Jack and Charlie…YOU’RE FIRED
March 4th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Jack barfed again yesterday! As soon as I walked through the front door I was greeted by two big piles of chunky barf and Charlie peed on the patio. Until now, I thought I was the only who could clean it up. And then I see this, a dog who does almost as much as the cleaning lady Paul and I once had for two months. Seriously, Jack and Charlie…dogs can do things like this!
May Cause Drowsiness
March 3rd, 2011 § 1 Comment
Why does every medication say that it may cause drowsiness? Is it kind of like how all processed food must contain some form of corn syrup, every medication needs the active ingredient of, “drowsiness”?
I am on a new medication, Acidophamine (I will wait a moment while you Google it, unless you’d like me to save you the time and tell you I made the name up). My point is not the medication I am on, but the fact that for once, I read the pamphlet that comes along with it, because I’m trying to be more adult-like and figured most adults read about the medicine they are consuming, pay their bills on time and don’t say “suck it” five times a day. I figured I would start on this step first. Adults, from what I read and hear on TV, are aware of their mortality so like an adult I wanted to know if this medication would make it hard to function, or if it would kill me if taken with my daily gummy vitamins.
Here is what I found in 9 pt. type on a tri-folded paper stapled to the outside of my prescription bag:
May cause drowsiness (corn syrup), could cause suicidal ideation (concerning), may cause black or bloody stool (my least favorite kind), may make it difficult to sleep (refer back to drowsiness), may make you irritable (with bloody stool and no sleep, who wouldn’t be), loss of appetite (now we are talkin!), moodiness (finally, something to blame it on!), unexplained erection (not sure what is more concerning, the unexplained erection or the fact that I may sprout a penis!), dry mouth (nothin’ gum can’t fix), dizziness (check!), hallucinations (beavers and ducks), unexplained fatigue (I am too tired to explain it).
So in summary, I may during the many hours I am awake and unable to sleep, find myself thinking less about Nutella and Marshmallow Fluff, and more about the various ways I can kill myself, which may or may not involve me running to the bathroom to attend to my bloody stool or unrelenting erect penis. This could or could not make me angry or irritable but I will not be able to tell you about it because my mouth will be much too dry to form words. If I were a writer for prescription drug companies, I would save everyone lots of time by cutting to the chase, “This medication may make you better but could also quite possibly cause 700 other concerning side effects. It could kill you or it could cure you, we’re actually not quite sure which, but take it…we totally dare you.”
Thou Shalt Covet
February 9th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
When I am at my lowest, there is a ritual I follow that is completely counterpdocutive and masochistic. I covet. I read other people’s blogs and obsess over how much better their life is or how much prettier they are. I covet the way they write, and convince myself I could never write like them because, I, misplace, commas, and write in passive tense, which according to spellcheck is a huge problem! Then I Googlestalk. I look up random people from my past, and if my self-hate gague tells me they are more successful or skinnier or more traveled than I- I begin to wish I was living their life instead of my own. And then, if I am really in a bad place I turn to Facebook stalking ex-boyfriends, to see if they are married or have children or possibly a family photo that I can pick apart. Do their smiles look genuine? Are they in front of a mantle that looks like it is in a nice fancy home? Do I think they own or rent? Is their Golden Retriever better behaved than my two shelter rescue puppies? Are their kids cute? Are their kids cuter than my yet-to-be-hatched children will be? Does their life seem better than mine? Did they dodge a bullet or did I dodge a bullet by breaking up? I do this for one purpose, and one purpose only, I want to know if they are “winning”. Yep, winning, really! It’s petty and silly and immature and shameful. My rational mind tells me that right behind their perfectly coiffed photo is a stack of bills, and that right before the photo was taken, they got in a huge fight over how he never empties the dishwasher or remembers to pay the water bill. But in the empty spaces of the unknown I fill in the blanks with a life that is shinier than mine. I know how shameful this is because every once in a while, when Facebook posts convince me that it is possible to, “See who stalks your Facebook page” or “Discover who looks at your page the most”, my heart stops a little bit and I contemplate joining the “Save me From my Stupid Self-Loathing Protection Program (a lesser know subdivision of the Witness Protection Program), and I wonder if I will be discovered, because if I am discovered, then they will surely be winning!!!! The bigger issue here is not that I covet, or that I am petty, or that I wish ill on ex’s of mine at the hopes of having a better life than them, it is that I obsess over what I don’t have, rather than focusing on all the wonderful things I do have. I suck at staying present. When I’m driving home on the freeway I’m mentally balancing my bank account. When I am in a meeting at work, I’m also worrying about paying rent. When I am at a seminar, I’m wondering if I turned the stove off. My mind is always thinking about the worse case scenario, I am a “wait-for-the-other-shoe-to-dropaholic”. I have a good life. Sure it is fraught with turmoil and tragedy and hard days and stress and and and…but when it comes down to it, I too can take a lovely photo with my husband and our dogs in our nicely decorated living room. And as long as I stop focusing on filling the empty spaces of other people’s life and start filling the empty spaces of my own, I will always be “winning”.
