One Thousand Words

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You know how some days just get off on the wrong foot, and leave you desperately playing catch-up the rest of the day, possibly with a screaming toddler (if you have a toddler to begin with) who, at one point, kneels on your head so he can better pin you down and scream in your face? No? That’s just me?

The crowning moment of suck was when Nesko was trying to clean the bathroom window and broke the window.

Before you ask if he’s ok and if we cleaned up all the glass, no, the window pane did not break. Rather, some fiddly little bit that holds the window inside the window frame broke.

For those of you who don’t know/have forgotten, we live in Chicago. There is a foot of snow outside, it’s the middle of January, it’s literally freezing cold. We spent far too long today able to see our breath indoors.

Bluh.

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I got shoes that fit for the first time in 1994.

I have very wide feet, and prior to that I stuffed my feet into whatever shoes (usually shoes designed for older, adult women who were on their feet a lot… nurses, for example) I could. My feet are actually deformed from this. I used to literally walk on top of my little toe, which was turned entirely under my foot. I know a lot of women who have this problem. In the summer of 1993, I’d gone on a trip with my mom to Australia to spend a few weeks with her best friends who’d moved out there years before (this was back before the internet was commonly used, before email was pervasive, back when Air Mail still existed and my mom would get packs of Onion Skin Paper (translucent!) and write in tiny, cramped handwriting on both sides of the paper, and it was so incredibly expensive to send just a letter, never mind an actual package, and phone calls were arranged far ahead of time and were short because of the expense) and for some reason we went to a discount shoe warehouse place while we were there and I got a pair of cordovan leather lace up shoes that almost fit, and the shoe seller told my mom to look for Dr Martens when we got back home. They were this shoe from England that ran wide, she said, and were very sturdy. Hard to find outside of England, a little pricey, but worth looking for.

We called around and eventually found a pair of 3 hole greasy black leather shoes at, I think, Marshall Field’s… not just any Marshall Field’s, but the one in down town Chicago (which is now a Macy’s because hey, who needs history or continuity?). I was appalled at the price, something around $100. People actually spent that much money on shoes? Really? This is a thing, that people do? But we got them, shoes that fit, sturdy shoes, shoes that didn’t cause pain. They fit like a dream. The actual topography of my feet started changing, to the point where my toes now look like normal toes and not like those weird sausages you find in jars that started out round but turn kind of square from being packed so closely together, and my pinky toes are straight and I walk like a normal human being, and I have better balance and posture and my foot bones don’t ache the way they used to. I wore those shoes until I literally wore them out. I wore them every day for five years, and that wear involved building sets and getting drywall screws and broken glass stuck in the soles and digging them out with pliers, and walking all around campus both High School and College, miles and miles of walking, and walking in the hot summer and walking in the freezing cold (and well salted) winter. The leather got softer and softer and conformed entirely to my feet. I replaced the laces multiple times.

And then one day I was walking across the quad after a rain storm and realized that my feet were soaking wet. Like, sloshing slopping squishy wrinkled feet wet. I’d worn the tread off the soles years ago (and this was back when Dr Marten’s had deeper treads, so that’s saying quite a bit) and now the soles had deep splits in them and every time I walked through a puddle they sucked water up.

And I was heart broken. I actually held on to those shoes for something like 5 years after they bit the dust, with grand plans to take them to some magical cobbler and get them resoled. At one point the company used to resole shoes but in general they don’t do that any more. And no pair of DMs I’ve gotten since them, even the same style, has fit as well or lasted as long or been as comfortable. Maybe it’s because my feet have changed shape, or because I’m older; maybe the quality of the shoes has gone downhill. But I’ve bought, in my life, 5 pair of DM shoes and 2 pair of boots (prices ranging from $100-$150 each) and after that first pair have only gotten about 2 years worth of wear out of them before they start getting really uncomfortable (one pair barely lasted a year. A buckle broke off after a month or two, only, and they became extremely uncomfortable to wear after about 11 months, and I still have them because Christ they were expensive and I hate the idea of throwing out money like that. I’ve gotten more wear out of $20 kicks from Payless.). They just wear down in ways they didn’t used to. The uppers are mostly fine, but the bouncing soles, the flimsy-seeming (to me, anyway) “new” treads, the inner foot bed… they wear out so fast. Most shoe repair places explicitly state they don’t repair/resole DMs because of the bouncing sole/AIR WAIRE. There’s a place in Boston that will resole SOME DMs for $60 if you also pay postage both ways (or, you know, are in the neighborhood and bring ‘em in).

So I was kind of excited to see that Dr Martens has a line of shoes and boots with the label “For Life.” They’re guaranteed, you see. If they wear out, they will repair or replace them. That’s exciting! They cost more (The style I love and keep coming back to costs US$95 for “regular” on their site and US$130 in “for life” version) but not that much more, right? $130 is a big chunk to drop on shoes, but if I can wear them for 4 or 5 years, that amortizes out pretty nicely.

Except on top of the premium you pay for the shoes, it also costs $25 in handling fees (and additional postage both ways) to get them repaired or replaced. And damage to the “foot bed” (aka insole or inner sole) isn’t covered. I don’t know about you, but my shoes? Show wear in the foot bed. I have worn through the foot bed and into the filler (the material between the foot bed and sole) in some shoes, which is not very comfortable at all, but shoes aren’t exactly free so I just keep limping along. I don’t know how one would prevent wear in the foot bed, either. Would an insert-able insole be enough protection? And would there be enough room in the shoe for both an insole and my foot? (possibly not)

I’ve been looking for shoes both online and in retail stores for months now. I do not currently have a pair of shoes I can wear to walk or stand for a long distance/period of time, which is severely curtailing my physical activity and outings with my kid. The closest parks/play lots to use are about a mile away and if I walk there and back with Niko, I wind up with pain in my feet, ankles, left knee, right hip, and lower back (I supinate when I walk; the outer edges of my shoes wear out faster than the inner edges. When my shoes get old/worn enough the difference in wear is enough to throw my entire body– feet, ankles, knees, hips, back– out of line and puts tremendous stress on my joints). I spent 20 minutes at a shoe store last night (that doesn’t sound like much time, I guess, but they primarily had high heels, clogs, and boots in the lady section and no smaller men sizes, so I was picking over the same handful of shoes over and over and over) and couldn’t wedge my feet into most of the shoes.

So, you know. The idea of quality, comfortable, fitting shoes with a guarantee is appealing as hell. But I don’t think this guarantee covers the way I wear shoes, and honestly, I’m not entirely confident in the quality level of DMs anymore. So I’m still looking.

It’s really frustrating.

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

The weather’s dropping and it’s getting cooler and even cold outside, which means that once again we have mice in the apartment. Which means once again we have mouse shit everywhere, especially on our counters and, you know, the places where we prepare food. Also, for some reason, on the part of the floor near our bed where pillows slip off the bed and land. Which is totally awesome. Lose a pillow at night and it’s gone forever, tainted by mouse poop. Yes, we sweep the mouse poop up. The mice keep shitting. We’ve put out poison, but there’s a limit to where we can put it and any traps because we have a verrrry inquisitive toddler who picks up everything, examines it, and puts it in his mouth. Can you see why we want to limit the use of poison and snap traps both? I’m pretty pissed at mice right now, and can’t even comprehend people keeping rodents as pets. Seriously. Shit. Everywhere. Every place. We’ve been working for months on accumulating vermin proof containers and putting our dry goods in them, but we still have some stuff that the mice can get into and ruin and let me just say that we really can’t afford to lose food to rodent damage.

I was helping Niko draw with crayons and paper, in his highchair, when I looked out the window. I thought I saw a very fat and mottled squirrel, but it turned out to be a calico cat who was chasing squirrels around. As I watched, it pounced on something small and dark. I squinted a bit and saw that it was a mouse, and instantly I was cheering the cat on. Because seriously. There is shit everywhere. All over the counters. All over the stove top. We clean it up and the next morning it’s back. And now it’s weird green shit because they’re eating the poison and shitting it out before going off someplace to, hopefully, die. Green poison shit all over my cook top. Disgusting.

This cat was apparently not very hungry because it played with the mouse for a really, really long time. It’d pounce on the mouse, carry it around in its mouth, drop it, sit back, watch it, turn its back on the mouse, the mouse would run, and the cat would flip around and go after it again… or would watch it run off and then, at the last minute, right before the mouse reached a chink in the fence that wouldn’t admit the cat, pounce on it and drag it back. And then drop it. And the mouse would fall on the ground and go limp and pretend to be dead and the cat would watch it and then feign disinterest and the mouse would think it was safe and go scampering off only to find the cat hot on its ass again.

Which is pretty much what living with Anxiety is like. I go about my daily routine, my life, trying to escape this massive THING, this fate or hand of god or bad luck or whatever, and if I relax it comes bashing down and Gets Me. And I’m aware of it, constantly, that there’s something hanging over my head Out To Get Me. So I try to hide, try to go limp, try to play dead, and sometimes I can fool it but I’m constantly tensed and waiting for something bad to happen, something to go wrong, something to strike me down. Every good thing is spent in tense Anxiety waiting for the bad, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I started really identifying with that mouse.

But I still wish they’d all get the hell out of my house and stop shitting everywhere.

(Yes, we’re in the process of caulking and great-stuffing and putting steel wool around places. It’s an old building and we’re finding new mouse holes that weren’t there last autumn when we did the last caulking go-round.)

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

Nesko and I have been talking, recently and hypothetically, about travel. One of the ideas floated was him finding a job in Montenegro and moving there for awhile so that Niko could meet his extended family and get a good, solid feel for where Nesko’s family is from. I joked that it’d be great, Nesko could work all day while Niko and I travel and take the ferry to Italy and Greece and have a really long vacation and soak up the sun on European beaches. That led to talk of actual European travel, and Nesko mentioned wanting to travel to Germany, finding a nice Jugendherberge to stay at.

I tried to continue the conversation, but it derailed utterly when I attempted pronouncing Jugendherberge. I swear I did not add a terminating “r” but Nesko heard one and broke out laughing. Sorry, there are no rooms at the Jugend Hair Burger, although I hear their sandwiches are pretty tasty. We tried to work a mustache ride joke in there as well, but it just didn’t fit.

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

My mother in law came over yesterday to pick Niko up to watch him for a few hours so I could get my stuff together and go tutor. I also took the time to pick up the living room a bit and tidy the kitchen a bit. And, you know, all the fun stuff it’s hard to do while wrangling a toddler, like “eat food.” Anyway! I walked into the kitchen and I heard a radio. “Oh,” I thought, “I must have left the radio on.”

I had not left the radio on.

Also, the sound wasn’t coming from the radio.

DUN.

DUN.

DUNNNNNNNN.

It actually sounded like it was coming from our utility room/enclosed back porch, which has no radio; or possibly from out of some kitchen cabinets where, I assure you, we do not keep a radio.

I figured it was the people upstairs, but when they listen to the radio it’s usually music and not soft talking and when they do listen to talk radio it’s in Spanish and this radio was not playing Spanish. Or English.

DUN.

DUN.

DUNNNNNNNN.

Also: they were not home and it had been quiet and they hadn’t come home in the mean time. Like, they hadn’t left a radio on and gone out. Rather, they’d gone out for the day and it was quiet upstairs and now? NOISES.

DUN.

DUN.

DUNNNNNNNN.

Ghosts obviously, right? Ghosts playing a spectral radio, listening to haunted talk radio! Right? Right?

No.

It was my father in law who was moving stuff around in the basement and listening to the radio. There is no ceiling down there, just pipes and then rafters and the subflooring for our apartment so sound travels pretty well.

Der.

There is a reason that I married the person I married.

We were sitting together in Niko's room reading Best Little Word Book Ever to Niko when we lapsed into making fun of the book because we are just classy that way.

Nesko apparently grew up without experiencing Richard Scarry for himself, so it was an all new experience for him... an experience which became alarming when he got to a certain page.



He caught a glimpse of this image and was very alarmed at their "fixed dead wide-eyed soulless stare."



I pointed out that ALL the animals look like that. "HAHA!" I crowed like the petty asshole I am, "NOW YOU CANNOT UNSEE IT."



Then we came to this dude and tried to figure out how he got into his police station. I ventured that he had to go in through the door and then there were steps going down immediately. Nesko countered that his immense head wouldn't fit through the doorway.

"There isn't any glass in that "window." These are animals. They don't know from glass. They just blunder in through those large openings. These are, basically, Pluggers. No-toilet-paper-holder-having Pluggers."

That last two comments pretty much broke me.



"They can only afford to buy 3 eggs at a time. Or maybe they're only ALLOWED to."



"They persist in wearing too-small clothing that shows off their exquisite beer guts."



"They don't have wrists, just stumpy little paw things with barely there sausage fingers. HOW DO THEY USE PHONES AND DRIVE THEY HAVE PAWMITTS INSTEAD OF HANDS.

"They are Pluggers. Richard Scarry should sue Jeff McNally Gary Brookins."

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

Kind of an info dump here, a lot of unrelated things.

1) I “cut” my foot but really what probably happened is that my feet are really really dry and my foot cracked. It hurts and I’m trying not to walk on it too much because that stretches the crack/cut. It’s possible I stepped on a bit of broken glass or something and didn’t feel it when it happened, because my feet are really calloused up and I don’t always feel when they’re cut. So people ask me a lot if I have diabetes/neuropathy (because I am all OH GOD I CUT MY FOOT OH THE PAIN THE PAIN because I am a big whiny baby). I don’t. I used to dance competitively and my feet are coated in fleshy armor. Most likely my feet just cracked, but I’m embarrassed to say that for some reason, so I stick with the “cut it and didn’t realize it” story even though it leads to Diabetes questions. I have no idea why having dry cracked feet embarrasses me.

2) This should probably have been my lede as it will no doubt interest people a lot more than my stupid foot. I’ve been re-reading all the Amber books (yay!) which I haven’t read in, oh, ten years or so. This despite having been in an Amber game that lasted about a decade (literally). Anyway, I fell in love with the series all ver again, for all that much of the writing is very clunky and inconsistent and Oh, The Sexism (which does get better with time, but never gets, you know, great). I want to run an Amber game set in the version of Amber that’s grown up around Corwin’s Pattern. This world is essentially a Fantasy/Idealized 1920s France filled with Jules Verne shit, jazz music, and tasty food. It has its own version of the Courts of Chaos (which I am leaning towards making kind of Fairy Like complete with different Courts), and many of Corwin’s offspring don’t know about Amber. Or about his son Merlin. The hook of the game is that Shadows are disappearing/being destroyed and the players (the youngest adult children, all with Pattern) need to figure out why.

3) I have PCOS and lately I have been trying to limit my intake of refined carbohydrates (bread, all things that are good). So I wake up in the morning, declare to myself that I’m going to cut back, then eat nothing but toast all day. Today I woke up and had a bowl of oatmeal. I’m eating chili for lunch. We’ll see how the day plays out. I LOVE BREAD SO MUCH YOU GUYS.

4) I once again submitted an application for medical benefits/SNAP. This will be my fourth application in less than a year. We qualify like woah and since we are in a new fiscal year perhaps they won’t simply ignore the applications this time around. Wish me luck. It’s becoming really obvious that I need to get back on Welbutrin and that the generic stuff is not cutting it.

5) We finished watching “Life on Mars” which I really liked (the UK version) and now are working our way through “Ashes to Ashes” which I don’t like as much for a number of reasons including the main character (and I’m struggling to figure out of that is internalized misogyny on my part or not) and the many many times she’s reduced to a figure for The Male Gaze. Drake seems less of a main character than Tyler did, and Guv seems more of a presence, more of a character (as opposed to a Rival Force or whatever). I still like it a lot, though.

6) I also watched “Elviria: Mistress of the Dark.” My God I love that movie. I want to do a comic that combines the basic plot of Elvira (campy horror movie hostess inherits house and magic in conservative small town) and “Life on Mars” (she also is in the past).

7) If you’re on Dreamwidth, I’m “Brigid” on there.

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

I haven’t been super bloggy lately because I’ve been sick. I spent about 2 weeks with a cold that turned into what almost was bronchitis except that my terrible horrible no good very bad cough that was more like a fit, a paroxysm, of coughing that lasted for a minute or longer and left me gagging and retching and almost puking (and once I threw up in my mouth totally ugh) and barely unable to catch my breath afterward were… completely nonproductive. My lungs weren’t congested, my nose wasn’t stuffed up, I had no snots, no sinus problems, I was producing no phlegm. I was just coughing. I was coughing so much my throat was raw and hurting from the coughing.

And then I started getting better and I had about a week where I was almost entirely symptom free except I kept suddenly spiking a fever of 100* or so. My normal body temperature is 97.9*, just FYI.

And then Thursday or Friday (I forget when, exactly; I’m exhausted and not remembering things clearly) I started feeling ill again and seemed to be developing the exact same cold only this time? My lungs and sinuses are full of crap.

And I’m again with the terrible paroxysms of coughing, and I’m sleeping on the couch because I don’t want to wake up the guys (who have colds of their own) and this cough is seriously going to kill me.

It comes on if I’m lying down, lounging, propped up, sitting upright, standing, walking around, doing dishes, taking a hot and steamy shower, drinking water, blowing my nose, sucking on a menthol action cough drop. Using my inhaler helps me breathe a bit (I can feel the difference in my lungs after) but doesn’t really stop the cough at all; taking antacids etc (in case it’s “silent” GERD) doesn’t help; cough suppressants don’t really help (I HAVE TRIED SO MANY DRUGS INTERNETS SO MANY); expectorants don’t really help; staying hydrated, keeping my nose blown, and taking allergy medication helps a tiny bit; this has been going on for weeks and weeks and seriously. I can’t keep doing this.

I was in a different room, coughing, and woke Niko up that is how loud I was coughing.

I went on the internet, turning to the warm embrace of Dr. Google.

Did you know that there is totally pertussis in Chicago? And that about half the cases of whooping cough don’t have that characteristic WHOOP inhale, especially in adults? And that my cough sounds almost exactly like recordings of whooping cough I have heard online? AND THAT OBVIOUSLY I HAVE PERTUSSIS OH MY GOD.

I am fairly freaked out about this, and trying to remain calm and also trying to remember if my booster shot 3 years ago was for tetanus ONLY, or was DTaP, and hey, Nesko isn’t THIS sick and he’s apparently got the same thing as me and it’s highly unlikely that HE would have a shitty cold and I would get whooping cough and I am SO INCREDIBLY GLAD that Niko is up to date on his shots. Because I would not wish this on anyone let alone a small child who comes up to me when I’m spasmodically coughing and choking on the bed with white foam dripping out of my mouth, and pats me on the back comfortingly.

Another thing is, I have coughed until I puked before. I used to get bronchitis twice a year and I am an old hand at The Cough That Will Not Die, that produces thick wads of blood-streaked pustulant mucus, that causes gaggy retchy vomiting, that pulls abdominal muscles and leaves one sore. In many ways, this cough is similar. It probably is the same old same old, just slightly different. BUT. I swear, it feels different. My fever is nowhere near as high. My body and joints don’t hut as much. Sitting upright isn’t a help. I’m not drowning in snot. I mean, I was really snotty for like a day and a half, don’t get me wrong. I used up 1.5 boxes of tissues. I’m still producing mucus. It’s scanty, but it’s there. But it is not bronchitis level ropes and gobs of stuff. Which is kind of, you know, bronchitis is incredibly disgusting. But this feels like a different animal.

I’m going to try and hit a take-care clinic tomorrow (if nothing else I am going to try and get a fresh scrip for both my inhaler (oh god so expensive!) and metformin). I’m also going to try and record this croupy barking draining cough just in case I can’t produce one on command. It’s really freaky sounding.

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

Kate Harding’s piece on The Fantasy of Being Thin is a really important piece that more people should read. It’s a fantasy I’ve succumbed to myself, both in relation to weight and other things. My life will just be perfect when I finally…loose weight, clear up my skin, find the perfect way of organizing my closet, find the perfect lipstick, find the perfect book shelf, start baking my own bread, get a better job, learn to drive, get a different hair cut, buy better clothing, live in a different building.

If I could just change everything about my life, everything about me, if I could just become unrecognizable and completely different, then I can finally do all the things I want to but am afraid of. Then I can finally be happy.

I used to spend a lot of money on products I never used, mostly make up and skin care and hair stuff. It was like… shouldn’t owning these things count for SOMETHING, even if I don’t actually use them, or only use them sporadically, or use them and then take a shower to wash them out again because I don’t know HOW to use them so just look like crap? I’m making the token effort, here! I’m being an appropriate consumer! Doesn’t that count?

I’ve been fidgety and anxious about my hair lately. About six months after I gave birth, it started dropping out in fist fulls and clumps; a fairly normal post-birth experience that is nonetheless freaky as all hell. I went and got my hair cut from mid-back to jawline. The hairdresser called me “brave.” Then she asked about the bald spots. The shorter hairstyle helped a lot. There was less hair clogging the drain, less hair forming tumbleweeds that drifted forlornly across the floor, less hair for Niko to grab and yank. And it dried faster, out of the shower. It’s down to my bra straps now, and I’m torn between continuing to grow it out and getting it cut short. Very short.

The problem with me and short hair is that my hair, like my nails, grows very very fast. This means that unless I oil my nails regularly, they are very dry and brittle; and this means that it’s very expensive for me to keep a short hair cut maintained. I’d need to go in every two weeks or so or I’d start looking weedy and shaggy. And unlike curly hair which can be very forgiving of home cuts, my hair is very straight (except for the hair that fell out and grew back in) and shows mistakes very, very clearly.

I’m getting to the point. Bear with me.

Someone on my friendslist posted about a haircut recently, very short, with slightly longer bangs. See, you keep the bangs a bit longer, and can play with them and style them. It’s a style that I like. It’s a style I’ve thought of getting before. It’s a style I was lusting after during our recent heat waves where my hair went a week once without ever being dry (it was either damp from the shower or damp from sweat almost the entire week; it was AWFUL). It’s also a style that, to look its best, to look “on purpose,” needs styling and product.

And how likely am I to purchase and use product? To spend time on my hair other than dragging a comb through it and then pulling it back with an elastic?

Do I really want this hair cut, or do I want to be the kind of person who can get a short, edgy hair cut and look good in it, and who has the time and know-how and interest (and money) to maintain the hair cut? Is this where I am, or is this where I want to be because I’m unhappy with something much bigger about where I am?

I’m not sure. I think it’s the latter.

But I need to start living in the now and the reality and stop chasing after the fantasy. What I am, what I have, isn’t bad. I need to take better notice of that.

Mirrored from brigidkeely.com/wordpress.

Just got a shipment from Amazon:

In The Forest Of Forgetting, by Theodora Goss; Fledgling by Octavia Butler; and Mockingjay (The Final Book of The Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins.

I wasn’t expecting these for a few more days. Pretty much guarandamnteed to make me feel better. :D