended and we were leaving the theater.

"Craig, we need to call Dr. Kismartoni NOW." "Why? What's wrong?" Craig asked me. "I think I'm in labor," I said. "Labor! I thought you were just bitching like you always do!" he replied. We didn't have cell phones back then, so we went back to our apartment and had the doctor paged. We got the bags and headed to Resurrection.

On a Sunday night, it's not chaotic at the hospital. The security guard, who was this enormous African-American woman, got me a wheelchair and she said, "You're gonna have a baby!" I said, "No, I'm going home. I'm just here to get checked out." "You' ain't leavin' this hospital until you have that baby, honey," the guard told me. Was it THAT obvious?

Even the OB nurses knew I wasn't leaving the hospital this time, though I'd been in for OB checks numerous times during my pregnancy. "What do you plan on naming the baby?" one asked me. "Lucas," I said. "And do you have the car seat ready for Lucas?" she asked. "Um, yeah...." "Good." She spunkily then went to page my doctor as I breathed through the increasing contractions.

Dr. Kismartoni met us in the OB ward and did a final ultrasound to confirm the baby's position and felt my cervix for dilation. I was 1cm dilated, 80% effaced and in early labor. The baby was in a double footling breech position with both feet caught in the birth canal at zero station. There was no way he was going to come out vaginally, so I was prepped for a c-section, which we already assumed I'd have anyway.

I told Craig to call Ma. He returned with bad news. "Your mom can't come to the hospital now. She's making a meatloaf." "MAKING A MEATLOAF!!?!" I said. "I'm HAVING THE BABY." Craig told me to calm down and assured me my mom would be there as soon as the meatloaf was done baking. I was out of my mind nervous and will never let my ma live that meatloaf down.

I remember the c-section vividly, though I was pretty drugged up. I spent most of the time chit-chatting with Dr. Rock (yes, that was his name), the anesthesiologist, and Craig remembers there being an inordinate amount of blood involved. They lifted the baby out of me at 7:28 pm and he let out the signature wail of "What the fuck is going on?" and thus was born Lucas Alexander Bechtel. They wrapped him up and briefly showed him to me as I lied on the operating table and I remember my first words to him, which were "Oh, look how cute you are!"

Craig and Luke, and by that time, Ma (the meatloaf was done), had gone away to get Luke cleaned and warmed up, and I asked Dr. Rock for an extra shot of Fentanyl because I said I was feeling pain, when in reality, come on. I'd spent the last 9 months clean, the 3 months prior to getting pregnant clean, and goddamnit, if there were narcotics I had access to, I was asking for them. So I did.

Dr. Kismartoni told his team of residents and med students to take a good look at my baby's position, at my body, that they'd "not see this again for a very long time." Apparently, a double footling breech is one of the weirdest and rarest presentations a baby can assume (which is only fitting for Luke). He was little--6 lbs, 6oz, and 18" long, 38 weeks' gestation, so just about full-term.

They finished sewing me back together, after showing me my uterus, that they'd taken halfway out of my body to massage and contract it back to normal size (the same uterus that I'm having removed because it's growing cancer). I was in recovery and they brought Luke to me and told me to try and feed him. Just having taken a breastfeeding course the week prior to his birth, I thought it'd be a breeze. It wasn't. Breastfeeding was a clusterfuck in general, and within days of his birth, my son was a formula-fed baby and still managed to grow up to be a healthy genius, so spare me the lactation, breast-is-best lecture.

Moved into our private room in the hospital finally, my mom spent some time with us and bid us farewell so Craig, Luke and I could rest and adjust to our new family. Craig was exhausted. The trendy thing at the turn of the century was "rooming-in," where, instead of your baby being in the nursery, looked after by the nurses so you can get some fucking rest, the baby is kept in your room with you, even if you've had a c-section. Once the anesthesia wore off, I felt, every time I moved to pick up the baby, that I was being ripped from stem to stern. Half the time, some nurse or doctor would come in and move him, so that I couldn't reach him when he was crying. Craig eventually had to go home, then had to go back to work, and I was in the hospital from Sunday until Thursday.

The day we were discharged, the nurse came in and said, "Where are his clothes?" and I got up and showed her the outfit I'd picked out months before to plan to take him home in, and I had his hat and (comparatively) giant snowsuit ready, and the aforementioned car seat basket was ready, and I told the nurse to dress him. "YOU dress him, you're his mother!" she insisted.

"I don't know how." I had no practice with babies. I didn't babysit babies when I was younger. I didn't know what to do with a newborn. I'd just started getting the diaper thing down. I couldn't even feed him properly--how was I supposed to dress him?

Sorry, Luke, if I twisted you around too much, buddy, but I got the outfit on you, and the hat and snowsuit, and took your newborn jaundiced, yellowed little body home to our apartment. I think Craig drove 5mph home to our house just 5 minutes away from the hospital, but once we were home, apart from the breastfeeding and jaundice problems (nothing a little natural sunlight didn't cure and a few honkin' bottles of formula), we settled in together, all 3 of us, as a family.

Amazingly, my best girlfriend, Kate, had called and left a message on our answering machine to check up on me at exactly 7:28 pm, the very moment Luke was born. We've always been astonished at that coincidence.

Things have changed a lot as the times have, and Luke's been through hell and gone with me in the 12 years--divorce, rehab, financial struggle, illness, you name it, but that child still loves and maybe even more importantly, respects his mother (and father).

We're sitting beside one another right now--Luke's building one of the big Lego sets he got for his birthday, and I'm writing, as usual. I'm trying to listen to music and he keeps interrupting my groove with his off-key, voice-is-changing melodies and annoyingly tapping his bare feet on the hardwood floor. (Please, Luke, if you think you have the signature Miklasz rhythm, we have work to do.)

"Quit posting things about me on the internet!" he says, as if he's entitled to an opinion.

"Why are we staring at one another?" he says. I don't know why we were looking at one another. "We have the fuck-ugliest couches in the whole world, you know that?" he tells me. (We've been over this 100 times. Yes, my son swears in front of me and only me, unless he swears with his friends, I don't know. But it's part of our vernacular, it works for us, and he's an otherwise very polite person to other people.)

"What's the difference between a burp and a belch, oh shit!! Where'd that Lego piece go?" he says. Yes, he's my child. But he's not my little boy anymore. He's a young man.

"Just the Two of Us" by Bill Withers, befittingly plays on Pandora.

At TGIFriday's tonight, we'll take our annual "How Much Taller Is Luke Than Larry Hagman' Cowboy Hat?" photo to see how much taller he's grown in a year, which has become an annual tradition the last 3 years, at dinner with both sides of the family.

Happy Birthday, Luke, and Happy Birthing Day to myself. Our future is ripe with possibilities and opportunities that we'll stick together for. He thinks I'm weird for blogging about his birthday and I think he's weird in general. But we're a good weird together. Luke is literally the one thing in my life I have managed not to utterly fuck up in some fashion or another.

Luke is gentle, a pacifist, an intellectual, an artist, a lover of knowledge. He's a fascinating person in which to engage in conversation when he opens up, being a little on the shy side, like both of his folks.

He asks me why I don't play with him more. Why I don't build Legos with him. I explained to him that I have spatial orientation problems and find Legos really aggravating to try and build, while he can barely look at instructions and build a 300-piece set in an hour. When he plays video games, they make me nauseated, so I can't watch them for any length of time. So at this stage of his life, we don't have much in common with one another to "play." That's kinda shitty, and I wish I could figure out more to do WITH him. We'd planned this summer to go to MA to visit Kate and my cousin Paul, but with me losing my job, I don't know that will happen. We can only hope. I hate to disappoint my son.

I hate to disappoint my son about lots of things, but I think since I got sober, I've been doing a damn good job of raising him right. I look forward to his teen years to watch him blossom into an even more unusual, unique individual....

Ripple

2012-01-16T07:52:00.002-06:00

My Tatus sent me a quote from this song on Saturday night, in between my band practice and playing for the church service. I was feeling low, and he'd read my blog about how I felt about leaving the medical practice, and it was, he said last night, from the Grateful Dead song, "Ripple." He said it's largely thought to be a song about faith. Just at the moment I needed it most.

I'm sending this out to my best male friend, who's also going through some really heavy shit right now. I didn't mean we couldn't be friends because you're drinking. I was trying to employ tough love and tell you, "Come back to me when you're sober." I didn't mean for you to get so hostile and angry towards me. I love you and want you to succeed and be healthy. If I have to fly down there to help you get your act together, I'll do whatever it takes.

Thank you and love you, Tatus!

What the Fuck is This, Anyway?

2012-01-14T22:10:00.004-06:00

This is my newest dorky hat. I launched a discussion on Facebook today as to WTF animal it might be. Guesses have ranged from a deer to a bumblebee to a funky lady bug with a bear face to a wingtailed raccoon. Your guesses are most welcome....

HYSteroscopy + HYSterectomy = Annie is HYSterical.

2012-01-14T08:09:00.010-06:00

I hadn't made my follow-up appointment about the D&C I had 3 weeks ago, and I hadn't heard from the gyno what the pathology results were, so I assumed they were fine.

But she wanted to tell me in person as opposed to doing it over the phone. That's never a good sign.

"What did the pathology show?" I asked.

"Well, I was quite surprised," the doctor said. "It showed you have complex endometrial hyperplasia with atypia."

"Uh....what is it and what do we do about THAT?" I asked.

She then proceeded to tell me that I had a large growth of aggressive pre-cancrous cells in my uterus and it needs to be removed--a hysterectomy. She also said it was growing rapidly, and that full-on uterine cancer develops in 3-5% of patients who present with my condition, a risk that, she said, was actually very high to chance and leave alone when it can be cured with a hysterectomy.

It certainly explains the highly abnormal bleeding and whatnot, which wasn't just early menopause, as she previously thought. Still, the doctor said that I don't present as the typical patient that has this condition--that it's normally seen in the obese (um, not me), or in women with other hormonal problems going on. Me, the medical mystery.

She wanted to do the hysterectomy right away, but I begged and pleaded with her to see if we could wait until the middle of May, when my Abnormal Psych class will be over. She said, "We can wait 4 months, if it means that much to you. We can't wait 6 months. We can't wait a year, or you will have uterine cancer. You won't make it."

That all scared the shit out of me more than whacking my head on the tub when I passed out the other night (now, as a result, I have a big, swollen black right eye with a scratch going across above my lid--how dainty!).

They're leaving my ovaries in, so that I'll go through menopause naturally, which is fine, as long as, they said, I was cool with not being able to have any more children (hell yes, I am). Are any of us not looking forward to never having a period again? Shit, what a ridiculous question. I honestly want a second opinion about the ovaries--ovarian cancer is such a tricky motherfucker and by the time they find it, it's usually too late. So I'm debating the leave-the-ovaries-in idea.

The idea is to go on laproscopically, much like my gallbladder surgery, and do crazy shit like take my uterus out through my belly button or something. (I don't understand how on Earth they do that, frankly, and don't want to know.) But my gyno is not optimistic that the easy route will be used, which would only require 2 weeks of recuperation, like a c-section in terms of activity level (no driving, no shopping, no school, no work, et al). Because of the massive overgrowth of scar tissue I have as a result of having Luke via c-section, my gyno thinks she'll have to reopen the c-section site and go in to remove the uterus, which requires 4-6 week of recuperation, much longer. Thank God I have a compassionate ex-husband who helps me take care of my son, a mother who is very helpful and capable, and a 12-year old kid who's more or less independent who will all cooperate to assist in my recovery and not upsetting the Miklasz apple cart. At least I don't have to worry about taking a medical leave of absence from work anymore, right?

The prayer chain at church is so wacky. They'd put in the online stream that I was having the hysteroscopy, which was done during the D&C, but that threw the general church crowd into a panic that I was having a hysterectomy at the time. I remarked on Facebook that there was no need to panic, that it was just a test. Well, now they can panic. Or convince me, somehow, not to panic. Because the operation's in May and I'm already panicking. I just really, really want to get the Abnormal Psych course taken care of. I'll try not to die in the meantime, God willing and the creek don't rise....

Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End

2012-01-13T07:44:00.004-06:00

Romans 12:6-21:

6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Love

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. 11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor,serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. 13Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you;bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. 17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head." 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

_____________________________________________________________________________

My Stephen minister and I talked about the above referenced passages this morning with regard to my future and the question she raised, that she penned on a napkin: "WHO IS ANDREA?"

I had time to think about leaving the medical practice and what that all truly meant. I received the grace of several friends, people who know me and my character very well, who all came to the same conclusion; a conclusion I had not honestly thought of.

Had the status quo gone on with me working at the medical practice, where I was quite content, I would NOT have followed what is God's plan for me and for my life. I loved my job and was very satisfied, though admittedly stressed out at times. I was very good at what I did there and forged solid relationships. But everyone who knew I was pursuing my doctorate asked me the same question: "When are you going back to school?" "Are you taking any classes this semester?" and I would chalk the "no" up to being too busy working to take classes. Or that my health was too poor. Or that I was taking some time to clear my head after Christopher, et al.

God talks to us through our loved ones and friends. I believe that. A good friend from Knox pointed out, with compassion, knowing how much I loved my job and what a bummer it was to lose it, under such sucky and mismanaged circumstances, that it was, after all, just an interim position. I took the job after looking for a job for 2 years. I was just on the cusp of functionally bipolar when I was hired in 2009. I needed to earn enough money to support myself and my child, though we had moved in with my mom, who helped us out a a lot. I knew back after finishing rehab that I ultimately wanted to be a substance abuse and addiction psychological counselor as a career. I didn't want to be a part-time medical receptionist for the rest of my life. I honestly and truly deserve better than to be the low-woman on a totem pole as I approach middle age. I'm too educated to stand at a fax machine and mindlessly transmit documents for hours a day. I appreciate the second chance at a normal life that the medical practice provided me, but in truth, I deserve to be and want to be a doctor of psychology.

Had I not gotten the kick in the ass God delivered last week, I'd not have enrolled in Abnormal Psych for this semester. Bad enough I was made to feel guilty by people at my practice for having taken half a day off to attend an open house at the Adler School last month. I never understood it; the other girls in the office were taking classes (working towards an associates and a bachelor's, respectively, not a doctorate like me), schedules would be accommodated every semester, yet when I enrolled in school last year and the notion was proposed that I would have to re-arrange when I left one night a week, it was a big fucking inconvenience. So I dropped one of the two courses I planned to take and went only for the class that met on Fridays.

*I* was flexible and changed my hours to work around the other girls' school schedules, even at the cost of missing out on things with my son, or with my church, and had to schedule everything I did on Fridays if possible, my only day off, unless I had a doctor's appointment that had to occur during my work week, which admittedly the practice was alright with. They were very patient during my multiple operations and hospitalizations in 2010, though it wasn't like they could let me go for being sick, though mention was made of me taking a medical leave of absence until the Gods of Medicine Above could figure out what the fuck was exactly wrong with me (which they STILL haven't, but Stosh had some good ideas and directions to follow when I talked to him earlier tonight).

In fact, during my exit from the practice, one of the doctors ASKED me why, between the hours of 11am-1pm, I'm so out of it. Evidently, he missed the letter that went around from the endocrinologist that indicated that a 5-hour glucose tolerance test showed that I have reactive hypoglycemia. Especially odd, given he'd written me my original Rx for glucose testing strips. It's origin and treatment is still unknown. The best solution the doctors could muster was to eat 3 times a workday, in small, protein-rich, low-carb bits, after a drug the endo tried me on got me even sicker. (After my talk with Stosh today, he decided I need to force myself to eat every 2 hours and check my sugar before I go out and drive anywhere.)

I'm trying to, but having a hard time forgiving the practice for drug testing me yet not checking my glucose during the epic attack on my birthday. No one knows why I have pain when I eat food or why I want to pass out half the day. No one at the practice knew how many days I'd spend a decent portion of the workday in the bathroom vomiting or having the trots and worked anyway. Instead, they teased me about food and skinniness and said "I wish I had whatever Andrea has so I could be as skinny as she is" when I was seen eating a jar of baby food at the lunch table because it was all I could digest. They'd offer uneducated and unsolicited opinions about what I should eat and when, and prodded me about the medications I took, which frankly was all none of their goddamn business but I was upfront about anyway. God, help me out here.

Surely, the unpredictable nature of my medical condition frustrated my employers. It frustrates my mother, my son, my friends, my physicians, everyone. But few give consideration to how much it frustrates ME. I'm the one living in this body. At least the physician at my practice who is my friend fought to find me specialists who might be able to help me, even if their attempts proved fruitless. My mother is so worried about my ability to drive to school that she is willing to schlep Luke with her and hang out in Skokie for 3 hours while I go to class every week. (The Adler School I can get to via train.)

The hypoglycemia/passing out/et al situation is spiraling totally out of control, and I'm not even using narcotics or sedatives a lot of the time. The fall down the stairs was NOT sleepiness-related or hypoglycemia-related. That was an unfortunate accident of me being clumsy in the dark. I'm starting to wonder if I have narcolepsy or a brain tumor or something. Last night, I fell asleep at the computer in the office, just dicking around, not doing anything important. But Ma told Luke to keep an eye on me so I didn't fall out of the chair or anything. Luke's a night owl, so mind you, he's usually up later than I am. Anyway, Luke woke me up in the office, told me I'd passed out at my computer (when, I don't know) and ordered me to go to bed. I told him I'd go to bed as soon as I'd gone to the bathroom.

I went down to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. I honestly don't know how long I was on the toilet, as I only had to pee quickly, but somehow I fell into a deep slumber ON THE TOILET. Luke didn't come to check on me until he heard a loud thud. The loud thud was me hitting the ground and totally banging my head into the ceramic bathtub. (That fall did wonders for my broken tailbone,I assure you!). Picked myself up, dizzy and unable to focus, with a horrible headache. Blood was pouring out of my mouth from where I'd bitten my tongue so badly in 2 places that I nearly went all the way through my tongue with my teeth. I didn't lose consciousness after the fall and the head slam, at least until I went to bed very shortly thereafter. I didn't want to worry or awaken my mom, so kept it sort of hush-hush. I had not taken my nighttime dose of Estazolam, my anxiety med that helps manage my Generalized Anxiety Disorder and my insomnia, yet, nor had I taken any narcotic painkillers that would've made me drowsy. It was more than just being stubborn and not wanting to go to bed. It's a clusterfuck.

But I totally digress.

Getting back to the question on the napkin asked by my Stephen minister, "Who is Andrea?" I wrote down the following: a survivor, a student, a mother, a friend, a child of God, a drummer, a mentor, a writer. I'm also a daughter, a sister, an advocate, among other admirable traits. Most importantly, I'm *not* what I told my mom I was the night I lost my job, which was a loser.

My Stephen minister asked me then to write down who I will be in the future. I wrote such things as "Dr. Andrea Miklasz, PsyD," "a success," " a helper," "a wife" and a "a servant." I'll also be an inspiration, a leader, still a mother, still an artist, still a loony, recovering alcoholic.

I do and will continue to miss some of the people I worked with at the medical practice. The head physician at the practice, who accompanied me to clock out my final time held me closely, told me that he knew I was a good person, apologized for the way things were ending and hoped I'd be able to take care of my child. I expressed my gratitude in his sentiment and was indeed just always grateful to HAVE a job given the economy. That doctor also told me a long time ago that I was the most interesting character that ever worked at the practice, which was something I always held dear. He knows my heart, God knows my heart, and everyone, including me, know I realize I'm not infallible and am prone to naivete and acts of sheer flightiness, if nothing else.

Perhaps I indeed swore too often and too loudly at work. Perhaps I slammed the phone down a couple of times out of utter frustration. Perhaps I lost patience with foreign home health nurses whose accents rendered them incomprehensible. Perhaps I called people by their first names instead of addressing them as "Mr." or "Mrs." Whomever, but that was because these patients knew me and preferred to be called by their first names. A lot of them called me "Annie" instead of "Andrea," which is my hallmark for friendship, though in the office I was always called "Andrea." But I enjoyed my time with the patients the most, even the days when I swore if I saw one more walker or wheelchair, I'd scream.

I see this all as OPPORTUNITY. I jump-start my real career, to have more time to get my health in order, to work towards what makes my heart soar. What thrills my soul. Following my bliss, not treading the water in a go-nowhere job. It'll hurt financially for a good long time, but we'll survive: my mom, Luke and I.

My future is exploding with possibility. It's happening.

I Love My Blog Tracker Software: Part 3

2012-01-11T16:48:00.003-06:00

I'm watching. I'm keeping track. Actually, *I* don't need to keep track, because my computer does that for me. I should think there are more pressing things to do these days than analyze my life, unless you plan on offering me a publishing contract, in which case, ok, ok, I'll work on the vernacular. Paid my tuition, bought my book and am all set to go back to school. Please, let me go and live my life in peace and raise my son and get my doctorate so I can help people.

And for God's sake, if you're going to Google my name, try and spell it correctly. There's no "e' in MIKLASZ.

Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.

2012-01-10T22:21:00.002-06:00

A must-read web site for anyone remotely considering suicide as their final coping mechanism. God was serious (or at least I certainly hope He was) when he said he promised he would never throw more at you in one day than you can possibly cope with. :

Suicide is not chosen; it happens
when pain exceeds
resources for coping with pain.

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

What the Fuck Day is It, Anyway?

2012-01-10T09:26:00.002-06:00

I didn't set my alarm this morning. I woke up at a reasonable hour, 8:00 am after going to bed at 11:30 pm. Immediately thought it was Saturday. And that yesterday was Sunday. I'm all mixed up on my days since I lost my job last week. I'm all mixed up, period.

I know I have to pick Luke up from school at 3pm. Apart from that, there was little on my mind to fill the rest of the long day. Tuesdays were my long night at the office--I had to work from 1pm to 7pm.

When my work schedule changed last year, I had to give certain other obligations up, the most important one being my weekly AA old folks' meeting. I loved that group, which met at 1pm at a local church. They were all retirees, and I was the baby of the group. It turned out that one of my patients at work was part of that group, so I at least got to see her every few months and we'd catch up.

I wonder if they wonder what happened to me, though I think I remember telling them my work schedule changed and I wouldn't be able to attend anymore. But now I can go back. I'm nervous to walk into that room, though I know in my heart I won't be judged because of my extended absence. They'll just be glad I'm there. I don't even have to say anything if I don't want to. I can just listen. But I think I'll pony up to the table and participate.

By pure grace of God, someone who was once one of the most important people in my life when I was a young woman just re-entered my life, and as in life's greatest mysteries, she's been leading an almost parallel life to mine for the last 20 years. We share commonalities that are eerily similar and need one another on whom to rely pretty badly right now. I don't remember how or why we lost touch after high school, but that's not important at all at this point. She's a blessing to have back in my life and I intend to let her lean on me for anything she might need right now, big or small, and I trust that she'll do the same for me. We have lunch plans for Friday, and I can't wait to give her a giant hug and seeing her will produce on my face a smile larger than I've smiled in a very long time. I need things to look forward to. This is a biggie.

Then I've got Luke's 12th birthday coming up on Monday. I'm doing my best to provide for him a normal birthday as we planned before I lost my job, and I won the Craig's girlfriend vs. Mommy birthday cake bake-off challenge, now in charge of baking Luke's cake. I promise, Luke, that this year, I'll remember the eggs for the cake and I won't drunkenly make hockey puck cupcakes.

Maybe I Was Washed Out Like a Lip Print On a Shirt.

2012-01-09T19:54:00.006-06:00

I'm going back to school on January 17th. Taking Abnormal Psychology, which I *think* is the last prerequisite I need to get into the Adler School of Professional Psychology, my first choice school to obtain my PsyD in Counseling Psychology to become an addiction and substance abuse therapist. I might have to take statistics, which will suck, because math isn't my strong suit, but I'll manage. The psych class meets once a week at night, and I find myself with a plethora of free time during which to schedule classes nowadays.

Why is that? On Thursday night, I was fired from my job at the medical practice after nearly 3 years of dedicated, hard, successful service, coming in when I was really sick, on days after I'd been violently abused the night before and could barely move, managing pancreatitis, and most recently, with a broken tailbone. Why was I fired? Because of diarrhea medication.

Diarrhea medication that this well of medical knowledge honestly, in her heart, did not know was a controlled substance, having taken it myself about 15 years ago during a bout of atomic diarrhea from irritable bowel. As much as I knew about this diarrhea medication was that it slowed down the activity of the gut better than over the counter Immodium.

Too stunned and caught in the headlights to come to my own defense, I sat there, bundled up in my coat after bidding the last doctor goodnight and listened to what was unthinkable, irrational and unnecessary in the presence of three of the four doctors in the practice, harshly including the doctor who is one of my closest confidants and in the absence of the doctor who had the issue with me and the diarrhea drug in the first place.

Thus the medical practice lost the only degreed professional in the front office; the smartest one. The friendly, courageous, witty and polite but firm, unabashedly (at times) anxious, frequently sickly but worked through it all anyway, almost middle aged, wise and mature one who liked to crank up the smooth jazz channel on the TV in the waiting room when the patients left for the day. They lost the one who busted all the patients who were abusing their Rx's because she knew every junkie trick in the book, who's efforts at helping addicted patients went completely unrecognized or appreciated, who struggled through mental illness and was inches away from 4 years of sobriety, who knew who the alcoholic/addict patients were and showed them compassion and understanding they otherwise wouldn't have received in the hands of someone with less colorful life experience and certainly not at the hands of the psychologically untrained.

The practice stated that they will not give me a good reference in order to find another job, other than to say that I showed up on time, did my work and went home. That's more than unfair. And perhaps a moot point if I choose to go to school full-time anyway. My ex-husband told me not to burn any bridge, but at this point, what do I have left to lose?

All Things Must Pass

2012-01-06T07:42:00.001-06:00

Sunrise doesn't last all morning
A cloudburst doesn't last all day
Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning
It's not always going to be this grey

All things must pass
All things must pass away

Sunset doesn't last all evening
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this, my love is up and must be leaving
It's not always going to be this grey

All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
None of life's strings can last
So, I must be on my way
And face another day

Now the darkness only stays the night-time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
It's not always going to be this grey

All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
All things must pass away

"Feeling Yourself Disintegrate": 15 Songs by The Flaming Lips

2012-01-04T09:50:00.001-06:00

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions. Pass it on to 15 people you like (or think will actually do this) and tag me. Try not to repeat a song title. It’s harder than you think.

Your Artist: The Flaming Lips

Are you male or female: In Excelsior Vaginalistic

Describe yourself: The Big Ol' Bug Is The New Baby Now

How do you feel about yourself: I'm A Fly In A Sunbeam (Following The Funeral Procession Of A Stranger)

Describe where you currently live: Moth In The Incubator

The first thing you think of when you wake up: All We Have is Now

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon ( Utopia Planitia)

Your favorite form of transportation: The Abandoned Hospital Ship

Your best friend is: Guy Who Got A Headache And Accidentally Saves The World

Your favorite color is: Thank You Jack White

What’s the weather like: It's Summertime

If your life were a TV show, what would it be called: Hell's Angels Cracker Factory

What is life to you: A Spoonful Weighs a Ton

What is the best advice you have to give: Race for the Prize

If you could change your name, what would it be: Shaved Gorilla

Your favorite food is: Frogs

How I would like to die: Ego Tripping At The Gates of Hell

My soul’s present condition: The Secret Of Immortality: This Strange Feeling, The Impossible World

The faults I can bear: Placebo Headwound

How would you describe your love life: Waitin' For A Superman

Who are you going to post this as: Feeling Yourself Disintegrate

An Old Blog: Thoughts on 3 Years Sober, As I Approach Year 4...

2012-01-04T06:41:00.002-06:00

Wrote this as a note on Facebook before I reactivated my Blogger account, my thoughts on 3 years' worth of sobriety. I'll have 4 years under my belt in February. Wow, does Chris get a glowing recommendation in this blog:

Even given my super-annyoing alcoholic memory loss and cognitive dysfunction, I remember the day I checked myself into rehab vividly. After spending the night getting dead drunk (almost literally), with Luke sleeping in his room, I was talking to Christopher on the phone, slurring my words more and more as the night wore on. Chris was concerned because expensive bottles of wine were missing from his apartment, which I had stolen and consumed, as well as his whole bottles of scotch and tequila he's brought over to my apartment. He questioned me about them. "Do you think you have a drinking problem, Andrea?" he asked me.

Now, keep in mind, I'd been researching rehab facilities for a while, since my doctor gave me the grave news that my liver was failing and I had only months left to live if I continued to drink. I had my heart set on Eric Clapton's Crossroads Recovery Center in Antigua. Lofty ambition, but at least I recognized that I needed to go get help.

"You want the truth, Christopher?" I asked. He said yes. "The truth is I'm a raging alcoholic and I need to go away."

Aghast and speechless, Christopher paused and said "Ok." I meant "I need to go away NOW."

His sister worked for Resurrection Health Care at the time, in social work, and had connections to good rehab facilities in the Chicago area. Two were suggested to me: Parkside at Lutheran General in Park Ridge (where Elton John got sober!) and St. Joseph's hospital downtown. I decided the next morning on St. Joe's, since I thought a treatment facility in Park Ridge was too close to home and thereby offered too great a chance for me to walk out the door and leave.

Luke awakened and had to be taken to school. I stayed up all night getting more and more drunk, so Craig came to take him to school. I bawled as I kissed Luke goodbye, not knowing how long it'd be until I'd see him again. I believe we told him that I was going away to a hospital to get better because I was very sick, and he was frantic.

I didn't give Craig a choice as to what to do with his day on 2/21/08. "You're driving me to rehab," I told him. He was reluctuant and annoyed that I assumed he'd help me out, as Chris had to be at work, but he did. One thing I will say for my ex-husband, he's got my back when I need him the most. He always has, for which I'm blessed.

I was advised to continue to drink that morning, so that I purposely showed up at rehab incoherent and thereby had a greater chance of being admitted. Craig drove me downtown to St. Joe's and we got to the ER. I told the triage nurse I was a danger to myself and others and needed to be admitted for alcohol treatment. I was too drunk to coherently sign myself in, so I was put on a couple of banana bag IV's (which they give out to drunks, which are loaded with potassium and nutrients), mildly sedated (because I was going into DT's and shaking and wandering around) and there we waited. By about 5pm, I think, I was sober enough to check in, Craig left, and Chris came to stay with me. (We'd only been dating a couple of months at that point--Lord only knows what went through his mind wondering what he'd gotten himself into.)

There were no beds left on the substance abuse floor, so I was admitted to the psychiatric ward. The "safe side," the East side, as it were, which was still filled with loonies, but the less violent ones. My roommate was an old lady alcoholic, out of her mind, who got up during the first night and urinated in the garbage can next to my bed. "Where was I and what was I doing?" I thought. The next morning, though doped up on Librium to ward off the DT's, I demanded a new roommate, and got one.

The psych ward was scary. They took away my cell phone, but let me have a sheet of paper with important phone numbers on it for when I was allowed time to use the phone. They took away my shoelaces for fear I'd try and kill myself with them. The patients in the cafeteria routinely threw trays of food at one another and the staff, and were all acutely less stable than I was. I was ready to get to work and get the hell out of there.

I immediately threw myself into the program at rehab--I did the homework, attended all the therapy sessions, and encouraged my new roommate to do the same. She was an Asian lady, in her 40's, also in alcohol detox, and refused to go to therapy when we were scheduled. Despite my best efforts, I was unable to get her to go to therapy. She just lied in her bed half asleep all day.

In therapy, I admitted that I was also a cutter, and showed the group my arm scars. This was all long before I was diagnosed and medicated for bipolar disorder. I admitted that I'd been addicted to narcotics in the past, and was labeled a "dual-diagnosis" patient.

In one memorable therapy session, the counselor went around the room and asked us each how we were doing that day. Each patient lamented "I want to die," "I just want to kill myself," "I have no hope." They got around to me, and I remember exclaiming "I feel FINE. I'm GREAT." I took to sobriety really quickly, though it could've been the Librium talking. They started me on Antabuse (the drug you take where you can get fatally ill IF you drink on it) and Campral (to ward off cravings for alcohol).

They had exercise equipment on the floor, but it was on the West side of the psych ward. I asked if I could go and use it and was told, "No, you don't want to go over there. The really dangerous patients are there and you could get hurt." Uh, OK. Nevermind that, then. I jotted down ideas and feelings on paper, which I think I have in my storage unit somewhere, which I'd love to read someday. My incoherent blabber about rehab.

My mom came to visit me, and in retrospect, said I looked like a mess. She brought me more clothes--ones without strings, zippers, anything I could use to harm myself, not that I planned on it. I was there to get well, after all. Chris came to visit me and brought me a gaggle of magazines to keep me occupied, but told me frankly that he wasn't sure he could be in a relationship with an alcoholic, which made me sad, but I understood. (Obviously, he stuck around, for which I'm grateful.) A few days later, Craig brought Luke for a visit, which had to be freakishly scary and strange for an 8-year old. Luke was honestly explained why I was in the hospital, that I was addicted to drinking, which for his age, he managed to process and absorb.

I asked the psychiatrist when I could go home. "Tomorrow?" I'd been there a week. "Yes, tomorrow you can go home." The therapist in charge of my case encouragingly told me that he thought I had about a 90% chance of making it. They say statistically, after all, that 8 out of 10 alcoholics relapse within the first year. I prayed in therapy to be one of the 2 that wouldn't. And three years into it, I haven't.

Through a gaggle of strange events, I never completed the outpatient rehab I was supposed to for the following 30 days, yet I remained sober. I stayed dry for the next year and a half on my own, only coming to AA after trying to set up a coffee catch up with my now-sober ex-boyfriend, Art, who said the only way I was going to get to see him was if I went to an AA meeting. So I went to one at the First Step House in Des Plaines, was the only woman there, and felt terribly uncomfortable. But I thank Art to this day, for it was he who got me involved with AA and I never looked back.

I treasure my time at AA now. It's been one of the best tools that has helped me with maintaining my sobriety. It was there I learned that I didnt' get and stay sober by my own strength and accord, though I did a lot of hard work. It was by the grace of God, to whom I should be very, very thankful. And I am. The felllowship at AA has forged some of the closest bonds I've had with people my whole life. We all share a common problem, and our stories are inspiring and provoking.

Had it not been for the support and safety of people like my mom, who took us in when we lost our apartment, and Chris, who provided for me a continuously safe haven, and Steven, who always called me his "little soldier," and all of you countless friends who've lended your shoulders, your strength and your support to me the last 3 years, I wouldn't be here today.

I won't lie to you. The urge to drink is still there. I long for the relaxing glass of wine with dinner, the compulsion to get drunk when I'm depressed or anxiety-ridden. But I manage those cravings, one day at a time. Every day, I choose not to pick up a drink. I am open and honest with my family and friends and AA buddies when those feelings creep up. They're normal and likely won't ever go away. I'm an alcoholic. I'll always be an alcoholic. But I'm sober. I continuously choose to stay sober.

Even given my long standing complications from drinking--my failed pancreas, my memory loss-I'm still grateful. I wouldn't change a single day. It was God's plan to have me be an alcoholic. It's not "my dad's fault," as my mom keeps saying. It's not my fault either. It's what needed to happen in order for me to become the amazing person I am today. It's what will allow me to inspire others (friends, patients) on their journeys towards sobriety and cleanliness. Addiction and substance abuse counseling is my life's calling. I want to help people the way I was helped.

For that, for each day I don't drink, I'm grateful. For the last 1,095 days I've chosen not to drink. Shazam!

I Love My Blog Tracker Software: Part 2

2012-01-03T21:00:00.003-06:00

Pandora, I said I "liked" Neil Young. I gave him a "thumbs up." That doesn't mean I want to hear him every 15 minutes on the channel I created, "Annie's Personal Awesomeness Mix." Same with Dylan. So much Neil Young that I had to "thumbs down" a few of his songs, for which Pandora apologized and said they'd refrain from playing again, but I abandoned my personal channel this morning for my Flaming Lipsesque channel that at least gave me Dead Can Dance, The Cocteau Twins, Interpol, The Breeders, and, of course, The Lips, but mysteriously threw in Enya. ENYA? Who do I look like, HER? Oh, never mind.

But I digress.

A fine howdy-do this evening to whomever has Comcast Cable as their service provider with an ISP in Elmwood Park, IL somewhere around the vicinity of Harlem and Grand Ave. I know the tracking software isn't all that accurate, but still. If it's a Comcast ISP out of Bartlett, IL, that's me. If it's out of Glencoe, that's my Tatus. If it's out of Arlington Heights, that's my wacko ex-boyfriend.

Whomever this is has spent more than 2 hours in the last couple of days pouring through my blogs, and seems awfully interested in blowing up a picture of myself with my ex-husband from when we were engaged. The only person I know in Elmwood Park is my ex-husband's girlfriend, who quite frankly, isn't terribly interested in my daily doings, but might explain away the photograph obsession. If it is her, rest assured, my clenches aren't intent on snatching back my former spouse, whom I do love, but for whom I have a complicated enough romantic life *not* to want to include in the mix of things. As for the photograph? That was like almost 20 years ago. I don't look like that anymore. I have much better hair and much smaller glasses and a far smaller body. I've aged well.

Wow, Pandora. Hit the nail right on the head when I just put the Annie Awesomeness Mix back on. England Dan and John Ford Coley's "It's Sad to Belong." I'd not heard that track off their greatest hits compilation. Actually, I didn't realize that apart from "I'd Really Love to See You Tonight" that they'd HAD any other hits, but you can't go wrong with a lyric like "It's sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along." Ain't that the truth? But you know me; I'm an idealist. I believe that nothing is impossible when it comes to love. And apart from the people I vehemently hate with a passion, I'm a little bit in love with just about everyone.

But I digress.

Anyway, interested party, you Googled my name. Apart from my blog, how boring must THAT have been? I drum in a band. I write for an addiction/recovery blog in the United Kingdom. My bland professional vitae is on LinkedIn. I'm notorious for nothing. Right now, I'm wearing about 5 layers of clothing because it's cold out when I go to smoke. I'm in a few Google circles, but to be honest, I don't know the first thing about what to do with them. You can't read my Twitter, because I'm smart enough to keep *some* things private to only those whom I've approved for access. Ooh, you *can* see my twitpics. Now THOSE are riveting. I signed a petition for "Occupy Musicians," though that was kinda useless. My Facebook is on public lockdown. My heart belongs to someone else at the moment. That's seriously about all you're going to find out about me, unless you're really bored and have extra spending money and want to do a background check on me, in which case, you'll find nothing more than the fact that I separated from my husband in March of 2007 but didn't divorce him until March of 2009 and my credit's kinda shitty but is being rebuilt, having filed a Chapter 13 in 2000, which I paid off years ago.

Seriously, if you want to creepily stalk me, I might be skinny but can roundhouse kick a person half to death (perhaps not right now w/a broken tailbone) and my cell phone is always propped and ready to dial 911 because I'm scared of my ex-boyfriend.

Here's an idea. Leave a comment, even if you choose to do so anonymously, which I discourage but would understand if you didn't want to out yourself. Tell me what you're getting out of the hours you're reading my blog. If there's something not in the blogs you want to know but are afraid to ask, ask me. Is it that you appreciate my writing? If so, then thank you! You have something against me? Cough it up and let me defend myself. Offer me enough money, and I'll reveal the real name of famous blogger Mimi Smartypants and you can go stalk her.

I'm appreciative of my readers, don't get me wrong. I'm just insanely curious.

Annie

Snatching Springs, 1976

2012-01-03T07:32:00.008-06:00

Today would've been my Polish grandfather, my JaJa (in Polish, Dziadzia)'s 111th birthday. Daniel George Miklasz, Sr. A veteran of the First World War.

No, nobody expected him to live quite that long. He died when I was 8, just days before my 9th birthday in 1981, of complications from prostate cancer. I have few but fond memories of him.

No one ever talked about it, and it wasn't revealed to the family until after his wife, my Nana (Lillian, nee Marynowski), died in 1994, that each was the other's second spouse, and that JaJa had a child from his first marriage, a daughter. (So I have or had an aunt somewhere in the country, who'd be in her late 80's or early 90's by now, given my uncle is 80.) They were both Catholic, so the idea and subject of divorce was very hush-hush and I doubt my grandparents married in the Catholic church, unless they both had their first marriages annulled, which I sort of doubt. I have no idea when and where my grandparents got married. My grandparents had 2 sons, my Uncle Jerry (who's 80) and my father, Daniel Jr., who would be 70 if he were still alive. The picture above is from my grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary, with my brother, myself, my mom and dad.

My grandparents were both born in this country to Polish immigrant parents who spoke little if no English, though they all spent decades living in the USA. Nana and JaJa both spoke fluent Polish, and did so frequently around the house when I was growing up, especially to my father and my uncle, when they didn't want anyone to know what they were talking about. Still, I learned enough Polish from all of them to manage a very basic conversation in Polish, and I certainly know how all the good swear words and put downs in our family's native tongue.

JaJa was born to a Polish father, Jan Miklasz, married to a German woman, Anna Wagner, in 1901. All of my great-grandparents on the Miklasz side died before I was born. JaJa had several sisters, and I have a gaggle of first-cousins-once-removed ( in addition to my 2 first cousins, Pam and Susie, who are Uncle Jerry's daughters, who are in their 50's and 40's, respectively), who are all my dad's age now or older, and second cousins, a lot of whom are around my age, some of whom I keep in touch with (like my fellow Blogger, professional harpsichordist Paul Cienniwa).

From what I remember, JaJa's primary job was as a house painter, having worked at the family established Miklasz Paint Company, in the city. I don't know if you can still see it on the wall, but as recently as a decade or so ago, you could make out "Miklasz Paint Co." on the exterior side wall of an old building around Damen (or is it Armitage? I forgot.) that my cousin took pictures of for all of us grandchildren that we have framed (mine is in storage with the rest of my belongings).

JaJa retired, and my grandparents lived above us in a 2-up, 2-down beautiful flat in a suburb just outside of Chicago, with a huge back yard, when I was growing up. I'd visit my Nana and JaJa daily in their apartment, and it was they who introduced me to coffee drinking when I was only 4, and would go upstairs for what I told my parents was my "2nd breakfast." Nana and JaJa were the only babysitters my brother and I ever had.

They put up with my father's alcoholism and the instability that was going on downstairs in my house, of which I was largely unaware, as I was too young. Not too soon after JaJa died, we had to sell our 2-flat in Harwood Heights to pay for debts my father wracked up on account of his illness. We moved to Park Ridge and took Nana with us to live, in this giant, old, shitty house on Northwest Highway that was ginormous but rented and sort of gross. Not "home" to me, and was the place we were living when my father finally succumbed to alcoholism in 1984.

Anyway, I don't think JaJa ever knew my name. My real name. He never called me Annie, or Andrea. My only memory is of him calling me, referring to me as "The Little One," as I was the youngest of the 4 grandchildren on the Miklasz side.

He'd get furious with us grandkids when we'd have contests sliding down the carpeted stairwell from my grandparents' apartment to ours in the front hallway, using a sleeping bag as a toboggan. "Watch 'em, watch 'em!" JaJa would say, and he hated when we were loud and raucous, all running about the house, and had an OCD about locking and closing doors.

He had this weird job when I was little and he was retired, sorting through springs at the kitchen table in some sort of mock-quality-control effort for my uncle, who was a muckety muck at a Chicago spring company. It kept him busy, though doing what with the random springs, exactly, I have no idea.

He employed my help when I was 4 (after I'd had my coffee for the morning). With giant boxes of springs on his kitchen table, as he sorted through them, he'd inevitably drop some on the floor. He told me he'd give me a dime for every spring I found on the floor.

I was a clever child. He'd get up to go elsewhere in the house, and I'd dump half a box of springs onto the floor, then pick them up and proudly hand them to my JaJa when he'd sit back down at the table. "Here, JaJa, look at all the springs I found! How much money will you give me?"

He knew damn well that I'd spilled the springs onto the floor, but I remember distinctly him handing me $5 because, for a 4-year old, that was a damn good, though crafty business decision on my part. He wasn't mad when he gave me the money, he just smiled and winked at me. That memory is forever plastered into my brain, warmly.

A picture of the extended Miklasz legacy: my nephew Jake, (Steve's son), my son, Luke, me, my cousin Susie, and my brother, Steve, Christmas 2011. (Missing are Pam and her 2 kids, Ashleigh and Matt.)

So today, I remember my JaJa, and all his Polish OCD wackiness, that certainly rubbed off on his youngest granddaughter.

Ja was miss i miłości was, dziadka.

A Bad Trip. And Some New Hope on the Horizon for Psychedelics!

2012-01-02T14:00:00.004-06:00

I don't smoke pot or take illicit street drugs.

Have I ever tried smoking pot? Yes. It's been a few years, and the end result of me trying pot is always the same: I get crazy paranoid and throw up a whole lot. Dabbled a bit with it in college, and it didn't do much for me except make me cough (this was before I was habitually smoking cigarettes). I can't honestly say I've ever been pleasantly high from smoking marijuana. But I know a lot of people who smoke pot and enjoy it and that's alright for them, I suppose. It's not for me but I support the right for other people to use it if that's their thing and think it's a shame that it's illegal. Do I think it should've been legalized decades ago? Hell yeah. Alcohol's a lot more damaging than pot, in this addict's opinion.

In Illinois, you can't smoke in public buildings. Cigarettes, cigars, or any other substances, except, I guess, unless you're in a hookah bar or something (or at my neighborhood car service station, where the hookah's hooked up as regularly as the air pump for your tires). Still in all, at the Aragon Ballroom, when my Tatus and I went to see The Flaming Lips in July, we could smell pot in the theater up in the VIP balcony. Strongly. Same thing the next night when I brought my family. Was there Chicago Police presence in the Aragon busting everyone for smoking, or anyone up in the balcony wrist-slapping the VIP's? Nope. (Knowing I'd have a nicotine fit by night's end, I proactively put a nicotine patch on before I left the house, that's how organized I am!)

Pot and Lips' concerts sort of go hand-in-hand. Wayne (the lead singer) is no bullshit about marijuana or psychedelic drug use at his concerts, and the fans, I'm sure are all jazzed up on something or another (the younger ones, in their early 20's, and so forth). Whether that's ecstasy, or mushrooms, or pot, or LSD, or whatever it is the youngins are taking these days, shit gets around and everybody's loaded and there's all the free beer you want in the VIP section, blah blah blah. (I don't drink and Tatus had 2 beers over the course of the night, and we weren't smoking weed, so we were sober, anyway.)

Illicit drug use is a tricky motherfucker. Marijuana is classified as an illicit street drug, though that's kind of stupid. Other, more powerful and addictive drugs like heroin and cocaine, yeah, they should be and are illegal. But that's beside the point.

This morning, back spasms and the need to pee woke me up at 4:30am. I stumbled downstairs, put my hat, coat and Uggs on, and went out for a smoke in the dark, during this giant blizzardy snow squall that lasted for about 10 minutes and dumped 2" of powder on the ground. While I was smoking, my phone went off. Frantic texts from a young lady I know through the Flaming Lips, who's sort of a superfan and became my friend online through association with the band, though we've never met in person. She lives in Oklahoma City, where the band played last night and New Year's Eve.

She was arrested at last night's Flaming Lips show, charged with 3 felonies: possession of narcotics (she had 2 illegal Xanax on her), intent to distribute/sell (come on, she had 3 joints on her, all for personal use) and possession of drug paraphernalia. They searched her, questioned her and let her go on her own recognizance, with a warrant for her arrest in a week having to report to court for a hearing. Her young husband (who's presently struggling with substance abuse problems) was likewise charged. It was at the beginning of the show. Why she was singled out by the police, I'm not sure. She COULDN'T have been the only one smoking pot at the concert. Another friend of mine who was at the show tweeted me this morning, asking if this girl had been arrested, having seen the police take her away.

I quickly put the girl in contact with a criminal defense lawyer who's friends with the band and was also at the show, who I didn't think this girl could afford, but when I contacted him, was happy to help her in any way he can. She's so young and naive that she didn't realize she NEEDED a lawyer. Um, yeah, these are drug felonies, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the State of Oklahoma decided to use her to set an example of their stringent drug policies by throwing her in jail. So, for now, she's free and in good hands, though she voiced that the negative experience marked the end of her wanting to attend any more Flaming Lips shows, which is a shame, because they are her favorite band.

I take no issue with her having been in possession of 3 joints of marijuana. It's the Xanax that rubs me the wrong way. Illicit use and abuse by people without medical necessity makes it that much harder for patients like me, who need anti-anxiety medications for legitimate disorders, to obtain them by prescription. Xanax and other benzos aren't meant to be taken recreationally to mellow out and have a good time. They're designed to slow down body processes in patients who are experiencing acute anxiety symptoms, such as an increased heart rate, shakes, dizziness, sweats, overwhelming sense of fear or nervousness, you know, how I am in general unless I'm medicated.

What's ironic is that I, with some frequency, walk around with un-labeled pills in my purse that, if I got pulled over or stopped by the police, would look awfully suspicious. If I know I'm going to be out after 9pm, I bring along a baggie of my nighttime medications all doled out instead of lugging all like 10 bottles in my purse with my prescriptions in each one. (I suppose it'd look better if I had them in a standard pill organizer, but how dorky and elderly are THOSE? And how fucking BIG a one would I need?) Doubly ironic is that if I don't take my night meds at around the same time every night, I have an anxiety attack. (Fortunately, I don't usually drive at night, so it's largely a moot point and I take my meds on time.)

The first night of the Lips' concert in July, I didn't have my pill baggie with me and didn't take my nighttime meds until after Tatus dropped me off at home, which was like at 1am, and it was hard for me to decompress and fall asleep. The next night, however, I did have my pills with me, and we weren't searched by security at the Aragon, I don't know if that was because we were on the guest list or whatever. IF I got into trouble, all I'd have to do is produce my Rx bottles for everything I take and it'd be more of a pain in the ass than anything else, but still. To the untrained police officer, I look as guilty as my young friend (sans the joints, of course).

She's supposed to contact me after she talks with my lawyer friend in OK tonight sometime, and I sincerely hope it all works out for her. It sucks that she and her husband were singled out and arrested at the Lips show, for surely they were just two of hundreds that were using drugs at the concert. I trust that she'll have good representation, and she has no record of previous run-ins with the law (though I think her husband has a recent DUI on his record, yeowch). I can only do so much to help from Chicago but offer my support and advice, ideally not again at 4:30am, but I *did* tell her to contact me any time if she needs me. So she did. I'm grateful that God saw fit for me to be up at that hour to listen to her and use my connections to get her a lawyer. Her husband needs desperately to be put in an inpatient drug/alcohol treatment program, so I feel sort of helpless in Chicago, though I've given them phone numbers and names of people to call who CAN help him out.

In other drug-related news, I read a fascinating article today on CNN about psychedelic drugs being tested for patients who have PTSD (like me) and other significant depressive mental illness, as well as chemo patients in chronic suffering. Anne Harding of www.health.com reports (and pardon my shitty copying/pasting):

In the past month alone, studies have been published on the benefits of MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) in people with post-traumatic stress disorder and on the fast-acting antidepressive effects of the club drug ketamine (aka "Special K"). The study in which Sakuda (*the patient in the article--AM) took part is scheduled to appear in a major journal in early September. So far the studies have been small, but the results have been encouraging and bigger trials are on the horizon.

Drugs such as psilocybin and Ecstasy can be dangerous in the wrong hands. But when taken under professional supervision and combined with therapy, researchers say, just one or two doses can help patients unlock the sources of their troubles and experience therapeutic breakthroughs that otherwise might take months or years.

"It can be like psychotherapy sped up," says psychiatrist Stephen Ross, M.D., an addiction expert at New York University who is leading a study on psilocybin treatment in cancer patients with severe anxiety. "Their defenses are lowered, [and] they have enormous access to unconscious material."

The psilocybin study Ross is leading at NYU is typical of the new-generation research. On two separate occasions during the nine-month study, which is being funded by the Heffter Research Institute, patients are given a silver chalice containing either a psilocybin pill or a placebo.

The patient then lies down on a brown sofa surrounded by artwork, sculptures of Buddha, and, on a nearby bookshelf, a little glass mushroom with a red cap. For the next six hours, the patient listens, with eyes shaded, to a combination of classical, Eastern, and tribal music.

A pair of therapists -- who don't know whether the patient has taken an active drug or placebo -- stay in the room for support, though they encourage the patient to remain in a meditative state.

This may sound a bit trippy. But the science behind the research is sound, says Franz Vollenweider, M.D., a psychiatrist at the University of Zurich, in Switzerland, and a member of the Heffter Research Institute's board of directors.

According to Vollenweider, who has conducted brain-imaging studies on the effects of psychedelics and MDMA, these drugs appear to affect levels of serotonin and other chemicals in the body and brain that help regulate mood.

When everything goes well, the drugs induce a "peaceful and blissful" state of unity with oneself and the cosmos, resulting in a new level of self-awareness and knowledge that can make an individual more responsive to cognitive therapy and other forms of psychotherapy, Vollenweider says. (Ironically, the drugs show promise in the treatment of alcohol addiction, he adds.)

In cancer patients such as Sakuda, "these spiritually oriented altered states...potentially allow patients to have an abrupt shift of consciousness from being scared about dying and feeling their life is over," says Grob. "It was quite remarkable to me to see changes in these people who were very anxious and in distress, and [to] see how they got better."

But it's not always a smooth trip. Depending on the dose, as well as an individual's personality, the drugs can elicit fear, anxiety, paranoia, and, in some cases, a state akin to psychosis.

"It's not so easy -- it can be excruciatingly painful," says Grob. "Those six hours that one is immersed in the experience can feel like the longest hours in a person's life."

For this reason, the drugs should only be given in exact doses in a carefully controlled setting, researchers say. Moreover, months of follow-up therapy are recommended to sort through the insights gleaned during the session and to ensure that they are applied productively to everyday life.

A prescription for psilocybin?

The early results of the new research are promising. In the MDMA study published in July, for instance, 10 of the 12 people who took the drug no longer met the criteria for post-traumatic stress two months later. And all five of the patients that have enrolled in Ross's study so far -- eventually it will include a few dozen -- have shown significant decreases in anxiety and depression.

"They've all improved," Ross says. "There appears to be something there."

Researchers hope that if the ongoing preliminary studies prove the safety and effectiveness of these drugs for certain treatments, the government will step in to fund larger trials.

Rick Doblin, Ph.D., the founder and president of MAPS, says that this could happen in the next three years. But don't expect to get a prescription for magic mushrooms from your psychiatrist any time soon.

It will likely be a decade before the FDA approves a psychedelic as medicine, if it does so at all, says Doblin. The most likely candidate is MDMA for post-traumatic stress, he adds.

"What we're trying to move towards is this legitimization of this field of psychedelic medicine, but we have to do it through the FDA, one drug at a time."

Petros Levounis, M.D., an addiction psychiatrist at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, in New York City, and a former chair of the American Psychiatric Association's committee on addiction treatment, emphasizes that psychedelics are far from being a mainstream treatment.

"This is a line of research that does have some data that show a potential for some positive outcomes," he says. "But we are very, very far from recommending hallucinogens for the treatment of terminally ill patients."

Still, the experiences of people like Sakuda hold out hope for people who have struggled to overcome depression and anxiety.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/08/24/psychedelic.drugs.depression/ (Copyright Health Magazine, 2011)

If they start trials for PTSD patients with 'shrooms, sign me up. Otherwise, I plan to continue to just say no and go with light fun versus heavy fun.

The worst drugs are as bad as anybody's told you.
It's just a dumb trip, which I can't condemn people if they get into it,
because one gets into it for one's own personal, social, emotional reasons.
It's something to be avoided if one can help it.
John Lennon

Surprise Yourself.

2012-01-02T06:55:00.000-06:00

‎"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." - Neil Gaiman

As Helene would say....

2012-01-01T19:37:00.004-06:00

"...she's not worth the powder to blow her to Hell."

Best of luck with the professional lint collector.

Consider this a Rhythm from the Skinny Little Bitch

My Favorite Song of 2011 (That's Not a Flaming Lips song)...

2012-01-01T12:19:00.001-06:00

My New Year's Message, or "If the Universe Gave Me a Choice, Which it Hasn't, Part 2"

2012-01-01T09:51:00.001-06:00

Life's circumstances are not always what you might wish them to be. The pattern of life does not necessarily go as you plan. Beyond any understanding , you may at times be led in different directions that you never imagined, dreamed or designed. Yet if you have never put any effort into choosing a path, or tried to carry out your dream, then perhaps you would have no direction at all. Rather than wondering about or questioning the direction your life has taken, accept the fact that there is a path before you now.

Shake off the ''why's'' and ''what if's", and rid yourself of confusion. Whatever was- is in the past. Whatever is - is what's important.The past is a brief reflection.The future is yet to be realized. Today is here.

Walk your path one step at a time - with courage , faith , and determination. Keep your head up , and cast your dreams to the stars. Soon your steps will become firm and your footing will be solid again. A path that you never imagined will become the most comfortable direction you could have ever hoped to follow.

Keep your belief in yourself and walk into your new journey. You will find it magnificent , spectacular , and beyond your wildest imaginings.

Happy 2012. Surely a lot of one-days-at-a-time ahead, but I have a really good feeling about things....

Love Annie

Annie: 2012

2011-12-30T23:15:00.003-06:00

"I Got the Blues"

2011-12-30T22:20:00.003-06:00

This rarity from "Sticky Fingers" by the Stones was sent to me by my best male friend, who emailed me that it was dedicated from him to me and my Tatus (and loosely, he said, to Chris).

The Rolling Stones

I Got The Blues

(M. Jagger/K. Richards)

As I stand by your flame
I get burned once again
Feelin' low down, I'm blue

As I sit by the fire
Of your warm desire
I've got the blues for you, yeah

Every night you've been away
I've sat down and I have prayed
That you're safe in the arms of a guy
Who will bring you alive
Won't drag you down with abuse

In the silk sheet of time
I will find peace of mind
Love is a bed full of blues

And I've got the blues for you
And I've got the blues for you
And I'll bust my brains out for you
And I'll tear my hair out
I'm gonna tear my hair out just for you
If you don't believe what I'm singing
At three o'clock in the morning, babe, well
I'm singing my song for you

If I Fell...

2011-12-30T09:31:00.004-06:00

Folks consistently ask me why I awaken at 5:30 am, when I don't have to leave the house to take Luke to school until 8:10 am, after which I get ready for work, which starts at 9:30am. My answer is always the same: I enjoy my "me" time in the morning. That's when I get up, have my copious amount of green tea, usually write my blog (if I don't fall asleep at the computer writing it the night before, once falling out of the chair asleep in the office), smoke my cigarettes and check my Facebook and Twitter, reading articles, responding to emails, et al. In peace. Without the watchful eyes of my family, whom I let slumber until I wake up Luke at 7:15am. I go to bed at a reasonable hour, so I feel that I'm getting enough sleep.

Yesterday morning, however, I woke the whole house up at 5:30am, thunderously. Went into the office to unplug my laptop, grab that, my mouse and pad and my cell phone to head downstairs to write and make the tea. I had the light on the office gathering those items together, turned the light off, and went into the hallway, looking for the hall light on the wall. It was very dark and my eyes were not accustomed to the darkness, having had the office light on.

Sliding my right hand around the wall looking for the light switch, my left hand full of my electronics, I slipped and fell down the entire flight of stairs onto the landing between staircases. Hardwood floors. Clutching my laptop for dear life, it didn't get busted. My mouse flew down the stairs, as did my cell phone, each falling apart. My ma says, in hindsight, that it was a blood-curdling boom as I fell down the stairs. She thought at first I'd fallen out of bed, but she said the sound was much louder than that. Turning the hall light on finally, she saw me lying on the landing, in shock.

Luke rushed out of his room and down the stairs to put the phone and mouse back together. My mom was trying to make sure I hadn't broken anything (on my body). All I knew was that my knees and my back were killing me. I started crying from the pain (and I'm no pain wimp) and the trauma. Ma started crying.

Ma and Luke went back to bed shortly thereafter and I pressed on with my morning. Each had a difficult time getting back to sleep, which isn't really my fault but I contributed to it (turned out Luke slept until after noon yesterday while I was at work).

I felt better being up and around at work yesterday, as opposed to sitting and getting stiff. The 4 Advil I took in the morning helped. I was experiencing severe dizziness, which made me wonder if I'd hit my head, but I don't think I did. One of my doc bosses said it was from the shock and trauma of falling. Took some anti-vertigo medication and that helped as well. I asked TOC if I should bother Stosh (my PCP) about the fall and he said no, that tailbone "bruises" take up to 2 weeks to heal and that I probably didn't need an X-ray or an MRI. But I wonder about the MRI, given I have a herniated L5/S1 in my back already. (UPDATE: Just called Stosh. I was told that even if I did fracture my tailbone, there's nothing they do about it, it just takes a long time to heal..so essentially the same thing TOC said.) (UPDATE 2: Stosh called back. He thinks, based on the spasms and pain, that it's fractured and will x-ray next week to confirm location and severity, and reiterated that it'll take a long time to heal...he wants me to alternate heat/ice and ibuprofen/Norco.)

But I had a rough night, to say the least. My back would spasm and wake me up, which curled me into a ball every time it happened, and it was hard to straighten out again, to the point where I just got up (I planned to sleep in this morning). It spasms when I cough, blow my nose, or anything. Took 2 nerve blockers and 2 pain pills this morning to offset the onslaught of pain. Propped the heating pad on my tailbone, which feels good.

I think I need the services of my rocking chiropractor, Randy. Acupuncture, anyone?

It didn't help that yesterday at work, I had a hypoglycemic attack and had to punch out for an hour, because my supervisor and co-workers thought I was slurring my speech too much. I didn't feel *that* out of it, and was working hard when I got the order to punch out and take a break. Ate my lunch in the car (bruschetta without the bread--just the tomato mixture) and an apple--my ma called to check on my injuries-and said I wasn't slurring my speech at all. In any event, I dozed off for a little while and went back into work at 3pm, my back stiff from sitting in the car.

So what was the much anticipated Christmas gift from my Tatus? A book. Books, yay! A book by Greil Marcus, one of my favorite rock critics? Yay! A book about The Doors? Let's just say I've never been a fan. So it'll be an interesting perspective with which to read the book, not liking their music at all and thinking they're one of the most insipid bands of the 60's. They're one of those groups whose songs you know all by heart, but you just can't really tolerate. So much emphasis was put on Morrison and his physical beauty and heavy lifestyle, without regard to what was most important, the music. Tatus meant well and I'm sure he thought the book would be perfect for me. I guess I never voiced my disdain for The Doors out loud to him, but again, I'll read the book as a music critic and not as a fan. The book wasn't exactly what I was expecting, as he said earlier that he got me something "everyone else would hate but that I'd love because I'm such a non-conformist." I don't know what I was expecting. But a lot of conformists like The Doors, you know, stereotypical 60's band fans. And he didn't even wrap it, or write something meaningful in the book. He just sort of handed it to me in the office, and handed my co-worker 2 books from which to choose, and called that our Christmas gift exchange. It was nice of him to think of me in the first place, and I'm always grateful to receive a gift, but I didn't feel special, I just felt like one of the crowd of many at work. It's fair to say I guess I was a little bummed out, after all the hoop-dee-doo and given that he and I have a special relationship. He's capable of great feats of love and affection. Other times, he can be kind of a boob.

I worked hard on his gift, figuring out what would be appropriate but would be unique. The guy's got 1000 ties, but he doesn't have any featuring the artwork of John Lennon. He did really like the John Lennon artwork tie I gave him, and I think, though colorblind, he could tell the tie was mostly red, as well as the compilation of 3 CD's worth of Queen's greatest hits, and I told him to read the sappy card I gave him later, on his own. I don't know if he read it or not, but I warned him on the envelope that the card rhymed. I got a hug out of the whole thing.

On his way out of the office, I showed him what my best male friend got me for Christmas, a gift I'm still flabbergasted about, as I showed all the girls in the office on Wednesday.

My supervisor saw the gift and insisted I show every female in the office, and I had to tell everyone how we're just friends, and that he's married, but that his wife sort of knows I'm really, super special to him, and that she doesn't interfere in our relationship. They all looked at me like I was nuts.

Tatus asked me what my best male friend got his wife for Christmas, and I said I didn't know nor did I frankly care. Tatus said it must have been a very good year for my best male friend to afford such an extravagant Christmas present. He looked at the gift carefully, and God knows what was going through his head. He didn't say much other than to once again voice feeling sorry for me about the weekend my friend and I spent together this summer being such a horrible experience, when the truth is, we had a fabulous time together, even given the uber-expensive clusterfuck part of the weekend turned into. I can't figure out why he keeps bringing up the weekend we spent together, other than to chalk it up to a little bit of jealousy, which is totally unnecessary. So I don't know what to make of all that.

I love this video of the Beatles' "If I Fell." Especially Ringo's insistence that the crew member not touch his drums. I'm the same way...

Neil Diamond Fucking Rules. James Taylor Should've Stayed on Dope.

2011-12-27T21:53:00.008-06:00

Watching the Kennedy Center Honors. The inimitable Neil Diamond is being honored tonight for his contributions as a singer/songwriter. Neil's a fucking American institution. A true original. A classic. He's aged well, sells out stadiums in minutes to this day, and has a catalog of hits that rivals that of any American songwriters and we're STILL talking about him, watching him live, and marveling in his Neilness after all these years. There's literally nobody my age that I know personally who doesn't categorically love Neil Diamond.

Two people on this planet love Neil Diamond more than anything on earth other than our children: me and Steven Drozd. We wear Neil t-shirts. We tweet to Neil on Twitter in the unlikely event Neil will tweet back to us. (Steven admittedly has a better chance of getting a tweet back since he's famous and I'm not.) Neil asks Twitter fans to submit jokes he can tell his grandchildren and we wrack our brains coming up with jokes to tweet to Neil. We obsessively talk about him like giddy schoolgirls.

About time he was honored properly by the Kennedy Center and inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Way overdue.

My Tatus can't understand how I can have such awesome taste in music and love Neil Diamond so much. To that I say, "It's Neil Fucking Diamond! He fucking rules!" which my Tatus doesn't understand at all. He knows I have an eclectic taste in music to put it mildly, but thinks that Neil just sucks. He cringes at Boston ball games when the whole crowd breaks out into "Sweet Caroline," though he did let us leave it on the radio the last time we rode together in the car, and I think he actually started singing along. (This was after I told him Caroline was my middle name and that my parents used to play this song for me all the time. Great, now every time he hears a baseball crowd go "Bum, Bum, Bum," he'll think of me. Just great!)

I found the following hauntingly beautiful version of Neil Diamond doing "Solitary Man," one of my favorite songs, on YouTube.

Tatus' missus loves James Taylor. He was also on the Kennedy Center Honors tonight, in an abomination of clashing vomitrotious, almost incandescent lightning rods of drivel. Taylor's performance was a cover of The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun," written by my favorite musician of all time, George Harrison. Taylor was the first American artist to be signed to The Beatles' Apple Records label in the late 60's, because McCartney thought he had promise as a songwriter, so I suppose he feels he has some right to perform "...Sun" on national television in 2011.

James Taylor, though, has no soul. Nothing stands out about him. He used to be just a hippie little fucking pansy guitar player/singer-songwriter writing lame tunes about lame things--he couldn't even evoke emotion about heroin addiction in "Fire and Rain." "You've Got a Friend" wasn't even written by him; it was written by Carole King (who's also equally lame). Neil Diamond gets up and dances and plays guitar and has groovy moves and woos the ladies. James Taylor can't even get off a fucking stool as the lighting crew attempts to cover up his enormous bald spot. The only song I can stand by him is a duet with JD Souther, "Her Town Too," about his divorce from Carly Simon (who's also pretty lame). He got clean eventually, dropping heroin and methadone, but in this writer's humble opinion, he might have a shot at having a soul if he had just stayed on smack, and you know that I don't advocate drug use for ANYONE, as both Drozd and I are recovering narcotics addicts ourselves. Except James Taylor. I think in this video, it's a smackdown of smack-ups, as both Taylor and Souther were still on H. Souther can barely sit up.

The best tribute to Neil Diamond was my friend Steven Drozd's project, "Hot Coffee and Mornin' Lovin'" by his Neil Diamond tribute duo, You in Me, with Allan Novey, karaoke sensation and Diamond imitator extraordinaire. It's an original composition, not a Neil Diamond cover. A pastiche. It's comical, dead-on, and plus Steven looks really awesome in the video:

Neil Diamond will stand the test of time. He will always be adored by sold-out crowds full of fans like me, Steven and my Ma, while James Taylor will be relegated to playing to wine-drinking, cheese-eating crowds of oldsters at Ravinia until he's on the cover of AARP magazine next to an article heading about Medicare donut holes.

I'm Not in Love, So Don't Forget It, It's Just a Silly Phase I'm Going Through

2011-12-27T08:07:00.008-06:00

Maybe it's different for girls. Girls and modern age, in-touch-with-their-feelings kinds of sensitive guys. But you sort of know when you're in love with someone. I mean really, truly, ain't-no-denyin'-it, what-the-fuck-is-going-on, can-this-be-real, surely-you-jest in love with someone. It's a feeling that doesn't happen terribly often, but when it does, it's both elating and nauseating. Overwhelming sometimes. Especially when you don't know what to do with those feelings, wondering if the other person feels the same way about you...but it's termed "head over heels" for a reason. And it's always got to be so fucking complicated too. It's never just boy-meets-girl, boy-and-girl-become-best-buddies, boy-falls-in-love-with-girl-and-makes-her-knees-buckle, girl-blabs-about-him-to-all-her-girlfriends, boy-finally-leaves-wife and they live happily ever after.

I was reading a psychology blog today (Partners in Wellness) about depressed patients telling their partners "I love you, but I'm not in love with you..." and what the causes of that are, the ramifications of such a statement in relationships, etc. It was about adjusting to the depressed patient's sullen mood and trying to not take the statement personally, and how depression literally sucks the romance out of the patient, how many anti-depressants ruin the patient's sex drive and that radiates into their relationships. It went on and on, but the general gist of it was whether or not you should stay with your partner if they're going through major depression and what you should do if they come home one day and announce they're no longer in love with you. I dunno, it didn't sound very fair to the depressed patient from my perspective, but...author Kate Theida writes:

Your partner, who has been experiencing mental illness, just said to you, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you.”

“Excuse me? After all I’ve done for you and all you’ve put me through?”, you think. Next comes: “Wait…what does that mean, anyway?”

It could mean a lot of things.

Let’s take a poll as to what it means when your partner has a mental illness:

A. Exactly what they said: they still care about you, but the romantic spark of being “in love” is gone.

B. They never loved you in the first place, but are just realizing or admitting to it now.

C. They are struggling so much with their mental illness that they are incapable of feeling emotions of any kind, including love. Therefore, “feeling no emotion” = “I must not love you any more.”

D. Your partner is experiencing a major life change with having a mental illness, and is re-evaluating their life, which includes your relationship.

E. This is another version of “It’s not you, it’s me” when someone is looking for an excuse to end a relationship.

We could argue that any and all of the above answers apply, and I would agree with you, but the best answer is C.

(http://blogs.psychcentral.com/wellness/2011/05/i-love-you-but-im-not-in-love-with-you/)

The above statements could be true of anybody, not just the depressed, don't you think? In all fairness, this has happened to me and I wasn't even depressed. Mentally ill, yes, but was that why my relationships didn't last? I don't know. It couldn't have helped, but I find pigeonholing the mentally ill as unlovable is unfair.

I also read a "psychology" blog today about 8 rules of attraction, or "secrets of falling in love." That was largely a load of hooey, with obvious "secrets" such as falling in love with someone with similar political leanings (true, I probably wouldn't date a rampant right-winger), a good waist-to-hip ratio on a woman (signaling good fertility, a subconscious sign for guys), a decent age difference (sorry, Chris, but you and the French kid wouldn't have worked out but no wonder I like older guys), couples that look alike tend to stay together longer (cue "Dueling Banjos"), your partner's capacity for altruism (yes, it's nice when your partner is a "do-gooder," but it's not necessary for love to happen), as well as some load of crap about super-skinny people (like me) being the ideal for men in the Western world where food is plentiful as a sign of the woman's self-control and stability (talk about pigeonholing!).

Craig and I sat on my dorm room floor, looking at one another, after we'd been dating for a few months back in '92. "There's a difference between loving someone and being in love with them," he told me. "Yeah, so?" I said. He went on, "Well, I know that I love you." That was it. I told him I loved him too. Was I in love with him at that point? Sure, I was. And I meant that "I love you" as such. But he was making it blatantly clear that he wasn't, at the time, in love with me. I assume he fell in love with me later on, or loved me enough eventually to marry me and bear a child with me, and we had several happy years together both before and after we got married. Do we still love one another? In our own weird way, yeah, we do. We share Luke. We're interconnected forever. But I found his statement a weird thing to say to your girlfriend when he said it 20 years ago and still find it weird today.

But Chris was even weirder. He actually professed to never having been in love with me, even given the longevity of our relationship. He shuffled it off as to "not knowing what being in love with someone meant anymore." I asked him if he'd been in love with his long-term college girlfriend. Yes, he was, of that he was sure. Was he in love with his wife when they got married? He thought so. Was he in love with the French girl he was having the affair with? He wondered if he might be at the time (he went so far as to do a spread sheet that I found on his computer where he laid out a pro and con of "Do I believe in soul mates and is Taylor mine?" which I questioned him about, that he deduced that no, she wasn't his soul mate). But was Chris in love with me? Nope. He was convinced he wasn't in love. Never had been, wasn't and didn't plan on being in love with me in the future.

During our relationship, I would ask him about the feelings he had for me and what they specifically were. How he felt when he saw me, when he kissed or held me, after he'd made love to me (which is, by the way, the worst time to find out if someone's in love with you because you're too full of oxytocin to think straight). I'd ask him what he felt in his heart after spending a weekend with me, and he'd tell me. (This was before violence interfered with our relationship.)

"This," I'd reply, "is what being in love is." He knew that I thrilled his soul, or at least he told me I did, which is a pretty powerful feeling. (But I suppose, at the end of the day, Chris and I were both fools, because I told him what being in love felt like and he told me what a healthy relationship was, and neither of us was right.) Had he been in love with me, perhaps he wouldn't have hidden me away as a dirty little secret from his family and friends on social networking sites and not have introduced me to everyone as "his friend" instead of as his "girlfriend."

I'm big on soul thrilling. I asked my ex-husband after we got divorced if he married me just to get married or if it was because I thrilled his soul, and he said it was the latter. Right now, I thrill the souls of two men, neither of which is my boyfriend, but are each my soul mates in his own special way, and it's still a very powerful statement to me. Guys are REALLY weird with the soul thrilling question. The uber-sensitive guy who is one of my soul mates said an exuberant "YES!" when I asked him if I thrilled his soul, and the other, who is my soul mate on a totally different level, just sat nervously and stared blankly ahead of him when I said to him, "I thrill your soul, so what should we do about that?" That's why I said maybe it's different for girls. We're just better at expressing our emotions.

While I profess to preferring to date one man at a time, not that I'm dating anyone at the moment, I believe it's possible to be in love with more than one person at a time. The levels of intensity are different, and the circumstances are certainly different but in my experience, it's totally possible. It unfortunately happened to me while I was still married, while I was dating Chris, and still is true today. Again, it's not behavior I'm necessarily proud of sometimes, but it happens. I follow my heart way more than I follow my head. Sometimes that works out famously. Other times, it becomes a pragmatically impossible clusterfuck.

So has anyone ever been truly in love with me? Oh my, yes. Passionately. Recklessly. Somewhat unrequitedly. (See blog "I am Beautiful...") Guys everybody knows about and guys nobody knows about and never will. And I've been in love, many times over. I've also had my heart broken more times than I can count as a result.

"I keep your picture upon the wall. It hides a nasty stain that's lying there. So don't you ask me to give it back, I know you know it doesn't mean that much to me. I'm not in love, no, no. It's because....ooh, you wait a long time for me. Ooh, you wait a long time..."

Mike Royko: Mary and Joe’s story, Chicago-style - Chicago Sun-Times

2011-12-25T20:54:00.000-06:00

Mike Royko: Mary and Joe’s story, Chicago-style - Chicago Sun-Times

(Article Courtesy of The Chicago Sun-Times, December 25, 2011)

Editor’s note: The Chicago Daily News first ran this classic column by Mike Royko on Dec. 19, 1967, and then again at Christmastime many years until the paper folded in 1978. We missed reading it. For that matter, we miss Royko, who died in 1997. We thought we’d run the column one more time.

Mary and Joe were flat broke when they got off the bus in Chicago. They didn’t know anybody and she was expecting a baby.

They went to a cheap hotel. But the clerk jerked his thumb at the door when they couldn’t show a day’s rent in advance.

They walked the streets until they saw a police station. The desk sergeant said they couldn’t sleep in a cell, but he told them how to get to the Cook County Department of Public Aid.

A man there said they couldn’t get regular assistance because they hadn’t been Illinois residents long enough. But he gave them the address of the emergency welfare office on the West Side.

It was a two-mile walk up Madison Street to 19 S. Damen. Someone gave them a card with a number on it and they sat down on a bench, stared at the peeling green paint and waited for their number to be called.

Two hours later, a caseworker motioned them forward, took out blank forms, and asked questions: Any relatives? Any means of getting money? Any assets?

Joe said he owned a donkey. The caseworker told him not to get smart or he’d be thrown out. Joe said he was sorry.

The caseworker finished the forms and said they were entitled to emergency CTA bus fare to Cook County Hospital because of Mary’s condition. And he told Joe to go to an Urban Progress Center for occupational guidance.

Joe thanked him and they took a bus to the hospital. A guard told them to wait on a bench. They waited two hours, then Mary got pains and they took her away. Someone told Joe to come back tomorrow.

He went outside and asked a stranger on the street for directions to an Urban Progress Center. The stranger hit Joe on the head and took his overcoat. Joe was still lying there when a paddy wagon came along so they pinched him for being drunk on the street.

Mary had a baby boy during the night. She didn’t know it, but three foreign-looking men in strange, colorful robes came to the hospital asking about her and the baby. A guard took them for hippies and called the police. They found odd spices on the men, so the narcotics detail took them downtown for further questioning.

The next day Mary awoke in a crowded ward. She asked for Joe. Instead, a representative of the Planned Parenthood Committee came by to give her a lecture on birth control.

Next, a social worker came for her case history. She asked Mary who the father was. Mary answered and the social worker ran for the nurse. The nurse questioned her and Mary answered. The nurse stared at her and ran for the doctor. The doctor wrote “Post partum delusion” on her chart.

An ambulance took Mary to the Cook County Mental Health Clinic the next morning. A psychiatrist asked her questions and pursed his lips at the answers.

A hearing was held and a magistrate committed her to Chicago State Mental Hospital on Irving Park Road.

Joe got out of the county jail a couple of days later and went to the county hospital for Mary. They told him she was at Chicago State and the baby had been placed in a foster home by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

When Joe got to Chicago State, a doctor told him what Mary had said about the baby’s birth. Joe said Mary was telling the truth. They put Joe in a ward at the other end of the hospital.

Meanwhile the three strangely dressed foreign-looking men were released after the narcotics detail could find no laws prohibiting the possession of myrrh and frankincense. They returned to the hospital and were taken for civil rights demonstrators. They were held in the county jail on $100,000 bond.

By luck, Joe and Mary met on the hospital grounds. They decided to tell the doctors what they wanted to hear. The next day they were declared sane and were released.

When they applied for custody of Mary’s baby, however, they were told it was necessary for them to first establish a proper residence, earn a proper income, and create a suitable environment.

They applied at the Urban Progress Center for training under the Manpower Development Program. Joe said he was good at working with wood. He was assigned to a computer data processing class. Mary said she’d gladly do domestic work. She was assigned to a course in key-punch operating. Both got $20-a-week stipends.

Several months later they finished the training. Joe got a job at a gas station and Mary went to work as a waitress.

They saved their money and hired a lawyer. Another custody hearing was held, and several days later the baby was ordered returned to them.

Reunited finally, they got back to their two-room flat and met the landlord on the steps. He told them Urban Renewal had ordered the building torn down. The City Relocation Bureau would get them another place.

They packed, dressed the baby, and hurried to the Greyhound Bus station.

Joe asked the ticket man when the next bus was leaving.

“Where to?” the ticket man asked.

“Anywhere,” Joe said, “as long as it is right now.”

He gave Joe three tickets and in five minutes they were on a bus heading for Southern Illinois — the area known as “Little Egypt.”

Just as the bus pulled out, the three strangely dressed men ran into the station. But they were too late. It was gone.

So they started hiking down U.S. 66. But at last report they were pinched on suspicion of being foreigners in illegal possession of gold.

Merry Christmas from The Offbeat Drumming Lunatic

2011-12-25T16:53:00.015-06:00

Wishing you and your families and friends a joyous holiday...give peace a chance! Hope your extended family time was warm and wonderful, drama-free and that the togetherness didn't drive you all bananas. I'm proud to say I made it through Christmas Eve and Day on only one anxiety pill. A new holiday record, though we have yet to get through New Year's.

It's admittedly a difficult time of year for alcoholics. So much of holiday celebrating is centered around alcohol--champagne, wine, spirits, loaded punches, but my family is overly compensatory by not having any alcohol served at our family gatherings. Not that them having wine with dinner would bother me, but I spent many a Christmas totally loaded, and though it's been almost 4 years since I had a drink, it's still on my mind during the holidays. But I made it through another Christmas soberly. So yay me.

On Christmas Eve, I received a gorgeous pair of Tiffany-designed earrings from Kate from the NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art. They're sort of blue-green and have gold flecks in them, and match my eyes, Kate said. They'll go nicely with all the various shades of blue scrubs I wear, and will match with my fancy clothes too (not that I ever go anywhere fancy anymore, but you never know, the day could come again someday...), Kate knowing what a lover of jewelry I am and Kate having exquisite taste, I'm deeply appreciative.

Speaking of being a non-conformist female who's in love with jewelry, I'm going on public record admitting I opened a present from my best male friend that I wasn't supposed to open until after I receive my Christmas gift from my Tatus for reasons my friend didn't explain. I'm sure the two hadn't been co-conspiring and he told me, "Look, I know you're excited about getting his present and you love the guy, but don't open my present until after you open his." Understand that it took all of my strength to open the signature-required, insured Fed Ex box and saw the small, wrapped gift box and didn't tear it open immediately. I promised him I'd wait, but curiosity and impatience overwhelmed me, not to mention my overly curious friends (it could be days--a week or more before Tatus and I exchange gifts!). I shan't reveal what the content of the gift was yet, but he wrote in the card that he "upped the ante" on the gift representing the past, present and future of our friendship that he bought me for Valentine's Day in 2010. I was, in a word, flabbergasted.

Our family had a (mostly) relaxing, humorous and cozy Christmas. My brother's divorce was finalized the day before Christmas Eve, so this was the first holiday season without my oft-difficult (now former) sister-in-law. Steve and his son (and their border collie, Sadie) spent the night and just ate and relaxed and ate more and relaxed more at our house the entirety of the holiday without walking on eggshells worrying about the reactions and opinions of his erstwhile wife.

Saw the extended Miklasz clan (my dad's brother, his wife, and my cousin and her husband) sans my loony aunt spouting off at me because I'm an alcoholic and have texted at the table before (good), though she bought me a pair of utterly useless mittens...my mom made me my own fuzzy fleece giant Beatles blanket (awesome), I got my brother 4 pairs of his favorite drum sticks (always handy from drummer to drummer) and he bought me long underwear to keep me warm under my scrubs (necessary), Luke and Jake got all sorts of cool stuff (Jake got the Limited Edition Flaming Lips Strobotoy with USB memory stick containing their 6-hour long song, a toy you can trip and strobe lights with (perfect for him), Luke got a decent haul from me and a helluva lot from his dad and clan, and my mom only freaked out once, after dinner tonight when she was exhausted. The rest of the time, she was busy enjoying the spiffy new China teapot all of us kids chipped in on and bought her that doesn't drip, has an opening big enough to thoroughly clean and is in a floral pattern she found beautiful.

We made it to church to celebrate Christ's birth at the early service and were disappointed that the "candlelight" portion of the service included only a handful of fake candles and they didn't even dim the church during "Silent Night," the real candles reserved for the brave souls who went to the 11pm service. The service in general felt more obligatory than celebratory, but I'm cutting the new pastor some slack since it's his first holiday with our church.

Surrendered my bed to my nephew and slept on an air mattress in the office underneath my new Beatles blanket from Ma, which wasn't the most restful night of sleep I've e'er had but was over at 6:45 am anyway and I got up to have my tea and cigarettes in peace before the rest of the clan awakened. Fortunately, my brother's dog decided she could wait to out for a potty break until my brother woke up from all the rattle Ma and I were making downstairs.

Luke left at noon to go to Dad's where he apparently received a motherload, making me look like the cheap parent (I am, after all, the poor one!), all of which he showed me when he came home briefly tonight (with his charming little boy trapped in an old man's body personality) before he left with my brother and Jake to spend the next 3 days in De Kalb over break. Got to see Craig briefly, who I'm honestly sort of miffed at. I bought him a gift from Luke for Christmas--a book he really wanted--and he got me....Luke's lunch ticket for the month of January. I'm mid-process being accepted, due to my low income, into the free hot lunch program, but until then I have to pay for school lunches, and Craig bought Luke a handful and said that was MY gift from my son. Call the LAME ASS police.

It wouldn't be Christmas without a noir photograph my nephew took of me in my dorky hat! I look overly pensive.

Now, onto New Year's Plans...I have Luke this year, so we'll probably go out to dinner and hang out at home, and surely he and I will make it until midnight...Ma, not so sure. Missing my friends in Oklahoma and the chance to see them play with Yoko Ono & The Plastic Ono Band, but hoping my one-degree-of-separation from Yoko garners me a special message via my buddy...

So overall, Christmas was great. My mom's already asleep, exhausted from preparations, cooking and blankie making for all the kids, and her 6 varieties of freshly-baked cookies (I'm telling you, I'll crack 120 lbs by New Year's if I keep eating the way I'm eating!). I have a paid holiday off of work tomorrow, hooray, for which I'm thankful (as I was with my Christmas bonus, of which I'm deeply appreciative and it was more than I felt I deserved, but our practice is very good to we loyal workers).

A non-material gift for my Tatus, a song I put on one of the CD's I made for him this year--his birthday CD maybe? I dunno if he actually bothered to listen to it, but it's by my friend's band (from years and years ago, back when my friend still played drums for them, before he started to play keyboards and guitars) and certainly rocks and reminds me of him, because he's a scientist....

Again, Merry Christmas everyone! Christ is born!

Polish Christmas Traditions--Merry Miklasz Christmas

2011-12-24T11:15:00.004-06:00

We follow most, but not all of the Christmas traditions from Poland, leaving out the importance of the plethora of fish offerings (eew). We've had borscht on Christmas Eve, we've done the mushroom soup thing, my mom certainly cleans the house like a crazy woman before the holidays, and we definitely pass to Oplatek (communion wafers) around the table before our meal together, even though our Polish family ditched Catholicism eons ago....

Wesołych świąt i szczęśliwego Nowego Roku!!! (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!)

My son did a great job of explaining Polish Christmas traditions for a school project: Enjoy!

"Daydreamer" Dedicated to YOU, yes YOU.

2011-12-24T10:57:00.000-06:00

Daydreamer
Sitting on the sea
Soaking up the sun
He is a real lover
Of making up the past
And feeling up his girl
Like he's never felt her figure before

A jaw dropper
Looks good when he walks
Is the subject of their talk
He would be hard to chase
But good to catch
And he could change the world
With his hands behind his back, oh

You can find him sittin' on your doorstep
Waiting for a surprise
And he will feel like he's been there for hours
And you can tell that he'll be there for life

Daydreamer
With eyes that make you melt
He lends his coat for shelter
Plus he's there for you
When he shouldn't be
But he stays all the same
Waits for you
Then sees you through

There's no way I
Could describe him
What I'll say is
Just what I'm hoping for

But I will find him sittin' on my doorstep
Waiting for a surprise
And he will feel like he's been there for hours
And I can tell that he'll be there for life
And I can tell that he'll be there for life

My Christmas Message....or "If The Universe Gave Me a Choice, Which It Hasn't."

2011-12-24T08:44:00.003-06:00

Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people you have never talked to before, and actually listen. Let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high, no matter what the risk involved.

Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't believe in yourself, no one else will believe in you.

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck. Illness, Injury, love, lost moments of true greatness and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul.

Without these small tests, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. Safe and comfortable but dull and utterly pointless. Complacency IS safe and comfortable, but doesn't thrill you. The people you meet affect your life. They have the power to change your entire way of looking at life. Never settle just because that's what's normal or expected of you. Keep shaking the tree and soon enough, a bounty of fruit will fall down from it, all in your arms.

The successes and downfalls that you experience can create who you are, and the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones.

If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them because they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart to. If someone loves you, love them back, unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and open your heart and eyes to little things.

Merry Christmas!

Love Annie

I Woke Up To Something "Beautiful."

2011-12-22T07:56:00.002-06:00

My best male friend's been reading my blogs in between his harried life and holiday preparations.

He read the blog about my doubts about my beauty, and sent me this song this morning:

Gordon Lightfoot

"Beautiful"

At times I just don't know
How you could be anything but beautiful
I think that I was made for you
And you were made for me

And I know that I won't ever change
We've been friends through rain or shine
For such a long, long time

Laughing eyes and smiling face
It seems so lucky just to have the right
Of telling you with all my might
You're beautiful tonight

And I know that you won't ever stray
Cause you've been that way from day to day
For such a long, long time

And when you hold me tight
How could life be anything but beautiful
I think that I was made for you
And you were made for me

And I know that I won't ever change
We've been friends through rain or shine
For such a long, long time

Well, I must say it means so much to me
To be the one who's telling you
I'm telling you, that you're beautiful.

Into the Mystic--For Martin

2011-12-21T21:16:00.007-06:00

What's not to like about this face?

Right before Christmas, 2007, vaguely a couple of weeks before I met and hooked up with Chris, I met a charming man on the Chicago Reader personals site named Martin Wolke. I haven't, to date, blogged about him or said much about him, other than the fact that I was sort-of dating him in the early days of dating Chris, and I chose Chris, for I am not one to be typically capable of dating around and I concentrate on one man at a time. I'm just too shy (yes, I am capable of severe shyness) and can't juggle multiple relationships very well (the summer of 2009/2010 notwithstanding).

As I referenced in an earlier blog about dating Chris, actually, Martin liked to email me. A lot. We'd had dinner a handful of times, and he was charming and pleasant, though unemployed, having recently transplanted back to Chicago after a few years living in Rhode Island. Once we met, at an Indian restaurant, he began emailing me every day, and I'd sporadically write back when I was sober enough to write, Martin not knowing I was an alcoholic. He was busy a) sending out resumes, b) managing his insulin-dependent diabetes and c) emailing me.

I didn't let him kiss me the night of our first date, though he admitted he wanted to kiss me really badly. I was unsure of what to do, that having been my first "normal" date since the catastrophic breakup the summer before with Art. In the interim between Art and Martin, I'd filled the void with insane amounts of alcohol and my requisite share of ho'ing around post-separation in situations no sane person would repeat soberly. I'm not remotely proud of the way I behaved, but I sort of chalk it all up to what I had to go through to get to where I am today.

Martin had an apartment in Edgewater and no car, not that he couldn't afford a car. (At this point, I'd been with a plethora of men who didn't have cars, one of the features that made Chris stand out, actually. He had a car he actually had a license to drive.) Martin was too urban and was too eco-friendly to drive in the city. He had pretty brown eyes (I'm a sucker for them.. but then again, I'm also a sucker for blue eyes) and a warm smile, was like 6 1/2 feet tall and thin as a rail, was 47 and the oldest guy I'd ever dated, and the guy was just fuck nuts about me. Fuck nuts to the point where he included me in the holiday letter he sent out to friends and relatives that season, citing "I've met someone!" where I was like, "Slow down, there, fella.." He wanted me to meet his sisters and friends and loved ones immediately. I hadn't the heart to tell him I was really siding more towards my attraction to Chris instead.

He was a NICE guy. A DECENT man. I didn't give him enough credit for how hard he tried to win my affections, and in hindsight, I'm truly flattered. I still feel guilty that I didn't make the time he needed of me when he got sick and subsequently died in his sleep in January of 2008 from the diabetes, but by then I was all-Chris, all-the-time, and that's a shame. Martin had emailed me that he was "sick, really sick" and I suggested he see a doctor, but he couldn't, or just didn't, and I was busy with Luke's 8th birthday party preparations (like messing up his cupcakes for the class treat because I was drunk when I made them and forgot the eggs) and couldn't be bothered with Martin. At the very least, I should've done a well-being check on him at his apartment or something when he stopped responding to my emails. I found out a short while later, through his sister, that he didn't answer me because he had suddenly died.

I was invited to the memorial gathering at a friend's house but didn't go. I didn't feel I belonged, though I was already recognized as "the girlfriend," though I honestly wasn't grieving very much at the time. I felt bad, but again, I was wrapped up with Chris.

In Martin's online dating profile, there was a question about what song defined you. Or what your theme song would be, I don't remember what the question said exactly. I remember my answer snidely being the "Theme from 'Shaft.'" Martin answered Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic," which at the time, I wasn't really (surprisingly) familiar with. To me, anyway, that song is about accepting your own fate, clinging tightly to your own destiny and creating your own dreams. It's about loving someone in the moment, with all your soul, regardless of the outcome. He sure gave it all he had. I wish to this day I'd had appreciated him more for his uniqueness, his charm, his sensitivity. I looked up his obituary online and it's still posted:

Martin Wolke, 47, of the city of Chicago, died unexpectedly in his sleep on Saturday, Jan. 26.

He recently returned to his favorite city after four years in Rhode Island.

Raised in New Jersey, he moved to Chicago in 1983 and was a resident throughout the 1980's and 90's. A high school graduate, he returned to school in his 30's and obtained an associate's degree in accounting from Truman College. He also attended Boston University in 1978-79.

However, he preferred the title "student life". A man of many interests, he was most passionate about human rights and justice.

A political activist all of his adult life, Martin worked tirelessly.

Some of the organizations he helped are: Tenants Assoc.

of Evanston, CISPES, Neighbor To Neighbor, O.N.E., Nicaraguan Solidarity Committee, Adrain Capeheart's Alderman Campaign, Harold Washington's Mayoral Campaign and the Vietnam Vets Against War in Iraq.

Martin's ideals were his life, his heart and soul, but in his leisure he enjoyed spending time with his family and friends.

His hobbies included baseball, golf, bicycling and competitive games of all types.

His poker face is renowned.

He was an avid reader and great lover of music.

Martin is survived by his father, Herbert (Marion), his mother, Veronica Potter (Frank); and sister Marienne Gallagher (Rick), all of New Jersey, brother Michael (Shandy) of Adelaide, Australia, sister Laura of North Carolina, brother Thomas with daughters Sonja and Anna of New Hampshire; nephew Chris of New York City, niece Lisa Balog (Joshua) of Maryland; aunts, uncles and cousins; and a multitude of friends.

All will miss him.

And that's what Martin did. He sailed into the mystic. If I learned one thing from our brief relationship, it was to love whomever you love with reckless abandon. To follow your heart and not your head. To take chances. To give it all you've got, regardless of where those roads lead you.

"Hey Hey, What Can I Do?"

2011-12-21T07:33:00.002-06:00

...Perhaps you're all grateful I chose not to write when I woke up at 5:30 am yesterday, but I was sidelined with cramps leftover from my D&C/hysteroscopy on Monday. It was sort of a clusterfuck procedure all in all. I had my typical general anesthesia-phobia, convinced not only that I couldn't be put out, but also that I'd never wake up. Fortunately, both were successful.

(Luke was inexplicably either nervous or just snippy before my surgery, for the last couple of days. He kept telling me, "You're gonna die." I insisted I was *not* going to die from this simple procedure, but he kept it up, which made me uneasy. "You don't want your mom to die, Luke," I told him. "No, I don't," he answered. He knows I have a fear of being knocked out, maybe that's where it came from, I don't know. But his insistence was a nervousness I didn't need compounded upon my own.)

While waiting on the operating table, which is always eerie, looking at the trays of instruments and bright lights, shot up with Ativan, the nurse was asking me, "Are you relaxed yet?" with me answering a vehement "NO." One more shot of Ativan and I was more or less relaxed, though they couldn't seem to *find* an anesthesiologist. I lied there, strapped on the table, secured with a giant seatbelt and encased in blankets until some random dude waltzed in, didn't introduce himself, and said he was the guy, slapped a mask on my face and said "You're going to sleep now," to which I said, "No, I'm not." How they got me into and out of the position necessary for this procedure, I'm not sure, but it had to be a pip to watch. The next thing I heard was "Wake up, Andrea, we're all done." Well, m'kay. The procedure went as expected, I sort of got Roto-Rooted out and some biopsies were taken, and though I'm still crampy, the (TMI fellas) bleeding completely stopped and I'm going back to work today. The pathology report should be back in a couple of days, and Stosh will probably call me with the results before my OB/GYN does, as she's going on vacation for a week and told me she'd talk to me around the New Year, which would keep me on edge too damn long. I'm sure there's nothing wrong with my uterus, but they were, you know, ruling out the C word again, which is never a pleasant thing to wait to hear.

Unbeknownst to me, that sneaky Tatus swung by the hospital while I was still in surgery to check on me and once he found out I was still in the operating room, chose to leave instead of waiting for me to appear in recovery, which is very sweet of him but kinda sucks because I'm so used to seeing him when I wake up from anesthesia when I have operations at Resurrection. He's always in recovery when I wake up from operations and I'm sort of used to that...his face being the first I remember after the daze of anesthesia. He "happened to be in the area" on his first day of vacation and didn't stop in the office, just at the hospital (just to see me? Seriously?).

Part of the clusterfuck was that he forgot to put in the cardiac clearance letter that I need to be super-hydrated via IV before, during and after the operation because I dehydrate very quickly. So I worked that out with the staff myself, and was properly hydrated, so yay. Such things happen, like typing my name as "Andrew" instead of "Andrea" when your Tatus has been up and working since 3am the day he writes your clearance letter himself.

He got me something cryptic for Christmas, which makes my gift to him look banal in comparison. Part of his gift is practical and special and awesome and part of it rocks, but he said he got me something that I'll love that everyone else would hate because I'm such a "non-conformist." Read: he thinks I'm weird. I'm giddy with anticipation wondering what it is, just hoping it's not something I need to keep alive, because I have enough trouble maintaining my parakeet. Mis-matched socks? A silly hat? A Chia Pet? A dead ferret? We have to make a plan to make a plan to exchange gifts, as plan-making is a vital part of our relationship, and it usually falls on me to suggest said plan, and for him to comply. Hoping to have it narrowed down by New Year's but willing to wait.

He did call me Monday night on his way home from men's group at church, where they were discussing why God allows suffering in the world, which had to be a hum-dinger of a discussion, of which I would be very interested in the spiritual perspective. He said he wanted to hear my voice and make sure I was okay, which was very nice of him, indeed. I wanted to hear his voice too. I filled him in on the procedure, told him what we're doing for Christmas, and we exchanged plans of having to visit with the dysfunctional sides of both of our families for the holidays. We wished one another a Merry Christmas again, as we did the other night when we parted after work and he expressed affection towards me in front of the whole hospital, which was a little unnerving but totally cool in retrospect, because we're close friends and who cares who sees us together, when at first I was totally nervous about us being seen by someone we knew or worse yet, someone looking out the window of our office. But fuck 'em. I wanted him to walk me to my car in the parking lot but he said he didn't care who saw us, so there we were left on the sidewalk of the entrance to the hospital. Who cares? I needed my hug and kiss on the forehead, etc. Bold move.

(Hare Krishna! Pandora is stuck on a 45 minute Indian raga it won't let me fast-forward through. Chanting is involved. I love Indian ragas as much as the next Christian Hindu w/Buddhist tendencies, but 45 minutes' worth? Jesus Christ!)

Speaking of mis-matched socks, I grabbed a pair of Luke's yesterday morning and they didn't match. Didn't matter much since I spent the day in jammies and Uggs alternating between sleep and sampling my mom's delicious array of freshly-baked Christmas cookies. With any luck, she'll fatten me up to the point where I am over 120 lbs by New Year's. I'm getting close. I best not get too heavy, however, or I might not fit into my new "Skinny Little Bitch" t-shirt that I received as a gift from a loved one for the holiday season, mostly as a joke towards those insensitive folks who like to say "I wish I had whatever disease Andrea has so I could be as skinny as she is!" Seriously, someone said that to me. Ignorant.

My shopping is largely done, aside from stocking stuffers for Luke and something for my supervisor at work. What to get her, I have no idea. I know she's into leopard print EVERYTHING, but otherwise I have literally no idea what to get her that's under $10. No one said it had to be tasteful, I guess.

Today, I'm giving the rest of the doctors their gifts. I got Nab "The Concert for George" (Harrison) on CD, since he's a big Beatle head, and it's just a great concert. I got Dr. C a daily affirmations for cynics flip-calendar book, perfect for him. And I got Lips a set of 96 varieties of tea bags, which should keep him out of trouble for a while.

Mrs. Lips sent me a lovely Christmas card from the Lips family. Too bad she addressed it to "Mr. and Mrs. Miklasz and Family." Ironic, since it's Lips who always hassles me because I'm divorced. Evidently, word didn't travel to Mrs. Lips when she filled out the cards that I'm single and a mom, so it looked like the card was addressed to my parents, including my dead father.

Speaking of my dead father, a triumphant move in the Miklasz household! My mom actually put a picture of herself with my father in a frame and on the entertainment center. It's a great picture of the two of them from the early 70's. I think it was shortly before I was born or when I was a baby. It's the first acknowledgment of my father in the house in 27 years. I think she gave all the other framed pictures of our family to my brother and myself years ago, wanting to rid the house of them. I don't know if she did it for herself, or for us kids, or who's benefit, but I must admit it brought a tear to my eye seeing it up there. Bravo, Ma! That's sort of Christmas present enough for me, anyway. The photo joins pictures of my grandfather as a baby, my mom with her parents as a teenager, Luke's school picture, and an adorable shot of Luke with my grandma from a church picnic when he was 3 or 4, a few years before Gram died.

As referenced above, I've spent a lot of time the last few days listening to Pandora. In suggesting they play me more Led Zeppelin, they complied and threw in one I'd sort of forgotten about but that I love, "Hey Hey, What Can I Do?" Couldn't help but reminded of the events of the last couple of days, and the phone call I received, et al. It's just a great, bluesy, raunchy favorite:

"Sunday morning when we go down to church

See the menfolks standin' in line
they say they come to pray to the Lord
but when my little girl, looks so fine
In the evening when the sun is sinkin' low
Everybody's with the one they love
I walk the town, Keep a-searchin' all around
Lookin' for my street corner girl"

Rhythms from The Offbeat Drummer

Seizure the Day!

Seizure the Day!

Gosh Darnit, Anyway. And "This Was Spinal Tap"

Ira Glass on The Creative Spirit and WORK

Trapped No More

Watching the Wheels

Home.

Everyone I Know Goes Away in the End...

Dancing Naked in the Living Room Window

Wandering Uterus? (Another Great Name for a Band.)

An Open Plea to my Blog Stalker:

Must Be a Slow Day at the Office...

Five Management Practices That Kill Employee Productivity

Don't Even THINK About Putting Up A Site About Me Like This, Freaks!

"I Refuse to Be Discouraged..."

My Route To Help. Another Route for You to Stalk!

Luke vs Larry Hagman in The Growth Battle

For Christopher...

Nothing is Real. And Nothing to Get Hung About.

Shouldn't These Two People Be *REALLY* Pissed Off At One Another?

SOPA Breaks the Internet

This About Sums Up Today.

Rescue Me

Hire This Young Man To Model..

With No Disrespect to Martin Luther King, Jr, BUT....

Reflections on Luke's 12th Birthday

Ripple

What the Fuck is This, Anyway?

HYSteroscopy + HYSterectomy = Annie is HYSterical.

Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End

Love

I Love My Blog Tracker Software: Part 3

Suicide is not chosen; it happens when pain exceeds resources for coping with pain.

What the Fuck Day is It, Anyway?

Maybe I Was Washed Out Like a Lip Print On a Shirt.

All Things Must Pass

"Feeling Yourself Disintegrate": 15 Songs by The Flaming Lips

An Old Blog: Thoughts on 3 Years Sober, As I Approach Year 4...

I Love My Blog Tracker Software: Part 2

Snatching Springs, 1976

A Bad Trip. And Some New Hope on the Horizon for Psychedelics!

Surprise Yourself.

As Helene would say....

My Favorite Song of 2011 (That's Not a Flaming Lips song)...

My New Year's Message, or "If the Universe Gave Me a Choice, Which it Hasn't, Part 2"

Annie: 2012

"I Got the Blues"

If I Fell...

Neil Diamond Fucking Rules. James Taylor Should've Stayed on Dope.

I'm Not in Love, So Don't Forget It, It's Just a Silly Phase I'm Going Through

Mike Royko: Mary and Joe’s story, Chicago-style - Chicago Sun-Times

Merry Christmas from The Offbeat Drumming Lunatic

Polish Christmas Traditions--Merry Miklasz Christmas

"Daydreamer" Dedicated to YOU, yes YOU.

My Christmas Message....or "If The Universe Gave Me a Choice, Which It Hasn't."

I Woke Up To Something "Beautiful."

Into the Mystic--For Martin

"Hey Hey, What Can I Do?"

Shouldn't These Two People Be REALLY Pissed Off At One Another?