brain appendices

...re-MEM-ber WHEN you RAN away and I got on my knees and begged you not to leave be-CAUSE i'd go ber-SERK? WELL. you LEFT me AN-yhow and then the days got WORSE and worse and now you SEE i've gone com-PLETE-ly out of my mind. AND. they're-coming-to-take-me-away-ha-ha, they're-coming-to-take-me-away-ho-ho-he-he-ha-ha, to the funny farm...



my brain has little tiny pockets, little hollow divets that are positioned perfectly to catch and retain fragments of ridiculous information. it is entirely possible that my brain is made up primarily of these divets and little else. in one of these little pita pockets i retain the lyrics to a song called "they're coming to take me away". when i was 12 years old, my friend becky's parents had a juke box in their basement...they might still, but it has no impact on my life anymore...and on this box of juke was this weird ass song that becky and i loved. LOVED loved. we listened over and over and over until the lyrics festered their way into one of my information cells and became trapped there permanently. for the last 20 years, this globule of information has periodically erupted from its den and demanded temporary release. so i find myself innocently trying to meander my way through my life, attempting to appear as normal as possible, presenting subtly and blending with my peers when randomly, right out of my mouth comes this chant-like blather of nonsense. "...and i'll be happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're coming to take me away..." it just comes out. and i think it is safe to assume (and has generally been the case) that most people have no idea what i am saying or doing or why i know this strange little rhythmic poem. it just has to come out sometimes. and once it does... it's playing, on a loop, in my head for days and days. nearly enough to make a girl wonder if they actually should come and take me away.

i think sudden impromptu recitals of stagnant information is just my brain's mechanism to avoid appendicitis. when too many words and sounds get trapped in my tiny brain appendices, the environment may become hostile and dangerous. so rather than risking a brain sewage implosion, these little pockets routinely cleanse themselves and keep things tidy. and this is why i sometimes burst into song. it is not my fault, it is just my brain trying to keep itself healthy. there may be some similar but more scientific explanations for particular behaviors listed in the DSM-IV. but i am tired of looking for myself and my friends in the DSM.... that's a tired game. the new game is to make weird-ass behaviors appear normal to anyone who is willing to go on a little word journey with me.

i know you want to know the song.... google it, you know you want to. or you could just take a glance at becky's 8th grade yearbook... i wrote the lyrics to the entire song on a page in there. brain flushing. it's important.

why don't you...

i may have mentioned a blossoming anger management problem... the first time i tried to write this post, i accidentally deleted the whole thing and was unable to retrieve it. i got a little irritated and may or may not have scratched at the keyboard a bit. it is possible that my keyboard no longer has a "4" button or an "F4" button. i have no idea what the F4 button does and i am sure i have never used it, but i will miss the little bugger. and the "4"... well i am just going to have to work something out. it is also the dollar sign! i need the dollar sign. perhaps yoga or a relaxation class... or a new computer with more resilient buttons.

anyway... what i was saying when i was so rudely interrupted by deletion and a temper tantrum....

part 4...

when i am standing behind a counter or table-side with my little pen in hand saying things like: "what can i get for you?" or "are you ready to order?" there is a good reason for that. i am offering my services to you at that time and displaying my willingness to comply with your request, however general or particular. when i say these things it is an invitation to utilize my fetching and building skills. we are in this thing together and your wishes are absolutely my commands. i try to suggest all of these things to you with my words and body language. i am open, willing! i have offered no resistence toward you or rejection of my role in this interaction. in fact i am intimately familiar with the fact that our entire relationship, the only reason you are going to talk to me, is based on what i am about to do for you. and then it will end. that's part of the deal. that's what i do and i have just offered to do it.

so why in the name of all that is good and decent... why for the love of god, would you begin your part of the conversation by saying: "why don't you give me..." what? what the hell? why don't i? because you haven't asked me to yet! i didn't have a chance!! please let me try first, don't just leap to the assumption that i am going to be uncooperative! why don't i?? what does this mean? do you mean why didn't i? why haven't i? why won't i? i will i will! give me a chance!!

we've been through this kind of thing before, people, i am no mind-reader. i can't know what you want for sure until you tell me and i will never know if you start your order by accusing me of failing you in some way. so, please just tell me what you want. don't ask me questions that don't have answers. it is not as though you have asked me repeatedly and i continue to refuse to serve you. but that would make sense, at least. if you walk in to a restaurant every day and ask for a sandwich and you are consistently denied said sandwich, it would be reasonable to eventually begin your contact with the stubborn server by saying "why don't you give me a sandwich?" for added effect: "why don't you EVER give me a sandwich?" but since this type of situation has to be extremely rare, so ought to be the question "why don't you give me...?"

so, good friends, why don't you give me a break and order what you want, the way that you want it, the first time, with no accusations or assumptions. i will do my part if you will do yours and we can all live together in relative harmony. but why don't you take this drink "to go"...

an open memo to irritable customers...

from those of us who are paid to serve you...

there are a few things you need to know-

most importantly during this particular time of year when everyone seems to walk around with flames in their eyes and strain in their jaw muscles, it is essential that we have a discussion about what is my fault and what is your problem because you have poor coping skills. when you approach a food or beverage counter, and you don't know what to order because you left your brain next to the credit card swiper at target and you didn't write your coffee preference on your christmas list or in your weekly planner....the only two things that seem to keep midwestern society moving these days...you do not have the right to suggest in any direct or passive aggressive or even gestural way that this is my problem. let me inform you of some details that are important here. if you can't decide on a latte flavor and you also can't function because for some reason you insist on being "stressed out", my presence on the other side of the counter is not intended to taunt and mock you. i do not attempt to pressure you in any way. i don't care what kind of latte you want and if i am already standing there and there are no other stressballs behind you, fucking ponder all day for all i care. but DO NOT glare at me and tsk as though the decision is difficult enough without my badgering. here's some news... i am actually paid to stand there and wait quietly, awkwardly and uncomfortably for you to make a decision and then report it to me. were i to wander off in order to make your physical space more zen, i would not get paid and frankly you would be pissed!!! so stop shaking your head and scrunching up your eyebrows at me. and order a 16 oz skinny vanilla latte. that's what you are going to get anyway and we all know it!

part 2.
since your brain has been misplaced and you don't know what the hell you are doing... ever... many of you will misspeak from time to time. if you do this while ordering a particular food or beverage item, you should know that we have no way of knowing this. we can only assume you meant what you said, so that is what you are going to get. so watch your tone while you correct yourself and try to lighten up on the suggestion that this is somehow my error. and for god's sake just take the shit you ordered.... i'm busy.

a third thought...
i have a simple list of food and beverage-ordering rules in my life and i think many would be wise to follow suit.
here's the basic formula: i don't order a consumable item of any kind if:
1. i can't pronounce it (i can't take the chance that the food item that i was going to pretend to know is actually italian for "hog hair")
2. i can't reasonably define the dish or drink... eg. mocha= chocolate, steamed milk, espresso;
brewed coffee= coffee that is brewed; breve= the replacement of steamed milk with half&half in milk-containing, espresso-based beverages
3. i don't have at least a vague image in my mind of what this thing will look like when it arrives

these are good rules in a coffee house. understandably, some of the pronunciations take some practice....fine. take your time and i will help you with that. but it is one thing to be unsure of how to pronounce "capp-u-cci-no" it is another thing entirely to look at me as though i just peed in your cup when you receive a beverage that is deceptively light and topped with a great deal of foamy substance. that's what it is. and you should have known that because you ordered it. know what you are ordering, people! and if you don't know ASK ME!!! i do know and i am more than willing to tell you. i prefer that to later hearing "oh...i didn't know it was like that!! no. i don't think i want that." too bad!!! next!!!!!!

fake sister

for you long-time readers, or those of you who have recently chosen (against my cautioning advice) to waste a great deal of your time reading backwards on this blog, the topic of my fake sister is not a new one. for anyone who doesn't know what a fake sister is.... about 9 months ago there was a photo of a young woman in the local newspaper-- the expression that was captured in the photo caused nearly everyone i know to think they were looking at a picture of me until they read the caption, at which point most of them decided that this woman absolutely must be related to me in some way because the similarities are uncanny. there was a bit of research devoted to the issue for a bit. anyway... i have no idea who this woman is, but it was awfully strange to see someone else running around with my face on her head.

in april i told my stylist all about this picture and how weird it was and how all of us got a little creepy about wanting to find this person just to see what she looks like in real life. i told her the woman's name and that i was so curious, but what does one do with a situation like this? can't very well just go tracking her down for the sake of a perceived physical resemblance.

in september i was at the salon again... elizabeth said to me: 'what was the name of your fake sister?' i told her. then she said: 'i thought so!! i cut her hair a couple of months ago.'

yesterday i was at the salon again... 'has my fake sister been back?' 'yes! she comes to me regularly now.' 'did you tell her that she has a fake sister? that another of your clients thinks she is related to her?' 'no, i couldn't get myself to!' 'that's probably a good thing. don't want to frighten the poor girl.'

so my fake sister and i have the same stylist. i have gone to elizabeth for like 3 years and now my newspaper sister does too. how weird. some day we'll probably be there at the same time. i still wonder if she looks like me in real life. and i still like the idea of referring to her as my sister. cause it's funny and a little creepy. and that's ok with me.

3 ways to reach my last nerve, vol. I

some things just irritate the shit out of me and i can't explain it, i don't claim it is rational and i don't try to defend it. it's just how things are.

when i am talking to someone and also trying to hear them talk to me, and it is obvious that i am unable to hear them, so i politely ask them to repeat what they just said and they repeat themselves at exactly the same volume-- that pisses me off. worse when a conversation is on-going and i have made it clear that i cannot hear them and they just keep saying new things at the same volume, so now i am like 9 sentences behind and losing interest in catching up, but it is clear that i am expected to follow. speak up people! eventually when this mumbling continues incessantly, i begin to wonder if i am not actually supposed to be listening... if in fact the person is mumbling to her/himself. at this point i not only have become irritated that i can't hear what they are saying but now i also feel like a major idiot because i have been obviously trying to eavesdrop on an apparently private "conversation". i hate that.


when i am sitting at a table in public working on my laptop, why do so many people seem to believe so passionately that the content of my screen is pertinent information for their lives? what is more uncomfortable than working on something relatively private/personal and being approached by a person who stares right past me to read, not even just glance at, but to study my computer screen? and so many people don't even bother to try to be subtle about it. there i sit, trying to steal their eye-contact and will them away from my screen, but it never works. and how unfair that if i close the computer or otherwise attempt to physically block their view, i am the one who looks like a weirdo. i am not the one violating personal space and public etiquette, but i look like a spaz if i take issue with it. additionally, should i make any move to disrupt their concentration that just opens up the world of acknowledgement that i know they are doing this and then everyone feels uncomfortable. i hate that.


when people go through their entire day: work, meals, drivetime, conversations, restroom... with that stupid little blackberry or blueberry or boysenberry or whatever the fruityfuck it's called on their ear-- that's just irritating. not unlike the people who leave their headphones on to have a live conversation... i know, most of the time whatever is making the noise that is being piped through those phones is likely muted or turned off, but it doesn't matter. it's just rude. take them off. don't you know that when people are talking to you it is very distracting to see that you have noise making devices directly inserted into your ear canals? we don't know if we should speak up or if all is normal or if you are just nodding along because you are actually listening to Beyonce while we are speaking. the earberry is no different and dramatically more irritating. i don't care who you are, no one is contacted so frequently that it becomes unreasonable to remove the speaker from your ear. and if you are, is it so hard to pull the little bastard out of your pocket and plop it into your ear? and for the record.... earfruit people... it is not acceptable that you should be allowed to act irritated if a live person misconstrues a situation and believes that your words are directed at someone who is actually present. when this happens, you do not get to turn your head and point at your fuckberry with irritation as though i should have been able to see it through your big fat head! take the damn thing off. it is not a fashion accessory. it is a dreadful example of everything that is wrong with social interaction and willingness to exert energy. i hate that.

(ok, i just walked past a techhead gear store... there was a big poster on the wall...is that thing actually called a bluetooth? what's the difference? who fucking cares? i still hate it.)

thought fleet

as is standard for me, i have so many random things bouncing around in my head today. why not log on to blogger and share them with the cybersphere?... first of all i am trying to get in touch with just how significant it is to me that i am now credit card debt-free. free of it. free at last! i know that i rarely discuss things of any real significance here, so perhaps the profoundly debilitating effect of my long-standing debt problem has gone undetected by my reader. there is no need to get into the dreary details, of course, but suffice it to say i have had a bit of anxiety over the years with regard to this problem of credit and debt. and i trulyhonestlygenuinely did not believe it would ever go away. 8 months ago i "knew" that i would have this debt until the day that i die and that would probably be soon, as the physical effects of that kind of anxiety tend to impede life expectancy. today it is paid. in full. done, gone, fin. i am considering falling on my knees and thanking god for this miracle, but then, why should she get all the credit... i worked my ass off for this! besides, i am fairly certain god doesn't do a lot of meddling in financial affairs.

i was at a bar the other night with two co-workers and four of their friends. two women walked off the dance floor holding hands with each other and the stranger next to me leaned over and said to me: "i bet those two are lesbians. i guarantee it." now this was interesting to me because in my wise observation, i had them pegged as two straight girls who enjoyed the drunken excitement of physical closeness with an audience. i am usually right about these things and they are usually very obvious, but i must say that this duo was a bit ambiguous even to me, so i did acknowledge the possibility that they were in fact a couple. but i didn't say any of that... i actually said: "i bet i am too." he said "shut up." i said "i guarantee it." he stared at me for some signal that would indicate to him why i was saying this. clearly it did not fit his initial perception. this led to a conversation about all of the women in the bar and i tried to explain to him that his notion of a "hot chick" is quite different from my idea of an attractive lesbian. because i did not appear to be distracted and obsessed with large-breasted barbie dolls, he had a great deal of difficulty wrapping his mind around this categorization. the conversation went on for a bit and finally came to an apparently unresolved conclusion when he said "i don't believe you." and i said "you don't believe that i am not attracted to all of these girly-girls?" and he said "i don't believe that you are a lesbian." how rude!?! why would i make that up? and why would i engage in some kind of impromptu evidentiary hearing? ok, don't believe me... what a dumb conversation. i guess i could have shown him my ring fingers and had him observe their impressive length by comparison to my index fingers.... but who has time to explain all that? my only lingering question is: do straight women lie and say they are gay if they're not? why would someone do this?

at some point i really do have to find a real job, huh? imagine how much more money i could save if i didn't have to pay for that damn health insurance that so far covers pretty much nothing at all. i hate shit like this. i need to move. and get a job. maybe i should get a job somewhere else and move there. two birds, as they say.... but i can't move because i just signed a damn lease. a smart move, keeps my rent the same, acknowledges that i am going to be here for a while and keeps me grounded so i don't make any (more) irrational decisions, like choose to pack it up and move without a penny or a plan. so i have the apartment for a considerable amount of time. now for a job.... what do i want to be when i grow up? i still kind of want to be a religion/philo professor, but i have to let that go. i also would like to continue in the mental health field and pursue something like adolescent counseling... but that seems far off.... what i really want to do when i grow up is be somebody's editor. i want to live in a world full of books. i want to read and correct things for a living. how the hell does one go about establishing a career in that world? anyone know? anyone? i sure as hell don't!

melodramatic for a minute

those who know me are well aware that i am far too jaded and cynical to be too emotionally responsive to anything. and i certainly don't go about acting as though others ought to change something about the way they live their lives just because i have recently had some kind of insight or observation. but i am going to let myself do this because i have felt compelled to for over 2 years. my dream last night reminded me of just how much regret can linger over opportunities lost. i will never feel content with the fact that i never saw linda again after high school. she was one of those people on the list of future contacts. i always felt her in my future. i knew we would connect again at some point and i would know her as an adult. an adult she so lovingly helped shape. it feels wrong to ignore the fact that i never got that chance and there are others on that same list. i have resisted letting myself feel or name this, because it annoys the shit out of me that people so frequently act as though it takes a sudden tragic death to remind them to be good, involved, engaged people. i do not intend to suggest that because linda died without my permission i now must live as though every person i care about and have lost touch with also may die at any moment. but i think that just for the sake of naming them, i will send loving and thankful thoughts and energy out to the cosmos for those whom i consider precious, wherever they are...
so, to:
chris r
russ w
kim m
jean r
jane r
collette s-b
patti and tim
donna and mark
mary jo and gary
sherrie b
diane g
terri h
caron k
matt m
scott and melissa
julie k
brenda jo h
wendy j
emily a
becky w
sherryl w
pam p
lois m
tim d
tom g
sharon d
sue ellen p
jeremy b
mary c
brian e
sharon c
scott l
nikki b
sherri o
kay m
leonard g

and the many people i have met and been changed by.... i hope that someday soon i get a chance to tell you how important you have been to me. my shyness and shame will prohibit me from ever contacting most of these people so i will do my best to hope that they just know. and to maintain thoughts of love and gratitude for the people whose character and presence shouldn't be forgotten.

so much to say

last night i had a sad, sad dream. i was trying to fall asleep (in my dream) but i couldn't, so i got up and went to my living room to get another writing assignment. i don't know why i was doing writing assignments or why i would seek them out in my living room, but that's what was happening. i got to my living room and linda c. was sitting in my "book nook" with kim m. linda and kim are two of my high school teachers, each of whom played quite a significant role in my life, though dramatically different from one another. linda gave me a writing assignment but i didn't work on it. instead linda and kim (and a third person whom i cannot identify but was also significant in my dream) and i went for a walk to discuss my life. we walked and talked and soon i found myself sitting on a couch across from linda. **in real life i met linda when i was 17 years old. she played a primary role in initiating my academic direction and interest. meeting linda and her family is a moment in my own history that i have always viewed as pivotal and profoundly inspiring. i was a different person after i met them and the new direction came to define who i am and my primary interests in my life. i have thought of linda often with immense gratitude and love, but never quite got around to telling her all the things i have to tell her. i never got to thank her for introducing me to the fantastic world of literature and history and, well, intellect. i never told her that she changed my life. linda died in august of 2004 and i hadn't seen her in over 10 years. the news of her death was shocking to me and continues to be a reality that i have great difficulty accepting. she is among the most loving, compassionate, brilliant and dedicated people i will ever know. but i never told her that either.** linda and i were chatting away and i was telling her repeatedly how grateful i was to have this opportunity to talk to her again and tell her all the things i was afraid i would never get the chance to tell her. as i was talking i became aware that linda was dead and that my conversation with her was not real. then she physically faded away and i was left staring at the emptiness of the room speaking aloud to a woman who is not there and cannot hear me. just as i did so many times in my quiet, alone times in the months after linda's death. rambling incessantly with gratitude and regret and a tinge of shame while the object of my discussion vanished without warning.

pre-approved

it is so easy to be pre-approved. all you really need is a name and a physical address. and sometimes not even that. sometimes you can just be conscious in the general vacinity of a person whose job it is to say things like: you are pre-approved. i have been so pre-approved in my life! in college i was pre-approved to be insanely irresponsible and buy things i didn't need and eat out when i couldn't afford it and go on mini-vacations because the hotels were fond of visa. i was pre-approved to give myself ulcers over the worry that i wouldn't ever figure out how to get out of this situation. i was pre-approved to owe mastercard so much money i would have to spend the money that my grandmother left me just to kind of catch up and breathe again. i was also pre-approved to fill the balance on that same mastercard right back up in about 2 months after losing my apartment to a stinky river. there was a lot of pre-approval to buy tanquaray at southgate bottle shop that same year. i was even lucky enough to be pre-approved to charge airline tickets every few months while i lived in NY just because it made me feel better to be able to see the people i wanted to see as frequently as i wanted to. i was fantastically pre-approved to collect cash advances in the form of quetzals so i could buy a lot of wooden and jade treasures in guatemala.

it's almost like grace, this pre-approval i have experienced. i should be grateful for the fact that i was liked, appreciated, trusted for no reason whatsoever except that i was me. pre-approved! approved of! people who had never met me, approved. wow. that must have felt wonderful!!

it wasn't long before folks didn't so much approve anymore. grace was good for me, because once merit stepped in, i found myself severely lacking in the approval arena. for a very long time, no one approved of me. i stopped getting letters that offered me automatic acceptance and started getting letters that suggested there had been some mistake in the tendency toward such blind approval. apparently i was not proving myself worthy of the benefit of the doubt, so to speak. i had a whole new set of stranger correspondants. no longer were enthusiastic strangers with numbers and percentages and fancy forms with little boxes writing to me to tell me how great they just assumed i must be. now it was some of their friends writing me letters to tell me what a disappointment i had turned out to be to all those people who trusted me before!

well, one can only live with this kind of constant reminder for so long. eventually one feels compelled to prove that one is worthy of approval! that one can do better! just watch! i will win your approval again! funny and alarming how easy that turned out to be. a few phone calls with a lot of humility and confession and commitment, a couple of months of reversing the downward spiral of interest accumulation and suddently i was once again worthy of the approval of my old friends at visa and mastercard. they were sending me invitations to their parties again! little boxes for my name and new address and a place to check that i was interested in once again accepting their gracious love for me! what a bunch of idiots. 12 solid years of elusive dodging. 2 shaky months of small gestures toward improvement and suddenly they want me back in their club!? that kind of forgiveness really only belongs in church and it's questionable even there.

so after 12 years of ignoring phone calls and letting unopened mail pile up and eventally finding myself frozen in fear at the utterance of my real first name, "Michelle"... i will find myself in 4 short days finally free of the incredible expense of this kind of corporate grace. my last $430.72 will be deducted from my checking account by the target corporation and i will breathe more fully and deeply than i have since i was a pre-approved teen. and from this point on, i think i will have higher standards in friendship. i know myself well enough to know that anyone who is willing to blindly enter into contract with ME, ought not to be trusted in the least.

dear santa,
for christmas this year, i would like to have a paper shredder please, for all of the invitations to the parties that i am not allowed to attend anymore. and also, santa, please send me friends who like me for who i am. and a few dollars to toss at those damn pre-approving student loan people would be nice too!

love, shelly

"this is not a good time..."

it was a nice relaxing evening following a nice uplifting day...
i was in my bedroom playing on my computer when i realized it would be a good time for some dinner, so i walked into my kitchen. why i did this i will never really understand because there was no chance that i was going to find food there. but conveniently i did come across the take-out menus hanging on the side of my refrigerator. there is one dish at one chain restaurant in town that i actually enjoy and i was just fortunate enough to have that menu present. so i ordered my spinach tortelloni... and cappuccino cake... if one is going to have dinner delivered, one may as well go all out. the woman on the telephone said that it would be approximately one hour. fine, i thought. one hour is a perfect amount of time. back to the computer, back to chatting with my online friends.

chat chat chat.... approximately 40 minutes go by...

there is a knock at the door and i am delighted that dinner is a bit early.

so i opened the door and i did not find a green mill delivery person, no, i found my former neighbor looking around, all wobbly, confused... "can i just come in and rest for a minute!?" as she pushed through me to get to my couch. now i have seen betty in this condition before. it is not uncommon for betty to be too intoxicated to know exactly what is going on around her, so she usually just sits down and laments over having had "too many glasses of beer".

"betty, where do you live now?" at this prompt betty looked at me as if i had said, 'betty i am a giant bunny rabbit and i have brought you here to give you a nice ogilivie home perm.' utter confusion and irritation.
"WELL!!! right over there!" pointing to the apartment across from mine. "i've lived there for umpteen years!!"
and this was true. to the extent that the descriptive term "umpteen" has meaning, she was not lying. however, "no, betty, you moved out of there last week. how did you get here?"
"WHAT?!? i did not move out! he dropped me off." pointing at an empty space in the atmosphere where there had apparently recently been a person with a car.
"betty, can i call your family? what is your daughter's number?" at this point she rattled off a number 3 or 4 times that i eventually learned was her own home phone number. later felt kind of stupid for leaving a message on her voice mail. she should be all kinds of confused about that today.
several attempts to retrieve family phone numbers from betty's questionable memory resulted in the following:

*approximately 19 "where's my purse?"es
*10 or 11 attempts to find "her" phone book in MY kitchen
*7 requests to "turn off that damn ugly thing" referring to my green and blue christmas tree
in the corner
*4 reminders that this has been a damn bad day
*6 "WELL I'M TRYING TO REMEMBER!!!"s
*12 or 13 "what the...?" looking around puzzled..."why is everything different?"s
*3 observations that this room "doesn't even have a damn tv or nothin'?"
**and my favorite of all!** while i continually 'woke' her from her near-slumber to request family names and phone numbers: "you know. this is not a good time to be asking me these questions!"

betty's suspicion grew as time went by. at first she just wanted to sit down. then she started to stir and wander about. into the kitchen... stunned by the fact that it appeared to be backwards (our floor plans are opposite). then she started to walk back to the bedroom where, of course, MY bed and computer and dresser are located. "WHAT THE HELL is all of THIS!?!?"

"that's my bedroom, betty."

"well, what are you trying to do to me here?" the suspicion is mounting now.

"betty, hun, i am trying to figure out how to get you home!" at this precise moment, betty flops back down onto my couch, throws her arms up in the air, looks me dead in the eyes and shouts "I. AM. HOME." (oh dear.) things were not progressing at quite the rate i had initially hoped and it was getting more and more difficult to follow her around and redirect her to the couch. there were a number of occurrences that can only be identified as vomit-swallowing, but i am just not going to get too descriptive about that. the images in my head were terrifying. i was so not interested in cleaning my carpet last night for any reason.

no luck on family phone numbers since the only number betty knew was her own and she wasn't answering her phone. as reluctant as i was, i had to call the police for help. now there's an awkward conversation. i began by identifying myself and then said: "ummm, i have a little problem...."

while i waited for the police to show up with their magic tracking abilities, my dinner arrived. i placed it on my kitchen counter where it cooled for quite some time. it will appear again later in the story. betty passed out about every 4 minutes and each time she opened her eyes again it was the same conversation.
"you know i just don't know WHAT is going on!"
"betty you are in my apartment."
"What?!"
"you are at my apartment."
"no, i'm not. i'm home."
"no, betty."
"well what did you bring me here for?!"
"i didn't, betty, you came here. i think you got a ride from someone at the bar."
"well, what do you want from me?"
"just trying to get you home, betty."
"i AM home."
"no, you don't live here anymore."
"What!?!?"
"you moved out last week."
"I DID NOT! i think i would know if i moved!"
"you did, betty."
"well how do you know???"
"i watched you move out, betty. the apartment is empty."
"i wonder where i moved to....."
"i don't know but we're going to find out."
"where's my purse???"
"you didn't bring it."
"well that's stupid......why did you bring me here?"

when the police officer finally arrived, betty was ready to be frisky. she was looking for a boyfriend in uniform and jason fit the bill! this was rather amusing to both jason and me. jason tracked down a son. he'd be right over to pick her up.

things took a bit of a dark turn then. betty started to get angry with me. pointing and staring and saying things like "it's you, isn't it?" (huh?) "you did all of this." (no, you came to me.) "well where the hell is my car?" (i dunno.) "oh, i know how it is. it's you." then came the saddest part of it all. perhaps the saddest part of the last several months of my life. betty sat on my couch, seeming to have dropped (again) out of the awareness that i was there and that she wasn't home. she folded her hands under her chin and whispered repeatedly:

"oh please, please just let me be dead. i know you can do it, only you can do it. all i want is to just be dead. oh please oh please. let me out of this hell, you know how it's been. all the hell i been through with my kids, oh please please. let me just have death. you know how it is. only you can do it."

then she looked at me again. didn't seem to matter to her that she had no idea who i was or why i was sitting on "her" couch. "you just don't know how much i just wish i was dead." long pause while i try to keep empathetic eye contact. something she was in no condition for, frankly, and was pointless since she couldn't see me anyway. "you have no idea! just be thankful you don't have to feel like this!" {a funny thing to say to someone who lives with chronic major depressive disorder} "just be thankful you have a life!"

betty spent several minutes praying for death taking brief intermissions to remind me that she is so depressed and i am so lucky.

it can sometimes be physically painful to feel that much sadness for another human being. there she sat, two feet from me, lamenting a lifetime of misery. a lifetime more than twice as long as mine has been thus, and i watched her and knew that no matter how profoundly devastating it was to witness this kind of illness, there was not a god damned thing i could do to undo any of the pain, to heal any of her illness or to begin to make things better even in this moment. all i could do was wait for her children to get there and hope that they would take care of her and that they love her.

well, that and hope she didn't pass out and pee on my couch.

when betty's daughter got there i was in the kitchen again, following betty around. she had once again gotten feisty and had to look around for something familiar. she was at the counter trying to dig into the plastic bag containing my dinner. "i'll just put this stuff away." i was just guiding her back toward the couch when i saw the headlights from her daughter's truck. "don't THINK i don't know what's going on here. it's you. it's you who started all of this! where's my purse?"

i opened the door to welcome betty's daughter to the situation and suddenly i was no longer a suspect. betty turned around, walked into me and said, "you. you're a sweetheart." then turned to her daughter and said, "you know, i just can't figure out WHAT is going on." i quietly tried to inform the new participants in the evening's drama: "she thinks i took her tv away so she is mad at me. she also has no idea that she doesn't live here." i apparently wasn't quiet enough because the next voice was betty's "i DO live here!" she began to rattle off her address of "umpteen years", which i strongly suspect is how this whole thing got started as she got into a car with some random bar regular. "no. mom. you live down the hall from me now, remember. now get in the truck." she was not pleased.

after my observation of the prayer vigil i wanted to be upset that her family was mad at her when she was obviously so sick. then i saw in her daughter's eyes a lifetime of frustration and exhaustion. i wondered how much of this kind of thing her kids have had to deal with over the years. which "side" is more sympathetic? the ill mother whose kids are angry and impatient? or the kids whose lives have been profoundly impacted by the behaviors and lack of predictability of the ill mother? perspective is an interesting thing. and in this situation, as funny as it was at times, it was just sad from every perspective.

last night i was boring

it's been nearly a month since my last appearance on second impression. where does the time go? as usual, i clicked the "new post" button without a damn thing to say, but i'll think of something...

as of last night at approximately 10:00, i am the proud owner of flour. and food coloring. and baking powder. i even own some vanilla extract. i have never owned any of these things before. i have had this nagging desire to bake sugar cookies for the last several weeks so i finally googled a recipe and made a shopping list. i was only slightly disappointed to learn that of the ingredients listed, i already had just two in the house. and that is only because the recipe includes 1/4 tsp. of salt. even i have salt! naturally, now that i own flour and granulated sugar en masse, i also had to purchase some canisters to contain said ingredients. i have never had those either. but now i have two shiny black canisters with chrome accents to match all of the black and chrome appliances on my counters. being a grown up is expensive. but there are a lot of opportunities for color coordination.

last night after i returned from my trip to target and put all of my new accessories into the dishwasher, (i also now own some cookie cutters, a rolling pin and some rolling mats because i am not the type of person who can roll out dough directly on the countertop. i don't care how "clean" one might think the surface is.) i tried to fall asleep to my current netflix movie, but like so many other nights in my life, couldn't fall asleep to save my life. it isn't quite the same as it was when i was little and would lie awake for hours worrying about things that were not even real. but i do recall that i was thinking/ruminating on something last night that wasn't allowing my brain to shut off for the day. and like so many other mornings in my life, whatever it was that seemed so significant and so troubling last night totally eludes me now. i have no idea what i was worried about, but i am sure it will come back to me as soon as i turn out the lights tonight.