Just One of Those Days

Today, Friday, has turned out to be one of those days. One of those days when I hate my life and want to run screaming into the hills.

Well, I don't hate my life exactly. I hate my job. Exactly. It is just boring and tedious and all I do is look forward to reading the Globe & Mail at lunchtime for half an hour. Or my novel. David isn't at work today, so I can't even send him a one-liner email and wait for a reply.

In fact, he isn't at work today and didn't even bother to CALL ME during his day off, in which he is running errands and supposed to be working on his packing. But I know he isn't. So he hasn't even called me. But I can't be mad at him because maybe he's out shopping for my Christmas present, and then I would feel really crummy.

So work is boring. I build these big computer models for a living. I do many, many other things too, but a lot of it hinges on these elaborate computer models. And the software isn't working. They patched an earlier version of the software and the programmers made some stupid mistake and now my model won't report SOLIDS where there are supposed to be solids. This is very frustrating when trying to model a process in which little solid particles of polyethylene get carried away in water and sloshed around and processed. So I have been calling back and forth, and some guy who barely speaks english is helping me and I am so frustrated. Then, the company emails me a survey, one of those "How did we do?" surveys. And I sent it back and put "Extremely Dissatisfied" in practically every category.

Well, what do you know but one of the programmers from Boston calls me. And spends like 4 days helping me with the problem. Apparently their bonuses depend heavily on good feedback. But then he emails today and says "you know that thing I suggested?" (which I'd just spent several hours setting up with an IT guy), well, "don't do it - it won't work". So all my prep time and running around was wasted.

Now he's trying to get me an advance bootleg copy of the newest version of the software, which comes out in January 2007 (probably more like April), which is called, anachronistically, Version 2006. I should know not to trust a company which can't even name its software right.

So, there's that tedium to deal with. But mostly I do like the computer modeling work. It isn't half as bad as talking to most of my colleagues who give me the heebeegeebees with how boring they are.

ANd then, I went outside at lunchtime and it is like -50C outside, which is -58F for people who don't know (easy conversion: take the Celcius number, multiply by 9/5 then add 32, or conversely, take the Fahrenheit number, subtract 32, and then multiply by 5/9 to get Celcius) It is so bloody cold it feels like The Ice Age Cometh. I guess it is just upsettingly cold because it's the first winter day when it's been this cold. So besides it being wrist-slittingly dark at 5pm every day, it is now FRIGID outside. Really makes life worth living. This is the kind of weather where you hunker down with your TV and a dozen cases of Chef Boyardee and don't come out until May. But after a few weeks of this weather, we hearty Canadians get used to it (ok, not really) and go out and toss around the Nerf football in shirt sleeves at 20 below.

So when I came back inside and defrosted myself, I opened a funny and sad email from my Mom, who said she went for the mail today, a nice little walk, and on her way back to the office took a short cut and fell down in the mud! Poor little Mommy!! Which reminded me of a time that one of my ex-boyfriends was walking down the street in Toronto and a bird pooped on his head. He totally deserved it. However, my Mom did not deserve it!

Oh, and speaking of not deserving things - my darling boyfriend, who hasn't bothered to call me yet today (3:30pm), had his truck stolen a week ago. Right off the street in front of my house. By a couple of joy-riding crackheads. They took it for a spin, went for coffee, had some smokes, and dropped it off at a mall with hardly any gas missing. It was like "we need to go for coffee, dude" and then "okay, let's take this here truck." For their convenience, David is now $1400 poorer, which is what it cost to replace the hotwired ignition. And today, on his day off, he took it in for detailing to get rid of the cigarette smell, which really pissed him off since he is a vehement non-smoker, and so he should be! He didn't deserve that at all. Nope.

It will be nice to move away from my cool, urban, hip, shizznit, downtown, crack-head/crime-infested neighborhood. This time next week, I will live in a neighborhood full of filthy rich upper middle class SUV-driving sweater-set wearing yuppies who will probably want to wife swap and have hot tub parties with us. Help!

And to top off an otherwise wretched week, last night David and I had medical tests with a nurse from an insurance company, where we've signed up for mortgage life insurance. She came over (late!) and took our blood and urine (for drug testing - the dirty insurance bastards), and other invasive information. Besides being the worst nurse ever to take blood (I have a massive red bruise), she also weighed me. Weighed me!! Fully clothed!! And it wasn't a good number. Let's just say, I weigh exactly 12 lbs more than my "I look hot in jeans" weight. Yes, in jeans I now look like a certified fat ass. So, besides having soul-destructing, life-wrecking headaches, I am now officially F A T. Nice. Just what I need. But, today, I managed to console myself by considering the fact that I probably weighed so much last night since I haven't had a good bowel movement in about 10 days. Elavil is very VERY constipating. So, considering I have 15lbs of shizznit inside me...maybe I'm perfect after all! But then, how do you describe the appearance of a (rather cute) little pot belly (I always had flat abs!), and a little floaty life-preserver ring of fat around the top of my butt. And the emergence of cellulite on the front of my thighs, as if the back wasn't enough!!!!!!

Ok, so there were a few catastrophes this week. But really, I have a lot to be thankful for: a gorgeous boyfriend who loves me (even though he doesn't call) and claims I am not fat. A charming posh new house, waiting for me to move in and have a wonderful life! A job that pays 6 figures (the Alberta advantage) for me to blog all afternoon (I make up for it by working at least 50h a week). A wonderful, loving Mom. My Christmas shopping almost done. But why does it feel like it sucks? I think it's the headaches talking. Or the fact that, after 12 months, I recognize and acknowledge that I will have to go to the gym every day for the rest of my sorry, sorry life. Or look like this. Sometimes I just want to be one of those big, fat, happy Costco people who buys the 12 packs of monster muffins. I just want to accept myself as I am. You just get old and die anyway. And you will never look like Meredith Grey, no matter how much you try. And you will never look cute in jeans again. But there are other things to live for - like headaches, and computer problems, and the gym! Hey! And monster muffins!

Terri Potter

Yesterday, I got my first five pottery pieces back from the kiln. This is my third pottery (wheel) class in about 7 years, my last in 2003. After a rather rusty and frustrating start (like forgetting how to ride a bike), the skills required to throw a half-decent shape on the wheel slowly began to seep back into my mossy brain.

In this class, I worried less about making a lot of stuff (who needs more sake cups?) and more about individual skills - how to center (an art in itself), how to start into the piece and stay centered, how to form a flat, compressed bottom, how to make corners in the bottom, and finally, how to pull the clay up with the right pressure. I am by no means accomplished, but by the end of the class, my skills improved, and I could see progress. I'm now able to handle a 2lb. chunk of clay and can make simple cylinders and bowls that don't weigh a ton. A lot of my work went into the recycle clay bin.

I have about a dozen pieces to glaze in my final class, Saturday. Several are handle-less mugs, since I forgot that I need to attach handles before bisque-firing. Silly me - I knew that. The first few pieces were mostly glaze experiments, to see what the new colours look like, colours I haven't seen before. I wasn't very adventurous, since I like to stick with earth tones, but was decidedly disappointed with the celadon (the "brown" bowls). In a previous class, celadon glaze fired to a wonderful, peaceful sage green colour. Now it's a muddy, poo brown. Oh well. That's why you don't glaze all your pots in one fell swoop.

Note on the blue mug. This was supposed to be an uber-blue colour, with blue slip under blue gaze. However, it turned out a wild teal colour with the metal oxide showing through in spots from the slip underneath. Wild results from the kiln.

North Mount Pleasant Pottery

Last weekend, David's sister-in-law Irma and I attended the most incredible pottery sale!

The North Mount Pleasant Arts Center, where I've been taking pottery classes, has an annual sale where members of the studio (all excellent potters) display and sell their craft. I was so enamoured that I came home with six pieces!! The prices were very good and the pieces were so lovely it was hard to choose. As you can see, I'm into *leaf* imagery these days.

Slate Blue Leaf Vase & Bowl:
Green Leaf Urn:Little blue pot

Green leaf jug Blue serving bowl

Thoughts on Head Pain, Caregivers, and then some healthy cynicism...

I've been thinking a lot lately about caregivers, our relationship with them, and other general philosophical (and dark) stuff around headaches.

I have chronic, daily tension-type headache with migraine features that leaves me incapacitated to some extent almost every day. Sometimes I am physically incapacitated, like on the days when my head and neck and back ache so badly I cannot or can barely function and just want to go to sleep. I'm often intellectually incapacitated from the strain of trying to think clearly, day upon day, while my head aches relentlessly. This constant physical and intellectual stress leads to emotional incapacitation as well. I am not emotionally resilient. I am emotionally vulnerable, short-tempered, easily hurt, sensitive and defensive. The normal boundaries stretch very thin and I feel easily irritated, easily annoyed with the world around me. The usual resilience to this hard world is gone, worn thin, and I am defenceless.

This makes life a challenge for my caregiver. While I am not physically dependent on my caregiver, I am emotionally dependent on him - for his understanding of my condition, his patience, his gentleness with me. I rely on him for comfort - comforting words and queries, concern. Despite the pain and the lack of emotional strength some days, I still manage to put on a smiley face and not go postal. Even for my caregiver, I muster a smile and an "I'm okay" when I literally feel like jumping out the window.

Recently I found myself so drained that as I stood at a street corner, a large truck rushed by and I thought about how it wouldn't be so bad to be run over by it, because then I would be free. Free from constant pain in my head and my heart. I also thought about how wealthy my mother would be from my generous life insurance policy, and how David would have the house instantly paid-off by the mortgage life insurance. The situation really would be great for everyone. Except I would be dead. Ok, so it was just the brief fantasy of an aching mind, but for a second, it really brought a smile to my face. I am not suicidal, so no need to call in the armed guard to protect me from myself. But you know that life is really crummy when a brief fantasy about death brings you a warm glow of relief. Of course, I am not wishing myself dead, but my God, how I wish I would feel better for a day or two, even an hour. No one around me knows what it's like to be in pain every minute of every day, how demoralizing it is, how spiritually tiring it is, how physically exhausting it becomes.

Rarely do I talk to my caregiver about this really dark side. We talk a lot about my headaches, he asks about them. I tell him how tired I am. He comforts me. But I try not to be too desperate and too dark with him. I try not to tell him about how each day, I have a really, really low point. I don't want him to worry too much. And I don't want him to have me committed for depression. I am not depressed, not clinically. I am just a normal person who is psychologically spent.

So my caregiver and I share this experience, but with different perspectives. For him sometimes, I imagine it is also hell. He has a girlfriend who isn't much fun. Who doesn't feel light and silly and whimsical and cheery all the time. Who doesn't feel like that at all, in fact, ever. I am cheery when I act cheery, not when I actually am cheery. Like many headache sufferers, I am an excellent actress.

I sometimes wonder how he feels about my illness. If he feels a little jilted, or if he's accustomed to it by now. Or if he simply forgets when I am acting normal. I hope he forgets, that he can just see me as a woman, and not as the well of pain I've become. Sometimes I like it that I am normal to him, because it makes me feel normal to me.

Sometimes I want my headaches acknowledged. I want people around me to feel my pain. Other times, most times, I don't want to talk about it, least of all with strangers. They don't understand, and they say stupid, insensitive things like "have you tried...?" which is my most hated phrase in the English language. When they say that, I want to say "no, I haven't tried a chiropractor...what a brilliant f*&king idea." All I say is "yes, I've tried it" and I don't add that it cost me about $10,000 and 300 hours of my life.

And I have yet to meet a person who listens to my tale and says "my God, that must be Hell. You poor dear. How do you cope?" I would love to have that response. Then I could be real and actually explain my life, my feelings, my struggle. Instead, no one ever says that. All they say is "my relative (insert name) has migraines" and then go on to explain Aunt Bertha's malady ad nauseum. That, or the old standby "have you tried....?"

Sometimes they say another fascinatingly helpful phrase like "I used to have headaches years ago and then I started (a) chinese water torture (b) sleeping with spiders (c) eating organic lettuce whilst standing on my head and simultaneously doing downward-dog, or (d) injecting myself with a litre of liquid morphine 8 times a day, AND THEY COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED!"

There is nothing less disheartening to a headache sufferer than a headache sufferer whose headaches COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED.

I know it's supposed to be inspiring, but it isn't. It's frustrating because it makes it look so easy. It makes it look like you haven't tried nearly enough things. It makes it look like you are stupid. And they are a wise old sage who, quite superiorly, defeated thousands of hours of genetically-induced torture with a simple massage.

Ok, so I am being extreme again. But you do get fed up. And just for once, I would love it if every single one of my colleagues (who look at me sadly and disdainfully and not quite believingly when I mention I have a "another" headache) would have a whole 48 hours of blessed HELL with a killer headache, like the one I had Thursday. And then they would stop looking at me with incredulity and feigned interest and contempt and just start admiring me for the incredible Goddess/Martyr that I am.

So back to my original thought, which was about caregivers. Which lead me to think about what people think about me. Which lead me to the Goddess that I am.

Caregivers. They need our care too. Maybe my caregiver doesn't need a lot of help. I am not terribly dependent on him. I am emotionally dependent on his kindness. And I can't be a picnic all the time. But I think he shoulders the burden well. Still, his life would probably be easier with someone else. Then again, I guess I am kind of a Goddess. Or at least that's what I tell myself when things get dark and murky and I stand on a sidewalk dreaming about being run over by a truck...

Think about your caregiver. Thank them. If you ever have the energy, do something really nice for them. I know you appreciate them and I know you say thank you all the time. But really look them in the eye and tell them "thank you" again. Thank you for helping me be normal by being there for me, by helping me maintain a normal life, by loving me, flawed as I am. And thank you also for getting by without my support some days. Some days I don't have it to give you and I am sorry for that. But I am doing my best and thank you for doing your best. Thank You mostly for sharing the weight of this illness with me. Thank You.

Bad Mood Quotes ~

I read a Hemingway quote the other day, and it reminded me that he is the master of the great quote. His writing was good in my opinion, and I enjoyed his books at the time I read them. I never found him to be a particularly dazzling writer, nor particularly profound. But his one line quotes are a dark and superb reflection of the human spirit.

Here are some....

"Develop a built-in bullshit detector."

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially."

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

"What is moral is what you feel good after, and what is immoral is what you feel bad after."

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

Orsay clock

Since I don't have time for a proper blog these days, I thought instead I would post one of my favorite photos from Paris. I took this at the lovely Musee d'Orsay one grey afternoon. I highly recommend the museum both for its art (lots of impressionism, which is more gloriously beautiful than I ever imagined - I fell in love with Cezanne here) and the architecture. It was once a train station if I recall correctly and many famous photographs were taken here.

Boxes Etc.

A quick update - David and I picked up 40 boxes from our movers last week. These, together with the ones from the office, will set us up to start packing. No, we still haven't started.

Over the next couple of weeks, we need to pack up our two apartments and get all our utilities and services set up. Then, on Nov.30th, we move from our apartments and on Dec.1 move into our new house.

I'm really excited and can't wait to finally settle in. The other day, I added up the number of apartments I've lived in over the years - 5 in Montreal, 2 in Toronto, and 3 in Calgary. That doesn't count the summer jobs when I lived in Fredericton (2 places), Ottawa, and so on. And the year I spent in Paris, and the summer in Dusseldorf. All in all, about 15 different places in the past 18 years away from home. I am tired of moving, tired of settling in to new places. There was once a time when if I didn't move for 2 years, I started yearning for the road! But now, I am ready to make a permanent nest, or at least until we buy something new down the road, or retire to Saltspring.

David also has been on the road for years. Growing up, he lived in several Calgary neighborhoods, Edmonton, and Vancouver. Then as a young adult, he travelled to Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, lived in Quebec for a while, studied in Vancouver. We are both travellers. And we both can't wait to finally buy a set of matching dishes.

I have a lot of nice stuff, beautiful furniture, some nice lamps, some lovely photographs, some art, lots of pottery and lots of odds and ends. But I am eager to buy simple things like a nice set of dishes, eager to paint walls that are actually my own. Our own.

Twenty-three days and counting....