Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Margaret. I’m Totally Lying; My Name is Jackie.

I feel like your $260 yard cleanup quote, followed by your revised $150 quote (after I looked at you, horrified) suggests that you think there’s a possibility that I’m made out of money. I am not.

I found myself mentally composing two blog posts this morning when I woke up, freezing, at 5 a.m. I also had to pee pretty bad, but blogging seemed the more likely of 1) blogging, or 2) getting up to go to the bathroom. In the end, I went for 3), which was: snooze for the next hour.

I don’t remember what these blog posts were, but I recall that they were inspired. Probably in the same way that my dreams are (asleep: “This dream would make a kick-ass movie!”; awake: “Um, no it wouldn’t.”).

My son got me a lovely vintage ten speed for my birthday. I love it. Riding a bike is like riding a bike. You never forget. I did, however, used to be a lot better at it. In an effort to get my 8 year old on her bike (the one she begged for, the one with training wheels), I skipped cajoling and pleading (already tried; didn’t work) and went straight to comparisons (“I learned how to ride a bike when I was 5. By myself. Without training wheels.”). That didn’t work, so I had to go with, “Get on that bike and ride it or I’m giving it away tomorrow.” So she rode it, reluctantly and with much drama, for a little while, but the bottom line is that I’m never going to be able to ride my bike. And I need to practice so I’m road-ready and can ride it to work. I’m tired of being passed by bicyclists on my morning commute. Also, I’m tired of being fat and out of shape.

*Not an actual representation of what I’ll be doing this weekend

I’m not a horrible person, no matter what this version of WordPress would have you believe. Even if WordPress now decides to cooperate fully and publish my post without grievous error (thus making my complaints seem the rant of a crazy woman with no legitimate grievance), I promise that I am a person who likes and loves and who perceives self-fault. I am a person who wants to be wrong, who wants to apologize, who wants everything to be well. Or well enough. I’d settle for that.

I’m a good person, a person who wants to be happy, who wants others to be happy. I want my children to never hurt and I’d bear their pain if it was allowed. I’ve hated and loathed and I don’t think it’s served me well. I want to be what my cat thinks I am. I’m willing to work on it. I’ll do what I can.

In return, Universe, please send me some sign that I try so hard for a reason. I know I’m a carbon-based life form and inherently flawed and prone to death and dismemberment and eventual decay back to carbon, but I like to think I matter, despite these truths.

Edited to add: I will take WordPress’s cooperation with my Android phone as a sign.

Not, old old people, just old people I used to work with.

Work is boring without them. We’re down to a handful of fun and entertaining coworkers. It’s not just me; other people I like at work are noticeably lagging. We’re a dying breed.

Ten years of sleep disorder, two pointless sleep studies, and countless sleep-inducing pharmaceuticals will make you think that sleep is the most basic and valuable luxury life has to offer. (Having a baby will make you realize this as well, but they don’t usually add up to 10 years of sleeping like shit.) Sleeping well without medication has been one of my Holy Grail/bucket list items for quite a while.

So I stopped taking my sleeping med. After a couple weeks of almost no sleep, and dealing with the rebound insomnia that the medication can create (I know, right?), I finally started sleeping on my own, a little at a time. And after a week of sleeping sans medication, that deep, luxurious, wonderful cozy as a bedbug sleep, I look and feel better. God, do I feel better.

I feel so much better that I’m doing it… a lot. Like I have a little sleep deficit to catch up on. Ten years worth? I’ve been asleep by 10 p.m. for the last two days, and I can’t wait until the weekend so that I can have some more uninterrupted, grade A, sexy, sleep-porn sleep.

It’s just that good.

I keep waiting for my burst of anger with therapy to subside, but it hasn’t. Though it’s only been three days since I went to my shrink’s newly-formed group, I still feel betrayed. Is that what she thinks of me? Is my pathology on par with the dysfunction I witnessed at group? I was told that it was a group of similarly-situated (as far as stage of therapy) women, for purposes of mutual support. It was, instead, a crazy-fest (with a couple of exceptions), and I felt sane and clearheaded. I was a member of my shrink’s cult, but I didn’t think much of some of the other members.It was an unwelcome wake-up call.

I was reading about Asperger’s, and came across an article on Asperger’s in girls and women, and how differently it manifests for females. And the symptoms were a little too familiar, in relation to myself and my eight year old. I’m not sure I qualify for a full-blown diagnosis, but I definitely have some of the traits. And the last thing I need is diagnosis of another disorder I can’t do much about.

A wasted weekend. Friday started off on a bad note, owing to seething about group the night before, but I coaxed myself out of crankiness with an embarrassing but effective remedy that I discovered many years ago: stories from the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I know. I won’t be seen in public buying one, so I’m left with finding them online.

I need to stop watching Intervention. And Hoarders. And Supersize vs. Superskinny, and all of the true crime crap I watch when I’m doing the dishes. I don’t know why I find other peoples’ crises so fascinating, but I creep myself out sometimes.

I’ve suffered from Major Depressive Disorder (and PTSS) since I was a teenager. Some of it genetic, some situational. Who knows the ratio? Not me. With a narcissistic depressive for a mother and an alcoholic abuser depressive (who knows what other pathology he has– I haven’t seen him since I was two years old) for a biological father, it seems inevitable that I would be a depressed person. Add to that a sociopath physically and emotionally abusive pedophile adoptive father, and it seems like a recipe for depression.

I’m tired of taking medication. I’m tired of therapy. I’m angry at therapy. Ten years, and this is what I get? I’m still antidepressant-dependent and have been taking medication to sleep for ten years as well. My shrink says I will probably take antidepressants for the rest of my life. Really? I’d rather be in a constant state of suicidal ideation. Maybe.

It just feels ridiculous. That’s probably a sign the antidepressants are not working. Do I care? Less than I thought I would.

It’s not enough to find one’s self at an age where one is getting a peek at their own mortality. Babies turning into children. Children turning into adults. Looking in the mirror and seeing the face of one’s own mother. Marveling at one’s high school friends and how old they look (and then looking back in the mirror to verify one’s own likeness to one’s own mother). Logging on to the local news website and finding that a client was murdered over the weekend. Signing a pathetically over-cheerful “Get Well” card for a coworker’s gravely ill child, the same age as one of your own. Not enough. We also get internet friends.

If you don’t have an extensive network of internet friends, people you’ve met online who probably live half a country (or planet) away, you’ve never had a lot of extra time and a need to talk to people in a socially awkward way. If you’ve ever been home sick or disabled, or with a small child all day, or a single mother, or unemployed or underemployed, you’re probably like me and have developed some kind of network of people you’ve known now for 10 years on your computer monitor, whom you may not ever have met in “real life.”

But if you’ve ever been that person, a bit of a shut-in by choice or by circumstance, you know how real those relationships are. And if you’ve ever had one of those friends near death, or worse, dead, you know that it actually hurts. In real life.

Terry. Soren. Kevin. I miss you dead men. You were some of the best men I never met. And a special shout-out to Leslie, who is (I think) my second-oldest internet friend (10 years, bitch!), who has defied death a number of times and made me stress-buy stuff at Target (the cast-iron napkin holder is still working out great, Les) during her epic renal failure and resulting kidney transplant, and whose every ridiculous email I save in a special folder out of habit– a habit I started at the beginning of said epic renal failure, when I thought she was going to die and all I’d have left was her emails. Instead, she got married the day before her kidney transplant, and had two more medically ill-advised redheaded fat-ass babies just to piss off her kidney donor sister. And is now a gargantuan size 3. I guess a third kidney makes you a giant lardo. Still, I’d rather she be fat and burdened by ugly redhead children than be dead.

But please be forewarned: if any more of you die, I will disconnect my internet and pretend I never met any of you.

Hi Kevin. Hi Soren. Hi Terry. I hope there’s a heaven and you have interwebs. I hope we meet in “real life” one day.

I love my kid’s teacher. She just gets my girl. She gets ADHD. She doesn’t care that my kid is a freak. She doesn’t seem to judge either of us.

But apparently there is a swear word in class, and it is ISTG. “I swear to god.” And my kid’s loyalty is torn between me and her teacher, who considers this phrase verboten. And I am decidedly uncool with this bullshit “swear word” and the imposition of Christian bullshit in my child’s educational experience. As my seven (almost eight) year old says, “I can’t think of any reason that I would need to say ‘I swear to god.’” Which is true. (Please ignore WordPress formatting bullshit.)

Another Judeo-Christian imposition on my life today (and an irritating reminder of how little church and state separate): I had to go to City Hall to sign paperwork for my notary bond (oh, the power of Il Notaria!), and they made me verbally swear some ridiculous oath of fealty far outside the scope of my, uh, duties as a lady who stamps documents. Beginning in me defending the constitution and enemies of the state, and ending in “so help me God.” Really? It practically alluded to my duty to engage in swordplay and bear-killing against any “enemy” of the state. It was preposterous. All for a $5,000 bond in case I fuck up notarizing something. Because notarizing is so fucking hard. Stamp. Sign. Sign. So I didn’t tell the government lady that I’m an atheist, because who gives a fuck? Now I’m bound to be drafted into some Notary Army, and it sounds pretty hardcore. Stamping people until they are dead, or surrender.

Whatever.