Death, Take a Vacation

The best man from my wedding died suddenly a little over a week ago.  As soon as my husband's phone rang I knew he had passed.  If it was intuition or my ability to go straight to worst case scenario, I guess I'll never know.

Even though my dad and both my grandmothers had passed, this one was different.  All of those didn't come with the horrific element of surprise.  I also didn't have to deal with a terribly co-dependent friend this time around like I did with my dad.

This time around I didn't really feel like I had the right to be upset.  It was Hubby's friend, not really mine.  We spent some "couple" time together for sure, but he wasn't really my friend.  In fact, I had the distinct impression that he was amused by me, but had no interest in getting to know me personally.

He was a very passionate guy. He would get obsessed with something and it would be 300% about that topic until he was over it.  It could come off as extremely selfish, and a lot of the time it was.  It was.  I'm still angry with him.  I'm angry that his perfect family, his perfect life in his mansion, wasn't enough to seek the help he needed.  He's a selfish asshole.  He was a selfish asshole.  Even if his death turns out to be an accident, I'm still mad at him for not getting his shit together.

But I'm not allowed to have those feelings.  He's not a friend, I'm not supposed to have opinions about this.  I'm supposed to just be there for Hubby.  I'm trying my best to be there for him.  But my own feelings keep getting in the way. 

I'm so inappropriate when it comes to death.  All I could think about during the open casket was what a long day his corpse had, with a viewing from 4pm-8pm and then off for cremation in time for his funeral at 11AM the next morning.  It looked like him, but it also looked like someone from Madam Tussaud's had an intern do him.  If he was getting cremated later, was he in a longer casket?  When my sister was giving me a hard time about what I was wearing to my Grandmother's funeral, I told her that she humped the couches so much as a toddler that my mom took her to a doctor to see if she was okay.  Yeah, I put the fun in funeral.

I've cried almost ever other day since it happened.  Today I was super fatigued and slept through most of the day.  I hope this is the beginning of the acceptance phase, because I'm over this anger phase.

Don't Rain on My Parade

When I announced to friends and family that I had a thyroid condition, most expressed their relief that I was on my way to recovery.  A couple of good friends knew my struggle to lose weight, some even saw it firsthand.  But, there were a couple of people that were quick to be negative.  They said my problems wouldn't all solve themselves with this news, and that it might even be other problems on top of the thyroid and I still wouldn't lose weight.

I thought, "Really, the only thing I am is fat.  If I can lose weight, the rest of my problems will take care of themselves, because they're a complication of being fat.  Then I happened to look into the specific thyroid condition that I had, and more things became clear.

I had thought that the depression of not having a job had made me extra lazy, until some family came in this weekend and we went out.  After a couple of hours I really wanted to go and die.  The thought of the walk back to the car made me want to cry.  We played Apples to Apples the next night, and I had a hard time enunciating words during the game, long before the drinking even started.  After just one drink I just stopped talking unless the words were less than two syllables so I wouldn't slur.

First symptom of hypothyroidism: Fatigue and Sluggishness.

They wanted Hot Dogs this weekend, so we went to a famous hot dog "stand" that turned out to be just that.  We had to eat outside, and even though the temperature was a windy 65 F, by the end of the meal I couldn't feel my ears, nose, or hands.

Second symptom of hypothyroidism: Increased sensitivity to cold.

After a game of Apples to Apples, we moved on to Drunken Uno.  After awhile I realized I was holding my cards with one hand, and stretching my arm with the other, then alternating.  My legs hurt because of all the walking we had done that morning, but I hadn't worked out my arms at all.  Why did they hurt so much?

Third symptom of hypothyroidism: muscle aches, tenderness, and stiffness/Pain, stiffness, and swelling in your joints.

"What kind of shampoo do you use?"  I asked my family member.  Her hair is long, and healthy looking, and amazing.  I've never had amazing hair, but it has always been very thick and easy to manage.  Lately I've been wondering why the old standby shampoos haven't been doing much for me.  I've changed shampoos so often lately that it just became part of my regime when shopping: I never buy the same shampoo twice.  I just thought they were making shampoos more and more crappy.  I'd also been using my cortisone cream more and more often, but never thinking anything of it because I live in the middle of the desert where it's always 0% humidity.

Fourth symptom of hypothyroidism: Dry, brittle skin and hair.

I think this thyroid thing is going to solve more problems than I even knew I had.

All is Quiet on New Year's Day

I started last year knowing that 2 people were going to die on me. They had issued my Dad the death sentence of 3 months, and my dementia-ridden Grandmother had stopped eating. Both had a DNR order on file.

I was also having horrible chest pains in the middle of the night that wouldn't stop. One lasted for 48 hours. The pain was so bad that, given the choice of dying or calling an ambulance, I would've rather died on the spot.

In reality, I'd been having these pains for years. I had dismissed them as panic attacks, and didn't dare tell anyone about them, for fear it would make me look weak. But, suddenly, in 2009, I couldn't spend a week without being attacked by this unbearable pain. I would spend most nights on the floor in the bathroom, crying for the pain to stop. Sleep would only come after 6 shots of vodka. Nightly.

Finally I went to the doctor, who assumed it was some sort of heart failure. He took blood, urine, EKG, and an, a stress test, chest x-ray, and ultrasound. The ultrasound revealed my gallstones. The doctor said I had more stones than gallbladder at that point. They must have been getting bigger since my first attack, at 16 years old.

But I had to wait. Everyone was on the cusp of death, and all needed to be settled before I could embark upon my first surgery. In fact, I hadn't checked into a hospital since I had pneumonia at 3 months old.

So, as the year wore on, and my awaited deaths occurred, plus one (my dear Nana), I found a doctor and went under the knife. I was terrified, but knew that 2010 could not start with a surgery. Everything needed to be clean and clear by December 31st, 2009.

And it was. With the inheritance that was left to me by my Grandma, we bought a house and watched fireworks outside our bedroom window, then went straight to bed.

My father appeared in my dreams that night. The family was all together and happy, planning a trip out to picnic. We gathered it all and started off to walk to the park, when I noticed that Dad hadn't followed. I turned around to look at him. I know my look said "Are you coming?" and he looked at me and smiled his charming Southern smile and said to me, "Ah, y'all can go on without me."

And I opened my eyes to the brand new year.

Original Reality

So, I discovered recently that The Real World was in D.C. this season. I imagined trips to the Smithsonian and maybe a group job at the Senate.

I know, I should've known better. As of this writing, they haven't gone anywhere except to bars. They have, however, brought up some ever so interesting personal habits.

I think this girl's name is Ashley, but man on man she is a hot mess. She is overly defensive and confrontational, and I get where she's coming from, but she doesn't understand where everyone else is coming from. She is such a contradiction, from going to church to screaming at people and saying she can't trust anyone because her mom told her she never wanted to see her again.

It makes me really think about when I was that angry, and I wonder if everyone thought I was immature and stupid when I thought I was being strong and bold.

All of the girls in the house are kind of a mess, if only because they back up this girl's anger. Don't get me wrong, I do see where this girl's coming from. I emphasize with her immensely. I still come off as a bitch sometimes in order to keep people at a distance. It's a defense mechanism that always works.

But she takes it to this amazing extreme that keeps me coming back week after week. Which, I guess, is why she was cast. I just hope she sees this show and it's a wake up call for her to drop the bitch act for awhile.

Does Attempted Suicide Count? (I kid!)

"What's the most dangerous thing you've ever done?" ~Jamie

Depends on what you mean by dangerous. If you mean physically, I'm not very adventurous. I suppose that it could be when I rock-climbed...but that actually felt pretty safe. I think that's because it was indoors. Ooh, I went skydiving; also indoors. I'm just not an outdoor girl.

The only thing I've done that I've felt dangerous doing was when I walked out of a job. It was a temp job, and I told the temp agency how bad it was there, and if my immediate supervisor there was escorted off the job that day that I'd be right behind her. I did it, my heart pounding in my chest the whole time. I even took the stairs because I was afraid I'd run into the security guards coming back up. I knew it was the wrong thing to do, but this company had been doing the wrong thing to it's employees since the day I got there. Someone needed to show them. Of course, the Temp Agency 'fired' me, even though I let them know what was going down before hand. I just met my immediate supervisor across the street for margaritas. We were joined by another employee soon after.

I know, I don't take chances that much. I always seem to play by the rules, even though I always say what you should do is break all of them and see what happens.

You Say It's Your Birthday

"Gunns!" I smiled and looked into his deep blue eyes. All 6 foot 4 of him engulfed me in a hug, and suddenly all was forgiven. I’d missed his school-boyish charm and charisma, and I was eager to catch up. He’d been seeing a girl for about a year; though they weren’t living together he described them as “comfortable.” I seemed to think that spelled trouble, but I kept it to myself.

Gunns had gotten himself a new gig, protecting the entrance of the newest club in town. The last time I’d seen him was at a place he wasn’t too thrilled with. I said goodbye to him, and saw the defeated look in his eyes; he was no longer doing the thing he loved.

That spark was back in his eyes, and he was in his element. He loved to take care of people, and seeing as how it was my “uber-late” birthday party, he invited us in and sat us at the interactive VIP table.

That’s right, I said interactive. Beneath the glass bounced all sorts of psychedelic objects. Gunns gave us all drink tokens, and threw one of them on the center of the table. All the objects went toward it like a vortex and cleared the table. By dragging our fingers around the table, we could make shapes and words out of all kinds of things; little people, hearts, flowers that bloomed with each touch. My favorite was writing in bubbles, then an octopus appeared and swam along the stream of bubbles.

After a few hours, someone wanted bottle service, so we were unceremoniously dumped out onto the dance floor with the unwashed masses. My friends took it in stride, and we stayed out dancing for awhile.

Suddenly I found all my friends and 4 or 5 guys staring at me. “What?” I yelled above the music. MoMo’s voice faded in and out of the music, but I gathered that she had just told them that this was my bachelorette party. Before I had a chance to deny the claim, the guys were surrounding me, and one went so far as to start grinding with me. “We are doing a bachelor party too!” The guy screamed in my ear, then motioned to the nerdliest one of the group. I finally broke free of his grip and said “Are you making sure he’s having a good time?”

“Oh yeah, I’m the best man baby!” He moved closer to me again. I put up my hand and said “then you have a mission; get off me and make sure he has a good time…not you…but him.” And I tried to walk away, but within a few steps the groom stopped me.

“You too, huh?” He motioned to me, then said “It’s my funeral too.”

I looked up at him, astounded. Anyone who would make that statement clearly wasn’t ready to be married. It seemed like an extremely unfunny thing to say. It made me a little sad, and I decided to take the bathroom escape.

We danced for a little longer, took many silly pictures, and ended the evening on a high note. I gave Gunns a hug and a kiss goodbye, and he smiled and said to me "Hey, we'll always have Fiji."

I smiled, socked him in the arm, and sashayed away.

Drink, but Not To Much

Ever since that night(The night that caused me to become TDG) I’ve been a practicing two drink girl. My first night out I had a midori sour and a long island iced tea. I think my later teenage years was when I had the biggest tolerance for alcohol.

I really had very few nights of big drinking…but they were all fun. My favorite was once a year, when we had the famous Easter Egg Stuffing Night. I lived in one of those “old money” communities where the homeowners association actually used the dues to do fun things for the community. So a bunch of the women would go over to one house and stuff the plastic Easter eggs with candy, and little pieces of paper with a number, so you could win a bigger prize.

We started out the night with a fantastic dinner, and then started stuffing…with a glass of wine of course! My mom and I would take turns, every year one of us would be the designated driver, and we would stuff those Easter eggs and have the best time ever.

Then the first banquet dinner in college I knew I was going to get wasted…they weren’t going to card at the bar…I was going to get drunk on campus at my University! I was about 3 and ½ glasses of wine in when they called my name. I had won a scholarship, and I had to go up and accept it. I remember thinking “Am I naked? Because in this dream I’m usually naked!” That didn’t stop me from going to the after party and having my first Smirnoff Ice. Oooh, and Mike’s Hard Lemonade. Good stuff, all.

I’ve been thinking a lot about drinking lately. I never really got to try anything new, because they are too expensive. It makes me sad when I think I might never have a Sex on the Beach, or ever even know if a Screaming Orgasm really is a drink. But I love my old standbys; the cheap white zin and white merlot, toasted almond, and my favorite margarita. I keep thinking when I get home I’m going to make myself a drink…that I deserve a drink. Then I get home and forget about it. I haven’t had a drink in a long time…does that still make me an alcoholic? Should I join AAA (Almost Alcoholics Anonymous)?