You know how, when you're really sick, you can't even read? You basically slip between sleeping and watching TV?

That's been me since Saturday. more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 03:51 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 443 words, total size 2 kb.

On this side of the bed, there is:
- Me (pink nightgown, ratty hair)
- Box of Puffs with Aloe
- Jar of Vicks
- iBook G4 on a breakfast tray
- Pink Razr phone (for calling CD and asking for more soup/medicine/water in the vaporizer)
- cup half-full with flat ginger ale
- eleventy-billion pillows
- remote control for television
- thermos of long-since gone-cold tea more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 05:43 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 132 words, total size 1 kb.

My husband's friend lives pretty far off so we don't see him so often. He's flying in tonight for a visit, so I spent much of the day cleaning and making the guest room back into a guest room. Because when one lives in an ongoing construction site, an extra room turns into a depository for things like air guns and lavatory basins.

Long story short?

That new Swiffer Sweeper dusting spray is very slippery and my ass went over teakettle. Next thing you know, little birdies are flying over my head.

"Wait, wait, wait," he said. "Pause the story. Did you pass out?"

"I don't think so. I napped a little."

"On the floor?"

"The back of my head hurt all the way to my bangs."

"You banged?"

"Ha ha. I'm on, like, an extra handful of drugs right now."

"Including the red ones?"

"Oh, you bethcha."

"But are you all right?"

"Yeah, yeah. Dishes aren't done, though."

"You and your excuses."

"Tell me about it."

"Neurosurgeon's gonna charge extra if you got a lumpy skull."

"Will not, so, too."

"I'm serious, it's in the fine print."

So I warn him to warn his friend that I'll be loopier than usual. At which point, CD cops to the fact that he hasn't, actually, told his friend that I'm pretty much drugged up most of the time these days. Or the reason why.

"When were you planning on telling him?"

"On the ride home from the airport."

"You can't do that. Not at 70 miles an hour. It's just..."

"What?"

"Bambi. Right in the head. Except literally."

"Oh."

"You gotta buy him a drink first. Tell him stationary, at the very least."

"Yeah, OK. Except that might mean it's like 3 hours before we get back from the airport."

"That's cool."

And after we hung up, I thought; 1) CD's obviously still ramping up on those communication skills, 2) Frigging Swiffer Sweeper people got some 'splaining to do, and 3) My Cousin Vinny was like one of THE funniest movies. Ever.

Best quotes after the jump. more...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 12:48 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 744 words, total size 4 kb.

A friend said to me not long ago that being around CD, Bear and I can be a little hard to take because we sort of block others out.

That wasn't easy to hear.

I don't want to be that person. I don't want us to be that family. I think of myself, of us, as open. Curious.

Isn't it strange how wrong I am about the person in the mirror?

A couple of years ago, we started putting up walls because there was so much pain and anger around CD's depression. As much as I vented, there was that much more I couldn't - wouldn't - say.

And I never realized that even as we healed, the wall obviously didn't come down. Although Bear has many friends and is really social - the truth is that we seem happiest these days when we're the 3 of us, whether piled on the couch with Sara watching Mythbusters or walking along the river with our ice cream cones.

This can't be healthy. But I'm not sure I know how to let go, let in. I tell myself we're just a close family, and maybe we are. Yet...

Even after everything becomes all right again, it isn't over.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 06:58 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 210 words, total size 1 kb.

In my bones, I don't believe that there is anything new wrong with me. I just think that the Lupus, like the Boston Red Sox, has changed gears.

Where I used to be able to slap it down without even trying hard, now it is roaring through. Stronger, focused, and determined to win.

It changes everything. Sure. But not unexpectedly.

Lupus is a known entity, a facet of my world for over a decade.

I can suit up for that fight and take it to the mattresses.

But until someone says that's actually what's going on, it's a waiting game.

Friday afternoon, they clamped a plastic mesh cage over my face and slid me into a torpedo tube. For an hour I was bombarded with thudding noises and claustrophobia. I tried not to be a wuss.

I failed.

I'm a big-assed wienie and let no one tell you different. I'm even getting a bumper sticker that says so.

I don't mind blood, but man - I hate being stuffed into an MRI.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 04:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 178 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm sorry.

For a long time, I have been dry.

In my bones, my heart, my eyes.

My words have gone cliche, dipped in trite. Silly, predictable, sifting through my fingers.

This is what it is like, on the other side of the decision. The life. The shark.

It is not because of you. God, no. You? I love. Everything about the conversational give and take... I love that you have been editor, audience, critic, and friend.

It is me.

Dry.

In body, mind, and spirit.

I use up a gallon of moisturizer a day. It doesn't help. I drank enough water to blow up my kindneys. It doesn't help. I stood in the rain, looked up and felt it drench my eyelashes and lips.

And it passed through me.

Leaving me back here.

I don't want to leave you.

I don't want to leave me.

I have found myself here so many times....

Oh. This is stupid. Like anyone remembers, later...

Good night, for now.

And thank you.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 04:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 185 words, total size 1 kb.