Where the blog has May gone??

I'm still here. I have a full brain still; I just haven't had time to sit down and write through the many thoughts filling my head.

So many thoughts.

Bedtime story

Xanax.

grumble

I am thinking about lunch. I don't want what I have on hand, and I didn't bring anything with me to work. I may have to get off my ass and find something outside. Maybe I'll just go hungry.

Nah.

Maybe it's something I ate

Weird dreams have slithered into my head. It's been going on for weeks. They play like full-length movies. Sometimes the dreams make sense, and sometimes they are more obtuse than a Luis Buñel film.

I always wake up 4:13 or 4:43. I know this because we have a clock that projects the time onto the ceiling in big, red digits that I can see without my glasses. It's a little creepy, frankly, to always wake up at the same time and for no particular reason other than having had a bizarre, usually disturbing, dream.

At long last and may it last long!

Summer's here
I'm for that
Got my rubber sandals
Got my straw hat
Got my cold beer
I'm just glad that it's here

Summer's here
That suits me fine
It may rain today
But I don't mind
It's my favorite time of the year
And I'm glad that it's here

Old man wintertime
He goes so slow
It's ten degrees below, you know
You can take your ice and snow
And let my balmy breezes blow

Yeah, the water is cold but I've been in
Baby, lose the laundry and jump on in
I mean all God's children got skin
And it's summer again

Old man wintertime
He goes so slow
It's ten degrees below, you know
You can take your ice and snow
And let my balmy breezes blow

Summer's here
I'm for that
Got my rubber sandals
Got my straw hat
Drinking cold beer
Man I'm just that I'm here
It's my favorite time of the year
And I'm glad that it's here, yeah

1981 James Taylor, from the album, Dad Loves His Work

The best

Someone took this picture of me a few days ago while I was giving a presentation at a community event. I think this is, hands down, the best photo anyone has ever taken of me.

A long way, but then not

Every day, I wake up and think about dying. Specifically, I wonder if the burning, cramping pain around my liver is anything that might kill me, sparing me the effort of doing it myself someday.

I have no other symptoms apart from the pain, so I remain confident that it's yet another uncomfortable but benign condition. No, I have not seen a doctor about it, nor do I intend to, just as I have set aside the nonsense of pap smears and pelvic exams, mammograms, annual physicals, and just about anything else having to do with doctors.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the dentist. I still do that twice a year. My dentist is fabulous, and he never tries to sell me any procedure that isn't warranted. So far, he's not made a dime from me apart from whatever insurance pays for checkups and cleanings. He doesn't even do X-rays because, well, they don't appear to be necessary.

While we were chatting about his practice's new logo, somehow the topic of my post-herpetic neuralgia came up. Probably around the time I was talking about giving back all of the useless drugs that didn't help me when the DEA had their annual roundup. I mentioned that I should just have antivirals ready to go as a pre-emptive strike when symptoms start, but I've sworn off doctors, so I just suffer when the relapses come.

My dentist walked over to his computer and printed out a prescription for Valtrex. He smiled and said, "I'm obligated to tell you to use these at the first sign of, um, a herpes blister on your lip or in your mouth." We both laughed out loud. I love one-stop shopping.

I did not mention my daily thoughts related to my own demise. Why would I? That's between me and me.

Lately, I've been working a lot. Really a lot. That's something I was specifically told not to do because it's bad for my central nervous system--the part of me that doesn't work quite right but no one can diagnose. How does anyone know what's bad for me when they can't even identify the underlying problem?

Working a lot is my new suicide strategy. I've been working on several projects related to refugees, community education, awareness, as well as just creating a new work situation in my regular duties that will make the whole situation much more difficult and demanding. I hope to collapse and be done with it. This way, no one can say that I killed myself, but more importantly, even if I do take the blame, no one can accuse me of having wasted my life. Everything I do these days is making the world a better place. I'm helping humanity. I'm helping my coworkers. I'm bending over backwards to be useful around the house, to work in the garden, to keep the place neat.

I'm a lot of things, but I don't ever want to be a drag on anyone. Useful it is, then.

I have no obligation to be a good person. I could, theoretically be a slacker and that would be OK, too. Instead, though, I'm hoping to go out having worked my ass off making the most of what I have to offer to the world: Compassion (and it is, actually, sincere), project management skills, an analytical, problem-solving mind, and a dedication to hard work. I'm going to give all I have and hope it kills me.

I have no friends here where I live. I am awkward in social situations and because all I do is work, I am not interesting to talk to. I don't expect the friend situation to change anytime soon. work fills the gaps and isn't nearly as painful as exercise. It is painful for me to know that people I like don't like me back and can barely contain their contempt. This situation is very real. It is often more painful to know this than to feel what my nerves are doing to me.

My body hurts. A lot. Constantly. It's not just my liver or pancreas or whatever is causing me pain in my upper right abdomen. No, my pelvis feels like it's shattering. My right hip hurts so badly, sometimes I can't sit or stand comfortably. My right knee is on fire. My lower abdominal cramps can take my breath away.

Ah, but as we know, according to western medicine, I'm just a nutjob and this is some sort of emotional problem. Doctors. Why bother? I will not be humiliated again. Well, I likely will be, but not by a doctor.

May Voirrey is exhausted. I am tired, worn out, and weary. I don't want to stay in a world where people like a very speficic version of me, but don't want anything to do with the real, complete version.

The week after my birthday, my friend Jolie was here. She commented on the plethora of birthday cards displayed in my living room. She said it was evidence that people cared about me. Looks can be deceiving. The display space was small, so it doesn't take much to fill it. A handful of cards can look like a bounty. There were four cards from my mother, all pointedly mocking my half-century birthday. There were two cards from my husband, a large fold-out card from my coworkers which most of them never bothered to get around to signing, one was from my real estate agent, one was from one of my brothers, one came from my insurance company, one from my boss, and one from my in-laws.

I do not consider this a very encouraging inventory of my value to the world on a personal level.

My inherent dorkiness and lack of feeling loved as I am is what is killing me.

True, that.

My name is May Voirrey and I try to make the world a better place every single day that I choose to be alive.

Food for thought: Zero calories

One of my new favorite columns online: Body Wars on Salon.com.

Well, duuuuh.

There has been some buzz going on about a research study recently published by the university of Arizona. the study looked at global attitudes about obesity and found that in places where being overweight was once seen as a positive, stigma is growing.

In some places attitudes are merely shifting, but in countries like the U.S., the psychological damage related to obesity is becoming profound. A quote from the published study shows just how warped our perception about weight has become:

"The participants were asked to choose whether they would rather be obese or have one of 12 socially stigmatized conditions, such as alcoholism or herpes. In many cases, the women would rather have more of the other conditions, with 25.4 percent preferring severe depression and 14.5 percent preferring total blindness over obesity."

Having been both obese and depressed, I am well aware that both conditions are deeply stigmatized and social judgment is pervasive. I am not depressed now, but I know that if I were to fall ill again, I would not take any medication that has weight gain as a side effect.

Weight gain was one the top two reasons I stopped taking all of the medications that were supposed to help my chronic pain and neurological blips.

So, yeah, I'm with the study participants. I would rather suffer terribly than be fat. It all comes down to social acceptance.

Click here to link the study. To read a much better commentary than mine about this, click here.

Heart of Darkness

I've been thinking a lot about compassion lately. It's a quality I want to embrace more readily. This is a struggle. This is a struggle because I am inherently a judgmental person.

Many people who know me believe I am a liberal, through and through. This is actually not the case. I think I'm balanced. I am very liberal on some topics, but down-right narrow-minded on others. This doesn't make me a bad person. It means that I hate many of the realities of this world.

I think the Second Amendment was a huge mistake. It made sense at the time in the context it was written, but I'm pretty sure today's gun laws were not what our founding fathers had in mind. I agree with Chris Rock: Bullets should cost $5,000 then there wouldn't be any "innocent bystanders." And really, is anyone actually hunting wild game with semi-automatic weapons?

I don't think that living in public housing should be easy. It shouldn't be a way of life. I spend quite a bit of time in the public housing complexes in my county, and I always come away discouraged because of what I see. Here's what I propose. Anyone who wants the assistance and breathing room public housing provides should not be allowed to consume alcohol or recreational drugs at any time while living in taxpayer-funded housing. Mandatory random drug testing. Anyone, male or female, of childbearing age should have to be on birth control for the duration of the time they are in public housing. It should be a condition of receiving assistance. Additional babies would not equal additional assistance dollars. All family planning services would be free for residents, as would classes in nutrition, health, financial literacy, and those for GED preparation. Daycare would be free for those parents who who work or attend school in a certificate program. Get convicted of a crime, lose your lease.

School administrators who suspend a five-year-old kindergartener for slapping another kid's hand in response to that kid snatching the first kid's Play-Dough, well, they should be fired. They obviously lack critical thinking skills and have no clue about the purpose of kindergarten as it relates to child development.

Panhandlers should be required to have a permit and their earnings should be taxed.

When people intentionally take up two parking spots to avoid getting scratches on their car, their cars should be vaporized.

Taggers should go to jail.

Smokers and the morbidly obese should have to pay more for health insurance.

Hospice care should be free. Counseling for end-of-life options and decisions should be mandatory. And free.

Banks would not be allowed to screw their customers--the people whose money keeps them in business--with greed.

Food stamps should only cover healthful foods. Period. No junk, no soda.

All religious organizations should be taxed as the businesses they really are.

No more pork barrel projects, agricultural subsidies, energy industry tax breaks, etc.

At election time, there should be no bilingual ballots. No, no,no. Learning English is a requirement of gaining citizenship and has been for a very long time. Therefore, nobody who is eligible to vote should even need a bilingual ballot.

The pledge of Allegiance should be restored to its original authored form, and the words "under God" (added by conservatives in the 1950s) should be taken out.

Pharmaceutical companies should not be allowed to advertise to the consumer, not should they be allowed to wine/dine or sell to physicians. Physicians should be required to take a certain number of professional development credits each year, and none of it can be presented or sponsored by any pharmaceutical.

And that is the not-so-compassionate world according to May Voirrey.

It has advantages

While watching the finale of "The Amazing Race" last night, my husband started to visibly cringe when all of the participants--male and female--had to undergo a Brazilian body waxing. While Frank winced at the coverage of hair being ripped from human flesh, I was absorbed by my own attempts to imagine participating in the episode. I was puzzled, actually, as I tried to imagine what would happen to me in that situation.

Here's the thing. I have essentially no body hair. There is no lack of hair on my head, but my arms and legs, which used to have a somewhat downy covering of baby-fine blond hair, are almost entirely hair-free. I do not have to shave my underarms because there is nothing there to shave. Occasionally I will sprout one or two lone, fine underarm hairs, but otherwise, the skin is smooth, soft, and hairless.

I wasn't always like this, though. I was never a particulary hirsute person at all, bu somewhere in my 30s, my skin stopped producing hair. No one has ever been able to explain this to me.

There is an exception: My big toe, and that's just a bizarre anomaly, all things considered.

A Brazilian body wax would probably strip me of my skin. Ewwww.