cupcakes on 109

if you find this blog one day
and find pieces of yourself,
however big or small,
amongst the words
you don’t have to say anything.

just know
the threads of yourself
you find here
have made the quilt of my life
more brilliant
warmer
more comforting
simply for having been woven
by some mysterious
Master
quilter.

If you find yourself one day
in these words
or on the stoop of my front porch
know that you’ve always been welcome.
and my soul is better
and my heart is better
for having known you.

If you find this one day
and find yourself amongst the words
please know
that one some level
you’ve been loved
appreciated
and if, many years from now,
you are the first to depart
someone
somewhere
will remember you
and bake cupcakes on your 109th birthday.

I have known you in passing
I have known you in lifetimes new and old
I have known you.
I have known.

and we said nothing at all.

There’s a long long road
To reach your house
I arrived just before
Just before the sunset
And you said ,and you said
Welcome with your eyes
And we said ,and we said
Nothing at all

[ refrain ]

Oh we have been to
Many churches
But we never believed
Oh we have been to
Many churches
But we never believed

If you go too far
There’s a song you hear
If we get too closed
Whisper in my ear
Speak the word
Say it
Bewilder
Say it
Hummingbird
Say it
Be my dad

so much for the city.

What are you doing today?
Are your windows open, too?
Are you slicing sandwiches on the angle
while I listen to Jack Johnson
and paint my toenails?

What are you doing today?
Did you go to the zoo
to see the baby elephant
who still doesn’t have a name
while I listened to The Thrills
and plant yellow pansies
in blue pots?

What are you doing today?
(so much for the streetlights)
Running and bike riding?
(they’re never gonna guide you home)
While I was listening to The Best of Boston
and dancing with the dog?

So much for the City.

the best bad influence

you make me want to have a picnic
and spend the whole day off-task.
that’s so counterproductive
i spent all of sunday
searching for a
gingham
napkin.

i’m leaving you

dear you,

i didn’t like you when our paths first crossed. i probably haven’t ever told you that before, at least not in so few words. i thought you were a technical, over-analytical, left-brained pain in my side. and now i see you are a technical, over-analytical, left-brained pain in my chest.

i never met your wife, and you never really mentioned her. it was all just understood. all i know, i learned through casual conversations with the others. two kids, a wife. a presumably charming little house with a presumably little yard on a presumably safe street where the boys play basketball to impress the girls who are trying to impress them just by walking by.

i never met your wife, but i like to imagine her as a career-type who never fully appreciated you, though i’m certain she’s really not so. (this makes me selfish, childish, i know). instead she’s probably the type who wears sweater sets and a pragmatic strand of pearls and makes you eggs on sunday mornings.

a month ago i saw a movie and felt bad for the mistress the audience was supposed to hate.

we’ve talked. you and i. through songs and haikus and words and lifetimes. we’ve talked ourselves into circles, and corners, and into silence. we’ve mixed taped and mixed up.

i never met your wife, the one who makes you eggs on sunday mornings. and i probably never will. and you will never know the wife you could have had in a different time, in a different life. the one who would have stayed up until 3:00 am cutting paper cones into snowflakes, stringing them from the ceiling to make it snow just for you in july. the one who would have written sidewalk chalk haikus for you on the driveway and post-it notes on the kitchen counter (this is just to say…).

i like you like i like umbrellas.
i probably never told you that, in so few words.

i never met your wife who maybe makes you eggs on sunday mornings.

instead
without knowing how or why or when
I became a girl who will always think of you
while she scours sunday flea markets for the perfect

red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

IIH, it’s not HII backwards…

I was recently diagnosed with “idiopathic intracranial hypertension” (or pseudotumor cerebri as many know it). I don’t want to get into the specifics of the illness, necessarily, since it’s so much easier to let wikipedia do the technical dirty work for me (click here for an explanation of IIH). I have decided, however, to be candid, and use this blog to share my journey thus far, the ways it has changed my life in the short-term, and ultimately in the long-term as well.

In late January, I came down with a headache. It was unusual for me, and like most Americans, I ran to the computer for insta-diagnosis. I had just started my period, and it had to be a “menstrual migraine” (quite common, I discovered). I thought little of it over the next week, pitying myself now and then, but a week passed and the headache didn’t let up. Then another week passed. Now I was worried.

I went to my GP, and explained the situation. She examined me. I was convinced it must be some sort of sinus infection – in the sinuses behind my eyes and eyebrow. Nevermind I had no cold leading up to it, no post-nasal drip – it had to be a sinus infection. She was unconvinced, but gave me a script for antibiotics, with a word of warning – if the headaches didn’t go away, she’d refer me to a headache specialist because headaches can be tricky.

I went home, down pills for a few days, but nothing improved. I started to panic. Did I have a deadly mold-spore sinus infection? A tumor? Was the bone infected and rotting away? Would I need roto-rooting through my nose and into my sinus cavities? What was happening to me? And more importantly, when would it stop???

A month had passed. After a weekend of huffing humidified air over the humidifer, things escalated to an intolerable point on Monday morning. My eyes were unable to focus on what I was looking at, the pain was excruciating – it was time to go to the ER. I ended up in a local hospital, and when I was finally seen it was only by a nurse practitioner, who seemed to immediately have it in her head that the headaches were “just migraines” but she took me for a CT anyway. The CT came back clear, and the NP came into the room and said “Everything looks fine, we’re just going to give you some vicodin and you’ll have to ride it out.”

Thankfully my mother had driven down (2.5 hour drive) to be with me in the ER. Nevermind that I’m 27. when you’re in that much pain you need a clear-thinking advocate. My mother asked to see the ER physician on duty. After a wait, he arrived to meet with us. After listening to my complaints, he ran some other test and dilated my pupils at which point he noticed some disc swelling. It was the first time I had ever heard of “pseudotumor cerebri” — and he was fairly convinced I might have it.

Flashforward a few days, I meet with a neurologist for a consult. Unfortunately, the only way to test your spinal fluid pressure is with the dread lumbar puncture. I have always been needle-phobic, so you can imagine that when it came to a 9 inch big-honking needle jammed in my spinal column, I was less than enthusiastic. Thankfully, a family friend is the head of radiology at the medical university where I was undergoing treatment, and he was able to perform the LP.

I must admit it was muuuuuuch less traumatic than I anticipated. The pre-procedure blood draw prick was worse than the LP. I have heard mixed stories about LPs, but speaking from my experience, having a radiologist perform the LP under the fleuroscope was a god send. It was one poke, virtually painless, and not even uncomfortable. He kept me laughing through the whole thing. Normal spinal pressure is around 20, and my opening pressure was 42. Welcome to IIH.

I thought I was going to be one of the lucky ones to get away without the dread “low pressure” post-LP headache, but within 24 hours, I felt like I had the worst hangover of my life. Sitting up or standing was INTOLERABLE. The only time I got up to do anything was to drag myself to the restroom – which was an almost faint-inducing wave of pain.

Low pressure headaches are caused by a slow leak that results once the puncture has been made. More or less your brain and nerves have less goo to float around and play in, and that makes them cranky. REAAAAALLLYYY CRANKY. Cranky in ways you’ve never known. Thankfully, there is a procedure called a “blod patch” in which blood is drawn from the arm and injected into the epidural space (I believe, again…consult wikipedia and don’t try this at home) using a similar needle/procedure to the lumbar puncture. The blood creates a clot which (hopefully) stops the leaking spinal fluid.

Post blood-clot I felt immediately better, but had to spend a few days laying flat and still (no coughing, laughing, straining) and willing the blood clot not to pop out and uncork the hole. Once it had set in everything was grand. I have heard that giving an immediate blood patch isn’t effective, and that optimal time to blood patch is 48 hours after the lumbar puncture, for what its worth.

I’ve said a mouthful. If you take anything away from this let it be the following:

1. Lumbar Punctures are not as bad as you think. They’re not something I’d like to do everyday, but I promise its really not that bad.
2. There are people all around us suffering from illnesses and conditions that may not show externally, but they are afflicted internally. Try to practice compassion and understanding. Even though they may not wear their pain on the outside, its no less real.

in upcoming posts I’d like to talk more about my course of treatment, much of which includes weightloss and altered eating habits. For now, I bid thee all goodnight. It’s 9:00 pm and I’m so tired.

I’d like to say going to bed this early is caused by my illness, but it’s really just me getting old and boring. Shame, shame.

what were you singing?

I don’t know who found this blog by googling “singing in the kitchen” …but you sound like my kind of person.

what did you sing?

I’m in love!!!…

…with my Brita water filter which makes shitty CityX water taste pure as a babbling spring brook minus rocks and fish poopy.

lavendar gingham three-quarter sleeves

“…My mom always said that about having kids “if everybody waited until they were 100% ready nobody would have kids”… which in my head translates to “everybody is a little bit accidental.” On the other hand maybe that’s her way of saying “its okay if you get knocked up, I’m ready for grand kids!”

Although every now and then I see a commercial for Lowes where a happy family is wearing pastel sweaters and picking out matching front-loading washer and dryer and I think to myself “I’d like to wear a pastel sweater and own a front-loading washer and dryer!” But then I remember that the mom probably goes home and snorts methamphetamine in the pantry while the Dad hides in the basement typing away frantically to his secret online lover, BubbaLuv6969. Or perhaps I’ve been watching too much “Intervention” on A&E…….”

Dance like nobody except the entire internet is watching

Other than Barack Obama, the thing that can bring the world together is as follows:1 – Haddaway – What is Love?Don’t believe me? Keep reading….I have come to two conclusions:

1. This song makes good people do bad things.
2. I want to be one of them! Given the right situation (i.e. such as over Xmas break when Mandy is home and I have presumably consumed adequate amounts of adult beverages) I think I could be easily talked into becoming one of them and busing a move at THE BREAKROOM!

Evidence to support my theory: