It Only Hurts When I Think About it

(From "The Misadventures of No One Famous" my memoir)

I flipped through the TV channels and found nothing of interest, read some, put the book down and stared at the dust on my alarm clock, and then started thinking about living in my van. How it would be. Would I be able to maintain the fiction that it's a romantic idea once I was actually there, and the temperature drops to freezing? Would my cigarette lighter work so that I could plug the power inverter into it for a space heater? Could I live on ready-to-eat foods? Would I be able to find a place to shower and go to the bathroom when I needed to?

And I won't be able to leave the van for very long because Giz and Bingo would be there and it's cold, and I can't leave them without heat. So I won't be able to sit in warm coffee-shops and bookstores and libraries and movie houses. I will be making my pain, their pain, and I would not let them suffer more than me. It wouldn't be fair.

I hate the fact that I have to depend on anyone else to survive. I want to depend only on me. But I'm undependable. I hate that I can't pick up something heavy and walk across the room without excruciating pain afterward, or during. I hate the way one disability leads to another. . . if my back is out, I have to walk on crutches, then I get a catch in my spine just outside my shoulder blade, and carpal tunnel in my wrists, then I can't write or use my hands without pain, then I can't use the crutches, so then I can't walk. Then I have to lie down a lot, and I smoke and drink to have something to do with my hands, and to numb the pain and to feel like I'm indulging in some guilty pleasure. And when I eat, I know all those calories are just going to turn to fat.

I hate, then, that I'm fat and can't lose weight because I can't exercise. I don't look good in any of my clothes and can't buy new clothes because I can't work and earn the money. I hate that I can't play racquetball or softball or volleyball anymore. I hate that I have to watch other people do that. And I can't dance, so going out becomes a form of self-torture and self-loathing. Then I hate how I feel about myself and I get depressed. And I long to be thin and nice- looking, but I know I never will be.

I hate that I can't have sex when my back is out, even though I might need it-- Need it to feel human, to escape from the confines of my disabilities. And when I can have sex, I can't stop thinking about how I'm fat and ugly, and that no one could possibly be attracted to me. And then I can't enjoy the sex, and I don't get what I need. Then I'm angry and bitter and I push everyone away from me with my rage and caustic words. Then I just hate the Army and the V.A. and that drill sergeant who got me hurt, and I hate that they've taken away my life. Why wouldn't I want to kill myself? It's just finishing a job, isn't it?

Sometimes the subject will come up--the "suicide gesture" as the hospital form said-- When I talk to Terra. about it, she can't hear it. She tells me to stop, it's disturbing. She's more traumatized than I am about it. The only thing I find disturbing is that it doesn't disturb me. Like it was someone else. Or a dream. Or someone else's dream.

I wasn't just depressed when I did it. I was angry. I wanted it all to stop. I didn't have the strength to face another day of starting over. And there was this other part to it. When I got that denial of my claim that day on the 16th of December, 1999, it was like they were saying, "You don't exist. Your pain isn't real. You aren't real." Maybe I thought that if I could bleed, I was real, and that would be proof enough.

Life blood.

The blood of life.

Alive.

If I bled, I was alive.

Isn't it ironic that you have to try to die before you know you're really alive? And then what did that prove?

I was alive, but still pathetic?

It Only Hurts When I Think About it

The Pony Depress

(From "The Misadventures of No One Famous" my memoir)

Sometimes the post office forgets to cancel the stamps on outgoing mail.
The result is free postage, as far as I'm concerned. I've been hoarding those little jewels for months; just like I do those pennies that I drop in that change-sorting contraption I bought at Target. I've molested that stash plenty of times, and now it was the stamp I needed.

I tried to peel the stamp from the orphaned envelope, but tore it at the only place where the glue actually did what glue was supposed to do. "Shit."

I slammed around in the desk drawer for scissors, and liberated the stamp by simply cutting it out of the envelope. I rubbed a withered glue stick on it and pasted it to the envelope I was sending to the Veteran's Administration. It was still another copy of the addendum I sent to them three times before. I sent it every time they asked for more information, having overlooked the fact that my 10 page letter was not a synopsis for my next novel, but actual details about my claim.

I licked one side of the envelope, feeling an odd sensation on the burned portion of my tongue where I had been a bit overzealous with my first sip of coffee that morning. Years of coffee consumption have left my taste-buds a little retarded. I can no longer tell the difference between a Pop-Tart and a sprouted wheat bagel. It would be nice if my hips and stomach did the same, and just cataloged everything "fat free." Anyway, I licked the other side and got a paper-cut on my tongue.

I grabbed my forearm crutches and stood up awkwardly, my tongue bleeding out onto my lip and down my chin. I nestled the envelope between my teeth, and had to quell the urge to bite through the paper, tear it to shreds like a lonely puppy left at home all day.

Hobbling out of the tiny guestroom, crammed with all the worldly goods I could fit into it, I made my way to the door. Halfway down the rickety front steps, I caught the rubber base of one crutch in the crack between the boards, and had to fight to keep my balance. I would not allow myself to do something as theatrical as fall down the steps and lie there in the dirt until my erstwhile roommates-cum-sugar-mamas returned from work.

I wriggled my forearm out of the bent metal cuff, and pulled on the crutch. It came free without much effort, and my excess exertion was rewarded when I managed to knock myself in the head with the top of the crutch. I stood there with my eyes closed for a long moment, waiting for the line of blood to tickle its way down my forehead and pool above my right eyebrow, thankfully not merging with the blood oozing from my paper-cut tongue into a river of crimson disbelief. So that's what eyebrows were for. . .

I didn't bother to touch the wound, I just continued gingerly down the steps and along the driveway toward the mailbox, numb with self-resolve.

When I reached the box and opened its drawbridge-door, a bee flew out and stung me on the chin. I swiped him to the dirt and ground him into it with the rubber tip of my crutch. Taking the envelope from my teeth, I thought about how I'd like to be a bee on the wall when it arrived at the Department of Veteran's Affairs with the bloody imprint of teeth on it. Perhaps it would help my case.

Barely making it to the bathroom, my bladder aching and threatening to inflict still more humiliation, I tried to pull my pants down and deal with the crutches at the same time, and promptly knocked my last roll of toilet paper in the toilet (it wanted to go home). I made do with a paper towel and paused in the bathroom only long enough to apply more antibiotic on the boils I'd developed on my chin.

By the time I made my way back to my old brown desk chair, I needed a cigarette. I know I should quit, but it's one of the few creature comforts I have left. Every time I quit smoking, something bad happens and makes me want a cigarette, so I figure if I continue to smoke, things are bound to improve.

I set flame to the blessed cheroot and inhaled, allowing the cigarette to dangle from my mouth like I was James Dean while I logged on to get my e-mail.

I watched the junk mail fill my box with promises of work-at-home riches, zero-percent Master Cards, and sales on peripherals I could never dream of buying. I reached up to pull the evil fire-stick from my lips, discovering too late that it was sort of glued there by whatever magic that's created by spit and dry paper. This caused my fingers to slide down the length of it, where I summarily burned both of them. I yelped, the action tearing skin from my lips as my mouth came open. This released the cigarette, which then fell to my lap and nearly caught a certain intimate clump of bush on fire.

It was going to be another one of those days where I should have just rolled back over into Narnia, and forgot about waking up.

The Pony Depress