Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Beauty Tips for the Challenged - Self Tanning
I'm starting a new feature on my little blog, in the hopes that I can make a positive difference in the lives of all three of my readers. There are so many things I've done or have had happen that should not be repeated by anybody, ever. For the most part, I don't worry that these things could ever happen to anybody else.
(Has anybody else ever had her date steal her vibrator...? No? Still just me? Fantastic. If you're new to this blog and don't believe that happened...it actually happened. You can read all about it in one of my early posts - the one I'm too lazy to look up and link to.)
Because I am challenged in all ways, every once in a while, I do something stupid that could possibly serve as a lesson to others. Because I'm as insecure as a 13 year old girl at her very first boy-girl dance, these stupid things usually involve a misguided effort in self-improvement.
And by misguided, I mean tragic.
This first installment in my new series concerns self tanning. I experience these things, so you won't have to, and that's just the kind of altruistic person I am.
First off, DO decide to cover yourself in brown food colouring for the right reasons. Acceptable reasons for wanting to change your skin colour include the mistaken belief you might some day have sex again and want to paint over your cellulite like it's a home improvement project, and thinking your ankles will look slimmer if they didn't glow with the white light of a thousand suns.
DON'T be concerned if the teenage girl at the tanning salon has no idea what chemicals are in the "tanning solution" used in the self-tanning spray booth. Nobody has ever died from self-tanning, so it's unlikely you'll be the first that anybody knows about.
DO make generous use of the barrier cream made available in the spray room. This goes on the palms of your hands and the bottoms of your feet, to prevent the tanning spray from turning you into a total freak of nature.
DON'T think it will be perfectly safe to walk the three steps from the changing area to the spray tan booth with the bottoms of your feet layered in 18 layers of vaseline. Nobody wants to find your pasty, partially vaselined body covered atop by a shower cap all splayed out on the floor of a tanning salon. I didn't fall over, but it nearly happened. When your life flashes before your eyes and the last three seconds of it invoved putting on a shower cap to protect your hair from spray tan solution, you will regret those last three seconds, and wish you were doing something more meaningful.
DO make sure your feet are on the magnetic sensors shaped like feet inside the tanning booth before hitting the button that will release a bucket full of spray tan solution directly at your face and body. You wouldn't want to tan all askew.
DON'T panic when the icy cold tanning spray hits you in the face, causing you to flail and suck the tanning solution deep into both lungs when you were supposed to be holding your breath as instructed. Odds are probably good you won't asphixiate, and if you do, there have probably been dumber deaths recorded throughout history.
DO turn around when the automated machine's automated voice tells you to. This is what you came here for - the moment your jiggly and dimpled white bum get repainted. You don't want to miss the moment.
DON'T worry when it occurs to you that your inner thighs didn't get any spray from either direction, because it's too late. Much like running a line of spray paint down the front of a giant redwood in the forest, there's bound to be a little bit of circumfrence that gets missed. And by a little bit, I mean a fuck of a lot.
DO pretend you're Beyonce and do a little dance when pressing the "DRY" button repeatedly inside the spray tanning booth. This button releases gusts of air like a wind machine, and we all need a little more wind machine when dancing.
DON'T stop hitting the DRY button for the next hour, or you'll regret it later, for reasons that will soon become apparent.
DO marvel at the fact your nipples now blend in so much better with the rest of your breasts, and it's hardly weird looking at all.
DON'T get dressed and get in the car to drive home when you're still sticky. Even if the teenage girl at the front desk says it's OK, it's not OK. It's not OK! Don't do it!
DO get naked and check yourself out more fully at home.
DON'T panic when you see what happened to you and your new spray tan during the short drive home. Particularly, don't dispair when you notice that your entire tummy and torso is now striped, like this:
_________________________
BROWN
_________________________
WHITE
_________________________
BROWN
_________________________
WHITE
_________________________
BROWN
_________________________
This happened because you have rolls when you sit down. Unsightly, fluffy, rolls. In between those rolls, the sticky tanning solution rubbed off in the creases. Congratulations, you now look like a disturbed child's art project.
DO feel free to wipe frantically with your hands, thinking that will help spread out the self tanner. It won't help, but you might feel better by doing something proactive.
DON'T forget you no longer have barrier cream on the palms of your hands, and wiping frantically will lead to very bad things happening to the natural colour of your mittens.
DO take stock of all the areas you'll have to fill in with store bought self tanner before ever getting naked again, up to and including the parchment white swaths down either side of your body, the inside of your thighs, the underside of your butt, the creases in your tummy and the patchy parts on the top of your feet due to somebody's inablility to apply barrier cream to foot bottoms only.
DON'T worry that the salon spray tan and drugstore self-tanner shades don't match. It's not like you're going to have sex again any time soon, so it's not like anybody's going to spot the difference.
DO pat yourself on the back! For the next two weeks, you're a glowing, bronzed, sun-kissed goddess, and nobody can tell you otherwise.
Unless of course, you show them the palms of your hands.
(Has anybody else ever had her date steal her vibrator...? No? Still just me? Fantastic. If you're new to this blog and don't believe that happened...it actually happened. You can read all about it in one of my early posts - the one I'm too lazy to look up and link to.)
Because I am challenged in all ways, every once in a while, I do something stupid that could possibly serve as a lesson to others. Because I'm as insecure as a 13 year old girl at her very first boy-girl dance, these stupid things usually involve a misguided effort in self-improvement.
And by misguided, I mean tragic.
This first installment in my new series concerns self tanning. I experience these things, so you won't have to, and that's just the kind of altruistic person I am.
First off, DO decide to cover yourself in brown food colouring for the right reasons. Acceptable reasons for wanting to change your skin colour include the mistaken belief you might some day have sex again and want to paint over your cellulite like it's a home improvement project, and thinking your ankles will look slimmer if they didn't glow with the white light of a thousand suns.
DON'T be concerned if the teenage girl at the tanning salon has no idea what chemicals are in the "tanning solution" used in the self-tanning spray booth. Nobody has ever died from self-tanning, so it's unlikely you'll be the first that anybody knows about.
DO make generous use of the barrier cream made available in the spray room. This goes on the palms of your hands and the bottoms of your feet, to prevent the tanning spray from turning you into a total freak of nature.
DON'T think it will be perfectly safe to walk the three steps from the changing area to the spray tan booth with the bottoms of your feet layered in 18 layers of vaseline. Nobody wants to find your pasty, partially vaselined body covered atop by a shower cap all splayed out on the floor of a tanning salon. I didn't fall over, but it nearly happened. When your life flashes before your eyes and the last three seconds of it invoved putting on a shower cap to protect your hair from spray tan solution, you will regret those last three seconds, and wish you were doing something more meaningful.
DO make sure your feet are on the magnetic sensors shaped like feet inside the tanning booth before hitting the button that will release a bucket full of spray tan solution directly at your face and body. You wouldn't want to tan all askew.
DON'T panic when the icy cold tanning spray hits you in the face, causing you to flail and suck the tanning solution deep into both lungs when you were supposed to be holding your breath as instructed. Odds are probably good you won't asphixiate, and if you do, there have probably been dumber deaths recorded throughout history.
DO turn around when the automated machine's automated voice tells you to. This is what you came here for - the moment your jiggly and dimpled white bum get repainted. You don't want to miss the moment.
DON'T worry when it occurs to you that your inner thighs didn't get any spray from either direction, because it's too late. Much like running a line of spray paint down the front of a giant redwood in the forest, there's bound to be a little bit of circumfrence that gets missed. And by a little bit, I mean a fuck of a lot.
DO pretend you're Beyonce and do a little dance when pressing the "DRY" button repeatedly inside the spray tanning booth. This button releases gusts of air like a wind machine, and we all need a little more wind machine when dancing.
DON'T stop hitting the DRY button for the next hour, or you'll regret it later, for reasons that will soon become apparent.
DO marvel at the fact your nipples now blend in so much better with the rest of your breasts, and it's hardly weird looking at all.
DON'T get dressed and get in the car to drive home when you're still sticky. Even if the teenage girl at the front desk says it's OK, it's not OK. It's not OK! Don't do it!
DO get naked and check yourself out more fully at home.
DON'T panic when you see what happened to you and your new spray tan during the short drive home. Particularly, don't dispair when you notice that your entire tummy and torso is now striped, like this:
_________________________
BROWN
_________________________
WHITE
_________________________
BROWN
_________________________
WHITE
_________________________
BROWN
_________________________
This happened because you have rolls when you sit down. Unsightly, fluffy, rolls. In between those rolls, the sticky tanning solution rubbed off in the creases. Congratulations, you now look like a disturbed child's art project.
DO feel free to wipe frantically with your hands, thinking that will help spread out the self tanner. It won't help, but you might feel better by doing something proactive.
DON'T forget you no longer have barrier cream on the palms of your hands, and wiping frantically will lead to very bad things happening to the natural colour of your mittens.
DO take stock of all the areas you'll have to fill in with store bought self tanner before ever getting naked again, up to and including the parchment white swaths down either side of your body, the inside of your thighs, the underside of your butt, the creases in your tummy and the patchy parts on the top of your feet due to somebody's inablility to apply barrier cream to foot bottoms only.
DON'T worry that the salon spray tan and drugstore self-tanner shades don't match. It's not like you're going to have sex again any time soon, so it's not like anybody's going to spot the difference.
DO pat yourself on the back! For the next two weeks, you're a glowing, bronzed, sun-kissed goddess, and nobody can tell you otherwise.
Unless of course, you show them the palms of your hands.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Super-Sized Me
You know who I hate? Most people. You know who I hate specifically? Women who lose weight when they’re "stressed." You always know who they are, because they don’t shut up about it.
“Ever since we started renovating our waterfront property and planning our summer getaway to Europe, I’ve been so stressed out I just can’t keep weight on! No matter what I eat, I just keep dropping sizes! I mean, look – I haven’t had visible abs since I was a teenager!”
Equally obnoxious, are people so busy they forget to eat. How many brain cells have to misfire before a body forgets to eat? A plane full of athletes can crash in the Andes, and despite being busy trying not to die, they remember to eat something – even if it’s one another.
Darwinism dictates that people who eat food survive. Those who can’t - die. Unless of course, you’re just busy, in which case, eating food is only as important as remembering where you left your keys or remembering that your sunglasses are actually atop your head.
I hate these people, because I am not one of them. I’m an entirely different freak of nature.
Last year, I lost 50 pounds with Weight Watchers. In the six months I was broken and unemployed, I gained it all back. I’ve been following the Weight Watchers program again for the last three months, and I’ve since gained another three sizes. I’m now the largest I’ve ever been in my life, and gaining an average of 3.5 pounds a week, regardless of what I put in my mouth.
One week I managed 3 hours of working out with a personal trainer, one hour of deep water running, four hours of walking and two hours of cardio, while eating at a doctor approved number of calories considered safe for sensible weight loss. I gained another two pounds.
Nobody can tell me why my body is doing this. Weight loss is a mathematical equation. Calories consumed versus calories burned. For me, one plus one is adding up to three, and nobody knows why.
Doctors don’t want to test me for a thyroid problem, insisting that my sensibly restricted diet and exercise will work. Eventually. Other doctors feel it’s simply my body reacting to stress. I’ve been through a difficult time, and my stress hormones are continuing to pump too much cortisol. Eventually, it’ll stop. Hopefully that happens before I become wedged in any doorways.
In the meantime, I’ve had to buy new underwear, stretching the fabric in the store to the width of a Smart car before deciding they were close enough to fit. If this continues for another six months, I'll be wearing the Smart car.
I’m wearing a lot of billowy dresses bought at thrift stores, because nothing I ever owned fits me anymore - not even the one pair of fat pants I kept after losing 50 pounds, just to show how far I'd come. (Ha!) I shop at thrift stores, because I can't afford the extra $45 plus size clothing stores tack on to every item, in order to cover the costs of the extra six inches of material.
(Can somebody please explain to me why so many plus size clothing items have anchors on them? Or stripes? Or cats?? Do I really need to be wearing something that makes the connection for other people that I'm roughly the size of a small fishing boat? Do I need to look upholstered, or like the world's largest walking optical illusion? Does my clothing really need to tell people I'm likely going to die alone??)
When I wear my dresses, I either have to have some very hard-working bike shorts underneath, or remember to smear some anti-chafing lotion between my thighs. If I don't, the friction could result in my ass bursting into flames and my thighs turned to raw hamburger.
Even with summer dresses lacking in a waist band, I come home sporting welts. My underwear digs, my bra digs, my sleeves dig, and even when I have no sleeves, my underarms rub raw. Dignity is out, but discomfort is always in.
I don’t recognize myself anymore, and the first time my personal trainer made me look in the mirror to check my form while lifting weights, I started to cry. She hasn’t made me look again since.
Being this uncomfortable affects everything I do. I don't really like going out anymore, as in, leaving the house. I've missed special events and parties, because I would have had to wear a bathing suit. I've cried over "fun" pictures I'm tagged in from a recent vacation, because I look like a house. I spent an entire webcam date with Alex, wrapped in a blanket, swearing to God it was because I was cold.
And then some times it gets even more ridiculous. Some of you may recall that earlier in the year, I spent some time hiding from Alex’s mother behind a laundry room door while half naked. That was fun. (And by fun, read: not fun at all.)
On Canada Day, I hid for ten minutes behind a giant street art installation. A fibre glass rainbow colored whale to be exact. On this occasion, I was hiding from the guy I happened to be with when my vagina exploded. I saw him, but he didn’t see me, thanks to my quick thinking and the giant-ass whale. At least my evasive maneuvers are becoming more original. I stopped hearing from him the day after it happened, and haven’t seen him since, so recognizing who he was shocked me a little.
I didn’t want him seeing me and thinking to himself, “Hey – there’s that girl with the stunt vagina. Thought she was dead.” Or, “Wow – didn’t that girl used to be skinny?” Hence, me hiding behind a giant whale. As one does.
Admittedly, my diet is faltering. If I continuously gain the same amount of weight regardless of whether I choose the spinach salad with dressing on the side or the Triple Chocolate Turtle Pie with a bottle of wine on the side, I can tell you right now – I am not strong enough to keep choosing the spinach salad out of principle.
I can keep it up for a few months at a time, but when I bust out of a dress I wore just last month without going off my diet or letting up at the gym – you best believe this bitch is going to eat EVERYTHING.
And then when I inevitably do, I will hate my fat self even more.
“Ever since we started renovating our waterfront property and planning our summer getaway to Europe, I’ve been so stressed out I just can’t keep weight on! No matter what I eat, I just keep dropping sizes! I mean, look – I haven’t had visible abs since I was a teenager!”
Equally obnoxious, are people so busy they forget to eat. How many brain cells have to misfire before a body forgets to eat? A plane full of athletes can crash in the Andes, and despite being busy trying not to die, they remember to eat something – even if it’s one another.
Darwinism dictates that people who eat food survive. Those who can’t - die. Unless of course, you’re just busy, in which case, eating food is only as important as remembering where you left your keys or remembering that your sunglasses are actually atop your head.
I hate these people, because I am not one of them. I’m an entirely different freak of nature.
Last year, I lost 50 pounds with Weight Watchers. In the six months I was broken and unemployed, I gained it all back. I’ve been following the Weight Watchers program again for the last three months, and I’ve since gained another three sizes. I’m now the largest I’ve ever been in my life, and gaining an average of 3.5 pounds a week, regardless of what I put in my mouth.
One week I managed 3 hours of working out with a personal trainer, one hour of deep water running, four hours of walking and two hours of cardio, while eating at a doctor approved number of calories considered safe for sensible weight loss. I gained another two pounds.
Nobody can tell me why my body is doing this. Weight loss is a mathematical equation. Calories consumed versus calories burned. For me, one plus one is adding up to three, and nobody knows why.
Doctors don’t want to test me for a thyroid problem, insisting that my sensibly restricted diet and exercise will work. Eventually. Other doctors feel it’s simply my body reacting to stress. I’ve been through a difficult time, and my stress hormones are continuing to pump too much cortisol. Eventually, it’ll stop. Hopefully that happens before I become wedged in any doorways.
In the meantime, I’ve had to buy new underwear, stretching the fabric in the store to the width of a Smart car before deciding they were close enough to fit. If this continues for another six months, I'll be wearing the Smart car.
I’m wearing a lot of billowy dresses bought at thrift stores, because nothing I ever owned fits me anymore - not even the one pair of fat pants I kept after losing 50 pounds, just to show how far I'd come. (Ha!) I shop at thrift stores, because I can't afford the extra $45 plus size clothing stores tack on to every item, in order to cover the costs of the extra six inches of material.
(Can somebody please explain to me why so many plus size clothing items have anchors on them? Or stripes? Or cats?? Do I really need to be wearing something that makes the connection for other people that I'm roughly the size of a small fishing boat? Do I need to look upholstered, or like the world's largest walking optical illusion? Does my clothing really need to tell people I'm likely going to die alone??)
When I wear my dresses, I either have to have some very hard-working bike shorts underneath, or remember to smear some anti-chafing lotion between my thighs. If I don't, the friction could result in my ass bursting into flames and my thighs turned to raw hamburger.
Even with summer dresses lacking in a waist band, I come home sporting welts. My underwear digs, my bra digs, my sleeves dig, and even when I have no sleeves, my underarms rub raw. Dignity is out, but discomfort is always in.
I don’t recognize myself anymore, and the first time my personal trainer made me look in the mirror to check my form while lifting weights, I started to cry. She hasn’t made me look again since.
Being this uncomfortable affects everything I do. I don't really like going out anymore, as in, leaving the house. I've missed special events and parties, because I would have had to wear a bathing suit. I've cried over "fun" pictures I'm tagged in from a recent vacation, because I look like a house. I spent an entire webcam date with Alex, wrapped in a blanket, swearing to God it was because I was cold.
And then some times it gets even more ridiculous. Some of you may recall that earlier in the year, I spent some time hiding from Alex’s mother behind a laundry room door while half naked. That was fun. (And by fun, read: not fun at all.)
On Canada Day, I hid for ten minutes behind a giant street art installation. A fibre glass rainbow colored whale to be exact. On this occasion, I was hiding from the guy I happened to be with when my vagina exploded. I saw him, but he didn’t see me, thanks to my quick thinking and the giant-ass whale. At least my evasive maneuvers are becoming more original. I stopped hearing from him the day after it happened, and haven’t seen him since, so recognizing who he was shocked me a little.
I didn’t want him seeing me and thinking to himself, “Hey – there’s that girl with the stunt vagina. Thought she was dead.” Or, “Wow – didn’t that girl used to be skinny?” Hence, me hiding behind a giant whale. As one does.
Admittedly, my diet is faltering. If I continuously gain the same amount of weight regardless of whether I choose the spinach salad with dressing on the side or the Triple Chocolate Turtle Pie with a bottle of wine on the side, I can tell you right now – I am not strong enough to keep choosing the spinach salad out of principle.
I can keep it up for a few months at a time, but when I bust out of a dress I wore just last month without going off my diet or letting up at the gym – you best believe this bitch is going to eat EVERYTHING.
And then when I inevitably do, I will hate my fat self even more.
Friday, August 3, 2012
July? Not a fan.
Sometimes I really hate my psychiatrist. She’s extremely intelligent, sees me for free and doesn’t buy most of my bullshit. For the most part, as kind of a crazy person, I couldn’t ask for any better.
On the other hand, she’s capable of cursing me with great misfortune. She never predicts good things happening, but when she predicts bad things, the woman is Nostradamus with boobs.
I saw her in late June, and she asked me if I was anxious for July. I had no idea why I should be anxious for anything in July, but thinking there was something terrible I was forgetting to be anxious for in July made me very anxious for July.
As she reminded me, July of last year was when my vagina exploded. It was a very traumatic event, as was the resulting surgery. Within months I lost my job, and then my ability to walk properly until March.
I was unemployed for half a year – and it all started with that one traumatic event, which was so closely related to anther traumatic event that I pretended didn’t happen for years. The last year of my life would have left most people straight-jacketed.
Therefore, was I not anxious for July?
I assured her that I was not anxious. Rather, I am peachy. Totally, wholeheartedly, peachy.
PEACHY.
I’m happy in my new job, and no longer think I’m going to be fired every time my boss calls. I more expect it will happen through an email inviting me to the Vancouver office for a meeting.
While I wish I could say that I hardly think about my vagina exploding, or all that blood, or the tiny drops of blood spatter I’m still finding on my baseboards, or the pain, or the fear, or the irrational belief I will need a colostomy bag should I ever have sex again, I can at least say I breathe slightly more often than I remember the gory details.
In fact, I hardly remember the horror of it at all, unless I’m thinking about sex, which is only every three minutes or so on days considered part of the week.
(My resistance to physical or sexual contact has actually put my shrink in a hilariously difficult position. I know she thinks it would be healthier if I would just fuck somebody and get it over with, for the love of God. Naturally a stranger would be out of the question, and meeting a good guy, falling in love and starting a healthy relationship is about as likely as developing super powers. Therefore, I watch her struggle between guiding me in the direction of Alex or the firefighter - two men she considers the third and fourth horsemen of the apocalypse respectively, and my attraction to both a definite sign I need psychological help. The way her jaw clenches when she realizes I’ll remain celibate and fearful for years or take one of these two to bed suggests the age-old question – shit or diarrhea.)
During my last visit in July, she tried a different tactic. Didn't I think it was interesting that I've chosen two men who for varying reasons are unavailable to me, and therefore sexual intercourse isn't even an option?
No, no I don't think it's interesting. I made the decision not to sleep with Alex years ago, when I realized he's been inside more vagina than Tampax, his current girlfriend notwithstanding, and the firefighter's wife declared me a hazard last July because of all that had happened to me, and accused me of putting him in "danger" because I didn't know and failed to disclose I was "damaged." Much like the entire town of Chernobyl, my lower half has been off limits to him since everything blew to hell.
(Luckily, we've kept up a connection through intensive and lust-driven text messaging. My iPhone has officially had more orgasms than I ever have in my entire life.)
Choice has very little to do with anything anymore, but my psychiatrist clearly doesn't understand just how resilient I clearly am.
I explained all of this back in June, and she merely stared at me in in the dreaded silence that makes all patients want to bite their own ears.
On July 1st, I started sleepwalking. The only thing I hate more than my psychiatrist being right is me being so predictable.
Fortunately, it doesn’t happen every night. Three or four nights a week is manageable, and perfectly safe. It’s not like I’m waking up in the 24-hour Tim Hortons across the street in my tank top and granny underpants wondering how I got there and why I’m eating a chili when I prefer their lasagna casserole. I don’t do anything dangerous or exciting, but what I seem to be doing is fleeing. While asleep.
I’m mostly aware of what I’m doing, so I’m not in a full blackout. I wake up in a panic, swing my legs out of bed (a movement my current level of cripple still makes into an eight step maneuver), and start running. I’ve fled into my closet, which is ridiculous, because anybody who’s ever seen my closet knows it’s the place where free space goes to die.
I’ve made it to my front door only once, but fortunately wasn’t with it enough to unlock the door and deadbolt. I woke up with both hands pressed against the door, almost like I expected it to swing open so I could continue my flight from nothing to nowhere. I’m rather glad it didn’t. My neighbors already think I’m a nuisance due to my bylaw violating choice of curtains over blinds, so me running the hallways half naked probably wouldn't help my case.
My sleep being interrupted by random slow motion sprinting must really put me on edge. Some days I cry until I remember that I’m actually really angry. And then I cry some more. Other days I'm smiling because everything will likely work out in the end. Surely, my wildly swinging emotions must be related to sleep deprivation, and nothing else…right? Right.
Psychiatrist: 1
Bambi: 0
On the other hand, she’s capable of cursing me with great misfortune. She never predicts good things happening, but when she predicts bad things, the woman is Nostradamus with boobs.
I saw her in late June, and she asked me if I was anxious for July. I had no idea why I should be anxious for anything in July, but thinking there was something terrible I was forgetting to be anxious for in July made me very anxious for July.
As she reminded me, July of last year was when my vagina exploded. It was a very traumatic event, as was the resulting surgery. Within months I lost my job, and then my ability to walk properly until March.
I was unemployed for half a year – and it all started with that one traumatic event, which was so closely related to anther traumatic event that I pretended didn’t happen for years. The last year of my life would have left most people straight-jacketed.
Therefore, was I not anxious for July?
I assured her that I was not anxious. Rather, I am peachy. Totally, wholeheartedly, peachy.
PEACHY.
I’m happy in my new job, and no longer think I’m going to be fired every time my boss calls. I more expect it will happen through an email inviting me to the Vancouver office for a meeting.
While I wish I could say that I hardly think about my vagina exploding, or all that blood, or the tiny drops of blood spatter I’m still finding on my baseboards, or the pain, or the fear, or the irrational belief I will need a colostomy bag should I ever have sex again, I can at least say I breathe slightly more often than I remember the gory details.
In fact, I hardly remember the horror of it at all, unless I’m thinking about sex, which is only every three minutes or so on days considered part of the week.
(My resistance to physical or sexual contact has actually put my shrink in a hilariously difficult position. I know she thinks it would be healthier if I would just fuck somebody and get it over with, for the love of God. Naturally a stranger would be out of the question, and meeting a good guy, falling in love and starting a healthy relationship is about as likely as developing super powers. Therefore, I watch her struggle between guiding me in the direction of Alex or the firefighter - two men she considers the third and fourth horsemen of the apocalypse respectively, and my attraction to both a definite sign I need psychological help. The way her jaw clenches when she realizes I’ll remain celibate and fearful for years or take one of these two to bed suggests the age-old question – shit or diarrhea.)
During my last visit in July, she tried a different tactic. Didn't I think it was interesting that I've chosen two men who for varying reasons are unavailable to me, and therefore sexual intercourse isn't even an option?
No, no I don't think it's interesting. I made the decision not to sleep with Alex years ago, when I realized he's been inside more vagina than Tampax, his current girlfriend notwithstanding, and the firefighter's wife declared me a hazard last July because of all that had happened to me, and accused me of putting him in "danger" because I didn't know and failed to disclose I was "damaged." Much like the entire town of Chernobyl, my lower half has been off limits to him since everything blew to hell.
(Luckily, we've kept up a connection through intensive and lust-driven text messaging. My iPhone has officially had more orgasms than I ever have in my entire life.)
Choice has very little to do with anything anymore, but my psychiatrist clearly doesn't understand just how resilient I clearly am.
I explained all of this back in June, and she merely stared at me in in the dreaded silence that makes all patients want to bite their own ears.
On July 1st, I started sleepwalking. The only thing I hate more than my psychiatrist being right is me being so predictable.
Fortunately, it doesn’t happen every night. Three or four nights a week is manageable, and perfectly safe. It’s not like I’m waking up in the 24-hour Tim Hortons across the street in my tank top and granny underpants wondering how I got there and why I’m eating a chili when I prefer their lasagna casserole. I don’t do anything dangerous or exciting, but what I seem to be doing is fleeing. While asleep.
I’m mostly aware of what I’m doing, so I’m not in a full blackout. I wake up in a panic, swing my legs out of bed (a movement my current level of cripple still makes into an eight step maneuver), and start running. I’ve fled into my closet, which is ridiculous, because anybody who’s ever seen my closet knows it’s the place where free space goes to die.
I’ve made it to my front door only once, but fortunately wasn’t with it enough to unlock the door and deadbolt. I woke up with both hands pressed against the door, almost like I expected it to swing open so I could continue my flight from nothing to nowhere. I’m rather glad it didn’t. My neighbors already think I’m a nuisance due to my bylaw violating choice of curtains over blinds, so me running the hallways half naked probably wouldn't help my case.
My sleep being interrupted by random slow motion sprinting must really put me on edge. Some days I cry until I remember that I’m actually really angry. And then I cry some more. Other days I'm smiling because everything will likely work out in the end. Surely, my wildly swinging emotions must be related to sleep deprivation, and nothing else…right? Right.
Psychiatrist: 1
Bambi: 0
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