After the Fact

Music: Robbie Williams - Eternity

My air conditioning's kind of broken.

Yes yes, I know it's November, but it's too hot. It's a second floor thing, I guess. Heat rising and all that.

I made C watch 'Footloose' and 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' with me today. Expanding her pop culture horizons. The first sixteen years of her life she only watched Nickelodeon and Disney channel, so she has a lot to catch up on.

My dad used to make me sit through John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Audie Murphy...and I'm a girl! This has to be way more fun for my daughter! We watched 'Dirty Dancing' last week and she didn't complain...hardly at all.

I haven't bought a replacement car yet. That's because the insurance company hasn't sent my check yet. Tomorrow will be 35 days since my accident. It's a red tape thing. I could have walked to Indiana, collected the document they are waiting on, and then hand delivered it to their headquarters in Maryland by now. Twice.

I have to go get some more cold water from the freezer, let's hope the temperature drops drastically tonight...

Roses

Music: Eminem - When I'm Gone

I brought my old journal over and it's here: http://rememberinggraceonce.blogspot.com/...

Don't much feel like journaling tonight...headache.

I did have some pretty good drugs for about a minute, between my car wreck and going to the dentist for a root canal... but then people found out I had the medicine, and they were coming out of the woodwork. There should be a song out there titled, "Everybody's Your Best Friend, When You Have Narcotics!".

So I gave almost all my Vicoprofens and Flexerils away, and now I have a massive migraine and my neck's hurting and I sort of wish I hadn't been so generous.

I really don't wish that. I just sometimes get the feeling that people are taking advantage of me.

It doesn't matter...anything I have that I lend or give was never really mine to begin with.

Forever and ever

Music: The New Amsterdams - Hanging On For Hope

I totaled my car the first of October, on the way to taking my daughter to school, less than five minutes after leaving home... The road I live off of is a tricky one, it's very curvy and hilly and scary at night, and everyone who's ever grown up in Louisville calls it 'Hot Rod Haven'. And for goodness' sake, I've been driving this road ever since I started driving and I KNOW to slow down on that one curve when the road is wet, but my daughter and I were having a lively discussion (the kind that mothers and daughters get into some mornings).

The next thing I know, I'm fishtailing right, then left, then careening off the road, through the brush, under the trees, then right into a tree. We came away with scratches, bruises, a wrenched neck (mine), and a truly impressive black eye (my daughter's). My car was a goner.

So now the bruises are faded and we're all healed up although I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of C's black eye at it's most colorful. My neck is still giving me pain but I'm taking it as penance for being what must be the WORST DRIVER IN THE UNIVERSE. This makes at least the SIXTH REPORTED accident which was MY FAULT in my life - reported meaning I've had to call the insurance company. And I've only been driving for eighteen years.

I think I can do the math. That's an accident every three years. And that's only REPORTED accidents. That's not counting the time I hit the man on Dixie highway and messed up my car but it didn't hurt his truck so he told me to go on, or the time I hit the man in the parking lot at work but it didn't mess up his car so he told me to go on...

So I admit it, I'm a terrible driver, and I really, really, really don't want to be driving... I need to just have my own driver so society can breathe easy now that I'm no longer out there on the roads.

And as much as I don't want to be driving, my daughter REALLY doesn't want me to be driving anymore. We're still in the rental car waiting on the check from the insurance company. And every morning on the way to school, the litany starts as soon as we pull out onto the road... "Please slow down... Please put both hands on the wheel... Please pay attention to the road..." I've turned my daughter into a nervous wreck when she's in the car with me.

But my airbags deployed and the window shattered and the front end buckled and still my daughter and I walked away from that car in one piece. Even though I'm a terrible driver, I have so much to be thankful for.

So, so much to be thankful for.

I'm ready for the madness...

Music: The Cure - Just Like Heaven

I'm going down to Lexington tomorrow to stand in line for my midnight madness tickets... only it's not midnight madness anymore, it's BIG BLUE MADNESS, and for the last few years I've had my tickets given to me by friends and I haven't actually earned them like a REAL fan by standing in line all night like you're supposed to... It's time for me to Earn My Tickets.

Of course if I was a real, raging lunatic fan, I would have gone down there Tuesday with a tent like my friend's husband did... But since I don't have any vacation days because I used them all up by the middle of February, that wasn't really an option.

I should really be going to bed now, since I'll be up all night tomorrow... but I'm just so excited...

It has to be said, I can't help it, even though there's no game, and not even a practice, it's still basketball time, so...

Go Cats!

Pillows and Empty Spaces

Music: Angels & Airwaves - The Gift

We are not supposed to have hurricanes in Kentucky.

I mean, did Ike even bother to look at the map? We are way up in the middle of the continent... we get a little rain sometimes from the hurricanes, but that's supposed to be it.

But nooo, Hurricane Ike blew through here Sunday, still packing hurricane force winds, and brought my city to a standstill like I haven't seen since the Great Blizzard of '94.

And it didn't even rain... with wind alone Ike managed to knock out 75% of the city's power, bring down hundreds of trees and power lines, and get the kids off school for the whole week.

I finally got to go back to work yesterday when they got the power back on (yippee!), and found a gas station near work that actually has gas, so things are looking up. My neighborhood is still completely in the dark, and the problem is food... we've been living on peanut butter and soup and I'm seriously, SERIOUSLY, considering going for these free food rations they keep saying they're giving out downtown and at the fairgrounds.

But even though lots of neighborhoods are still in the dark, and that's fine, there is that big huge golf thing starting tomorrow in town, the Ryder Cup... hopefully all the electricity around that event is back on! And I'm not being the least bit facetious about this...

So, this year, we've had an amazing ice storm... a rockin' earthquake... and Hurricane Ike. This is not North Dakota, California, or Florida. This is KENTUCKY, we have it all.

Big Scary World

Music: The Williams Brothers - Miss This World

I sometimes can't believe I'm here, in my pretty apartment on the hill with the woods behind me, and my daughter and my kitty and my big bed and even a fireplace (which I don't really know how to use, but it's there adding great atmosphere...).

But then I realize that it's okay, because things that are too good to be true, usually are. The other shoe is sure to drop sometime soon. But I'm really enjoying this wonderful life while I have it. I've waited a long, long time for this. It's thrilling to be able to look out a window at the trees and the sky, or step out on the balcony and look at the stars.

I'm missing too much work due to my migraines. Some days I can't even get out of bed, and medicine doesn't help, even though I take anything and everything to try and get rid of the pain. I'm sure my liver is on the way to being permanently damaged. I went to the doctor Friday and I'm finally being referred to a neurologist. Who knows if they can do anything for me? Is it all in my head? (ha ha - funny joke)

The point is... If I don't go to work, then I don't make any money, and I can't pay any bills. How can I live? Here? Mom and D can only carry me so far...

Wouldn't it be great if all the people I ever lent money to in my life would pay me back? I fantasize about that sometimes. People keep telling me I need to develop the ability to say 'no' when people ask for money, but I just can't... If they need it and I have it, I will share it. That's what He said to do...

I found a lump and I need to schedule a mammogram... I'm pretty worried. I just have a feeling, like, I dodged a bullet in December when I lucked out and found a great surgeon and didn't have to get a hysterectomy and didn't have cancer then, that now maybe I won't be so lucky. Okay, maybe I'm more than worried, maybe I'm terrified.

And on, and on...

Music: The Weepies - The World Spins Madly On

I've been here over a year now, and I have to say that one of my favorite things about living here is the ride home from work. I've only moved about five miles away, but it's a huge difference... Now I drive home through the park and up and around the back way, up and up the hill, with the trees and the streams and the winding roads. In the past year I've seen deer and chipmunks and enjoyed the seasons change like I never have before.

The absolute best was in the days after the ice storm, when the way home was transformed into an icy sparkly wonderland. And the tree out front was bent completely over by the weight of the ice, the top of it touching the ground. I didn't think it would ever recover, but it has, now standing as tall and skinny as ever.

I'm really happy here. I can see the woods from my bedroom window, and hear the bullfrogs at night.

The peace is only sometimes shattered by the temperamental teenage girl who also lives here. My sweet baby girl turned into a beautiful fifteen-year old (sixteen this month, gulp!) with a (gulp!!!) boyfriend in this past year...hmmm...any correlation between this and my headaches?

So that's who we are now, me, my beautiful daughter, and my wonderful kittycat who just adores me and sort of, you know, hisses, at everyone else, including my poor boyfriend who keeps plying her with treats trying to get himself in there. Our happy family...

Green Green Green

Music: Paramore - Pressure

I'm flipping through the channels, shivering under the blankets with me, myself, and my migraine, and suddenly on the TV there's green grass and bam!, I'm hypnotized because it's Wimbledon and it doesn't matter that I haven't watched tennis in a year...what is it about that green?

I went to work yesterday, headache and all. They were happy to see me.
It was the first time I'd left the house in six days.

Gotta go...headache, hurting, pain...back to bed...

Second Chance...

Music: Solomon Burke - Cry To Me

It's 3 a.m. and I'm suffering through another marathon migraine... I really, really hope that this migraine is what is bringing on this terrible melancholy I'm feeling tonight. I mean, I take medicine for this, I'm supposed to be in a nice vague happy daze all the time.

Instead, I'm melancholy and jittery and stuck in despair and I can't stand myself and thinking about the horrible things I've done in the past.

All I have to say is, thank goodness for my cat. It's hard to remember that you're stuck in despair when the kitty cat just tried her best to get between you and the keyboard, and, failing that, sat up on the desk, scratched behind her right ear and sent fur flying, then leapt to the bed and is now laying on her pillow (yes, the pillow next to my pillow), imploring me to come to bed and stop this 3 a.m. nonsense.

Bossy kitty. G'night.