Yes, exactly.

I saw this in the Dear Abby column today and I really, really liked it. My husband and I have often discussed why we won't have funerals when we pass. It's because we believe the time to be there for people you like is when they are alive.

THE TIME IS NOW
Author Unknown

If you are ever going to love me,
Love me now, while I can know
The sweet and tender feelings
Which from true affection flow.
Love me now
While I am living.
Do not wait until I'm gone
And then have it chiseled in marble,
Sweet words on ice-cold stone.
If you have tender thoughts of me,
Please tell me now.
If you wait until I am sleeping,
Never to awaken,
There will be death between us
And I won't hear you then.
So, if you love me, even a little bit,
Let me know it while I am living
So I can treasure it.

It feels real to me

Yesterday I had a regularly scheduled appointment with Dr. S. She has no answers. She really focuses on my weight, because that's what she primarily does in her practice.

She looked at my food diary and concluded that I am currently eating less than 1200 calories a day, most days, and that's probably right for me. She said my protein-to-carbohydrate ratio is excellent. She would like for me to eat more protein, but I told her I won't do it if it means more calories.

Here's the hell of it: I gained four pounds in the last two weeks. Oh, I took the stairs, and walked briskly, and parked far away from my destination, and carried a lot of boxes up and down stairs, cleaned the basement, mopped floors, and tried to move more than usual. My reward: weight gain around my middle.

And people wonder why I fucking hate my body so much.

The thing is, I am in a lot of pain. My right knee is on fire. My pelvis feels like it's going to crack apart. The pain from the spasms in my psoas muscle are indescribable, but I can't go to see a doctor for any of it because at this point, he or she will just blame everything on my weight as they seem inclined to do. My neuralgia isn't weight-related, but that's always an easy answer for an often difficult-to-diagnose problem. I want to take that diagnostic option off the table entirely, and that means no medical help for the pain until I lose another sixty pounds. If I can get to 110, there is nothing that a doctor can blame on my size or diet. Nothing.

Dr. S looked over my food log and said that eating every four hours is bad. She has banned me from eating anything between meals, so I must combine the calories from the snacks into my meals, and I must wait full six-hour intervals before eating again.

I told her six hours is a long time and I'm going to get hungry. She said it's not real hunger--it's only psychological hunger and it will pass. I just have to learn to ignore it. No snacks. The hard-boiled egg white must be eaten with the oatmeal at 7:00 in the morning, not as a snack at 11:00. The apple or slice of low-fat Alpine Lace Swiss cheese must not be eaten at three. Those calories have to roll into lunch, and then I have to tough it out until dinner at 7:00 or 7:30 p.m.

Dr. S said that by eating small amounts of food every four hours, I may be helping my headaches, but I never give my body a chance to to need to draw on my fat stores.

I hate my fucking, stupid-ass body. Hate it. Now I'll get to endure constant hunger and stomach pangs--along with headaches--and I will bet I still don't lose any weight.

Let's face it, in America, if you're not thin, you're nothing. You are sneered at and waved off by the medical establishment. You can't even buy clothes for a body that isn't toothpick thin and curveless. I know this because I went shopping for pants on Sunday. I still wear a size 16. That hasn't changed. What I found were racks and racks of "Skinny Jeans," "jeggings," (see photo at left) "narrow-leg trousers," "trim-fit pants," and more of the same. I personally know of two people who can dress in those styles. The rest of us will look ridiculous. The message here is, though, that you should never be fat or even curvy. We must all adhere to the fashion choices available and become shaped like little boys. Apparently, that's the American ideal. If it weren't, there would actually be clothes out there that fit.

And if I could fit the ideal, no doctor would tell me that everything from fatigue to shingles to chronic pain to parasthesia to vertigo was a result of being too damn fat.

Keira, Keira, Keira, how do you stay so utterly perfect?

Where boredom takes me

Algorithms fascinate me. I don't actually understand them, nor could I even begin to write one, but the concept of "if-then" statements running the show on their own is a notable accomplishment i my eyes.

I was bored tonight, having run out of energy and ambition long before I ran out of weekend. I pulled up my blog but had nothing interesting percolating through my brain, so I did what I sometimes do in these situation--I clicked on the "Next blog" link at the top of the page.

Normally, the array of blogs I get via this clickfest seems totally random, but tonight there appeared to be an algorithm at work. Not a very good one. If it was supposed to link me to other blogs that might capture my interest, it failed miserably. Here's why:

• First, a lot of blogs related to autism. Hmmmm. I'm not autistic nor do I have any autistic family members.
• Next up, homeschoolers
• Lots and lots and lots of Christians praising Jesus, lots of Bible study, lots of lives being documented as they worship Christ. Interesting choice to bring before an atheist.
• After that, Blogger went into some sort of Texas loop. I am not a big fan of Texas, I don't write about Texas or care to visit Texas. Lots of bloggers in Texas.
• Mothers writing about their adorable children. Ad nauseum. Yes, I understand it's a beautiful journey, but seriously, these blogs all read exactly alike.
• Next we went into a DIY home-improvement phase. This one makes more sense since I believe there's something like that listed in my profile.
• Quilting. Seriously? Who knew so many quilters were blogging about it. I'm not a quilter.
• More blogs about white, middle class American families with small children. Especially with twins. ?? Christian families. In the South.

I can't even imagine who gets to stumble upon this blog.

The joy of Wii

The Wii arrived on Thursday in a slender box with an Amazon logo. I never really wanted one, but so many people told me I'd like it, that when the opportunity came, I bought a console.

In the two weeks leading up to the purchase, I had cleared out and cleaned up the finished part of the basement. Once that job was finished, the open space needed a purpose. Since I'm not a teenager and have no close friends here, partying downstairs wasn't very appealing. Exercise is boring, although we're all set up to do it.

I took stock and made a list of the reasons I don't need to join a gym:

• Pilates reformer


• yoga mat


• 2 thick exercise mats


• complete set of hand weights, 2-12 pounds


• weight bench


• set of stretchy resistance straps


• ankle weights


• 2 fit balls


• small inflatable therapy ball


• Step


• Foam roller


• 15 fitness workout DVDs

Alas, look as I might, I couldn't find my missing ambition or interest in exercise in general to add to that list.

It took some figuring out to get the Wii installed. There was an old TV, an RF splitter, a digital signal converter, an antenna, and a DVD player to configure so all would work in a friendly and compatible manner. Lots of wires in multiple directions. Once the hookup was successfully completed, I set out to see what Wii was all about.

I created a "Mii" and named her Bovinia. The Wii Fit Plus is not that interesting to me. It's really just a lot of work, and the animated trainer is not only not very animated, she never smiles.

I pulled out the Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort discs and popped one into the machine. Games, games, games. And me without a partner. I chose the one sport I knew I could do alone: bowling.

Bowling turned out to be fabulous. Back in the day, I was such a blue-collar kid, I actually took bowling lessons in fifth grade, and then was in a youth bowling league. When I was 30, a friend and I took advantage of the local bowling alley's summer special: For $90, we got six weeks of lessons, nearly unlimited play, and a custom-drilled bowling ball with our respective names engraved just above the finger holes.

I can bowl.

Push, swing, back, release. As I finished my first round of bowling in almost 20 years (score = 150), I looked through the other games and realized that Wii was the perfect thing for me. There are no friends required. All of the games can be played in isolation, just me vs. the Wii.

I may move into the basement.

Brainuwhat?

While scraping callused skin off of my feet in the bathtub this evening, a thought crossed my mind and I had a grand inspiration for writing. "A fine blogging topic," I thought.

After finishing with my foot task, I sat down at the computer. The computer was slow. Blogger wouldn't load. Eventually it did.

I forgot what I wanted to write about.

I want full disclosure

For the second time in a year, someone used my debit card number to buy something online. This time it was an XBox subscription.

When I called the bank, they assured me that getting this fixed would be relatively easy and painless. Apparently, banks have insurance for this sort of thing and this sort of thing happens all the time. They reimburse the money and move on.

When I went to the bank to fill out the claim paperwork, I asked how I could find out who had stolen my card information. The customer service woman looked at me, a little bit startled. She said, "Well, we have a department that takes over and handles it. They'll pursue it."

This seems unfair. In any other crime with this much information that can be tracked and traced, the victim gets to know who the perpetrator is. In cases of petty credit card fraud, the thief remains anonymous to the victim.

I want to know who did this. I want to confront him or her and explain what a major pain in the ass it is that I have no debit card for the next ten days, that I had to take an afternoon off of work to fill out a report, and that I hope he or she contracts a painful bleeding cancer that turns out to be the result of using an XBox.

Why these people are granted anonymity is beyond my scope of comprehension. Assholes.

The monster you could smell like

It's like this, hon

I HATE YOU MAY VOIRREY. YOU ARE A FAT, FAT, FAT, FAT, FAT, FAT, UGLY, HOMELY, OLD, WRINKLY, FAT-FACED, UGLY DORK OF A HAG.

KILL YOURSELF AND DO THE WORLD A BIG FUCKING FAVOR OF SPARING OTHER PEOPLE FROM HAVING TO PRETEND LIKE THEY CAN ACTUALLY STAND YOU.

YOU ARE A WASTE OF HUMANITY. YOU HAVE ONE FRIEND, AND SHE WOULD PROBABLY RUN AWAY QUICKLY IF YOU LIVED CLOSER.

YOU ARE SO HOMELY, SO FAT, SO USELESS, SO SOCIALLY AWKWARD, SUCH A FUCKING WASTE OF BRAIN MATTER, SO STUPID, SO SOCIALLY CLUELESS.

DIE, BITCH.

(No, my page wasn't hacked. These are just the messages going through my head today as I realize I'm essentially friendless, truly disgusting to look at, a loser in every area of my life, and not worth the air and resources I consume. My only value in the world is in doing other's people's work for them.)

I don't even know

I am unloved. It's true and apparent. I try not to think about it, but I'm reasonably intelligent and aware, so I can't pretend the situation is anything but what it is.

Still, I have no idea what it would feel like to know anyone cared about me, so I probably wouldn't recognize it if it existed. And by "cared about," I mean, people paid attention, checked in, hung out, talked, asked after my welfare--that sort of thing...and doing so out of genuine affection and not just because I'm needed or serve some practical purpose in another person's life.

Maybe in my next life.

I just don't feel like it

May is exhausted from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. There's tired, and then there's drag your ass through a normal pace of life. Sometimes I wonder: if there's no illness present in my body, then maybe all of those pharmaceuticals rearranged my brain.

Is it dysthymia? Is it some mycoplasma bacteria nibbling away at my tissues?

My mood is OK, but it's hard to be perky and happy when fatigue is this unreasonable. It makes the chronic pain seem like an afterthought.

Can't I wake up just one day and feel great? And when is the doctor going to rerun all of the blood work to find out if the wads of supplements I take are even having any benefit? Are we just guessing?

On the upside, someone told me today I look wonderful. I believe that's a euphemism for "looks like you lost weight." I still have to lose 13 pounds just to get out of the "obese" category on the BMI chart and make it down to "seriously overweight." It's another 25 after that just to get to the high end of "healthy/normal." Pardon me if I seem underwhelmed by the 30 pounds gone up to this point.

My weight is not that important to me right now, and I never thought I'd say that. I just want to have some energy.

• D3 = 105,600 IU per week
• B12 = 2500 mcg/day (sublingual)
• Magnesium = 250mg/day
• NAC = 1200mg/day
• L-Lysine = 1,000mg/day
• Flax Seed Oil = 1,000mg/day
• B Complex with C
• Female-specific multi-vitamin

Nobody should be this tired all the time. Maybe I'm just mental.

It's not apples and oranges

I don't fear death, I fear discomfort.

Death is inevitable. Discomfort, it appears, is my destiny.

It makes me wonder

Why is it that nobody on CSI Miami ever breaks a sweat in any of the outdoor scenes? They never even look like they're in hot weather. At all. Not only that, but people routinely wear long sleeves, jackets, and layers. Outside. In Miami.

Seriously. I've been to Florida and just thinking about working outdoors in Miami makes me feel sweaty.

So, now I'll just stop the lithium

I was looking for something online, and in my keyword search, this seemingly unrelated result came up. A piece of the text caught my eye, so I took a look. What I found was a forum conversation about people misdiagnosed with Bipolar Disorder after being prescribed an SSRI. Apparently, it happens all the time.

It seems that antidepressants can make people who aren't bipolar hypomanic. This can take the form of dysinhibition, personality change, impulsive spending, hypersexuality. You mentioned regretting your behavior while on paxil... I have the same regrets. When on antidepressants I had less empathy, could be somewhat impulsive with the things I said to people, and was occasionally incredibly insensitive to the feelings of others. I also expressed a lot of anger that I think in large part was due to the meds. My spending wasn't outrageous but it was beyond our means and we are now in debt.

After reading some more, I feel that I can finally discontinue the tiny amount of lithium I've been taking. I've suspected for a long time that this was a misdiagnosis. More drugs just made the whole mess much worse. After having discontinued everything except a daily token dose of lithium, this is the best I"ve felt in about eight years.

It make me so sad that this happened to me. Very sad. Not sad enough to take an antidepressant. Never again. I tried tri-cyclics in the 1980s, SSRIs in this decade, and a few other things mixed in along the way. I have learned this for sure:

There is not an anti-depressant on the planet that doesn't make me far worse off than what nature has made of me. Those things should be illegal until they're better understood. Doctors need real training, not just what the pretty pharmaceutical reps whisper in their ears.