These Stones That Are Thrown Against My Bones...

I am not OK.  Maybe it’s because I kicked off the week listening to Loretta Lynn sing “Wine into Water” on a Monday morning.  Maybe it’s the recovery.  I find myself obsessing over every pull and pinch in my gut.  I watch the glue on my skin soften and pill.  When I lie flat my muscles flutter. When I close my eyes I see the inches of tube being pulled out of my body, and I feel it happen all over again.  I inspect the hole it came out of every day to make sure it’s still closing.  To see if it has gotten blacker.

I once knew a woman with Body Dysmorphic Disorder. -- This is not anorexia, and beyond counting celery sticks. When she looked in the mirror she saw holes in her face. Some days it was horror movie terrifying. Other days she just stood quietly caking makeup on her cheeks as if she were filling in a fender with bondo.  And it all started for her after having her wisdom teeth taken out.

Maybe this is happening to me.

Or maybe it’s something else altogether.   Maybe it’s this 250 pound boulder sitting on my chest, pushing me down, taking my breath, stealing my joy.  Reminding me I will never be settled. That there will always be unease, and uncertainty, and the burden of digging out into the light-in an endless cycle of anxieties and release.   A new crisis strapped to my back, a new neurosis, another hole to close.

I cried myself to sleep last night.  And then I didn’t sleep at all. I am not OK.

 

40 Things I Learned From Abdominal Surgery

1. Showering is the single most exhausting thing a person will ever do.
2. I hate sports bras.
3. A grown adult woman can in fact live on animal crackers alone. (I may or may not have gone through a pound of them in three days.)
4. No one means it when they say, "no judgment here."

5. Nurses are mean, and 2 out of 3 of them are trashy.
6. The good, the bad, the ugly of opioids.
7. Walking is weird.
8. Yawning hurts
9. Coughing is terrifying.
10. Sneezing is certain death.
11. People who choose elective surgery are retarded.
12. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is actually kind of horrible.
13. So is Law & Order.
14. It is possible to be starving to death and blindingly nauseous at the same time.
15. I'm not very good at extended down time.
16. Hospital vegetable broth tastes like ramen.
17. Animals really do know when something is wrong.
18. My wife thinks matzo is just salty communion.
19. To be grateful my midsection is made of cotton candy, actual muscle tone would've made this a lot worse.
20. Two weeks alone on a sofa is the saddest thing ever.
21. Grey t-shirts are essential to healing.

22. Elastic is the devil.
23. Having a drain removed from your body is rather unpleasant.
24. Records aren't as fun when you can't lie in the floor to listen to them.
25. Every noon news program has an awkward gardening Q & A segment.
26. My mailman is a dick.
27. Co-workers are gruesomely nosy.
28. I will not be acknowledging my navel ever again.
29. Antonio Sabato, Jr. is renovating houses now.  And he's not that good at it.
30. Medical professionals are obsessed with bowel movements.
31. Fingerhut catalogs are wildly entertaining.
32. Missing out on all the fun stuff sucks--FOMO is real.
33. The human body is not a miracle masterpiece, it is vile and disgusting.
34. I hate Kelly Ripa.
35. There is an end to Netflix.
36. There is also an end of the internet.
37. And Twitter.
38. I am one window peek away from becoming Gladys Kravitz.
39. People really can be glued back together.
40. I am an excellent armchair detective.

And He Cut My Lip, And He Cut My Heart...

I have never had a perfect body.  I can say now at almost 40 that I have never wanted one, though I don't quite remember if my 20 year old self would call bullshit on that.  But long before this trendy "body positive" movement, I owned my body. No matter too fat or too thin,  I stood naked in front of camera lenses in the name of art.  I tattooed my body. I pierced my body. I suspended it from hooks. I used my thighs to keep rhythm when I learned to play music. I scrawled Sharpie messages on my skin for my own sanity.  I endangered my body on carnival rides, with drugs and drink, walking home alone at night, in bed with strangers. And now I'm learning I endangered my body just by living queer. But those were all my choices, I controlled the uncontrollable.  And I show off every scar those choices left me.
But now my body swells and shrinks with sickness.  Something happens when you hand over control. When you know your body has been violated, and you've consented to it, but you can't quite put your finger on what has happened to you. Running your fingertips over black incisions, not knowing how eager you'll be to share them when they turn soft and pink. Finding mystery bruises and random bits of tape and missed electrodes. And just yesterday the horrifying discovery that something nefarious has happened to my belly button. You give yourself over.  Forced to ask for help and company. Watching the blood flow from the inside out, collecting in plastic. Thinking about "in sickness and in health" and wondering how'd they know.

40 Things That Bum Me Out

In no particular order...

1. mosquito “mouth parts”

2. road kill

3. not being able to open a banana

4. people who can’t walk in heels and choose to wear them anyway

5. Marc Jacobs lipstick

6. strangers who want to chat in public restrooms—actually this is not limited to strangers.  I don’t want to chat in the bathroom.

7. This infuriating bullshit:

 

8. death before 40

9. sneezing right after applying mascara

10. people who don’t vote

11. morning TV and/or radio “personalities”

12. the Yulin Dog Meat Festival

13. flip flops worn in public (in the absence of a dorm shower or body of water) as if they were a proper pair of shoes—which leads me to:

14. looking at your chipped toenail polish

15. facebook

16. crust on condiment lids

17. mumbling

18. paper cuts on my face—yes, this happens to me often enough that it made the list.

19. being the only party in a restaurant

20. reality television

21. that no one remembers there was a chick in Black Flag

22. spray tan

23. dudes who don’t wear undershirts with button-ups

24. gum smacking

25. thigh gaps

26. jealousy—usually my own, I tend to ignore everyone else’s

27. IPAs

28. excess saliva

29. sleeveless anything

30. people who walk without picking up their feet

31. non-stop yammering

32. existential loneliness

33. fleece

34. bad table manners

35. my mother

36. motherfuckers who have no interest in yielding and/or merging

37. that I never know when to use were vs. was

38. solo careers

39. long, flat butts

40. that thing when someone is just a smidge too far away for you to hold the door/elevator but you know they see you and you don’t want to be an asshole, so you have to make a split second choice between standing there for too long like a ding dong or being an asshole