"Well kiss my physics!" as read by Alan Rickman

I stopped taking melatonin a while ago, it being the only thing I could point to that was making me have hugely disturbing nightmares all the time. (I couldn't pin them on watching tv zombies because "The Walking Dead" was on hiatus. But I still have vivid dreams all the time.  Melatonin just pushed them past 11 and into high prime number territory.

So recently I dreamed I was at a party having a conversation with Amanda Palmer, who I pretty much only know of from Twitter (and that she's married to my favorite author, Neil Gaiman.  Well, I was mostly listening to her talk because that's mostly how I roll at parties, but whatever. So we're sitting there having a conversation and Gaiman walked up and drunkenly kissed my forehead like he was delighted to see me there before dashing off with Palmer.  It was -- nice? Unexpected? Certainly flattering, because Gaiman really is my favorite author and when I try to describe his online persona in my mind the best word I can think of is "avuncular". And I have more proof that my brain does know how to play nicely sometimes (even if nice is mostly composed of misguided wish-fulfillment).

Last night was another story.  D & I were on a self-guided tour through New York City looking at shrines left where people had been killed defending civil rights in the current political environment.  They were set up like little altars, with candles, fruit, and flowers placed in front of pictures of the deceased, and all inside of elaborately decorated open cabinets, like the Day of the Dead kind.  First off, how fucking morbid is that? Thanks, brain, you fucker.  Secondly, I only know New York from movies and television. One short wait in the airport while catching a connecting flight to Vermont does not a visit to New York make. Thirdly, someone had been hanging huge dildos from several of the shrines, so it was a fight to see these memorials and not dissolve into giggles and tears at the same time.  There was another element that kept popping up at all through the dream, mostly around the shrines: plain white envelopes with my first name hand-written on them, all in block capitals, all in blue ink.  Each time I saw one I was utterly convinced that it was there for someone else, and in one case, someone dead. Big cities have lots of people with the same names, New York probably especially so.  But I kept seeing these envelopes everywhere.

On waking, I couldn't stop thinking about the envelopes.  They were in a dream I had, with my name on them, and yet even in my own dream, I could not accept that someone wanted to communicate with me.  Like, way to shirk that whole being-a-person thing. The abnegation runs deep here, obviously.  It's not like I haven't been walking around feeling like there's a me-shaped hole masquerading as a human being. Ain't nothing going to fill that emptimess, so why should it be there at all.

And i just feel so so bad that I don't even have the courage to reach out, even in a fucking dream. 

 So crampy today.  I stayed home and in pajamas all day, despite my cow-orker's text at 7:30 this morning.  I didn't get it until noon when I finally remembered to look at the phone.  And I promptly spent the rest of the day feeling afraid and imagining the possible consequences of me not going in to work today (me getting fired; my cow-orker getting fired; my cow-orker rage quitting).  What good is having a day off if I couldn't enjoy it at all.  I feel like my boss is going to yell at me no matter what, but I'm really not the manager. I don't have the title. I certainly don't have the salary. But I feel like I have all the responsibility anyway.  

D and I snuggled in bed this morning, which we haven't done a lot of lately. My arm still doesn't let me lie on either side, and when I'm flat on my back it hurts if there's anything (or more to the point, D's arm) touching it.  So instead of spooning we tangled up our legs and kept our torsos far apart.  And we talked.  D said he feels like he's drifting, like he doesn't know his place in the world, which with being unemployed is totally understandable. I'm glad he's actually telling me how he feels.  He supports me so much, it makes me feel useful that I can support him.

Day 28: 

The other days when I just wasn't feelin' it and I only pulled one thing or so were by choice. Today's single item is all my body is allowing.  This is not a relatively-ok-period month.  Flow is heavy. Cramps are so very bad.  I've been trying to distract myself all day with internet and watching D play Fallout. And then it was half past five and I hadn't pulled my item.  So, into the office I went and looked around. Old coupon organizer, complete with three long-expired coupons still in it.  I'm so glad e-coupons exist.

 I was social again today.  I went to an annual bbq/birthday party, usually featuring a lot of booze and food.  There were both, today, and I indulged in some of each. In the past I've drunk a lot, but that was much easier when home was still within staggering distance.  Keeping in mind that I did have to drive myself home, I'm pretty proud of myself that I had only one alcohol unit today.  Anxiety was kicking me about this event, but not as hard (since hey, I've done this before, so it's not so new-scary-new).  I had been thinking about bringing Mexican lasagna (MexiLas, as it's known in some circles) but decided that I was going to be selfish and make it to share it with D.  I brought my fallback items instead: carrot chips, goat cheese, hummus, and brie, aka the Ecstatic Cult of Hummus and Brie.  I had a plan this time.  I decided not to show up at the stated start time because I knew I'd be prone to drinking more (since I'd gotten there so early) and feel like I needed to keep drinking to keep being social.  So I spent most of my morning distracting myself from thinking about going to an event yet again.  

I finished prepping the chicken I'd baked last night.  I am so glad I have a bunch of non-latex gloves. The sensation of greasiness on my hands when I debone cooked chicken gives me the shudders.  I hate thinking I'm transferring a bunch of schmaltz from my hands onto everything I touch until I can scrub it all off.  Since they're still mostly numb, I wouldn't know if they were completely clean without practically parboiling them and drenching them with dish soap. Gloves are such a convenience.

Day 24:

I was going to walk out of the house in the first shirt I put on today, a black ladies XL one that fits me pretty well. But as I was putting on my makeup I kept looking at the the design on the front and frowning at it.  It's got a silver pentagram with the words "earth, air, fire, water, wiccan spirit" wrapping around it twice.  And I can get down with earth, air, fire, and water, but not so much with the wiccan spirit, because I'm not religious at all.  I envy other people their faiths, but I do not believe (and haven't since I was about seven years old; yes, I experienced depression long before I got to be that age).  I think it's a side effect of the depression, which makes me ultra-rational (and ultra-pessimistic) about certain things (faith is doomed to go unrewarded, hope will always be disappointed).  I felt it would be wrong for me to wear this shirt, because I know that certain people at the party would start to ask me about wicca, and I'd have to tell them that I don't know anything about it and that I'm just wearing the shirt because I'm an appropriative boor.  It's why I don't wear stuff with crosses on them, either.  And I might wear a shirt with "namaste" written on it because I do enjoy yoga sometimes, but I made a conscious decision during my college years that I wouldn't be a walking billboard for anything I didn't personally support.  Part of that came from a decided distaste for designer label clothing/status symbols that my family couldn't afford to buy me as a teenager, growing up in status-conscious OC.  The fact that I didn't fit into designer clothing was a contributing factor.   But it was also impressed upon me that I wasn't worth spending that kind of money on (but my mother spent that kind of money on herself and on my sister).  The wiccan spirit shirt is now in the Go-Away Bag.  I settled on a paisley one to go in.

 Massive food-fail again this afternoon.  I didn't eat much for breakfast because we made soft plans to go out for lunch, but when D got sucked into playing Fallout, it got later and later until I felt like the world really was ending.  It's an understatement to say that low blood sugar makes me unhappy.  I'd had a food fail earlier in the week and after D got my blood sugar stabilized with food we talked.  (More like I apologized for letting myself get that bad, but talking.) I told him that when I get into that state (and it's all too easy for me to get there) the best thing he could do would be to make me scrambled eggs, cheese optional.  So here I was today curled up in a ball of sadness and crying my eyes out, but D twigged to the fact that it was food-fail and immediately made me some eggs.  I am super grateful that he's willing to put up with my many fails, and very lucky that he recognizes when I need help and is willing and patient enough to help me.

Day 16:

I think I have the answer to what happens if I get fatter again.  I went through another bag of clothing and pulled out two pairs of shorts and a pair of capris that I don't wear, both because shaving my legs is tedious and they no longer fit me because I've gotten fatter again.  I was only sad to see one of the shorts go, because it has uncommon sailor buttons instead of a fly closure.  Dammit.  I'm nowhere near where I was at my largest, just larger than I was at my smallest.  I'll never have what I think of as a Good Fatty body, not without significantly more restrictive dieting combined with surgery.  The Good Fatty is the plus sized woman seen in most advertisements for plus sized clothes. Big, rather than Fat.  The Good Fatty body doesn't have fat rolls or a protruding stomach, it's just larger, all around, with boobs that don't actually need much of the support of a bra.  Not my very short very round body  And the answer to the question is that I just don't wear those too-small things anymore.  I have as much trouble deciding whether or not to keep the things that are too small as I do the ones that are too large.  Because what if? 

I also got rid of yet another Polycon shirt (that I've never worn) and a red skirt thing that I made out of the long sleeves from several t-shirts (crafting fail) and never actually finished.

More PT today. Instead of my usual therapist, Ty, Julie worked with me this time. Ty is very gentle, almost annoyingly so. Julie is, um, not. We started with cervical traction as usual, and wham-bam started it up with only minimal adjustment to the machine's fingers around my neck. I could certainly feel my neck stretching from the way it was pulling. I was doing my darnedest to relax the muscles in question this time. And I think I was more successful, because almost at the end I felt the numbness go away in two of my fingertips on my left hand! I could feel the texture of the vinyl cover on the table, the roughness of the wall, and I could even feel the weave of my denim jeans. It made me very happy for the few minutes it lasted. I was touching every different surface to see how it felt. Then it went away again and I realized that both of my hands have been numb for months (only the tingling is new). And I've put up with it, because I always think I have to, because I think nothing will ever get better. And being able to touch things, to really perceive them as they are, even with just those two fingertips, makes me realize how much I've been missing.

Day 14:

I went out with friends and had several drinks and then read on my Kindle app for an hour before I went home, because driving while impaired is dangerous and stupid. Weirdly enough, I'm getting more comfortable around the person I used to hate being near because I always felt as if she sucked all the air out of a room. It was mostly jealousy. She seems to have everything I wanted, ever so effortlessly. She's beautiful and smart, and comfortable in her body, and uses them all to her great advantage. Even after she dumped that guy I was dating (who would never admit that we were dating, and really only wanted someone, anyone, to pay him attention, and he'd stoop to take it from me), I couldn't bear to be around her because I always had to be on high alert. What alarming thing was she going to do next to become the center of attention? The "you've got something on your shirt. Nope! I'm going to tweak your nose" thing she did (does?) all the time got so annoying, because a) she did it so often, and b)it looks like a dominance display and not "play" to me. And the frequent sexual play/one-upmanship in public was another dominance display. And my favorite (by which I mean my least favorite) was when she'd walk up to someone I was talking to and say "Hi" and it would be like I'd stopped existing because they'd walk away, frequently without another word to me.

It has occurred to me fairly recently that I shouldn't try to put all the blame on that last one on her shoulders. I mean, maybe she's a little at fault, but it's not her that's the one being rude to me, it's the person I was having (or trying to have) that conversation with. It just makes me feel even more keenly that I have nothing to offer anyone, that I should be alone.

Maybe I'm more comfortable around her because the most interaction I've had with her lately is while we aren't in mixed company. I'm not physically cringing when she walks into a room. I'm not tensing up when I hear her voice. Maybe it's the booze allowing me to relax. Maybe I'm learning that the people who are so rude aren't really that good of friends (no matter how much I may want them to be), that they're better kept at arm's length.

I'm terrible at social interactions, like abysmally awful at it. And I know this. Conversations are hard. I never know how to keep the ball going back and forth, and I drop it by saying something stupid or out of place, or going way, way-the-fuck off topic. Too much, not enough, too forceful, too quiet. Unless I'm drunk and am able to forget that I'm short, fat, ugly, dark, and quiet. And even then I'm still me, still terrible at conversation. I just don't care as much. For a while. Until I sober up and remember every stupid thing I said and did. [I'm counting my lucky stars that I remember very little of what happened that one time I got faded at an after-party, but at least I was told I'm a politely puking drunk.] And I really need to stop talking to one particular person when I've had even a few drinks because I say horrible stupid things around him (things that I've heard the above person say, and at least now I vaguely understand why she does, but I don't think it's ok for either of us to do so). I mean to apologize every time I see him, but by then I've had more than enough and know I should just avoid him.

So it's late and I needed to find one thing and I found it in my bathroom: a bottle of half-used sunscreen that came from work (a pharmaceutical company trinket) that I'm sure I've had since before I got married. Sunscreen doesn't keep for more than a year, so into the trash it goes.

I was more successful in the traction machine today.  I still can't relax entirely but I was better at it today.  Good news from the physical therapist, though. When I mentioned that my arm and hand were starting to itch he said that that was one of the modalities they expect as treatment progresses. (In English, it's a sign that there's less pressure on the nerve, the therapy is working, and I'm getting better.)  Now that I'm in the strength-building part of the therapy I'm feeling wimpy as fuck.  I used to carry twenty bridal gowns on each arm up and down the length of a retail store, and now a two pound weight is kicking my ass.  After doing ten reps of raising my arms to vertical from each of four different starting points with a weight in each hand, my left arm was complaining that two pounds was so hard.  The pulling down and rowing motion sets were pretty easy (I should probably be doing more weight for those), but lateral extensions kicked my ass.  I was supposed to do four sets of seven for each arm.  The weight was a little more than I'd done the previous week, but after doing the first three extensions with my left arm, it started shaking.  After that I had to strain to finish the rest of them, slowly, resting between each one.  I made it midway through the second set when the PT assistant  took pity on me and set the weight to the lowest one on the machine.  Of course I thought "weaksauce".  Because feeling so weak is alarming.

As a fat girl and a fat woman, one of the only good things about being fat was feeling like I'm strong, like I have substance, like I can do stuff.  I wasn't a petite little thing that was going to blow away in a stiff breeze (something my grandmother often told me, verbatim, that she was teased about a lot when she was a girl).  I could do brute force physical activity until someone told me it was ok to stop.  Of course I'd pay for it a few days later when delayed onset muscle soreness would leave me unable to move without severe pain, but I was not weak.  And the DOMS would make me hate (and I do still kind of hate) doing physical activity.  Nobody ever told me I should start slowly (and being fat and out of shape I should start even more slowly than most).  It was just "do all these sets of exercises" and I'd power through (because, remember, not weak), only to be knocked on my ass a few days later by the muscle soreness.  Nowadays I think the starting slowly and appropriately for one's fitness level is called conditioning.    But what I was doing, every time I tried to get not-fat with exercise like i was supposed to, I was conditioning myself to hate every minute and failed over and over again.  Now this stupid injury has made me weak again and I hate it.

Day 11

Yesterday I decided that my hoarder brain is called Charlotte.  It popped into my head and just feels right.   Charlotte looks (and sounds) like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars.  I read some tumblr meme that said the poster started calling the voice in their head that says terrible things "Donald Drumpf" and it made it easier to ignore.  Maybe if I name the hoarder in my head I can stop listening to it so much.

I really, truly only wanted to find my one thing and then slack on the couch, but I do this thing when I'm hungry that I get focused on doing some task and will keep doing it, unable to stop.  I blame low blood sugar hangriness.  It does come in handy when I need to clean.  It's like a fractal mental state where I keep looking at what I'm doing and I keep seeing more and more things around me that need to be cleaned, often to the point at which I'm shaking from hunger and crying because I think I'm surrounded by filth. (Hi there, Shame!) Again, these episodes conditioned me to really hate housework.  So one thing turned into another which led to me digging through my jewelry armoire (it's not my nightstand anymore so I have little enough on the top that I can even open the lid without major fuss), and within a half hour I was going from room to room to room with my hands full of stuff.  I'm getting better at breaking out of those mental fractals.  Sometimes by myself, having to say "I need to stop" out loud.  Sometimes I have to ask D to help me stop, and sometimes he'll see where I'm heading and physically stop me (and make me eat something).

So into the office, where there was a leopard print camisole top with a busted strap.  Said strap is held onto the garment with a safety pin, as it has been since I got it several years ago in a clothing exchange.  Every time I'd see it I'd say "I'm going to fix that", and just before we got evicted I even went so far as to put it on my sewing table for the next time I had the wee beastie out for a spin.  But today I'm admitting it.  I am never going to actually do it.  

I realized that if I kept digging into a clothing bag I'd need to try stuff on, something I don't want to do fresh from therapy. (Yeah, I am sweaty and stinky, ew.) Then I reached into a box of bathroom stuff. shudder It's random AND grotty. Most of the important stuff has already been pulled out, but there were things that I knew needed to go (and some I'm not ready to get rid of):

A hollow plastic heart that used to hold M&M's (a Valentine's gift from several years before I stopped eating sugar).

THREE tubes of some protective goop you're supposed to put on your hair's delicate ends when you dye it so the ends won't get damaged further (it really just keeps the dye from fully penetrating my hair, and my ends aren't damaged anyway). I should buy the dye that doesn't have these but I can never remember which one it is.

A slap bracelet that was shedding its fabric cover.

A safety pin in the box made me go into the bedroom where I keep a carefully hand-labelled bottle of safety pins, when I spied one of my infamous Bags of Random Crap (usually crap pulled out of a tote bag or pockets) that had been floating around the bedroom for a few years. Perfect!

I got the trash and the recyclables out of it (Disposable wooden chopsticks? Really? ["Yes", says my hoarder brain, "Chopsticks are always useful in so many crafts. What if you need them?"] 

Empty tiny Nivea lotion tin (that emptied itself out inside my purse, ew). But crafts or holding tiny things?  Shut up, Charlotte.

Our old bathroom cup (crackled acrylic, a lost cause).

A champagne cork (or more likely from sweet sparkling wine, because I think it tastes better) that was probably from a bottle I took to a party and had a great time at with other people (which I don't even remember now).

There was a pair of clip-on earrings that needed to go back to the jewelry armoire, which provided more fodder.  The drawers were too full so of course I had to start sorting them out.  Hair stuff went to the box of hair things, bra accessories went into the FUNderwear drawer (which emptied out a drawer and a half in the armoire).  A bunch of inelastic hair elastics went straight into the trash. (Do not pass go; do not take a picture.)

There were these ponytail/bun things I'd bought (from Claire's) to do something vaguely more interesting with my hair (when I kept it much longer).  My hair is too thick for these things to work, so I never used them after getting them untangled from my hair.

A very grotty silver -toned metal costume jewelry necklace that has so far resisted being cleaned (which I'm not going to waste any more time on doing, since my taste is so consistent that I've bought multiple similar items that I still have).  Round circles hanging from a chain.  Not quite dazzling enough to be a statement necklace, kind of lost on "my huge tracts of land".  When one has "huge tracts of land" like I do, anything that isn't super flashy really isn't worth wearing (unless it's a TARDIS key, which is always worth wearing and qualifies as me being subtle [aka "not shouting]).

A necklace that I've always hated owning: a braided leather-ish cord with a small dull silver-tone medallion on it that I found while walking along the railroad tracks many years ago.  The medallion has some Hebrew letters on one side, which made me pick it up, but the other side shows that it's clearly a "souvenir" from the brutal movie" The Passion" that Mel Gibson directed.  On the one hand, I didn't want to keep it, because I survived Catholic school, but on the other hand I didn't want anyone else to have to own merchandise from such a horrible movie.  I have decided to make it someone else's problem and put it in the go-away box.  I am no longer taking responsibility for something I think is terrible.

And then there were the earrings.  I don't have pierced ears, so I buy clip-ons.  Let me say it again for the folks in the back. I DO NOT HAVE PIERCED EARS.  But people I love give me earrings.  And they're beautiful.  I (Charlotte) keep(s) telling myself I'm going to put them in the earring converters I bought from (again) Claire's (several) years ago, but I haven't (because they're French hooks and not posts and I'm afraid they'll break).  And I won't try to rework them.  But I kept them, because someone I love gave them to me.  (They'll eventually leave you all alone and this is all you'll have to remember them by.)  [Shut UP, Charlotte.]   So two lovely pairs of handmade earrings (the intricately beaded ones hurt to give away, because look at how well they're made.)

The armoire also yielded up a red sequined wristband (Future crafts? Hush Charlotte.) and a plastic toy spinny top that at one point had been in a piñata that appeals to my magpie nature because laser stickers. OOH IT"S A SHINY! 

This took way longer than it should because I accidentally backspaced out of this page without saving the text ("Autosave" doesn't like I think it should on DW.)  Hitting the preview button activates the autosave feature.  Lesson learned (again).

 In the rush of getting out of the house yesterday morning, I forgot to take my meds until after we got home from the movie (late in the afternoon).  Today I feel extra down, extra fragile, extra volatile. I took D on a short adventure to try and do one of the food challenges only to be slightly disappointed that Seven Eleven didn't have any sugar-free Slurpee flavors today.  A friend stopped to visit and told us he was doing better than he had been, and then shared some big life-news, the type that even though it doesn't affect me personally still feels like an avalanche.  And he's happy, so it's not like I'm going to try and tell him that I think it's a bad idea. I want to be happy for him but I feel like it's all going to be a trainwreck.  He's also asked us not to tell anyone else and mentioned that he didn't think he'd be able to hide it from his young daughter for much longer.  Not that I'm a parent or anything, but I felt compelled to give him some advice about helping his daughter not let the cat out of the bag.  It was from an article I'd read, saying that keeping secrets can be damaging for children, so he should tell her it was a surprise and not a secret. Surprises have more positive connotations, and imply that there will be an appropriate time to share information. Secrets never have an expiration date.

In the wake of hearing this news and pretending to be happy by saying all the things one says on hearing that particular type of thing, I got snippy with D who repeated something I'd literally just said as if he'd come up with the idea himself. As a very quiet woman who deals with this a lot I kind of exploded at him. How does one say "I just said that!" politely?  And I felt he was dismissive of how irksome it is to me, and then he said something that made me realize just how much of a white male privilege bubble he lives in (because again, he was verbally somewhat dismissive of hardships people who are not white nor men experience).  And it's not like he's a douchey bro, he's just completely, blissfully unaware.

Day 9:

In packing up our old place, I had winnowed out many things and items of clothing to get rid of.  For clothes I was keeping, I put into clear plastic bags with pieces of paper with KEEP written in black Sharpie showing in the bottom.  There are many bags, all over the bedroom and office and the thought of unpacking them makes me quail at the sheer amount of them to go through.  It's a lot easier when I open one up because it's a certain time of day and I've realized I still have to go find something to get rid of.  That way it's not unpacking, unpacking just happens while I'm looking for at least one thing to let go of.  

Red lace surplice LB top, too big.  Far too much cleavage exposure, to the point where my bra was showing when I tried it on.

Next was the olive green military-styled vest, too big. I really wanted it to still fit, because it's really cute (and what if I get fat again dragged itself through my mind while I looked at it.  Cute things are hard to find in larger sizes.  

The electric green slip was easy to let go of. It's a full coverage long slip/nightie from a clothing exchange.  Bright neon green is one of my colors. It'll always attract my eye But if the purpose of a slip is to make sheer fabrics more opaque or to provide a non-clingy base for clothes to lay on the body, a bright green slip isn't going to do it quietly.  

Last was another emo grenade, something from the Great Greg Stuff Giveaway: a lime green women's shirt that had to have been stock from when he ran a retail store called Vibe Alive.  The art screened on it is very obviously by John K (the Ren and Stimpy guy). I barely fit into it at my lowest weight. Ok, it didn't really "barely fit", I just squashed myself into it and looked like an overfilled sausage.  But I got a lot of "hey, cool shirt" comments from both friends and strangers, so Greg-memory plus social affirmation (by which I mean not feeling invisible) has made it hard to get rid of.  But it doesn't fit. It never fit. I'm never going to be the person who wears that shirt without mentally feeling self-conscious and physically feeling constricted.  

It was No-Break Thursday today, but it's a whole different ballgame when I get to choose to work through lunch instead of being forced to.  Today I had more physical therapy, and got to leave work early. More neck stretching today, and this time I was really trying hard to relax. It worked a little better this time, but along the way I got caught up in a hell of a thought. (This is what happens when I get stuck lying on my back staring at an acoustic tile ceiling for ten minutes or so, ruminating.)  I was wondering what my husband gets out of our relationship with all the taking care of me and my neuroses, and all I could come up with is "not much".  I almost started crying on the table.  Oh hey there, feelings of worthlessness, it's only been a few hours.

Day 7

Just a couple of things today.  The first items are four ribbon roses on wire stems that were favors from a wedding.  I helped make some of these rose favors, too, which was pretty fun.  Maybe if there were three or just one, I could keep it, but four is a weird number to have a group of things of.  

I'm pretty sentimental about weddings so I tend to keep crap like that. The bride went through all the trouble to give me a memento of their wedding and so I feel obligated to keep that shit.  But it's worthless. And sometimes tacky.  And then when the couple divorces you have this thing reminding you about that failed marriage and it becomes even more burdensome.  During my last round of decluttering I was soundly (and rightly) mocked for having a pair of painted wooden candlesticks from a wedding whose participants had been divorced for over a decade. The couple whose wedding the roses came from are still married (and look to stay that way, thank goodness).  I guess it's that change-hating part of me that's always getting stuck in the past.

Next up is a pair of  plaid cotton Joe Boxer pajama trousers that came from a clothing exchange.  I was so excited that I could fit my fat ass into them I didn't care so much that they had a big tear along the fly in front.  "I could repair them!"  But I won't.   Ever. 

Tonight I drank my dinner. Butternut squash soup from a box (thank Target for an easy meal) and terrible sweet wine with diet ginger ale.  It works better and faster than ibuprofen for my post PT muscle soreness.

 Since I hurt my neck (with consequent left arm pain, numbness, and tingling) a few weeks ago, I've been going to physical therapy on the regular. It makes things feel better for a bit, then worse, then slowly better.  I have to admit of being afraid of the traction machine, literally afraid of it, because it's pulling my  head away from my shoulders by the neck.  I've been lying on the table stiff as a board and having a silent freak-out because I've seen way too many sci-fi shows where machines go wrong and there are things like decapitation or two vertebrae going 180 degrees in opposite directions.  I just had the courage to ask today how I'm supposed to be, and what the traction is actually pulling on, and of course, I was doing it wrong.  Muscles are supposed to be relaxed during traction, the more, the better, so there's that.  Leave it to me to think that something that's supposed to be healing is to be experienced as a punishment.

Day Four:

Today there were two items making the long goodbye.  First was a black lace-trimmed LB camisole top that I wore to work today under a light silk shirt.  I've been in denial that it's too big for a while, because the fabric has a great hand and drape, and the faux surplice style makes it much nicer than the rest of the camisoles and undershirts I own. Plus, it's black.  I'd had to shorten the straps almost all the way down when I put it on this morning and it wasn't until I'd gotten home from a full day of work that I could really see that it just didn't fit me anymore. I just can't see my body's actual size for what it is in relationship to my own clothes. It's maddening enough that sizing between companies is so wildly different (and companies sometimes vary their sizing from season to season) but the fact that I literally cannot tell what fits me and what doesn't unless I have time to let it sink in how it fits on my frame. I can't see myself right.

Second was a scarf I'd gotten in a clothing exchange. Interesting fabric, pretty pattern, but a huge square of fabric that perpetually needed ironing.  And since this homeslice don't iron no mo (unless i absolutely have to, it goes away.

We've just moved, to a new apartment, in a new city (not really that far from the old one, but it feels like it's far far away), and I'm drowning in my own things. I have unmatched socks that are years old that I've kept in the hopes that their mates will just magically show up "someday".  I have underwear that I know I bought back when I was in college (and it's in fine shape, because I never wore those pairs much anyway). I have enough makeup to do myself up with a face full o' slap for years. I have enough halloween makeup to outfit an entire burlesque troupe. I have way too much yarn, as well as a hell of a lot of needles, hooks, glitter, glue/paint, wire, floss, ribbon, beads, fabric, and paper sewing patterns. Apparently I collect sewing patterns, because I've made like six things from them (and only two for myself), even though the whole point is to make myself wonderful things to wear, but I don't have room to do anything because, you guessed it, I have too much stuff to work around. I have too many paper books, though some are special like the signed Gaimans.   I have some belongings remaining from three different dead people, even though I know keeping it won't bring any of them back. Some of which I got to choose (and those items give me life), but most of which I took because it didn't have anywhere else to go besides the trash, and I feel sadness, grief, and terrible loss whenever I catch sight of them. But I can't bear the thought of getting rid of them either, so glimpsing a pair of pink-toed socks or the antique toaster can reduce me to tears at times.  

It's become beyond obvious, even to me, that I don't own my stuff. My stuff owns me.  With the move, there have been some easy decisions to get rid of a few things, like obvious trash or recyclables. I've been making some conscious decisions lately, mostly about clothes that don't fit. I'll put them on because they're close at hand, and if they just don't feel right (or if after a day of wearing them start to not feel right, something I call 'giving them the farewell tour'), I'll take a good hard look at them and then probably consign them to the Go-Away Bag (which lives right next to the Go-Away Box that holds the things-that-aren't-clothes to get rid of).   D's been helping me by getting rid of a few things when I'm not around, because if I don't see them, I probably won't miss them.  Sometimes I do see them, and then I nod and leave them in the trash, sometimes I am compelled to pick out one or two things.  Mostly, I have the desire to pull all of my stuff around me in a protective shell. Yes, like that character in Labyrinth, which for me was the most frightening thing in that film.

To that end I'm going to try to get rid of at least one thing each day, to donate/sell or recycle/trash, for thirty days.  I know it's not the first of the month; I know it's not a Sunday (or a Monday). Starting on those beginning-type days just doesn't work for me because it feels like too much pressure (and I don't do transitions well). I know I've been doing it in fits and starts already.  So I'm just going to close my eyes and -- keep going.

Day 1 (Officially Counting): 

I got off to a roaring start, since D put together the second dresser we bought from Ikea (just before we had to move). My clothes are in bags all over the bedroom and though the dresser's been together for a week or so, I hadn't put anything in it.  I have this (irrational?) fear that we're going to have to move again, on a moment's notice.  Last night he told me he'd taken my bras out of their box and put them in a drawer, which kind of sparked today's adventure.  I've been keeping socks and underthings (and other foldable clothes) in plastic bin drawers, which were filled to overflowing as soon as I got them.  I started with the top and made it through the second by laying everything out on the bed. So in transferring two of the plastic bins' content into the new dresser I was able to put into the Go-Away Bag: two bunches of (matched) socks that don't fit, a bunch of bras that don't fit (all the sizes around the one I'm currently at but especially the ones that are way too small), and three tank top undershirts that are pretty ratty.  I sorted out the things that weren't either socks or underthings and stuck them back one of the two plastic drawer bins I'd emptied. The other drawer bin is an intermediary holder for things I'm not sure about keeping (I wasn't up to trying on 12 bras right now). I put all the unmatched socks on the top of the bin dresser and, once I'd gotten the bed cleared off again, called it good.

There was one thing that I was determined to get rid of that I didn't.: a black, wide-ribbed, cropped tank top that I bought in my first year of college.  It's a basic item.  I was still able to stuff myself into it (at home and in private) even at my largest size. It went to at least two Burning Mans (probably more), and it's still soft and comfortable.  I tried it on this morning and it just doesn't fit me right.  The straps are too narrow, the scoop is too low, and it's a crop top, on this body.  But I couldn't put it in the bag.  Maybe some other time but not right now.  

For anyone who thinks this is the KonMari method, well, yeah, it is, kind of.  I read a little bit of the book's first chapter on a stop during a (highly emotional) emergency trip to see my parents. I thought "Ok, this sounds totally doable, but right now I've got to see my sick dad, so laters."  A few weeks later I picked up my own copy of the book on a Target mosey, brought it home and started reading it again, thinking to myself "Reasonable, reasonable, reasonable, OK HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE RIGHT THERE NOPE."  I can't remember exactly what it was that set me off (maybe the "doing it all at once" and being happy with only a minor fraction of what you originally had), but I closed the book, put it on the arm of the sofa (to let it fall underneath, where it lived until we moved out) and got up and got away from that thing.  There are now four books that I've had that kind of reaction to, and the other three involved a particular form of harm to children that I experienced myself.   So something about getting rid of stuff lights up the DANGER sign in my hindbrain, because, hoarder from a family of barely-controlled hoarders.  So, kinder, gentler, (yes, slow as fuck) KonMari-like, but not KonMari.