What would Darwin do?

(For those who are more likely to ask what Jesus would do, I should note that subject heading was a joke.  Darwin didn’t tell any species how to live nor did he argue that they evolved towards a goal or an ideal state of existence.)

That being said, Frank accused me several days ago of being a robot because I was urging him to reschedule something so that we could make it to the housing department this week to apply for low-income housing.  I know rescheduling is a pain in the ass, but so is dealing with someone who drags his feet in doing what is necessary so that we can live within our means.

But I refuse not to do whatever we can to set things right.  Am I being heartless or am I being responsible and proactive?  I know how sad it is that we have to leave our place, which he’d put so much work into over the past 15 years or so and which has become my first real home, in fact, but he’s had difficulty making the rent as long as I’ve known him so how does our needing to leave come as a shock?  And since it is a walk-up with insecure banisters that have screws poking out of them, can’t he see it’s not necessarily ideal for someone who uses a wheelchair and has difficulty climbing stairs?  He said he’d move if we had to and now we have to, so why is this causing such bitterness towards me, as if I were getting what I wanted and always had it out for the poor apartment?  If I hated the apartment so much, why am I so proud of it and so happy to finally be able to have a place to invite people to and show off?  Can’t he see I’m just doing what I know I should and then will allow myself to mourn after business hours?  Doesn’t he see we have to help ourselves?  Or does he still hold out hope for a savior?

Now that I reflect on it, I wonder why I thought it’d be a novel idea to be solution-focused, as my therapist suggested.  Haven’t I always been by nature? My first response is often to ask myself what I have to do and make a list of these tasks.  I sank into procrastination only in college when too much was expected to me from a professor and I didn’t have the courage to admit I was overwhelmed, but now I can admit when I need help and seek the resources to help me when I don’t know how to do something myself. So why am I being made to feel so guilty?

Maybe that’s what struck my high school classmates as evidence I was unfazed, that I focused on what needed to get done.  I admit to not sharing with them what I was going through, but how could they blame me when I had no friends to confide in and when my problems weren’t necessarily ones they could identify with or would be comfortable hearing?  If only they knew that listening to me could count as a form of community service and provide evidence on their college application that they possessed empathy and compassion!

To be fair, I wasn’t the easiest person to warm up to.  Maybe I am still the girl sitting by myself in the hallway, except Frank’s built a wall to portion off most of the hallway into what I use as my cubby.  No, that girl was a clotted pore of repression.  Thankfully, I no longer take years to recognize I have something to mourn, though my attempt to be honest to myself and others about the reality of a situation doesn’t make me the most sympathetic of individuals.

The question is, why am I still bothered that my high school Latin teacher told me, if Darwin was right, people like me wouldn’t exist?  Knowing I’m behaving adaptively doesn’t save me from perpetually debating the value of my existence.  Is that why his misguided attempt to be witty stings so much to this day, because no matter what I do, I question what all my adaptive behavior amounts to?  Or is it obvious that I’m part of the great system of kin selection by inadvertently helping my brothers get laid?

“Lev, Frank’s balls.”

Nuance doesn’t sell

Things have been rather difficult at home, but to quote a friend’s recent email, I’ve kept my “moan moan bitch bitch” rant private to let it vent in its corner and not cause further challenges.  Though I’m quick to voice my internal monologue to others or write them down when alone (no, I don’t humble tto myself on sidewalks), I’ll have to practice an unusual bit of patience in figuring out what’s best for me.  I think I know, but that in itself takes patience to deal with.  It’s unnatural for me to be evasive, but maybe gushing and griping isn’t always the best policy if one’s to lead a stable life among otherwise insecure times?

Someone recently posted that a writing workshop leader had recommended that “nothing could go unsaid, no one could seethe internally, everything had to reach a confrontation.”  Thankfully, she knew how empty the books this philosophy inspired were.  But I want to know if she could get her money backafter being granted such wisdom.

I don’t care for the philosophy that everything must be shown and not told, either.  After all, aren’t all writer story tellers in the end?  Mandates are petty and best kept for those who don’t know what to do with themselves.  What you won’t catch me ever saying, before expostulating on what makes a work literary, is that I have an undergraduate or graduate degree in writing or literature (most notably, because I don’t).

Having said that, I’m a bit more comfortable being myself again.  Yulia, are you there?  Since I can’t speak comfortably about what’s been consuming my thoughts recently, I’ll mention what happened when I went to the neurologist in October.

It’s difficult enough to be forced to watch television after not having lived with it for five years, but the office’s waiting room television was on especially loud, preventing anyone from tuning it out, and the channel it was turned to, truTV, was bombarding everyone with adrenaline-packed crime reenactments, one after the other, each story given no more than 3 seconds, each gotcha capped off with an apocalyptic dun!-Dun!-DUN!  (Actually, now I don’t know if they were reenacting true crimes at all, since their slogan is (unsurprisingly, all in capital letters) “NOT REALITY.  ACTUALITY.”  Considering it was primarily a cardiology clinic, I didn’t think it a wise selection as the station was giving arrythmia to those who weren’t already cardiac patients.  dun!-Dun!-DUN!

The the office workers didn’t seem bothered by the station and our requests that the station be changed went unanswered, as the person responsible for the remote was nowhere to be found.  So my first order of business with my doctor was to ask him to speak to the person in charge of the television.

“It’s awful, it’s giving everyone anxiety,” I told him.

“Hmm.  They were watching the Yankees game yesterday and this morning I tried to change it back to CNN and I must have switched it to the wrong channel.”

“Definitely not CNN.  It’s not even like America’s Most Wanted, more like crime porn,” I said.  “They just give you blow job after blow job, no story line whatsoever.”

That did the trick.  My doctor promptly escaped to correct his mistake.  I wasn’t even kidding about the crime porn, though.

Reality-check: check

courtesy of brother's friend

So it seems my fantasy about having Frank pay only 30% of his benefits towards rent due to his disability was indeed a fantasy.  His rent can be frozen at its current rate due to his disability, *if* his rent is more than 30% of the household’s flexible income, but of course this is true and of course we can’t continue staying at our current place at this rate.  How silly of me to think they’d be so generous.  I must have been confused when I heard of another women being helped to freeze her rent at $220 a month.  Eeks.  So onto hunting down local low-income housing we go.  I’d say we wasted a few weeks that could have been spent immediatey pursuing low-income housing, but it was what it was.  Frank was exhausted from taking care of Dilly, going to his doctors’ appointments, and being told by welfare to go here and there.  And I, well, was in a delusional state where I believed I could stay just where I was.  So tomorrow’s goal is to arrange to get the low-income housing application and, once approved, go door to door to find an opening that allows dogs.  Perhaps I can blame my last month’s denial on mourning and hope-inspired miscommunication?  I’ll have to forgive myself because I have no time right now to beat up on myself.

Happily ever after

Tim Burton's Pin-Cushion Queen

It’s very sobering, even for those who don’t drink, not to have any spare money for the holidays, but I’ve promised not to sell my hair and insisted Frank not sell his watch to get each other something.

I still plan to get him set up with an acupuncturist, which is supposed to be especially helpful for PHN as well as essential tremors, even according to trusted medical sources like the Mayo Clinic, but I’ve made clear to him he needn’t get me anything, since as things stand, it’d just come out of our limited funds.

I did, though, ask his opinion on a necklace that I allowed myself to get, though I felt very guilty and superficial afterward.  I even asked my therapist if it was wrong of me to care about such things as clothing and earrings, if it showed I had the wrong priorities, but she insisted it was okay, that it was completely healthy to want to look nice.  I suppose it’s a matter of proportion, that it wouldn’t be all right if I bought myself into debt or bought clothing with money that should go to medication or food, but neither is the case, thankfully.

In fact, it’s a matter of my mom’s odd priorities: she’d rather I buy myself a necklace using her credit card rather than take the dogs, which she resents my having, to the vet when they’re sick.

They were actually both sick this week, especially Delilah, who had what seemed like a urinary tract infection and was wetting our bed and couch constantly (thankfully, we have water-proof liners on both and our indispensable washer-dryer), so Frank had to do the laundry at least six times, which was exhausting for him, but I think she’s finally better, after we gave her cranberries and cranberry juice, apple cider vinegar (supposedly a natural remedy), and, rather guiltily, a course of Proquin XR, a human antibiotic especially meant for UTIs, which the fine-print notes doesn’t kill dogs (I researched it online), though it’s not commonly given to dogs, either.  I know, it was wrong of us, but we watched to make sure she didn’t have an allergic reaction to it, the medication had been tested on dogs her size (poor beagles, which is very saddening), and we didn’t have the money to pay for a vet visit, but we did have the Proquin XR on hand because of Vinny’s brother, who’s a doctor.

Hmm, now that I think of it, I could have at least asked my former friend who’s now in vet school if it was safe.  Next time, which hopefully is in a long time.

As for our general response to being told we’re a burden on my parents, my therapist, after listening to the agencies we’d called and made appointments to see, said that it showed I was clearly resourceful (Frank got his act together after the initial shock, allowing me the opportunity to mourn what they’d said).

I told her, “I get that from my mother.  Should I thank her for that?  I also got the sense never to buy what I couldn’t pay for at the end of the month.  I should thank her for that, too.”  If only, well, my resourcefulness hadn’t been motivated by her cutting lies and accusations.

No, we didn’t meet up for Thanksgiving, but my dad did write to wish Frank and me happy Thanksgiving, which brought me to tears, so maybe he regrets what he said just a bit?

P.S. Frank introduced this to me recently and I thought, how fitting.  (Patti Smith – Helpless)

Man’s best fur

While getting my infusion yesterday, I was explaining to my neurologist how I’d decided to stop trying to gain weight because the effort was making me resent eating and consuming too much of my energy, which was counterproductive.

“So you feel like foie gras?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t eat that, not after what I’d read about what the geese go through.”

“No, I mean, you felt like a goose being force-fed ?”

“Exactly.  Not that I like geese anymore, though.  Now that they’re such a pain to the dogs.”

“The dogs eat their droppings,” Frank explained.  Only the best for our girls.

“But then, they don’t deserve to be exterminated,” I added.  “Did you hear what New York was doing to cut down on its geese?  Putting them in a building and gassing them?”  I believe it was Jim of the blog that told me of this, in fact.  “It’s horrifying, concentration campy.”

“Well,” my doctor says, “it’s campy, but I wouldn’t say it’s like a concentration camp.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way, I’m so sorry.”

“But that reminds me.  My wife bought my daughter a coat with . . .”

“Goose down?”

“Yes, you’re probably right.  And it had a fur collar.”

“What kind of fur did it have?  Fox?”

“Actually, I just saw a PETA video on this.  The coats are mostly made in China and they use dog fur for the collars.”

“Dog fur?  Seriously?”

“So my daughter shows me her coat and tells me it’s real fur and I could tell she was proud, like it was a status symbol, and because I’d just watched the film, I don’t know why, I tell her where it comes from.”

“You did? . . . So has she named her coat yet?  Does she sleep with it?”

We sleep with ours, after all.

Dear, dear Lucky, I hope you can still bite people in heaven

What’s not to like?

This is a conversation I’ve had before, perhaps even four (or more?) times by now, and I know I’m always the one to bring it up.  It’s with Frank’s friend Vinny, whom he met perhaps 15 years ago through their mutual association with a certain state’s football team.

I’m actually not sure why I haven’t written more about Vinny, though I used to keep extensive notes on his myriad dating escapades and my pointed questions to him (in the tenor of, have you ever put yourself in her position? do you realize how crushing it is to find out someone’s cheating on you?  you do know you’re leading her on, right?  have you broken up with her yet?  do you ever experience guilt?).

I know, I know.  I’ve never pretended to be the perfect girlfriend.  In fact, from the very first time I was introduced to him about five years ago, I mentioned how I’d made serious mistakes and hoped he never hurt his girlfriend the way I’d hurt Frank.  But of course you can’t learn from others’ experiences and it’s not my job to change or force insight onto someone.  Yes, I know these things.

But I enjoy hearing his dating stories and, for better or worse, I can’t keep myself from being who I am and saying exactly what I feel.  As the narrator notes in Du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel, “But what if we spoke the things we really thought?” (p. 345) Well, I already do and it’s the key to how to lose friends without really trying.

But this is the very reason Vinny respects me, because he knows exactly what I think of him at all times.  He explained that, though he himself is an opportunistic liar, everyone he knows is the same.

“So you don’t believe what I tell you?” I asked, disturbed by imagining the other people who populate his life.

“No, I believe you,” he said.

Beware slick surfaces

But then how can I trust him when I know he lies to everyone and doesn’t feel a scrap of compunction about doing so, being able to justify everything to himself?

Back to my original topic, the question I raised once again, more to myself than to Vinny, was why I didn’t have a crush on him.  I raised this question not because I did have a crush on him which I wanted to convince myself out of or because he thought I had a crush on him which I’m sure he doesn’t, but because, from his basic profile (he’s a handsome and successful consultant with a healthy bank account, everything a mother would want for her daughter) and from his experiences with women, I knew he was constantly breaking hearts and ruining plans of happily-ever-after for women who still hoped for such tidy endings.

Is he an alcoholic?  In fact, he’s not but a real live moderate drinker, though he has an odd attraction to women who cannot control their alcohol consumption.

Do I not have a crush on him because he hadn’t gone to a certain type of college?  Not at all, as I’ve been drawn to guys who hadn’t even gone to college at all.

Is it because I knew he was a horrible boyfriend?  No, because that hadn’t prevented me in the past from having crushes on guys I knew would inevitably hurt me (emotionally, that is).Is it because I found him boring?  No, I wouldn’t say that as we’ve always talked easily.  At least, I’ve blocked from my memory those times when I was painfully at a loss for what to say to him.

Is it because he didn’t understand why people would read fiction?  I could say this is a definite turn-off, but I didn’t know this before realizing I wasn’t drawn to him in particular.

I’d decided at the time that it was because he wasn’t attracted to me, so I felt no sexual tension around him, but then I have to admit to myself that I’ve been drawn to people who have looked straight through me, so I can’t use that as an explanation.

The real question isn’t why I’m not drawn to him, but why I continue to puzzle over this lack of attraction.

I shouldn’t put too tidy an answer to this question, but perhaps it’’s because I believe, if I were drawn to him, I’d be more normal.  I was, after all, raised to want someone who could provide for me and give me the trappings of security, however false that sense of security (considering he cheats on everyone he sees) and however inadequate the comfort his finances provide (money doesn’t buy self-awareness, peace of mind, taste, curiosity, or compassion–though it doesn’t preclude these things either).  Part of me is grateful I see beyond my mother’s ascetic notion of someone worthy of desire and sought someone whom I could trust and connect with intellectually and emotionally.  But another part, the part that’s still looking for approval despite my usually convincing myself I really don’t give a damn what others think of me, asks, it is okay to be happy with what I have with Frank, right?

Thankfully, not that it should matter, of course, Vinny does marvel at the connection Frank and I share and doesn’t at all question, as my parents do, why I chose him:

“Who else is gonna keep up with her?”

I love him for saying that.

Products of parental anxiety and of the imagination

I have so much on my mind, but most notably Frank and I went to a housing conservation center just down the street from us to seek legal help in getting section 8 housing, which we’d learned through his therapist, Miss Marbles, is still available, contrary to what is told to everyone, even by the mayor’s office for the disabled, and it seems, though maybe I was wishing to hear what I did or misunderstood what was said, that we can remain in our current apartment at a frozen rate of only 30% of Frank’s income/benefits, but could this be possible?  Was I too tired and anxious to understand what was communicated?  Was it true that the woman we spoke with was reassuring us everything would be all right?  Or is this all a fantasy?

If it indeed was a product of my imagination and we do still have to move, at least we know that section 8 isn’t a myth, that we’d be a top contender of any available apartment, and that Miss Marbles knows how to fill in the applications for us to ensure they’re taken with the utmost seriousness, though sometimes I do wonder if she exaggerates her mastery of the system.

As for questions answered, I learned what the stupid question was that provoked my brother’s girlfriend, no longer to be known as Voldemort, to break up with him.  But it wasn’t a stupid question at all and reveals her to have the wisdom and insight that my brother insisted she possessed and that he is so lacking in.  Part of what he’s missing is an accurate and developed understanding of my mother.  Of course, just as it’s not my job to make him see he needs to stop drinking, it’s not my job to make him see my mother is far from infallible.

What does concern me appropriately is how difficult it was for Frank during the meeting with the housing conservation lawyer.  He was in so much pain due to unrelenting exhaustion this past week from all his appointments, he couldn’t think of words like “identification” or names of places we’d contacted already and I found myself . . . scared.  I knew it was because of his pain, but I momentarily forgot it wasn’t a constant, his level of disorientation.  Thankfully, Frank has his first appointment on Monday with a pain management clinic headed by a specialist he’s been trying to see for years now and hopefully this is the first step in his stopping the progression of his symptoms and reversing the toll its taking on his days.  But what people who haven’t experienced it personally may not see is that attaining disability status is sometimes the only way you can get the treatment to function again.  It’s not a matter of giving up on yourself but of taking back control of your life, away from your medical condition.  At least, this is what I see in going through all these bureaucratic trials these past couple years with Frank.

I’ve been thinking how fortunate Frank and I are for the services provided by the city for the disabled (and thanks to Jim for making me realize this) and how completely unfortunate and regrettable it was that my parents chose to lash out at Frank because of their anxiety.  I know how to move forward in my own life, with my own goals and with Frank, but I don’t know how to proceed with my parents.  Is it possible to have them in my life without being aware of their disdain  and disappointment?  But I hope my own Miss Marbles can help me with that.

Miss Dependent

Taking sleeping meds inspires Frank to binge on food.  It inspires me to rearrange books.  So I found it fitting that, in my dream last night, I was organizing the books in my cubby (there aren’t many books in this room at all, but the order seemed wrong to my sleep self).  That was a happy dream.

My mother came over to drop by some items I needed and I learned I’ll still be given the same “allowance” for the time being, though now the thought of being dependent on them makes me queasy.  It was the first time I’d seen her since she’d accused me two weeks ago of being used by Frank.  She was polite to Frank and Frank was polite to her, but I had to cry this morning when I realized she believed Frank would simply swallow what she’d said about him as if she hadn’t made truly terrible accusations against him.  Does she really think we can simply return to how things were, now that I know how little she thinks of us?  I suppose many people do operate that way.  I just can’t–though isn’t that what I did by accepting her money?  It is a humiliating position to be in.  Here’s to its not lasting long (that is, my not needing their money, not my deciding to live in a shelter, though I feel a truly principled person would . . .).  Am I a pragmatist or a hypocrite?  Both?

P.S. “Goodbye, old you, when love is true.” (Kelly Clarkson — Miss Independent)

Is there a Section 9 at least?

By the way, I know I have it wrong, that my solution-focused approach shouldn’t entail the problems being solutions in themselves, but should inspire a search for solutions.  No home?  Find home.  No financial security?  Make financial security.  Still, it’s been rather difficult to be proactive in pursuing solutions when I can’t seem to simply get over what’s changed in the past two weeks, though of course I will and am already making progress.  I just have to stop yelling at myself for not getting over it more quickly. Thankfully, Frank and I are going to make the necessary steps towards pursuing low-income housing (if any is available) next week and getting legal help for the task.

What’s been bothering me is that everyone says Section 8 housing (what I finally learned is code for “projects”) is technically closed, but then how am I supposed to find a place (hopefully in my neighborhood) where I can afford to live?  Do they make exceptions for pleasantly-attired visually-impaired girls in wheelchairs?  (Going home is, in every way, out of the question and this is even if Frank weren’t involved.)  I suppose that’s what we’ll find out this upcoming week.  I know being disabled and especially being classified as blind works in my favor, so now more than ever I’m grateful disability chose to classify me as blind.

For now, I should be thankful I have Frank to live for.  I was thinking last night how frustrating it is to have to live for someone.  The problem, of course, is that I wasn’t thinking of it in terms of my having someone to live for, but as if it were a burden keeping me from my handy escape option.  But I knew, even as I was wishing I could simply disappear and not be missed by anyone, that I’d appreciate coupledom once my dark mood passed and I saw what I enjoyed in life and what projects I actually looked forward to making progress on again, when my concentration returned.  Till then, I have books, tea, Frank, dressing up and lovely moments and images to appreciate and keep me going.  Though it has nothing to do with me, the image below, by Frank’s sister’s friend, makes me want not to give up on myself.  It’s a start.

Direct to video

Last night in my dream I was on vacation with my family and the gossip revolved around anew Aladdin video we just had to see (don’t ask, don’t tell).  In the new release, his opponent, the sultan, had seven wives he was treating like slaves that Aladdin had to save.  In my sleep, I thought, if the film’s so good, why did it go straight to video and not appear in theaters first?  Then it occurred to me, if this is an Aladdin film marketed to kids, how are parents going to explain why the sultan gets seven wives?  And the Irish thought they had a claim on all the troubles.

P.S. While recounting the dream to Frank, he came up with the pirate name Singood.  I thought, that sounds like something out of porn.  It probably is, though I’m not tempted to look it up.