The doctors have informed me that Husband will be fine. He'll be home in a few days, so I can sorta enjoy the apartment alone (meaning I'll enjoy it until I fall asleep on the couch because I can't sleep in our bed when he isn't home). I painted my toenails, watched Sex and The City, danced around to some Ethel Merman. I should have a bottle of wine...where is my wine? MY HOUSE HAS NO WINE!

Man, I really like just writing shit and throwing it up here.

Though tomorrow when I have had more sleep, and fully stabilized glucose levels, I may think differently.

After the comments are put down that are just people laughing at me.

Oh, and Rick? Love the fine and lovely nest you crafted!

Heavy Things

It's almost 3 am, so I am not going to be eloquent. Sorry.

Since taking my few weeks vacation from this blog, I have decided to move back to Massachusetts, had two panic attacks, discussed divorce with my husband, and, on Tuesday morning, spent seven hours laying on a gurney with my head in one of those heinously uncomfortable neck braces.

In the ambulance I was stuck FIVE times so they could get a little blood to test my blood sugars (I have mild hypoglycemia). They were low...dangerously low.

They asked me in the ambulance if I had been going through any stress lately. Little bit, yeah.

Oooh, want to hear the cutest thing? As I was passing out in the grocery store, my husband was a few towns away passing out in a Dunkin Donuts! They put our stretchers next to each other in the ER. Awwww...

My husband and I are not getting divorced. At least, we hope not. Lately we have realized that our relationship has become entirely focused on his illness. We weren’t communicating. We were lost as far as plans for our future, and though we were positive that yes, we do love each other very, very much, we could no longer remember why. When we weren’t silent, we were fighting and crying and alone on our sides of the bed, frightened that I may get so crazy depressed I'll just run of to Vegas with the next green-eyed smooth talker that comes along.

That "Vegas" bit was an exaggeration.

We're going to seek counseling, and make spending non hospital related time together every week a priority. I'm actually going to be working for his company even more, which makes me a tad nervous. I do not want to be an employee of his, but it is only temporary, and if things start getting worse, relationship-wise, I'll quit (working for him).

I am calling my doctor, because this panic attack thingie (related to the blood sugar thingie) is getting me a little nervous. Two episodes in as many weeks is really rare.

We're looking at houses/apartments in the Worcester area. I really, really love Providence, but it makes much more sense to move. We'll be closer to our doctors, closer to his company.

I close with a gushing. A gushing that the subject will probably hate.

Sam Costello is one of the reasons I love Providence so much. He saved my husband's life at least once, and on numerous occasions has dropped everything to come to the rescue of my Beloved and myself. Today, for instance, he went gathering up the cars Husband and I left in parking lots at two separate ends of Rhode Island. He is a man of soothing rationale, unconditional love, and limitless generosity. Everyone go read his blog and tell him how wonderful he is. Or don't. He'll probably hate hearing that he's wonderful. He takes my showers of affection with eye rolling. I think he prefers it when I flip him off.

That's a crappy closing. Okay...how's this...?

If thine enemy wrong thee, buy each of his children a drum.

Hee hee hee!

Have you ever had something that you wrote a loooong time ago, forgot about, and then found when you were looking for something else? It's not good at all, but it's really kind of cute and funny and you feel like sharing?
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So, Mike and I have designed the Perfect Island (named The Island of Doom, so we won’t get tourists).

It will be big, where all of our close friends and family will live. The land will be equally owned by everyone, but every family unit will have their own small house. There will be a lot of shade and fruit trees, bearing almost all kinds of imaginable fruit. There will be several big gardens that many people will tend to. Those who don’t tend to the gardens will fish or bake or milk the goats and cows (we’ll only have a few).

No one will work at a “job” (unless they want to, but they won’t get paid. If someone who wants to ruin the dream wants there to be some monetary things, we’ll export some of our fruits and vegetables for toothpaste, toothbrushes, batteries, flour and yeast). We’ll all have plenty to do with the farming, and teaching of our children to read (we’ll bring all of our books with us, of course).

If we want to know what’s going on in the world outside, newspapers will be flown in with the mail every day. What little trash we will produce will be sent out with them as well.

Everyone can have as many pets as they want, but all of them will be trained so they don’t poo all over the beach. We’ll make a special “Poo Garden” in a thicket of trees, where their poo can degrade into the earth.

Clothes are optional. When we throw big parties, people should probably wear clothes, because some people like Mike and Ally aren’t comfortable with total nudity.

The temperature always stays between 70 and 80 degrees. Maybe it drops down to 55 on some few chilly nights, but that’s all. And no, there is no electricity. Radios are powered by batteries. No TV. Period.
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Poo Garden! Ah ha ha ha ha! Joy!

Gorgeous

I have no idea when any of you will read this, but right now the Massachusettes sky is a fresh Spring Blue, punctuated with puffy white clouds.

It looks like the opening to "The Simpsons".

I am realizing that even though Worcester is essentially a big block of old concrete...I am very glad I am sitting where I am right now.

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.

What it do when it pissed off? I ast.

Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back." (Alice Walker, The Color Purple)

I think the same goes for perfectly blue skies.

Gratitude

When I was 10 or 11, I found a pile of my dad’s old Batman comic books in my grandmother’s house.

The Penguin had giant flying creatures that terrorized Gotham. Catwoman gave the city’s beauties a sleeping sickness so she could win a beauty pageant. Rather tame compared to the plots of today. They are not the point, though.

Batgirl and Poison Ivy are the point.

When I was a kid, there was Pippi Longstocking. Most people associate red headed girls with Pippi...one of the homliest girls in children’s literature. Nicholas Schnare would call me that while teasing me and making fun of my freckles.

Disney animators hadn’t drawn Ariel. Paul Zelinsky wouldn’t come out with his Rapunzel for several years. Daphne Blake was on TV, but I didn’t watch much Scooby Doo as a kid, and let’s face it, she’s the least useful member of Mystery Inc. There were no pretty redheaded women, that I say (in case you're wondering, my mother is a blonde - Psychiatrist Barbie).

But Batgirl and Poison Ivy were redheads who were clever, tough and beautiful! I know Poison Ivy does not seem the ideal role model for a young girl, but the fact that the most desirable woman in Gotham City could be a redhead astounded me!

They did wonderful things for my self esteem.


Whenever anyone made me feel like I was somehow less than they were, I thought of a certain ass kicking librarian and held my head up walking like I had a cape and boots.


In college, whenever sexual insecurity would rear its ugly head, I would think of Poison Ivy. I would transfer her confidence to myself. Even though she's fictional, even though it is completely ridiculous, Poison Ivy made me feel...beautiful.

So I owe those gals a lot. I am grateful, ladies.

You know what? I think I’m done with this for right now. I threw up on the page and now I’ll just put this out.

Maybe I’ll look at it later and tweak it some more.

Thanks for the help, Kevin.

I wrote this in college, for me and my redheaded girlfriends.

Where does it happen? Is it a line? It does not feel like a process. Suddenly the ugly girl, constantly picked on “Pippi Longstocking” is watched with hungry eyes, she has become an object of eroticism and danger overnight. She feels the eyes on her as she crosses the room. amidst a sea of tans, she is cooly white, freckled, a contradiction. They stare at her hair, as if the color of her hair dictates her personality. But in a way, it does. The child who once wished for black locks now asserts her fiery power. She is aware that she can get away with being brazen, being unladylike, all because of this power granted to her by genetics.

They watch. They look at her, starting with her head and moving downward, observing the porcelain skin, (skin once pitied as pale, seen as unhealthy) the pride with which she walks. The men look at each other and smile “Redheads....”

That is expected to explain it all.

We reel from it, confounded as hell. Perhaps there is a shallow victory in it, but above all, we are confused. We are burned as witches and vilified in the Bible (Judas, Herod, Delilah). Then we are seen as victories from the men we have been with.

She remembers those boys whose laps she has sat in, and eyes she has stared into, who will always remember her for being “the redhead”. When they tell embellished stories about her, that is the detail they will start with that will make those who do not know it jealous.

How utterly confusing. How can one be expected to see a childhood curse as a badge of privilege overnight? A magic wand has been waved, and Anne Shirley is suddenly perceived as Jessica Rabbitt. Is it better to assert your individuality and scream “It is only a color, I am more than this?” or to realize that it has influenced who you are from birth and flaunt it. Take an intense pride in it?

Before she goes to bed, she brushes this hair. She catches her reflection in the mirror. Her breath stops and she sees what has caused it to be an object of scorn in the past and desire in the present. It’s coppery fire is breathtaking.



It is beautiful.