Happy-ish Squooshgiving

It's one month since Mom died, and I don't feel a bit better. Just in case anyone is keeping track.

Squoosh has a vet appointment today, and I can't tell if this lump has shrunk, which I guess means it hasn't.

I can't sleep much anymore, and I am depressed. And This Guy, who can't be bothered to offer support or anything on my Facebook wall (not that I care, but my point is...), has to make a big deal about my posting something about having a procedure and how I didn't tell him, as if he's my fucking HMO or something. And I *had* told him, he was just too busy rambling on about himself to listen. As usual. And what really enraged me was that he couldn't even be bothered to spell check, he just dashed off this 'I'm raging' post. And then he leaves a voicemail message with this harsh 'call me' shit because, as is clear, he is so worried over my health (that was sarcasm; this seems to me to be a control thing, and no-one controls me). I just figured that I'd kill multiple birds with one stone, and I posted on fbk that it was a colonoscopy (true -- as Mom was being murdered, I cropped up with every physical malady you can think of, including passing blood and constant diarrhoea, even when I'd skip eating for two days, so what the fuck I was crapping out at that point is anyone's guess, but my dr wanted a colorectal surgeon to look at me, and he, in turn, wanted a colonoscopy). Then, after I posted that (why he couldn't have texted, I *still* don't know; I should have told him it was an abortion, haha; I'm so off my game right now), he THEN starts posting about how great I am, and all this other shite, as if I believe it at this point.

Well, I say 'all this other shite', but it was really only two posts. He has never gone on about how great I am. So whatever.

In addition to writing my ass off (dissertation, articles), I am job hunting for university positions, which means I move, and I guess this situation with This Guy will resolve itself then, if not before.

And yes, I did try talking to him about how addressing me that way, especially on my wall when he has my fucking phone number, is not acceptable. I got one email from my cousin with a 'who is This Guy?' in it, and I told her, truthfully, he's no one. He's in the penalty box, and may not emerge from it in this lifetime.

So my colonoscopy probably went okay, I don't know for sure cos I left. The surgeon lied to me; I'd told him I didn't want to deal with the hospital system that killed my mom, and he told me he had an outpatient surgery centre 'around the corner' from his main office, and stupid me didn't realise it was another branch of this same hospital system until I showed up that morning. They were hideous, they fucked up my IV, and I had shooting pain up my arm, and when they gave me the anaesthesia, it felt like my wrist was being pulled apart. When I came to, it was probably closer to that scene in Resident Evil where Alice wakes up and everyone is gone. I pulled my shit (freezing to death and cramping like hell) out from under the bed, and took two tramadol (pills and diet coke in my Bag of Holding, tyvm), got dressed (only falling twice), texted Harry to go get the car, and unhooked myself from everything. I have a blood bruise the size of a small ant hill on my hand. The nurse assigned to me tried to tell me Harry wasn't in the waiting room so I couldn't leave yet, and I pulled this thing I used to do in high school (my friends used to call it my jedi mind trick, and it still fucking works...go figure) -- I looked at her very seriously and said 'he's in the gift shop; go get him'...and she fucking did it -- she literally fucking left the recovery room and (I assume) went to the gift shop, looking for someone who she couldn't pick out of a crowd to save her soul. I have never understood how that works; you have someone who has been under sedation for thirty minutes, and could have no earthly way to know where their ride is, but when they order you to march to the moon, you do. Fucking ridiculous.

Word of warning: the issuing orders thing only works on certain types, so have a back-up plan ready, and you have to say whatever it is like it's a certainty, so have your Mommy Voice ready.

Anyway, my addled nurse had two smarter cohorts in the room, and as soon as she left, I was dressed and unhooked in seconds and walking out. Then they came running over with the 'you can't do that, sit down, I'm phoning Security, blah, blah, blah...' I told them to ban me for life, and walked out (okay, stumbled and staggered out). I just followed the exit signs, cos I had no idea where I was, and thankfully I chose right and exited just as Harry was pulling up.

I had told him that he had better be ready to get me the fuck out of there (the only reason I didn't cancel once I saw where it was being held was in case there *is* something wrong), and he did, so despite the fact that I was in total misery, I stopped at the store with him and bought a turkey and some stuff for Thursday for him and Cindy. Then I went home and took more pills and more or less went to sleep. I had a bunch of dreams that weren't nightmares, so that's a first, and Mom's cat Sweetie slept with me. We're sleep buddies now.

Sweetie's cute, in a big dumb tank kind of way. She's taken one of my fake Halloween spiders (about as big as a child's hand) and put it in a place I've named Spider Training Ground Alpha, where she attacks it from all different scenario angles, royally kicks its ass, and is really happy each day when I put the spider back into starting position (under the broom, facing outwards) at Spider Training Ground Alpha. The damned spider has scared the piss out of me more than once when Sweetie has beaten it all the way into the foyer, the kitchen, the hall, etc... She's cute. I think she is really in training for the upcoming spider apocalypse. Maybe cats worry about that the way we worry about zombies.

Sigh...I'm playing Words With Friends with This Guy, and I just got the push message that he played his turn, which means he's fucking off at work, but also means he's poking me to see if I'm talking to him yet (I yelled at him on the phone last night). I'm not going to text or respond, though. I AM still angry at him, and not just for the colonoscopy thing. Last night I yelled cos he wants me to spend Thanksgiving with him, and I said no. So he asked *again* last night, and I said no...again. So then he asked AGAIN, and I told him that, in case he'd forgotten, one month ago today, my mother, who was batshit crazy, but I loved with all my heart, died right in front of my eyes, with me unable to do anything to save her. So I DON'T feel like hanging out with anyone, or doing anything, on the first Thanksgiving that I won't have Mummers. Every year -- EVERY year -- I, or Meg and I, would come up with something special to do for her for Thanksgiving. Sure, we enjoyed it as well, but we did it for her -- and I heard her more than once talking about 'the girls took me here, the girls took me there', and how nice it was, and so on (this despite the fact that, most of the time she was a raging pain in the ass *during* the actual event).

And honest to god right now, I'm thinking about it, and my heart hurts and I'm actually having this palpitation/flutter thing. Oh, and I'm crying. I want my mommy back. I would give anything to have one more Thanksgiving with her where I kill myself to get a table at some spectacular event, she complains about everything, and then talks about how nice it was the next day. I sound like I am being sarcastic, but I am not. I miss my mom. There is nobody in the world like her, and nothing to even remotely take her place; even her sisters aren't exactly the same flavour of batshit crazy. My life is so empty right now.

I know...I had said that I wouldn't keep posting about Mom. I lied. Deal.

Butsoanyway, so on the phone with This Guy, I finally got harsh because he wasn't listening. Then he started in with some 'I know you are angry with me right now...' shit, and I cut him off and told him that everything in the world wasn't 'him, him, him', and while I hoped he had a good night and pleasant day tomorrow, I did not wish to stay on the phone with him any longer at that time. I didn't hang up on him (I hate people who hang up on others; it is completely immature, and someone has to REALLY enrage me before I would hang up on them and even then, I will attempt to gain acknowledgement that I am disconnecting), but I did terminate the call after he got in the 'goodnight' stuff, and I did respond in kind -- I mean, I wasn't rude about it, I just wanted off the damned line with a fool who personalises everything and does not hold first in his mind what I am going through. And I am not saying that everything has to be 'me, me, me', but I do believe that I am entitled to some leeway at the present time in consideration of all my circumstances -- my mom, Squoosh, my finances, my brother, my school...everything. So when I say that I don't want to do anything, I fucking MEAN it. And I don't need to explain this to him, but if I do anything, it will be with Meg. Maybe my father. And I am not going to get into the discussion of whether or why he is not invited to be with me in whatever I am doing -- now is not the time; he is not family, he is only on the verge of becoming a close friend (and might not make it), he is not mourning my mother (other than in how it affects me), he had not yet *met* my mother...so no. Circumstance has him outside the Circle of Family at this time. Maybe next year. And above all, I do not want him assuming that I am doing any kind of formal 'meet the parents' (the ones I have left, that is) thing, which would be totally inappropriate right now. So I had to shut him the fuck down on that one. I'll have to do it again with Xmas, I just know it. And he knows and understands *nothing* about Jews (or the other non-White American Xtian Honkey from Germany influences in my life), and even though I am not religious, there are huge parts of Jewish culture with which I am just more comfortable; I have gotten more solace regarding bereavement from the Jewish writers I read online than the Christian stuff about 'baby Jesus loves you'. And even when some of the less-secular do start talking Hashem, I frame it in a non-anthropomorphised GAOTU sense, and I'm okay with that.

Yeah, on my father's side, they're all Masons, too (there are a bunch on Mom's side, and she was Eastern Star like decades ago, but on my father's side they all kept the Jewish quiet and became Masons (remember the generation we're talking about here -- my father just turned eighty). I was even a Jobie, though that was some time ago. I forget at the moment what their pedigrees are, but I *think* it's Blue Lodge and Scottish Rite. It's immaterial now; all my grandfathers are dead, and my father has invented his own religion -- Omarianism, followers of Omar Khayyam. But just like in my home growing up I could have a glass of wine or a shot of whisky whenever I wished (both my parents were raised that way as well, and it makes for an adult who doesn't worship drink, I can tell you from experience), but I was allowed to read anything. Literally. If I could get my paws on it, there was no restriction. So I did read my father and grandfathers' Masonic stuff...growing up, I read everything from Hop on Pop to The Happy Hooker, including the bible. Three times. So I am not just being patronising when I am relating Hashem to GAOTU -- if I were assured tomorrow that there is a Supreme Being and had to guess which one, I'd probably pick GAOTU. But I don't want to get into any religious debates, and it's almost time for Squoosh's vet app't. These days, all of the Masonic stuff is online, where growing up, it was all in these big old interesting-looking black tomes that piqued my interest. I'm just nosy like that.

Butsoanyway, I guess I am going to have to finish later. Sorry for the super-long post. And sorry about still talking about Mom. And sorry for rambling, I am sure there's several half-finished ideas up there. Hugs and ttyl.

Okay: this didn't send, so I'll add the good news. Yes, GOOD news!!! Squoosh only has an abscess. This replacement vet (Dr Superhero was bitten by some kind of poisonous spider almost a year ago, and has his sixth surgery to try to fix it today) I'll call Dr H, and he is a nice 'Old South' kind of man who has to be at *least* seventy-something. He wanted to shave Squoosh, to look for puncture marks or a scratch, cos he said fibrosarcomae are very rare, and in all his years, he's only ever seen two on a cat. Squoosh refused to be shaved, so Dr H had me hold him while he felt Squoosh's lump. He said it seems smaller than what was recorded last week, and he could separate the lump from the muscle in all places, so he said that can't be a fibrosarcoma. Plus, and this was cute, as he was pulling Squoosh's skin up to feel that the lump was nowhere a part of the muscle (he explained that a fibrosarcoma becomes part of the muscle, basically), he said, 'look -- look -- this pains him, and cancer don't pain a cat, not this early on; this here's an infection in his skin'. At that point, the only thing missing from the Old Country Vet image was a tech sitting out on the porch, playing the fiddle. So he explained that he'd not do a biopsy just yet, instead he changed Squoosh to a stronger antibiotic for skin (Keflex -- Cephalexin, I think), and explained that probably Squoosh got bacteria into the under part of his skin, through another cat swatting him, a scratch, or maybe even the vaccination (he pointed out that since we don't swab an animal's skin like a human, the needle can push anything under into the skin), and now it's an abscess, but it's very localised. So Squoosh is now on Cephalexin or whatever, and Dr H wants me to phone early Saturday morning if the abscess is all gone to tell him so, or come in early Saturday if there's still some lump left, so he can decide if we need to remove the abscess surgically. But he assures me that the odds of it being a cancer are slim to none because after a week on Clindamycin and prednisone, it's not as big or hard as what they'd recorded last Wednesday, plus it obviously hurts. I'd expected to do the biopsy today, but Dr H was against opening up the cat if we don't have to (his words, lol). So...thank god, GAOTU, Mom, or whomever. I still have a Squooshable.


Okay. Now I am going to take something for this headache that is my life.


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Sleep, then no sleep...

I'm in bed, and Mom's cat Sweetie is lying on my butt, conked out and snoring like a pig. I got Sweetie, Meg took Arby. I was asleep for a bit, then I had a nightmare and woke up. I know that these nightmares and times that I can't stop thinking about certain things are the brain's way of dealing with danger and disaster -- our minds replay over and over what happened so that we can remember the importance (that's our glutamate working), and replaying it all over and over gives us a chance to fix things so whatever bad thing it was doesn't happen ever again -- we are basically running through an After-Action Review to critique and improve our performance...over and over again. I know this. I *teach* this. But the process itself is hellish, especially when there *is* no 'be safe' action, or the chain of cause and effect is so entangled that there are too many 'if/then/else' paths for our primitive brain to hold on to.

Basically, our brain wants an easy answer, and in this fucked-up world, few things are as easy as realising that going hunting for lions wearing an antelope pelt is stupid because lions hunt antelope, and that's why our antelope-pelt wearing friend Urg was ripped apart by lions right in front of us.

And that is why such things as post-traumatic stress disorder occur -- because there is a distinct lack of easy answers and simple connections to make any longer, and our brains aren't really *that* evolved. We can 'learn' simple (and often stupid and meaningless) rules through the connections our brains make to try to stay safe -- hating certain smells, an aversion to blondes, refusing to drive through Texas -- but that doesn't *fix* the deficit in our performance, and our brain knows it...so we play incidents over and over in our heads, day and night.

What I am saying is that I am becoming emotionally exhausted from going over all of this again and again. And I know how it works, but I don't know how to make it stop. The truth is, no-one does. There are a lot of theories, but not a lot of *facts*. And I am still tired. Very, very tired.





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Quickly...

I am okay. I am taking the night off to see a movie with Meg. She made me go after yesterday. I wish we had decided to do something else, but dinner and movie (Harry Potter) are okay. Squoosh is okay, i am hoping the clinda and prednisone work, that this really is just an abscess.

And I need a job...a better one. I cannot go on worrying all the time like this. This year has beaten the crap out of me financially and emotionally. I want a quiet job at a university doing teaching and research, but at this point, I don't care.

And i have to go. Meg's here.

And I have to find a job...a better one.

Fuck this life.

Squoosh has a lump on his shoulders, behind his neck, that Dr Superhero thinks is a fibrosarcoma from vaccines. Squoosh is on Clindamycin and prednisone until his biopsy next week in the hopes that it is an abscess, even though it couldn't be aspirated. If the biopsy is fibrosarcoma, Squoosh would have to have it removed by a specialist, and I don't have the money, period. Financially, 2010 has killed me. So I would either have to just put Squoosh down, or give him to someone who could afford to treat him (like Meg's friend, who is a vet). I would probably give him away, even though that will kill me.

I am so sad. Please don't vaccinate your cats. It's not worth it. Cats only need rabies vaccines every five years, not every year, that's just a money-making scheme. Fuck state laws. Vets are supposed to vaccinate on arms and legs, so that they can be amputated, but they don't. Dr Vet, the vet before Dr S did Squoosh between the shoulderblades all the time.

Then add to that the fact that yesterday -- YESTERDAY -- my PhD program tells us that we have to register for next semester by FRIDAY, or we get our assistantships yanked. I owe $550 in jackass fees that aren't covered by my tuition waiver, and no way to come up with it in less than twenty-four hours, especially now that I just paid what is basically my last $200 on Squoosh tonight.

And yes, that was after a STEEP discount; the original bill was almost three times that.

And what is SO fucking stupid is that our program just instituted this cos of lower years' students' fuckery where they'd wait too long to sign up and in-program classes wouldn't make. Well, hello, I'm DONE. I'm fucking ABD. I am taking dissertation hours ONLY. My 'classes' CAN'T close...they are fucking created for me ONLY, just like everyone else's dissertation hours. But yet I now lose my assistantship, research position, dissertation hours, and everything else all because of a handful of fucktards who aren't going to pass qualifiers anyway because they are too stupid to follow rules have peed in the pool for everyone. And here I HAVE to graduate next term, and find an industry position before that (to pay bills) which I didn't intend to stay in (shhh), just so I can afford to live, because I have to move, cos I can't afford to live here much longer. And I have lost my mom, who i miss more than i can explain, my brother has had his deployment moved up to December (what kind of a bullshit country takes a man who just lost his mother away from his children at fucking Christmas just to sit in some hospital in some god-forsaken asshole of the earth third-world shithole?), and the way things are going in my life, he will probably die over there, and I am going to lose Squoosh. I am losing everything. EVERYTHING.

It's all already gone, really.

I am just about done, Folks.


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More November.

I have two hundred presentations to grade, and they all suck. I miss my mom. This Guy has me halfway convinced that I am wrong about him. I need a higher-paying job. I am scared. I still don't want to talk to anyone, but I am lonely. I hate to belabour a point, but... I can't believe my mother is gone. It's like I don't know what to do anymore...like my whole life has ended. I have no one to look out for any longer, no one who loves me, albeit weirdly.

I don't know what to do.


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November

This is what I'd wanted. Recorded as Opus 4 by Art of Noise.

No sun no moon!
No morn no noon
No dawn no dusk
No proper time of day
No sky no earthly view
No distance looking blue
No road no street
No "t'other side the way"
No end to any Row
No indications where the Crescents go
No top to any steeple
No recognitions of familiar people
No courtesies for showing 'em
No knowing 'em!
No travelling at all
No locomotion,
No inkling of the way
No notion
No go" by land or ocean
No mail no post
No news fom any foreign coast
No Park - no Ring
No afternoon gentility
No company no nobility
No warmth, no cheerfilness,
No healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member
No shade, no shine,
No butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flow'rs,
No leaves, no birds,
November!

-Thomas Hood, 1842.



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November

November

I cannot figure out how to embed something. Hope that worked. Anyway, I am off Eviljob still on bereavement, and just got back from unboarding the cats. The only one who didn't care was Squooshable.

It is rainy here, and looks like it should be colder. I took a pill when I got home, so I am waiting for it to kick in. I have stuff to write, but it will wait. It would be so easy to hate Spring, why does everything bad have to wreck my autumn and winter?

I am still not up to seeing anyone. I want to make pumpkin, shrimp, and coconut soup. I know, the two don't seem to fit together. :->

But the cats are home and fed, and I may just order pizza. I keep having strange dreams. And Sabra really pissed me the hell off with a post on Facebook about how she is 'celebrating life, not mourning death'. She didn't know my mother, no-one asked her to mourn, and she is only making the allusion in the hopes that it will pique the interest of the bodybuilder she is still stalking. As I said, I am very angry over that.

This Guy swears to me that he wasn't at the game with this ladyfriend, that they met at the tailgating by chance, and those are the only pics she is in. I looked this morning, and those *are* the only pics she is in. So...I don't know. I do know that I don't need extra shit right now.

So I am going to nap now, I think. <3



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Trying for Normal

I am so sad and regretful for any and every moment that I did not completely express to my mom how much I love her. I hate myself for this.

And I have a titanic number of problems now. Not that I don't deserve every single one.

Anyone who has emailed or commented, I have read them and love you for caring. I can't figure out how to comment back on this app, and my laptop is giving me issues. Bear with me as my life falls apart. Tyvm.

I will try to not whine about Mom too much. I promise.

Missing Mom

We buried Mom today (now yesterday). It was okay, I guess. I picked out her favourite coat and Meg and I got a cute soft hat for her that looked adorable. She would have loved it.

I can't talk more about this right now. My heart hurts. I miss her so much.

So then we drove four hours to Baton Rouge to have dinner at my SiL's parents' home, and on the way we stopped for gas, and I saw a black cat with a hurt paw. My brother (whom we were following) was upset, but under the pretence of buying cigarettes, I bought a can of cat food at the gas station and asked the clerk about the cat. She said the cat's paw has been hurt for 'a minute' (which I guess is Southern for 'some time'), and it lives with other cats in the woods behind the gas station. A lady feeds them every day and tries to catch Mr Wounded Paw. I looked to the side of the station and saw fresh paper plates and a big round tinfoil baking pan of water where the cats are fed, so I opened my can and set it there, and Wounded Paw came over and ate. On a Saturday out in the sticks, there was little else I could do. I hope WP gets trapped, and I feel bad over not being able to have done anything other than feed him.

If it had been Mom and I, we'd have tried to get him.

Butsoanyway.

When we got to Baton Rouge, we got led to my SiL's parents' home in the Garden District, and then got take-away from George's, which was nice (catfish po boy = doubleplus good), and it made me sad to think of how Mom would have enjoyed the trip, the food, the adventure...all the things she loved.

So now Meg and I are at a casino hotel, and I am sad. After the funeral I tried texting This Guy and got no response, so after we got to the hotel, I tried to phone him and at first he sounded really annoyed that I'd awakened him, so I said I would just phone tomorrow, then he started with the 'no, talk to me, blah blah' stuff, and I just told him I was fine and ttyl and crap. Then I go to update my Facebook status and pull up his page, and he went to...

omfg, I just fell asleep and slept for three hours and just woke up with hideous indigestion and a sore throat. :-/

Anyway, as I was saying, he posted pictures of a local university's football game, and it appears he went there with another woman, one whom I personally do not know, but one who is FB-friended with him (I fucking hate Facebook),and with whom he has exchanged flirty comments in the past (which I pretended to not have read). So while I will allow that he has no business being in mourning, that the very fact that he is with some woman (who looks like a stripper, IMO) while I am away and being ripped emotionally apart by memories of all the things with my mother that were beyond my control and tormenting to me (no one should ever have to hear their own mother cry in delirium for *her* mother's help, for example, not that he knows that 'cos he has, oh, ASKED or anything) suggest that at the very least, it is an inappropriate way to conduct oneself, and indicates that he may not actually give a damn about me at all, or has seized upon this opportunity to 'show' me, or whatnot. I think that when I phoned, he was guilted into waking up and trying to talk to me and for all I know still had that woman over, or something.

I guess that what I am trying to say is so much for him. I am not beautiful or anything great, but I am a human being who feels things very deeply, and deserves treatment better than this from someone who professes to love me. So oh-well.

And so I sit here in bed in St. Whatthefuck parish, a single woman with a dead mom and hellacious indigestion. Bleurgh.

Oh, guys... My mother was so wonderful that I wish it didn't tear my heart out to talk about her right now. I mean, I am not being unwarrantedly nostalgic; the woman was crazy as a loon, and possibly one of the most negligent mothers on Earth, but she was intelligent, funny, loving in her own way, and I wouldn't trade her for anything.

I have to try to sleep more; I took two Tagamet (jes, my indigestion is *that* bad) and am cold...so I am going to try to get sleep. I miss my mother. Hugs and love to you.


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