(no subject)

Aggravated again. If I'd gotten to write this an hour ago (which I bloody well SHOULD have) then I would have been all smiles and flowers. Now I'm more likely to be ripping the heads off the flowers with my teeth and swallowing them whole.

This computer is three feet away from my bed. My monster decided she had a deep need to check her email (of which she gets maybe two pieces each week at most), which I have asked her not to do when it is my bedtime. I made this mistake of leaving the room to wash my face and found her online, unbudging, and NOT LETTING ME GO TO BED (because heaven forbid I read her spam over her shoulder). I don't know what is wrong with the hours between 10AM and 10PM. So she was snappish at me because I laid down on my bed, she was snappish at me because I reiterated my request that she stay off the computer when I'm trying to sleep, and then she fucking snapped at me because I was falling asleep as I said goodnight and she didn't like the tone I replied in.

I am now agitated enough from being snapped at that I can't get to sleep. I want to blast Skinny Puppy or something through the walls to return the favor, but I won't. I have a very important doctor's appointment at 11AM, which is about 40 minutes or so away, so this adds to my furiousness (aside from the general lack of respect for my hard-won sleep schedule). I'm so pissed I can't even describe it. Sometimes the implications of an event far outreach the event itself -- in this case it's a series of behaviors on my mother's part that signal a total lack of respect for my sleep problems/needs and for my anxiety problems (how fucking hard is it to NOT give me a hard time when I'm trying to go to sleep? not very, yet she manages to do it at least twice a week. goddamn it, I was FINE when I lived alone).

Anyway, up til then the day was quite pleasant. Went to school, did my laundry, had a nice early dinner of turkey and dressing, went to a "home" store (sort of like Bed Bath & Beyond, only not) and found a mess of things I had been looking for (and didn't buy any), and went to a bookstore and bought things I had been either looking for or waiting for. Flaunt with Cate Blanchett on the cover, the new Nicholas Christopher novel in paperback, a book for artists about artists' problems (everyone always recommends The Artist's Way but I find that it is full of silly tricks that mostly benefit non-artists and that for a real artist, it's mostly just an excuse to procrastinate - whether or not I am a real artist remains to be seen).

So I was fine until my mother did a whole series of things that she's been asked politely on myriad occasions to NOT do, and did anyways with a total lack of consideration.

Screw Skinny Puppy... this calls for the Beastie Boys.

But I'm a grown-up. Really.

(no subject)

Why don't parents seem to grasp that when you're stuck living with them in your mid-twenties through a combination of unavoidable circumstances, it's not easy and it's not fun and it's not a free ride? It's depressing and soul-destroying and you may have "free stuff" but you pay for it in other ways & nobody ever even recognizes it, casting it all in terms of money and submission.

Nobody I've ever known who was in a situation similar to mine has had parents who cottoned to the idea that really, their adult children need to be treated more like roommates and less like children, regardless of whether they could support themselves or not. It's a need for mental health, household peace, and peace of mind (IE sanity, self-esteem, whatever) for the slacker leech in question. It would seem a fairly simple concept, but noooo. My mother thinks that because she has a basic financial chokehold on me she should get to dictate all the details of my personality and behavior. She constantly wants to hear obsequious fawnings of how grateful and lucky I am. I feel like I've sold my soul. I'm nice, I'm not hard to live with, I realize that this doesn't have to be done for me, but I can't think of a single healthy reason that I should bow and scrape.

It's not that I'm ungrateful... it's just that the toll is higher than it needs to be. Why don't parents get that when they behave this way, they are doing as much to us as they are doing "for" us?

(no subject)

Woke up, stretched, ate a clementine and marvelled at how wonderful it is (and it really is). I slept reasonably well; I was too tired to do otherwise.

Now, I must get ready for my hugely important and expensive doctor's appointment. it's with a neurologist, for my CFIDS, to be rediagnosed... who knows? i may have something entirely different, i may have nothing at all. but nothing at all doesn't sap your energy and make you want to spend 20hours/day in bed.

So I will be deciding what the latest in "invalid chic" is. Hee hee.

I haven't had the chance to read my friends page since Wednesday, but I'll try to catch up later today.

(no subject)

Home again now...

I went to my appointment after deciding that today's Invalid Chic consists of a longsleeved orange Powerpuff Girls shirt (the one with the glittery "Sugar... Spice... and everything nice" logo that I got in Septemberish), a black stretch skirt from Express, black tights, and "flame" oxfords. I couldn't find the office, had cellphone problems when I tried to call, and finally tracked down a payphone to find I was less than a block away.

After I got there, I waited almost an hour to see the doctor, spent a good halfhour describing my various symptoms and medical history to a nurse practitioner who is his assistant, and finally saw the expensive man himself. He was nice and we talked about my medical history and I showed him the chart of symptoms I had checked off from Verrillo and Gellman's book, which he found helpful. I was pricked with a sterile safety pin in a variety of places, whacked with a rubber mallet, tested for strength in various limbs, made to walk across the room on toes and heels and so on, and finally allowed to get back into my clothes from my even-invalid-chic-er paper gown.

He said that he's pretty sure I do indeed have CFIDS, but that there is evidence of a few other possibilities, so I have to have a mess of tests, mostly to rule things out. Blood, a urine workup focusing on amino acids, and most scarily, a brain MRI. The MRI alone will cost $1800. My mother didn't even blink when I told her how much it would be. (those kinds of sums seem so unrealistic anyway...)

After I got out of my appointment, I drove around for a while. It was a beautiful day and I happened to be in a nice area for driving... curvy roads with little traffic, running riverside in the breeze. The sorts of areas where large new houses are constantly being built.

After I got home, we went out for lunch and to see Antitrust, which was enjoyable, if not the best movie I've ever seen (I pulled a MST3K on the lamer parts, but the acting from most of the leads was decent and the last half of the movie was genuinely suspenseful). Also got a new pair of pajamas from the Disney Store (sort of a red-orange cotton plaid with Pooh and Eeyore embroidered on the pocket), a long denim skirt from The Gap, and also a spring jacket from The Gap. It's black, a car-coat shape, looks a bit mod, almost like a long closed lab coat. Clearance. I was astounded when I paid for it and the salesgirl put it in a sturdy blue "Gap" garment bag! The "everybody in [trend]" campaign and obsessive branding is starting to creep me out. But I like my McWardrobe basics. I saw an amazing bag on clearance there, blue suede with a grid of straps and metal O-rings across the front.

Now I'm home, and chilling. Got along OK with mom today, but may have to reverse that decision if she doesn't stop talking and dithering and yelling at my cat and generally not chilling too. I think I will take steps to avoid such a thing, as today was a pleasant day.