Back among the living

on Halloween, no less!

I made it to work today and I'm feeling much better. Still a trace of migraine (blurry vision, slightly swollen eye), but overall, I'm feeling fabulous. It felt good to get out of bed this morning and get dressed and actually leave the house.

Now that I'm basically functional again, I think I am going to take a brief hiatus from the Yahoo message boards (where I spend an inordinate amount of time). I have so much that I need to take care of right now, and posting there is just a total time-suck, not to mention emotionally draining for me for various reasons. I think a two- or three-week break is in order. I've got books to read, clutter to clear out of my house, doctors to see, holiday shopping to get started on, poetry to write, and all kinds of other stuff to do. Plus, I think the insomnia I've been suffering from lately has a lot to do with my evening message board activity. Hopefully, a short break will do me some good. We'll see how it goes.

I think I'll go home tonight and not even turn my computer on. I've just started a new book (The Tin Drum, by Günter Grass), which is hilarious and brilliant so far (I read the first four chapters yesterday). I think I'll spend the evening reading and doing laundry and then try to go to bed early for a change.

On the mend

I slept pretty much all day and all evening, getting up for just an hour or so here and there. Copoius amount of sleep must have been what I needed, because I'm definitely getting better. My vision is still blurry in my left eye, but I can see out of it now, and it's not all swollen and bloodshot any more. It's still a bit sore, but nothing compared to before. Thank goodness, because this has been a really horrible experience.

There are a couple of things I can say about myself:

First, I have a very high pain threshhold. I mean, I can tolerate quite a bit of pain. The pre-op nurse who took care of me before my last hand surgery mentioned that she has noticed that her RA patients have a whole different mindset when it comes to pain, and things most people would ocmplain about don't even make us flinch. I tend to have sort of a Zen-like mindset about pain. So, anyway, for me to even go to the emergency room, the pain has to be quite severe. And for me to wake up at night whimpering in pain like a wounded animal -- well, you know it has to be really, really bad.

Second, I never cry in front of other people. If I must cry, I will shut myself up in a room by myself. I hate to cry in front of anyone, ever. Well, yesterday when I got to work a little after noon, with my eye swollen shut, feeling like I was going to die if the pain didn't go away, one of my co-workers came over to ask how I was doing, and I tried to answer her, but burst into tears. That is something I just don't do. I caught myself pretty quickly and turned off the waterworks, but still. I was really embarrassed.

Anyway, that is how bad this thing was. I hope to never have a migraine of this magnitude again for as long as I live.

I called in sick today.

I call in sick maybe once a year, and I have to be pretty much on my death bed to do so.

My boss drove me home after work yesterday, and I went to bed at about 7:30 and slept until 9:00 this morning. When I woke up, the migraine was not any better!

I didn't feel like taking a cab to work again and sitting at my desk all day peering out of one eye trying to get some work done, so I said "fuck it" and called in. I think all of the majorly important pretrial stuff is already done, anyway. If anything else comes up, it should be simple enough that maybe one of the secretaries or the other paralegal in the office can do it.

So, after I called in, I went back to bed and just woke up again a few minutes ago. I'm afraid to type this, lest I jinx it, but the migraine now seems to be a wee bit better. My eye is less red and less swollen and doesn't hurt quite as much as it did. I still can't really see out of it, but I think I'm on the road to recovery now, thank God.

Attack of the Mutant Migraine

Seriously, this is the mother of all migraines. I spent five hours in the ER last night and the migraine is worse today. They gave me three shots of Dilaudid, and they may as well have been injecting me with saline for all the good it did. Not even a dent in the pain. My left eye is swollen and red and unbelievably tender, sore, and light-sensitive. It won't stop watering, either. Despite all of the Dilaudid, plus the Toradol the doctor prescribed for me, which I picked up at the pharmacy after leaving the ER, I was in so much pain that I could not sleep last night. I actually woke up whimpering several times. Whimpering! How pathetic is that?! They did a CAT scan at the ER, and it came back totally normal. They tried to convince me to get a lumbar puncture, but I refused. Fuck that, I say. Nobody is sticking a giant needle into my spine!

The worst part of all this is that I could not call in sick today, either. Fucking upcoming trial starts on Tuesday in this libel case we have been working on for two years, and there is no way I can be absent from work this week. Pretrial motions, last minute exhibits and shit to put together, etc., and my boss is basically helpless to do any of this for himself. The man doesn't even know how to turn on a computer, much less use one. Hell, he can't even type on an old-fashioned typewriter, for that matter. I dragged my ass into the office at around noon today. I can't wait to get out of here and go back to bed. This really fucking sucks.

Migraine from the bowels of hell

Woke up this morning unable to open my left eye, which was watering uncontrollably and searing with pain -- the unmistakable signs of one of my migraines. Ugh. Noise does not bother me much when I have a migraine, but light and movement do. I can't drive when I have one of these things, because even if it's cloudy outside (and it is not cloudy today -- it is VERY bright and sunny), the outdoor light blinds me and I cannot see anything. I could not call in sick today, however, because we are going to trial next week in a libel case we've been working on for two years, and I have a shitload of pretrial motions and shit like that to do. I absolutely have to be at the office today. Since I knew I wouldn't be able to drive myself without risking immense harm to myself or others, I took a cab. Yep. I took a freaking cab to work. I also swallowed some Vicodin and some Zomig in the hopes that it will do something to take the edge off the migraine. At least I can now see well enough to type. Speaking of which, I need to get back to the motion I was working on.

My sweet new chair

I got a new chair today at work. It's an awesome chair! Much better than the crappy little piece of shit I've been sitting on at work for the past five years. The ridiculous thing is that I could have had a sweet new chair years ago if I'd only asked for one. In fact, when I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, my boss asked me if there was anything, anything at all, that they could do with my work space to make it more comfortable for me. Like the dumbass I am, I said everything was fine. I never would have gotten this sweet new chair had one of the attorneys not seen me looking wistfully through the chair section of the Office Depot catalog last week. Anyway, my new chair rocks! Well, not literally. I mean, it's not a rocking chair. But it's awesome. Here it is, in all its comfy glory:

A sonnet I wrote last week

When a heart breaks inside an empty room
with none to hear it, does it make a sound?
The remnants flutter, silent, to the ground.
Where once the heart was there is now a tomb -
Within this sepulcher carved from cold stone
Ghosts of these three - faith, hope, and love remain.
Their bitter tears fall in a gentle rain.
All hope is lost, faith gone, and love is done
Time does not heal their wounds nor ease their pain
Shared misery no consolation brings -
Like the caged bird who sadly, sweetly sings,
Their fervent pleas for solace are in vain.
There is no balm in Gilead, and thus
Ashes return to ashes, dust to dust.

Soooooooooo...

So far, no one knows about this blog but me. At least, I don't think anyone else knows about it. I haven't sent the link to anyone. Maybe I will keep it that way for awhile. I will just hang out here and talk to myself. I'm better at talking to myself than I am at talking to other people, anyway. This way I will bore no one but me.

"Someone's boring me. I think it's me." ~ Dylan Thomas

Hahahahahahaha. No, seriously, I like doing the blog thing, but I don't think I like other people reading it. I think I'll keep this blog to myself for now. Well, okay, maybe I'll send the link to just a few people. Maybe.

Love's Imagining

Dear love, I sometimes think how it would be
If thou shouldst love me, if, on such a day,
O day of wonder! thou shouldst come and say
I love thee, or but let me guess thy plea--
If once thine eyes should brighten suddenly,
If once thy step should hasten or delay
Because of me, if once thy hand should stay
A needless instant in my own! Ah, me!
From such imaginings I wake and start,
And dull and worthless life's endeavours seem
Before the tender beauty of my dream--
And then I whisper my impatient heart,
"Be still, be comforted, O heart of mine,
Thou art not all bereft, the dream is thine."

~Hopestill Goodwin

Hyacinth

I am in love with him
To whom a hyacinth is dearer
Than I shall ever be dear.

On nights when the field-mice
Are abroad, he cannot sleep.
He hears their narrow teeth
At the bulbs of his hyacinths.

But the gnawing at my heart...
He does not hear.

~Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

My new favorite sonnet

Sonnet Found in a Deserted Mad-house

Oh that my soul a marrow-bone might seize!
For the old egg of my desire is broken,
Spilled is the pearly white and spilled the yolk, and
As the mild melancholy contents grease
My path the shorn lamb baas like bumblebees.
Time's trashy purse is as a taken token
Or like a thrilling recitation, spoken
By mournful mouths filled full of mirth and cheese.
And yet, why should I clasp the earthful urn?
Or find the frittered fig that felt the fast?
Or choose to chase the cheese around the churn?
Or swallow any pill from out the past?
Ah, no Love, not while your hot kisses burn
Like a potato riding on the blast.

If this be love...

If this be love, to draw a weary breath,
To paint on floods till the shore cry to th'air,
With downward looks, still reading on the earth
The sad memorials of my love's despair;
If this be love, to war against my soul,
Lie down to wail, rise up to sigh and grieve,
The never-resting stone of care to roll,
Still to complain my griefs whilst none relieve;
If this be love, to clothe me with dark thoughts,
Haunting untrodden paths to wail apart;
My pleasures horror, music tragic notes,
Tears in mine eyes and sorrow at my heart.
If this be love, to live a living death,
Then do I love and draw this weary breath.

~ Samuel Daniel (1562-1619)

Pierre de Ronsard Sonnet

With thanks to my friend Edward for introducing me to this one:

I fly the crowded roads where thousands hurry,
and fly the populous town for rock and wood,
those friends, who know how well their natures marry
with my strange temper and my solitude.
Am I alone, when love, my secretary,
follows my halting steps, as though he could
with his immortal voice bid Time to tarry
while he repeats the pains I have withstood?
Often indeed, when most my sorrows fret me,
I stop to wonder, "Does she speak, my pretty,
or think of him who loves her -- or forget me
because my agony outruns her pity?"
And thus, though knowing it is false, I feign
to dream of pleasure while I live in pain.

~Pierre de Ronsard


Translated by Humbert Wolfe

Excess Baggage

I don't even know how it started. Ever since I was a small child, I've had this need to load myself down with baggage and cart it around with me wherever I go. I started carrying a purse (albeit a small, child's purse -- a navy blue, canvas affair, with a picture of a mushroom emblazoned on the front) in the second grade so that I could carry my precious baggage (in the form of a few small toys, lip balm, etc.) to school with me. In the afternoons, after returning home from school, before settling down on the living room floor to watch t.v. (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Batman), I had this compulsive need to have all of my important toys arranged just so in a semi-circle around me before the theme song to the first show began. If I failed to do so, the afternoon was ruined for me. My older brother tells me that my nephew has a similar habit of needed to cart his favorite toys around in a little wagon (a wagon which I gave him for his birthday last year, in fact) everywhere he goes. Oh, God, the poor child takes after me!

As I grew older, beginning in my high school years, it was books that I felt the need to carry with me. Novels, books of poetry, journals, pens, paper, photo albums -- that sort of thing. These days, I tote a bag to work with me every day, filled with books, journals, papers, Russian dictionaries and workbooks, etc. I don't need any of these things during the work day and the bag simply sits under my desk, but I have to have them with me.

I accumulate so much crap in my life -- things I don't need and can't possibly use. I own more lipsticks, lip glosses, and lip balms than you will find in the entire cosmetics department at Nordstrom's. I mean, I buy, like, five of them per week. I buy pretty things like candles, blank notebooks, etc., and then decide they are too pretty for me to soil them by actually using them, so they sit, unused, all over my house. I have a room full of this crap. Shopping bags I've never even emptied. Clothes I don't wear. Candles I don't burn. Journals I don't write in. Make-up compacts I don't use. Pretty boxes of chocolate that I don't eat. Greeting cards I don't send. Fancy pens that I don't write with. As if actually enjoying any of these things would somehow be wrong. I can look, but I can't touch. I have email accounts full of filed mail that I don't reread, but can't delete. What the hell is wrong with me?

Well, I've entered sort of a purge mode lately. I'm doing my best to go through all of this accumulated crap, use what I can, and get rid of what I don't need. It's a painful process, and I don't know why. I only know that I want to be free of all of this baggage.