...

(march 08)

Well it looks like I'll be getting back into the health food stores. Work, I mean. Selling herbs. The very thing I decided not to do anymore, after what happened to my head. After all that I've adopted a new attitude: it's not my problem. Your health issues, that is. Because would it even be right to go back to selling supplements and telling folks what to put in their bodies when I was hit upside the hea WAIT!! I just realized! Not only is it right, but it adds to my whole selling charm! It doesn't compromise a thing! How come I never looked at it this way before? I recovered from encephalitis, the most nasty thing to happen to your head. Just the sound of it is nasty. I bounced back and the only thing different (like I said in previous blog) is my slightly spacey memory. I was thinking about it today and realized, all that means is that I just need to try a little harder. I just haven't been trying I think.
So I can be like, yes, see here Mr. Customer, take this herb and this one and that one too! Take them all! Listen to what I say because I am super-healthy as evidenced by my complete recovery from a bad brain infection.

Well now I'm back to the whole visitor map thing, which I get hooked on, like watching the aquarium at the State Fair that has the big turtle in it, the moss-covered one who has a tricky glowing tongue that lures in the little fish. But about the job thing. I'm dangerous. I'm doing it my way now. All this time I've been playing by these new rules, where you go in and ask for an application, only to be told to go home and apply online. I've been doing this for about 3 months now? 4? 5? I've lost track. I don't know if it's the schedule I'm applying for, or the fact that I haven't been employed in over a year that's holding me back. Who knows. Well I do know the schedule thing is a catch, the place I almost got hired at only needs daytime help, but I can only work in the evenings, because I'm sharing a car with my mom. If it weren't for that I would have been hired this week. But this virtual application deal doesn't work for me. I need human contact. And so that's what I'm going to do. This is how I always used to get jobs in the past. I don't know why I'm just now doing it. I typed up my own version of a resume. It's short, funny, and cute. And then, I take several copies and deposit them generously, like candied sprinkles on cupcakes, all over town, not calling first, not asking, "are you hiring?" and other trivial things. No. This is what works for me. Just walk on in & smile, shake whatever hand is around, put my li'l paper in hand, turn, and walk away. This is exactly how I got my last job and the one before, too. It just sort of goes with me. I'm tired of trying to get a job the real way.

So. I already have about 5 health food stores in mind. New ones that I didn't know existed. I got online & searched in some nearby cities, some smaller places. Yes. I got my eye on a few mom & pop stores. I'm going to do my thing tomorrow. And I'm going to be ballsy.

I guess since this is a new blog I should say, I lost everything when this happened to me. My apartment, job, daughter had to go live with her dad. My state of mind was just blank. Seizures, limping, slurred speech. Perfectly happy to stare at a blank wall all day. I've downplayed it all this time in blogs, mainly because it was too hard to face the reality of it all. In fact I've only recently been processing alot of it and just now grasping the fact that I really did lose everything. Oh and my car too! On top of everything else, I lost my car. I gave it to a relative when I couldn't afford the repairs, thinking a new one would magically appear in my life. It hasn't. I gave it to the relative for him to sell, because he's the one who got it for me to begin with, and I wanted to repay him. So it's not like I just lost my mind and gave away my car.

This has been painfully slow, getting back up and running. If you've never experienced a health crisis and had to drop everything there's no way you'd understand. In fact I never really had that much sympathy for unemployed or disabled folks until now. Now I see the hurdles they have to overcome to get back into the swing of things. And the funny thing is- most of the hurdles are mental! Like, psychological! It's the weirdest thing! Just keeping yourself motivated and keeping yourself afloat is hard. You get depressed. You feel worthless. I've pretty much felt as if I've slipped through the cracks of life.





...

(september 07)

You know, I've been thinking, and I have come to the conclusion that I have every right to frustrate other people right now. I've decided NOT to say where I'm going next. Look at it this way: each and every day, you can get in your car and go places, while I, however, am trapped day in and day out, choosing not to have my car right now because then I'd have to be a bum and get a family member to pay for my insurance, which would be a waste right now, seeing as how I have no place to go and no money to get there even if I did.

So~ I think my moving around so much is totally justified and I sort of secretly hope I am giving a few folks a good headache, making them say "to heck with her", but then they break down and find me again. I need you to read, and you need me to feed you all this nonsense. It's a match made in heaven.



Wait, did my point even get made or did I lose you in that connection? I'm saying, I can't go anywhere in real life, so I think that's why I'm moving around so much online. Is it? Or would I be doing it this way regardless? Or, would I even be doing this at all if I had a normal life right now?



See, you need to be with me as I ask myself these things.

..

I just had to escort the cat back to my mom's bedroom because she is terrified of the smoke detector and the chirping. I didn't even know she was in here, and just out of the blue, she comes slinking out of my closet with her ears back, walking all low to the ground and slow. I didn't know what her deal was, in fact I thought maybe she got into my Armageddon Stash and got poisoned or something. But as it turns out she is afraid of the sound coming from the hall closet and she was scared to walk past it to get to my mom's room. So I had to coax her and reassure her, and so she slowly started to follow me, but each time it chirped she'd jump and get all wide-eyed and frozen with fear. Finally, after about 3 minutes I got her back there to my mom's room.



Now I am making some tea, and I have decided to entertain myself tonight by taking some of those online retarded quizzes that people put up on their myspace pages. I am going to solve all of my mysteries tonight, and I will share the results here.

I am the worst friend in the world. Turned down AJ wanting to go to a cultural dance thing. Or rent a movie. I just can't. I told her, my days are numbered that I can sit and write all day long, for all I know, on Tuesday I will be set free, that is if my PUBA is nothing to be concerned about, therefore I want to make the most of it and make sure I have squeezed out every little drop of inner nerd inside of me, before I rejoin society and put on the mask once more. The mask that hides it all. The one I wear when interviewing, when dealing with the general public, and on dates. The Normal Mask.



You know what? This is why I have been so conflicted these past few years. I can no longer put on any front, or hide anything, or bend and mold myself to another person's standards, thereby narrowing my pool of options down to, oh, let's say, negative 0. If there is such a number.



I just can't alter myself anymore. Can't be quiet and dumb and submissive and agreeable and normal. No, see, that's how I spent the first half of my life. I need to do this other half right. I need to just be myself. I need a weird man. I need a guy who's brain runs all the time like mine. Or nothing at all. Please God don't stick me with some dumpy man named Chuck who drinks a 12 pack all day in front of the tv and burps and farts and smells like hot dogs. Please God, please no.

..

If it turns out that it's a fluid problem in my spine/brain, I know I still did the right thing by not saying anything about it to the docs. See, when all this first happened, before I got any diagnosis or tests or anything, I told my mom about the prayer and about the fluid problem. My mom said, "in this case Amy it's best not to mention that, just let the doctors do their thing and explore and find out what the problem is their way." And so I never brought it up, except I did show one doc my toe, when he was doing all this stuff to me to check for a concussion or something? All I know is, I had to balance on one foot and try to push his arms down. No, wait, I had to try to hold MY arms up, while he tried to push them down. Turns out my right side is weak, well of course it was, because my leg had a blowout and I limped like a wounded stray dog. So this doc saw it, and asked about it, and I told him I had surgery as a child, and what they did to it, and just out of the blue he goes, "Was it at Scottish Rite Hospital?" It was! Then he just looked at me for a minute. I didn't ask how he knew, because then it would be freaky if it turned out that he was like an intern or something at the time. How would he know that, anyway?

So my mom said, they probably wouldn't listen to me if I went in there and told them I thought I had a fluid build-up problem, and that they look at everything by the facts and not what the people come in claiming to have. So I never said anything. But now I'm going to. I'm just going to tell them how much better I felt after the lumbar puncture, hopefully avoid another one, and hope they start looking in that direction. I know the west nile is all gone and all my blood has now are antibodies. I really don't think that ever was the main issue. How could it be? They say only young and old folks get it, and sickly people, which I'm not.



Now the smoke detector is wrapped up in a fur coat in the hall closet because neither one of us can make it be quiet. My mom called the apartment maintenance man and he said it's the battery, but it's not. There is no battery. Well there is, but it's trapped up in there under all these wires. My mom says that's the "backup battery" and that this is an electrical smoke detector. We both tried getting the battery out but they've made it impossible to do so. My mom says SHITTIN' TOMATOES! when she's frustrated. She said that the first time I ever drove a car. I was 14 and she made me go on a "driving lesson" which I was terrified of. My first time behind the wheel and I mess up already. I got the accelerator pedal mixed up with the brake, which is common of course, but that's all I heard, SHITTIN TOMATOES, Amy!!!

I also had to pull over to the side of the road every time a car approached on the other side. She laughed at me. She said, "Amy this happens every day, all over the world. Cars pass each other and nobody gets hurt." I still don't believe her. I think it's only a matter of time before we all get hurt in a wreck. Cars are rolling metal boxes on wheels and you risk your very life every time you get behind the wheel. I say I like fast cars but that's just because I like the look of them. I really don't want to go fast in one.

I'm done with going fast, in every area of my life. I don't want to be rushed ever again. I want to take my time and go at my own pace from here on out.



My life is not going to be a struggle, ever again.

..


About the caller ID. I do not answer any call unless I know for a fact who it is, and maybe not even then. So leave a message because names never show up. And I'm not one of those curious people who are like, "Oh, whoever could that be? Let's call them and find out." As if.

The only reason I have a cell phone is because my mom insisted. (I threw my other one into the dumpster when I first came out here.) (disassembled it first..broke it in half. Battery went in one trash, bottom part of the phone went in another, top part went onto the road. Like a serial killer.)

Destroying and trashing objects is very good therapy and if you think it sounds nutty, I ask you to try it. Just once. Look around the room, is there any object that you have one bad memory with? It could be furniture, or an article of clothing, or something in the kitchen. Anything. Now stop and think about it. Why should that object have a say in how you feel? Are you going to stand for this? Are you going to let some inanimate object have power over you? Don't be fooled by sentiment. So what if it's been in the family for a century. Listen. Take it out back and set fire to it. Stand back and watch it burn. As the smoke rises, let your feelings that are associated with it go up as well. Release. Breathe. Let go.

Another method is breaking. This works well with glass items. Put it into a plastic bag first, tie it up, then smash it hard on the kitchen floor. My method of preference is simply the dumpster. The dumpster is my new Goodwill trailer. I've stopped taking items altogether to the trailer, and just donate them into the trash. If you think about it, this is the most considerate way to get rid of something, because whoever owns it next will get it for free.



Parting with objects is good for you and once you start it will be hard to go back to your old way of life.



I own almost nothing at this point in time.



I have two pairs of flip-flops, a few pairs of jeans, one pair of shorts and a few T's. All else has been trashed. How on earth could I hold on to ANYTHING during this time in my life? Would YOU save a shirt you were wearing on the day you had to leave work and be picked up by your mother and taken to the ER because you thought you were losing your mind? Would YOU hold on to the jeans you wore on the day you got a lumbar puncture? I doubt it. I am now looking at several boxes in my closet that contain all my kitchen items, lovingly packed by my mother when I had to move. I was going to leave it all behind but she said I'd need it all again one day. I just don't want these things. I want so bad to make some trips to the dumpster tonight. Yes I know I'll need kitchen things again, but I want to start fresh.



Now my mom is at war with the smoke alarm, it's chirping and neither one of us can get it to shut up. And it screams at you when you try to take it down. See? Everything on this planet is a wearisome burden and hindrance. Everything. Objects = being weighed down = depression. Now do you understand? If you don't I'll be happy to explain in further detail.



I found out that my brother in law knows about Cowboy Harry. I don't want to know how he knows. He just mentioned it and was laughing. I was hoping to stay under the radar with that one but I think my family is starting to catch on to what exactly I've been up to for the past few months.

What will become of me?

..

now, in addition to everything else, I am the proud owner of a PUBA. (puffy upper butt area.)

It's just not right. After gaining a little weight from those seizure meds (that and doing nothing but sitting around), it's finally all come off, I'm just about back to normal. And now this. Maybe this is why I never noticed it before? Like, maybe it was there all along, and it's just now standing out because the surrounding puff is gone?

Which way will I go on this? Get all self-conscious? Or, name it and own it? Show it off?

I could go either way.



It is so hard to be a woman. Defined by our bodies. Well, not really. But if you want to keep up, you have to take all that into consideration. I'm not shallow but I do care. I always will. I cannot let myself go. I'll never be a buxom blonde that makes men drool all over themself, however, I do carry my own personal charm, even if it does emit from a figure that sometimes resembles a 12 year old boy.



So what if I don't have a lot of shape (where it counts.) I make up for it. Somehow.



In junior high, I stuffed my bra. All it took was a few cotton balls in each one, and bam! It was a dramatic difference.

But I like myself just how I am, other than the fact that I seem to carry all my fat in my thighs. Other than that, I feel pretty good about myself for an almost 38 year old with a PUBA.



Everybody has SOMETHING. You have to. If you don't, it's not right. You have to have something that you are embarrassed about but then you say to heck with it and then you show it off.



I think I'm just trying to cope with the fact that I have just discovered this place on my back that looks like I rolled over onto a kiwi and it got embedded in there. You know how you see those stories in the tabloids of people (really huge people) rolling onto things like pork chops in their sleep, and it gets embedded in there, only to be discovered by xray years later? This is what it looks like. What I want to know is, is it fluid in my skin? Covering what? What are they seeing in my spinal column? What exactly IS inflammation? That is such a general term, it could be used on anything. What does it mean? Swelling? Redness?

And then...there's the whole bone loss thing going on. Another thing I have conveniently mentally blocked out. Are these things related? WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING IN MY SPINE?????



And how will they get rid of the puff? And will it be an ongoing thing? Or can they make it go away for good?



If I have to have surgery, even if it's something trivial, everybody is going to suffer along with me. I will not experience this alone.

..


(Oct 1, 2007)

I've now officially told the entire world where I've been.

Sort of finding it difficult to tell you where I'm going, though. I'm stalling. Just hanging out here on this page, knowing it's time to close down shop, yet goofing off and not really wanting to make a real break.

Because when I do, when I lay this computer down for good, that will be it. Oh, no, don't doubt me. I said the same thing to my coworker on my last day at work. She said, "Amy it's all going to be ok, you're going to get checked out and everything is going to be just fine, then you're going to come back in a few days and it's all going to be ok." I told her, and I knew, just like I know now, I said, "No, you don't understand. If I leave here today, if I go in there and clock out, I am never coming back."

And the same goes for this, right here and now. I'm at the end.



During this time the impossible has been accomplished. I got the help I needed, in more ways than one. "I am healing you"...could it have been, emotional healing?



God knows I never would have gotten anywhere in somebody's office. There is nothing another human being, no matter how qualified, could have done for me. I needed to be in control and say it all and get it all out on my own, at my own pace, saying what I wanted and when I wanted. He knows that. And so He granted me this time. And gave me people to hear me. What more could I have asked for?



Where I'm going.



How much should I say?

Some of it is just too precious to speak of. Some of it has been slowly shown to me over time. That's how He is with me. He shows me big things really gently.



I can tell you this. I am going to have a family once more. And not only that, but...

well, how can I say it?





I am going to leave you with this. You can figure it out, if you want.



My brother in law took me to get Ozone therapy done a few months ago, right? To knock out whatever remained of the west nile. It worked.

But~

well.... God has shown me something about my life, something He is going to bless me with. It's a big thing (for me at least) and He's been gentle about it, showing me hints and clues here and there, but He never came out and said it straight up cause He knew it would make me freak.

Until now.

He told me straight-up about something He's going to do.



I'll put it this way: I just found out about one of the benefits of Ozone therapy. You know what it does??



In addition to everything else, it breaks down scar tissue.



And that's all I am going to say.

:)







Who knew?



Goodbye, blogging. I have to say goodbye now. For real.

It's time to be quiet. It's time to be still and it's time to listen.



Oh, where am I going?

Wouldn't you like to know!





Love, Amy.


wait! and then there's this one...

About 8 or 9 months ago I saw this:

A bottle of champagne dropped into a pale blue laundry hamper, among folded towels & clothes, to be hidden in there. Smuggled? When I saw this I heard God say in my spirit: "I have hidden your celebration in the folds of time."



?????

smuggled champagne? Who would do that and why? And why a laundry hamper????







About 5 months ago I heard this:



"You have touched many lives, Amy, and now I am going to touch yours. Be still and know that I am God."





well....He's touching my life alright...I can only wonder, what is going to happen?

What's next?

... Who knows?


hospital things


(Sep 30, 2007)


Well, several things on the plate right now, which one do you want first? The fact that I smell like Playdough right now, or all the things I've been shown that have to do with the hospital?



About the Playdough, it's because of this lotion from Bath & Bodyworks, it LOOKS good but it's NOT. It's the Rice Flower & Shea. At first you think it makes you smell like vanilla, then come to find out, you smell like a toddler. It's starting to give me a headache. But at least I noticed today how long my hair is getting, it's now at my shoulders. And I have decided to NEVER cut it again. I think I've made it this long without cutting it because there's been nobody to make me mad. I have noticed something, though. Some more gray hairs. It's true. My first one appeared from out of nowhere one day in '99, then it's been a slow and steady stream ever since. I pluck them as soon as I see them, and the funny thing is, they all seem to be on the right side. So far I think I've had about 18.



(wave)



You know, I've discovered something during this time. I can talk about things, including the things God shows me, and the world keeps spinning and nobody comes to take me away. I am starting to realize, it's all ok.



Before all of this happened, I saw several things that gave me some clues that I might be doing time in the hospital, but after reporting them all to my loving mother, she did a lot of praying and so did I, and since I've gotten all better I have been thinking, God is like, "Nevermind!"



So I am going to go ahead and tell you what all I saw.



The first one was in ...no, wait...let me back up. Let me start out with the fact that I used to be obsessed with the concept of the hospital and doctors and nurses and shots as a child, and this was before I ever had any surgeries or anything. I remember always having the hospital on my mind. Then came the surgeries, and it was like, "of course"...and I am beginning to get suspicious, that there was more in store for me that I've been spared from, or, (gulp)...well I'll just tell what I saw.



The first one was in the spring of '06, I was laying on the couch, fully awake, and I saw this: I was in a room, in a bed, laying flat on my back, unable to communicate, and people coming through a curtain and bringing flowers. When I first saw this one I told my coworker/friend, and she thought it sounded like somebody in a coffin. I said no, I was aware. So we both decided this was a hospital situation. I should also mention, there seemed to be something around my head, like, darkness around my head and only a small opening from which to see through. And I wasn't even "seeing" with my eyes. I was just aware. ??



Then, I started having more like this, after I came out here and I knew there was something wrong. So needless to say I was freaked and afraid. I saw this: the same coworker/friend and my mother standing on either side of me, I was in a hospital bed, and they were holding hands and praying for me. One on each side. Wait....they were not holding hands. They each had their hands on my head, one on each side. The friend stood on my left side and my mom was on my right.



Then I saw a brief picture of me, extremely thin and very short hair! But happy and determined and sort of limping but it was a good thing, as if, I was fully recovering from something. But the hair~ it was as if I had it shaved and it was starting to grow back.



This is the scariest one of all. I saw myself, laying flat out on a silver table, in a big room, like an operating room. I was alone in there and I was unconscious. This one really bothered me.



Then, all this time has passed, and I hear in my spirit "I am healing you". So....I take that to mean that all is well. So I am thinking, were these things going to happen but were all prayed away?



I don't go around sharing these because I know full well what normal people think, they say, she is nuts. She is imagining all of this. Well, let me tell you, when God shows me these things, they are valid and they come to pass. I know the difference between my own thoughts, my own imagination, and my own dreams. But these things, these are an entirely separate deal, and I know what I am talking about.



Why am I posting these here tonight? I don't know. Maybe because of how happy I've been feeling these past few days, all empty and free. So that makes me think, maybe I can keep talking? And there can be no limit to my honesty? And I will feel BETTER and not worse when I let things out?



Anyway. I am hoping all the medical stuff is over with.

I woke up today around 3:15 in the afternoon after a long hard night of blogging, and lo and behold, there is a feast in the fridge, just for me! My mother came into the kitchen and said, "all that is for you, Amy! I went to Whole Foods this morning. You have Autumn Couscous, Sweet & Sour Meatballs, Mediterranean Risotto Cakes, and Spicy Roasted Eggplant Salad."

So I loaded up a plate with a smattering of each, made my tea, and quickly made it back into my room. I have to eat by myself. Otherwise I'd have to carry on a conversation.

She's got her music on again and has been doing her nails a lot.

Today is my brother's birthday, I think he would have been 27. But I noticed the calendar has already been turned to October, in fact it was like that yesterday. I think she's finally catching on. Just skip over stuff, don't dwell there.





My PUBA is still there, no change. What is it doing? Just hanging out? Like a baby monkey on it's mamma's back?