Hey! All four readers still subscribed! Maybe this will ping your RSS feeds, but just wanted to let you all know that I decided to set up shop at:
www.thepoisonisthemedicine.com.
It's a work in progress and, frankly, this blog needed to move off of antiquated circa 2005 Blogger in favor of Wordpress. So, I am going to try and blog over there, no promises yet as to how frequently, BUT I do have one EPIC update waiting for you. Make sure you have a cocktail or a beverage as it clocks in just under 3,000 words.
xo
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Healing
It wasn't my intention to take a break from blogging, but around the time of February and March I didn't really feel like I had much more to say, which is a shame because I had been regularly writing since 2004. My life was settling down post move and I had entered an almost hermetic phase full of introspection and self reflection -- the kind that doesn't make for the best writing. In addition to thinking a lot about career goals and starting a new blog and twitter account to support some of my freelance work, I was having big thoughts about life, death, and the sort of psychic baggage I've been carrying around.
Again, not the sort of self involved, pretentious prattle anyone wants to read about.
Standing on the edge of the proverbial rabbit hole, I dove headlong into the dark with the intent to release past traumas and heal any fragments of my psyche. I read books on chakra clearing, listened to sound therapy music, and meditated. It was a pretty intense past few months with equal parts strange dreams and epiphanies. I felt the release that only comes with deep self examination. Through this I came to peace -- or rather a maturation -- with a lot of big issues in my life, specifically my dysfunctional relationship with my mother.
My healing work had to happened at the time that it did because on Sunday I found out my mother is sick and it may be cancer. Although I'm still in shock, I'm coming to realize that my process with this news would have been totally different had I learned this just a few months ago.
On June 8, 1997, my mother wrote in her diary that it was the day that she lost her daughter.
On June 6, 2010, my mother told me that she had been seeing an oncologist and hematologist for the last few months. There will be tests on her bone marrow. While doctors are not sure what is making her sick, she wanted me to know so I could prepare for whatever the future brings.
On June 8, 2010, I ordered my mother flowers and told her that I loved her.
I didn't realize it at the time, but the reoccurrence of this date in our lives shows me that there are no coincidences. We can now, after thirteen years and a life time of dissonance, start to heal our relationship.
Here's my mom, caught in a cell phone picture, with the flowers I sent to her at work. She said they made her cry. Hopefully in a good way!
Again, not the sort of self involved, pretentious prattle anyone wants to read about.
Standing on the edge of the proverbial rabbit hole, I dove headlong into the dark with the intent to release past traumas and heal any fragments of my psyche. I read books on chakra clearing, listened to sound therapy music, and meditated. It was a pretty intense past few months with equal parts strange dreams and epiphanies. I felt the release that only comes with deep self examination. Through this I came to peace -- or rather a maturation -- with a lot of big issues in my life, specifically my dysfunctional relationship with my mother.
My healing work had to happened at the time that it did because on Sunday I found out my mother is sick and it may be cancer. Although I'm still in shock, I'm coming to realize that my process with this news would have been totally different had I learned this just a few months ago.
On June 8, 1997, my mother wrote in her diary that it was the day that she lost her daughter.
On June 6, 2010, my mother told me that she had been seeing an oncologist and hematologist for the last few months. There will be tests on her bone marrow. While doctors are not sure what is making her sick, she wanted me to know so I could prepare for whatever the future brings.
On June 8, 2010, I ordered my mother flowers and told her that I loved her.
I didn't realize it at the time, but the reoccurrence of this date in our lives shows me that there are no coincidences. We can now, after thirteen years and a life time of dissonance, start to heal our relationship.
Here's my mom, caught in a cell phone picture, with the flowers I sent to her at work. She said they made her cry. Hopefully in a good way!
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
"Speaking from experience ... you know it's not just ONE mouse, right?"
For those who are squeamish or cried at Bambi or keep mice at pets (quelle horreur!), you may want to skip this post. Okay? Okay.
Let us rewind to last week.
Ms. K and I discovered, much to our dismay, that we had a mouse. Unfortunately the burden fell to me to take care of our little visitor, and by "take care of" I don't mean cater to his every whim, but ensure that he would have the least painful death possible. (Before you squeal and post links to no-kill mouse traps in the comments section, I will remind you that you can get meningitis from mouse droppings and die.)
To make a long story short, I purchased some newfangled snap traps from the hardware, baited them with peanut butter, and went to bed with fingers crossed. Lo and behold it worked, having discovered a dead mouse in the trap the next morning.
Ms. K and I rejoiced! It was safe to go into the kitchen again! I felt a surge of something that I can only explain as primordial hunter pride. (Yes, I'm a woman. Yes, I killed a little mouse. But it is a disease vector! I win!)
But before I could rest on my laurels, I discovered another mouse in the kitchen. And I saw it scurry behind the stove, it's little tail wriggling out of view.
Shit! It had a friend! I may or may not have shrieked.
For the next day I stalked that mouse. I followed its trail, figured which point it was using to access the counter top, and created a funnel in which to direct it towards the snap trap.
In short, it worked. (I'm purposely glazing over the part of the story where the mouse doesn't die right away and it was up to me to put it out of its misery. With a cast iron pan.)
Over a week later and no more mice.
To rid yourself of any unpleasant imagery, I leave you all with the life and death of DJ Roomba.
Let us rewind to last week.
Ms. K and I discovered, much to our dismay, that we had a mouse. Unfortunately the burden fell to me to take care of our little visitor, and by "take care of" I don't mean cater to his every whim, but ensure that he would have the least painful death possible. (Before you squeal and post links to no-kill mouse traps in the comments section, I will remind you that you can get meningitis from mouse droppings and die.)
To make a long story short, I purchased some newfangled snap traps from the hardware, baited them with peanut butter, and went to bed with fingers crossed. Lo and behold it worked, having discovered a dead mouse in the trap the next morning.
Ms. K and I rejoiced! It was safe to go into the kitchen again! I felt a surge of something that I can only explain as primordial hunter pride. (Yes, I'm a woman. Yes, I killed a little mouse. But it is a disease vector! I win!)
But before I could rest on my laurels, I discovered another mouse in the kitchen. And I saw it scurry behind the stove, it's little tail wriggling out of view.
Shit! It had a friend! I may or may not have shrieked.
For the next day I stalked that mouse. I followed its trail, figured which point it was using to access the counter top, and created a funnel in which to direct it towards the snap trap.
In short, it worked. (I'm purposely glazing over the part of the story where the mouse doesn't die right away and it was up to me to put it out of its misery. With a cast iron pan.)
Over a week later and no more mice.
To rid yourself of any unpleasant imagery, I leave you all with the life and death of DJ Roomba.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
"Maybe we should move again?"
Shit, dudes. We got ourselves a mouse in the new house. And not some cute talking mouse that secretly makes you delicious French dinners, but a disease spreading creature that poops on kitchen countertops and God knows what else.
When we moved into the apartment and I inspected the nooks and crannies of my new home, I suspiciously found steel wool in the strangest of places -- as in the radiators, linen closet, and the door jams. I remember wondering why some weirdo previous tenant had left steel wool everywhere?
Oh right, to prevent mice from entering small cracks in the walls. Duh! Too bad I threw some it away, which may or may not have contributed to our new houseguest's arrival.
Ms. K is not taking the news very well and since I'm the bug killer in the relationship, my duties now extend to mouse removal. Unfortunately for her, I'm at work and she's having to face the mouse hunt on her own while sending me panicked updates via email.
"Honey! You have to fix it!"
"I am afraid of that bad thing! OMG. I do not like this! Also, it
puts a dent in my cleaning plans!"
"Honey, I feel like you are not being the appropriate amount of
alarmed/ upset about this!"
"I need him to go away now!"
This will be fun to deal with when I get home tonight!
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
"I love you so much."
The whole addendum or coda or whatever you want to call it to the Deborah incident is that she texted Ms. K on New Year's Eve to say that she loves her so much. This text came while Ms. K and I were sharing a New Year's Eve dinner at Applewood, leaving both of us rather perplexed.
"She can't possibly love me!" Ms. K said as she showed me her cellphone in the middle of our five course dinner. "Maybe she meant this for someone else?"
Maybe.
On advice from me and a friend of hers, Ms. K ignored the text. It had to have been meant for someone else.
Except that Deborah was acting weird at work when they finally did see each other. Ms. K pulled her aside and asked what was wrong. After some evasion, Deborah confessed that she was jealous.
Jealous? Seriously? Jealous of me, jealous of Ms. K's close friendship with another person (that's another long story). Why do I feel like I'm in high school again? And I don't even work with Deborah.
"I'm not sure what gave you the impression otherwise," Ms. K clarified, "but I don't cheat on Rouge."
I hope this is the final words I write on this because it's all very immature.
"She can't possibly love me!" Ms. K said as she showed me her cellphone in the middle of our five course dinner. "Maybe she meant this for someone else?"
Maybe.
On advice from me and a friend of hers, Ms. K ignored the text. It had to have been meant for someone else.
Except that Deborah was acting weird at work when they finally did see each other. Ms. K pulled her aside and asked what was wrong. After some evasion, Deborah confessed that she was jealous.
Jealous? Seriously? Jealous of me, jealous of Ms. K's close friendship with another person (that's another long story). Why do I feel like I'm in high school again? And I don't even work with Deborah.
"I'm not sure what gave you the impression otherwise," Ms. K clarified, "but I don't cheat on Rouge."
I hope this is the final words I write on this because it's all very immature.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
"Don't touch my boobs, don't touch my ass, just stop it."
Ms. K has a coworker that propositioned her for sex last night.
Let's call this coworker Deborah.
Look, I'm not particularly the jealous type and I feel 100% secure in my relationship with Ms. K, but this is the same coworker who is quickly sleeping her way through the rest of the restaurant staff. Not only has Deborah slept with one of the managers who has girlfriend, she's gotten friendly with a waiter who is known to have patronized hookers. Hookers! So it's all a bit sordid and with a dash of a potential STD. And furthermore, Deborah has met me. Multiple times! She knows that Ms. K and I are married!
I guess this means that it was inevitable that Deborah would set her sights on Ms. K, but it's still gross. There's a lot of dirty back story that I could explain, but this is all you need to know. Deborah was rather sexually aggressive with Ms. K last night as they had drinks after work with other staff members. If she wasn't pressing her body against Ms. K while sitting on the bar stool, she was Mr. Grabby with the inappropriate touching. Or she was saying, "I was thinking of you all day." Or she was suggesting threesomes with the guy who has sex with hookers. Deborah even followed Ms. K to the bathroom at one point and she told me that had to forcefully say to Deborah, "You need to stop."
However it really didn't stop, so Ms. K called it a night and left the bar before anyone could slip her a roofie, coming home to me and regaling me with her story of bad touching and incestuous, alcohol fueled coworker relationships. With hookers.
I feel the need to go down to the restaurant and reestablish some boundaries, but my gut is telling me that Deborah is not the most stable person and thus my saying something would be like pouring gasoline on fire.
Dude. Too much drama.
Let's call this coworker Deborah.
Look, I'm not particularly the jealous type and I feel 100% secure in my relationship with Ms. K, but this is the same coworker who is quickly sleeping her way through the rest of the restaurant staff. Not only has Deborah slept with one of the managers who has girlfriend, she's gotten friendly with a waiter who is known to have patronized hookers. Hookers! So it's all a bit sordid and with a dash of a potential STD. And furthermore, Deborah has met me. Multiple times! She knows that Ms. K and I are married!
I guess this means that it was inevitable that Deborah would set her sights on Ms. K, but it's still gross. There's a lot of dirty back story that I could explain, but this is all you need to know. Deborah was rather sexually aggressive with Ms. K last night as they had drinks after work with other staff members. If she wasn't pressing her body against Ms. K while sitting on the bar stool, she was Mr. Grabby with the inappropriate touching. Or she was saying, "I was thinking of you all day." Or she was suggesting threesomes with the guy who has sex with hookers. Deborah even followed Ms. K to the bathroom at one point and she told me that had to forcefully say to Deborah, "You need to stop."
However it really didn't stop, so Ms. K called it a night and left the bar before anyone could slip her a roofie, coming home to me and regaling me with her story of bad touching and incestuous, alcohol fueled coworker relationships. With hookers.
I feel the need to go down to the restaurant and reestablish some boundaries, but my gut is telling me that Deborah is not the most stable person and thus my saying something would be like pouring gasoline on fire.
Dude. Too much drama.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
"The apartment was found in disarray."
The Good:
Unexpectedly, my friend and colleague DJ surprised Ms. K and I with a wedding gift -- two wedding gifts! Orchestrating donations at work, she not only presented us with a lovely card signed by 18 of my colleagues, but two gift certificates -- one to the restaurant Blue Hill in Manhattan and the other to Char No. 4 in Brooklyn. Hey, maybe there's something to this whole getting married thing.
Furthermore, on the same day that we received the gifts, I unexpectedly won a free service probably valued at about $50. Huzzah. Time to take that luck to Vegas!
The Bad:
Apart from losing a couple of paychecks to IKEA, things have been generally good. The new apartment is great! No regrets! However my previous landlord is less that happy with me and is threatening to sue me in small claims court. This can probably be sorted out without going to court and we've been playing phone tag over the last week, but right now the red voice mail indicator is flashing on my work phone and I really don't want to pick it up and listen to the message because I know there's a 99% chance that it is him. Needless to say I've been procrastinating on this all morning and, well, need to just nut up and call him back and sort it all out. He says, "The apartment was found in disarray," and I need to explain to him that that was pretty much how we received it from the previous tenant.
The Not So Ugly:
A couple of days ago, after going over a week without cooking gas, I finally made my first meal in the apartment, which was a modest supper of chicken, sauteed crimini mushrooms, and green beans. Apologies for the iPhone quality photo. My camera is packed somewhere . . . . But hey, note the granite counter top at the top of the picture!
Unexpectedly, my friend and colleague DJ surprised Ms. K and I with a wedding gift -- two wedding gifts! Orchestrating donations at work, she not only presented us with a lovely card signed by 18 of my colleagues, but two gift certificates -- one to the restaurant Blue Hill in Manhattan and the other to Char No. 4 in Brooklyn. Hey, maybe there's something to this whole getting married thing.
Furthermore, on the same day that we received the gifts, I unexpectedly won a free service probably valued at about $50. Huzzah. Time to take that luck to Vegas!
The Bad:
Apart from losing a couple of paychecks to IKEA, things have been generally good. The new apartment is great! No regrets! However my previous landlord is less that happy with me and is threatening to sue me in small claims court. This can probably be sorted out without going to court and we've been playing phone tag over the last week, but right now the red voice mail indicator is flashing on my work phone and I really don't want to pick it up and listen to the message because I know there's a 99% chance that it is him. Needless to say I've been procrastinating on this all morning and, well, need to just nut up and call him back and sort it all out. He says, "The apartment was found in disarray," and I need to explain to him that that was pretty much how we received it from the previous tenant.
The Not So Ugly:
A couple of days ago, after going over a week without cooking gas, I finally made my first meal in the apartment, which was a modest supper of chicken, sauteed crimini mushrooms, and green beans. Apologies for the iPhone quality photo. My camera is packed somewhere . . . . But hey, note the granite counter top at the top of the picture!
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