Dr. Head

I've been considering seeing a therapist...for about three years. I actually called a few on Monday. See, not bad, right, good time frame. I like to think about things FOR YEARS! Anyway, I'm finding that most therapists don't take ghetto healthcare, which is what we have because, well, we're broke. And we only have no-pay co-pay because Anna is in the "biracial" category. How odd. In fact when I applied for GhettoBlue, the woman reviewing my application was looking doubtful about giving us anything. Then she spotted one checked box, and another. She turned to her assistant and began speaking to her, about me. "I" became "Her".
"Lucy, did you know that Nichole is Native American?"
"No" Lucy looked up at me, a bit skeptical I might add.
"And did you know that her daughter is bi-racial."
"No." A slow creepy grin spread over Lucy's face.
"You're all set." She stamped the application and flashed a bizarre set of tiny teeth.
"So, that's it?" I tried to close my mouth to hide the shock.
"Yup. Oh, and don't be shy about applying for disability for your heart thing. I mean it, come back any time."
These women were peddling need! As I left the hospital, I wondered if they got a commission for every MA resident that signed up for HMOs and disability.
So, that's how we got GhettoBlue. And that's when I knew it might be time to deal with my hidden rage and other ugly beasts which have been feeding off of my soul for several years.
The doctor who did call me back told me it was unethical for him to take insurance because it interferred with doctor/patient confidentiality. Maybe I should have told him about the blog.
He does offer a sliding scale "based on income", however. I laughed heartily at that one. Income? WTF is that? Something actually has to "come in", right? So far, the other therapists haven't called back, the ones that will take my "plan".
I'm assuming they're too busy meeting like three patients at a time to meet some kind of fiscal budget.
For dinner, Chinese food, straight out of the carton, I promised Anna sesame chicken. Of course, this promise was made before I dropped $180 on her Tae Kwon Do lessons. Now, I have about $100 to get me through until next Friday, minus whatever the food costs. Maybe the therapist has a food pantry, too.

joy?

Had a psycho momma moment recently, thought I'd share. Hopefully, once again, no one from a government agency is reading this. If so, well, you'll need physical evidence. Keep trying.
Anna and Lucian were in the livingroom wrestling, which ALWAYS turns into pent up, I hate your f***ing guts real fighting once they realize I haven't come in the room for at least two minutes. So, they're wrestling, and the noise is unbelievable. How could two people, totalling in weight at 110 lbs, sound like rabid cougars in the livingroom? I went in, still chomping on a piece of raw pasta (to avoid smoking like 90 butts a day) and all I saw was the flailing. It was a some kind of sick pantomime of "Ebony and Ivory", white Lucian rolling around, his hair matted in places, brown Anna lifting him off the floor in dangerous sweeps of her long arms. I screamed at the top of my lungs, my raw allergen and smoke-filled lungs.
"CUT THE SH*T!"
They both stopped dead on the couch. I tried to begin my tirade of how "mom's tired, she needs you to calm down, and focus, and not be such a**holes while she's making dinner" etc.
I made the mistake of looking at Lucian's face. The giant gray eyes, unblinking, in an attempt not to laugh. Anna's face half-hidden behind the couch pillow, her eyes glinting like black coals.
That's when I started laughing. A lot. Seriously, what did I care if they beat the hell out of eachother? I let it melt, all that anger, the last bubble of solid butter in a pan. Poof, done, clarified, reborn as a delicious meal.
The lesson is not that I transformed into ghee. That'd be weird. I'm not sure what the lesson is. I'm not sure that it matters. I am sure that joy and hysteria walk on the same beach and wave to eachother from their piers.
For dinner this evening, leftover pasta with homemade sauce (even better the second time around), some limp salad, half an enclair, and about two minutes of ambiant music until Anna declared that Pavarotti "sounded sick" and could I "turn off the screaming".

blinking

You ever have those days where everything is swollen? Eyelids, guts, upper back, lower back, the ground, your life? That seems to be the status quo here for the last two months. So much to be done, sometimes you can't even make time to laugh.
What am I saying? Of course you can make time to laugh. Even if it's at the sick shit that NO ONE else would laugh about....ever! Which, I'm assuming, is why you are reading this blog.
Ok, where were we, oh yes, the sponge of life is saturated. You can't lift your head for fear of seeing what's in front of you and then...
You remember it's Monday morning and you forgot to help your child do his friggin' cut and paste project for the letter "M". You're not a bad person, it's just that the letter "M" at this moment, is not even on your list of wringing out, didn't even make it to the list. So, 10 minutes before the bus is about to zoom down the street, the yellow chariot of salvation, you are sitting at the kitchen table with a glue stick that is covered with dog hair, a cold cup of coffee, bleary eyes, and a few magazines, looking for things that begin with "M". And no, you cannot create your own list because you are too bitter and the kindly teacher wouldn't see the humor in pictures representing "menstruation", "mental illness", "mad", "motherf***er", etc.
I did manage to sneak one little "m"orbid picture in. Mummy. Dried skin and all. Lucian was thrilled.
Oh, and what did we eat....gummy, half-toasted bagels with the thinnest smear of butter ever, cream of wheat that turned into a white ball after 5 minutes, and apple juice that is bound to give someone diarrhea before recess.

dumping the clutch

My son, now almost 6, has two problems. One is that he thinks he is a superhero (and likes being naked with his "L" cape, even in the middle of winter) and two; he is more fickle than a bulimic supermodel. Given these two issues, his superhero personality is often puctuated by moments of alter ego cruelty. Once in a while I catch him torturing the dogs, or my grandmother's sheltie, while whispering softly to them "good puppy, that's a good pup." If I weren't so dark myself, I'd think it was creepy. To me, this wicked/kind duality seems natural. He is a man, after all! And he is partly mine, so.....
This morning, the dichotomy that is Lucian suprised me with its simplicity. The topic: Cranberry juice.
"Hey Lucian, you want something to drink, maybe some orange juice or cranberry?"
Lucian cocked his head to the side, giving the question real thought.
"I'll have orange." Then he cocked his head to the other side.
"You know, I used to like cranberry juice a lot," he recalled, "But then, I just switched gears."
Wow.
It can be that simple. It can be that quick. It dawned on me. The switching gears, that's a human inevitability that we rarely allow ourselves to experience. It has ugly code words like "impulsiveness", "fickleness", "selfishness". But these don't get to the truth of the matter. We're just switching gears, we' re not bad people for doing it, but we judge ourselves because of it.
Come to think of it, I haven't liked cranberry juice for a long time. I just drank it because it was there and I kept buying it. I'm going for peach next time.

Upon myself

I asked my mother rather randomly if she believed in fate. She must have known I was working up to something, or struggling with the small tidbits of life that I allow to become full blown tornadoes in my head.
"So, do you?" I pressed.
"Absolutely," she nodded her head, her big hair swooshing a little.
She looked me square in the face, half-smiling and said, "But I also believe in fatality."
Read you loud and clear, Ma.

a better breakfast

I promised someone that I would only have one cup of coffee this morning so that I wouldn't be cracked out by our meeting, to take place after noon. I stayed true to my promise, but as I'm looking at this mug now, I realize that it's about six inches high (that's a half foot) and at least three inches in diameter. So, am I really drinking less coffee? This is the kind of mug you actually need to use the handle for, even when you balance it on your knee as you stare out your window in catatonic fatigue.
Speaking of exhaustion (which is fatigue times 600), I tried a facial mask that my mother gave me about 4 years ago. She got it from a wealthy client and never used it. I was bored, and since I refuse to paint my toenails or my fingernails unless it's Halloween or I'm trying to get laid, I chose to rifle through the cabinet and low and behold, there it was, the foil wrapped beauty mask. My first surprise when I opened it was that it was not mud that you slather all over your face, it was a piece of cotton soaked in the fountain of youth, that you put on your face for 20 minutes. I carefully smoothed it over my crooked features (my nose was way too big for the nose flap and my mouth was a speck inside the alloted mouth space).
I hoped the children wouldn't wake up and come downstairs. I looked exactly like Jason from Halloween. It was terrifying. I currently have no curtains in my living room and cars were slowing down to peek in. So, I waited 20 minutes, pushing at the mask, laughing every time I saw my reflection in the window, then peeled that bad boy off.
Angels sang. Lots of them. Of my beauty, my small pores, and my rested undereyes. I realized that I could not live without this mask. It was like sex with a "bad boy", you can't imagine anything else. Life stops, time stops....
I looked up the product name online, they had a website! I could order it online!!!! SK-II. Facial Reviving Mask, Click to buy.....HOLY SHIT....$120 for a package of ten. I scanned the other products, even more expensive. Apparently, this is what the stars in Hollywood use. I quietly closed my laptop, sighed, and went back to the bathroom mirror to take one more look at me when I was 23. The next morning, I knew, it was back to Noxema and coffee and Anna gently patting my arm, saying, "You look so tired, Mom."
And the recipe, you wonder...to make up for the boxed soup I made Moroccan chicken with almonds, raisins, spices, lemon, sugar, potatoes from our garden.
The kids hated it.

the many heads of humiliation

I would never complain that my life is uneventful. It isn't. I think that the nature of the events leaves something to be desired in terms of feeling comfort, sanity, and basic value as a human. Consider my eventful weekend:
Saturday am--9-10:30am soccer practice for the kids. Anna, my lithe amazonian daugther runs like Pele. Lucian, my short oblivious son, takes pride in moving the small goal in the middle of games in order to trick the other players. This is a promise. He does it every Saturday and since there are so many witnesses, I cannot strike him down on the pee-wee field.

Saturday 4pm--After taking a shower, Anna presents me with a pick and I comb here hair in the usual routine, until, suddenly, the pick is covered with small bugs. I SCREAM, but no sound comes out. It is the kind of scream that is meant not to alarm, but to coat the inside of your forehead so as not to upset the children. So begins the delousing of the Afro.

Saturday 10pm--After bending over Anna's infested little head for about 2 hours, I sit down, finally, and crack open a book. A strange gurgled cough sounds from upstairs, and before I can even set the book properly on the coffeetable, Lucian is leaned over his toybox chundering all over his Playmobile collection. YES! We now call his room the Chumbucket. He half-smiles, I'm not sure he finds it funny.

So, eventful yes, glamorous, enlightening, nope.

And finally, yesterday evening, Lucian is making gagging sounds in the car, of course, I panic, thinking of all the bleached playmobile items still soaking in the tub....he is sticking his finger down his throat. Now, I am positive he isn't bulimic, the kid would eat until he fainted and he clogs the toilet with his profound fecal matter (we call it bad waste management). He says, "I'm scratching, there's something back there"...
Off to the pediatrician who asks Lucian what's wrong to which he responds (mind you it's 7pm at this point) "I don't know what the hell is in there but it's pretty frikkin' sharp."
Huh. Nice.
Strep test is negative, the doctor is already on the phone with homeland security and we are purchasing popsicles at the grocery store when Lucian spies two Latino men in front of us a the checkout.
"Hey" he points, "How come they're so short? Must be Spanish or something."
Uneventful, never, humliating, absolutely. You should've been there for the midget incident last summer.
Oh, and what did I have for dinner this evening, since all of this should come with a recipe. Matzo soup from the box, old garlic bread, and push-up pops. Tylenol PM for dessert.
Happy Cooking.

Lists, no recipes

If Julie Powell can post a blog about her childless life in the city and a 900-year-old recipe book based primarily in butter and parsley, then my findings about the world should be a cinch. I will begin this blog with the list I created this morning using three pens (all short on ink, of course) while listening to my gigantic dogs fight with the neighbor's dog who still has testicles and no manners, of course. I am amazed at how this brief encounter with paper sums up what will most likely be another cataclysmic day in the life of a freelance mother trying to make a bleak living in rural Massachusetts. It may also be said that I am one of about two women I know who has yet to discover the numbifying joy of Cymbalta. But don't worry, a dear friend (very dear) gave me three Clonapin for a late birthday present and I still have two left. I don't remember where the other one went....



Buy a 50 lb bag of dog food for Dumb and Dumber (hopefully I can get it to the car without further injuring my back)



Buy children's toothepaste so that the high flouride levels don't show up at the next physical



Eggs, since the last 18 were mostly cracked and now those are mostly frozen



Write my column so that my editor thinks I take my life seriously



Tell a good friend that I am not a Christian



Prepare for reaction of said friend



De-louse daughter's pillowcase, again.



Make plans to sue the Mayo Clinic for posting that "most African-American children do not get head lice"



Make plans to sue the publishers of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" for not adding the appropriate epilogue, which could be entitled "Where hell is really at".



Reheat coffee pot, and have a cup, a.k.a. lunch



Hope that back-up is working so as not to lose first blog



More later, thanks for reading, if you did.