log

I can change my mood right now and I think I have to unless I want a shitty Friday evening. Today wasn't bad. Work was fine, I felt mostly fine, I ate lunch AND a snack, and so on and so on. There are just little annoyances happening right now and I am letting them get to me. I am distracted. Why am I annoyed and distracted? Because my dumbass neighbor is parked right in front of my window and he is unloading a bunch of logs and... And never mind. It's not worth typing. Although upon rereading what I just wrote, I do find it humorous that he is unloading logs. Where did he get all of these logs? Why so many logs, man? Will there be a bonfire or a witch hunt? Is he aware that I am both a hippie (love those bonfires!) and a witch (hate those hunts!).

I juuuuust just just just want to have, like, a second where I don't have to be around other people. I can't go on a walk in this town because it is damn Family City, USA, which means no matter where I go, there will either be a stroller or a scooter or a jogger chasing after me. I don't have the opportunity to let my mind wander. I guess I don't have the convenience to let my mind wander. I probably always have the opportunity, I just have to search for it a little harder.

Okay, I just started crying. I tried to have a better attitude about the whole log thing (which, I understand, is probably still confusing for you -- it is for me, too), but I couldn't take it anymore. Whatever. He has the right to unload a shit ton of logs from the back of his truck and block my window/the sun. Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I need a hug. But don't hug me because I really want to be left alone right now.

I need to go do something for someone else. I need to get out of my head and step away from my goofy little log-related problems. They don't even have to be problems.

Maybe I also just need a sandwich. A sandwich made out of patience and compassion and a lot of roast beef. Extra mayo, please. I haven't let myself eat mayo since I was a child. I would get the Chicken Little sandwich at KFC, which was basically just a chicken patty with mayo. I think that's the last time I've had mayonnaise. So... 22 years ago? Is mayonnaise good? Will you buy me a tub of it? I think I just figured out what I need in life: Solitude, mayonnaise, and an endless supply of logs.

patata

In a caffeine-induced state of hyperspeed yesterday morning, I posted about a billion things on Facebook. Because, you know, that's productive. I posted a link to a blog. Specifically my blog. Specifically THIS blog. And then hours later I was, like, "Oh no." Not that I was keeping this little corner of the Internet a secret per se, but I liked having a quieter place to retreat to dump my thoughts, puke out my monkey mind, diarrhea my ideas for only a select few to see. Sounds messy. And it was messy. AND IT SHALL CONTINUE TO BE MESSY. I don't want to censor myself just because now I know that this or that person has viewed my messy blog. Besides, I'm overestimating the power of a simple Facebook post. I don't want to fall into the trap of having these grandiose thoughts of self-importance. Self-love and self-care? Sure. But dial back the ego, Meg.

Do I have monkey mind thoughts today? Of course. I'm beginning to realize that many of my thoughts that I share with you (you millions upon millions of new readers! psych!) are about as exciting as a baked potato. Guess what? Baked potatoes are pretty damn exciting. I should know because I had one last night. It was remarkable, a nearly religious experience. Breaking away from my bizarre, highly-ritualistic eating behavior for one night was ahhhhhhh and it was ohhhhhhh and it was apparently high in fiber. I may have even seen the Virgin Mary in the skin of the spud, but who knows? I believe I will make potato eating and other revolutionary acts a regular thing.

Yesterday I also received my second dose of iron THROUGH AN IV AND INTO MY VEINS!!! Doesn't that sound hardcore? Well, I guess it's fairly common, which makes me boasting about it less fun. The nurse this time was a woman and a delightful woman at that. She was more calming, more nurturing, and even wrapped a warm hospital blanket around my legs. It felt foreign to be taken care of like that by a stranger, but it is definitely something I could get used to. From now on I shall seek out the drifters, the outsiders, and the transients to provide me with physical and emotional comfort! I joke. I joke a lot on this blog, so get used to it. Yet at the same time, I can be so achingly honest. Get used to that, too. I also start a lot of sentences with "and" and those sentences usually run on and on and on and often I ask too many questions and answer none. And I tend to end paragraphs with the phrase "and that's okay." Now you know her fog! But do you know her pearls?

Well, folks, that's a quick updated on... On potatoes and strangers. If you ever meet a strange potato, however, do not expect me to know what to do. I would suggest you turn and run the other way, but then again maybe the potato just needs a friend. Maybe we all just need a friend. Maybe we all just need a familiar friend who will wrap warm blankets around our cold, iron-deficient limbs. Maybe I can be that friend to you. <3

bacio! baiser! mwah mwah!

Reminder to my beautiful self: It's okay to be moody! It's okay to have days where you cry on a treadmill and in the park. It is perfectly acceptable to be imperfect and inexplicably sad. Because it will pass. All of those emotions and feelings will pass (even the happy ones), and they will pass a lot smoother if you allow yourself to actually feel the feelings. Radical idea, huh? Rad.

I remember receiving a "RAD!" stamp in the mail from a former love. He was and still is, as far as I know, a wonderful human. I forget about him. I forget about the wonderful ones and remember the shitty ones! That's not entirely true, but it is at least partially true. There are a lot of partial truths out there. There are a lot of partial loves as well. A "partial love" might be more of an infatuation, a possibility never realized.

Eddy, my boyfriend and girlfriend and best friend and worst enemy and life giver and life sucker and all of the above, has prevented me from having any kind of long-term, relatively healthy adult relationship. BECAUSE how can I have a successful relationship with another human when all of my devotion is given to Ed? Besides, he/she/it is freaking possessive, to put it mildly and safely (you know, "freaking" instead of "fucking" -- you are welcome, mama! Mwah!).

Thanks to the dime-a-dozen eating disorder memoirs/self-help books, it is now a cliche to say I am ready to break up with Ed, but that's exactly what I'm ready to do. Ed is, well, a dickhole asswipe. And boring. And, yes, scary, but at this point Ed is just lame. I can see right through him (him? her? they? still haven't decided on the pronoun, which I think is kind of a big deal/decision). I want to go out and enjoy stimulating conversation and new people and NEW JOKES and NEW BODIES and NEW TASTES and NEW WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE. In fact, I don't feel like I even need to give reasons why I want to break up with Eddie Pie Honeybunch. I've "justified" it enough in the past. The only thing I need to say is that I want a divorce -- and that we better get started on dividing our assets. No hiding anything from me, Ed! Give me the Subaru and I'll let you have the washer and dryer. Oh yeah, and give me back my ass/hips/brain. It's been real. Smell ya later.

Hey! I did it! I broke up via blog post. Awkward? Inappropriate? Confusing? Sorry you had to witness that. But now I'm free! I'm 30, flirty, and thriving. Take me out to dinner, wine and dine me, compliment my bloodshot eyes, etc. Don't buy me roses, buy me wildflowers. Better yet, let's go on a hike and then you can point out the wildflowers and we can write poems about them in the red sand.

Truth be told (let it be told!!!), I'm not really as amorous as I appear to be. I'm kinda just jokin' around with you sexy, sexy, incredibly desirable babes. It might take some time for me to "unthaw." I am starting at zero here and need to build up all sorts of things physically before I can begin to WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE with another person. But (wo)man oh (wo)man, when I do! Watch out! Hide your daughters/sons/blow-up dolls! Hide everything! But then uncover everything because it's all about being vulnerable and open and honest and devastatingly handsome. Kiss me, you fool!

snag

Oh hi, Recovery. You are really, really tricky. Am I repeating myself? Well, you deserve to hear how difficult you are again. You are, as we would have said in the '90s, "hella hard." ED was easy. ED let me ignore my feelings and live in this numb space where I could disappear. Now I am beginning to feel and fill out and reappear. These happenings aren't much of a surprise, but they sure seemed more appealing on paper than in real life. Recovery doesn't always look like a cloudless spring day or a flawless butterfly emerging from a cocoon. Recovery is messy and confusing and littered with pitfalls.

So why do I do it? Why do I continue? I am still figuring that out. Today I am not entirely sure I have the energy to continue figuring it out why I continue. There is a whole lotta continuing going on here. And uncertainty. And if there's one thing of which I am certain, it is that I avoid the uncertain and snuggle up to the tried and true. ED was tried and true. ED is tried and true. Sure, it may be an outrageously dangerous and dismal way to exist, but it did offer the promise of security. A false sense of security? Yes. But I thought I said ED was tried and true? I did. Am I confusing myself even further? It's what I do best.

But maybe I can make recovery what I do best. For now. Maybe I can channel my Scottish stubbornness and desire to control into the recovery process. Maybe I can trick myself into believing that I enjoy the messiness, that it is some kind of "challenge" or adventure. Because it totally is. And it has to be totally worth it, right? I don't want to waste my time. I don't want to just go through the motions. I don't want to lose motivation.

I can only do so much each day. Give yourself a break, Meg. I ate breakfast. I ate a snack. I cried on the treadmill because I ate a snack, but I forced myself to "take it easy" on the treadmill. Which was hard. Which was really "hella hard." But I did it. And then I cried in the park after the gym because I ate a snack. And then I felt frustrated that I was spending so much mental energy on worrying about a banana and some wasabi peas. And then I came home and took a shower and made some tea and now I'm slowly calming down. I can only do so much.

This is insane. This is all so strange when I step back and look at my situation. I know it goes deeper than just a banana and wasabi peas. I know it goes deeper than "just food." Let me weed this out. Let me dig deeper and deeper and deeper. But first let me drink my tea before it gets cold.

distort

If you are at all annoyed with or concerned by my morning monkey mind, I advise you to simply skip reading any of the posts I write in the AM. I won't be offended! I will just secretly think of you as a less creative creature. But we can't all be Picasso. We can't all disfigure the female form through painting. OR CAN WE?

I want to start painting. Again and for the first time. I have never taken an art class aside from a few back in junior high. One of the art teachers gave me a shitty grade on a shading assignment and I think that discouraged me for the rest of my life... Until now! I wonder if not taking any art classes has been a positive thing? Nah. I do love the outsider artists, the "untrained." But at the same time, I would totally dig it if I knew how to properly sketch a realistic bowl of fruit. And then I can take my skill of fruit sketching and incorporate it into looser, more abstract crap, such as painting women with wonky faces.

In the morning, with all of my buzziness, I could definitely be a great teacher. I am like, PAY ATTENTION! Order in the classroom! Good morning, darling children of mine! Where's my apple! Let me sketch that bowl of apples! Something something about reading writing 'rithmetic and hall passes and paper airplanes. Chalkboards! My classroom will definitely have an old-school chalkboard because white boards are boring boards and my classroom will be anything but boring. My classroom will be a carnival with shrunken heads (science!) and mirrors which distort you just like one of Picasso's women and a haunted carousel because if there is one thing I want to accomplish in life it is to put fear into the hearts of children everywhere.

I joke. I want children to be happy. Sometimes, however, children are happy when they are scared! But safely scared, like the kind of scared they get from reading Goosebumps or watching a plant grow. (That plant thing is a real fear for some children, okay? And by some children I mean me. Little Meg was terrified of a tiny little plant inside of a tiny little Dixie cup which she received way back in the Primary days. A plant! What the hell, sweetie sweetheart love-of-my-life, Meggie?!)

Well, this concludes Meg's Manic Monkey Mind on this Wacky Whimsical Wednesday. Ugh. That is the worst sentence I have ever constructed.

baggage

I've started drinking black cherry Fresca in the evening instead of my Bengal Spice herbal tea. Both beverages are bad for the absorption of iron. Well, I'll deal with it later. "It" being my anemia. And I am actually actively dealing with it. Infusions! Uhhh... Spinach salads! Oysters! I have yet to actually eat said oysters, but at least I made an effort and purchased them. I would so go to an oyster bar right now with a handsome gentleman or an alluring lady. Or both? Ménage à trois? Oui oui. Or maybe the handsome gentleman is a polygamist and the alluring lady is my sister wife. Ugh. No thanks! (But secretly thanks. Secretly I've found polygamy kinda appealing on more than one occasion. Secretly I want polygamist hair! Those braids! Those bangs!)

Yeah, anemia has been gettin' me down today. At least I know what's wrong with me? I think? Sometimes I feel like it's more than just "simple" anemia. I must have something else. I must be a treasure chest of troubles! A treasure chest of cancers and chronic ailments and crabs. Do I have crabs? I do not. YET. I won't rule it out.

But I push those fears aside on a daily basis. I don't know if I ignore those fears or if I realize they are irrational. I hope it's the latter. Realization versus ignorance is always preferred.

And I think I prefer tea. Who knew I'd ever prefer herbal tea over the classic diet lime and grapefruit citrus soft drink? Of course, if gin enters the picture, then... Then that's another story. And that story will never be told because my mom reads my blog (Hi MOM! JK!). I'm hungry.

Am I hungry? I don't know what hungry is right now. I think I'm hungry. I think I'm going to make dinner. I think I will wait. I think I don't know what to think. I think I should take a break and relax. How do you relax with a Fresca, though? Fresca just makes me want to party.

Let's throw a party together. We can fill a room with balloons and pins and we can invite all our online friends. We will cram ourselves into this windowless room and pop balloons until we pass out from fear. Then we can wake up from our distress and dress ourselves in pioneer attire and retire into a life of blissful polygamy.

Yeah. Let's do that.

middling

It has been a quieter day. It is probably a good thing that it has been a quieter, calmer day. For the past three days I have been almost too happy. I know, that might the most obnoxious thing a person can say. So much of my sunshiny attitude has to do with, well, the sunshine. Hello, dear sun. Your Meggie and her vitamin D levels have missed you. Did you miss us? You never wrote.

Maybe today's subdued mood is due to work. I am liking work a lot these days, but work is still work. Having to be somewhere on time and forcing yourself to make small talk can kinda suffocate any previous enthusiasm. That's okay. I have said "that's okay" to a lot of things lately... And that's okay? But is it also kind of strange? Am I in an easy going mood because I am about to snap and have a nervous breakdown/explode? Good moods always make me suspicious.

I guess I don't have much to say tonight. I must have used up all of my energy earlier today researching and writing about monkeys. I feel like a zombie right now. And that's okay.

Take it easy, pals.