cobwebs

No Internet? No problem! Actually, it is a problem. It's a problem because I want to communicate with you without seeing you. But I also want to see you. I want and need to see people in whatever this is we call "real life." For now, however, it is far more convenient to reach out via online sources. And how can I do this without the ability to be online? No man or woman or dog with a blog will ever be able to answer this question.

So I am writing/typing (there is a difference -- you choose which one I'm doing) this on March 18, 2050. Jay Kay! Our planet will be gone by 2050. It's just 2015. "Just." 2015: NBD. It is a Wednesday morning and I am waiting for water to boil so I can not drink some tea. I am boiling water as a sort of holy ritual, I suppose. I will want to drink the tea immediately upon it's required 3-5 minute steeping because I'm greedy like that. Impatient. Desirous. But I won't. I will use my rapidly disappearing will power to not drink all of the tea because in one hour I must get more iron infused into these prominent veins of mine. This means that I will be sitting. For over an hour. With no chance to pee out the tea. "Doc! Bring a bedpan! Stat!" I don't want to yell that. So, tea, you are a nice routine, but for this Wednesday morning in not-2050, I will indulge in only your heat.

Indulge! That is one thing I feel as if I have consistently been doing lately. Indulging in all sorts of abnormal behavior for me, namely eating. It is kinda dreary that indulgence for me is eating a small breakfast. Indulgence for me is eating a protein bar and, hell, even a banana in my warm car during my 10-minute break. With indulgence, however, comes the ever-persistent guilt. It hides in the shadows with patience, precision. It knows when to strike, when to step out and take over. I'm over it. That is not true. I want to be over it. I want to be over the what feels like inevitable guilt more than I want this hot tea in my mouth. I want to give myself over to good things, to the nourishment which has always been waiting for me. The nourishment doesn't wait in the shadows. It isn't chummy with guilt. It doesn't hate guilt by any means; it feels sympathy for it. Nourishment understands that guilt is just a misguided attempt at self-preservation. Nourishment knows what I need and it knows that I know what I need if only I'd listen more closely.

It is time for me to listen. It is time for me to stop destroying what I work to build up. Why build castles with blocks if I just kick them over out of fear that the castles are too grand, too beautiful? I deserve the grand, I deserve the beautiful. I have an intuition which has always served me well and will continue to serve me well so long as I don't keep it tucked away in the dark corners. I need to do some soul sweeping. Get those cobwebs out of there. Open some windows and get some sunshine in this place.

Well, half of the tea is now gone. I couldn't help myself. It was perfectly cinnamony today. I gave in to this little piece of sunshine in a mug. The sun is cinnamon. The moon is whole. I bow down to both.

pawtrick

Look, today is a day when I have to wear green. Green is perhaps my favorite color, but I don't wear it. And I especially feel goofy wearing it on days such as today. If you aren't aware of what today is, mosey on over to your cat calendar and take a peek at March 17. That's right! It's St. Pawtrick's Day! (Get it?! PAWtrick's?! Like a cat. Because of your calendar. Because of your cat calendar.) I'm one of those jerks who scoff at wearing red on Valentine's, green on Pawtrick's, and an American flag string bikini with sparklers coming out of the nipple region on the Fourth. I am becoming less of a jerk and more of a passive participant now that I work in an elementary school and see how happy dumb stuff like appropriate attire on holidays makes the munchkins. So today I will wear this weird green shapeless dress thing I purchased at American Apparel back in 2007 and have worn never. I will wear the dress and a smile and pinch the hell out of any unlucky 5-year-old who dares to come to school free of green. Sucker.

Today is also the day when I get to look over and figure out and discuss and try not to freak out about medical bills with my sissy! I am okay with this. I am okay because it has to be done and it will probably put my mind at ease in some ways and I get to see my sissy. I am okay with it because I want to be okay with it. I have noticed lately that we have almost too much say in how we feel. You've heard it before, but it's not what happens to you, but how you react to what happens to you. For example, a color blind kindergartener may pinch me today, but I don't have to go apeshit because of it. Instead I can grab the green frosted cupcake out of their sticky little hand and throw it on the floor, painfully smashing it with my boot while staring down the SOB. That'll teach him. Or her. Or they, if they happen to be gender fluid. And I am here to teach, aren't I? Lesson learned.

Hey! I haven't mentioned Ed once! Except to mention that I haven't mentioned him. Or her. Or they, if Ed happens to be gender fluid. I haven't mentioned Ed because Ed hasn't been in the forefront of my mind. I mean, he has, but as I become healthier, my mind awakens and my old interests return, as well as some new ones (such as wearing green 24/7). Interests that are not related to Ed. It's, like, "Get lost, Eddie. This chick has some zines to create in order to pay for some medical bills for which YOU are to blame. So yeah, beat it!" Get lost! Beat it! Pinch it! Pinch THIS, Ed! No, wait. Let me pinch you until you scream mercy. And here, have a cupcake. I dare you.

Okay, peaches! Good luck today. Go out there and find your rainbow and pot of gold and Jameson shots. Go out there and eat a damn potato! Go out there and pinch whomever or whatever tries to bring you down. You got this.

party time

I have a good fifteen minutes to write before I know I will get antsy and need to step outside and walk around a park/tree museum and stare at the crows and sparrows and clouds. The clouds are so strange today! Then again, most things are strange to me most days. As it should be. If you cannot find at least 47 and a half strange things throughout a typical day, then what's the point of continuing to live? No no no, I joke. There is always a point to continue on, soldier. Don't throw in the towel just yet.

I won't throw in the towel if you don't throw in the towel. Let neither of us do any kind of towel throwing, no matter how tempting.

The clouds have been perhaps the only strange thing I've picked up on today. Other than that, I've felt rather bland. A blank slate. Clean, sure, but blank. Blank and robotic, but with anxiety buzzing beneath the surface. Try as I might to put the medical bill dilemma out of my head for at least a few hours so that I can function and take care of my other daily responsibilities, I have failed. It has occupied most of my tired mind. Hey, at least it's momentarily elbowing Ed out of the way. Every strange cloud has a silver lining.

And this is all money based. That's the real bummer. If we were just concerned with my health, I'd be way more optimistic and not nearly as frustrated. But bring money into the picture and you've just brought me down. Again, that's a real bummer. Smell ya later, Family City. It's Bummer City from now on, folks.

Okay, not from now on. Just temporarily. I'll recover and my motivation will return. I hope. I am doing a lot of hoping. A lot of hoping and paying of bills I cannot afford and baking bread. I bake bread constantly when I am anxious. Even when I am not anxious. Golly, I should just become a baker and make bank. Is that the phrase? "Make bank"? I wouldn't know because I've always ignored money until, gasp, I could no longer ignore it. Time for this tired anemic chick to become a financially responsible tired anemic chick. In other words, I'll always be a chick. SCHWING.

Yes, schwing. I shall leave this post on that word. It's time for me to wander around the tree museum now and stare at the clouds. Clouds don't have medical bills. Lucky sons of bitches.

Schwing.

growth

Anyone else feel like a burden on society or is it just me? I joke. I don't feel like a burden on society, but I DO feel like a burden on my family/their wallets. They all have wallets, by the way. They all have grown up, nice looking, leather wallets. I have a coin purse with a cat's face on it. I think I bought it at Target in the little girls' section. About 89% of the time I still believe I'm under the age of 14.

I need to grow up. I want to grow up. I have kept myself in the role of li'l kiddo since, well, I was a li'l kiddo. I'm sure it has served as a defense mechanism. Everything serves as a defense mechanism. But I'm starting to get bored in this role. I don't get anywhere being this child. Hell, I can't even drive or vote or buy a bottle of cheap whiskey.

In other words, no more ignoring the uncomfortable. No more assuming someone else will take care of the mundane. No more letting others bail me out. Yes, I will still ask for help. Yes, I will still admit that I am clueless. And yes, I will still be a child in the sense that I will look for the wonder in the smallest things (I hope). But I have to grow up and start showing up for my life. I want to be here. I want to be an active participant in life.

This is boring. It was necessary for me to put this out here, though. Hold me accountable! Now for some monkey mind... In a minute. First I need to pay some glorious, heavenly, oh-so-resplendent medical bills.

Fun.

coven

An interesting day! I made it through the parts I thought were going to be rough. The really tRiPpY thing is that the parts I thought were going to be rough ended up being hella un-rough. In other words, I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome of certain events. I have no idea why I'm being so vague right now. Basically, I was going to get my hair colored at 2pm, which would take at least an hour and a half. And if you are a loyal reader (hi, mama!), you already know that 2pm is my gloomy time. It's the time when I have to be outside and walk off the blues. Well, can't do that if I have bleach and tinfoil in my hair, now can I? I mean, I CAN, but I can't. Anyway, turns out the hair dying process took an hour longer than expected, but it was an hour which I did not notice. Why? Because I was having a very stimulating and satisfying conversation with my hairdresser. Cool chick! Really cool. Hell, we may even one day be roommates and/or go camping. If we end up being roommates, we could always go camping in our living room. Just set up the tent, have a mandatory pillow fight, and then braid each other's hair all night while gossiping about boys. She would braid some killer braids. And we wouldn't really talk about boys. We'd most likely talk about psychiatrists, cats, and Mitt Romney, which are three things we discussed at length today.

So yes, it was nice to have a not-terribly-exhausting nearly-three hour conversation with another human, specifically a girl my age. I want more girlfriends! I already have so many kickass girlfriends, but if I can be greedy for one goshdamn second, I'd like to have a million more girlfriends. I'd like to have all of the girlfriends in the world! And beyond! I'd like to have alien girlfriends!

There is something so wonderful to me about connecting with another female. Boys have their clubs and their "brotherhood," but what about us gals? It seems as if we are always pitted against one another, as if we are in some all-consuming competition. What are we even competing for? And why? What's the use? Let us go back to our pagan roots and dance together naked in the woods under the mother moon, howling like wolves.

Ugh. The DREAM.

desert heart

Happy Sunday! What if I was a preacher? I'm currently not a preacher, but there are surprises in life that we never see coming. Other possible Meg careers that one would never suspect me to have: car salesman, infomercial person, CEO, judge.

Happy Meg has been a constant for awhile now. "Awhile" might only be a week, but that week seems like an eternity. I feel myself, however, slipping back into Grumpy Meg. I should remind myself that it's normal for humans to go through valleys and peaks with emotions. As the ancient Arabs said, "Sunshine all the time makes a desert." True, true. Rain brings growth, storms make roots deepen, la la la la la. We've heard this before. But it just feels so gooooood to ride on that happy wave.

Do not get me wrong, buttercups. I am not sad sad. I just catch myself falling back into unhealthy patterns. "Oh, so remember that big salad with the liberal amount of dressing you had for lunch? What if you just run, say, an extra ten minutes today? Come on. You used to run way more than that..." "Hmmm. Your pants are fitting a bit tighter. Maybe you should skip breakfast tomorrow? You probably won't be hungry anyway." "You know you are probably more creative when not full, right? Think of what you could accomplish as a 'starving artist'!"

THAT'S Ed's voice, folks. Subtle. Hinting. Nudging. Often I don't even recognize he is talking. But that bastard talks. Constantly. And I listen. Attentively. I become submissive and obedient. I hardly question what is suggested. It's imperative, however, that I begin questioning. I need to raise my voice above a whisper. I need to be assertive -- although with Ed I might have to become aggressive. Li'l Hippie Meg is a pacifist, sure, but she is also a fighter. She is a contradiction! She contains multitudes! She also contains that damn voice that tells her to do damn stupid stuff. Don't listen to it, Meggie. Go listen to some Native American flute music instead! That always calms those sweet nerves of yours.

"Nerves of yours" is a challenging phrase to say. Is it? Or is my tongue just swollen because of my anemia? Anemia! Eating disorder! Emotions! I want to step very far away from these subjects for a bit. I want to go, like, work in a soup kitchen or play pinochle with the elderly. (I spelled it "peeknuckle" on my first try. Is this an appropriate time to use "LOL"?) In other words, it would be wise for me to balance out the time I spend trapped in my head/issues with some good old fashioned service.

Let me serve you! Let me serve you some sunshine with that desert you're having. Let me serve you some rain, some roots, and then a healthy dose of relaxation. You deserve the service. You deserve to raise your voice if you happen to find a fly in your soup. Give yourself a break -- and I'll do the same.

edward, stephen, and mickey

I don't want to write about Edward this morning. Edward is my eating disorder! HILARIOUS name, I know. Edward is also the name of a teenage vampire, I think, and the King of England from 1272 to 1307 and the man who perfected a method for making graphite. Anyway, this Edward of mine is a little bastard and I am bored of him right now. Instead I will write about other areas of my life because, surprisingly, there is more to me than disordered eating behaviors. (Side note: Apparently there is a subtle difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating. I don't know what I have, but it's safe to assume that I have it all. Just check all of the boxes, doc!)

Teaching. It's like a teeter totter for me. One minute I'm up, the next I'm down. One minute I feel like it is highly likely I will someday win Teacher of the Year, which I think means I will get a free trip to Disney World and a golden apple trophy and maybe even a brief story about me after the weather on the local news broadcast. But then the next minute I am extremely doubtful of my ability to even talk to children and am convinced I have corrupted the youth of America -- and not in a cool "rock 'n' roll" way. In other words, what am I doing??? Will someone please just tell me what to do so that I can do it and not think about it anymore? Half joking. But sometimes I simply want my brain to hush and instead blindly do as I'm told. My brain needs a massage. My brain needs a smoke break. My brain needs an all-expenses paid vacation to Disney World.

Next up! Stephen King! I'm reading him for the first time. Well, reading one of his novels for the first time. I have read On Writing, which was maaaaarvelous, and I used to read his column in Entertainment Weekly -- and I definitely read his tweets. And sometimes I even read his thoughts! It's strange, this telepathic communication I have with Stephen. Anyway, the decision to read 'Salem's Lot was entirely random. After reading even one page of a book, I become stubborn and have to finish it. Even if I hate it. I don't hate 'Salem's Lot. It is damn fun. I had forgotten how much I enjoy scary stories. That's all I read during my magical junior high years. And I would write spooky, fairly gruesome stories as well! I was really cool in junior high! No, I really was. (And I said it was "magical" because, as I believe I have previously mentioned, I was eating disorder-free for those three years. Just eatin' whatever the hell I wanted, whenever I wanted. Plus, I really liked the band Aqua and The Spice Girls and even, secretly, Creed.) But, yeah, Stephen King. Boooooo!!! Which brings me to my next subject...

...Booooobs. Boobs! I don't have them, but I think I used to? I used to have a butt as well. And my arms used to not be so sickly and veiny. Yesterday in my favorite 5th grade class, I took off my jacket. My noodly arms were exposed, dear reader(s), which prompted my favorite 5th-grader to gasp -- literally gasp -- and say, "Your arms! Your arms are so skinny!" She was shocked. It was pretty awkward, but I played it off, like, "Yeah, they've always kind of been this way. But that's why I'm getting more iron! I want to become stronger!" She later profusely apologized and said that she didn't want me to feel bad (I didn't -- sadly, I was almost a little pleased... Eff you, Ed!), that it was merely an observation. But she is right -- my arms are so skinny, yes, too skinny, and I should stop seeing that as some kind of badge of honor. It's not. It's sad. I am getting to the point where I realize I look sick and that I actually desire to look healthy and strong again. Big step.

Whoops! I wasn't going to talk about Ed. Guess he (she?!) is all that is on my mind lately. I hope that will change the further along I get in my recovery because I have a lot more in my life just waiting for my time and attention. A disorder does not define me. A disorder will not get me to Disney World. A disorder will, however, ultimately make me stronger if I am determined. And, dammit, I am.

Happy Saturday, darlings. Go outside and drink in the sun. You deserve it.