Go On, Jackie; It’ll Make You Feel Good Good Good…

Edvard Munch knew how I’ve been feeling…

Let me first apologize for a few things, dear readers… The first is my absence. I’ve been having some health issues which is the reason I haven’t been blogging. But I’ll get to that in a bit… I’d also like to apologize in advance for my blatant reuse of old images. It seems I have exceeded my limit and I refuse to pay, what is it… I don’t remember, but it’s more than I want to pay for just a tiny bit more storage and you need to pay that every month?! Come on, WordPress… Do you think we’re all idiots who can’t do math?! I know how much that comes out to per year and it’s a fucking rip off. So sorry, dear readers, unless I can figure something else out, you’re doomed to seeing repeat pictures…

In any case, the past month has been a real shit show… I’ve faced a lot of health issues, some frightening, and I’ve been on such an emotional roller coaster ride. In my last entry, I thought I had a touch of the flu. Well, I ended up with a slight case of pleurisy, so I went to the ER for a chest X-ray to confirm. Yeah… they also confirmed I didn’t have the flu… I had COVID… I was in denial. I took a home test the day before and it was negative, but a lot of people were having the same issue, if you take it too soon, it doesn’t register. So I had to get more bloodwork done to test my clotting factors (which were a bit high) and had to get a lung CT to check for blood clots which you can get with COVID. I was okay with that since I needed one for my emphysema and was getting shit because I wasn’t 50 yet and they don’t give full lung CTs until you’re 50 or you have something wrong or smoke… My advocate from the insurance company and I argued with the dipshit from the hospital, the one we just told why we wanted the CT, and in stereo told her again I have emphysema and smoke! She hung up on us… I was livid! So at least I was getting my CT. No clots, thank goodness or I would have ended up staying in the hospital. However, they found an 11mm nodule in my lower right lung… It took probably 10 minutes of shock to process before I started to cry. The doctor tried to make it sound hopeful, it could be nothing. I know he was right, but it was still terrifying. So the couple of weeks right before Christmas weren’t holly or jolly in the fucking least…

My sister was concerned because this was a new mass, over 10mm and I’m a smoker, so she said I needed the PET scan they listed as an option ASAP. I got the green light and made the appointment, but it was nerve wracking waiting for it. It was scheduled for the 20th of December, right after it was safe for me to go maskless around people again. I was terrified as to what they would find. But hey, I couldn’t feel bad enough that Morticia couldn’t make it worse, right? Of course not… She called me on a day I was having a hard time of it all and she was nice enough to call and berate me, use her famous, “You know what your problem is,” line then proceed to tell me what my problems are (which, by the way are actually issues she has), telling me I’m being paranoid, I worry too much, it’s probably nothing, I shouldn’t let it upset me… stupid shit like that. And I lost my shit… I literally SCREAMED at her over the phone and told her, “Seriously?! You’re going to sit there and tell me I’m being paranoid and I should ‘go with the flow’?! (she literally said that) Let me tell you something, if it was you going through this, you’d be scared out of your fucking mind! And don’t you tell me you fucking wouldn’t be!” She got really quiet for a moment, admitted she would be the same way and changed the subject… I need to get mad at her more often. It seems to get things through to her better and shuts her the fuck up, makes her see I’m not a fucking punching bag and I’m not taking her shit…

The 20th finally arrived and I was nervous as a cat… But I went in and got my PET scan done. It’s really just a glorified CT scan. They just pump you pull of some nuclear waste and you need to lie still and quiet for an hour before the test. How boring… The test itself? Literally only 10-15 minutes… Then came the waiting… I kept checking to see if the hospital network app had my results up and eventually it did. I was never so scared in my life… Luckily it said the nodule in my lungs shows all signs of being benign! I actually started to cry… I was so happy and relieved… I was an emotional mess, but a happy mess! So happy, in fact, that I went out to finish up the last minute Christmas shopping that needed to be done and, when I stopped in for a Starbuck’s coffee, I got lucky and got the last sugar plum danish! I couldn’t help myself, I told the young man at the register it was definitely my lucky day! Usually they’re out of that danish when I go in, but I was getting the last one, I’d gotten good news… He inquired if he could ask what the good news was, so I told him what test I had done that day and the results. He said he had a feeling that’s what it was and that he was so happy for me! He was literally beside himself, he was so happy! That made me feel even better than I did in the first place, so I was having such a great day! I still need to get another scan done in 6 months and keep hoping like hell every one comes back clean. Still, I was never so overjoyed as I was that day. It’s a great feeling!

My “matter of time” seems to be getting very short…

And just when you think things can only go up from there, karma comes along and dry fucks you up the ass with a cactus… even though it’s already done so enough lately and your ass is sore enough…

I was supposed to go for my first osteoporosis injection on December 29th, but I had to postpone it until January 11th due to my being on antibiotics to try and get rid of the last of the dreaded COVID cough (it was really annoying). I never thought I’d be so glad for a fucking antibiotic… If I hadn’t been, well…

Let me tell you something… If you get so nervous about something that you get the runs, take your gut’s advice. RUN… My gut was trying to tell me that for 2 days, the day before and the day of my injection, but I called and talked to the nurse who didn’t really answer the questions I had or reassure me much in any way, but I went for the injection anyway because I was told this was good for my bones and would help them grow stronger again and not be so porous and prone to fracture as they are now. But man, my anxiety was off the charts… I didn’t feel much better when she showed me a paper with the side effects highlighted that I was shown so briefly that I didn’t have time to read it. Essentially, flu like symptoms, fever, aches and pains. Worst case scenario was kidney failure, jaw necrosis (I knew that one) and your standard allergic reaction you can have with any med. That was what I was told (and what I learned later was highlighted on the paper) before a consent form was shoved in my face and I was told, “Sign here and here.” I didn’t even get to read it! So I got the injection which took all of 12 minutes. I felt fine, nothing out of the ordinary, and I thought that I had just been silly and stupid, getting myself worked up as I had for the past 2 days. Nothing had happened… I didn’t grow a third eye or a tail, I didn’t go into some kind of arrest… It was just an injection and that was that.

That night at dinner, I felt some pain under my jaw, but it wasn’t bad and didn’t last, so I thought nothing of it. I felt fine otherwise. I felt fine the following morning… until about 10AM. Suddenly the flu symptoms hit with a high fever. You could have fried an egg on my skin! My bones felt as if they had been napalmed and I had the worst stomach and abdominal pain. I had no idea what the fuck was going on as I wasn’t told all this and I had followed their directions to stave off the flu side effects. So I went online and learned a lot about this zoledronic acid I was injected with. It’s actually used to treat hypercalcemia (too much calcium in your blood) and is used to treat multiple myeloma, which is a type of cancer. Incidentally, it is also used to help treat osteoporosis… And my symptoms were all on the list along with a few others I was having (back pain and such). I was in agony! But I was toughing it out, hoping it would just ease up and go away. Sadly, it just got progressively worse, especially the stomach and abdominal pain. And if I didn’t think it was excruciating already, it certainly was after Baxter jumped up and accidentally rabbit punched me right in the gut. The last time I had pain like that was when my first ovary ruptured and I knew something wasn’t right. I called the rheumatologist who told me she never heard of this as a side effect (she’s not a good actress, I assure you) and I should go to the ER. It was difficult to get dressed as I felt I was going to vomit, but I got dressed and got my ass to the hospital.

You can’t breathe through pain like what I had…

You know, even with kick ass pain meds, the pain in my stomach and abdomen got so intense at one point (it was also in my back) that I was literally crying and asking the nurses to help me… And all the nice nurse could tell me was, “Remember what we talked about? Try to breathe through it, deep breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth…” You know it didn’t help, right? I NEEDED DRUGS!!! Normally I’m not that kind of person. The only other time I was a sissy like this was when my ovary blew up and I was bleeding internally, which really hurts. So you know I was in pain. Anyway, they eventually found something that helped, did bloodwork and a CT, all of which were good, and the doctor asked if I wanted to stay overnight for observation in case the pain came back. It was already 2AM, so I figured I may as well. Besides, then I wouldn’t need to go through the bullshit again if I had to come back. But while I was waiting for them to set everything up, there was a factor that changed… Now, I normally have low blood pressure, but not like this. It had dipped down to 79/49 and the nice nurse told me later I had them all scared. I don’t know what of, it’s been lower than that before, but I was bleeding out pretty badly at the time… Anyway, at that point I couldn’t have gone home if I’d changed my mind. I was also put on a different observation floor because of it. And there I stayed… From Thursday night/Friday morning until I was finally sprung Sunday morning, that was where I stayed… You’re probably wondering why. Well, at first it was because I still had this raging fever and they couldn’t get my blood pressure to come back up far enough for it to be safe for me to leave. Then, by the time my fever was gone and my blood pressure was at a safer place (this was Saturday morning), my bloodwork showed my already low white blood cell count that had been a little over 4,000 the day before was now a little over 2,000… Had they let me go, I would have been prone to all manner of infection that would have run rampant because my count was so low and I could have gotten very sick or even died. But it wasn’t just the white count. The red cells, hemoglobin, hematocrit and neutrophils absolute were all low. They were still low when I was discharged, but they were better. Now I need to go get repeat bloodwork done again next week to make sure everything is steadily on the rise and not still falling. And the punchline? My calcium is low, too…

This meme was made for my doctor, I swear…

So I got sprung (oh happy day!) which was awesome since I wasn’t feeling bad after the pain went away and my fever broke but I wasn’t allowed to do anything (not even shower). I got home, took the longest, hottest shower ever, then called my rheumatologist since she said I should call her and let her know what happened. She seemed surprised when I told her I just got home from the hospital and asked why I was there so long, so I told her what had happened. She didn’t say much about the stomach and abdominal pain or the high fever, but she pretended to be baffled by the fact that my blood pressure had dropped so low and didn’t want to come back up and that my white cell count had pretty much been cut in half. She claimed she had never heard of such a thing happening with this medicine and she’s been using it on patients 15 or 16 years. She told me she was going to call the manufacturer and look into this and call me back this week. Uh-huh… Sure you will… I did some investigating on my own. It’s all over Google, anyone can find it. And that paper I was given with the side effects? It’s one page of a bigger article. So I what I gave was not informed consent. Even my sister, the nurse practitioner, said, “You can’t tell me she didn’t know what it was going to do… They use it to treat multiple myeloma!” I have no doubt she fucking knew because she didn’t sound very convincing to me. I was told what they wanted me to know, plain and simple…

You know when you go to the pharmacy and pick up your medication and it says, “Remember, your doctor has prescribed this medication for you because they believe the benefit outweighs the risks”? This comes after they list all the possible side effects (that they know of, anyway). But what happens when your doctor decides you don’t need to know side effects at all before they inject you with whatever noxious potion they give you? Who are they to make that call as to whether the benefit really does outweigh the risk? Who are they to play God? Because I can tell you this much… Had I seen that list of all the possible side effects (and it’ a mile long) I would have never consented to be injected with that shit. Oh yeah, you have a consent form that I signed, but I wasn’t given informed consent. And I wasn’t allowed to read any of the papers, either. In all honesty, I’m at the point where I’m seriously thinking of calling around to different lawyers to see if I can sue her for this… I mean, how many other people has this happened to? How many of them wouldn’t sue because they were afraid or couldn’t afford it or couldn’t find a lawyer that would take their case? So we’re just supposed to step back and let this shit keep happening and think everything is okay simply because the doctor says, “Well, we’re definitely not going to give this one to you again.” No shit, Sherlock! If you tried to give it to me again, I can guarantee you’d have an IV needle jammed right into your fucking eye! But just because you don’t want to give me this same shit again doesn’t mean it makes the situation all better. Just because you call me “honey” doesn’t mean I’m going to think you’re a nice doctor who cares… Someone needs to be held accountable for what happened!

Of course the real hero here is Baxter…

Think about it… If he hadn’t accidentally rabbit punched me in the gut in his enthusiasm that night, I probably would have just toughed it out. But when that happened and the pain was as bad as when my ovary ruptured, I knew something was seriously wrong and I probably had to go to the ER. But, had he not punched me… I would have stayed home, never knowing how dangerously low my blood pressure was or how dangerously low my white cell count was. Any number of bad things could have happened from either of those scenarios, including me dying… My pupperoni saved my life. He’s my hero… I know, I treat him like he’s my baby and maybe I love him a little too much, but now… How can I not? Seriously, he saved my life. Best dog ever! I think Baxter deserves at least a round of applause for that, don’t you, dear reader? Leave him some applause in a comment if you think he’s a hero for helping save his mommy’s life!

Yes, I know… I need help… Probably… But look at that adorkable face! And he’s such a spaz! It’s hard not to love him! At least I’m not as bad as my mother… She spoils my animals so badly I’m waiting for her to get shit to put on her car that says “I heart my grandpuppies” and “I heart my grandkitties”… I’ve actually thought of buying things like that for her to see if she’s goofy enough to put them on her car… Yet I’m supposed to be the goofy one. Yeah, okay then…

Well, dear readers, I feel it is time for a nap… I’ve been very tired since I’ve gotten home. It’s no wonder with all my blood counts being low, actually. Plus no one is waiting on me, so I’m more active, which explains a lot when you put them both together. So I think a nap is in order.

In the meantime, send me some good vibes… I really need them right now. Last year ended on a bit of a shit note and this one is starting on one. I just want things to go right and to feel better. I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, really…

Wake Up…

I could watch this GIF of Lelouch all day…

So… I realized after my last blog entry that perhaps it was a bit harsh and/or insulting to some… My intention certainly wasn’t to offend anyone, but with the way the world is today, if you don’t want to offend anyone you literally wouldn’t be able to talk or write at all, now, would you? So much like my friend Lelouch, here, you finally got to see a bit of the Jackie Blue behind the mask, the part that is a bit of a sociopath. She’s not always pretty…

As I said in my last entry, I don’t really care what the fuck your preferences are, sexual or otherwise. If you’re happy, that’s awesome! You’re one of the few lucky mother fuckers on the planet who is… I just don’t think it’s right that rich people make themselves feel self important by purchasing products or art created by people of whatever group simply so they can say they support said community. No you don’t… You just want to feel self important and make it look as if you’re supportive. And members of these communities are just as bad sometimes. You’re selling yourself like a common whore because you know these rich asshats will spend thousands of dollars to feel self important. I don’t know which is worse, to be honest.

I probably should apologize, but… Look, it’s just my opinion, nothing more. And we all know opinions are like assholes… everyone’s got one…

However, what brought on that little tangent was my neighbor… She never bothers with me unless she wants something, which is irritating enough. Well, that particular day, while working on the commission I got to draw one of my hippie girls, she messaged me asking if I was busy (but not really asking as she ended the sentence with a period and not a question mark). She was looking for someone to take her son to pick up his truck which was about a 10 minute drive from here. Why he wasn’t with his truck, I have no idea, but this happens a lot. And as if I want the little shit to have the noisy ass thing back so he can loudly hot rod up and down our street! Besides, I was busy and I told her so, that I was working on an art commission I’d gotten. The response was, “Oh really” with no punctuation… See, it’s people like this that really piss me off! I’m sorry you think what I do is just drawing and coloring like a kindergartener… But if you had half the talent I do to even do what I do, you’d know it’s hard work! I spent 3 days, 10 hours each day, to finish this! I rarely changed position, didn’t get up to pee until my bladder and kidneys were literally SCREAMING at me, forgot to eat and drink… All for $60 US… Do the math… That’s $2 an hour… I may not have a physically demanding job like factory work or a job pushing papers like her. I don’t get benefits, vacations, holidays… I get paid less than a waitress. But my work makes people happy. Maybe if I get more work I’ll start charging more, but not now. I get really irked when people think what I do isn’t work and she really pushed my buttons that day because she’d asked me to do her a favor, always taking, never giving. So I lost my shit more than a little bit… To top it all off, my client didn’t like the drawing and I now have to make another in different colors. Just shoot me…

My baby is finally home with brand new strings!

I did have a bit of good news… I hadn’t been able to play my baby Constantine for a very long time because he was in dire need of new strings and I simply couldn’t afford to get him restrung. Obviously my instructor hadn’t taught me how before I had to stop taking lessons and I wasn’t comfortable enough to learn how just yet. Maybe if he only had 6, but he has 12… Anyway, getting strings for him was a moot point. They would be great for about 2 weeks and then start showing signs of rust due to the weird pH of my skin. Nothing I did helped. So I had to ask if there were rust proof strings as I didn’t want to switch to nylon. And there were! But they didn’t carry the ones for a 12 string in store and had to order them. So I left Constantine there to await the strings since he no longer stayed in tune. He was gone for about 4 weeks waiting for those fucking strings! And the ones he did get? Martin… Why it took 4 weeks, I have no idea. The Martin plant is so close… Anyway, when they called I was so excited I could barely contain myself! Constantine was finally coming home! And how pretty he looked… I always take a picture when he comes back from a restringing. They polish his body so nicely and they clean his fretboard while the strings are off. And look at those gorgeous strings! I couldn’t wait! As soon as I took this picture, I tossed my phone aside, picked him up, hugged him for a moment, then began to play… which took a few moments because it had been so long my brain was drawing a blank… I played for about 10 minutes and was so enjoying how beautiful my baby sounded when, don’t you know, my phone rang… Yeah, you know it did and you know who it was, too…

My attitude when my phone rings anymore…

Surprise, it was Morticia… I swear she has a fucking radar… “Jackie’s working on a drawing/playing piano/playing guitar/painting a landscape/reading a book/watching a movie/taking a shit, I NEED TO CALL HER RIGHT NOW!!! And I’m going to whine and cry about the same things I whine and cry about every fucking time I call her and keep beating that dead horse even though it’s long fucking dead and has been beaten so badly it’s just a pile of hamburger!” Ugh… Just why?! And I know what you’re all thinking, “Christ, Jackie, just don’t answer the fucking phone!” Oh, if only it were that simple… but it isn’t… She’ll just keep CALLING! She actually had someone that was doing that to her and bitched to me about it. I almost said something, but then I decided against it because she wouldn’t see the point anyway…

So recently Morticia had been going through something pretty bad, something even I admit was bad… I can’t say what, exactly, for certain reasons. In any case, I knew that one of the worst outcomes wasn’t going to happen or it certainly would have already because it wasn’t something you fuck around with, which I’d told her many times. So the day she was to get the final news, she tried calling. It was Friday, the day she knows my mother comes to visit every week. We were also out because my one dog, Miko, was ill and I needed my mother’s help to lift her into the car as I can’t do these things anymore. Morticia tried calling right when my mother arrived and I texted her that my mother was there (she knows this) and I got no response. She called when I was at the vet’s and I sent her a text telling her that, which was when she told me the news she’d been waiting for was coming at 3 o’clock (a half hour away). I told her it would be fine, I’d call her when I was out of the vet’s office. She called again when I was waiting for my invoice to check out! What the flying figging fuck don’t you understand when I say I’ll call you when I’m done at an appointment?!? She literally doesn’t understand boundaries even when you set them up, which is annoying as fuck, let me tell you! I cringe every time I hear my phone ring and I hate it…

In any case… The outcome of Morticia’s dilemma, while not as bad as it could have been, wasn’t the greatest. I can safely say that she could definitely in all likelihood take action under said circumstances, but not if she doesn’t keep her mouth shut, which is what I’d told her to do. If you’re planning to take legal action, you don’t tell people who will get it back to those you’re planning to take action against. But she did… And when I told her she shouldn’t have done that because she didn’t want word getting back, she said, “I don’t care…” Yeah?! Well, when things blow up in your fucking face, I don’t want to hear you crying at me. I’m the one who told you to shut your fucking hole.

All I really want to do at this point is just kick back with some relaxing tunes and just block out the rest of the world because it’s just getting too stupid for words right now… The other day I freaked on on someone who complained about something, “Can’t you do anything besides BITCH?!?” Literally, my cheese slid off its cracker and I completely lost it… I did explain myself later, of course. It’s just that I hear so much of it. My neighbor bitches about how badly her husband treats her, how much they fight about it… It’s as if he wants a Stepford wife and she wants to be an independent working woman. If you’re both so different and it’s causing this many problems after, what, 2 years of marriage, why the fuck do you stay with him, hoping he’ll change? You know he won’t (they’re a bit younger than me) so instead dump all your shit on me. And Morticia dumps enough shit on me for dozens of people… Yet when I have a problem and need to vent a bit, I have no one, except you, dear readers. As a matter of fact, just the other day I needed to vent and Morticia made sure she had to get off the phone right away. Then why should I listen to your bitching and crying? You can’t listen to mine… Not even when I needed to vent a bit because my dog was so ill I thought this might be the end for her… I’m still not sure. She’s not doing well…

I just want to put on some good relaxing tunes and drown out the world for a few days… I really think this is what I need to do for myself. No calls, no texts, no social media, no nothing. I just need to go into hiding because I feel like the whole world has gone fucking stupid around me and I don’t know how to deal with it. I could, of course, call my therapist, but I don’t know if he’d really understand the magnitude of what I’m talking about, here. Probably not… I think he thinks I’m completely nuts…

Honestly, I think a lot of this is just due to it being Christmas time…

Have you ever watched the show Family Guy? I believe it’s the Christmas episode of season one… I have an online friend whom I’ve never met, never spoken to on the phone, but she tells me that every time she sees that episode, she thinks of me. Why…? Because the mom, Lois, is so happy and cheerful despite everything going horribly wrong because she’s going to make sure her family has the happiest Christmas ever! Until Christmas Eve, that is… The turkey catches fire and the only one home to put it out is the family’s talking dog who, at first finds himself armed with a joke fire extinguisher the father bought before finding a real one. So the dog is burned, the turkey is ruined, the kitchen is a disaster, but Lois is unfazed… until she’s told there’s no paper towels… This is the part where she completely loses her shit, and flips on her family, claiming they think all this good will just falls from the sky before informing them, “Well it DOESN’T! It falls out of my holly-jolly BUTT! So you can cook your OWN damn turkey, wrap your OWN damn presents and while you’re at it, you can all ride a one horse open sleigh to HELL!” before she jumps out the already broken window and storms off. Later the kids ask if she’s coming back and father states that the question is, if she’s going to act that way at Christmas, do they even want her back… When Christmas comes rolling around every year, I am Lois, LITERALLY… There’s just something about this holiday that makes me completely lose my shit if the slightest thing goes wrong or gets said or taken out of context. So it’s entirely possible that my issues as of late are all due to Christmas getting closer and my stress levels rising. Who knows…

And right now I have a touch of the flu… So I can’t finish any shopping, I can’t work on any of the now 3 commissions I have because I don’t want to get flu germs on the papers… And honestly, I’m just not feeling well enough to do it. Plus with sick pups (Baxter caught whatever Miko has), I’m kind of stuck not having much time to deal with much of anything. I give the fuck up. Christmas can skip my house this year…

Stress Relief, Jackie Style

Has my cheese slid off my cracker? Perhaps…

You’re probably wondering if my cheese has completely slid off my cracker… “Is that OPERA playing on your phone?!?” Yep… One of the tunes from Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado, as a matter of fact.

No, my cheese has not completely slid off my cracker… I actually happen to like opera, something I attribute to my late great aunt who was also a fan of opera. The Mikado, in particular, happens to be a favorite of mine due to the fact that it plays a predominant role in my favorite movie, Foul Play starring Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. In fact, within the first five minutes of the movie, one of the characters puts on the LP soundtrack for The Mikado and you can watch some of the opera being performed near the end of the movie as it is the opera the Pope is watching while visiting San Francisco and, coincidentally, the one the bad guys are planning to assassinate him during least by the end of the first act.

Considering Foul Play has been my favorite movie since I was 5 years old, which means I’ve been watching it over and over for the past 44 years (and have seen it at least a million times). It also means I’ve heard the first act of The Mikado as many times and have really learned to appreciate how upbeat and absolutely delightful some of the songs really are! So not only can I literally recite the movie from beginning to end without even watching the damn thing, I can also sing the portions of The Mikado that you get to hear and hum along with the portions where they only play the music during the actions scenes in the movie. So no, my cheese is still firmly in place, dear readers, not to worry. I’ve just had entirely too much exposure to this particular opera, that’s all, hahahaa!

It does seem to be helping me find some relaxation in my life of craziness right now, which is something I desperately need. I’m either singing and bopping to the tunes or conducting some imaginary orchestra… Sometimes I’m doing all three at once! And I’m sporting the biggest smile all the while! All for the low, low price of $20 on iTunes! Listen, you can’t get therapy this good for that cheap anywhere else! And so I’ve been making it my mission to listen to the entire score at least once every single morning while I take part in another relaxing ritual I’ve recently taken back up that will make me go blind. And if your mind is in the gutter right now… Well then, you’re exactly like me, haha! But you’d be wrong. It’s nothing like that…

Jesus Christ, I almost started typing, “If you want to know who we are, We are gentlemen of Japan…” Perhaps not a good idea to listen to The Mikado while blogging…

Anyway, this (see right) is what I said will make me go blind… I recently started working in some of those adult coloring books again and the one I’ve been working in as of late has some pretty psychedelic shit in it. Look at that crazy little detail! I actually messed my eyes up and set off my vertigo doing all this coloring! But the results made it worth it, I think. That’s some pretty trippy shit! And I literally had to stop typing to sing for a minute there… I just find that tune so fun despite the fact they’re talking about beheading people… “Who’s head was next on some pretext…” Dr. Seuss, eat your heart out! That’s some primo rhyming!

Back to the subject… I know I draw my own shit and I color it. But, sometimes, I just feel like coloring. You know, like when you were a kid and you didn’t have to create anything. All you had to do was slap some color in that shit and call it a day. It was fun and relaxing! Well, I always thought it was, anyway… But I can still find a way to make something as simple and supposedly relaxing as an adult coloring book complicated and something to be stressed over. What color should go where? Can’t put blue there; there’s already enough blue in that area, can’t put red there against purple because they don’t look nice together, are you fucking color blind?! Sadly I’m not kidding… I literally sweat every fucking decision no matter how small when I color these things. That’s why they end up looking as amazingly cool when they’re done, because I don’t use just a few colors and I sweat all those tiny decisions. I probably shouldn’t but I do…

I promise, I won’t start typing “Three Little Maids From School”. I hope…

So these are the gel pens I like to use, Kaiser Craft… I used to buy them at Hobby Lobby, but they stopped selling them for whatever reason. I managed, however, to find them on Joann’s in a pack of 48! Sweet! So I ordered them and they were sent, unfortunately, FedEx “dumb ass” post (they need to not call it “smart post”). I had a delivery date, but I happened to notice it got held up for several days in the state next to mine. This is nothing new as this literally happens every single fucking time things are sent to me via FedEx dumb ass post. So I called and, you better sit down for this… I got a real human on the line! It was a fucking miracle! However, I was informed they don’t consider the package lost until it’s been 7 days after the original delivery date. You’re kidding me, right? I had just got done telling her that my stuff always got held up in this same state, like it’s some giant FedEx black hole or something and that’s what she tells me… The best she could do was file a complaint against that facility for me, which I had her do, and tell me to call the company I ordered from.

So I call Joann’s and they were so sweet and decided to refund my money. They also said if I wanted to try again, they would give me the original sale price and waive the shipping cost. Okay… I figured why not, I may as well try it again if they’re still going to give me the sale price and waive shipping. So I put in the order and don’t you know, I found out the next day they were going to deliver my pens that same day… I felt kind of bad, but there wasn’t much I could do, I’d already put in the order for a new set of pens. Besides, I swear those pens were in that facility for about 4 or 5 days before they moved anywhere. Yeah FedEx, you’re really great at making sure shit gets where it’s going on time…

So while I’m enjoying my new gel pens and going blind coloring in those fucking mushrooms, Joann’s had sent out the other gel pens I’d ordered. Sure enough, the same thing happened. I’d gotten a delivery date but, because it got stuck in that same black hole facility, it soon changed status to your package is still coming but we have no idea when the fuck it’ll be there because the black hole sucked it in, cross your fingers and pray. And I had filed a complaint against these inept mother fuckers! All I could do was just shake my head and sigh… So set #2 spent several days in the black hole as well and eventually ended up on my stoop. They arrived here Saturday.

So in the end, I got two sets of rather expensive gel pens for the low, low price of $20.08 and didn’t have to pay the $10 shipping for either set. Joann’s was nice enough to reimburse me for that first set and shipping and waive shipping on the second, but… Honestly, FedEx should have eaten the cost of all this. It’s not Joann’s fault that my order didn’t get to me and was seemingly lost in the system. I can’t see how it was as it was a good sized box. So lose shit and don’t take accountability for it… Is that FedEx’s new motto? If it isn’t, it certainly should be! I’ve had other issues with them, delivering packages with mystery ooze the soaked through the box… They just suck…

So aside from FedEx and their ineptitude… I have some news that really has been making my week incredibly amazing and I wanted to share it with you, dear readers. You always share all my bad news and the trials and tribulations I face, all the bitching I do about Morticia (who is, at this point, a retro commercial, “I’ve got a headache this big, and it’s got Morticia written all over it!”) and whatever other crazy bipolar/OCD/PTSD/anxiety driven shit I throw at you. So I’m going to share some of the best news a person like me could have possibly gotten!

I joined this Facebook group (yes, I decided it was time to get back in the social media game, though not as much as I was) that just happened to pop up on my homepage one day called The Happy Hippie Group. Now, those of you who have been following me for a while might remember me posting my hospital baby picture where I’m making an upside down peace sign (hey, I was a baby with little muscle control) and that the running joke in my family is that I was born a hippie. I’ve lived as one and I’m sure I’ll die as one, too… So I thought what the fuck, I may as well join. Just for the hell of it, I decided to post this drawing I did with my Copic liners, watercolor pencils and some mushroom cut-outs because she was a hippie girl. See how many likes and shares it got? That was in the span of about 24 hours… One day… Now it has well over 400 (last I checked) and I can’t tell you how many people commented on it, all of them in the positive. One of them loves it so much that she actually is encouraging me to get my ass out to craft shows to sell my work because my stuff should be hanging on people’s walls! She’s been so wonderfully encouraging, I just can’t tell you how much that means to me! No one was very encouraging when it came to my dream of being an artist as I was growing up, but I continued to draw if only for myself. But I’m thinking of making a Facebook page just for my art, maybe an Etsy shop… What do you think, dear readers? Should I go for it?

The Andy Warhol of the female persuasion…

Yeah, I had to retake this one with my glasses off… I really like this Snapchat filter for some stupid reason even if it does make me look like Andy Warhol and I really hate his guts… Not because he was gay, but because he was a sell out. “Oh look, I made a sad looking painting of a can of fucking Campbell’s soup! Pay me millions of dollars for it because I’m ‘unique’!” No you weren’t… You were an asshole who sold out instead of making real art and starving like the rest of us, so fuck you… And now that he’s dead, he’s even more famous! That’s the real kick in the ass, isn’t it?

So now you all know why I loathe Andy Warhol and others like him. But that’s neither here nor there, honestly. Here’s the real issue… My sister is a nurse practitioner and teaches online for a college and her boyfriend is a doctor. Can we say stupid amounts of money come into that house? So one weekend they go to New York, to Greenwich Village and my sister buys this huge painting for above their fireplace from some female artist (who happens to be a lesbian, which isn’t particularly relevant) and pays a metric fuckton of money for a painting that’s basically random paint smears on a canvas and, where the paint was particularly thick, she used one of those rake things you use when spreading cement to lay ceramic tile to make the wave pattern. Not only that, but she bought some prints of some of her other paintings… All these are hanging up downstairs for everyone to see. My mom gave her paintings I made for Christmas one year. Yeah, you know where I found those? Hanging upstairs in the spare bedroom she uses for storage… How insulting! She’s my fucking sister! Don’t you think she should support me? Or maybe I should cut my hair really short, move to Greenwich Village and start munching some carpet in order to get rich fucking asshats like her and her boyfriend to buy my work for ridiculous prices so they can feel self important because they’re “supporting the LGBTQ” community… Is that how it works? Listen, I’m not anti anything… Whatever trips your trigger is fine by me. But I can’t lie and say it doesn’t annoy me that rich douchebags are doing this to feel self important and some people aren’t cashing in on this…

I’m sorry if that offends some of you… It really wasn’t meant to. Honestly, I’m not against anyone who chooses an alternate lifestyle. One of my best friends is gay and, coincidentally, I’m the one that told him the guy he was dating was a keeper when I met him. They’re now married. Hey, I wasn’t giving him to just anyone… He deserved the best and I knew he’d found the best…

It’s just that, sometimes, as an artist, you can feel so defeated. A homeless man drew this sad ass stick figure that a kindergartener could do a thousand times better for tens of thousands years back. Why? Because he was a homeless man. That’s what sells… It’s not your work or how good it is. No one cares… What they do care about it you. Are you a minority, beaten down by the man, homeless, gay, bisexual, pansexual, transgender, no gender, think you’re an alien from another planet, think you’re a cat and shit in a litter box (seriously, I heard a tale about that)? That’s what they want. They don’t want amazing art. They want something that makes you hip, trendy, the current fad or a literal lunatic. That’s what you’re selling. Not your art, you and who you are. So… do I want to pursue this? I’m not so sure anymore…

Jackie, The Human Dumpster…

Hello, dear readers! It’s your friendly neighborhood emotional baggage dumpster, here, ready to have you dump all your shit, no matter how trivial, into my already overwhelmed mind until it reaches the point that I literally go bat shit insane and decide to blow like Krakatoa! Because hey, my life isn’t an emotional roller coaster during the ultimate shit storm right now… I could use someone else’s trivial emotional baggage thrown in there, too! And while we’re at it, make light of my situation because your petty problems are just so much worse than mine. That’s what I’m fucking here for!

I have come to this conclusion that this is how my “friends” see me… I am nothing more than a dumpster where they can toss their emotional baggage without a thought or a care as to how it might affect me or what kinds of trials and tribulations I may be going through myself at the time. I’m sure none of them are this fucking oblivious that they can’t see some of their issues are really small, petty, insignificant or just downright stupid in comparison to the ones I’m facing right now. Yet, they all seem pretty fucking oblivious… They just throw all their baggage into Jackie the human dumpster and never give a second thought to ask the dumpster how she’s holding up…

But before I get into that… How do you like the Halloween wig I bought? Yeah, it reminded me why I started getting my hair cut… Long hair began to annoy me at some point and I began getting it cut shorter (it’s still long). I don’t miss my hair being this long, I learned that much from this wig…

I have the most awesome friend that sends me these…

So, the entire thing began over the weekend when I was on the phone with Morticia which, as we all know by now, is enough to send my normally dead person low blood pressure skyrocketing through the stratosphere. I hear a notification and see I have a Facebook message… It’s from one of my ex boyfriends that’s we’ll call Carrot (he’s a ginger). Not that I’m in the habit of staying friends with exes, but Carrot and I were friends way back in high school and started dating when we were about 23. Even after we broke up, we stayed friends for a while then lost touch. It was only a few years ago that we became friends on Facebook. He’s well aware that he and I will never be anything more than that ever again, which isn’t the problem, though he’s made it clear if I ever wanted a relationship with him again, he’d jump at that chance… Why are some men stupid like that? I realize it’s been well over 25 years and yes, people do change… But the things that made me not want to stay with him then are still present now. He knows that because we’ve talked about the shortcomings that made me want to end the relationship. If you still have those shortcomings that a person simply can’t live with, why the fuck would you want to try it again?! Someone please explain this to me because I’m just at a complete loss, here… Is this all men or is he just a special kind of fucking stupid?!

So this is how the relationship with Carrot and I goes… He messages me (sometimes he calls) to discuss the fact that he’s still single, how bad it sucks and I’m biting my tongue so I don’t ask him, “And exactly what kind of cheese would you like with that whine, rat…?” I know that would make me an asshole, but when you’ve heard this as many times as I have… Well, you wouldn’t care if you were an asshole, either… Now at this point I hadn’t heard from him in a long time (thank heavens), so when I saw his name pop up, I groaned. I knew exactly where this was going. And it did… He asked how life was, I said it’s been better. The response: “Okay… lol”, which I found snide and sarcastic. He than asked “What’s wrong with yours?” That also sounded snide and sarcastic and rude to boot. So I told him to go first. “Still miserably single and turning 50 in a few days”… There’s the stupid… I asked, “That’s all?” To which he acted like like it was a huge travesty and I was making light of it. I told him I’d trade him in a heartbeat. He asked when then asked what was up with me, so I told him everything that’s been going on with my health, that I’ve been overwhelmed by everything and crying a lot. He said he cries a lot, too, but for other reasons, not to make light of my situation, but he sometimes gets lost in his thoughts and cries alone… I didn’t respond for a long time because I was going back and forth, should I or shouldn’t I… I was literally stewing about it before I finally decided, fuck it, I should. I told him he was trivializing my situation. You can’t compare being alone with my situation. My lungs are literally rotting and if I can’t quit smoking, this can kill me. I described how it feels to not be able to keep up with people when they walk a normal pace because you’re so winded you feel you’re running a marathon and get sharp pain in your lungs, that you’re only 49 and have osteoporosis and chances are no one will believe you (like they didn’t believe I went through menopause so young) and you’re afraid to bend and lift things or fall because you can break something. I told him he’s so worried about growing old alone, but at least he knows he will grow old. I’m not so sure I will and did he have any idea what that felt like, knowing you may not grow old?! I told him no, he didn’t, because he was too busy whining that he was alone and the reason he couldn’t get women was because the vibe he gave off was that he was desperate and women don’t like desperate men. It took him a while to respond, but when he did, he was like every other guy that has ever known me overly well. He knew he fucked up and that was really bad. He was very apologetic.

But that doesn’t mean it stayed that way… He again turned it around and made it about himself. Shocking, right? I eventually managed to get him to shut the fuck up and leave me alone, so I thought… He messaged me yesterday wanting to let me know he’s available if I want to hang out and “get my mind off of things”… and to whine some more, of course. So… why in the blue fuck would I want to hand out with Carrot for any reason?! Jesus Christ! Seriously, I could need someone to talk me out of offing myself and if Carrot was the only person available to talk to, I think I’d rather die because it would be preferable to listening to his whiny ass bitch about still being single! I wish I could say I was kidding but, sadly, I’m not…

Aside from the fact that I dated him long ago, I’d hooked him up with Morticia during one of her Gomez breaks, hoping it would kill two birds with one stone and get rid of both problems for me. Instead, it created a worse one with Morticia, but that’s neither here nor there… I did, however, gain some interesting insight as to what kind of person Carrot was. I know what he was like at 23 or 24 and it seems not much has changed. I actually think he’s gotten a bit worse. I swear, he’s the poster child for why women should choose lesbianism… Maybe he should try acting like the 50 year old man he is and not a horny adolescent boy and he’d be able to keep a woman his own age. Or any age…

Morticia is no better… Sometimes I wish I would magically go fucking deaf, but inly when she calls. Then I wouldn’t have to listen to the constant bitching about how much she hates her job, how sick she is, how much of an asshole her one friend is, what said friend is doing wrong with her life (I don’t know why she cares), her troubles with Gomez, her money issues… just everything. I wouldn’t have to hear her tell me how I “don’t understand” when I clearly do… At least she’ll ask me how I’m doing, however, that comes with circumstances. Either she’ll ask and, when I start to tell her she’ll cut me off and change the subject because she either a) doesn’t actually care how I’m doing or b) doesn’t want to hear that someone may actually be sick because then they’ll take all the attention away from her crazy Munchausen’s ass. I’m really not sure which, nor do I really care. It’s just the principal of the thing. And if she’s not cutting me off because she clearly doesn’t care to hear what I have to say, she’s putting me down or making up some excuse as to why I’m not well that can be easily fixed. She’s constantly telling me a lot of my issues are because I don’t eat red meat. First of all, I think she didn’t get the memo that red meat is bad for you. Second, she knows I can’t digest it since I lost my gall bladder (I found this happens to a lot of people after said surgery). She also keeps downplaying my osteoporosis, thinking it’s some form of arthritis. I think she wants to believe it’s a mild form of such because she has rheumatoid arthritis and no one can be sicker than her… I’ve tried telling her it’s bone loss, but she thinks that’s what arthritis is…

Something I wish I could feed to see people…

As for everyone else… Well, I don’t really have a support system. I don’t have many friends and the friends I do have (not counting Morticia who calls every day several times a day and the occasional whining from Carrot) don’t seem to give two hoots and a rat’s happy ass about whether I live or die. I rarely hear from them and, when I do, it’s usually because they want or need something. None of them ever ask how I’m feeling or holding up. Even my own family is no better. They don’t ask how I’m holding up, how my doctor appointments go, what the doctors say…

Lately I’ve had so many doctor’s appointments and tests, that’s pretty much the only time I ever leave the house. I’m so sick and fucking tired of doctors… Honestly, I see doctors more than other people. I’ve gained so many doctors in the past year, it’s fucking insane, and most of those have been in the past month. I miss the days when all I had was just a GP and a GYN… Now I have a GI, a cardiologist, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a pulmonologist (two, actually, one is for the smoking cessation program), a rheumatologist… I don’t want to know what’s next… So when I actually got out of the house to do something necessary and enjoyable (I needed long sleeved shirts and one of the stores had them on sale), I decided I was going to do a little shopping, just browsing around the store. I happened to see this in the perfume counter… I didn’t know they made Poison anymore! Back when this was super popular, everyone I knew had a bottle except me. I couldn’t splurge on something so luxurious because I had bills to pay and was forced to help my mom support the sponge. So when I saw this, even though I didn’t need it and it was pricey, I decided I deserved a treat, something that would make me smile when I wore it.

I need a pick me up… And if a perfume I can spritz on and make that feeling of being overwhelmed go away for a little while does the trick, it’s worth the money.

I also got my new iPhone (how pretty!) which is good because I was so tired of my texting acting all wonky. I think the screen was starting to go a little. No surprise… I’d had the old one about 2 years and I text and comment a lot, plus I play some games that require me to use the screen a lot. It’s no wonder it shits out so fast. But now I have a pretty new one and I got the full trade in value for my old one, so I got the new one dirt cheap. One thing I can say about Apple: if you want to get a new phone every two years, they make it super affordable to do it. Unlike some companies…

Anyway, back to the subject because my brain was like a train that totally derailed there for a second… Like that doesn’t happen any other time… So Morticia seems to be laboring under the delusion that osteoporosis is a type of arthritis. I told her no, that’s osteoarthritis, which I do have in my back (and I’m sure other places). She said, “Oh… that’s what I have in my back, too (sure you do). Then what the hell is osteoporosis?” Mind you, this is from someone who supposedly went through some sort of schooling for medical training and was just about to get her degree when shit happened and she was tossed out of the program. I told her osteoporosis is bone loss, your bones get really thin and brittle and can break easy because you’re not making as much new bone anymore. The process slows as you age anyway, but with osteoporosis it slows a lot and you lose way more than you create, so your bones are thin and brittle and even bending over can break your spine if that’s where you have it at (and mine is worst in my spine).

No matter how many times I’ve explained this, she still thinks that osteoporosis and arthritis are the same thing… I’m sure there is some bone loss with arthritis from your bones rubbing together after the cartilage is gone (which is what happens with arthritis) but that’s not the same as your bones becoming porous like a sponge and brittle. Morticia is an idiot and you can’t tell her otherwise if she thinks she’s right…

I actually had my appointment with the rheumatologist earlier this week… I liked her, she’s nice and I think she really knows her shit… I just didn’t want to be there, not for what I was there for. I ended up having a mini meltdown in the exam room because of everything. I know there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s here and I just have to deal with it. But there’s a bigger picture no one is looking at. It’s more than the osteoporosis. It’s all about losing my ovaries so young… If I’d had a choice, you better believe I’d have chosen for that to not have happened. That’s the issue I’m having a difficult time dealing with. It was 15 years last month and I still can’t seem to get over that loss of control. And now all these other issues are rearing their ugly heads from it, adding insult to injury… As for the emphysema, that’s my own fucking fault. I was a stupid kid, 15, stuck in a shit show situation at home. Cigarettes, underaged drinking and smoking dope helped me get through a lot of shit for several years. The cigarettes were, sadly, the only thing I couldn’t seem to give up. Now I’m paying for it…

Be that as it may, no matter whether I have no one to blame but myself or no one to blame because I’m an atheist and don’t know who the fuck I could blame, it doesn’t mean I need every asshole I know tossing all their problems into the Jackie dumpster. But they keep doing it… And I’m telling you, pretty soon I’m going to snap the fuck out and completely lose my shit. And then no one’s going to be happy. It’s happened before when I lost my shit…

Ugh, I’m depressing myself… I’m probably depressing you, too, dear readers. I’m sorry for that. Sometimes my venting tirades go a little crazy.

So I’ll leave you with some happy today… I decided to make a new profile picture and use the digital watercolor brushes. I don’t think it’s bad for a first attempt… I wasn’t sure what the fuck I was going for, actually. But it turned out kind of pretty, don’t you think? And yet my profile pictures never look like me, do they…? Hell, they don’t even look like me when I was young! Hahahaa… Wow, that’s pretty sad, isn’t it? What’s really sad is that my hair has never looked this nice, not even on its best day. My hair is like wresting Medusa’s head full of snakes, thanks to the beauty of naturally curly hair and frizz… Ah well. At least I can draw my hair pretty even if it looks like Medusa’s snakes in real life! Anyway, I’m kind of digging the watercolor look… I might do more like this in the future, test the waters, give it some trial runs to see what I can do with it. What do you think, dear readers? Do you like the watercolor look? Should I give it more practice and see what I come up with? Shoot me some comments!

Diary Of A Madwoman…

Ah, a picture of yours truly with all the Cymbalta fat… Normally I would burn all those pictures and send them back to the bowels of Hell from whence they came, but I really loved this Snapchat filter. It was like evil, demented kitty…

Which kind of describes how I’ve been feeling as of late… Let me tell you something, if October is “Try Jackie’s Patience Month”, a lot of people are definitely getting into the spirit of the season. October is a bad month for me in general and has been for 16 years. That was when my first ovary blew up like a bomb and the following October I lost the second one. Can we see a pattern to October? I have horrible PTSD from it and every year for an entire monthI suffer the worst type of anxiety. Every little ache or pain is suspect to being something bigger. Some years are better than others… But I’m always anxious the entire year and say nothing to anyone, preferring to suffer in silence. Except now all of you know… And I finally told my therapist the other day… Anyway, the point is that this is the wrong time of year to irk my fucking nerves and that seems to be all anyone ever wants to fucking do for some reason. I’m not gonna lie, I’m losing my shit…

Morticia is one of my biggest triggers at the moment… Wait… When isn’t she?! But lately it’s been a lot worse. I’m just tired of listening to her bitch about how much she hates her job, hates Gomez (yep, she’s still with him), doesn’t have money for important things like lot rent or heating fuel but can buy cigarettes or a bottle of booze… She’s borrowed large amounts of money from people then gets angry when they hound her to pay them something in an attempt to pay it back. She was in charge of a large sum of money that wasn’t hers (it belonged to a league she belonged to) and used all of it to pay bills and whatnot. Now they want it and she can’t pay it. She asked her oldest son for help and he said he would try to give her some money, behind his wife’s back mind you. When it seemed to be taking him too long, Morticia’s response was, “He better give me that money.” What the actual fuck?! He doesn’t owe you anything! On top of that, I have to listen to her telling me I need to just get over my PTSD and the upset I’ve been feeling over my new medical conditions while she’s constantly whining about her Crohn’s and rheumatoid arthritis. I’m sorry, I just found out my lungs are rotting and that the loss of my ovaries has made my bones so frail they could snap for no reason. Shitting a lot is so much worse, what was I thinking?! To be fair, I’m sure it sucks, but I’m the Queen of Constipation, so I don’t see an issue with being able to go, honestly… And when you consider this is the person who thought that osteoarthritis (which we both have in our backs) and osteoporosis are the same thing, well…

A few days ago, I had to call the internet company I was using… When I first got them, it was $80 for so-called “high speed” internet. Over the last few years, the rate has gone up and the speed has gone down. So I called and found out my rate just went up again and was now $160! I said, “How in the hell can you justify charging people that much money for internet every month?! There are other companies out there that charge considerably less!” She got cocky with me and said they charged less because that was their promotional prices and she could give me a promo price of $84 a month and after a year I’d have to call back to see what other promos they had to keep my bill low. What the fuck is that shit?! I told her fine, whatever. Then I called Verizon. For $80 (if you’re not enrolled in autopay) a month, you can get 1GB a second upload and download speed. That’s mad ass fast! So I asked the guy if that was a promo price. He seemed puzzled and said no, that was their price all the time… When I told him how much my other company was charging me, he was shocked and appalled. Needless to say, the equipment arrived the next day, I love my new service and today I’m calling my old company and telling them to shove their service up their fucking asses…

It’s not my first run in with this company… I used to have phone service with them. Long story short, they gave me the wrong phone plan, I was overcharged thousands of dollars which was, not surprisingly, during the time they were going through bankruptcy. They assured me a refund but it would take a few weeks to figure out. I called 2 to 3 times every week for a year. After a year, they told me they had no record of it because they don’t keep records longer than a year. I was livid! So fast forward to about 8 years later. I get a house and their’s was the only cable you could get in this development. But they wouldn’t come hook mine up because I never paid my last $75 phone bill. I let them have it… I made sure I told the rep about all the money I was overcharged, how I never got a refund because they “didn’t keep records more than a year”, but they remembered I didn’t pay my last phone bill from 8 years ago… I also mentioned that, gee, wasn’t it funny that I was overcharged and never reimbursed during that time they were going through a bankruptcy… He fell dead ass silent, as well he should have. That was when I told him, “So you’re going to forget that 75 fucking dollars and you’re going to send someone over here to hook up my fucking cable and not say boo about it! Got it?!” Yup, a few days later, I had cable and didn’t pay that $75.

Did you enjoy my little story, dear readers…? I wish I could tell you it was a work of fiction, but that’s how shit flies in Jackie’s world…

I once bitched out a harassing bill collector for calling on a Sunday (yes, me, the atheist) so badly that I’ve never gotten a harassing call of any kind on a Sunday ever again. When I was in my early 20s (a million years ago) I had this army recruiter who was still harassing me since high school. I tried telling him I was lazy and would never make it through basic training, that his offer of the army helping me in my career choice was a moot point because I wanted to draw cartoons for a living, that I thought war was stupid because there was no winning only degrees of losing, that I simply wasn’t interested. He kept calling. One day, I put on the performance of my life… I excitedly told him, “You know what, I’d love to join the army!” I thought he was going to jazz his pants when he said, “Really?!” I responded with an enthusiastic, “Yeah!” then quickly changed my tone to a sad one and said, “But you won’t let me..” He asked, “Why is that?” I responded, “Because I’m a lesbian and you won’t let us join the army.” His response? “Okaythankyoubye!” and hung up! Hahahaa… I’m not a lesbian, but the US army thinks I am. And at that time, they weren’t allowing gays in the military. At least he stopped calling me… I got the Jehovah’s Witnesses to stop coming to my house by questioning the whole Christmas vs Easter thing. Christmas, the day Christ was born supposedly, is always on the same date in the same month, right? So Easter, the day he rose again or something? Anyway, it’s never on the same date, half the time it isn’t even in the same month, and it’s always on a Sunday. I asked what was up with that and she started babbling about calendars being different back then and I kept asking, “But why is it always on a Sunday?!” She said she’d get back to me and never returned… Make them question their faith, they’ll leave you alone.

By the way, how do you like my bell bottoms? It’s hard to tell the way the picture was taken, but they are bell bottoms… They were plain, except small holes purposely put in the thighs (I hate that) so I asked my mom to patch them. Her neighbor was telling her how they used to embellish their bell bottoms back in the day and, well… I have the funkiest custom bell bottoms ever! I absolutely love them! Oddly enough, I’ve gotten lots of compliments on these pants and I got a lot of compliments on this outfit and how I looked so cute! That was nice to hear… I’m nearly 50… Hearing you look cute is a great compliment at that age! And my mom’s friend loved the jeans and said that was exactly how they wore them when she was young. Sweet!

Speaking of young… A few weekends ago I went with some people to this thing called Brickfest (it was a Lego convention) which I wasn’t really too thrilled about going to, even though I always like Lego. But as soon as I got inside, I went from 49 to 9 in no seconds! It was amazing what people do with Lego! And they had fun set ups like this one where you could get pictures taken! The Star Wars nerd I am was freaking out! I got a picture on a speeder as well as selfies with people dressed as Mandalorians and a Storm Trooper! It was the most fun I’d had in forever!

But life is full of ups and downs… The day after Brickfest and the tons of fun I had acting like a child and harassing a Storm Trooper, I had some mild personal drama going on. In the end I did talk to said person and tell them they hurt my feelings, something I apparently have difficulty doing, so all my therapists have said… I always say they pissed me off when what I really mean is my feelings were hurt, yada yada… I wasn’t sure me addressing the issue was going to be a good idea, but it turns out that it was. I think we both have a better understanding of things and each other now. I hope she remembers to think next time and remember that the entire world does not center around just her husband’s family but hers as well.

At least I have a little bit of happy going on today… I ordered the new iPhone 14 Pro Max and it should be delivered today, earlier than expected! I was kind of on the fence about it, but my current phone (the 12 Pro Max) is about two years old at this point and I’m noticing some weird little issues with the text function. I use the Swype feature (because I’m too fucking old to text like younger people) and it’s giving me weird words. Even if I type them in a letter at a time, it’s autocorrecting to incorrect words, jumbling words together, not leaving spaces when it should or doubling up on letters. I think it’s just because I text and leave comments a lot, but this seems to happen about two years into every iPhone I’ve ever had. So it’s time… I’ll miss my 12, but I’m looking forward to my new one. And don’t we all need something to look forward to sometimes?

Well Color Me Fucked…

I haven’t been around for a bit… As you can see, I’ve been doing some art. This was my first attempt at using watercolor pencils. Albeit not the best, but it was my first attempt at using a new medium I’d never used before, so I was completely out of my element. All I knew was that I wasn’t using the cheap ass brush they gave me. Over $50 for the pencils and they give me the cheapest brush. For real?! I just bought a pack of the plastic, refillable brushes. Much nicer. No dipping, no dripping… The water comes right from the barrel down into the bristles so you always have water. That makes my life a helluva lot easier. But it seemed bland and, since I had this pack of retro things to paste on, I pulled out some mushrooms and butterflies I thought would jazz it up a few notches. I think it worked out well. I’m still learning, but I’m getting the hang of it. Maybe one day my work will look better than this. Who knows…

When male Siri only hears half of what you say…

I wish I could say I’ve been MIA because I’ve been working on my writing and drawing so much. I wish I could say that… But sadly, that’s not why. I’ve been spending a lot of time at doctor’s appointments, getting tests done and lying on the sofa crying. Well, that and amusing myself with male Siri’s inability to listen correctly on the Apple Watch. I got myself the series 7 watch because I’ve been wanting to get one and just never wanted to spend the money, but also because I felt that the abilities it had to monitor heart rate and do EKGs would help allay my anxieties over my heart wonkiness that I sometimes experience (I have a slight electrical defect). I have no idea what I was saying at the time, here, but Siri didn’t hear what I was saying correctly at all and this was the response I got. My mom was visiting when this happened and we were both cracking up. It just goes to show, even AI males don’t really listen I suppose.

So this all started one night when the upper part of my left arm, shoulder and the area leading into my chest went numb… I was freaked the fuck out (thanks, anxiety), but had no other symptoms and it dissipated after 15 minutes. I figured it was a pinched nerve like I’d had in the other side. I had a car accident when I was 19 (wow, 30 years ago) and have developed stenosis in my neck vertebrae, which closes up the holes the nerves run through and pinches them. So the next morning I call one of my GPs because they have meds to treat this shit and she wants me to go to the ER for a CAT scan of my head that day, ASAP. I had no clue why, but whatever. She told them I was coming, so I go down… and they had other plans. After they drew about 7 or 8 vials of blood, put in two IV lines (one had to be large for contrast dye), an EKG, a chest X-ray and finally the head CT that gave me a lovely headache for how fast they pushed the dye in, they said everything looked good, though I did get a referral to a neurologist (see, probably the pinched nerve I thought it was). What concerned me that they just blew off was that my heart rate was really low, which isn’t normal for me. At one point it went down to 48 and sent alarms off on the machine. They said they don’t worry until it dips below 40, but still…

Now, this hospital network has this thing called “My Chart” that you can access and see your results as soon as they come in. That’s how I’ve known my bloodwork and urine are all sorts of fucked up and have been for a while. But it’s a good thing I really read this shit… One thing I read on my CT scan was down at the bottom under thoracic. Apparently it gets the top part of your chest as well… Mild emphysema in the lung apices… That’s what it said. My chest X-ray also showed minimal scarring on my right lung and hyperinflation. I immediately called my GP to ask what the fuck this all meant, hoping I was wrong. Nope… I have mild emphysema. He suggested I see a pulmonologist. I was sobbing… He wouldn’t let me off the phone until he knew I was feeling a little better.

More like the secrets they keep from you that you need to know

That’s not bad enough… What’s worse is that they saw scarring on my lungs 4 years ago and said nothing. They didn’t even mention the mild emphysema to me and they should have. I had to see it on my own! How long were they going to let that shit go?! They didn’t even send the results to my GP! In any case, a day or so later, I got the EKG results. Sinus bradycardia, which means my heart is beating in rhythm, it’s just super slow. So I’ve been checking that with my Apple Watch and yeah, my resting heart rate has been in the 40s quite a lot. So I made an appointment with the cardiologist. I need to get a Holter monitor again at the end of next month to see what the fuck my heart is doing (he doesn’t trust the watches yet) and, while I was there, he changed my cholesterol med because my statin wasn’t making enough of a difference. The reason he didn’t change me over sooner was because other statins can cause muscle spasms and I tend to get those in my back as it is, so he wanted to leave well enough alone. So now I’m on a scary cholesterol med that makes me nauseous so far. I’m not happy about that…

That was Monday’s appointment… Tuesday, I went for a DEXA scan. For those who have no fucking idea what that is, it’s a bone density test. Several months ago I realized that on October 2nd, it’ll be 15 years since I’d gotten my last monthly friend and it’s possible I should get one. Also because I’ve been needing a step stool to reach the top shelf in cupboards. I wasn’t worried about that test, honestly, and I’d asked for it just to keep an eye on things like I should. Yeah… I wasn’t happy when she measured me and I found I shrunk 2 inches… I’m now 5 foot 7 inches. I feel short… Thanks menopause! Fucking ass… Then my results come back. Osteoporosis… Mild, the beginning stages. My GP says they should start treating it now, but the pills can cause gastric issues which I already have and, with me being so young and probably needing to be on treatment for a long time, he thinks the yearly injections may be more effective. So he referred me to a rheumatologist. I was fine, cheerful almost , on the phone. Then as soon as I hung up, I broke down and sobbed. I never really got over losing my ovaries as I did. And now it’s like I’m mourning all over again because it’s causing me all sorts of geriatric issues and I’m not even 50 yet.

This will be my next tattoo, coming very soon…

Thursday I went to the pulmonologist. By this point, I was so overwhelmed, it wasn’t funny. I had called my sister that morning and literally had a breakdown of nuclear proportions. I was crying, asking what did I do to deserve this? She actually seemed sympathetic for once and told me I didn’t do anything. It doesn’t feel that way… It feels like this is punishment, but for what I don’t know. I’ve always tried to be a good person, do the right things… I don’t know… So by the time the doctor came in to see me, I was lying on the exam table crying and barely acknowledged him at first. I had to explain it was just an overwhelming week of bad news. At least he didn’t give me horrible news. No cancer, the emphysema is mild, it’s not that bad. On a scale of 1-10, I’m a 5 (that sounds pretty bad, doc). I can’t get a lung CT until I’m 50, so about 6 more months. In the meantime, I need to get breathing studies done, go through a smoking cessation program (I want to quit, scary as that is for me with my anxiety) and I got a kick ass inhaler which helps the hyperinflation. That’s what’s been causing the pain in my ribs all this time. Air gets trapped in my lungs because the tubes are too narrow, so the sacs get overinflated and ouch! Let me tell you, it hurts like a fuck! This stuff helps. I see him again in 3 months.

But the worst part of all this is finding out your friends and family suck… I don’t want pity or sympathy, I’m not that kind of person. I just want to know you care about me and you’ll be there to help pick me up if I should falter, that’s it. Be encouraging.

So even though she’s been acting odd with me lately, I’d finally told M&M about the emphysema thing (I didn’t know about the other shit yet) because she’s my best friend and has been since I was 16 and she was 14. Her response was that it sucks getting old, she’s facing some shit herself. I was concerned, so I asked what was going on. She told me she found out she had macular degeneration and it was the type you couldn’t treat, so one day she’d need glasses… Well boo-fucking-hoo! I’ve been wearing glasses since third grade! I had bifocals in high school and before I turned 49, it was either transition bifocals or trifocals! No offense, but how does this compare to emphysema?! I didn’t even want to tell her about the cardiac shit or the osteoporosis. I though her reaction was really insensitive and I just didn’t want to deal with that anymore. She knows how long I’ve had to have glasses, how bad my eyes are… Why would she think that I’d feel sorry for her or that it compares?!

And my family is no better… not that I actually have a lot of family. They’re really not very supportive, they don’t show they give a rat’s happy ass… I think the closest thing my mother said that sounded even remotely caring was to say, “Well, at least you’re doing something about it.” No shit, Sherlock! What the fuck did you think I was going to do?! Let it go so it could get worse and just die?! I know she’s been a shitty mom, but that was really an idiot thing to say to me! The few friends I have are no better… They either have no reaction at all or are complete idiots like Morticia who try to downplay things because god forbid that anyone should be more ill than she is. She even tried telling me she had osteoporosis in her back, they told her when they did her X-ray of her spine. I told her they can’t tell by X-ray, you need a DEXA scan, what they told her was she had osteoarthritis, which is something else I have in my back. Then she agreed maybe that was what they told her (they did, I remember her telling me that) and then asked what osteoporosis was. She didn’t even know, but she swore she had it! I swear she had Munchausen’s! It’s fucking crazy and she drives me crazy! This is not what I need right now… I’m falling apart and a lot of it is due to losing my ovaries like I did. I may only be 49, but I have all the issues of a woman in her late 60s or older. It’s not fun and I hate it! Seriously, fuck my life…

This is my current mental state. I just feel very much alone… I’m scared… I’m not too proud to admit that. I’m really fucking scared of everything going on right now and I feel as if I have absolutely no support, no one who gives a good god damn what the fuck I’m going through, what’s running through my head… I’m terrified of the damage I’ve already done to my lungs, but at the same time I’m terrified to quit smoking. I know that makes no sense to normal people, but I’ve been smoking for 34 years. That’s a long time… I use it as a crutch for my anxiety. And, if I quit, will I gain back all the weight I gained on Cymbalta that I worked so hard to get rid of? And, if I’m not a smoker, who the fuck am I? Obviously I wasn’t ready to quit, but now my hand is forced. And all the other things going on… Did you know, with osteoporosis in your spine, you can break your vertebrae just by bending, coughing or sneezing? Yeah, that’s not paranoia inducing at all… Now I’m almost certain that time my sacroiliac joint popped out so bad I had to put myself in homemade traction was actually a fracture. All I did was bend over. The pain was excruciating and nothing helped it. So now I’m afraid to do things. As for my heart, well… That’s been an issue. Still, I don’t want to feel like I’m going through all this alone with no support. But here we are… I suppose I’ll just have to suck it up and do what I have to do. I don’t have the luxury to lay around and cry anymore…

By George, I Think It’s Art!

Much as I hate Andy Warhol (don’t even get me started on that hack), I do like this Snapchat filter. It’s a rather nice picture of me, don’t you think?

Anyway, I haven’t been blogging for a while… One reason is because, holy shit, I’ve been making art! Real art! Like traditional, non digital drawings! Amazing… So I’ve been keeping very busy. Reason number two is that it’s ragweed season and I’ve been very sick. I usually get sick during ragweed season, but not like this. If only my shit insurance would start covering my Clarinex again instead of insisting I keep taking that useless Claritin, maybe I wouldn’t be so miserable… And the third reason is that I have officially run out of space. Yup, I have no more room for photos and other random pictures in my storage. I don’t want to pay per month to have the luxury of adding pictures to my blog (and the cheapest is no a lot more space) and I can’t seem to figure out why the google pictures don’t seem to work. So until I figure out a better solution, you’ll have to deal with repeats…

Sorry for the short update… I have a lot of art to get done and I really feel like shit. And it’ll just get worse before it gets better. Lucky me… I think it’s nap time…

Sincerely Yours… A Dissatisfied Customer

Before I start today’s ramblings, I want to apologize, dear readers… I actually wanted to write an entry for a while, but I didn’t have the opportunity. I was nursing a sick pup. Poor Baxter… One morning he barfed up his entire breakfast, which was odd enough. But when he threw up three more times, it was boiled chicken and rice for dinner. The next morning he was dry heaving and sleeping a lot. When I couldn’t rouse him from shaking him and calling his name and had to tug his ears to get a vague response, I checked his nose. It was really warm and dry. I made an emergency appointment with the vet because I just knew he was sick. My mother took us down since I’d just paid bills and was tapped out (plus I had a dead car battery and it seemed no one had the size I needed in stock) so I needed help. Normally I don’t get bloodwork done because it’s costly, but… It’s a good thing I did. He had pancreatitis! So he got 2 meds, special food, fluids under the skin, bloodwork, a nail trim and a joint supplement because apparently his hind leg ligaments are close to tearing (so that will be a surgery of $3000-$5000). Add in the cost of the emergency visit and it came to a hair over $700! I nearly fell over… I hate being indebted to my mother for anything, but what was I to do? Everything big and expensive comes right after you pay all your bills and you just have enough to get by until next time. At least he’s feeling a bit better, now.

Obviously I haven’t done much (and didn’t sleep much in the beginning) with Baxter being so sick with the exception of going to a dermatologist appointment to have a cyst removed from my back at the base of my right shoulder blade. That was comical, actually… The nurse wanted to explain the procedure and I explained it to her. This led to a conversation of all the cysts I’ve had, whether they were lanced or removed, over the years and my ovarian loss to the nasty fuckers… Yeah, I’m no stranger to them. Let’s just do this thing and get it over with, okay?

Anyway, so when my neighbor asked me if I wanted to go to the sunflower festival with her yesterday, I was surprisingly up for it. I needed to get out and I thought a girls day spent out cutting our own sunflowers, looking at arts and crafts, eating junk food and drinking booze at one of the local farms sounded fun! But yesterday morning she messaged me to say she wasn’t going… At first it was that she had some things to do that morning. Well, the farm didn’t open until 10 and I don’t like to get an early start. I get up early, but I don’t leave my house early. I like to ease into my day slowly. You’re lucky if I’ll leave the house by 10, honestly… So I said we could go after she was done, no big deal. It was quite a while before she messaged me again to tell me she had a million things to do and then she had to do those Instacart things all afternoon and she couldn’t go because she needed the money. Then why the fuck did you ask me in the first fucking place?! Seriously, why did you ask?!?

Yes… Yikes, I’m sharing pictures of me again. Please excuse the bad hair. With the stitches in my back from the cyst removal, I can’t move my arm a whole lot, so… I had to leave it curly. Yuck…

Back to the subject… My neighbor is a bit… unnerving. She honestly acts like a friend in certain aspects. She’ll gossip with you, tell you very personal things, once she brought me a Shepard’s Pie she made for no reason… But then she’ll say she’ll stop in for a visit and never show (so I stopped anticipating visits). And if you need her to be there for you, she isn’t…

Just two days before the festival, she asked me a favor… She had done something stupid and tried to OD on some pills and was trying to get to the shotguns in her house. She spent time in the hospital and the psych unit and her husband wanted the guns out of the house and she asked me to keep hold of them for now. Granted, I’ve had thoughts myself over the years, but I haven’t the slightest clue how to work one, so they’re safe here and I agreed in order to keep her safe. The following day was when she asked me if I wanted to go to the festival and I said I did, it sounded fun. Then yesterday morning she pulled that shit… Does she just like fucking with my head or something?! Because it really isn’t funny… It brought me way down. I really don’t have any friends, so when you pull shit like this, it really pisses me off and hurts my feelings. I was talked into going anyway because I shouldn’t let her stop me from going if I wanted to. Obviously I did go, as you can see. But I don’t exactly look thrilled…

Okay, to be fair, there were a lot of reasons I did not look thrilled…

First of all, my stitches hurt and I’m out there with this big gauze pad taped to my back. Yeah, I didn’t look like a fucking ‘tart… Second, it was hot… Not overly hot. It was only in the mid 80s and it wasn’t humid, but the sun was just brutal. And I wasn’t lucky enough to get taken out to the field on the nice tractor pulled covered wagon. Nope, there and back I was on the open one with the sun beating down on me. And there were bees… Actually I wasn’t worried about the bees much. They were honey bees more interested in collecting pollen than the humans. Plus honey bees don’t sting unless they’re really provoked or threatened because they die when they do. So even though I’m allergic to bees, I don’t worry much about honey bees… Still, even with all that, the worst was my allergies and the fact that over the counter shit doesn’t work and mu insurance still refuses to cover the stuff that does. Oh yes, I forgot to wear sunscreen, got burned and will now develop sun poison because I was a dumb ass and forgot. It’s a condition known as polymorphous light eruption (PMLE) that occurs in people who are more sensitive to sunlight, mostly women and people who have a family history (my mother gets it). So not only do I have the healing itch of the stitches and the itch from my sensitivity to the adhesive on first aid tape, now I’ll be itchy from this sun poison rash. And you can’t scratch or it hurts, sometimes seems to spread and, once for me, turned purple from scratching.

Holy shit, I actually made some traditional art… It’s not the greatest… I’m not fond of the watercolor markers as they don’t all blend nice (some do, some don’t). Anyway, I drew this up a few days ago. Periodically I draw these little- autobiographical- things in my sketchbooks to describe me, who I am, what I’m about, the things I’m most into. I always write them in the third person for some reason… And they’re usually cute, whereas this one has a more serious feel to it. Anyway, I was sketching it up in my sketchbook and thought, “Why…? I have watercolor paper and markers… I could make a nice colored one and frame it maybe just for shits and giggles.” So I made this. Am I happy with it? Meh… It’s okay for now. There are aspects I like and some I don’t. I’m sure I’ll make another at some point. The things is, I make these for a reason. And the reason this time was to give good insight into who this Jackie Blue character is and what it’s like to be her.

So here’s the thing… I’ve always been “Jackie Blue“, that girl in the song who seems as if her life is really pretty awful (as they call it, “a drag”) because she’s introverted, self isolating, a daydreamer and living these dreams (I imagine in her own head) that can never come true. So everyone thinks that poor Jackie’s life just sucks monkey balls because, on the outside, that’s what they see. Maybe it’s because that’s what she wants them to see or she truly believes in in some way herself, who knows. But, deep down, Jackie really isn’t so down. And her life really isn’t the drag everyone seems to think it is. She’s actually had a lot of fun… And this is why, when I was 19, the friend who had a thing for me and learned his affections were not returned, got pissed off and, during his rant, yelled, “You wanna know something? You are ‘Jackie Blue’!” And it wasn’t just because it happened to be playing at the time. He was a metal head… He had actually been paying attention to the lyrics every time I played the song and had realized something I’d always known. I really was like that girl they were singing about. He meant to insult me and, instead, he had simply stated the obvious. It was kind of comical, actually…

I just saw that, when this burns low enough, it says, “Fueled by positive energy”. How cute!

Okay, so here’s the thing… I think this is all part of my midlife crisis. There are a lot of upsides to being Jackie Blue, sure… Honestly, I love living in my own little world, whether it’s in my drawings, paintings, comics, the stories I write or the ones I live out just in my mind when I’m daydreaming. I wouldn’t change that for anything in the universe (except maybe having some of those dreams come true). But there is a downside… I’ve lived so many lives through so many of the characters I’ve created because all of them, in some way, shape or form, are different parts that make up me or are literally me in a nutshell. And when you’ve lived so many different lives, some of them better than what you’ve led, it’s difficult if not impossible to feel fulfilled in reality. The story I wrote when I was 22, for example… I decided that I was a really horrible writer then. I loved the concept, but I’m a better writer now, so I decided to revamp the entire thing as a more mature person. The problem is, when I came up with the story, it was all the hopes and dreams I had as a young woman: a successful art career, financial security, true friends, a gentle and loving husband who didn’t treat me unkindly like the way I saw my mother being treated. I may never finish my story because it just makes me realize how unfulfilling my life really is and how I don’t have any of those things…

“I love the delicate shadow of she wanting me to be…”

In any case… For those who were curious about this new drawing I’d been talking about, this is it. The male in question is the main character in my story I’ll probably never finish. And the line “I love the delicate shadow of she wanting me to be” was from the movie Conspiracy Theory. I always thought it was so lovely… It just fit somehow.

So, dear readers, this ends my random rambling for today… Take some advice from an old fart like me; don’t dream too much. Even if dreams are all you have, don’t do it. One day you’ll end up like me and feel very empty and unfulfilled. Yeah, life will still suck without dreams, but at least you won’t feel like this, which I think is infinitely worse. Sometimes it’s not fun being Jackie Blue…

In Crisis? They Don’t Have A Hotline For This One…

Me the first time I heard “Welcome To The Jungle” on the oldies station…

I was in such a fucking funk all last week… Seriously, I’m talking a funk of such massive proportions that I couldn’t even get excited when one of my closest friends from the UK said she was moving to the US… It literally took me all week to figure out what the fuck was going on with me and when I figured it out, I ended up losing my shit and calling my sister in tears. I was having a mid-life crisis… Yes, a belated one as I just turned 49, but a mid-life crisis nonetheless, and I had absolutely no fucking clue what to do or how to handle it.

And this is supposed to help, I suppose…

This was also on a Friday, the day my mother comes to visit… I tried talking to her because, you know, she’s older than me, she’s been there, done that. I was hoping for words of wisdom, but she had nothing to offer and literally cut me off and began telling me how her sponge of a boyfriend had been annoying her that morning. I was pretty much emotionally and mentally exhausted by that point and sick of the both of them, so I calmly told her, “He’s a sponge, mom… I’ve been telling you he was a sponge since you moved him in when I was 12. Nothing has changed. He was a sponge then; he’s a sponge now. You need to give him something to do around the house because he doesn’t do anything.” I don’t think she liked it, but she didn’t get angry. I think she knew I was right…

There were a lot of things that kind of led up to my realizing I was having a mid-life crisis and the subsequent not giving a fuck what I said to anyone after the fact. This particular song was not a large part of it but it was part of a playlist I made entitled “Music To ‘Meh’ By” that I’d been listening to for days as I worked on my latest drawing, so I’m sure it didn’t help… Anyway… I had been reflecting on my life and exactly how fucked up it really was. My “father” (for lack of a better term) the pervert who I thankfully saw little of after he left when I was not quite 9. My mother, the neglectful one who forgot I existed, once in particular because she was playing Missile Command on the Atari 2600 and was almost at a million points. The verbally and emotionally abusive sponge she moved in when I was 12. The beatings she herself would give me on occasion after he moved in… Then, in a weird twist, she denied my desire to go to college so I could stay home, get dead end job after dead end job to help her support the perpetually under or unemployed sponge who had been abusive to us both for so many years. Hell, the last time she attempted to hit me, I was 26 years old! I told her go ahead and hit me, just as long as she knew that, if she did, I was going to hit her right the fuck back. That was the last time she even attempted it… The sponge, however, still thinks it’s okay to be verbally and emotionally abusive towards me at 49 even though I haven’t lived with them in well over 20 years. How fucked is that…

I had been doing a lot of reflecting on my life… Surprise, that’s me at 19 on the right in the top picture. I was skinny as fuck, but I was shaped like a Barbie doll, huh? The bottom one was me at 22, not much different… Sometimes I look at those and think, “What the fuck happened to that girl? The one that had ambitions, hopes, dreams… the one who had plans for a future?” I wish I could go back in time and smack her skinny ass around and show her, “This is what will happen if you don’t get the fuck away from your mom and the sponge. I don’t care how you do it, just fucking do it!!!” Now I’m old (well, I’m a bit beyond middle-aged). The Barbie figure is gone, the smooth skin is gone… The ta-tas that once stood up by themselves have fallen victim to the effects of gravity, aging and menopause, just like everything else. And my life in general… I just feel very unfulfilled. It’s nothing that any job is going to help. I’m only qualified to do dead end jobs, secretarial work and work as a nurse’s aid. And while I liked some of those jobs, they never made me feel fulfilled. It just wasn’t what I needed to do.

I thought it might help if I did a little reorganizing… I had two shelving units a friend was storing until I had place for them and I finally had them brought in. Of course that didn’t come without its problems… Problem number one was that they were being stored in a garage that, apparently, birds were getting into and I was finding bird shit splatter that I had to clean off the shelves. That was fun… Then came the other issue. It’s a bit hard to organize your things when your cat sees this as an opportunity to claim a new space for himself. Yes, Sebastian decided that organizing was apparently a waste of time and I should just surrender this shelving unit to him and make it a cat condo. He did something similar when I had to get a new microwave… I put the new one down where the old one had been and when I went to put whatever had been on top of the old one on the new one (mostly it’s my meds and whatnot), I found I couldn’t do it because Sebastian had sprawled out across the entire top of the new microwave… You know, I’ve lived with cats for 45 years of my life and I still have no fucking idea why they do this… As soon as you get any new household item, they need to go on or in it like you bought it for them. You don’t need storage space…

Then Haiku decided to get in on this action for some stupid reason… You can imagine how interesting that was. There were paws flailing at each other between the shelves, batting at one another… I let them have their fun for a little while before handing them both their eviction notices so I could do what I needed to do.

Sometimes, when I’m in a funk, just changing my environment helps immensely. Sometimes I organize, sometimes I move knickknacks, sometimes I rearrange furniture. It may not sound like a big deal, but often times that small change can really change your outlook on things and get you out of a funk. That’s what I was hoping for in this case. So I took an entire day and, after cleaning all the bird shit splatters off certain areas off both the shelving units and having a germaphobe moment, I went to work organizing the things I had to organize. It was no small feat… I kept getting interrupted by messages, phone calls (mostly from Morticia) and the animals who were all annoyingly curious as to what I was putting in the drawers or up on the shelves. Especially the dogs… Everything had to be sniffed thoroughly before being placed anywhere.

And here’s the end result (minus what’s in the drawers and on the other shelf on the right). As you can see… I had a fuck ton of canvas. My sister has been doing this thing at Christmas for years where it’s like she just stopped putting thought into my gifts altogether. So for years I’ve been getting the same gifts: a pack of canvases, a small set of paints and a pack of new brushes. The only thing that changes is the size of the canvas, how many are in each pack, what types of paints she gets me (lately it’s been watercolors for some reason when I paint with acrylics) and the types of brushes in the packs. But literally it’s the same gift… And I don’t paint, or draw, as much as I used to because I’m just not inspired (thanks, antidepressants). I needed somewhere to store all these canvas packs and this was the perfect place. Plus I have a shelf for sketchbooks and watercolor paper (which I bought for the paint) and the drawers are filled with the other art supplies like pencils, pens, the small paint sets, brushes… The bottom drawer has coloring books, the ones people buy as a means of relaxation, the adult coloring books. Yes, sometimes I just like to color because it really is relaxing… Anyway, the bottom shelf I decided to use as a makeshift meditation alter. I just kind of threw it together haphazardly, to be honest. I’m not happy with it at all… I just think I could have done a better job. And something seems to be missing from it. Plus I don’t feel it’s big enough. It’s cramped into this tiny little closed in space. I think it really needs to be in a larger, more open area. And it needs a cloth or something. I don’t know… That part I’m not happy with at all… Still, when it was all said and done, I felt a sense of accomplishment because I finally took care of something I’d been neglecting and everything looked so much better. But did I feel fulfilled? Nope… I don’t know that I thought I would, actually. I think I was just hoping to lift the funk.

And so here I sit… still feeling unfulfilled, still not knowing why I suddenly felt like everything in my life was wrong and I had to change every single aspect of it. And still not knowing how to fix what I’m feeling…

It’s funny… They have a fucking hotline for people in all sorts of crisis. Thinking of killing yourself? In an abusive relationship? Are you a teenager having a tough time with the ‘rents because, as DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince once said “Parents Just Don’t Understand“? Are you a gambler, alcoholic, drug abuser and don’t know how to stop? Are you attracted to the same sex and don’t know how to tell your family? Hey, they’ve got a hotline for it all! Okay, I don’t know about that last one, but they probably do. But going through a mid-life crisis? Fuck you, you don’t need a hotline even though it’s called a crisis… right? That’s what therapy is for! Yup, that’s what all that expansive therapy is for and, if you’re having a crisis and can’t talk to your therapist for another week, too bad for you, then. I should start my own hotline…

Honestly, I don’t know what to do… I’m not even sure why this is happening now. Normally people go through their mid-life crisis around 40. So either I’m a late bloomer, I’m going to live to be 100… or I was having this issue a lot longer than I thought and was just ignoring it. Now I can’t ignore it anymore. It’s out there, lurking about… And I don’t know how to make it go away or fix it.

Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see the me I am today. And sometimes I can see the young woman I once was and wonder what in the blue fuck happened to her. Granted, the Snapchat filter did smooth my skin, but I honestly don’t have many wrinkles. It’s just that my skin doesn’t velvety like this. I certainly have a lot less wrinkles and gray hair than other people my own age. Sometimes I see other people at 49 and wonder how much chlorine is in their gene pool because they look more like 149… I still look like me; I just look like a slightly older version of me… without cool eye makeup like this… Okay, I know you’re all wondering, “What the fuck, Jackie?! You hate showing yourself!” Well, aside from the fact that it was relevant to today’s topic of rant… I just really like this Snapchat picture because I like the eye makeup. It’s so retro!

Whatever comes of this mid-life crisis, the only thing I have to do is not lose sight of myself and who I am. That’s the thing I have to keep focused on. I may need to change certain aspects of my life, but I still need to remember who I am and never lose sight of her. Right…?

Oh, I have no fucking idea… I don’t know what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling… My therapist is going to love me at our next session… Sometimes I think I frustrate him. He’s often told me I’m intelligent. I don’t know if that’s a compliment or a complaint. I think it’s both… I think it makes his job more difficult, that’s certain. The more intelligent the person, the more difficult it is to manipulate their mind into correct thinking. Maybe that’s why he sighs a lot… I’m sure he’ll be doing that more often the next time I meet with him. That’s alright; I rather enjoy being frustrating…

Vampires Among Us…

I’ll be god-damned… They even have an instructional book for becoming a vampire… Do I even want to know?! Probably not…

I know what you’re thinking, dear readers… You saw that title and thought, “Christ, Jackie’s cheese has finally slipped off her fucking cracker… Vampires?! There are no such things!” But actually, you’d be wrong and I’ll explain why. “Vampire” has long been used as a term to describe an undead being who sustains themselves by feeding off the blood of living creatures (and, if you’re one of those goofy Twilight vampires, you’re all pretty and sparkle in sunlight for some dumb reason). But recently, the term has been used more loosely. For example, in my Animal Crossing game, when my villagers come to visit my home and annoyingly won’t leave, they eventually tell me they don’t want to be what they call a “time vampire”, someone who takes up too much of my time when I have other things to do, I assume. I’m sure we all have time vampires in our real lives (I know I sure do), people who keep you on the phone for hours and won’t let you get a word in edgewise for fear you’ll say you have to go.

Then there’s the dreaded energy vampire… Seriously, this is a thing (look, they even write books about it). They’re toxic people who literally feed off your energy, suck it all out of you until you have nothing and use it for their own benefit so they feel good and you feel like a hollow shell. But, contrary to their popular belief, you don’t need to feel sympathy or empathy to be a victim of these vampires. They can still suck the energy right out of you just because you’re too polite to tell them flat out to shut the fuck up. You can tell them things you know they won’t want to hear and maybe they’ll leave you alone for a few days (or they’ll just tell you that you’re wrong and defend their actions) and then it’s business as usual. The worst part is… How in the blue fuck does one get rid of energy vampires before it’s too late and the person getting attacked is completely drained? Well, I guess that’s why they make books like this, huh?

I myself am a victim of an energy vampire and have been for some time (which, if you’ve been following me for a while, I’m sure you know that). And this weekend really took the cake. I honestly can’t take this fucking shit anymore…

After having a meltdown mid last week (which caused a rather lengthy episode of tachycardia), I hadn’t felt well for days. I’ve been under a lot of stress and anxiety lately and Morticia hadn’t been helping… Well, I hadn’t spoken to her in about two days before I realized I couldn’t avoid her or she’d be bitching to her other “friends” how I’m not her friend because I never answer her calls. I’m sorry, I just can’t talk to you the half dozen times a day you want to talk to me… Once is more than enough, especially lately. I’ve been listening to her beating the same dead horses and it’s driving me bat shit insane… She doesn’t feel well and has herself thoroughly convinced she’s deathly ill, but she won’t go to the doctor. She got injured at work, they denied her claim for carpal tunnel after the claims adjuster asked her questions that were none of her business. I told her talk to a lawyer and gave her a name. She still hasn’t called, but she still cries to me…

And this is how Morticia is… I know she’s not the brightest crayon in the box, but she’s not this stupid… Even if she was, I’m giving her good solid advice. Go to the doctor if you feel that bad. Call a lawyer if you think the company is fucking you and sweeping shit under the rug. But she doesn’t do these things. Why I don’t know… As far as the doctor goes, I think it’s because, if she does go, she’ll find out she’s fine and then she can’t play ill. I honestly doubt it’s because she’s afraid something is really wrong with her. She eats up the attention she gets from everyone (but me) because she’s “so sick” all the time. As for getting a lawyer so she doesn’t get fucked… I think she won’t call because she’d much rather someone else do it, like me. I always tell her no, she has to do it.

Apparently, in the two days I hadn’t spoken to her, there was some drama (shocking…) between her and one of her supposed “friends”. I’m sure if it were me in that situation, I’d have been pissed about being the third member of the party who was getting ditched by the other two. But Morticia’s issues seemed to run deeper than that. She bitched about everything, insisting the friend’s issue was that she just had to be in control of everything. I don’t think Morticia realizes that she has that same issue… She also bitched about her other friend, who shares her name, because her boyfriend is an asshole who is very nasty and speaks to her friends nasty as well. And she was angry that both these friends seem to have the same issue: once they have a man in their lives, they don’t bother with their friends anymore. She seemed positively incensed by all this, especially the other Morticia. I asked her what did she care? The other Morticia is a middle aged woman. If she made a bad choice, it’s hers to make. Let it be…

So after two days of listening to her beating these same dead horses for a half hour or more each fucking time she called, I felt like I was going to completely lose my shit… I haven’t exactly been feeling great myself, as I’ve said, because I’ve been under a lot of stress lately and I’d told her so. She asked me what was wrong when I’d said I hadn’t been feeling well myself and when I began telling her, she cut me off to keep beating one of the dead horses. She was crying to me about money issues again when she knows I’m having some major financial issues myself at the moment. Yeah, you’re having issues… but you spent $42 to go to a water park Friday… To add to this, the breakup she had with Gomez… I can’t tell what the fuck is going on. She says they’re just friends, but the way she talks about him, gets angry and jealous, I think they’re still together, but she denies it. I’m just so fucking done… I just can’t anymore… I was actually starting to feel a bit better for not speaking with her for two days. After I talked to her? I felt like shit all over again…

And so it makes you wonder… Why?!? Seriously, why are energy vampires like this?! Actually, why are toxic people in general so fucking toxic?! If I know one of my friends (wait… what friends…?) is having a far worse time at life than I am, I don’t talk to them about what’s going on in my life, even if they ask, even if they know something is wrong. And do you know why? Because they have enough shit to deal with. They don’t need me dumping my shit on top of theirs. By contrast, I don’t think they should dump their shit on me when I’m going through a worse time than they are because I just can’t handle more than what I have on my own plate at that point and time. The problem is, how do you tell someone that? How do you tell them that you don’t want to hear their whining and bitching because you have as much on your plate as you can handle and anymore and you’re going to fucking crack? Or, you know… make them the funny smell in your trunk… whichever… My therapist asked me the other day what was I doing for stress relief and I was genuinely puzzled and asked him what he meant. He said coping skills, meds… Well gee, doc… I don’t want to be on a fuck ton on Klonopin again, so I only take one in the morning. And coping skills aren’t worth shit.

I love the idea of “coping skills”… Have they ever actually worked for anyone?! I know they’ve never really worked for me or they don’t work in every situation. When I’m overly stressed, like now, they don’t work for shit… And it’s sad that we even need people to teach us skills to cope with the kind of stupid we need to put up with in our lives.

I recall once speaking to a bipolar friend and asking her if she ever felt special because she was bipolar. Like, did she ever feel as if the entire world walked around wearing blinders or looked at the world through rose colored glasses and you feel special because you see the world how it really is, did that make her feel special, like she had a superpower or something? Without hesitation, she replied, “Oh my god, yes…” I’ve always found that interesting… Sometimes I must admit that I do feel slightly superior because I see the world differently than most people. But then there are times I envy those who don’t see the ugliness and stupid that I do… I wish I never saw it…

Not to worry, dear readers… I don’t plan on doing anything foolish to myself or Morticia… much as I’d like to have her take a few deep breaths from a chloroform soaked rag sometimes so she’d stop calling me so fucking often… Maybe today, since it’s supposed to be nice, I’ll take Baxter for a nature day to the creek that runs through the backyard. Dopping in creek water always makes me feel so much better for whatever the reason. Or maybe I’ll work on a new drawing. I’ve had a few ideas in my head… Or maybe I’ll just put on my headphones and lose myself in some beautiful music. That usually helps melt away some stress (Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon album is sounding good right about now). But regardless of what I decide to do to help tone down my stress, I have one last word of caution for you, dear readers… Beware the energy vampires. They may look like your family or friends, but they’re not. And they are out there… among us… waiting…