The mistake I made yesterday

The mistake I made
was to wave goodbye to a
friend with my left hand.

When the crooked become straight

I stumble more off-balance,
off-kilter because I have
been forced on-kilter for the first
time in years.  Because I've been
straightened, I feel more crooked
and uncomfortable like an amnesiac
trying to live a life I don't remember
as my own.

how should I pray

Now that

• you are freed from this burden you never asked for,
• you are bereft of the doomed life within you,
• I can't pray for a miracle anymore,

how should I pray for you?

happy birthday, dead baby

.
no more chances
for a miracle

just separation

grief 

and so much pain

.

the waiting (10)

It's hard
for me to wait
for the birth
and death
announcement;

I cannot
imagine how
hard it is
for you.

Soon
the waiting
will end.

Blooming hard

.
hard to drive inside
the lines with trees exploding

like silent fireworks

.

The end is nigh

The due date is near.  It's no longer mother's day but May 16th.  Three more days +14 before they induce.  I cannot imagine what it must be like.

Recently, my friend said, "He's definitely running out of space in there, so we'll see how long he stays."  I wanted to just break down.  What a tension she must be wrestling with: The clash of wanting every minute with this life, no matter how doomed, and the desire to be delivered (a word that never seemed more appropriate).  The day of his birth will be the day of his death, so she wants as much time with him as she can get.  But the discomfort grows daily, the burden of bringing a death into the world, as Cordelia said in Barrayar (only more literally in this case). 

The pain won't end, though, with the birth-and-death.  And the mourning won't begin at that moment.  It began long ago when they heard the truth about their baby.  Oh, friends, I weep for you, but there's nothing I can really do to easy your suffering.

There are kids outside riding bikes in the rain, and my heart breaks again along the same fault lines.  Oh, God.

as long as you believe

chiropractor visit two resulted in
pain and less sleep as my body tried
to relax and curl up in its usual ways

and failed most miserably because bones
and joints were properly aligned for the first time

in years, but only once did I wake
in actual terrifying minor agony; after that,
I was on my back all night, twitching

or gasping myself awake when I did
fall asleep (I was recently tested
and found not to have the twitchy leg

thing or sleep apnea).  Pain today
like bands of fire and joints wrapped
in flaming compresses, headaches on

and off and on.  Still I choose to believe
this is pain like the pain of the caterpillar
turning to goop, so it can become

a butterfly, as Miles once said
--maybe in the Warrior's Apprentice, probably
when he was hustling a crowd of unbelievers--

or as I more practically phrased it
to the chiropractor in my head,

"As long as you believe
this will lead to healing,
I will believe in you."

like origami

My first chiropractor folds me
like origami, and my joints are
not his biggest fans.  He promised
not to turn me into a puddle, and he
is true to his word thus far, but
he says there should never be more
than mild discomfort, and this is a problem
because it's rare for there to be less
than mild discomfort at all times
even when he is not creasing me
into a crane.  Can the crane say to the folder,
"Why did you make me this way?"  Here's
hoping I don't need a thousand visits
to get my wish to come true.  I can't possibly
afford that. 

Why I like exits more than entrances

.
There are bars
I can push
with a shoulder
or a leg  
           no handles
or knobs to grasp
twist pull struggle
with fail to open
cleanly
.

the birds outside

.
the fridge is making
disturbingly human noises,
groans like a soul in torment 

but the sound
of the birds
outside is louder
.

this kind of blue

.

the sky tonight
so brilliant living
vibrant blue

backdrop seen through 

cutouts of bare 

tree limbs

the kind of blue 

that makes you stop and stand and stare 

for longer than you should without your coat 

because this could be the last time 

you see this exact shade of sky, and you want 

to store its imprint on your eyeballs and in your brain 

in case there is ever a time when you need 

this kind of blue

.

the list of things I should do

.
the list of things I should do

is much longer than the list
of things I have energy to do. 

I suspect that this
is how it will always be. 

I am trying very hard to be okay with that.
.

Christmas concert 2011

.
moments so sublime
akin to sublimation
applied

beauty burning so
bright I transformed
from solid to spirit without
melting and then

water fell

.

good, bad, and . . .

Good news: it will freeze tonight, so I can open my bedroom window and maintain a comfortable temperature in my room without sucking in lots of things I am allergic to.

Bad news: I have no hot water right now.

(Not sure if these things are related.)

(Other) News: A letter from the OWCP came today.  It's for the hearing my lawyer asked for without talking to me.  The hearings are 5 to 9 months behind, a letter announced a while back.  That irritated me because I had sort of decided to try a famous nearby pain clinic, and the thought that I'd have to wait 5-9 months to go because my lawyer did something inexplicable made me a bit irritated.  Thinking positive, I figured that would be plenty of time to collect my thoughts and research and write a magnum opus of a letter that would help the OWCP see the human face and struggle behind my increasingly desperate(ly) irritated letters.

Today's letter says the hearing is scheduled for May.  If this is 5-9 months delay, does that mean they were actually scheduling these hearings retroactively?  (They've sort of done that to me before, actually.)

This means I have about a week to write that magnum opus letter, that triumph of logic and evidence that will show them once and for all that I am not a fraudulent fraudster (the way they seem to be treating me) but a person in pain who is a bit muddled and has been confused, misled, and treated poorly by a bureaucracy not designed to actually, you know, help an injured worker like me get better the way a normal insurance company would.  Theoretically, I work faster under deadlines, but, well, sheesh.

Probably 90 days for a decision after the hearing, and then maybe I'll be able to see the famous pain doctors.  They're probably scheduled at least that far in advance, so that might work out just fine.  I'm trying to make 100% sure they're in my regular insurance network in case these doctors, like the last pain specialist I tried, decide they don't want to follow OWCP's ridiculous and impractical rules, and I end up getting stuck with the bill.

In this week's weird neurological news, apparently my brain is interpreting temperature in my left hand partly as vibration.  Hot is fast vibration, and cold is slow vibration.  Today anyway.  (That's in addition to the more familiar tearing pain in my forearm and wrist and the ache-y time delay in my hand and upper arm and the occasional sensation of having my fingertips dipped in ice water.)

My life is an adventure.  What can I say?  : )

another day chasing sunlight (reading books Saturday morning)

.
another day chasing sunlight across the floor
no one asking for things I can't give
not even me
.

baby pictures

An old acquaintance posted a picture of his friends and their baby with anencephaly during his brief life.  The photo angles were careful not to show the missing parts of the baby's skull and brain, and I cried again for my friend and her husband, and I prayed they would have the chance to take beautiful, heartbreaking pictures like those, and I remembered my sister's baby who she never got to hold, dead before it was born, and I couldn't even cry.

unanticipated snow surprises me when I leave the apartment

.
this is what happens when
you say to the world:
leave me alone just for today
.

how you can tell the wind has been blowing hard

winter trees
like my hair
frosted white silver
only from certain angles

after the winter

This bleeding

heartbreaking
as it is

is a sign
that your body

is still
alive

after the winter.

Daylight Savings Time Stupidness

So on Monday, I sat in my cube in my new area, which has lots of windows up high.  I was staying late, working on some things I had decided I needed to finish.  And the sun was still up.  When the lights went out at their appointed time, I couldn't even tell.  And I had this thought: This is so weird; it's like all of a sudden, the sun is staying up, like, an hour longer.  I was puzzled.  I thought the change was usually more gradual.  And then I remembered.  That I had set the clock at work ahead just that morning.  Because . . .

Oh, Daylight Savings Time, I still hate you.

How long does it usually take you and yours to adjust and be less stupid?

Tree vampire

The trees were seeping from their severed limbs yesterday.  I noticed a puddle on the sidewalk, but everywhere else around was dry, and then I realized the tree above me had been trimmed around power lines.  It's been years since I've seen this happen.  This time, I gave in and put my hand under the stream and then tasted it. 

It wasn't sweet sap.  At first I thought it tasted like nothing, just pure water.  Then I realized that the salt I would normally taste on my skin was totally neutralized.

Today, I saw from the window that the trees were still weeping.  I didn't go out to check if maybe it tasted different today.  It's something I can only do on impulse, apparently, and not deliberately.

Maybe it's spring cleaning for the trees: out with the old water so the new can start circulating.  Or maybe it's more like a tourniquet being removed?

What makes them start and what makes them stop before they bleed out?  I'm sure science has the answer for these questions, but I'd rather just wonder.

a reason to take the bus

the problem with driving when it's windy
and the sun's going down is not

that your car gets buffeted around
making the drive white-knuckled or

that the light blinds you but that you can't
watch the clouds burning their way

across the sky because you are in the driver's
seat and you can't just stare at the clouds

Who knew?

It turns out that watching shows with lots of beautiful pan shots of deserts and mountains, explosions,  giant robots fighting each other, and pilots angsting over their lives is a good way to pass the time while you sort and organize your collection of 9+ years of OWCP injury files.  And playing shows with tons of potty humor and generally inappropriate content can help distract your mind from the rage as you figure out what to scan/bring when you visit the doctor one last time in an attempt to get a code added to your file.  Maybe I should have looked for something with more explosions because my jaw is killing me from when I must have been clenching my teeth while taking notes and marking things with sticky papers.

By this time next year, for better or for worse, pray that this fight is all over.  I don't want to deal with another year of this, even if it means the OWCP wins their game of trying to make injured workers give up on ever getting any real help and justice.  Just crush all my hope to atomic base components once and for all if it means I can be done with all this.  As I've mentioned before, hope springing eternal gets more head injuries from low ceilings than docile despair.

Miles once said, "I'm tired
of playing wall."  Me too, boy.
Me, too.

Did I ever post this? Because it's a couple years old . . .

I was so proud of myself.  When I left to go visit my family over the holidays, I dropped off a notice that my chronically-clogging drain was clogged again.  This time, I remembered to put away all laundry that was hanging on the rack on the back of my bathroom door.  This way, I did not have to return to my apartment and be mortified when I picked up the note the plumbing man left to say that he'd been there and fixed it and then realized that he had had to walk past all my bras to get into the tiny bathroom. 

Sometimes it's the little triumphs in life that make us happy.

tomorrow will be brilliant

.
water with an identity crisis
not sure if it's rain or snow
staggering and stumbling
sideways coating everything

a sound like glass falling
from the sky and bouncing
collecting on top of my hood
rhythm making me sleepy

icicles like grass   growing   down
from power lines and fences
every straight-ish line developing
sudden upper teeth the wind gnashes

gleaming trees promise
even if tonight is miserable
and unbearable tomorrow
will be brilliant
.

Invitation to care

There's more, but that's
what my friend's email subject
was condensed down
to on the screen,
and it was true.

If I sign up for
automatic updates
I will learn about
the progress of their
brainless baby.

I will get
to tick down
the days
until it is born
and dies.

Obviously I
should accept this
invitation to care, but
I don't know
if I can bear to.

Fortune Cookie, what are you trying to say?

"Good things come
in invisible packages.
You will be delighted."

What does this mean?  And does it sound slightly sinister to anyone else?

today we learned

Today we learned
that you should pray
I am not
the only one
near you

who knows hands-only CPR
if you need it.  I can last two
compressions before the pain
in my hands is too much. 

I would like to believe
the adrenalin would
let me keep going
despite the pain.  If
not, I will try
to get very good

at explaining
to strong people
with working wrists
how to do it, and we
can both help try
to save your life.

Wrestling the Sandman and other distractions

Slowly, oh so slowly, I have been edging back my getting in to bed time and getting out of bed time.  Now that I am not responding to student emails for three hours every night, I can once again try to tackle the sleep dilemma.  I don't sleep well (years of chronic pain mess with all aspects of your life), and I've been told that we've done all we can messing with all the sleep-related side of things.  The only way for it to get better is if we address the pain/neurological side of things.  Since that's not going well, I'm trying to find a balance between ruthless adherence to keeping the time in bed short (6 hours) to encourage my body to be efficient with its time in bed and just giving in to my body's exhausted demand for more time not doing anything (sometimes 12 hours).

If I only allow myself 6-7 hours of time in bed, I am a bit more clear-headed, but I am also very short-tempered.  If I let myself stay in bed as long as my body appears to want (10-12 hours), I am much more mellow but also much more muddled.  I'm shooting for somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 1/2-9 hours in bed since then I won't feel like I'm wasting all sorts of extra time trying to recharge batteries that won't charge, but I also won't feel like I'm demanding silly things from my already overworked body.

It's not easy, but I have been making progress the past week, at the expense of everything else.  I think I've spent too much time trying to do everything at once with a brain that shorts out when it only has one thing to do.  I'm going to try to tackle things one at a time and really put my foot down about that one thing.  Other things will suffer, and that will be okay.  Really.  My to do list does not contain anything that will cause world-wide problems if I fail to do it this week.  Priorities.

Willpower, go!

Watching Amadeus

.

Today I would not 

let myself cry about 

the newest wrinkle in 

the old cursed saga 

of OWCP, but 

when Mozart died, 

I cried and cried 

and didn't even 

try to stop myself

until after the last notes

of the mass had ended.

.

a reason to love mild winters

.
96% humidity
transmuted overnight
to fairy-frosted trees of white
.

Today I say to my fortune cookie

.

Today my fortune cookie

wisely says,

"Accept something

that you cannot change,

and you will

feel better."

Today I say to my 

fortune cookie,

"Bite me."

.

One of those days

.

when you don't even realize 

you've been wearing 

an article of clothing 

inside out 

until 4:30 pm.

.

The joy of moving cubicles

Oh, the joy of moving cubicles!  Packing things up, sorting through things, rediscovering things, throwing things away, recycling things, putting things in new places where this time, for sure, you are going to remember where they are really.  Arranging things so that from the point of view of people passing by, you look clean and organized (as long as you don't leave the overhead bin with all your plushies open).  There's something refreshing about doing this (and not just because I am leaving behind my old place next to the Noisy Neighbor.

Do you feel this sense of shedding old skin and donning new when you move desks/offices/cubicles?

Christmas lights from above

I don't remember the last time I flew at night just before Christmas.  I think I would remember the lights.  Instead of just the usual narrow range of city light colors that mostly wash out to a slightly yellow pale, the Christmas lights shine forth in slightly anarchic joy.  Random colors, random shapes not arranged to be seen from above: they are beautiful, and I love them and the chance I had to see them when the night flights were as cheap as the usually cheapest 5 AM flights I've taken the last several years on the way to see my family over Christmas.

Something I heard late one night

I didn't actually see anything.  I just heard it:  the crunching squeal of tires skidding on ice over and over for half a minute in the parking lot, the skid, the crash of a significant impact between two cars, the sound of something glass shattering, the brief silence, more glass falling, the engine gunning, more skidding, and a fishtailing journey out of the icy parking lot and away down the street at something significantly over the speed limit.  Why?

I thought about calling the police.  I didn't because, well, what can they do when you report hearing a crime?  I wondered if I should tell the apartment manager in case the poor person whose parked car got smashed into needed someone to back up their claim to the insurance company that they were a victim and not responsible for the damages.  But I didn't SEE it, and the insurance company would still have to pay for it unless the criminal was caught, which would not happen based on my testimony.

In the end, I said nothing and told no one and was very glad I pay extra to have a garage stall to park in at night.  I do that because I can't dig my car out of the snow and/or ice, but apparently it's also handy against random acts of pointless, stupid vehicular vandalism.  Yes, Mom, my insurance rates did go down when I moved here.  I can't really imagine why . . .

Why I hate New Year's Resolutions

I will stop putting it off.
I will call OWCP.
I will not let it ruin my day.

I will keep calling until they approve the new codes.
I will keep calling until they approve the physical therapy.
I will shoehorn the physical therapy in.

I will get control over the pain.
I will get a good nights' sleep every night.
I will force pain-addled body to reset itself.

I will watch pigs fly.
I will not give up.
I mustn't run away.

I suddenly remember why
I hate New Year's Resolutions.