Our family needs a personal assistant

Because why?  Because every now and again when I go to clear the answering machine of messages - I discover things.  Things that should have been written down kind of things.  When we get to around 8 saved messages, I try to clean them out.  Yesterday I discovered that, unbeknownst to me, my friend Lisa had called.  Might have been sometime in the last week.  Did I know about it?  No.

So I asked at the breakfast table this morning. "Did Lisa happen to call in the last little while?"

David and Rissa made thinking faces for a moment before they both said, "Nope.  Don't think so.  I didn't take a message from Lisa."  Then they went back to enjoying their breakfast.

"So there wasn't say, a message on the answering machine from Lisa maybe?"

Immediately, David reconfirmed.  "Nope.  No messages."

"No messages.  From Lisa.  On the answering machine?"

David's eyes rolled into his head, trying to access his internal CPU.  His shoulders hunched a tiny bit.

"Ummmm...  Which Lisa?"

He was playing it that way.  "The Lisa, who was the Matron of Honour at our wedding, Lisa..."

He winced.  "That Lisa.  Yes, there might have been a message from that Lisa."

"So when you said that Lisa didn't call..."

"I wasn't lying..."

"You weren't?"

"No," he said emphatically.  "I wasn't.  I just couldn't recall the existence of such a message."

Note to self: check the phone messages daily.

I love sleep so much I want to marry it.

I need to wax poetic for a moment.

Sleep, oh thou elixir of life, how your enveloping embrace maketh me to want to give you sexual favours. 

Calcium Channel blockers, oh thou relaxer of blood vessels (even the small ones), how your pervasive travel through my system maketh me want to praise your merits in song to the heavens! 

"I love my drugs!  I love my drugs!  I L-O-O-O-OVE MY DRUUUUUUUUUUUGS!!!"

My angina drugs are working again!  I woke today after a good 8 hours sleep.  Halle-freaking-lujah!!

Sleep just makes EVERYTHING better.  (Especially when you haven't been sleeping through the night for more than a couple of weeks.)  Look family!  It's your wife/mother - she's smiling and it's morning!

I'm not saying that you should just leap onto the Calcium Channel blocker train for your night sweats, but for me, when the angina meds finally kicked in, my night sweats became manageable, and my secret boyfriend, SLEEP, came back to me.  Anecdotal evidence at best, but it works for me!  I am human once more.

Ladies and Gentlemen - I give you the well-rested Heather!

No still means NO

Rehtaeh Parsons case: RCMP worried posters supporting 4 boys could incite vigilantism

 

ALL KINDS OF WRONG: CNN Pays Touching Tribute To The Rapists Who Attacked A 16-Year-Old Girl

 

Michigan High School Chooses To Protect Star Basketball Player Instead Of His Rape Victims

So I guess this is the beginning of the end.  This is when civilization collapses around us.  Our society, has lost its collective mind.  Apparently, we now throw our support behind those who violate, assault and rape girls.   And then we justify our support because it was alleged that the girl was drunk, dressed a certain way, or 'asking for it.'

When did it become acceptable to sexually assault a girl?  When did it become acceptable to watch a girl get sexually assaulted and then Instagram and Tweet it?  When did it become acceptable to call a girl a slut and make her life a living hell after the pics and tweets went public?

Oh wait!  I remember, IT DIDN'T.

IT IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.  

How about the next time a young woman is at a party, the people around her PROTECT her?  How about we treat her with the same care we would show towards our sisters... daughters... nieces... cousins and granddaughters?   How about we stand UP, not stand BY?   Even if the people doing the violating are on the football team or basketball team or 'popular.' Even if it means that by standing up you might not be popular afterwards.  How about we lay blame where it belongs: at the feet of the perpetrators - all of them - those hands-on and the ones who give them tacit permission, by doing nothing to stop them.

'Cause if this is the way the world is going?  If my daughter isn't safe with her peers?  I will quit civilization, start a commune in the middle of nowhere and surround myself with people who will respect and protect one another.

Sneezy Pee...

I should have done WAY more Kegels while pregnant.  Firming up that pelvic floor should have been a priority.  Sure I did them, but I don't think I did enough of them.  Kegels are a bit weird...  I don't know, kind of... squidgy...  Concentrating on those muscles for too long - it made me feel like I was trying to turn myself inside out.

Of course if I had taken the Kegels seriously, perhaps I wouldn't now have to stop walking when I sneeze... or cough.  If I feel a sneeze (or cough) coming on while I'm walking, I have to stop in mid-stride so that I can do a quick, standing leg-cross to ensure that I don't wet my pants.   My friends and I used to laugh at those commercials for the adult diapers - I especially remember the one with an attractive 50-something gal laughing while trying on clothes and she gets this look and you know that she's just peed her pants. 

Now, when I have to pee - I really have to pee.  There is no 'holding it.'  If I even think about it too much, that might set me off.  I try tightening those pelvic floor muscles, but if I'm not close to a bathroom?  Game over.  And God!  If you happen to cough or sneeze as you're getting ready to sit on the toilet?  You might as well disrobe and head straight to the shower - it'll be easier than trying to dry yourself up with wadded toilet paper.

And that's when I figured out I was deformed...

These little piggies need to go to a podiatrist...

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you... HAMMER TOE GIRL!!!  Or possibly MALLET TOE GIRL! or CLAW TOE GIRL!  44 years old and I just realized that I have mutant feet.  I thought I was dealing with some minor foot pain, brought on by corns.   Turns out I'm actually a GEN-U-INE mutant!  My feet have mutated!  And it's all brought on by wearing bad shoes - the fashionable yet tight, the beautiful yet pointy, the drop-dead-gorgeous yet heely - kinds.  My feet have been fucked over by beautiful shoes.

David is threatening to have me committed if I spend any more time fixating on my toes or looking at any pictures of weird-ass toes online.  In comparison to Google search images, mine really aren't that bad.  It's just the two next to my baby toe - on both feet.  They've always been a little bit 'piggy' in my opinion.  But seeing as I'd been brought up playing the "This Little Piggy" game - my toes totally seemed to make sense.  But then, in researching corns, I looked up hammer toes and found out there was a whole tool-oriented labelling system for weird-ass toes - and then I realized, "Wait a second - those sort of look like MY weird-ass toes!"

I knew that my feet had spread after having kids.  I knew that.  They are definitely wider.  I had to purchase a whole 1/2 size larger after having Rissa.  I replaced ALL my shoes because they weren't wide enough.  But my feet never hurt until recently.  OH GOD!  It was March Break!  I wore a pair of wedge-heeled boots and we walked so much - I had to purchase an emergency pair of converse just so that I wouldn't die from the pain.  That was the beginning of the end.

I don't want to have to wear Birkenstocks all the time!  I get that they're comfy - I get that they feel good - I even owned a knock-off pair myself, when I was in university.  But here's the thing: you start off thinking that you'll just wear them in the summer, but then you end up wearing them with socks in the fall, then winter and soon, you've morphed into a modern-day hippie and once that happens, you might as well start that commune, wear a poncho and grow pot to sell to glaucoma patients.  I'm totally going to end up in the BIG HOUSE because of my mutant feet.

PMS Dance Party

The days of miracles have returned!  I am the living, breathing recipient of a freaking miracle!  PRAISE BE TO EVERY GODDESS ASSOCIATED WITH THE FEMININE CYCLE!! For the first time in over 8 years, my period is LATE!!!  (insert Hallelujah Chorus here)

It has been almost 5 weeks since my last cycle.  To some women - this is a nothing, a bit of fluff in the great scheme of things.  Some women have long, irregular cycles as a matter of course.  Not I.  Lately, I was down to the 15 or 17 day cycle.  Now every time I go to pee - knowing that I'm past my 'regular' cycle, I do a spot check.  Seriously.  "Am I bleeding?  Now?  "How 'bout now?"

This means that for over a month I haven't had to be drugged!  Well, not for this.  I have a spring in my step, a swagger in my walk, a smile in my speech - all the time.  Well, most of the time.

Yesterday, I might have wanted to kill all living things in my house.  Blinding rage when they had the nerve to ask me how my day was, or whether or not one of them had time for a dentist appointment today.  "Why should I know, what YOUR schedule is?!?

I went driving and had to stop myself from forcing idiot drivers off the freaking road.  "Oh, you had to turn there?!?  Do you know what a fucking turn signal is?!?  DO YOU, YOU YELLOW RAT BASTARD?!?"

I was packaging books to ship and became so stressed that my angina kicked in.  I cried in the parking lot after buying food for dinner.

That's when it struck me that my behaviour was not in the normal range. Disproportionate emotional response to stimuli, weepiness, revenge fantasies... this was PMS.  REALLY BAD PMS.  Crazy-ass PMS which apparently has me teetering on the edge of The Cliffs of Insanity.  Worse PMS than usual.  Is that the trade-off?  Longer periods, but I might get arrested for manslaughter?  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I might prefer the saner, shorter periods.  Seriously.  If I'm going to turn into an emotional fuck nut who is pissed off at the world - who scares her spouse, child and pets... I'll take a little more blood, more frequently and just spend those first two days drugged out of mind.

How long can you tread water?

Underwater photography by the amazing Rafal Makiela

I'm making the effort.  My head's above the surface... but there are days....  Days when, honestly, it would be easier to go under and stay under.  Suck in water and sit at the bottom of the pool.  Instead, I drown proof.

I've been fighting my body for as long as I can remember.  Since I was a kid.  But the last 6 years have been particularly challenging.  72 Months.  2190 Days.  Some of those days I just want to raise the white flag.

I am a walking, talking bundle of symptoms.  Every new doctor has a new theory.  I suspect that many of their theories centre around me being a hypochondriacal fuck-nut.  I'm not crazy.  There are times when I just want to do my best Barbra Streisand and yell at the top of my lungs "I WON'T BE NUTS FOR YOU!!"

My mother says I'm "sensitive," that I'm 'in tune' with my body.  I'm pretty sure she says this, while inside, she wonders where the hell I came from.  Migraines, Hypoglycemia, Peri-menopause, Hashimoto's Disease, and Microvascular Angina.  I am so tired of being tired.  And when I'm this exhausted the bitter twins gang up on me: ennui and entropy.  They make me want to sit... and eat ice cream.. and weep,  instead of purposefully walking out into the fresh air.  They turn me into a peevish sheep.  I HATE being a peevish sheep!  Meh.

And I know, I KNOW that I'm fighting symptoms that I really can't control.  People ask me how I am and, for the most part, I lie.  Because they don't want to know... not really.  I don't want to be the girl who whines, but she's there inside me, just itching to get out.   The thyroid crap and the peri-menopause alone can make a gal wiggy, but it's the attending depression on the periphery, hiding just out of sight, that terrifies me.  I lost 2 years of my life to it when I was in my 20s.  I don't ever want to go back.

So I sit up a little taller.  I take in a breath.  Sometimes I cry.  I distract myself with the wonderful.  And often, when another day has crept above the horizon - it's better.