uh, yeah

so I'm driving over the James Robertson Pkwy
bridge today, and look over to my right: I
see the stadium, the game is going on, and
there is a man standing on the bridge,
watching the game. well he can't actually
see the field, but from that spot,you can see
the giant video screen on the far side of the
stadium. I burst into tears when I saw this.

Why, you ask?
Because here was this man, taking the
opportunity to enjoy the game, even though
he has no ticket,no seat, just a bridge.
I knew that this man was happy.
I am a little jealous because I am not
happy,and feel guilty about it.

The tears came because I knew that if I
were standing on that bridge, instead of
driving over it, that, instead of watching
the game, I'd be plunging headfirst into
the water.

Change, Part II

Here is what is really bothering me,
aside from my seeming inability to be hired,
and the stress of having no financial stability:
For the past several months, I have the same
exact feeling I had during 1997-98, the time
when my OCD was at its worst. I felt then, as I
do now, that nothing would ever change,
that I was stuck in the exact place I was in,
that I would never get out of that place.
That is the feeling I have now: I can't seem
to find/see the light at the tunnel, and, whats
worse, I have ceased believing that there even
is a light at the end. To me, it's just all
blackness.

nothing's gonna change my world?

I have had the song "Across the Universe"
stuck in my head for a number of days now,
particularly the above line. No, it's not
a question in the song, it's a statement.
For me, it is a question, along the lines
of "are things ever gonna change"?

I am not an idealist: I am nowhere in the
vicinity of being one; as most people know,
I am a cynical, misanthropic, pessimist to the
core. But I do have the occasional ephemeral
glimmer of hope in me, yet I don't dare indulge
in it, because I know just where that will get me:
Right here, in the gutter, not looking up to
see the stars, as Oscar Wilde suggests, but
looking right into the mud.
Not that I am one to wallow in misery, or bitch
and moan constantly. But after having spent
an unusual amount of time energy and patience,
and still not having found gainful employment,
I am just absolutely fucking miserable. My ego,
not to mention my checkbook, is battered and
bruised and seriously in need of something.
Something really big, something stupendous and
earth-shattering. Something to lift me out of
this self-flagellating state I am in, something
that will get me out of this hell-hole of debt
I am in. Seriously, I am just begging the Universe
to throw me a goddamn bone! And I'm vegetarian!!
But hey, who can afford morals and values and
choices these days, eh?
I'm not interested in being rich and famous and
all that, but I would like to live without the
stress of money and debt. I would like to live
in a country where the money is actually worth
something. I really would like to live in a place
in which I can find a job that pays the bills,
a job that I wouldn't despise too awfully much.

You know, I was gonna write a blog about how
I was thankful for... something.

Waste of a Naked Girl

just a little excerpt from my memoir.


“Waste of a Naked Girl”

When I think of it, of our naked bodies lying together
on the bed in his apartment, right across the way from
my own, it is far away. It was another lifetime.
Afternoons and beers and long nights and his hands on
my body... that could not have been me, there is
disparity between me and her. Me and her; different
girls. She is naked and happy and lush. I am—
what?
Scary.

That is what I am. A waste of skin, a thing to be abhorred.

Nakedness does not become me anymore.
I have tried to stare this body down in the mirror,
tried to lay another picture, one I keep in my mind, of this
lush girl, over top of my reality. It does not work.
The mirror cannot see my mind;
I can no longer look into the mirror.

What a waste of a naked girl.


(i used to have a body that men adored. slender,
but not skinny, shapely,
flat belly, small but firm bosom, killer legs.
i would kill myself if i weren’t dying already,
if there weren’t already a downward spiral happening.
there is a burden, a burden of memory, weighing me down,
it is the only weight on me. i can remember a life
before this living walking disgusting hell and it is
a goddamn burden.
i want to kill this memory, because in this
reality, any other lives do not matter. they cannot. )

Stress Ball

I love stress. Love it.
Stress turns me into a tiny ball of fury,
full of piss & vinegar, and constant ickiness.

Not only that, stress affects me physically.
today, stress showed up at the cafe, right after
the lunch rush, in the form of me passing out in
the hallway. Lovely.
I hate fainting: I hate that fuzzy-headedness,
that feeling of losing control, the weakness in
my muscles. I know that this is the result of
stress; I know that all the things I"m worried
about are coming out in physical ways. My body
is trying desperately to tell me something.

Here's what I think my body is telling me:
First off, quit working the graveyard shift!
You don't like it, it doesn't like you, it's a
bad fit. Get out. It's affecting your sleep &
eating patterns in very bad ways. Get OUT!

Also, stop worrying about money. I hate money,
the very thought of it burns me up. Unfortunately,
in this country, you need money to live. I am
looking for ways in which I can change that. I am
sick to death of worrying about money. It is not
the most important thing in my life, not by a long
long shot. Lately, every time I think about money,
I feel a tightening in my chest. Ugh.

Last night, my stress showed itself in a nice little
crying jag, which did indeed make me feel better.
What didn't help was that I was also watching the
Ken Burns doc "The War" on PBS: not the best choice
for someone already feeling low. But I have a keen
interest in WWII, I couldn't stop watching it. I am
determined to see the entire thing, especially after
seeing how deftly he handled the issue of black americans
in the military and the Jim Crow laws, etc. So I will
plan on watching more when I'm in a less tearful place.

Finally, I have another sort of stress: the stress of
the absolutely overwhelming yearning I have for a
certain man who lives on another continent.
*SIGH*
This is not a bad thing, of course: but this kind of
yearning can feel never-ending. Again, my body is
telling me things. And I can't do anything about this
one... not just yet anyway.

So, in the meantime, I plan to do the following:
*stop worrying/obsessing! easier said than done,
but will give it a shot.
*Sleep more
*Eat better, take vitamins, etc.

And as far as the yearning goes... well looks
like that one I'll just have to deal with, for a
little bit longer.

The Church of Ben Harper

This past Wednesday night, I had the thrill of
seeing Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals for a
2nd time at the Ryman Auditorium. Seeing a show at
the Ryman is an intimate and joyous affair, made
even more so by the beautiful, soulful voice of
BH. Now, I'm no church-goer, as many of my friends
know, but I love seeing shows at the Ryman: the old
wooden pews, the stained glass windows; yes it is
exactly like being in church, because it was once used
as a church. And yes, BH is a very spiritual person,
but not preachy, not overbearing about it.
So while I am not religious nor even a believer, I
am into spirituality and passion, and BH has both.
His voice, his music brings me to tears, it is just
that great of an experience to hear him play.
This was also the first concert I've attended alone,
and I had no anxiety about it whatsoever, which is
a bit of a surprise.
I do wish one thing: I wish I could have heard BH
sing "Beloved One" again. He sang it when I saw
him the first time, and now it is stuck in my head.

an excerpt:
you were meant for me
i believe you were sent to me
from a dream straight into my arms
hold your body close to me
you mean the most to me
we will keep each other safe from harm

my beloved one

Suicide and Mayonnaise

So there are two things on my mind I need to
rant about a bit: suicide and mayonnaise.
Two separate issues of course.

So over the weekend, I found out that a cousin
of mine had shot himself, an apparent suicide.
I was not close to this cousin, we did not grow
up together or anything but it is disturbing to
hear of a suicide in your own family. And this
event has triggered in me two things: one being
that I am obsessing over the word "suicide", it
keeps popping into my head all the time, and two,
it has also triggered some superstitions in me, one
being that death always seems to come in three's
in my family. I can't get my mind off of these two things.

Now, the mayo thing is just something that has
irritated me & made me realize how completely
uneducated our general public is about the nature
of OCD, and specifically, what is/is not OCD. So
today I was at work (1 of my jobs is in a vegetarian
cafe) and I was discussing my OCD with two coworkers.
And both of them immediately were like "oh well I do
this and I do that...", telling me they both had
these little things that bother them, more phobias
in my opinion, but both were convinced they had it
too. Now the thing that one person told me was
that he hates mayonnaise, hates to touch it, has
to wash his hands after touching it. So I thought
to myself, 'So What!!' That's just a dislike or
a preference! HE has NO obsessions or rituals
attached to his dislike of mayo, it does not
interfere in his life in ANY way, yet he thinks
this slight phobia is OCD?? This just proves to me,
once again, that people who do not have OCD,
have no idea what the hell they are talking about.
The ignorance of the public about what is or is
not OCD hurts me, it angers me, it makes me wish
that a person who thinks like that could spend one day
in my head so they could experience this hell firsthand.

What a Good Sister You Are!

This is my sister appreciation blog!

Ok, Pooh (ish), this is just for you, for being
such a good sister-- and a good person, too.

It seems it’s easy enough to love someone,
especially someone in your family, a person
you are supposed to love; it’s much harder
to like a person. It’s hard to continue to like
a person when you’ve known them for a
number of years. But I have to say, my sister
is a person that I actually like. I can’t say
that about many people on this planet.

My sister & I often have long talks about
things, & one topic we come across often
is our childhood. We grew up in the
same house, but we definitely had
different experiences: I was (am!) the
older child, and was always in trouble
or causing trouble. I was grounded
most of my teenage years, for one stupid
thing or another, and thankfully little
Sis was clever enough to avoid doing
any of the things I did and thus avoided
much of the trouble I had. Thinking back
on it, though, I wish that I had paid more
attention to what was going on in her
life, & had been a better big sister. I
say this because every now & then,
Sister tells me things that happened/
didn’t happen that I maybe could have
helped her with. We have a really good
relationship now, but I kind of wish that
it had been better then. I guess we both
had our difficulties growing up.

So, despite growing up around people
who are not kind, generous, open minded,
sweet, artistic, etc, my Little Sister has
turned out to be just all those things.

The Bob Damon & Jen Show

Here is what happens when you hang out with
two boys drinking gin & tonics. This is a list
of topics we covered, for the most part. This
is the same list of things that we talk about
every time we get together.
sex including but not limited to: oral (hetero and gay), first times,
how masturbation makes you go blind & is a sin, average length,
if jesus had sex, circumcision (male), people you think are
douchebags,political views, videos on youtube, the problems of
chatting on msn if you are an english major & have to correct
every fucking thing you say, helicoptor penis story, euphemisms
for sex, how we hate people in general,
how bob & I don’t have jobs & how much damon hates his.

I am clearly insane.

Soooo... I took a p/t job at a retired folks home, serving them
lunch & dinner in their creepy hotel-like little restaurant.
I accepted the job, but couldn't go through with it.

This is not the first time I have run screaming from a job: it
might be the funniest though. I literally ran out the back door
when I realized I could not do this job. There are many reasons
for it, I won't get into those, but just picture this: Me, a tiny small
girl, trying on a thin white server shirt, sleeves hitting my finger-
tips and tail hitting close to my knees, (I looked ridiculous),
tearing off the white shirt, flinging it on the dirty bench in the
even dirtier ladies' room (only for staff of course), with the low
ceiling, so low I could touch it myself, running for the recently
discovered back door, flinging it open, feeling as if I'd just
broken out of prison, and running to my car, mumbling under
my breath many many offensive & fun words. I really looked,
for the moment, like a cartoon character.

Now here's my official story on why I left, the OCD free version:
it was only part time, but the hours were so odd that it was
gonna be really difficult to find something else to supplement
it. I don't mind working two jobs but they need to mesh
together in some way, schedule-wise.
So I"m back to searching again.

Now, something else that has worried me for the past few days:
The cost of graduate school vs. the amount of money I've
been offered at the only job I've been offered in the past
3 months:
Grad school: $700 per hour. PER HOUR!!!
Job offer: $9.00 per hour.
Whats the percentage you may ask?

.012 percent. Going to graduate school and paying $700
an hour has yielded me, so far, a job offer of .01% of what
I paid.

What else can I say?

The Meaning of the word "Broke"

I am now officially 'broke.'

I just sat down & paid most of my
bills for August, and I am left with
less than $100, with no job in sight.

I know this is probably obvious, but I
am, at this point, scared shitless.

What the Fuck?

This is the question I am asking myself today:
Why the fuck did I waste all the time & money
I've wasted on getting an education, one that
should, by all accounts, get me a better job,
one that will sustain me in the lifestyle I am
accustomed to (which is currently at the poverty
level, I have no income at all)??
No, seriously, what's the point of getting an
education when, once you graduate, you have no
hopes of getting a job, no way of paying back
your student loans, and you are still living
right on the edge? I swear to goddess, I am
this close to living in my car, I'm worried about
what will happen to my cats, where will they go??

I so want to blame our government for this, it seems
so ridiculous (but also true) that the gov't makes a
lot of money of this education industry, in the form
of student loans of course, all the interest, the
ease in which anyone who wants to go to a good school
can get loads of money in which to do so. That
person has the haze of higher education over their
eyes: they think that everything they are learning
is going to be useful in the near future, they
are going to get a job in their chosen field, they
will be successful in some manner. I know this
must happen for some folks but I know it does not
happen for us all. Degrees that train you for
nothing will get you nothing. Right now the only
people calling me back about jobs are diners and
cafe's, and I didn't go to grad school to work
in some goddamn cafe. But that's where I'll
be working, if they fucking hire me, because
that's what a MA in English will fucking get you.

PICKLE

The OCD Waiting Room

Job interviews: gotta love 'em.

So I had an interview today at a publishing company here
in Nashville, for some type of editing job. I didn't do any
research on this company before going to the meeting,
although I probably should have.
I get there early, my appointment is at 11.45am. I expect
to wait a few minutes, no big deal. The receptionist pages the
Dr.-----, who I am to interview with. I see him walk, several
times, around the balcony of the second floor, as I am sitting
and waiting patiently, tiring quickly of looking at the horrid
flowery oil paintings, and the tiny sliver of the bookstore I can
see from my seat, which is filled with African-American themed
religious materials. Oh, this company is a Baptist publishing house...
So Dr.---- sees me sitting in the sparse lobby, he knows I am waiting.
Around 12.05, he has the receptionist send me to the top of the
stairs to meet him. He then ushers me into his secretary's office,
and gives me a slight apology: they are still interviewing, they
are slightly behind, it will be five more minutes...
After another twenty minutes, I am steaming. I am furious.
By the time 12.30 rolls around, I cannot take it any longer. I
get up and leave.
The entire time I'm waiting, though, a million thoughts are
rushing through my mind. Sitting in that lobby, I realized
that I didn't want to be sitting in that lobby, waiting for someone
to look over my credentials, size me up, see if I'm good enough.
I didn't want to waste my time and energy trying to get a position
that isn't really suited for me. I know what I want to do, and sitting
there waiting for someone else is NOT going to get me where I want
to be.
I also realized this: it is not cool to keep someone with OCD
waiting for too long. I would have talked myself right out of
that job for some reason or another, 45 minutes is way too
long to keep a person waiting, leaving them to obsess about
this or that or the other.... and it's just fucking rude, to top
it off.
So do I feel guilty about leaving before giving this whole
thing a chance? Not really. And I hope it stays that way.

Three Things

Three things, three phrases, that have given me pause this week:

Read: "desire had kicked me in the stomach"

Email from sister, quoting Neil Young:
"I crossed the ocean for a heart of gold"

Etta James, singing: "I want a Sunday kind of love"

I am making connections in my head....

Hanging Up

Man is the cruelest animal.
Friedrich Nietzsche.

Why is that? Why is it, that the animal that is supposedly
the most intelligent, the most evolved, can also be the
most cruel? Uncaring? Uncouth?

I was talking to my sister yesterday about our lovely
childhood, how our mother would yell at us instead
of talking to us; how I was the bad kid and so my
sister was able to avoid most of the yelling. It was
mostly directed at me, because as most of my friends
know, I am a horrible person.... HA. So anyway, we
talked about how our mother will get angry with us
as adults, and she's picked up the habit of just
hanging up the phone, instead of talking through
things. I've hung up on her many times, but all those
times were when I was about sixteen. I think I've
matured a little since then. But seriously, if you care
about a person-- and one should care about their own
children-- then why would you treat them like some
unworthy stranger, and hang up in their face? It dawned
on me, during this conversation with my sister, that if
I really cared about a person, I wouldn't hang up in their
face; so what does this tell me about my own mother?

What Do YOU Want?

A friend asked me recently, What does Jen want? I struggled to
answer him. That's a big question, one that requires careful
thinking. Lots of thinking. Here is the start of my list, it
may grow as I continue to think about it. Thanks to my
friend, for giving me cause to think of such things.

I want to be needed, useful, have a purpose on this Earth.
I want contentment. I want to have a day in which I am not
afraid of anything. I want to kiss a man who loves me.
I want to read in bed every night. I want to dance around
the house with abandon. I want to sing at the top of my lungs.
I want to live, move, breathe. I want to think, to yearn, to be.
I want to want. I want to be wanted.
And most of all, I want to have a pillow-fight with you.

Where My Faith Lies

so where does my faith lie? in the written word, in literature,
in communion through story, in shared experience, in empathy,
in apathy, in desire to connect, in desire to disconnect, in nature,
in just fucking being still for a moment. my faith lies in a
stone bench that is not manmade; it lies in the curve of my stomach
when i am hungry; it lies in the tight muscles in my chest,
made even tighter by the sight of a word, which
was written by the soul of my mate how a word can influence
me, how i can influence someone else with a word.
how i am moved by the face of another.
my faith lies in knowing that i will fall into the abyss.
faith lies in the pit of a peach, in the pit of my stomach.
it lies wherever i think it does not; it lies in the ephemeral sugar
rush i will get if i eat sugar. it lies in the
question of logic; if i believe it exists, it exists because
i believe if i believe here is where my logic goes
here is where i lose my way how
can i have faith in something i cannot see i
cannot see faith where does it lie?

Without Faith

I had a sudden epiphany today, as I was driving through traffic,
trying to get home: I have no faith. Now, of course I've kind of
known this for a long time, but the thought has kind of fallen to
the wayside over the years, as I've searched for something--anything--
with enough substance for me to hold on to, to believe in. There
must be a shining core of beliefs in me, somewhere, that keeps me
looking for faith of some kind. Today, though, it finally got through,
the one real and true thing in my life is this: I have no faith. I don't
just mean religious faith, I mean faith at all, in anything.
There's a line from a Ben Harper song (cover?) that says "The drugs
don't work, they just make you worse..." That's been my motto as far
as drugs go, especially in light of the OCD & depression I have. Drugs
never work for me, physically or mentally. I have no faith in them,
never have. Drugs mess with my body, I have horrid reactions to
them. My mind is just as bad: I fight against them with all my might.
Our culture has become a drug culture, dependant on drugs and
that with each little ill or pain, we run to the drugstore to find the
quickest cure, the easiest fix, the path of least resistance. Our
society is dependant on the idea of the quick fix.
This applies to religion too, though, doesn't it? Don't we reach for the
quickest way to fix all of our problems, to cure all of our ills? No
matter how far fetched those beliefs are? Religion, for all its mass
appeal &quick & easy fixes for life, its supposed warm & welcoming
haven, it doesn't work for me either. Religion simply does not make
sense to me,it's illogical. Perhaps I think about it too much; perhaps,
I spend too much time ruminating and not enough time just accepting.
I'm done accepting things without investigating them first. So this
weekend (probably well beyond the weekend), I will be looking into
the dark crevices of my heart and soul, try and clear out some of
the cobwebs and find out why it is that I have lost my faith.

Step on a Crack

I'm sure everyone remembers that old childhood
rhyme, "Step on a crack, break your mother's back,"
right? So I googled this phrase, because in the past,
when I've googled it, the returns have all been about
OCD, and how that's one of the obsessive magical-
thinking type things that gets stuck in one's head,
on occasion. But now, when you google the phrase
"Step on a crack" what comes up is none other than
the latest James Patterson thriller, that has nothing,
so far as I can tell, to do with children's rhymes OR
OCD. It took me 7 or 8 pages before I came to a
listing for OCD. So why in the heck is his novel
called this? Looks like a marketing ploy to me,
because that phrase is so recognizable, and, as I
stated above, usually when googled one would
come up with tons of sites for OCD info and help.
So, a big 'BOOOO' to you, Mr. Patterson. Perhaps
someone who was looking for help just got sent in
the wrong direction.

Resting, Healing

Sunday is my favorite day of the week.
A day to relax, take it easy, rest. Read a book or two.
Watch football during the fall. Go to the park. Not
worry about anything.
Well, my Sunday started off ok, woke up, felt
fine, began my day. Suddenly, though, I began to feel
very un-fine: suddenly my abdomen was crunching
up in pain, and I felt very faint. I hate that feeling, that
feeling of being on the verge of passing out, yet not
passing out. It brings on a whole bunch of fear and
anxiety, which brings on a panic attack, my heart
triphammering and my head swimming. Oh, I do so
hate that feeling. So for about two hours I was on the
floor, ice pack to head, hoping and praying I would not
pass out, while also chanting to myself, in order to get
through the pain in my belly. I won’t say what I was
chanting, but I will say that it helps. Repeating a word
or phrase over & over in my head helps to focus my
mind, helps to get through the pain & unpleasantness.
Plus thinking repetitive thoughts is something us ocd-ers
are good at, no?
This kind of pain allows me to focus, and one thing
I focused on is the rush of endorphins I got each time the
pain subsided. So I counted, during the cramps, knowing
that the pain would stop, and I would get a rush of good
feelings. Counting also helps, it gives the mind something
to focus on.
The past few weeks have been a little rough for me,
depression has been ruling my life, and so I turned to a book
on Buddhism, looking for ways in which to be calm, focused,
and hopefully be able to look past this depressive phase.
There is a chapter in Thich Nhat Hanh’s “The Heart of the
Buddha’s Teaching” that talks about resting & healing. He
begins by talking about shamatha, “stopping.” In our daily
lives, we are so busy, we have so many bad habits and ruts
that we can’t get out of, we never just stop, pay attention,
be calm for a moment. Be mindful of what’s happening to
us or around us. One cannot begin meditating, or focusing,
unless they stop, even for a moment.
Pain forces us to stop, to put everything aside and
focus only on that. But do we stop long enough, do we stop
and rest so that we can heal? It doesn’t seem so. We seem
to want to just pop a pill, and then get right back to being
busy. We don’t take the time to rest and therefore heal.
Thich Nhat Hanh says “When we humans get sick, we
just worry!” So instead of stopping, resting, healing, we
just continue to worry, which probably only makes us
sicker!
So, on this Sunday, I decided to try and stop. I
had no energy for anything else, so I sat on my couch,
I enjoyed a good book, I even watched some sports on TV.
I drank lots of water & tea, I ate only good things, no junk,
and tried to just rest. To just be. I didn’t make any lists,
I didn’t try and do a million things like usual. I tried not
to worry.
And on this Monday morning, I woke up feeling
much calmer, much better.

Ruinous Bitch of a Disease. Saturday 5/19

So it seems that since I have a problem with meat,
being a veg-head, and also having those lovely contamination
fears, I am not the best candidate for a cookout invitation.
Everyone loves to cookout in the summer: grill stuff, eat
outdoors, drink beer, throw the football/frisbee, etc. It’s
an American pastime, you might say. I loved cookouts
when I was a teenager, mostly because they were always
held on the deck at my aunt’s house, the redwood deck
right beside the nice in-ground pool. My cousins & I
would just swim and eat all day long, long into the night,
swimming by the light of the torches, hanging out with
our friends. Now, I have come to hate them. Loathe them.
It’s not because I don’t like to eat meat: It’s because
I can’t stand the sight of it. It’s because I am terrified
that I will touch something that it has touched, that whoever
is doing the grilling has not washed his hands, or has not
taken the precautions that I would have taken. Ah — wait —
there they are, ‘what if’ thoughts. There are a million of
them associated with cooking for me, and in particular raw
meat. I even hate that word, meat. Oh the associations
abound. So, although I would like to hang out whenever
these cookouts are happening, I find that I am so concerned
with contaminations that I cannot enjoy myself, and just
end up leaving in defeat, rushing home to begin washing
and decontaminating myself.
So tonight, my neighbor invites me over. Him and
some friends, all of whom I know, are hanging out. So I
walk over to his place, only to see that they are grilling stuff.
At first, I was dismayed: but then I thought, well, it’s ok, I
can just hang out, it will be fine. My neighbor was more
affectionate tonight, having had several beers already, so
he was hugging me and touching me more than usual. Now,
I’m familiar with him, have known him for a while now,
so I’m ok with his brand of affection. But immediately,
the bad thoughts start in on me, and I could not make
myself comfortable. I didn’t want to sit in any of his chairs:
I didn’t want to touch anything, I didn’t even want to walk
on the ground where all this was happening. My cat Walker
had come over with me, and so I started getting thoughts about
what he might touch or get into as well.... So I didn’t stay
long, even though I wanted to, because the damn ocd would
not SHUT UP! I left by 9pm, all because the anxiety and
obsessions would not stop. Shame too, considering how
unbelievably hot my neighbor is, and how affectionate he
was tonight. It’s times like these that I get really angry,
when the thought crosses my mind: What has this
ridiculous shit of a disease made me miss out on? What
all do I have to avoid in order to live with it? What the
hell am I missing out on?
I told the guys I had to go home and take a shower.
They just laughed, not to be mean, but they don’t
really understand. I had to alcohol-swab my door handles,
inside & out, had to wipe down my shoes with one of
those clorox wipes, I had to take a thirty-minute shower,
in which I must have washed my hands about twenty
times. And did any of this ease my anxiety? Only
slightly. A lot of effort for very little gain.
So I retreat into my apartment, retreat into
soaps and antiseptics and antibacterial gels. I sit at
home on a Saturday night, instead of being with
other people, having a drink, having a good time,
having a life. So I am angry. But at who? Am I
angry with myself for reacting in a negative way?
Or am I angry that I have to deal with this stupid
shit at all? Can I be angry at a disease? The
answer to that last question doesn’t matter,
because I am angry with this disease. I reserve
the right to be angry with it for as long as it
plagues my life. I will be angry as long as I
have to complete these rituals over and over.
I will be angry that every night, I have to coat my
hands in vitamin E oil, so that my shredded, worn
skin can recover.

AN APPLE A DAY

It’s an old adage, the old ‘apple a day keeps the doctor away’....
except in these modern times, of course, when an apple
(or an orange, spinach, lettuce, pet food, etc.) can send you
to the doctor, or worse—kill you. Or your pet. Just last
night, the local news reported another contamination outbreak,
simultaneously adding that our system for keeping food
safe is, well, um, faulty. Ha. Tremendous understatement.
For those of us ocd’ers with germ/contamination
fears, this only adds to our anxieties & burdens, causing a
spike in ocd symptoms (increased hand washing, or avoidance
of certain things). When I first began having the signs/symptoms
of ocd in 1996, my biggest problem was fear of food-bourne
illness. So during that time when the ocd began to creep into
my life, I began to hear these stories on the news, about all
these different foods being contaminated. My food list began
to shrink. I became more & more restrictive in what I ate, to
the point that eventually, I was on a liquid diet.
One of the first stories I remember hearing was about
apples, from Washington state. Now, apples are not one of
my favorite fruits, so it shouldn’t have bothered me. However,
ocd being the sneaky & obnoxious disorder it is, I of course
began making the magical connections in my head: I could
not buy/eat anything even associated or near apples, and I
could not check out behind anyone in the store who had
apples in their cart. Anything made with apples, whether
pasteurized or not, was out too — juice, cider, apple jelly,
mixed dried fruits, apple butter. I wouldn’t even go near
an apple tree.
Those original obsessions and fears over certain
foods have stayed with me, because they are associated
with a time when my ocd was quite severe. Apples &
alfalfa sprouts were the two I could never bring myself
to eat again. That is, until this year, ten+ years later.
Now, I’m a known veg-head, plus I like to eat
organic as much as possible, so I do most of my food
shopping at Wild Oats. I usually go around lunch, when
there are tons of free samples to be had, and I can usually
make a small meal out of them (I’m a small gal, I don’t
eat much!) Anyway, in the produce department, there is
always a fruit or veggie set out to try, and during the winter
it’s almost always apples. At first I was pissed — why not
oranges or pears, strawberries, anything else? But one day,
as I was leaving the store, I grabbed a slice of apple on the
way out. I was hungry & feeling brave. I ate half of the
slice & chucked the rest. But I felt exhilarated: I took a
chance, a risk. I faced up to a fear that I had been living
with for ten years. Ten years!

I still had the barrage of obsessive what-ifs, but each
time I go to the store & I eat a slice of apple, those thoughts
bother me less & less. It’s my own little behavioral therapy
session. And it works.

SHOPPING CARTS

A couple of years after I was officially given the diagnosis of OCD,
I returned to school to study psychology. One course I took
was called 'Motivation,' and the professor of that course,
let's call him Professor M, always said things
in class that inflamed me, for one reason or another.
Usually it had something to do with my OCD. So in one particular
e-mail, he said to me:
"It doesn't matter what shopping cart you choose!"
Well, Professor M, if you have OCD, it ALWAYS matters what cart you choose!
And here are the reasons why, in an essay.

If you have OCD, it âlways matters what cart you choose. You
must choose the right cart, and you must choose it using just
the feeling of it being the right cart. You will just know which
one is the right one. I think it has something to do
with the fact that what makes a cart a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ one has
everything to do with the magical connections that one makes
in ones head regarding the cart’s feeling of ‘rightness’or ‘wrongness’;
purely arbitrary connectionsthat have nothing to do with the cart itself.
It has something to do with the ‘what-if’ factor: what if this cart has
been touched by something that makes me uncomfortable and gives
me anxiety? What if it’s been touched by someone with a contagious
disease? Or some dangerous chemical? The list could
go on and on. And you cannot see whether any of these things have
occurred or not. You cannot control what has touched this cart in the past,
or what will touch it in the future.
The magical thinking makes you think you can pick an innocuous cart,
that you can tell it it’s the ‘right’ one.

Quote for the Day

Lets see how this one goes over:

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that
faith does not prove anything."
-Nietzsche

Quote for the Day

I saw this at the writing center at Belmont:

"I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens."

EB White

For Chris!

I am a Woman.
I am an American.
It's better than Stealing.
(A Poem in Defense of Shopping).

Is desire a crime?
If so, you are complicit in mine.
It was you taught me how to want,
taught me to want things.

A love of things, instead of
intangibles.

Am I a cliche, an empty vessel,
just a woman who needs to be filled?
Am I vacuous?

Hmph. I think not.
It's woman, after all, who populates this earth. Fills it up.

My defense then?

Yes, it is better than stealing.
(Unless you don't get caught).

A new poem!

Filling in Empty Spaces

crossword puzzles, blank pages, empty houses, apartments
we fill them with letters, words, things
we cannot have emptyˆ

they are too lonely, too bare
we need things to make us feel better

we must take every inch, every white square
it must be filled
it will force the loneliness out

we reach for connection
we stagger towards it