Tuesday 11 September 2012

I am still here

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables. Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a day I would be grounded, rooted. Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness lives. 
The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight. 
Said for twenty dollars she’d tell me what to do. 
I handed her the twenty. She said, “Stop worrying, darling. 
You will find a good man soon.” 

The first psycho therapist told me to spend 
three hours each day sitting in a dark closet 
with my eyes closed and ears plugged. 
I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinking 
about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet. 

The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth. 
Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happiness 
when they care more about what they give 
than what they get. 

The pharmacist said, “Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax.” 

The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help me 
forget what the trauma said. 

The trauma said, “Don’t write this poem. 
Nobody wants to hear you cry 
about the grief inside your bones.” 

But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi dove
into the Hudson River convinced 
he was entirely alone.” 

My bones said, “Write the poem.” 
The lamplight. Considering the river bed. 
To the chandelier of your fate hanging by a thread.
To everyday you could not get out of bed.
To the bulls eye of your wrist
To anyone who has ever wanted to die.
I have been told, sometimes, the most healing thing to do-
Is remind ourselves over and over and over:
“Other people feel this too.”
The tomorrow that is coming, gone
And it has not gotten better
When you are half finished writing that letter 
to your mother that says “I swear to God I tried
But when I thought I hit bottom, it started hitting back”
There is no bruise like the bruise of loneliness kicks into the spine
So let me tell you I know there are days 
it looks like the whole world is dancing in the streets 
when you break down like the doors of the looted buildings
You are not alone 
and wondering who will be convicted of the crime 
of insisting you keep loading your grief into the chamber of your shame
You are not weak just because your heart feels so heavy
I have never met a heavy heart
that wasn’t a phone booth with a red cape inside

Some people will never understand 
the kind of superpower it takes for some people to just walk outside
Some days I know my smile looks like the gutter of a falling house
But my hands are always holding tight to the ripchord of believing
A life can be rich like the soil
Can make food of decay
Can turn wound into highway
Pick me up in a truck with that bumper sticker that says 
“It is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.”
I have never trusted anyone 
with the pulled back bow of my spine 
the way I trusted ones who come undone at the throat
Screaming for their pulses to find the fight to pound
Four nights before Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge 
I was sitting in a hotel room in my own town
Calculating exactly what I had to swallow
to keep a bottle of sleeping pills down

What I know about living is the pain is never just ours
Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo
So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window
When I can see what I couldn’t see before,
through the glass of my most battered dream
I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind
and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds.
So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, 
don’t try to put me back in,
just say “Here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better
but knowing as bad as it hurts our hearts, made of only just skin, 
knowing there is a chance the worst day might still be coming —
let me say right now for the record, I’m still gonna be here
asking this world to dance, even if it keeps stepping on my holy feet
you — you stay here with me, okay?
You stay here with me.
Raising your bright against the bitter dark
Your bright longing
Your brilliant fists of loss”

Friends, if the only thing we have to gain in staying is each other,

my God that’s plenty,
my God that’s enough,
my God that is so so much for the light to give,
each of us at each other’s backs whispering over and over and over
“Live”
“Live”
“Live”


The Nutritionist— Andrea Gibson

Friday 7 September 2012

Ooops doesn't even begin to cover it...

Okie dokie, so it turns out I've been accidentally OD'ing on one of my meds for over two weeks.
 That would certainly explain a few things. 
After a couple of frantic phone calls with my team it's been determined that I should settle out in a week.   Oh and I won't die...just sayin'.
It is, however, kinda serious so I feel like an idiot. 
I used to take 2x250mg pills in the morning and 2x250mg pills at dinner of a certain med.  The prescription changed to 1x500 pill morning and night.
I sort of didn't notice and kept on taking 2.  
ALWAYS READ THE LABEL KIDS!
 I AM A DOOFUS!

Saturday 1 September 2012

Once in a blue moon...I baked a cake.

It's a blue moon tonight.

Wiki has an interesting article on what a blue moon is HERE

Read the article and you'll understand where the saying "once in a blue moon" comes from.

Sheila decided this occasion needed a cake and I volunteered to make one...as if I wouldn't.  I didn't want to just make a regular cake though.

I wanted to make a BLUE MOON CAKE!!!!

I had all these grandiose visions of having the man in the moon on the cake, all sorts of nice craters and things showing up, and I even thought of putting up some moon landing stuff for fun.

My vision was pure art I tell you.

The reality was more like this,


Yeah.

It's just half a sphere with blue icing.

BUT, I made a spherical cake without one of  those spherical cake pans!  IT CAN BE DONE!

And there was minimal cutting involved.  I used 1 9inch springform cake pan, 1 pie plate, and 1 pottery bowl.    FYI the batter in the pottery bowl cooks up fine, it just takes a bit longer.  The only thing I cut was the cake out of the pottery bowl because the bottom side wasn't flat enough.  Other than that, stack them up in a 3 layer cake and ice it into a sphere.

In other news, I made my first home made pasta sauce recently.

We had an insane amount of roma(plum) tomatoes from our garden out back so I blanched roughtly 2 colanders full of them, peeled them, and chopped them up.  I also used a bunch of onions from the garden out back and sauteed those with fresh garlic and olive oil.  I added fresh basil paste, fresh chopped oregano, salt and pepper, a bit of sugar to balance the acid in the tomatoes, and I have to admit I didn't have tomato paste so I threw in a store bought can of sauce to help it thicken.  I also browned some lean ground beef and made it a meat sauce.  Oh and I added a little hot sauce and one secret ingredient to give it some zing.  :-)

Here's my very first ever from the garden made pasta sauce!


IT WAS AMAZING!!!!

I worked hard on that sauce and even burned my thumb.  Yes, suffering and love went into that sauce people.

WHAT?

IT ADDS TO THE FLAVOUR!

I can't believe I had an Italian grandmother and I never got around to making a home made sauce until I turned 40.  She'd probably pinch me and be proud of me at the same time.

Wish I could have known you Grandma Ida!

Dave, tell her good things about me ok?  And tell her I love elephants too.

Miss you.  Always will.

I think of you all the time...not just once in a blue moon.