Archive for July, 2008

top trip: day 8

Written on July 29, 2008 by matt. 1 Comment

i’m disappointed in how little i’ve been taking pictures on this trip. i didn’t take pictures in maryland, either. what gives? anyway, we’re planning to go to berkeley today and i will bring my camera along. today we will make it to crepes-a-go-go. i had some good times eating out (you heard me) the crepes at that place and i need to continue the tradition. we’ve been to berkeley three times and not gotten crepes. dammit.

today is the first day i was able to put on a t-shirt; yay! it still looks like i’m binding, of course: i am. just because the binder is holding dressings in place rather than boobs, doesn’t mean it isn’t visible. i’ll have to wear it a whole week after i get back, but then … ! i guess at the moment i’m most looking forward to wearing medium size t-shirts. like the whole indie-boy look, or like all the flashy little gay boys in capitol hill… i dunno. a t-shirt that fits… damn, i’m just really excited somehow.

chris is also very excited about wearing a hand-me-down he got from k–. it is a grey camo sleeveless shirt. we can’t bind in it because the binder would show through the armholes. it makes chris happy because we don’t really have many clothes that are perfectly suited to him specifically. he likes camo. some of the rest of us hate camo. we don’t like its military/hunting associations. but i guess these days those associations are not really that strong…

i’m itching a little this morning, so i guess that’s a good sign.

mainly, i’m just so grateful that today and yesterday i’ve been up and about more or less to a normal degree. it’s actually nice to think of going out and doesn’t seem like too much.

we have a window that catches a lot of morning sun in this hotel room, but some very very good drapes. unfortunately, that means we have a dark hotel room, because aeron is here. i just asked (at 10:30am) to open them a little, and he said sleepily “oh no! so deadly! the sun is so deadly!” he can be kind of cute when he’s tired. cute and annoying. (aren’t we all?)

top trip: day 7

Written on July 28, 2008 by jo/e and matt. 1 Comment

i haven’t written, because there really wasn’t anything to write, and trying made my headache worse. there hasn’t been too much pain in my chest – mainly, it’s been these horrible migraines that i get every day, with nausea to the point where i feel like i can’t move and everything. today is the first day i haven’t felt like that, and it is a joy.

i got the drains out today, which was a huge relief. i got to look at my chest a tiny bit with a small hand mirror, but i couldn’t really see that much. just that it was all yellow and purple (purple from the marker and the stitches). it seemed almost concave, but he said that was because of the dressings for the nipple grafts. it is very exciting, but i also can’t wait until i can look at it at my leisure, in a full mirror. and touch it. and stuff.

being incapacitated, i’ve been thinking a lot about what it’s like to have a physical disability. something like ME or fibro might make me feel a lot like i’ve felt this week, but it would never end. i would never know how the next day was going to be, and i wouldn’t be able to trust that each day i’d get slightly better. also, i couldn’t count on aeron or anyone to keep helping me, because they wouldn’t just be helping me out in a time of need and able to expect the same from me – it would be always. i’d also have to deal with people thinking i was fabricating the symptoms, probably with doubting my own experience… have the problems i’ve experienced already on the bart with not being in obvious need of a seat on a crowded train, because of the invisibility… how do you ask for one when you look fine? i could go on and on. i don’t really know that my thinkings are leading anywhere, but i guess i’m just holding it. maybe that’s what i need to do with it. i don’t know.

during some of the time when my head doesn’t hurt, i’ve been reading my rss feeds, and on angry black woman’s blog i came across a concept that i am so happy to have finally found a word for. “hipster racism” — which is the supposedly ironic use of racist language or behavior. with the assumption that you’re above being racist, so you don’t need to worry – that it’s a joke on racists. clearly it carries over into other areas of bigotry, also.

i was just so fucking happy to have found a name for what aeron does, and thus be able to read and think about why it makes me so uncomfortable. aeron takes it to a whole new level – he also does hipster just-plain-asshole-ishness almost all the time. and i am supposed to take it all for a joke. but there’s more joke than straightforwardness. when does it cross the line into just plain racist (slash sexist/heterosexist/ableist/sizeist/etc)?

finding the name doesn’t mean i fully understand all my feelings around it. i’m sure i am guilty myself sometimes, mainly with populations i’m a part of. i’d like to think i do it in a way that’s more clearly satirical, like when ej pretends to be uncomfortable because i’m queer. i don’t know. i still have thinking to do and you know, just moving forward. i’m just really happy to be able to wrap my brain around it more clearly. what i’ve said to myself so often is just, when does it cease to be a joke? what if that’s half your conversation?

i am a big fan of satire. but i think it’s a genre that takes a lot of care and living up to. i like south park, but i hate some of comedy central’s shows that try to cash in on the same market. they don’t understand that offensive for offensive’s sake is not interesting. i think maybe the point of satire is to get people thinking about something that is normally invisible.

there’s a lot more there. i’m so unqualified to talk about stuff like this. i just want to be honest and myself and engaged. i’m not done thinking, maybe, but i’m done writing for now.

top trip: day 3-4

Written on July 24, 2008 by matt. 1 Comment

i’m actually having a few moments where i can comfortably sit in a chair, so maybe i should try to write a journal entry. i’m doing all right, all things considered. i had major surgery yesterday, and here i am sitting up in a chair!

the night before surgery i tried to go to bed at 10. didn’t work, so i got up for a while and tried to go to bed at 11. i knew i’d have to get up at 4:30, so i stubbornly stayed in bed all damn night, but i didn’t get much sleep at all. i may have dozed some, but it certainly wasn’t real sleep, and i definitely was awake enough to look at the clock at least every half hour. oh man, it sucked. i remember looking at the clock at 3:45, and then the next thing i remember is the alarm, so i’m assuming i got those 45 minutes of sleep.

my watch went off at the same time as i got the wake-up call; i had to navigate both in the dark. i was worried that would happen! i don’t know why i got up so early; i didn’t need to leave until 5:15 or so, and i couldn’t eat of course. couldn’t even take my pills, so i took my shower and pretty much just paced until aeron was ready to go.

it took longer to walk to bart than i’d been calculating – eek! but i’d left a little early, so we caught the 5:46 train, and all was good. the surgery center is a block away from union square, and it was really easy to find because i’d looked at google streetview ahead of time. yay, google!

it was a huge building, really, and i had to look up the suite number – basically, the fifth floor. i went up and pushed the intercom button, not knowing what was really going to happen, and got buzzed in without saying anything. there was a waiting room so we came in and sort of tentatively sat down, but didn’t get acknowledged for a good five minutes. it was weird. we were right on time, maybe five minutes early (we had to get there at 6:30.) anyway, the lady finally called me over and gave me paperwork to do. my name was matt on all the paperwork, which was cool but i was a little scared it would mess something up. i asked about it and she said it shouldn’t be a problem since there’s no insurance or anything. my gender was also listed as male. hee hee.

another person came over to talk to us after we’d turned the paperwork in. she specifically addressed aeron, too. i thought it was neat how included he was in the whole day… of course, it would have been better with pretty much anyone else in my life other than aeron. i realized after the fact that part of this is that aeron really really hates hospitals. i mean, it wasn’t a hospital, but it had rooms like a hospital would. anyway, i thought it was neat how they included aeron.

she took me to a room to put my clothes in, and i had to wear a bunch of odd things – special tight socks for circulation, a puffy cap, etc. i could not figure out for the life of me how to do the back of the gown up, and i delayed stressing about it for a while. i psyched myself up to ask her about it when i went out of the room, and she just did it up for me when i came out like that’s what she was expecting to do. it was very nice. i don’t remember that woman’s name or even her title, but she was there before and after and probably interacted with me and aeron more than anyone else. she was nice.

after i finished getting dressed, she took me to a pre-op room where aeron already was waiting. i sat in this recliner and she took my blood pressure and such, and put an iv in. i think when she put the iv in it really hit me that this was really happening! she left aeron and me alone in the room and i was excited but nervous and really would have loved aeron to be there for me. but i looked over and he was clearly freaking out. i asked him what was wrong and he said he was not sure he could get me back to the hotel room, that he was scared and freaked out, and he was scared about emptying my drains for me and wasn’t sure he could do that either. and just generally caring for me. oh man, that was hard. i just needed him to be there and be supportive and i felt like i had to support him. but i mean, he’s there because i physically won’t be able to do everything for myself – i was really scared. but in the end i just told myself i had to not think about aeron and his problems because i needed to concentrate on myself. so i did!

dr. brownstein came in then and drew on me, and took a picture. aeron said i looked like one of those diagrams in a butcher’s office or something. meat to be chopped up. i actually still have some marker on me where i can see it, because i’m not allowed to take a shower or anything. it goes under the binder so i’m scared to get it wet or anything to try to get it off – i’m sure it can wait until i’m allowed to shower.

brownstein left, and the anesthesiologist came and asked a few questions. it’s kind of funny thinking how there’s someone there whose whole job it is to put you out.

then a nurse came to take me into the operating room, which was just the next room over. she actually addressed aeron and told him to wait there and someone would come and take him back to the waiting room. i thought it was really neat that they were that clear and thoughtful towards him.

the surgery table was weird – i had to lie in a very specific place, and it was hard to get situated. the nurse went around strapping me in everywhere and putting these weird electric leg-squeezers on (so you don’t lose circulation.) there were arms to the bed that she strapped me into, like the bed made a lowercase t. she took my glasses and some blurry shapes started to walk in. we started getting triggered then, but that’s the last thing we remember, so i’m glad the trigger freak-out didn’t have time to get started.

i’ve always heard that you count backwards when you’re being put out, but i don’t remember anything like that. then again, i could be forgetting.

the next thing i knew, i was in a different bed and the woman who’d taken me to the pre-op room was there, and so was aeron. i didn’t come around instantly, but she gave me all the time i needed. i think in the scheme of things i was actually awake pretty quickly. i don’t even know what i noticed – i was in some pain, but i don’t really remember super-clearly. i guess i was probably pretty groggy. i certainly don’t remember noticing that my chest felt different or anything. but for that matter, it still doesn’t; it just feels like i’m binding really tightly. it doesn’t feel like they’re gone or anything. i think that part will happen when he changes the dressings and i get to actually see.

she asked if i wanted aeron or her to help me get my clothes back on, and i asked for aeron. it was a good thing he was wearing a button-down shirt over his regular shirt that day because we had no idea how to get me into my t-shirt. i just wore the button-down shirt.

then, that was it! they put me in a wheelchair and a guy took me downstairs and called a cab. he actually did it by standing out in the street and waving, which was kinda cool.  aeron and i had been planning to just take the cab to the bart, take the bart across, and then take another cab to the hotel. i was really afraid of the cost of taking a taxi all the way over to oakland. but aeron suggested i ask how much it would be, and that if it was $50 or less we should really do it. i think it was a really good call. with tip it ended up being exactly $50, and it would have been such a royal pain, riding the bart. even if i didn’t have to walk to or from the station.

the rest of yesterday kind of feels like a whole new day. it was 11am when we got back to the hotel room. i twittered, took a nap, and pretty much stayed in bed the entire day. nothing has happened since then, really. though i can already tell i’m so much better today than i was yesterday. it’s kind of awesome to recover this quickly. makes me really really appreciate being able-bodied. i was thinking that some people have some of the same pain and limitations as i have right now, and they never get to expect it to improve.

emptying the drains wasn’t so bad. aeron was much nicer than i expected him to be from the way he was talking in the hotel. and one nice thing about having aeron here as opposed to anyone else i know is that i don’t feel weird asking him for anything. i even asked him to help me pull my underwear down so i could go to the bathroom (i could pull them up ok, but down was kind of a weird angle. i can do it now though.) i think if it were anyone else, i’d have trouble asking for as much help. and i need help. yesterday i needed help even changing how much i was lying down – i went back and forth between propped up and lying flat.

i’m not sure if it was dumb to write out the details, but i wanted to, and i did. so there. i’m glad i got through it. right now i’m actually doing the best so far – i’m not in too much pain or anything from typing this. i only took one pain pill today, too.

i know i have a really bad style for relating events. i’m sorry about that. i just wanted to get them down. maybe tomorrow i’ll write a better entry, since nothing will be happening. or maybe i won’t be able to write at all. either way, i’m here, i’m doing ok, and i’m thinking of everybody!

hm

Written on July 23, 2008 by matt. 2 Comments

i was really liking the detailed journal entries and want to be able to remember this trip. but i do not have the stamina in me for a real journal entry right now! so i guess i’ll just write a little note.

the surgery went well, the people were nice and not *too* scary, we’ve been in and out of pain but are pretty much managing it with pain pills. we’re kind of sick of being in bed, but we did take a couple of naps, so that was good. (we slept 45 minutes last night, i shit you not. and we were lying there from 11pm to 4:30am. ugh.)

i don’t get to see what it looks like any time soon, of course. there is a surgical binder on that won’t come off at least until the drains come out on monday, possibly not till the stitches come out next wednesday.

we took a taxi all the way over the bridge but it wasn’t too too bad. $50 with a decent tip included. it seems like it was worth it, bart would have been really difficult to navigate. i mean it’s not going to be an occurrence that happens again, being just out from under anesthesia and needing to get across the bay.

i’m hurting from sitting up so i guess i’ll stop here. i will *try* to write a blow-by-blow tomorrow, but there is always a possibility i will never get to it.

top trip: day 2

Written on July 22, 2008 by matt. 2 Comments

what a long damn day! good lord! but i guess since we did every conceivable errand, it will make the rest of our trip easier. (good thing, too, since i’ll be sickly-like starting tomorrow!)

i’m so glad we got to have double beds. i’m so glad that my accidentally clicking the wrong thing on the website (one king-sized bed) didn’t screw us up in the end. i woke up around 8am, took a shower, and got some continental breakfast. (it was pretty weak, especially since i only have two hands and had to choose between orange juice and coffee. still, breakfast is breakfast.) aeron says he won’t be getting up early enough to fetch me the breakfast when i am all laid up. we got some good snacks though, like cereal bars. so i guess it will be ok.

aeron forgot his belt (that he wears every day – he just happened to forget to put it on the one day we were leaving.) so i looked up the directions to the walmart that is a half-mile from here, and we went and i paid for a belt for him. it was a lot of walking, because we’re not in a pedestrian-friendly part of town. but we did see that there’s a jamba juice and some other stuff there. so, that was good to see.

then we had to walk from there all the way to the bart stop, which is the other direction from the hotel. google tells me that is 1.31 miles. it was all completely in the sun on the sidewalk of an eight-lane road. aeron worried out loud at least ten times about the possibility of sunburn. i told him to flip his collar up; what could i do? but he was still worried about his face. in his defense, he does burn very easily. i offered to get sunscreen at the walmart but he hates how sunscreen feels.

we stopped in lake merritt to get the disabled bart passes which will save us much money. then we barted to embarcadero station. google maps told me i was supposed to catch the k line muni from there – but it lied! it was the t! stupid confusingly named thing. we were two hours early, so i thought we could kill some time by getting some lunch. that would have been just dandy except the service was ridiculously slow. we’d had our napkins on our plates for ten minutes, i am not kidding, when i was finally able to flag down our server and ask for the check.

then we had a very traumatic time waiting for the muni. it looked like the k only went on one side, so we figured cool, it will be ok, even though we didn’t have a huge amount of time, we would be ok. a k came by, and the signs announced it and everything, but it said “not in service” and never opened its doors. a damn good thing too, because we would have gotten it! whilst waiting for the next one (19 more minutes!) i figured out that we actually needed a t, just in time to miss one. even with all of that, we would have been on time, but the t we did eventually catch stopped for fifteen minutes at a drawbridge! it was ridiculous! i was almost crying on the muni. “what if we’re late and he doesn’t let us have our appointment? what if we can’t have surgery??” i know it was ridiculous. i did call ahead, but my phone is basically inaudible when there is any noise around me. i need to figure out where the volume is, but i haven’t yet. i heard a woman’s voice answer, so i said i was matt and was going to be 5-10 minutes late (this was, of course, before the damn drawbridge or i would have said longer.) i heard her say something else but i really could not tell what it was, so i just said, “thanks! bye!”

it all worked out, and i was only 11 minutes late. still, in myriad time that is catastrophe!

it was a cool little office that he has, one big room with a screen on one side, and it looked like someone’s house almost. there was a dachshund and it was adorable! i signed some paperwork, and then had the very short appointment.

i was very anxious about it, especially since i heard that brownstein can be kind of … terse. but it was fine. he just came to the desk in the waiting room and gave me a card with my two appointments next week (drains out in 5 days, stitches out in 7), a prescription for pain meds, and a paper with instructions on it. he basically explained some of what’s going to happen, most of which i knew already. he said they would teach me and aeron both how to empty the drains, and not to worry if they filled unevenly. he said that aeron could be with me when i woke up, if i understood him correctly, and that is good. sharon wanted us to ask for that so that our littles wouldn’t get disoriented from the anesthesia.

he also explained that i get to keep my underwear on and the staff at sf surgery center knows why his clients need the privacy for that. it’s neat working with someone who is already so savvy to gender issues.

then we went behind the screen and he asked me to lift my shirt up. i was wearing a binder (couldn’t decide whether or not to wear one that day) and he wasn’t expecting that so i felt anxious/stupid. but it was ok. he really only looked for half a second, he said he would draw the lines and stuff tomorrow. then he left so i could put my binder back on. i won’t wear one tomorrow, of course!

we’d considered going and doing the castro or something after the appointment, but i was too damn drained. and, aeron had a very good point that we should get the pain scrip filled today so that we can have some with us tomorrow in case it starts hurting on the way back to the hotel. ugh! we thought it would make more sense to fill it near the hotel, in case we need a refill, and the only one close enough was walmart. ugh, more trekking about!

we waited for the bus actually and so it wasn’t too bad. the bus took us right to the walmart. we got various soft/breakfasty foods to keep in the hotel room (the paper said liquid diet to begin with… good thing we saw the jamba juice!) i was so expecting a big hassle with the insurance but i just told him medicare part d and they should be able to find which specific company by my social security number. but i was sure it was going to be a problem. nope! it was filled and there was no copay. hurrah!

i got very brave and dialed the front desk to ask for a wake-up call, since i tried setting the clock radio last night and it didn’t work. i also set my watch alarm – both for 4:30. i’m sure i will have trouble sleeping. no matter how early something is, i always wake up ten minutes or more before the alarm. unless i’ve taken a trazodone, which i won’t, since i don’t want to be groggy.

we have to get to the surgery center by 6:30 so i want to get the bart by 5:30 (well, there’s one at 5:38 i’ll try for.) i might be too early, but after yesterday i just can’t help it. aeron will just have to deal. like fifteen minutes one way or another is going to make a difference!

at least the surgery center is walkable to from bart; we don’t have to transfer or anything.

back in the hotel room, aeron said he was hungry for dinner, but i did not feel like leaving again. pizza sounded good to me, but i couldn’t just get pizza hut or domino’s because aeron doesn’t like them. (do you ever get the feeling he’s like a delicate flower? argh sometimes! and i hope he’ll be more self-sufficient after!) so i had to call five places that weren’t very nearby, checking about if they delivered here. it was extra awkward because i don’t know how to pronounce the name of the street i’m on. the place we finally found was independent and very close, so when i said day’s inn they just asked what room number. then, an hour later, they knocked on our actual door! very nice. and the pizza wasn’t my favorite (it was pretty good though), but aeron liked it a lot which is what matters since i hate listening to him complain.

i know i’m complaining about his complaining. oh well! too bad! this is my journal!

so, tomorrow is it! wish me luck, everybody! i’m excited and nervous and scared but mostly i will just be relieved when it actually is done. i have been so afraid something will happen to prevent the surgery at the last minute. now that all i have to do is take the bart (AND REMEMBER THE CASHIER’S CHECK FOR THE SURGERY CENTER!!!!!!!!!), it seems believable, like it actually will happen.

i’ll try to write tomorrow evening for another update, but either way i’ll probably post a twitter soon after i wake up from the anesthesia.

top trip: day 1

Written on July 21, 2008 by cynthia. 1 Comment

today went pretty smoothly. we packed yesterday, so this morning we could just wake up and get our ride to the airport. of course, i couldn’t sleep, so i was puttering around cleaning and stuff. it is pretty darn clean; i hope clean enough to get back to. i think coming back home after being away to a messy house is really depressing.

so, jaga and s. brought us to the airport, and our flight was perfectly uneventful. there were two babies, but the crying wasn’t too bad. and aeron decided that the one two rows in front of us was a parakeet. we didn’t check any bags, which makes airports easier to handle.

this is a pretty nice hotel, particularly for the price. i called and they sent an airport shuttle out to meet us. it was very painless. we checked in, and we were able to change our reservation to a room with two doubles, instead of one king. very good for us both to have our own bed. more pillows that way, too.

our room seems quite nice. there is a mini-fridge and a microwave, which will help my food budget greatly. i was worried we’d have to eat out for nearly every meal. and there’s a grocery store quite close, too.

we both unpacked, picked beds (of course, we both wanted the one by the window and aeron won), and flopped for a while. then, we went to berkeley! and of course ate at the long life veggie house, whose spicy bean threads are all aeron could talk about. i got vegi-chicken with broccoli. it was not spicy, but it was good nonetheless. the hot and sour soup was perfect.

we stopped by the lake merritt bart stop to see if we could buy disabled bart passes. but, it was after 5 so the place was closed.

now i’m eating leftover vegetarian chinese food and trying to think of things to say! i think it’s pretty clear that factual, blow-by-blow journal entries are not our strong point. but we want to keep everybody posted about our trip.

aeron is driving us a tiny bit crazy, but i think it’s not too bad and will be ok. he bought baby wipes though. that made us nervous. he uses those after he’s had sex with us.

tomorrow, we have an appointment in the early afternoon with brownstein. we’re a little nervous but just keep stressing our lack of control to ourselves. i know that sounds weird, but we just try to think how nothing is in our hands, nothing is our responsibility, we just have to show up and follow orders. the ball is rolling enough for that. so, we’ll just do what we’re told and get through everything as it happens!

we’ll write tomorrow, i hope.

the most intolerable

Written on July 19, 2008 by insiders and kat. 0 Comments

i can hardly breathe. the air feels tight and unyielding. the feelings are so damn familiar. i am forever the needy whiny clingy whore that i am. my throat hurts, like i’m trying not to cry, but it would feel fucking good to cry. come on, tears. what the fuck are you waiting for?

wow. closer than i thought. maybe we are doing something the right way. not out on the surface, but damn close.

okay, so what can we say? it feels just like wishing uselessly for mom to love us. to approve. her time is precious. there’s a panicky i’ll-do-anything vibe we get and it scares the shit out of some of us. makes us not want to do anything at all, make no concessions because we’re willing to make any.

it might not be the worst kind of pain, but it is the most intolerable.

we can’t stop thinking, wishing for them to know how we feel. like it would make a difference. we are desperate to show our pain and, again, that scares us and makes us think it is unfair not to hide.

it’s almost worst because we had a small chance, a chance to stave off the worst of it. a small band-aid. and it feels true that refusing any chances means never getting another one. god, that has intuitive heft. but if we make ourselves do without for long enough, maybe this desperation will fade into an ache. maybe we can have hopelessness instead of overwhelming fear. (hope and fear are the same.)

some inside are snapping at us to get off our melofuckingdramatic high horse. that we don’t have real problems and we know it. that we are ungrateful and make crises up out of air.

it’s been a long time since the outside loneliness swelled nearly to the point of catching up with the inside loneliness.

we have aeron. that feels heavy too, a lot of the time. his disapproval is so pervasive and terrifying. not because he tries to terrify us, but because we have messed-up wiring. the only way to survive is to get on the side of the judge, to agree and agree and agree. to proffer our own judgments and gossip, because that is the only time we feel the warmth of approve (at least non-disapproval). if we agree then it is not us he is putting down.

but disapproving like that, while it has a place sometimes (pureness in all things should be avoided), makes us feel like shit about ourselves. helps us stay depressed.

just because we’re lonely to the point of total meltdown doesn’t mean all our reasons for wanting space from aeron are invalid. the patterns we fall into with him are just so goddamn depressing. holy fuck they squash us flat from so many angles. patterns in a waffle-iron.

i don’t know what to say. i’ve tried to write so many times. it hurts so much to write. i have a sore, queasy stomach from this entry so far, for example. like somebody punched me really hard an hour ago. sometimes i hate the fact of an audience. it makes me feel so inauthentic and worthless. like if you tell someone about being lonely, that’s already inflicting yourself on them. the more we write the more we think about how we hope this will reach somebody, hope somebody will care, hope somebody will reach out for a damn change, and that’s not good. writing should not be a tool to get people to do what we want. even if all we want is any human contact.

i guess the good thing about a journal is that it feels anonymous to read one. you don’t have to comment, because i have no way of knowing if you’ve read. maybe the lack of response is good. if my efforts fail, then i can’t really be called manipulative, can i?

i’m bitter and twisted and i’m scared that i’m making everything worse in my pain. i want to lash out, i want somebody to know what it feels like, i want somebody to reach me. i have so many impulses to check, i can hardly move. nothing i think or feel is right or genuine. maybe i should write where no one can see. but any time i try to express how i’m feeling, even to myself, people inside just want to show it. they want to pump it and use it and try to get someone to care, out of it.

we are so many and we hurt so much.

i guess in the end what i want to record is just this, just that it does hurt, that we are sliding downhill and we’re scared of how far we’re going to fall. we’d love to be more stable and in a better place going in for surgery – we almost always are in a better place than this – but we have to give up and admit we are not in control. we are not orchestrating this. we really are trying to keep our head above water and we really can’t.

no pure land now

Written on July 14, 2008 by chris and matt. 0 Comments

when did my days turn into marking time? that scares me, like someone’s going to notice and laugh and kick my ass to the curb come fall. because i’m too busy, never enough time, during the schoolyear i feel like i should appreciate every second of nothing.

but it’s really that. it’s all nothing. i’d like to be ok. i have plenty to get done, just nothing pressing, nothing that fills me with panic enough to cut through the depression. i’d like to be happy. it’s such a weird switch. when it’s ok i can’t answer what’s-so-bad and when it’s bad i can’t answer what-makes-this-worth-it. it’s so easy to fall back into this empty place. i didn’t leave the house today.

i feel like every moment should be a joy, because i’m getting top surgery, because life is getting better and better. but it doesn’t work that way. i’ll never be grateful enough to suit the voices in my head, because they learned from my mom. just because i’m depressed doesn’t mean i’m not happy about surgery and everything else i’m doing to make my life better.

i guess it’s just such a weird fucking limbo. i was ok with my living situation before i got that damn voucher. grr. but now i feel like there can be no beginnings and no safety until i’m gone.

it’s so hard to sleep lately. i’d take a trazodone, but i only have a few left and i’m scared of calling my pdr to get more. i’m scared if i have anything wrong with me at all people are going to associate it with transitioning. i’m scared that the only right thing will somehow get taken away.

i’m concerned about the state of my interpersonal relationships right now. when so many people have a problem with me, i have to wonder what it is that i’m doing. sure, supposedly indigo’s gone and jaga’s unreachable always and ej’s cocooning… sure k– has “his own” stuff and it’s not something i did wrong – i don’t know – it just seems like too much of a pattern. i am so desperate for anyone. i don’t understand why it’s anyone but aeron. i love him, and i might be a lot worse off if it weren’t for him. he’s always there (if i want to watch tv or talk about one of the three topics of conversation he’s interested in (anime, games, or programming)). he’s never gone. i shut my door but he’s still there. always he wants to be around me, always. he watches when i play a game, he criticizes the game writers and tries to help me and gets mortally offended if i ask him not to. he’s there for everything.

why isn’t that good enough? why is the one thing i can have the only thing i don’t want? there must be some way in which i’m creating this situation. it seems like too much of a pattern. i said that already. there is nothing but circles.

i guess i don’t understand what my way through this one is supposed to be. i’m going crazy in this house. aeron offers to go out, indeed accompanies me to the library and store, but again i’m an ungrateful bitch. it doesn’t feel like getting out of the house if i bring him with me. i’m so mean! he’s being perfectly nice to me. as nice as he gets.

and i know alone isn’t what i want, because if that were the case i could shut the door to my room and be happy. except the only thing i can do in here is check my email and get depressed at the lack, or read. i have library books and they are good but they are depressing too. that’s what happens when i do searches for subjects i can relate to.

i finished one today – last exit to normal – and the happy ending was where the protagonist ended up settling down in this small town. it was supposed to be happy, hopeful, good people, everything working out. but i was so, so depressed. i can’t imagine a life in which the small town is the happy ending. my reaction was almost violent. the only hope is getting to the city.

i guess i did live in the country and outside of small towns and such growing up, and didn’t get to live in a city until i was on my own and not getting abused. so i can see how i’d have those associations. but books are supposed to help me escape, not depress me more.

i guess it’s just about finding the right books. i’m limited because there’s only certain ones i seem to be able to stick with. i don’t get any adult books.

i know that time moves and i have a lot going on pretty darn soon – or you know, the one thing. it’s enough. i’m flying out in a week, and i have surgery in a week and two days. i’m about equal parts apprehensive (trying to make sure all the pieces are in place, more than anything – what if somehow it’s not scheduled after all?) and excited.

i’ll be gone just in time for my friends becoming available. i need them now. but need doesn’t mean jack shit.

get over it

Written on July 12, 2008 by chris. 0 Comments

fuck, it’s all so futile. everything aches today. i think it’s a combination of bad sleep, sex with aeron, and rock band. my back is stiff and walking hurts. even writing an entry might be too much because my fucking legs hurt enough to need a stronger distraction.

not just body pain. i am so fucking bitter and empty. futile. there is no fair and there is no connection and there is no anything. i want to be angry but that doesn’t do a damn bit of good, i am angry at nothing.

we keep having to check those stupid renee thoughts of “people would spend more time with us if they really knew how really much we need it.” we have to trim them back and then they grow again. i’m doing something wrong. this isn’t about any one outside person(s), either. but i have a very limited number of friends, and one of them is in miami.

we wrote a quote from the tao and put it on our wall: “to live in favor or disgrace is to live in fear.” that whole stupid bind of hope<–>fear. they are equivalent in quality. and to be looking for approval or a lower amount of disapproval from the outside just won’t work. so we’re fucking trying to act like we’re set. but my body fucking hurts and i’m fucking sick of everyone. EVERYone. the world is so FUCKING unconcerned. nothing in my world can touch anything in anybody else’s. i don’t even want to see anybody. but it’s still all i think about.

this fucking time period just sucks ass because indigo’s gone and we haven’t heard about the apartment and we’re just waiting for surgery so we’re trying to not rock the boat. which means… i don’t know… not seeking fulfillment or even real contentment.

i feel like i’m losing out on time forever. how long after i get back will i have to refrain from playing rock band? how long until school starts? i see the fucking scarcity thinking at work, but so? so friends are scarce. so we’re screwed and alone and it doesn’t fucking matter. why does that mean we should just give in to it?

i have this useless anger pouring endlessly through me, and i just don’t know where the fuck to put it. so it stays in my legs and makes them hurt like a bitch. i want to kick something. and before you suggest anything, just don’t, because i can’t stand falsity or condescension. i know all about fucking beating up phone books and writing and drawing and every fucking other thing. so just skip it.

like weather, there is hopelessness around everyone who comes out. it says that we’re seeing now how we are alone except for aeron and there will never fucking be anyone else. and i am so sick of pretending that’s not true.

this state of being is not sustainable. we’re going to ex- or implode.

inching past the edge of reserve

Written on July 12, 2008 by matt. 1 Comment

late night again, scared to sleep. or really, scared to try, because then i won’t be able to. and i hardly have any trazodone left and i want to save it for when i’m in california (though i’m hoping sleep will come pretty easy. i just know that i might want to do a lot of it.)

indigo’s gone off to their thing (they’ll get back right before i leave) and i need to give my other friends some space. so, as usual, there is only aeron. sometimes i feel like not so bad is good enough. maybe it’s not growth and light and progress, but i haven’t tried to die in three and a half years. i haven’t self-injured in a good year and a half i think, and before that it was just about once a year. i graduated. this is life, right? this is ok.

i just feel more and more hopeless, and the more i try to hang on and keep the peace, the more i want OUT. but hey, at least i know i’m lying when i say i’m lonely. there’s always someone who wants my presence. always. our relationship has become so one-way, and it never was before. but for quite some time now, aeron always wants to be around me, and a lot of the time i want to get away from him.

i feel so guilty because i got a copy of the script for my life when i was thirteen and he’s got my role. i’m supposed to want and yearn and not get. i’m supposed to be the one begging for scraps of companionship. i am, with everyone but aeron. except i know it must all be an act, because if i needed company so bad then i would go be around him.

it’s ok that i’m alone and no one wants to see me, except him. it really is. i just have these spells of feeling trapped. and i actually encourage myself to see things his way because what is the point of withdrawing? then i’m in this room alone. yes that’s wonderful to have, but then i’m just here and i’m alone and my functioning computer does not play games. i keep thinking i should get out of the house, and i should, but most days i just fall inward onto myself and can’t. there’s no point to anything.

i keep looking forward to surgery like my life will be different after. i’m such an idiot.

i haven’t packed a single thing, though i’ve applied to ej’s building for august. i can’t pack. i know deep down it’s never going to happen. it even says so on our door, “no escape.” (it’s a printout of a funny sign that aeron put up there months ago.) and even if it is… i don’t know. i just can’t prepare for that life. i can’t afford to believe in it more than i do already. and i have no energy. and i don’t want to shove anything in aeron’s face. but mainly it just seems like a different world. let the future me deal with his own damn stuff. i don’t want to pack now so he can have an easier time. i just don’t have it in me.

maybe i’m lonely for myself. i’m just… in a fog, and i know i should be compromising and trying and doing what i can, and i am. i know i can’t say “oh woe is me i’m doomed to depression living with him.” i’ve lived with him just fine for seven years. seven and a half actually. but i feel like there’s some heavy opacity around my head that just settles, that i can’t shake free while i’m here alone with him. or while i’m out alone with him, really. i know it’s dumb. it’s just so many subtle things.

i know i should be spending time in my room and outside. i should be trying to still be myself and honor myself even though i can’t have yet what it feels like we really need, space from him.

i’m so stupid. i’m going to be so lonely when i am living all by myself and there’s nobody to turn to. there’s the depression and the fear and pain and empty black night every night. i hope it won’t be like that. but i fear it will. (a good taoist lets go of fear and hope… heh.)

nymph is having sex with him again and i’m not entirely sure how or why that happened. like when we go for peace we go all out. except we didn’t initiate anything. and i don’t think it really felt good, even compared to usual for nymph. like it just matters so little that there’s no point anymore in saying no.

it’s my fucking all-or-nothing streak. i think it’s the most hilarious thing in the world that i try to follow taoism at all. except i guess i’m drawn to it because it has what i lack. i know i need to find that fucking middle way and i’m pretty sure it involves being here with him and friendly but not letting him fuck us. but there’s not a whole lot i can do. it’s nymph’s choice.

ugh, i keep hearing myself and my fucking whininess. i don’t mean to say that everything is bad. i also don’t mean to make it sound like i’m helpless to make it better; i’m not. i’m making it better, it’s just slow. and it’s just the bad that presses so much we need to try to write it out. i’m also really really really excited about surgery in less than two weeks. (holy shit.) i mean, i don’t know. i know about as much as i could but i still don’t know what to expect. i don’t know if my life will just suck because of pain and stuff for a while, or if it will be wonderful right away. i am assuming (heh) somewhere in the middle. or both at once.

it will be nice to be back in seattle i bet though. so sad that i don’t even know anyone down there to visit. but that was a lot of why i moved away. there was nobody and nobody matters. shrug.

i’m also more or less keeping my head mostly above water. it’s just hard. i just miss indigo already and i miss ej though i understand why they want to stay away. i’ve been in the place where it’s impossible to leave the house. far worse than they are. it’s just so hard to not start counting on a fluke of a good thing. i try so hard not to. but that’s ridiculous. you can’t tell yourself not to expect the company of such a good friend. not when there are times that we do see them often.

i’m torn because i feel a tiny bit of screw-you towards them and i don’t know if i should stomp on it or if i should fan it because that’s what i need to feel okay without them. like i certainly don’t think it’s warranted, not in a million years. it’s wonderful that they can stay away when they need to. it makes me hope that this it’s-complicated will have learned from past relationships. so i certainly don’t have any actual justified feelings. i just have the sort of angry people inside feeling sore, and like renee is definitely having some issues too (not anger, but i don’t want to go into them because they are just… maybe in their own post sometime. it just feels dangerous if they are not explained just right because they will sound worse than they are.)

and normally we have certain ways of dealing with angry people, but i get the feeling that they’re coming close about this for a reason. like maybe right this minute we don’t have any other way to deal with the pain of not seeing them when they help so much. i’m an idiot, also. objectively speaking there hasn’t been that much distance. i’m just more needy than usual. shrug.

i’m scared to stop writing. when i’m writing, i can pretend i’m not so alone. i don’t fool myself exactly but i try to simulate conversation or something. or you know, some stupid wise bullshit about it being me that i’m lonely for. which is fair. but i have already established that connecting with me is just really fucking hard when we have to stay reasonably connected with aeron.

“me”. i’m such a comedian.