I prowled the web for a short time, looking up old journals, blogs and diaries that were around during the original 9/11. Re-reading all of that from nine years ago really made it sink in. I was 21 when the towers fell, and I had this attitude that the only reason it was blog-worthy was because that at some time in my life, it was going to inconvenience me. I was arrogant and stupid. Funny how much I grew up in just three short months after that. That year in particular sticks out in my mind because it was the year I transformed from a teenager/child to an adult. I know 9/11 didn’t do that for me, but something else did. The summer following the tragedy, I remember I stopped at night to watch the stars come out. I made the conscious choice then to go back to school and finish my nursing degree. I was going to be a responsible adult. Maybe it was because I had gotten my first credit card that spring and I maxed it out in the first week I had it? Who knows?

I frequently look back on the past. Especially the past decade. I try to see what I did wrong, but I cannot grasp where I did anything wrong that would cause my world to come crashing down as it has. I used to know of a hateful woman on the web who would tell me how silly I was to hold onto my past as I do. That she always let her past go. Hmm. There’s a difference in not dwelling on the past and forgetting it completely. When you forget it completely, you open yourself back up to the pain that you suffered before. I don’t believe in forgetting about the past. My past defines who I am today. It reminds me of all the things I fought for. All the things I have earned. It’s not a glorious past, but it’s my past. I like where it’s taken me, even if, at times, it seemed to be going in the wrong direction.

Back to work for me. The rain is picking up outside. We’re getting hit hard from the tropical storm. This is just the tail-end of what some people have experienced. The rain has cooled everything off outside. It’s actually tolerable out there.

I thought about calling in. I wanted to call in. I wanted to tell my boss that I am pending blood test results and that I cannot come back until I get this problem fixed, but that would be a sign of weakness. I can’t do that. I can’t be weak. I will be following Judson tomorrow, and I have to evaluate his performance (he doesn’t know this) to see if he’s worthy of staying as a permanent employee. I haven’t followed Michelle yet, but I will on Friday. I think Keith is going to fire her anyway because she doesn’t have a PhD at all, nor does she even have a Bachelor’s or Associate’s. Last I knew, you had to have a PhD to work with the chemicals we work with. Not that I don’t think she can’t be put somewhere else, like working the desk. I think she’s pregnant. I frequently see her driving her dad’s Lumina around town, and the other day I saw her at a drug store, three towns over from where she lives, buying a pregnancy testing kit. So she needs a job. But we have to be safe, too.

I’m off to take some meds and try to sleep off this vision disturbance. It doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t have any irritation that I can physically feel. But it’s annoying. I hate seeing those wavy lines across my vision, those rippling, pooling lines, that makes everything seem as though I am viewing the world from under water. Or through a watery window. I hope it’s nothing, and just a small phase or a miscalculation of my medicines.

Somehow, I don’t think that’s what her teacher wants on the exam. *laughs*

My vision messed up again today. It was awful. A bright circle of flashes blurred out the entire right side of my vision. I couldn’t watch TV, it didn’t go away when I closed my eyes. I was worried it wasn’t going to ever end, and it lasted much longer this time than the other time.

I also made my first serious WordPress theme for the public. If you want to download it, just click the picture below. All I ask is that you keep my link at the bottom. If enough people like it, I can add more or even make some Blogspot themes.

Right now, I have to go and see why Keith wants the two new hires fired. Smile. The world is a wonderful place!

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately. Today is the would-be 48th birthday of my first love. He died twelve years ago. September was the month my first daughter was diagnosed with cancer. It was also the month my nephew stopped having chemotherapy because he was diagnosed as terminal. It was the month I first got to visit my sister’s grave. One sad tragedy after another. All in the same year. I have always had a feeling September is going to get me. For the last four years, I was always so relieved when September ended because I felt I was going to survive another year. Silly huh?

I never did find my journal. I never got my stickers I ordered. I never got my medical insurance paperwork (I think I know why those last two didn’t come true). Sorry for the nonsense. Back to cleaning. I seem to have the energy to do that.

Rest in peace and eternal playfulness together, Seth and Baxter. If you’re curious about where they got their names, they were named after this character played by Joris Jarksy.

I spent the few hours I had to myself running from store to store to make another love pack for a friend. I wasn’t even tempted to stop at the liquor store. Oh, and no, it wasn’t my husband’s empty threats that made that decision for me.

Today, I had my first bottle of whiskey-Jack Daniels-since November of 2005. I drank it straight. I even bought a small bottle of Coke, poured the Coke out and filled the bottle with whiskey. Then just drank it. Straight whiskey. It made my liver recoil in horror. At this point, I didn’t care. I was in almost the same place I was in when I started drinking before: Something awful had happened to me, and I needed something to compensate. Ease the pain. I hadn’t been raped, not today, but something inside of me just told me it was a bad idea to go get Chloe from school. I don’t know why that was.

My insurance has been pushed back another week. They have been showing their ass since my dentist wrote a statement that I needed nearly $10,000 worth of work done on my teeth; whether he can save them or not. My insurance company is waiting to see if I pay for all of this out of my own pockets. They keep pushing the date back further and further. None of my kids have medical insurance because of this. In the long run, I felt like a failure. I felt like I have failed myself and my children. The sad part is they all look up to me so much. I am their hero. I am the one they all want to be like when they grow up. A morphine addicted, raging alcoholic? That’s a good role model there!

While I was out, I wandered to a bowling alley. Which was interesting because I’d never saw it before. I crashed inside, watching the bowlers, taking huge swigs from my coke bottle, making trips to the bathroom to refill it. No one questioned me. Until a woman made a gutter ball, and I commented, “Good thing that landed in the gutter! It was so slow it was going backwards!” She spun around with a silly grin on her face and offered me a ball. “Can you do better?” she asked. “I could do better drunk!” I replied, finished the last of the Jack Daniels in the bottle (I had guzzled the entire bottle of whiskey in about five to ten minutes), took the ball from her, swung it at the lanes, and some how it skipped over a few lanes, pushed another ball out of the way, and made a strike. Five lanes away. “How’s that for a good bowler?” I asked. The woman and the other people on her team actually cheered for me! I finished the game with them, scoring three strikes (once I figured out what lane we were supposed to be playing in), and on the way home, I fell asleep. I woke up in my own bed, wearing some weird saddle shoes that weren’t mine.

My husband had the day off, and he was pissed that I did not bring Chloe home. It was about 7pm, and the school called and told him no one had been there to pick her up.We’re going to have to talk, so I ave to sign off. Yep, before 11pm.

See everyone in the morning

My Jewish friend, Josh, sent it to me in February. Ironically, I came down with strep shortly after, but that was a coincidence, right? When the calendar ran out today, I asked the simple question: Why? His response? “According to Jewish law, the world ends tonight at midnight. Since you’re not a Jew, you’ll blissfully think there’s a tomorrow. Good luck with that.” And you guys think I’m weird.

My doctor has bullied me back into taking Metformin. The drug that caused my near-fatal accident in April. Again, that was just a coincidence. Having a blood glucose level in the teens just an hour after taking the nasty pills was totally coincidental. This time, he has told me that if I refuse to take the pills, I won’t be getting out of the mental hospital. He says this is for my own good, but after I took the first pill today, I threw up. There goes my $5000 caps. My dentist has told me that if I keep throwing up, he’s going to drop me as a patient. My physician tells me if I don’t continue to take this medicine that causes me to throw up, he will have me committed.

I was actually happy when I went to see him today. I’ve lost four dress sizes and I’m down 50 lbs. I just have the numbness and pain in my leg. I assumed that when I went to see him today, he’d see that I was serious about losing weight and focus on my pain. Nope. He questioned me about taking the Metformin. Although my three-month blood sugar test was pretty good, it was a 5, he’s hell-bent on me taking a medication that I am having serious reactions to.

Later on today, I had the signs and symptoms of a low blood sugar. It happened around dinner time. I snuck some food before dinner, and ate a little too fast, and it all came up. My husband assumes the worst: That I am pregnant (poor guy is VERY forgetful when he’s on pain killers). Chloe actually chimed in and said she hoped she was getting another little sister. No! No more babies! Hayley is just now sleeping longer than an hour at a time! Besides, I hate being pregnant.

Right now I don’t know what to do. I’m going to try to wait it out. See what happens after I get my insurance through my work. Then it’s kiss this doctor goodbye! Let him experiment on other people. I’m tired of being his guinea pig.