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My Profile
Because I can't bear to eulogize Doug - 2008-08-19
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8:01 a.m. - 2003-04-18
Before I go onto today's entry about the birds, I'd like to clarify a couple things about yesterday's entry. What I write IS the truth. The truth, with the occasional storyteller's liberty taken to make a good punchline. Events DID happen. Conversations DID take place. And only the names have been changed to protect those who have not given me permission to use their real ones. Emotionally it's the truth most of all. I did not mean I make stuff up. I do not pander to popular opinion, though at the request of a couple readers I have cut back on the profanity (some). And even that wasn't so much because I was afraid of offending people as it was a challenge for me to see if I could tell my tales with fewer cuss words. I guess what I was trying to say yesterday was that when I put my Sage Hat on, LA the Cripple is muted. If I were to write of my doings and days in their starkest reality it would go something like this: Wake up. Test body to see what's working. Pound on thighs to get muscles unlocked. Knock shit off nightstand trying to grab glasses. Stagger to bathroom. Sit on toilet panting from effort of getting down hallway. Beg God I can get back up and not have to call son to help me off toilet and embarrass both of us half to death. Brush teeth. Curse when spazmatic hand jams toothbrush into gums. Spit blood. Wobble back down hall to office. Collapse gratefully into chair. Read mail and the comics. Shout for children to wake up. Have Alex help me out of chair. Go downstairs, sometimes on my feet, sometimes on my butt. On butt days put on merry laugh for children and "race" Wolf to see who can bump down the stairs on their heinie faster... Okay? You get what I'm saying here? My life sucks. So I usually sluff over the bitterest of my reality and write as if I weren't usually in tears before I've had my first cuppa. That I am not constantly trying to fit my daily business in and around slim windows of functioning. And only speak of my pain and frustration when I cannot write around it. Here on this page I am as normal as anyone else. Funny anecdotes. Tiffs with my husband. Political rants. In this forum, though I speak of my illness often enough, I am okay. I can speak my mind and not have pitying eyes on me stripping me of my voice, reducing me to nothing but an invalid. An invalid who could not possibly have anything in common with those who walk and talk normally and certainly couldn't have anything meaningful or witty to say. The strength of my words is not diluted by the sight of my shaky limbs and the slushy stuttering of a mouth that doesn't feel like cooperating. I am still in here. The me that was me is still inside this shaky mutant, this giant economy sized Jerry's Kid. That quick, bright, funny, opinionated woman is still in here and she has plenty to say. ~LA
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