Poppymom's Temporary Sanity

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2005-05-10T22:29:00.000-07:00

Poppymom.com is back up! Archives are still down, but everything else works, so I'll be posting there once again. C'mon!

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2005-05-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

Just got home from my whirlwind trip to Chicago with Kara, Holley and Bono. Much, much to say, but I'm not in a position to do so right now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get some writing time. In the meantime, I thought I'd ~~recycle~~ share something I wrote in 2001 after my last U2 show. It might put an interesting perspective on what I have to say about last night's show. Or it might just be that I'm lazy and doing the least necessary to appease you people. Here 'tis:

Reflections from an Old Woman in the Mosh Pit

I’m not twenty-one anymore.

I may look like I’m twenty-one. I may bear similarities to who I was when I was twenty-one. But the cold fact is, I haven’t been twenty-one in eight years.

Sometimes, though, you’ve got to act like you’re twenty-one, just one final time. Slow-dance with your youth for a night and reap the consequences later.

I should have outgrown rock star excitement somewhere down the line, the days when I would blindly blow my rent money on concert tickets, call in sick to work for a week so I could follow a band around the Midwest. Sleeping on concrete and bathing in gas station bathroom sinks, just for a chance to dance with other lost souls.

A great deal of rock star excitement somehow survived in me, despite being flogged by adult responsibility.

My friend Kristina is twenty-one, and so much like what I used to be. In the fall of 2001, when everyone was afraid to venture out of the CNN haze of war, Kristina and her roommate Sarah couldn’t stay home. They fled their apartment in Bowling Green, Ohio, in pursuit of U2. In Sarah’s maroon Toyota with her dad’s Texaco credit card in hand; they followed the band to Chicago, Indiana, and Rhode Island. They lugged their sleeping bags to the arenas at five in the morning, sleeping like street urchins, just for a chance to be so close to the stage that they might make a flash of eye contact, feel a drop of sweat, reveal in the humanity of rock stars.

In late November U2, followed by Kristina and Sarah, came to St. Louis. The girls, along with my friend Kara, converged on my house the night before the show. The next day I lunged out of bed at 4:30 AM, my exhausted eyes burning in the darkness, stumbling through the house and waking everyone.
Even the most sludgy, bitter convenience store coffee taste blissful when it’s 5:16 AM, twenty-three degrees, and you’re wedged in a pickup truck with 15 blankets, six pillows, four backpacks, and three sleepy people.

Overnight, a tent city sprouted on the sidewalk along Fourteenth Street. Reaching down the block, sprouting from the side of the arena, little pods of nylon slept with no signs of life. When the stream of tents ended, lifeless bundled masses of humans continued the line, their breath substituted by coffee cup steam and cigarette smoke. They stretched past the metal and glass of Savvis Center and huddled into the cold concrete and stone of the old Kiel Opera House, swooping down a short flight of stairs into a pit, where the wall turned into boarded doors. We descended the stairs, resting our pillows against the frigid wall and spreading our blankets over the bitter floor. Our four bodies, padded and shielded, wedged into our little cubbyhole to wait.

We had purchased our tickets to the show two weeks prior. General admission tickets for $45. It’s a good deal, but g.a. means there are no guarantees. Those who don’t show up before dawn are relegated to the back, far from the stage, watching the ocean of bodies that separates them from the stage. At each show they’d attended, Kristina and Sarah had lined up early and were rewarded with positions that were mere feet from the stage, an arm’s reach from a calloused hand still warm from the metal guitar strings. And that’s why we crammed into our cubbyhole, under a mountain of blankets on that cold November day, before day began. Just for that moment at 7 AM, when the girl with the clipboard and the red marker would brand our hands with numbers, indicating our place in line, and the order we’d be allowed into the arena at 6 PM. A red brand in honor of our tenacity, or to mark us as idiots for the rest of the world.

And so we waited, wrapped in whatever warmth we could gain from the blankets, eating fluffy, warm beneigts brought by my husband, taking walks to Union Station for bathroom breaks and to relieve the unbearable monotony of sitting in a concrete alcove in the cold. Sarah barely moved all day. She stayed in her cocoon, her nose in a biology textbook, saving her energy.

Maybe I should have taken a hint from Sarah. In the days since the show, I’ve played the “what if” game far too many times. What if I’d just stayed still, hibernated in that alcove, instead of letting the boredom get to me? I spent more time walking the streets of downtown than I spent sitting quietly. I walked until the friction of my feet on the sidewalk was strong enough to warm me. I walked under the gaze of the Victorian landmarks and sleek shining new buildings, trying to find a place in my adopted city while my friends sat on the concrete, staring at the sheriff’s department building, watching the building’s inhabitants watch them back. I fought with myself, willing myself to give in to boredom for once, to take advantage of the opportunity to simply sit quietly for a day, knowing that my reward would come when the band took the stage at 8 PM. But that wasn’t enough to stop the constant frenzy that forever resides within me, driven by guilt to be doing anything - anything but sitting on my ass.

I returned from one of my walks shortly before 4 PM, just in time to help gather our blankets and rush them to the truck in the spitting rain. The others changed clothes in the parking garage, hidden behind the opened doors. They fluffed hat-matted hair, drew borders around their sleep-starved eyes with black pencils, spritzed perfume and smeared deodorant, vain attempts to mask the effects of a sleepless night and a motionless day. I stood nearby, still in my navy t-shirt under a charcoal gray fleece pullover that matched the darkening sky. My bag of clothes – low-cut shirt and shiny black shoes – stayed buried under the blankets, and my face remained rain-smeared and wind-chapped pink.

We returned to the arena as the lady with the clipboard began checking the numbers on our hands, lining us up in order. No more warm blankets, no more overhead awning, no more pillows to sit upon. Just room on the sidewalk to stand for two and a half hours as the drizzle grew into dark waves of rain. We’d left our coats and umbrellas in the truck, shedding all items that would be in the way once we were inside the arena. The crowd behind us pushed, and slowly we inched under an awning, damp and cold.
No books to keep us occupied, no place to take a nap, no places left to walk in the rain. We stood, shifting from one foot to the other, giggling wildly, yet nervously. Exhaustion dripped through us, expressed as punch-drunkenness. Kristina kept us entertained by doing silly dances. We chatted with the people in line with us. Anything to keep us from clock-watching and thinking about the cold.
They let us inside at 6 PM. Through the turnstiles, patted by security, we ran through the halls of Savvis Center, rushing through the doors into the arena, flying down the stairs, barely stopping for the ushers to check the branded numbers on our hands. “Slow down! You’re almost there!” one of them told me. But I didn’t slow down. I ran, my legs, frozen from November and atrophy, stretching across the rubber floor that radiated the bitterness of the hockey ice beneath. I flashed my hand to another usher, who nodded me into the passage under the walkway that jutted into the audience. I didn’t stop until I was with the others, dwarfed in the shadow of the stage.

For another ninety minutes, we sat on the rubber floor until the ice began to bleed through, chilling us again. Then we’d stand until the cold permeated our shoes and the skin of our feet. The floor behind us filled, and we joined conversations. People who’d driven from Kentucky, Chicago, Tennessee. People who’d driven to St. Louis immediately after the concert in Kansas City the night before, sleeping in those lifeless tents. People who’d seen them before, telling those of us who hadn’t that we were about to be moved to the cores of our souls. Conversations interrupted by forty-five minutes of the opening act, followed by another thirty minutes of waiting.
The hoard behind us began to push. No more conversation – the time had come to stake claims to the spots we’d waited so long to hold. Bracing against the force behind me, I felt the lunge in my gut, the stomp and flutter of something inside me. My claustrophobia stirred, noting the heat of the oxygen-less air, the closeness of the bodies crushing into me. While my friends clamored and squealed, I closed my eyes and I prayed. It seemed so petty, praying for myself at a silly rock concert when there’s so much horror in the world. People who sleep in concrete bassinettes every night, not just for a chance to stand on the covered hockey ice and play air guitar. People who are so gripped by fear that they can’t leave the walls of their houses, who are struck by paralyzing horror anytime a plane passes overhead. People who have been left alone since one day in September.

And here I am, praying that my fat, dehydrated, exhausted body can withstand the intensity of standing on the ice, crushed against humanity, just to hear some songs.
God, just let me stay upright on these swollen feet and weary legs. Let me stand without being crushed. Don’t let this be the moment I have a heart attack or a stroke. Please keep me from puking. Just please. Please put me where I need to be right now. Let me see what I’m supposed to see.

The music shifted, and Stevie Wonder’s voice swarmed over the masses with the whining keyboards of “Higher Ground”, which launched into The Beatles’ “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, melded into “All You Need is Love”. It wouldn’t be until the next morning that we’d know that George Harrison had died while we were sitting on the frozen sidewalk. In twelve hours we’d be glued to VH1, watching George softly singing “Here Comes the Sun.” But tonight, we celebrated in the truth of the music he’d created before the four of us were born.

With the houselights up, The Beatles gave way to U2 sneaking onto the stage and ripping into “Elevation”

High, higher than the sun
You shoot me from a gun
I need you to elevate me here
At corner of your lips
As the orbit of your hips
Eclipse
You elevate my soul

In the yellow glow of the lights, everyone around me became airborne, their feet springing from the frozen ice below, one mass with three hundred parts, leaping to the beat, with me wedged in the middle. My legs screamed at me as the lights burned into my eyes. In the brightness, the band – not twenty feet away – shimmered in the same light as me, as if the performance was only in my head. My body bounced to the music, disconnected from the portion of my brain that screamed for it to stop, to rest.

I remember when I was ten years old and MTV came to my hometown. The first vision my eyes drank from the screen were of four young men walking the rubbled streets of Dublin. I didn’t get their music, their anger at the politicos of the world, didn’t understand the terror that had been a part of their lives in Northern Ireland since the days of their births. In my child’s mind, it was dark music about a darkness in the world that I didn’t know existed.

Twenty years later, standing on cold ground while breathing hot air, my body surrendering, it made sense. The band returned to those songs I heard as a child, the songs I couldn’t embrace then. Bono, the lead singer, stalked the walkway into the audience to the beat of a military drum.

I can't believe the news today
I can't close my eyes
And make it go away
How long...
How long must we sing this song?
How long? How long...
Tonight...we can be as one
Tonight...
Broken bottles under children's feet
And bodies strewn across a dead end street
But I won't heed the battle call
Puts my back up
My back up against the wall

With those words, my heart stopped. The cold that had crept through my body all day clutched my heart and everything deeper within me. The cold took those words and wrapped them through my organs and pulled me away from the walls of people surrounding me.

I understood.

The song, its images of terror in Ireland over two decades earlier. Images from my own country, still new and unreal in my mind, like they’d grown out of my brain from years of seeing the atrocities that happened to other worlds on the evening news. Through the dizziness and nausea that held me so still, I understood the rage that connects our worlds. The experiences we share, the words that heal both of us. “We’ve been here before,” they seemed to say. “We’ve been here, and we know. And it still doesn’t make any sense. But we know.”

Bono stopped singing, but the band continued to play. Through the crowd in front of me, I watched as he crouched, extending his arms into the crowd. When he stood, his back to me, I could see the fabric clutched in his hands, the broad red and white stripes of a flag. He seemed to cradle it to his chest, an embrace of solidarity and understanding. But when he turned, I saw it was so much more than an embrace. With one arm wrapped around the flag, the other stretched to his side, the fabric draping his fist, he danced. Slowly, he swayed, eyes fluttered closed, mouth turned slightly upwards in a gentle smile, the kind given to an injured child by one who understands the hurt. The embrace of solidarity evolved into an act of love, a slow dance with a wounded partner. As he caressed the fabric to his cheek, someone in front of me raised another flag, the orange, green, and white of Ireland, waving strong and broad in salute. The crowd under the flag no longer lept. They no longer screamed. In silence they watched from under the solid canopy of the Irish flag.

Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
Wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)
Wipe your tears away
(Sunday, Bloody Sunday)

I’m not sure when I finally realized that the tears poured from my tired eyes and my throat was clenched in mourning. Everything I’d held at bay for two long months, the heat of terror and grief, had burst through my frozen skin. The battered shell of my body could no longer stand there.

I had seen what I needed to see. I tugged the hem of Kristina’s sweater and told her I needed a break. And with that, I left. I pushed through the crowd, heaved my heavy soul up the stairs, and gulped the open air in the lobby.

I missed the rest of the show while I sat in the lobby, trembling and weak, not strong enough to go to the first aid station. They’d probably just think I had overindulged, and I didn’t feel like pleading my case otherwise.

The disappointment hit quick and hard. After waiting for months to see them, after putting myself through a self- imposed hell, I was missing the show. I tried to feel sorry for myself, but the self-pity didn’t come. Nothing came. Just a long-forgotten silence within me. I could hear the music from where I sat, but I didn’t listen. I didn’t concentrate on anything, just lapped up the solitude. I didn’t feel alone. I could fill my lungs for the first time all day. For the first time in months.

I’m not twenty-one anymore. I can’t physically tolerate the grueling tenacity required to operate on little sleep, with little water, in harsh conditions. The day after the concert I realized what I had done to myself – in an effort to avoid bathroom breaks during the long wait, I hadn’t drunk the gallon of water I consume daily. It wasn’t a heart attack or a stroke that had made me reel; it was dehydration. Something so simple, missing something so elemental had made me ferociously ill. At twenty-one, I could have operated solely on beer and adrenaline.
But at twenty-one, I wouldn’t have understood. I wouldn’t have been able to grasp the truth that comes from an Irishman dancing with an American flag and telling us to wipe our tears away. I was too alienated then, too wrapped up in my own wars to understand such love, love that reaches beyond each individual, each country. At twenty-one I would have rejected that love, because I hadn’t seen the darkness of the world.

At twenty-nine, I’ve seen that darkness. I’ve also seen light. And I’ve seen how music can thaw the cold, salve the burn, and silence the noise.

Mother's Day: Pros and Cons

2005-05-08T06:28:00.000-07:00

Pro: Waking up to find this hot daddy next to me, along with sweet cards from B. and Clara "Dust Devil" Jane.

Con: My own mother currently dislikes me, and my father pretty much hates me.

Pro: Since we cut our visit to my hometown short by a day - hey! - we've got an extra day.

Con: All that wasted time driving to and from my hometown, nevermind the time there. Don't get me started.

Pro: Getting to spend some time with my cousins Tyler and Hillary while in my hometown, who I don't see often enough.

Con: Getting so spend some time with another cousin, who felt the need to tell us how one of her many dogs comes running when he sees anyone picking their noses because she wants to eat the boogers.

Pro: Discovering the potential of making our next home in Belleville, Illinois, where they have a quaint town square, several Metrolink stops that lead to urbanization, and houses like this sell for about a dollar fifty.*

Con: Realizing that, if we do move to Belleville, I'll be one of those Illinois drivers I mock. Or worse, all those Illinois drivers I've mocked will be waiting for me.

Pro: I'm going to Chicago to see U2 tomorrow!

Con: I missed last night's Chicago U2 show in favor of having my pysche bull-whipped yet again by my parents.

Pro: They're sitting in the living room. One's talking to his mom in Michigan. The other is playing with her LeapPad.

Con: I honestly can't think of one, aside from I haven't completely fucked up my relationship with both of them. There's still hope.

Much love to my fellow mamas. Yo.

*And how could I possibly not live in a town with a restaurant named Hazel & Betty's Mexican Food, located in the bowling alley? We could base this potential move solely on the existance of this restaurant.

Apparently, I'm invisible

2005-05-06T14:11:00.000-07:00

...or I'm just not allowed to blog anymore.

If you can see this, lucky you, because all I'm getting is a white page. And my regular blog still isn't up.

Good thing I saw my therapist today, or else I'd be getting all paranoid and taking this personally.

Friday Shuffle - The Relocation Blues

2005-05-06T07:26:00.000-07:00

For the five regular readers who have followed me from my broken home to the Econo-Inn...

1. I Want You (She's So Heavy) - The Beatles
2. Members Only - Sheryl Crow
3. I'm Free Now - Morphine
4. Nothing Man - Bruce Springsteen
5. Book of Flags - Q and Not U
6. Not Home Anymore - Whiskeytown
7. Wake Me Up When September Ends - Green Day
8. The Air Near My Fingers - White Stripes
9. Bamboo (Interlude) - Outkast
10. Far Away Christmas Blues - Asylum Street Spankers

Damn kids

2005-05-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

I'm watching the local morning news, where they just gave detailed instructions on how to get high by huffing aerosol fumes. I have two comments:

1. Slow news day?

2. Thanks for the tips! I don't think I've been getting the maximum Aqua-Net bang for my huffing buck. With these new tips and tricks, I hope to at least double my huffing brain damage. Thanks, Fox 2!

(No, I'm not a huffer. Geez. Sarcasm. I'm not 14; I can afford real drugs. Again, sarcasm.)

Yesterday Clara "Huffer" Jane and I went to a local chi-chi garden center in a somewhat chi-chi part of town in search of Mother's Day gifts. Why? Because I like to give my mom and grandma Mother's Day gifts they can kill. I think it's cathartic. I've never hunted in my life, but with the way things have gone in my life recently, I'm hoping for a shotgun and a hunting trip where I might shoot a bear for Mother's Day. I'll be lucky if I get a card.

Anyway ...

Huffer was in fine form yesterday. It was all shrieking, all the time. The pitch of her whining indicated that being pushed in her stroller through the aisles of beautiful flowers, trying to find the perfect overstuffed hanging basket to express our love to Mimi was akin to having her bare feet shoved into a paper shredder. Luckily (I thought), two little cherubs, dressed in head-to-toe Talbots Kidswear came to the rescue. Or so I thought.

The 4-year-girl, complete with a white bow in her blonde hair and painted red toenails peeking out from her sandals, seemed sweet enough. "Oh, look at the baby!" she called to her 2-year-old brother, and they swooped onto Huffer's stroller. She was thrilled to have other children to commisserate with regarding how terrible it is to be forced to spend time looking at flowers and how maybe they should call the authorities.

That's when The Cherub started turning into a little minion. She grabbed Huffer's hand and gave a pull. I said, "Hey Bitch. Quit it." Well, not quite. But I did step in, of course. So did The Cherub's mother, who said, "Oh! Look at her little feet! Touch her toes!" she commanded The Cherub, who proceeded to pinch my child's bare toes while her mother said, "Awwwww!"!

I suddenly had to look at some weeds on the other side of the greenhouse. "Where are you going?" called The Cherub as Huffer and I walked away. "Are you going to your car? Where's your car?" I pretended to not hear her, because as rude as it is for one child to pinch another child's toes at her mother's requested, it's even more rude to plow over mother and child with a motherfucking stroller while throwing polished river rocks at their heads.

"Hee hee hee," The Cherub giggled when it became apparent that I wasn't listening to her. "You have a really big butt!"

Her parents need to get a refund from whatever finishing school that's educating that brat. They also need to get a helmet for her, because I have a feeling that as she gets older, she's gonna get a lot of polished river rocks thrown at her damn head.

Monkey for rent

2005-05-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Why has this never occured to me?

(from Craiglist):

Looking for a Monkey to rent

Reply to: anon-70499915@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-04-27, 4:28PM CDT

or possibly chimp Sat. May 7th 8pm - 9pm Under $150.00
Must be friendly and housebroken.
Drinking and Smoking ok.
Clean enviroment.
Huge tips if the monkey/chimp can ride a tiny bike or juggle.
No humans in monkey suits please.
thanks,
d

Gone Country

2005-05-03T10:37:00.000-07:00

Warning: any punk rock cred I ever possessed is about to be obliterated with the following confessions.

I’ve got a weird relationship with country music. Just like with pop music, I can’t stand what’s played on the radio, for the most part. Kara’s dad’s got a great term for it: Wal-Mart country.

Of course, being the good little punk rock girl that I am, I love Johnny Cash. I also adore Hank Williams (and his grandson’s not too shabby, either), Loretta Lynn, and Dolly Parton. There’s even room for some George Jones and George Strait. And the outlaws – Waylon, Willie, Merle – I’ll always have a place for them, and you can bet it’ll be stocked with lots of good whiskey.

Don’t get me started on bluegrass. I love bluegrass. And not that new Alison Krauss and Nicklecreek-type stuff. I like the really old stuff. Give me some Bill Monroe or Earl Scruggs.

You see, I grew up in a rural Missouri small town, one of those places where there are two kinds of music: country and western. It’s not a bad way to grow up, really. And as luck would have it, my teen years coincided with a really terrible period in country music, when it was a dismal abyss of country-lite rock crossover crap. It was the perfect time to rebel.

“You used to listen to country all the time,” my mom would say when I would clutch my throat with one hand and mock sticking my finger down my throat with the other when they’d subject me to “their” music.

That is, until August, 1991. One week before I was to leave for my freshman year of college, as a matter of fact, where I would find myself entrenched in the explosion of punk/alternative/grunge that would shape my musical tastes for the rest of my life. Nirvana’s “Nevermind”. U2’s “Achtung Baby”. Pearl Jam’s “10”. The Pixies “Trompe le Monde”. Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Blook Sugar Sex Magik”. All of them were released during my first semester of college. Almost fourteen years later, I can still listen to any of those albums and find a great deal of musical fulfillment.

Which makes the happenings of my final week in my hometown even more bizarre.

You see, my hometown is also home to the Missouri State Fair. Along with all the livestock, carnies and corndogs, the fair meant ten nights of country concerts on the old dirt track.

That was the year Garth Brooks took over the world. But before he began his successful quest for world domination, he was a pudgy cowboy singer from Oklahoma, taking any gig he could get, even if it meant signing a commitment to play a po-dunk state fair a year in advance.

I’d heard the name Garth Brooks, and I’d made an effort to avoid anything associated with it at all costs. Not an easy task, when you’re graduating from a cowtown high school at the same time as the release of “Friends in Low Places”. Somehow, I managed.

The night before the Garth show, I got a call from an out-of-town friend. Seems she and 14 of her friends were making a trip to the fair for the concert. They had an extra ticket, did I want to join them? Now, I had no desire to go to the show, but I hadn’t seen Amy in a year. So I went. You know, just to see my friend.

The next day I came home from the local record store, walked up to my mom, slammed my new Garth Brooks cassette down and said, “You have exactly five minutes to tease me. I suggest you get it out of your system now, because we’re never going to speak of this purchase again.”

It was a relief, really, to end the Great Country Stand-Off of the 1980s. Adamantly hating an entire genre of music is hard work.

I started listening to Alan Jackson about a year later. He goes beyond the usual Nashville polish in that he’s a real songwriter with a penchant for traditional instruments. And he can nail human emotion like few other artists, genre disregarded.

Yeah, he did that post-9/11 song. And you know what? It’s one of the most honest, heartfelt depictions of the depth of human emotion you’ll ever hear, if you take the time to really listen. It’s a song about peace and love, not about shoving boots up asses.

Alan Jackson can make me bawl like a baby. Good country music has that power over me, anyway. The weekend before I found out I was knocked up with Clara “Orange Blossom Special” Jane, I spent an entire day parked on the couch (since I was too bloated and nauseous to do anything else) watching the entirety of CMT's 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time. Under normal conditions, this would be a rather emotional afternoon.

Brian hid in the basement that day, and when he came upstairs he found me, blubbering on the couch next to a mountain of used Kleenex.

"What's wrong?" Brian asked.

Country music + pregnancy hormones = enough sobbing to merit running the couch slipcover through the dryer.

I warned Holley about my slight emotional issues regarding Mr. Jackson's music before we decided to see him live. That's fine. She has some of the same issues, too. We would be ok. Really.

And yet, I still managed to forget to pack Kleenex for Sunday night's show.

We were a bit disappointed when we arrived at the ampitheater. I'm pretty sure Ticketbastard stuck a Mullet Viewing Convenience Fee onto our ticket price, but we didn't see one single solitary mullet. Lots of cowboy hats, but no mullets. Even Alan seems to have shortened the party in the back recently.

Otherwise, Alan didn't disappoint. The blubbering started early in the show with "Little Bitty" when they showed kids in the audiance on the big screens.

Holly: Oh! They're showing kids!

Me: sob I almost brought my kid. She cried when she said 'bye bye Mama' tonight!
(commence moaning and wailing and writhing on the ground)

But it didn't stop there. Then he tried to kill us with "Livin' on Love":

Holley: sob He wrote this about his parents.

Me: sob And there are pictures of them on the big screen. Just look
how cute and in love they were!

Holley: wail And the pictures are in black and white! Black and
white tears me up!

Me: blubbering And his daddy's dead!
(commence moaning and wailing and writhing on the ground)

But that was nothing. Oh no. While we were down, that hillbilly motherfucker had to really kick the shit out of us with his pointy-toed boots by first doing "Drive (for Daddy Gene)". Oh, and did I mention that Daddy Gene is dead? Well, he is, which just makes it that much more gut-wrenching. At this point, so intense was the moaning and wailing and writhing that Holley and I couldn't even converse, but if we had been able to do so, I'm sure it would have sounded like this:

Me: wailingMy grandpa used to hold me on his lap and let me drive!

Holley: moaningJust like Alan's daddy, who's dead!
(moaning and wailing and writhing)

Me: wailingMy daddy and I used to sneak out to the country when I was a kid and he'd let me drive.

Holley: moaning So did Alan's daddy. Did I mention that he's dead?
(moaning and wailing and writhing)

Me:really wailingOh my God! I've got a daughter of my own. Someday I'll let her drive and someday she'll pull out that old memory, think of me and smile!

Holley:moaningProbably because you'll be dead!
(EMTs come to take us away.)

And then the motherfucker did "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)", and we would have really moaned and wailed and writhed but we could because we were dead because Alan Jackson fucking killed us!

However, during all of the moaning and wailing and writhing, I still was able to be super-obnoxious. My mom's a huge AJ fan, but has never seen him live. So, anytime he did one of the songs she likes, I'd whip out my cell phone and call her. Not that she could really hear what was going on. And not that I said anything while I was doing it, although she probably recognizes my moaning and wailing and writhing in the background.

Now, if someone calls you upwards of ten times in one night and forces you to listen to a concert through a cell phone, wouldn't you get a annoyed? Not my mom. At one point I hung up during what she deemed a crucial concert moment, so she called me right back.

"Who keeps calling?" my dad asked her.

"Alan Jackson," Mom said. And then she moaned and wailed and writhed.

The madness ended with "Where I Come From", where I cried, "Oh my God! It really is cornbread and chicken where I come from! And the chickens are dead!"

From now on I only go to shows where I'll cry only because I've been trampled in the mosh pit.

Yep, I'm back

2005-05-02T22:01:00.000-07:00

Seems we're having some problems at ye old homestead (aka poppymom.com). I don't know what's up, but it's being investigated by ye old cuz.

It's probably just as well, since I've got a crazy week ahead of me. Work stuff. A Mother's Day visit to my hometown. A trip to Chicago to hang with Bono. About a gazillion baby gifts to knit, since my friends are single-handedly causing a global population crisis this spring.

I did mentally compose a post this afternoon, and let me tell you, it was frigging hilarious! Seriously. You would have laughed so hard. If I happen to remember any of it tomorrow and Clara "Little Bitty" Jane cooperates by taking a nap, I'll regale you with the hilarity. In the meantime, Holley has discussed some of the issues that have been on my mind.

Checkin' out!

2004-12-29T15:27:00.000-08:00

Goodbye Blog Econo-Inn, hello poppymom.com!

The original site is back up and running. C'mon over!

Mirror mirror on the wall - who has the reddest neck of all?

2004-12-29T11:22:00.000-08:00

File this under: Shit I Couldn't Make Up Even if I Wanted To

This morning I was on the phone with my mom, hearing all the details of their trip to Lebanon, Missouri, hometown to the Poppy family's matriarchal line, pronounced "LEB-nin", usually in a deep Ozark twang. My parents and grandparents made a trip to Lebanon yesterday for the funeral visitation of Charlie Earl (name not changed to protect the probably never very innocent), one of my grandpa's many cousins. Or maybe he was my grandma's cousin. I don't know for sure, as there's some overlap in who's related to whom.

Anyway, Charlie Earl, who achieved his goal of being a welfare recipient many years ago, had a gaggle of adult children and a semi-new wife of seven years. Charlie Earl knew he was dying and he informed his wife of his exact wishes in regards to his funeral service. Mrs. Charlie Earl said that she would pay for the entire funeral, as long as no one in the family changed Charlie Earl's plans.

After his death, Charlie Earl's many progeny, most of whom my mom described as "ornerier than sin", showed up and offered their input into how they thought dear ol' dad should be sent to his heavenly home. Mrs. Charlie Earl, per Charlie Earl's wishes, informed the progeny that she would no longer be paying for the funeral. One of Charlie Earl's female progency decked Mrs. Charlie Earl, right there in the funeral home. Mrs. Charlie Earl decked back.

I suppose this might be a good time to tell you that the people in my mom's extended family can be easily divided into two sub-groups: those with teeth, and those without.

My mom skipped the actual visitation because Aunt Flory (again, name unchanged) would be present. Aunt Flory, who orchestrated the murder of Granny's brother, Uncle Dink (really - that was his name), about 25 years ago. Mom can't handle being anywhere near Aunt Flory, and the family didnt' think Granny should be near her, either. "She don't need to be 'round them none," said Grandpa. Granny disagreed, saying it would be wrong to not pay her respects.

"That is the good, Christian thing to do," said my mom's cousin Donita, who decided to do the unchristian thing and spend the visitation time with my mom at 91-year-old Aunt Idy's house. Donita's really skinny with large hair and great big sparkly rings on every finger. And teeth. She does have teeth.

"Charlie Earl's obituary said that he worked over 30 years for Berry Masonary," said Donita. "More like 30 minutes."

Unfortunately, I didn't get to hear the rest of the story. I don't know if anymore funeral home fistfights broke out, or if Granny suddenly turned unchristian when faced with Aunt Flory. During this point in the conversation, I looked out my living room window and saw a cop walking up to my front door.

It seems the neighbor behind us has issued a formal complaint about my hound dogs:

Barking dog: Willfully and knowingly allowed dogs to bark, disturbing the peace of complainant (insert drunken redneck name here) at (insert address of house with camper on blocks in yard here) in the late hours and through the night.

Yes, I do have barking hound dogs. That's why I keep them inside at night. Every night. This is exactly what we told this neighbor in April when she complained directly to us. We even proved this to her, when she complained about our dogs barking during a weekend in which our dogs were out of town. "Well, I cain't 'member what happened that weekend. I was drunk." That's what she said. She's having drunken hallucinations of dogs barking and she's filed complaint against us.

So, I have a court date - on my daughter's first birthday, no less - in which I was be forced to prove that it ain't my dawgs doin' the barkin' and that she either needs to mind her own fuckin' bidness or sober up and buy some dayum earplugs. And then, since it's in my family lineage to do so, I'll deck the shit outta her raight there in court. Fuck, I gots people in my fam'ly who'll start a knock-down drag-out in a funeral home. Ain't no tellin' what I'll do in municipal court.

A holiday miracle!

2004-12-28T15:38:00.000-08:00

Poppymom.com is back online! Unfortunately, Moveable Type isn't. The final kinks should be fixed no later than tomorrow morning.

However, considering the crappy customer service we've received from mesopia.com, our webhost, we'll be switching hosts post-haste.

Holding Pattern

2004-12-28T11:45:00.000-08:00

We're home. The in-laws have left. B.'s back at work. Clara Jane' keeps trying to remove the dog's collar, probably because she thinks it's yet another gift to unwrap. I have eaten enough summer sausage and my granny's super-salty party mix to keep my blood pressure somewhere near bursting until next Christmas. If I have a massive stroke before then, I'm sure all of the sodium in my system will keep me beautifully pickled and I can be propped up next to the Christmas tree. Yep, we're mostly back to normal.

I'm more than slightly annoyed that I'm still hanging my hat at my temporary blog digs. You know when you've been staying at a hotel for too long and you start doing things to make it homey, like setting candles on the particle board nightstand and buying a hotplate to keep next to the sink? Well, I'm getting the urge to move my blogroll and Sitemeter to this site, because I'm on the verge of accepting that poppymom.com is never, ever coming back. Ever. Granted, I haven't heard anything of the sort, but my therapist tells me that I catastrophize everything and assume the worst.

I don't have much to tell about the holiday. Clara Jane had a ball. If I hear a computerized voice chirping , "Thanks for learning with Leapfrog! Buh-bye!" one more time I'm going to convert this entire family to one of the Amish religions. I've come to the conclusion that childrens toys with batteries and lights and mechanical voices are the work of the devil. Having four such toys, all motion-activated, some without off switches, babbling at the same time, is unbearable. I'm sure such techniques have been used to make people talk at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.

No real in-law stories to report from this visit, probably because I spent most of my time knitting. My new hobby might be the saving grace in my relationship with my in-laws, because it provides the opportunity to completely tune them out without running from the room, screaming as if my hair were on fire, which was how I dealt with them in the past. The only real annoyance: I'm not sure what my father-in-law has against bathing. I just wish he'd make amends with the soap for everyone's benefit.

I've been a knitting fiend for the past two days. Now that I'm out of the world of Christmas gifts, I'm finally making something for Clara Jane - this delightful little hat. And by "little" I mean "oh please sweet Jesus, let this thing stretch enough to fit onto her massive noggin without cutting off the blood flow to her brain."

And on that note ...

Over the river and through the woods

2004-12-25T20:40:00.000-08:00

To Grandmother's house we go!
She knows the way
To make Alphabet Pal say
Shit and peter and fucker!

Clara Jane received this toy, which makes phoenetic sounds for each letter of the alphabet. I told my mom about the time Kristina attended a child's birthday party and spent the entire day trying to make a similar toy utter obscenities. That toy wouldn't cooperate. It would say "m - o - t - h - e - r - f- u - heehehehe you're silly!" David Sedaris wrote about a similar incident with his foul-mouthed brother-in-law in his latest book.

Of course, once my mom heard this, she grabbed Alphabet Pal and went to town. And it seems that Alphabet Pal doesn't have the filter.

"B - o - o - b!"

"F - u - c - k - e -r!"

"P - e - t - e - r - Mmmmmmmmmmm!"

And then she would roll around on the floor, probably peeing her pants a little, and laughing so hard that the only sounds coming from her were occasional squeaks and snorts. When she recovered, she went right back to work.

"Listen! Guess what this one is!"

"S - h- i - t!"

My grannies did things like bake pies and embroider and memorize the word of God. Clara Jane's granny gets her jollies by toys that make yummy sounds after discussing the male sex organ. They times, oh how they are a'changing.

Christmas is for family

2004-12-24T21:17:00.000-08:00

And how is family fairing around here this blessed holiday season?

1. One of my cousins is so depressed about how shitty her marriage and life are that she can't/won't get out of bed.

2. Another cousin's feud with his cousin (not mine) has caused a huge fight that included a little church-going granny referring to first cousin's girlfriend as a fucking bitch. This was right before the granny tried to plow over the fucking bitch girlfriend. So, there's a portion of my family that will be alone tomorrow, instead of spending it with the family they're with every year.

3. Another portion of the family will be bailing early from the festivities tomorrow for a football game. Oh, but I'm not allowed to talk about how hurt and disappointed this makes me and other members of the family, lest I cause anyone to feel some guilt.

4. My in-laws haven't done a single goddamn thing for me to make fun of. Not one. Time's a-wastin', People.

You wanna see the one thing that's made this holiday bearable? Go here. Type Clara1104 for the session ID.

I got to read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to my baby for the first time tonight, after watching her open her first Christmas presents, including handmade Raggedy Ann & Andy dolls from her great-grandma. That's what it's all about, and that's all I need. Seeing my girl hug those dolls heals a lot of hurt.

Christmas Memories

2004-12-23T12:55:00.000-08:00

I had myself a special moment while eating some Nachos Bellgrande today. And not the kind of special moment that usually involves Taco Bell, either.

For some reason, the day before Christmas Eve, I always develop this urge for Taco Bell, an urge only matched by the cravings for Taco Bell that usually come after one has consumed about half a bottle of cheap tequila. Dec. 23 and a fifth of Giro Tequila means there will be a bean burrito, and probably some vomiting, in my near future.

Today B. made a run for the border. No booze this time, just my usual Dec. 23rd craving. I was on the couch, shoving Nachos Bellgrande into my head, when he said, "I debated whether or not to get the nachos, since they were somebody's favorite."

Once again my spouse managed to articulate my thoughts. I had just been thinking that, for the first time ever, I was eating Nachos Bellgrande and wouldn't have to share them with Whiney, my cat.

Considering Whiney's complete and utter adoration for Taco Bell (which leads me to believe she might have had a Giro habit, too), it's nothing short of a miracle that she lived to be 17 years old.

So, in memory of my cat, here's a shot of her from Dec. 23, 1999:

Much classier than that stupid Chiahuaha, dont' you think?

It's beginning to look a lot like ...

2004-12-23T09:37:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I'm mired in the pre-holiday rush. It's not bad, though. All of the gifts are wrapped and ready. Well, except the few I'm still knitting. But that's fun. Much better than watching money take flight out of my wallet at the mall. The brisket for tomorrow's Christmas Eve dinner is ready (make-ahead = happy chef-type-person). There's still packing to be done and an errand to the pharmacy on my to-do list, but that's ok. I've got time to let the Allegra do its thing on my stuffy sinuses.

I have very little to say today, since I'm preoccupied with the impending holiday stuff. The three-hour drive tonight. Seeing my in-laws tomorrow.

Oh, my in-laws. I haven't told you much about them, have I?

If I were to be my most diplomatic, I'd say that I don't relate to them and they don't relate to me. We get along. There's never any arguing or fighting. There's just this ... gulch.

My in-laws are from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It's a tiny area, surrounded by the Great Lakes, and filled with forests. Desolate, but beautiful. People from this part of the country call themselves Yoopers. Get it? U.P. Yooper. We realized a long while back that the main difference between a Yooper and a hillbilly is the accent.

The main difference between B.'s Yooper kin and my hillbilly kin, after the accent, is in our emotional responses to situations. More specifically, my hillbilly kin prefers to exhibit emotional responses. Often loudly, occasionally with firearms. B.'s Yooper kin tend to keep their emotions tightly under wraps, swathed in layers of small-talk chit-chat and prolific use of the adjective "nice".

Case in point: Shortly before our wedding, B's father underwent surgery for prostate cancer. He's fine now, 5+ years cancer-free. At the time of the wedding, though, he was undergoing hormone therapy that made him act and feel like a woman going through The Change. Personally, I found it refreshing, the wealth of emotions that came from my father-in-law. He even shed a few tears at our wedding.

On the way to the reception my mother-in-law pulled my mom aside. "I'm so, so sorry for G.'s outburst during the ceremony. I'm so embarrassed."

"What outburst?"

"He cried," gasped my appalled mother-in-law. "I'm so sorry."

"No, don't apologize," my mom said. "I couldn't hear him. Really. Not with all the sobbing and moaning and teeth-gnashing coming from the bride's side."

Not that my family was upset over the nuptuals. Hardly. We just sometimes get a little weepy and vocal in a joyful way. Sometimes that joy gets expressed by shooting firearms directly into the air with lots of hoopin' and hollerin'. See? The firearms aren't used just for the expression of negative emotions. Guns can be joyful, too.

My in-laws have met Clara Jane once, when she was a week old. Prior to her birth my mother-in-law let my mom in on a little secret: they were planning to pay us a surprise visit in the hospital.

Have I told you how much I fucking hate surprises? So does my mom, and she spilled the beans, knowing good and well that a surprise visit from my in-laws while I was at my most delicate and vulnerable might mean that I'd be forced to finish my hospital stay at a special hospital. A prison hospital.

B., who is a good son but an excellent husband, took necessary measures to ensure that G. and C. wouldn't be bursting into my hospital room during a catheter change.

Instead, they rearranged their vacation plans. Not to see us - oh, no. They just "happened" to move their vacation back a week at the demand of G.'s boss, and then just "happened" to be passing through St. Louis when Clara Jane was a week old.

They came all this way, just to tell us that our baby, their first grandchild, was, and I quote, "nice".

They stayed for a few hours, then claimed to head to their reserved room at the Super 8. We later learned that they spent the night with some friends of theirs who live here. Even had brunch with them before leaving town.

Now, I really didn't feel up to a visit with them, but come on.

They were supposed to visit us Memorial Day weekend, but cancelled a few weeks prior because of the skyrocketing gas prices.

I know my in-laws aren't rich. G.'s worked as an engineer for the same company since before B.'s birth. They've lived in the same little 3-bedroom ranch house since B. was little. They're not extravagant people. Far, far from it. Way far from it. So I don't quite understand how they couldn't afford to spend the extra $40 in gas to see their only grandchild. Nor do I understand how they were able to go on vacation to North Dakota in September if they couldn't afford the trip to St. Louis.

There are many things I don't understand about my in-laws. Many, many, many things. So many things that my skull threatens to burst if I even begin to contemplate all the things I don't understand about them.

So, they're coming for Christmas. My mom, bless her, invited them, so we'll all be in my hometown together. My parents get along with my in-laws, so having everyone together is good. I'm not left with trying to keep them entertained, which could be the task that might give me that final little nudge over the edge. I'm not sure why, because in the times when they've visited us, their favorite thing to do has involved watching our neighbors from the living room windows for hours on end. That's much better than going to the Missouri Botanical Gardens.

The Yoopers and the hillbillies, all together for Clara Jane's first Christmas. It's times like these that I wish alcohol was permitted at our family gatherings. I really, really do.

New day, new post

2004-12-22T09:45:00.000-08:00

Things I'm looking forward to:

-A relaxed lunch at one of my favorite restaurants with friends who just might let me be a bitch, if that's what I need.

-Knitting until my fingers snap in two tonight.

-The 20% off sale at Knitorious on Monday.

-Finally getting to listen to Kristina and Kara's latest mix CDs in their entirity today.

-Seeing Wendy and the rest of my crazy-ass family - even the in-laws - later this week.

-The eventual return of my real blog. I'm tired of feeling like I'm camped out at the Super 8 of the blog world.

-Snow! Snow! Snow!

I'm in a much better frame of mind today. Made some realizations last night. This is going to sound just so suburban mom cheezy, but goddammit, here it is: Oprah, the holy maven of soccer moms everywhere, says that when someone tells you who they are, believe them. And damn if that ain't the truth.

Wanna know who I am?

I'm a goofball. I'm creative. I'm infinitely flawed and not terribly bothered by that fact but am amused by those who are.

But most importantly, I'm on the verge. On the verge of being late for lunch if I don't get it in gear and get Clara "Hey! I'm in your knitting bag yet again!" Jane out of my yarn stash and into her long johns so we can scram.

The Bloody Tongue

2004-12-21T16:35:00.000-08:00

I'm hesitant to post anything, since everything I say seems to get misconstrued. Apparently my communication skills are in the crapper.

Jesus. A girl makes one semi-snarky remark because her feelings are hurt and apparently it unleashes all the demons of hell.

Can I just say how glad I am that this fucking holiday is almost over? My cat's dead, I'm heartbroken, I'm feeling largely expendable, I spent yesterday with The Doc prodding me to tell her how I would go about killing myself if I were to do such a thing and I'm nowhere near being finished with all the fucking scarves I should have ready by this weekend. And my in-laws are going to be here on Friday. Fuck fuck fuck.

I usually dread the post-Christmas part of winter. Everything's so quiet and subdued. For once, I'm ready for quiet and subdued. Therapy's taking so much out of me. Life's taking so much out of me. I'm ready to burn the fucking fake Christmas tree to the ground and call it a year.

Note: There are no hidden messages in this post. No innuendo. Nothing cloaked between this lines. This is merely an expression of my frustration, sadness, anger and did I mention frustration? Is that ok with everyone?

Odds n' ends

2004-12-20T15:14:00.000-08:00

1. I swore I'd never plop my child in front of the TV just so I can have some peace of mind. That was before I discovered the acid trip that is Boobah. That keeps her occupied long enough for me to go to the bathroom. If I give her a dose of cough syrup beforehand, I can have an entire half-hour to myself.

2. I haven't told you the addendum to Whiney's passing. Some backstory: every year my dad leaves Mom's Christmas and birthday gifts in the back of
his truck. She was visiting us from Tuesday until Friday. Normally she would have driven her SUV to St. Louis, but she needs new tires. She brought the truck and Dad forgot to take her unwrapped gifts out of it. So, she wasn't allowed in the back of the truck.

When Brian got home from the vet, he put Whiney in a box and put her in the back of Mom's truck, since she was taking her back to my hometown to be buried in our family's pet cemetary at my grandparents' house. When she got there, Mom went out with Grandpa to dig the grave, and Grandma got Mom's gifts out of the truck to wrap them for Dad (which she manages to do every year, somehow).

After the grave was dug, Mom went to get Whiney ... who was gone. Not in the truck. Nowhere to be found. Box and all, gone. She went in the house to see if Grandma knew what was going on.

Granny was wrapping gifts at the kitchen table ... and was getting ready to wrap the box that contained my dead cat, thus confirming my belief that normal things simply don't happen in my family.

3. Life post-Whiney is good. And I only feel a smidge guilty about saying that. I do miss her and I have an unshakable sadness, but really, I'm proud that I was able to give her a good life, and ultimately a timely and dignified passing. And you know what? I haven't had a single panic attack since Thursday afternoon. No anxiety, either. So much of my panic and worry centered on my cat and now that she's gone, so are they. I actually enjoyed being home today, and I didn't spend my time waiting for something horrible to happen.

4. I'm still disappointed that my Christmas party was a great big stinky turd bomb, but I'm glad that I got to spend the day withKara. Also glad that we went to Restoration Hardware and purchased The Most Obnoxious Gift Ever. Mom will be giving these to the 10-year-old son of the rat bastard who gave recently gave my dad a dingo puppy.

5. I have therapy tales to tell. Next time.

A question

2004-12-19T11:39:00.000-08:00

Why in the fuck to do I bust my ass to cook and get my house in order to throw a party when over half of the confirmed guests cancel?

Why?

Fuck it. Last party ever.

I'm sure everyone had good reasons for cancelling. Illnesses and such, along with the general holiday insanity. But if there was ever a week when I really needed to have a day of fun, surrounded by friends, this was it.

Oh well. Guess Brian, Clara Jane, Kara and I will eat 13 fucking pounds of roast beef, five pounds of potatoes and two pounds of carrots all by ourselves. And I'll be goddamned if I ever go to the trouble to do this shit ever again.

In desperate times...

2004-12-18T12:01:00.000-08:00

What a hell of a week to have a massive blog crash. If you've paid a visit to my home at www.poppymom.com recently, I apologize for the lack of content. No, I'm not a delinquent. My account hasn't been suspended for non-payment and nobody has come to my house to break my thumbs.

It would figure that the week I'm without a blog would be one of the most eventful weeks of my life. So, while the bugs are being exterminated, I decided to set up a temporary little shantytown home for myself.

I've been writing throughout the week and will divvy out the material here today and tomorrow. When my real site is back, I'll give you a heads up.

A farewell (written Friday, Dec. 18)

2004-12-18T10:45:00.000-08:00

What a rotten fucking time for my blog to be down.

That thing I’ve been dreading, that has led to countless hours of anxiety and panic attacks too numerous to count? It happened this morning.

My dear old cat Whiney, age somewhere around seventeen, has passed. And I’m ok.

Lately, Whiney had been acting a bit off. She’d developed a drooling habit and wasn’t eating well. She also wasn’t drinking much.

This morning Brian woke me a little after six. I was actually awake, as I am every morning at that time, when I lie in bad, nervous as hell, waiting for B. to come in and tell me that Whiney’s ok.

Today, he said, “I think we need to take Whiney to the vet this morning.” And I knew he was right.

I went to the basement, where my mom was sleeping, and I did something I haven’t done since I was a child: I crawled into bed with her and snuggled up. “I’m tired of being everyone’s mom right now, Goddammit,” I said. “I need my momma.”

Eventually B. joined us, and we were laughing, telling all of our funny Whiney stories.

Like how she came around the chicken coop, whining, on the day we moved into my parents’ current home when I was fifteen. The previous owner of the house had a can of cat food in the fridge, labeled with our last name, since that’s what she’d been calling the little stray.

And how, on my sixteenth birthday, it was Whiney who got me to the barn to find the 1980 Mustang with the big red bow tied around it. She was so fat that everyone said she looked pregnant. The morning of my birthday, my mom woke me up and told me that I had to go to the barn, pronto, because Whiney had a surprise litter of kittens in the night. When I went to the barn to see the imaginary kittens, there was my first car.

She used to bring us snakes and birds, squirrels and crickets and mice for gifts.

And the time she took a bite out of every single loaf of bread – all seven of them – that my mom had purchased for a family camping trip.

I moved her to Columbia with me in 1994. For many years it was just the two of us. She was my friend when all my friends were flaky and drunk. She was the one who snuggled under the covers with me after yet another ugly breakup.

In 1998, shortly before I met B., Whiney was diagnosed with diabetes. I had an intense fear of needles, and I thought there was no way I could administer injections on my baby. But I did it. I would sob as I gave her the insulin shots, and in turn she would turn to me, purr, and lovingly rub my shaking hands.

We moved to St. Louis in 1999. I thought there was no way she would survive that. But she did. And thrived. She thrived through gaining a husband, Chloe, Romi, Murphy and ultimately Clara Jane.

Until the end, she always climbed atop my boobs and snuggled. Even yesterday.

B. took her to the vet first thing this morning while Mom, Clara Jane and I cuddled in the cold basement bedroom. We told our Whiney stories and laughed. And cried. We sobbed on the phone with my grandma, who’s providing a burial plot. I cried to my daddy. I cried with Kara. And I knew I had done the right thing.

B. returned home red-eyed and teary. “That was harder than I expected,” he said. She did go peacefully.

The vet was hesitant to put her down, since she was so alert. Upon further examination, he found a mass in her belly. Chemo would have bought her a few months, but for what? Eventually, the treatments would be unsuccessful.

I made the right decision.

Of course I’m sad. But I’m relieved. And glad that we caught the cancer before it became anymore debilitating and painful for Whiney. I’m at peace with her having a passing that was the result of love, compassion and respect. I’m eternally grateful that her suffering was mild and brief. I’m proud of myself for having the strength to do what was right for her, instead of keeping her alive for my own selfish comfort.

Last night, we put up our Christmas tree while Whiney dozed on the back of the armchair beside us. Many Christmases ago, Whiney and my mom’s cat Libby spent days camped under the Christmas tree hunting for a mouse and kicking each others asses. During one particularly strong ass-whupping, the mouse made a break for it and ran right into the paws of Timmy, our elderly yellow tabby. He took the mouse down with a slap and had a delightful snack of fresh mouse-head, a satisfied old man, enjoying his final Christmas with a special gift, while the young whipper-snappers fought like ninnies with no clue that the old man captured the prize.

Now, both of the young cats are gone. Libby preceded Whiney in March, 2003. Timmy died the May after the mousey Christmas. Timmy, who came to me after my grandfather’s death and comforted me when nothing else could. Whiney, who comforted me through the beginnings of my adult life. They’re gone. And I’m ok.

Shock Treatment (written Thursday, Dec. 16)

2004-12-18T10:32:00.000-08:00

It’s Thursday night and I’m coming to you via Word. I’m sure you’re all missing me terribly. Maybe taking up a collection to pay my delinquent blog fees. If so, just use the funds to buy me something pretty from my Amazon wishlist.

No, I haven’t been errant in paying my bills. Fact is, my hosting is free, but there was a big ol’ crash. If you’re finally reading this, it means the crash has been fixed.

Of course, it would happen that the Big Blog Implosion of ’04 would happen during a week with much, much to share. Lest I forget or get overwhelmed, I’m going to write now and post when my blog pimp decides that my infection has cleared up and I’m free to work again.

In a few years I hope I can remember the week before Christmas 2004 as the week my life changed for the better. The week when I began the process of running my panic disorder out of town on the proverbial rail.

Tuesday, I met with my medical doctor about the recent onslaught of attacks. She’s always been helpful in these matters, and Tuesday was no exception although we both acknowledged that better living through chemesty might not be the way to solve this problem. Regardless, she gave me a few sample packs of Seroquel (http://health.yahoo.com/health/drug/203124/overview).

“Now, don’t let this scare you,” she warned, “but it’s an anti-psychosis medication.”

Lady, if you’re having to give me anti-psychosis medication, maybe you should be the one who should be scared.

My friend Angie said that it sounded like a mix of serotonin and Nyquil. That sounds so happy and good and less … well, psycho.

My doc reassured me that I am not psycho, that small doses of Seroquel are used to treat depression and insomnia, two little demons that have been making my anxiety worse.

My mother arrived after my appointment. As glad as I am to have her here, I hate that I require help. Yes, I know this really isn’t different than having her lend a hand if I had the flu, or when I gave birth. I just wanted her here to watch Clara Jane during appointments and wig-outs. My mom’s version of helping involves washing every article of clothing in our house, and quite possibly doing the neighbors’ laundry, too. I swear, there are clean clothes in my house that I haven’t seen in years and I’m not positive that they’re mine. She’s also scrubbed my stove, cleaned the litterbox and right now she’s frying chicken. While I appreciate this it does make me feel rather useless.

Wednesday morning, I met with the woman who you will know as The Doc. My counselor. Pyschologist. Head-shrinker. Her office is located in a center for behavioral medicine.

When I walked into the building - and I am a bit ashamed to say this – I couldn’t help sneaking glances at the others in the waiting room and wondering why they were there. Then I had a wonderful realization – I am in an entire room filled with people who, for all intents and purposes, don’t act right.

Do you know how freeing that is?

I can run around naked and it’s ok – I don’t act right! I can scream obscenities at the wall and it’s ok – I don’t act right! I can punch someone in the face and it’s, well, that’s probably not ok, but I could tell the cops, “Hey. I’m in a medical facility for people with behavior problems. What the fuck do you expect? I’m getting treatment so fuck off.”

Despite my sudden feelings of freedom from social mores, I refrained from acting on them, as did everyone else in the room. I was a little disappointed.

There were some issues with my insurance, of course. The office manager had called my insurance company before learning that B. is the primary name on our account. When she asked for my information, she was told that no such person was in their system.

“Did you ask for my husband’s name?” I asked.

The receptionist heaved a sigh and spoke ever-so-slowly. “No. We do not know your husband’s name.”

“Listen Bitch,” I chirped. “I’m crazy. Not retarded.” Well, not really. But I could have, since I’m sure she’s used to dealing with people who don’t act right, judging from the tone of voice she used.

The appointment went well. The Doc and I seem to be a good fit. She asked me tons of questions. Apparently I answered them all correctly because – ta da! – she diagnosed me with Panic Disorder with Agoraphobia (http://familydoctor.org/137.xml). Not that this surprised me one bit at all.

The good news: treatment has a success rate of over 90%. The Doc loves to treat PDA. In fact, she was a bit too excited with the diagnosis. But I guess that’s better than the alternative – a doc who sighs heavily, mutters “Another one?” and sends me back to the waiting room to yell obscenities with the other nitwits who don’t act right.

She uses cognitive behavioral therapy (http://www.cognitivetherapy.com/) methods. Basically, she’s sending me to panic boot camp. We’ve already started working on ways for me to deal with the attacks as they happen. Then we’ll dig a bit and find out why I never learned how to act right.

I made a second appointment for Thursday morning and headed home with my reading assignments and homework in hand. Then I promptly got slammed with a fever, sore throat, body aches and all the trappings of the flu. I muddled through the first chapter, took some Emode-esque quizzes, and promptly passed out to twelve hours of fever dreams and night sweats.

Thursday morning I drug my mentally and physically sick self back to The Doc for some torture. We covered the first chapter, a crash course in panic and agoraphobia. That was enough to send me into blubbery tales of the horrible way Clara Jane arrived in this world.

Over 32 hours of labor. A C-section, during which I was in a full-blown panic attack, convinced I was going to die. Two hours in the recovery room with no painkillers, listening to the nurses discuss their dates the night before. One of them wore a pair of sunglasses. I pulled the oxygen monitor from my finger to get her attention because I thought I was dying. When she came over and silently put the meter on my toe, I saw the black eye behind the frames.

Six hours passed and they wouldn’t give my baby to me and no one would tell me why. When she finally came to me, I asked the nurse to help me breastfeed. She left the room, returning only to take my screaming, unfed child away fifteen minutes later. We repeated this scenario a few hours later, only this time it included an argument regarding her intense desire to give my child formula and lack of desire to help me breastfeed.

The next evening, during the only time B. left the hospital, I was in the care of a nurse who could benefit from some Seroquel. She forgot to do several procedures and went into a panic, dragging me with her. She told me that she loved me. Then, when I asked her to please close the door so I could take my first post-catheter piss, she became angry and left me stranded in the bathroom.

I couldn’t walk. The incision in my belly screamed and oozed blood and pus. I sat helplessly on the floor while I passed a blood clot the size of a softball by the time someone came to help me.

The most vulnerable time in my life, and I was left to fend for myself, bleeding, sobbing and unable to move.

Since then, I have not had a single moment where anxiety hasn’t loomed somewhere in my soul. And because of this, I sat on a therapist’s couch and cried.

When I returned home, I had a panic attack. This is the first time my mom witnessed me, as an adult, having an attack.

“That was like déjà vu of what you did after Grandpa died,” she said, teary-eyed.

So, the answers are already arriving.