eHarmony Can eBite Me

I am a single woman. Free as a bird. No strings attached. Woo, feminism and hear me roar and let me burn that bra. No man for me! My bathroom is so clean!

It sucks.

It sucks, and I don't care if all the militants are getting the vapors, I am being honest. I am lonely as hell, and after over two years (YEARS) of being single, I have had just about enough of it. I'm not the random hookup kind of gal, (not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not my bag, man) and since I don't have any friends in the area, I don't so much...leave my apartment. Ever. I have awesome, tremendous, fiercely loved friends, don't get me wrong, and I'd waltz through blazing fires for any of them, but there's not a one of them who could just randomly come over for a cup of coffee and a bad movie. Not an option. Yeah. Suck.

"So go out!" my friends wail. "Meet people! Do things! Stop spending eleventy million hours on the internet every day and go interact with actual people!" Well, this is easier said than done. For one, where the hell do I go? My whole adult life, the only social venues I have utilized are friends' houses and bars. And I am not allowed to go to bars anymore, in case you haven't heard. I have crippling social anxiety, and the concept of New People terrifies me. No new people! Only people who have read the dossier regarding Mah Crazy: Let Me Show You It! For I am vair, vair uninterested in having to carefully reveal the dramz to anyone new. I have a feeling it would end with "and then he ran away like his dick was on fire."

And to be honest, I was really destroyed by my last breakup. I'm not going to trust a new person for a really long time. There are also other factors of acursed circumstance that the internet doesn't get to hear, but yeah, going out and finding a local cat to start the awkward beginning-dating thing? Eeesh. Not really interested, thanks.

I can just picture my personal ad now:

"SWF seeks SM for possible LTR. Enjoys tv, playing on the internet, yarn, and coffee. SM must be open to mental illness, addiction recovery, arts and crafts addiction, pop-culture obsession, random goofiness, clumsiness, and cleaning up after barfy cats. Please have a job, your own apartment, a wicked sense of humor, and a bank account of your very own. No man-children, meanies, or frattys, please. Email only, the phone gives me anxiety attacks."

Woo, buddy, they'd be knocking down the door! Not that I'd ever place a personal ad. I have been on one (1) personal-ad date in my life, about five years ago. It was awful. But not in the way you probably guess. Nope, he was gorgeous, talented, funny, smart, (did I mention gorgeous?) and, drum roll...HE DIDN'T LIKE ME. Oh, that's just GRAND. So no. No personal ads.

(At this point, my friend cuparfyfe is eating his own face and screaming at the computer screen about how all I do is self-sabotage and dig my own grave re: relationships. He is...not wrong.)

So what the hell is my point, for the love of God's argyle socks? What was the reasoning for this blithering rant, when clearly I am not actually going to DO anything about this situation other than point at myself and howl "UNLOVABLE!!! MENTALLY DISEASED!!! RUN AWAY!!!"

My point is that fucking eHarmony dot com should not use a dude who resembles Zippy the Pinhead in their commercials to motivate me to "find my match." Do NOT call me, Zippy. And tell JoJo the Dogface Boy he doesn't have to bother either. I'll just play some Facebook Scrabble with my beloved, if not geographically convienient friends and knit more hats for the cats.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

Things that have been greatly alarming in the past week:

My neighbors having passionate fights in their underpants.

The talking heads on Fox News.

Blogger vs. Troll Wars.

It's been quite a week. Thanks a trillion to all you lovely people who contacted me about my last post. I promise, I'm doing much better, and we can now return to our regularly scheduled silliness. Y'all are rock stars, and I love ya more than my luggage.

You Can Knock Me Down, But You Can't Keep Me Down

One of the most difficult things about dealing with mental illness is feeling better. When you've become so used to chaos reigning in your mind, having a quiet in the storm is disconcerting to say the least. I've been lucky enough to have found a medication cocktail that has made my borderline personality disorder and bipolar II (different from bipolar I in that I don't get manic episodes or completely lose touch with reality - it's also known as "the good kind") much, much easier to deal with. It's taken an incredibly long time, but I'm finally feeling like I'm going to be able to not only live with this, but thrive and actually, shockingly, be happy. It's an amazing feeling.

It's also scary as hell.

A major issue that I have had throughout my life is an inability to allow myself to hope. I haven't ever let it in because of a terrible, all consuming fear that hope is an invitation for pain. As if the universe would look at my optimism, laugh its balls off, and drop an anvil on my head, Acme style, for having the audacity to look for a brighter future. It's a survival technique that I have held onto my whole life. Of course, it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I don't allow myself to hope without being convinced it will lead to pain, I'm going to find pain anyway, even if it is just to prove myself right. I know this, logically. Hell, I have an extremely expensive graduate degree in helping other people with problems just like these. Ones who cannot help themselves help everyone else, etc. etc. etc.

So in the past four weeks or so, I have been able to allow myself the tiniest amount of hope. I came to the realization that I'm here for some sort of reason (I got out of the hospital when no one thought I would, so there has to be SOME reason, I concluded) and even though I'm still not sure what the hell that reason is, I'm sticking around to find out. I love a good mystery. I'm working my ass off trying to get my brain in order, and it's really been paying off.

This weekend, the bubble burst. It was bound to, as emotion is an ebb and flow, and the high of coming out of the fog was going to taper off. I've been in a fairly wretched mood, with lows that come fast and hard. I'm riding the rapids right now, but this time, unlike all the other times this has happened, is different. I still have hope.

I'm not blowing sunshine and glitter up anyone's ass here. I'm just saying that the universe and the misfired synapses in my brain are giving me a hell of a ride right now, but I know I'm going to get through it. I can flip off the darkness and yell into the storm that I've beaten a hell of a lot worse than this, that circumstance and my own betraying mind have tried to break me again and again, and they haven't gotten the job done. I've made it this far, and I have no intention of stopping any time soon. So I give a hearty "fuck you" to the maelstrom in my mind today. You can kick me all you want, but you can't keep me down. I'm stronger than that. I always have been. I'm just grateful that I finally know it now. And that I will continue to hope, despite it all.

Strong in the broken places. That's damn right.

Unbreakable With Armor

And Unbreakable Without.

I Will Never Learn.

Supercuts: For When You Should Have Done It Your Damn Self.

Wow, Supercuts. That's really...Super?

Much better. Done my damn self.

Ah, much better. Let this be a lesson to you, kids. You pay $14 for a haircut, you get...a $14 haircut. Wah.

Okay, had a good cry and decided something:

Stop being sad and be awesome instead.

No Sleep Till...

I have insomnia. It's been two weeks. It's really starting to take a toll. I vacillate between this:

Woe.

Aaaaaaaaand this.

Give us kisses!!!! Everything is funny!!!! Let's paint the apartment!
PURPLE GLITTER!!!!

When all I want to do is this:

Sigh.

It's almost definitely due to a new medication I'm on, but not taking it is not an option, for I'd really prefer being tired to being batshit insane, which is what the med prevents me from being. It's a sucky tradeoff, but a sacrifice I'm willing to make. So, Mr. Sandman, please send me a dream. It can be about arranging matchsticks for all I care. Just let me sleep. Because everyone I know is sick of me talking about it, and so am I.

Hey! Are you following A Year in the Mirror? Because there are some RILLY attractive pictures of sleep deprivation there, boy. Like this one!:

Can I carry your groceries? I've got two eye bags that would do nicely.

Kisses, my little monkeys. Please send very very sleepy thoughts. Or narcotics. That would work too.

A Year In The Mirror

When my drinking started getting completely out of control, my body changed drastically. My arms and legs were twigs, and my stomach and face swelled. I looked horrific. Sick. Dying. Because I was. Now that I'm five months sober, I look, well, like me again. I've started a Flickr set to document the beginning of the year I started looking at myself again, starting on my birthday, June 30th. It's work for me. It's still very hard for me to look at myself, to look at the person who almost died due to my own emotions and resulting actions, who medical professionals were convinced was not going to make it. But I'm doing this as a project of survival, and the beginnings of accepting and loving myself - maybe for the first time.

A Year In The Mirror.

We With Filthy Mouths Will Carry On The Torch

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits.

RIP, George.

Thoughts on Statistics

I've been very open and blunt about my stint in rehab, and my addiction to alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol. Enough to put me as close to death as one can get without actually being on the slab. I talk about it, I joke about it, and 104 days after my last, almost fatal drink, I'm still beating it soundly, as they say, one day at a time.

I'm one of the lucky ones. In more ways than one.

I got a phone call today from a fantastic person I went to rehab with. We were thick as thieves there, and by the time we became "old timers" there, were more caregivers than anything else. I was, obviously, a drunk, he a "pharmaceutical enthusiast." We both had serious drive to get better, and coming up on four months on the outside, we're both doing very well. He just became a father, and I'm regaining my independence. We are not the norm.

We chatted about who we had heard from and/or about, and out of all of us, we are the only ones left who haven't "gone out" again. The statistics for relapse are grim, and for today, he and I are indeed, in the vast minority. I was proud of us, terribly proud, and at the same time, incredibly sad for all the people we knew who are back out. There's nothing we can do for them, and that sucks. But, given the damming statistics, we can't. We have to take care of ourselves. It's not easy, being selfish. But we have to be. Just listing all the names of the less fortunate made that grimly obvious.

I don't have anything stellar and inspiring to say about all of this. I'm just a little stunned at the perspective I gained from that conversation. I think often about the people I went through rehab with, I wish them the best, I worry about them. But for today, I'm just incredibly grateful for what I have, and that my pal is doing so well.

Congrats, DP. You're going to be a great dad. You know what to do. Love ya.

I'm a New Yorker. Got a problem with that?

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I am not ashamed of this at all. I love Jersey, and will defend it to the end. However, in all my travels, I have related to one location more than any other. I love it, I hate it, it is part of me, and will be forever.

I am a New Yorker.

I lived in New York for only a few years, but, growing up less than an hour from midtown, it wasn't just "the city," it was MY city. As a kid, I went to Broadway shows in my best Christmas dress. I visited the Rock Center tree, the Met, saw the dinosaurs at the National History museum. I've lit candles at St. Patrick's, and had tea at the Plaza. As a teenager, I went to the Knitting Factory and CBGB's for shows, in the dark, cramped, tiny spaces where you always had the chance of seeing Joey Ramone shooting up in the corner. I got served at the Bar 55 before my sixteenth birthday. I was often mistaken for homeless. Back then, this was cool.

I moved to the city from Boston after college. I love Boston with all my heart, but that's another post for another time. I lived on the edge of lower Harlem on the West Side, in a neighborhood where I had Glatt Kosher Chinese food and Barney Greengrass and muti-millionaires living across the street from housing projects. I loved my neighborhood. I had a microscopic studio apartment with a waterbug problem and an old AC vent that was constantly leaking, no matter how many times it was patched. It was the most perfect apartment in the world. I worked thousands of temp jobs, modeled for shoe companies and makeup demonstrations. I acted in Lower East Side theaters with more rats than actors. Kevin Bacon's kids played with my neighbors' kids. I bought knock-off designer purses and had Dim Sum in Chinatown. I would walk from 93rd St. to the Village and back on the weekends for kicks, people-watching through Jackie-O sunglasses. I ate shady burritos and Ethiopian food. I loved every minute of it, even when I hated it.

I saw my world explode.

I left the City eight days later. I haven't lived there since. It's too hard, too fast, too crowded and too nerve-wracking for my often-fragile psyche. But I am still a New Yorker. Always will be.

Smithsonian Magazine puts being a "rude, crude New Yorker" in a lovely light.

So You've Decided To Go To Rehab!

Rehab: A Primer

(Or, Damn, How the Hell Did I Get Here?!?)

So you’ve decided to go to rehab! How exciting! Or perhaps you didn’t have a choice. Perhaps you’re running from the cops, or maybe the FBI! Maybe you ended up in a coma after drinking a gallon of vodka! Not that I know anything about that! No matter! Herein is a convienient "how to" to help you along your jolly, sober way.

Learn new phrases: "What’s your drug of choice" and "how’d you get here?" will replace "Nice to meet you." We want to know your bizness, newbie. And be assured, EVERYONE will know your life story before you are even unpacked. We will also begin to place bets on such possibilites as: When you will get kicked out, when you will jump the fence, when you will get caught sucking face with a junkie with several missing teeth. We are bored. And we are shameless gossips. (see below.)

Learn exciting new things!: A drunk? You’ll learn the ways of the junkie. Junkie? You’ll learn how to hide vodka bottles in new and crafty ways. Crack fiend? Pharmecutical enthusiast? No matter. You will learn the ways of your fellow addicts in such detail you will be able to write a thesis on drugs you have never taken. Learning is fun!

You will be bored.: Oh lord, will you be bored. BORED. And forget weekends. You will be SO FREAKING BORED. Things, pathetic things, will begin to be paragons of excitement. Such things include: Lifetime movies, having a new pack of cigarettes, eating the food your roommate left when she went to the halfway house, going to the grocery store, going to Walgreens, (don’t get too excited, these are the only places you will go, and only once a week.) Going to Winn Dixie! Hot damn! I CAN’T WAIT. This is your life now. Live it, love it. Or jump the fence. Whatever.

You will thrive on the only vices you have left: Cigarettes, coffee, and gossip. It’s the breakfast of champions!

Speaking of gossip: Rehab is a lot like junior high. Male or female, you will gossip like wee schoolgirls, with great vigor and excitement. Some girl came to group in hoochie shorts? Scandal! Some chick threw a punch at her roommate? Awesome! Some idiot put his fist through the soda machine? I need to take pictures! And forget it if someone throws a tantrum, packs their shit, and starts tossing their bags over the fence, and scales the gate. Light a cigarette, place bets on if they are just a drama queen or if "holy shit, she’s really going to do it this time!" Make popcorn. This is way better than Lifetime movies.

Group therapy: Sharing is Caring!: You will learn many things in group. You will learn that you are NOT the baddest dude on the block. There will always be someone who did more drugs, drank more booze, got arrested more times, flatlined more times, stole more, whored out more, did everything and anything more than you did. Settle down, tiger. This ain’t a contest.

You will forget things such as date and time.: You live in a bubble. Calendars are only used to count the days you have been there/days until you leave.

You will, hopefully, start to get it: In all seriousness, you will. And if you don’t, just hope you live long enough to try again.

You will eventually leave.: Rehab ain’t forever, even when it seems like it. A weird thing will happen when you leave. You’ll miss it, kind of. You’ll insist people write and call you on the outside. Hugs will be given and recieved. Yes, even that rat-faced guy with the sketchy teeth. You’ll worry about the people who have to leave when their insurance runs out when everyone knows they’ll be shooting up within 20 minutes of leaving. You’ll get used to the outside world again. Hopefully you’ll work hard and learn to take care of yourself again. You deserve it.

Thoughts on babies

Back right after the dinosaurs, I started reading blogs. Through a scroll-and-click process lost to history, I came upon a woman who was trying to get pregnant. She was hilarious and her blog was fantastic, and I've been reading it for years. Through her blog, I started reading other womens' blogs - all of them about trying to get and STAY pregnant. I read with tears streaming down my cheeks through miscarriage and miscarriage and still more miscarriages like I actually knew these women. I had nothing in common with the process (those who know me know that my sex life? HA! Let's move on, shall we?) but my heart ached every time there was bad news, and I have learned far more than I should know about problems with pregnancies. I got to the point wherein when one of the bloggers, or someone I knew in real life would announce that she was pregnant, I followed the process with all fingers crossed (makes it hard to type) and the same internal dialogue I have had whenever I see or hear an airplane since 9/11. "Stay up. Stay safe. Please, please, please."

That said, I am over the moon to report that Olivia Grace came into the world perfectly healthy and safe on November 1. She and her mom are great, and Olivia looks just like her mama and her Uncle Stevil. I can't wait to meet her.