These words are my diary screaming out loud

I have been unable to do a lot of things I would typically be doing because of my recent surgery. However, it has opened doors to new activities:

Things I have done to pass the time in the past week:
1. Get sleep. Lots of sleep, though it was almost not worth it since I am unable to sleep on my stomach and I am used to sleeping this way.
2. Play my hand-held sudoku.
3. Play online trivia games.
4. Spend time with my family - whether I like it or not.
5. Read for pure pleasure.
6. Watch national spelling bees in their entirety - both the 2006 spelling bee and previous ones, which were aired recently.
7. Eat. I have actually had an appetite recently, though this aberration will not last long, I hope.
8. Push every button my brother has just because.
9. Make crazy lists in my head like the one below:

Possible causes as to why my gall bladder became sick and had to be removed:
1. Rapid weight loss. A real medical cause, though I began getting these pains four years ago, so not likely.
2. Genetics. Everything's fucking genetic.
3. Profuse swearing. This will have caught up with me one day so why not now?
4. My recent decision to get the Immaculate Heart of Mary tattooed on my lower back.
5. The result of my saying "I need a vacation" at least twenty times a day that I work. And isn't it ironic?
6. Not drinking enough water. Someone told me this.
7. Burning my body out. I have been doing this for a while. Maybe this was my body's way of saying "I need a fucking break".
8. My numerous threats to kick so-and-so's ass, to fuck so-and-so up. God is laughing and thinking, "Oh, no you won't."
9. Stress. Like genetics, it affects everything.
10. Punishment for just being me.

These are the only things I've thought of as of now. The list will grow as the days enumerate.

I have recurring dreams about tornadoes. I don't know why. I looked up "tornadoes" on a dream interpretation database online. It says:

The coming of the storm/tornado further reiterates the turmoil that is occurring in your waking life. A relationship or situation is eating away at you and potentially dangerous to your well-being. Storms are also representative of unexpressed fears, anger, and other emotions that you have kept hidden inside. In dreams, sometimes it is not so important what happens in your dream but how your FEEL during the dream. Many times in our waking life, we prevent ourselves from feeling a certain way. However, dreams serve as a "safe" outlet to express those emotions in which we keep inside.

Usually I'm doing something with my family in my dream. The weather outside is steadily getting worse. You can tell there's a bad storm on the way. Sometimes I actually see the tornadoes and become paralyzed. More often than not, though, there's just the absolute knowledge that a tornado is on its way. I know it, but everyone around me seems to shrug it off. No one's scared. In fact, they don't even think a tornado is on its way. But I know. I can feel it. So while my family is trying to find a place for us to eat or something to that effect, I'm feeling very anxious, constantly looking around for places to hide when the tornado does arrive. I'm the only one. In the dream I had tonight, the tornado never actually came. But it was coming. I just woke up before it got there. I spent the entire dream trying to figure out the best place for shelter. I was afraid of going for a walk with my brother because I didn't think we'd have a good chance of escaping if the tornado came. I didn't want to leave any of the buildings we were in in the case that we couldn't get back in for shelter. I debate on whether we should remain inside McDonalds or Burger King -- which one was safest? Which one had the strongest foundations?

So does it mean that I'm actually currently very anxious and suspicious? Am I currently worrying about a relationship I have with a person that's affecting me negatively? Well, okay. I didn't need a dream about tornadoes to tell me that, but it seems like it means more than that. It just has to. I have tornado dreams so often that it has to have some greater significance.

I just wish things could be okay again.

It hurts a place deep inside me.
And I don't know what to do.

"I'm tired of people judging me by my cigarettes!"

and

"Black people've been making lemonade since the dawn of time."

I went ice skating for the first time in my life today, and I loved it. I made two friends, Aleena and Morgan, who were about seven years old and could show me up any day. I fell twice (the first time being Doug's fault) and have a bruise on my knee to prove it. However, one of the guys who worked there said I skated very well - especially it being my first time and all.

And it was so theraputic. When the music wasn't playing, all I could hear was the sound of my blades cutting the ice. I could think more clearly out there.

Today, as I was on my way to the tanning salon, I found a little bird laying on the pavement. It was small (I'm assuming it was a baby) and a pea-green color. It was laying with its head on the pavement as if it couldn't get up. I figured it had broken a leg. So I picked it up and it sat upright in my hand. I called a veterinary hospital who gave me the phone number to a wild-life rehabilitator. I talked with her husband (apparently she was in the woods looking at birds) who told me to bring the bird to the veterinary hospital on tenth street where they pick the bird up. Just as I got off the phone, the bird flew out of my hand and into a nearby tree. I got a phone call from the wildlife rehabilitator soon after and explained what had just happened. She said that was good, that the bird had probably went in shock and then came-to and was more than likely fine since it had flown on its own. I have to admit that I was a little sad. I wanted to keep the bird a little longer. The little bird (whom I think I would have named Peter - though I don't know why) sat happily in my hand for a good twenty minutes, occasionally closing its eyes, as if it were falling asleep.

This is not out of the norm for me, though. My family is not surprised when I come home with some stray puppy or cat. And it apparently also runs in my family: my Aunt Debbie (the patron saint of stray animals) once went so far as to pay a three hundred dollar vet bill in order to have a cast put on a stray squirrel's leg after it had fallen out of a nearby tree.


I need a pet.

Am recovering who I am.

Stoked about this.

Yayayaya.

Going to bed now. Tired.

p.s. I'll make this statement: If you know me in real life, pay special attention to my language. Pay attention to the words I use and how I use them. Pay attention to my actions, as well. It all has meaning.

p.s.s. The poetry of Diana Garcia is wonderful. I have come to love it. In fact, I'll leave you with this poem of hers [it has special meaning to me]:

If I Trust Myself

This time I swore I wouldn't be
like the squirrels in the park, drop
my guard to the first friendly handout.
I woke up before dawn to watch day break
through designer drapes, your own savannah
of stripes, spots, horns, tusks.
I studied how light eased past beige
giraffes and cheetahs, blushed the left side
of your forehead like a large ivory
rose petal lightly veined in blue.
I listened for the way you hacked a bit
when you woke, the way you turned and smiled
when you saw me watching you.
These things take years. At times I broke,
afraid I broke a trust with self, a sense of who I was.
I followed trails to the beach, past sage and Torrey pine.
I picked selected shells at the base of cliffs,
then, pockets filled, I'd find paths back to you,
cleansed, renewed, a gift freely given.
The bond we form insinuates.
I wake these days and smell your scent on me,
the mint that overruns my garden,
a sweet fragrant planting impossible to remove.

-Diana Garcia

It's six in the morning. I'm doing laundry. I have a mythology exam in five hours -- and I haven't really studied. The entire purpose of my being up right now is to study but instead I find myself taking out the trash, washing clothes, washing dishes, etc.

I've been making some bad decisions lately. I used to be so focused.

I feel better this morning than I did last night. Not entirely better, but better. Dr. Dock didn't pick on me today, which was nice for a change. I went back to therapy. I have a lady named Melissa, who is new, meaning she's being supervised. She's no Anne Boone, but she'll do just fine. Whenever I tell her anything, she makes little sounds and comments like "aw" or "hmmm" and I don't like that. I liked Anne Boone's style, which was to look at me intently, tilting her head, and nodding. No noises. Noises distract me and I lose my train of thought that way. I really wish I had Anne Boone back. We bonded. She knew me. But Melissa is alright. She says I've just had so much piled on top of me in the past three weeks that my body had to disconnect from the events surrounding me, from the issues I was dealing with and now it's all catching up with me which explains my irritability, my moodiness, my little bouts of anger, my impatience. But I'm going to see her again on Wednesday. And I'm studying Stoicism again. And I'm eating yogurt and going to the tanning bed and reading and I think it's all going to be okay.

What else? I went to the tanning bed, to the bank, got a new tire on my front passenger's side (apparently there was a nail in it which was causing a slow leak).

Anything else?

I lost two and a half pounds this week.

But that's about all. I'm going to go knit and read and watch re-runs of something on tv until it's time for me to go to work.

I don't know why I'm doing it again.