Okay, it's Morrissey's 50th birthday. I observed his 40th, his 30th, and I ridded myself of my maidenhead on purpose on Moz's 36th. May 22 is a special day and so Le Maudit will return to her maudit ways as of today.
I am reviving my blog because I feel like it.
I ditched the blog initially because I was miserable on the daily. The move really did something to me noggin-wise and I spent every single day crying my eyes out. I literally hadn't been this down in the dumps since leaving college and the move dug up a lot of unpleasant, unresolved crap from my past. I didn't have anything nice to say, so I figured it would be best not to say anything at all. I'm still quite unhappy in Chicago and plan to move back to Austin at the end of the summer. Every day here feels like poison ivy. But I still like being married to Borpe. I figure while I'm here I should attain an improv education from the good folks at Annoyance. I've had the best-ever writing group that has given me amazing guidance on my novel. I have a BF named Cortney that I met at VSC last October and she's been a total rock star to me. Lady Cargill is here and I love her a lot though I don't get to see her so much. So there are good things too. Now that the cold is gone, it's a bit more pleasant to be here. But I can't stay here. I won't stay here. If I can't be somewhere that feels comfortable and natural (and this is not it), then I can't do it. If I can't have Austin or Western Mass or a palatable frontier like Seattle or Portland or Minneapolis, then F it. I don't want to be at the party.
Probably the best thing that happened to me in the last four months was getting my heart medication changed. I have a connective tissue disorder and am at risk of having my aorta rip. It's already bigger than it is supposed to be and in the wrong part of my chest (I have no mediastinum. Go look that up.) so as a precaution, I was prescribed a beta blocker called Toprol to slow my heart rate to decrease the risk of aortal tearing, which leads to either emergency surgery or death. Nobody wants me to die, esp. me.
Toprol was basically ruining my life for two years. It made me slow and forgetful. It slowed my heart rate to something ridiculous, like 50 bpm. I couldn't remember things. I felt like my comeuppance for my lifelong surfeit of IQ points had come and that my essential Mo-ness was slipping away. Depression is a known side effect of this drug. I'm not the happiest chicken in the coop, but I usually maintain. Not on Toprol. I became depressed in this weird, anhedonic way. I usually love the world and am able to find wonder and magic in most things. The colors of my days were pretty F-ing dull on the Toprol.
Moving and its attendant stress and sadness was the proverbial straw, and after that I pretty much just lost it. Fortunately, before I went to meet my Chicago cardiologist, I figured out that there might be a connection to my crippling sadness and those fucking pills. Dr. changed me up to Losartan, whose worst side effect is frequent urination. I am a lot less sad lately, but I do pee a lot more. Frankly, I'll take the pee.
The plan is for me to find a job in Austin and make my way back fairly soon. This will require me to live apart from Bob for a while and I'm okay with that. I'm also accepted to VSC (writey camp) for the month of August, and though I really want to go and finish up my novel, I'm thinking I might need to use that money to cover moving expenses, since this time it's on me. I do need a job, though. I miss worky-work. I'm grateful that I got to live my "if I had a million dollars" (it took way less than a million, fwiw) scenario. I miss the normalcy of working, though. And the independence. And the Spanx.
Have I mentioned how much I like my writing group? And the Annoyance philosophy? I have no ambitions of being a Power Improviser in Chicago. I'm too intimidated, truth be told, and the hour-long train commute puts the damper on any social cognates that achieving a troupe demands. I also like my massage therapist and my regular therapist and my bartender Joe here in Oak Park.
I do not like Oak Park. I like the apartment, but I do not like the level of noise.
I took the Myers-Briggs and scored an INFP. I really feel like an INFP. I'm a big mushpot inside. And too thinky. But I knew that.
Anyway, I'm ready to put 2009 in the dumper and head towards 2010, the year of my Dad's Centenary (34-year-olds should not have 100 year old dads, but that's a whole other post) which I plan to celebrate with a kegger in the backyard on Alguno. Dad would be proud. I hope to finish the novel by then, find representation, find a job, make a new improv troupe with my Annoyance skills, join Austin's literary scene, paint the living room and refinish the wood floor, reacquaint myself with my kitchen (oh, kitchen!), and turn the freakin' page.
I am posting this with some trepidation, as I feel like my being honest about my failure to acclimate and embrace Chicago is opening me up to scorn and criticism and accusations of, I don't know, fucking up Bob's career or being a baby or some shit. I can't control how things are received, but if you harbor any of these feelings towards me, I will ask you to respect my feelings on this. I didn't go into this move with anything but the best of intentions, but I should have been more forthright and forceful about my limitations and my needs. I am only sorry to one person in all of this and it's my husband. If you are not him, then I have no responsibilities to you. Telling me that I didn't give it a chance is just going to make me mad and I don't appreciate being second-guessed.
Once I have my house and my queso back, I'll be kittens and cupcakes. I promise.
This is the long answer to the question, "how are you doing, Mo?"