Life's a card game

It's interesting to note how people deteriorate as they get older.  Sometimes their bodies fall apart; sometimes it's the mind.   If I had a choice, I think I'd pick hanging on to my brain.  If you loose your mind, what difference does it make if you have a body?  Even with a sick body you can still think.  You can take drugs for whatever ails you and still read, talk to friends, or just lie there and let you imagination take you anywhere you want to go. 

Unfortunately, due to the curse of genetics, I don't get a choice.  A few of my neurons are up there, floating about, not connecting to anything.  I picture them swimming around in grey matter looking for a sand bar to attach themselves to.  But I'm doing so much better since I've been on medication, something I'm not planning on going off of, ever.  My doctor told me I'd end up in an Alzheimer's ward if I did.  That may or may not be true, but I'm not planning on taking the chance.  I may be half crazy, but I'm not stupid.

My sister, Heather, is the opposite of me.  Not just in looks--She inherited the Irish genes, I got the Swedish ones--but she also got the good brain with the not-so-healthy body.  She has Fibromyalgia, which keeps her in physical pain and fatigue a lot, along with a host of other maladies.  But people look at her and can't believe she's sick.  She's perky and cute and has big boobs.  Real ones.  But that's like all of us, right?  Not the boobs, of course, but we get good things along with bad.  It's like God is the dealer in a big card game.  He deals the hands.  We get some good cards, some bad.  If we're smart, we don't get mad and throw our cards on the table.  We just play the hand we're dealt.     

Quirks and Underware

Sometimes I think we're all a little bit crazy.  At the very least, we all have our quirks.  I used to have to go to the door knob and touch it about five times to make sure it was locked.  I got over that, but still double checked it, without actually touching it.  That's not neurotic, it's sensible--expecially since I found it unlocked one time.  Now, of course, I live in a hotel, and the door usually locks behind me.  That's fine, except when it does lock and I've run out without my key card.

My sister Heather is fairly normal.  I say fairly because she's extra tidy and lines up her vitamins alphabetically, like they do in drug stores.  I looked in her dresser once.  All her bras and undies were folded neatly and lined up by color.  Can you believe that?  The insides of my dresser dawers are a mess.  But outside, everything usually looks good.  Kind of like how I am in real life:  Put together on the outside.  Messed up on the inside. 

So, does our underware tell stories about us?

A Song in my Head

I hear music in my head.  It's like I have another channel going all the time.  It's especially noticeable when I first wake up.  But if I stop whatever I'm doing, whatever I'm thinking, I can hear music.  Right now I have a lot of James Blunt going, but it varies.  People tell me I hum a lot.  It's mostly mindless tunes, but sometimes it's a melody from Mozart.  I hum when I do ordinary things around my apartment--making someone a drink, fixing a sandwich, folding clothes--things that don't require any heavy-duty thinking. 

I know this happens to other people; but it's not the kind of thing you go up to someone and say, "Hey, do you hear music in your head?"  I get enough funny looks as it is without bring that up.  But I also know this type of brain activity is not going on in the average brain.  In a way, it's kind of fun.  You never know what song will be playing when you first wake up.  Kind of like turning on the radio.  But other times, it's downright annoying, especially if the song is one I don't particularly care for.  In that case, I change the channel by deliberately playing another tune up there or listening to a CD.

At any rate, it beats boredom.

Lost days

Sorry, I lost a few days.  I fell into the black hole, you know, the pit filled with quicksand, and stayed stuck.  My doctor called me in to go over my lab tests and started in on me about the extra protein in my blood.  Really.  I told her, "Look, I really don't care about protein in my blood.  Right now I'm half-way between I-don't-give-a-shit and kill-me-now."  She put me in the hospital.

I have six black-and-blues from donating blood to those nasty little vials--one of them is as big as a plum and has turned a sickly yellow-green.  But someone finally figured out I needed to be off the Seroquel.  Like all meds, it doesn't work for everyone.

And like all meds, in order for them to work, you have to take them.  That was the mistake I made in Boston.  I thought I was fine and decided I didn't need medication anymore.

And I loved Boston.  I loved the cobblestone streets and the autumn leaves so intensely painted they looked fake, dressed in colors like salmon pink and day-glow orange.  I loved the way I could walk from my apartment to little shops that sold spices or books or vegetables stacked in little piles.

But I lost it.  Both ways.  I lost my temper and my self-control.  Then I lost my job, my home, and the place I loved to live. 

Oh, well.  I've decided to stop beating myself about the head and ears over that one.  I'm trying to love my new home in the desert.  I'm trying to do better, trying to think before I shoot my mouth off.

I have some good things here:  Family.  A hovering, too-motherly, but loving sister.  A bit-too-stuffy brother-in-law who saved me from living in a cardboard box.  A poorly paid, but fun job with great perks.  And, of course, men.  Men to talk to, men to spend time with, think about, dream about, and maybe one day, fall in love with. 

Just not today.

Today I am still unraveling.  I am unwinding, looking for my core.
Like a torn sweater with a loose piece of yarn that tempts you to pull on it.
Of course, we all know what happens when we try that little trick.   We wind up with a pile of spaghetti.  Like my brain.

But I've stopped whining about that, too.
I have a second chance.  And I'm trying not to blow this one.

Rachel

Facing My Public

This is probably a crazy thing to do, but I'm not exactly known for having a whole lot of common sense at times, and I suspect all the little neurons floating around in my brain aren't always connecting.  I suppose if I would have used what little brain power I have, I wouldn't have ended up in Arizona to begin with.

But there it is, I'm here, working at this rinky-dink hotel, and already so much has happened that someone is writing a book about me and my sister and her husband and their best friend and some life-changing events that have already taken place in all our lives.  It beats the heck about of boredom, I suppose, but on the other hand, I could have been killed.  And I'm barely past thirty.  Well, okay, a little bit more than barely past thirty.

At any rate--and you may be able to relate to this--I had to quit my job in Boston because I told off my boss in a rather loud, ugly, and vulgar way.  Something you've thought about doing, too, right?  Yeah.  It really felt good.  He was an insenstive jerk, arrogant, and took credit for every good, profitable idea I devised for increasing sales at our hotel.

I did learn that being right isn't always the best course of action--pointing it out, I mean.  Especially in front of the boss's boss.  I made the oaf look like a fool, which he is, but then...yeah.  I didn't have much choice but to turn in my resignation.  And of course, in this economy, it was not such a hot idea.

Instead of calling my shrink, I went on a binge--a drinking one, not a shoe-buying one.  (I drink when I'm depressed, but I tend to buy shoes when I'm hyper.)  That also wasn't such a hot idea--the binge, I mean--as I ended up feeling like crap.  I blamed my half-Irish temper.  But the truth is that I just lost control.  Me.  Myself.  I did it to myself.

At any rate, that's when my sister called.  She's six years older and acts like my mother, and manipulated me into visiting her in Arizona at the hotel they recently had become partners in.  I'd never been to Arizona, didn't really want to go to some dumpy little town that was filled iwth spider and snakes, but as I said, she threw the old guilt trip at me and I bought it.  Besides, since I was out of a job, I'd soon be out of an apartment, out of food, and well...you get the idea.

I was here, in Arizona, two days when things started happening.

I think I probably need to tell you something.  I have some issues.  I have a spider phobia.  I have a fear of getting emotionally involved.  The latter problem, I have pretty good reasons for that one.  I also have this odd attraction to danger...or maybe it has an odd attraction to me.  And I have some brain problems, too, some mood disorder problems I'll talk about later.  All totaled it makes for an interesting story, I'm told. That's why there's this woman who's going to be writing about it.

If you want to follow along, great. Maybe we can both learn something.  Or not.

Rachel