Okay, yesterday, I had a lot of help getting my room ready for guests. Today, so far, it's just Mark and me. I'll be working my ass off. I hope my pain flare won't be too bad. Why does Thanksgiving freak me out so much? It's the feast; fixing food for 10-20 people. And the dishes. I already feel pressured. Gotta go; can't put this shit off forever.
I hope some of you have a peaceful Thanksgiving.

Well, first, I was at my program and they cooked turkey and stuff for it, and it was really loud and intrusive. I lost track of my purse and came back and couldn't find my anti-anxiety medications. Completely flipped out, managed to get down some food and then got the fuck home where I found them right away.
Now I'm taking a break from cleaning up my back room because my knees are killing me. My husband sent my friend Sparrow over to help me. It's almost done. I have to go through some papers, and that's about it. We just got cups of coffee. We basically did a job that would have taken all afternoon had I done it alone in 2 hours or so. Hurrah for teamwork.

Anyone who's having trouble over the holidays, feel free to inbox me. I know my lifestyle is so different than that of many of you that I may seem too crazy to be of much help, but hey, the holidays are hard. A lot of expectations both from us and from others. What I'm saying is, as long as I'm logged on, I'm here for any of you, and if I'm not logged on, I'll get back to you.
Deal? Deal.
Happy Holidays,
Kathleen

I don't know how I got through all those dishes. And cleaning the kitchen. Everything hurts. It's been like this for a few days. I first started noticing it while I was at Barnes and Noble Saturday afternoon.

Mark's doing his usual Thanksgiving feed on Thursday. I was kind of hoping we'd skip it this year because we've both been having so much trouble with pain and energy, but he can't seem to help it. I think it makes him feel good if he feeds a bunch of people who don't have anywhere else to go. People are promising to help cook and clean and stuff, but who knows? One year NOBODY helped with the dishes. All the men were saying washing dishes was women's work, which really pissed me off, and the woman who was supposed to help me decided to flirt with my asshole housemate instead.
Gotta go.

I wanted to thank everyone who commented on my last entry. It was all helpful, and I read all of it. The reason I deleted it was personal; it didn't have anything to do with anything you guys said. Again, thanks.

K.

What's been annoying me (and I don't want to complain too much, I did very well at work this weekend) has been figuring out bus and train schedules and what time I have to leave wherever I went to hang out to make it back here by Saturday night shift. I mean, today, I had a half-hour session at ten and by the time I filled out my cards, collected my money, took everything out of my bag I didn't want to be carrying around all afternoon, cleaned my room, whatever, it was almost 11:30. Then I went to have breakfast at the cafe at the corner. By the time I ate, took the bus to the BART station, got off at the next stop and went to Barnes & Noble, it was already after one. So, I'm supposed to be back by three, so I just had time to familiarize myself with the store (where's the Sexuality Section, is it any good? no, Where's astrology? Oh, one shelf only. Why isn't there a horror section? Ask customer service. Oh, they're bunched in with Sci Fi," it was 2, so I figured I'd better head back. By the time I was back at the right BART station, it was past two. I waited for the bus, and it didn't come, so I had to take a cab. Obviously, if I want to avoid spending money I usually don't have, I'm going to have to leave at one-thirty. It's like enough time to eat and travel somewhere, but not enough time to really do much once I get there. Oh, well. At least, maybe people will start to leave me alone now. I wish there was something interesting just a couple of blocks away. I don't know the neighborhood well enough. Anyway, I made good money.

Today's work. Wish me luck, you guys. I hope things are set up the way they were when I left, but I'm learning not to take anything for granted there. I'm trying to at least keep a positive attitude about it.

I am starting to realize that I am never going to please my detractors, so I'm going to stop putting so much energy into trying. Trying just gets me in trouble. I came to a realization that night that certain people are never going to be my friends. I can't make it be so, because, as much as I might want what they have (that's AA talk) we don't click. There are other people out there with whom I do click to some degree or another. Some are not friends, but are friendly aquaintences. Others are friendly and I like to spend a little time with them. Others are friends. Sometimes, it takes a long time to figure out who my friends are, and who don't get me. I'm not the most easy person in the world to get along with. I had few friends when I was a child, and thus didn't learn simple social skills early. With some people, that's okay. with others (a lot of others, sometimes), I just don't fit.
I need to stop putting so much energy into people who will never appreciate me, and spend more time with people who do. That's hard to do, because I'm shy, really, but there's ways to do it. Facebook is good. I have a lot of poetry people on Facebook. I am more accepted in this groups. Many poets are misfits. They see things differently than most. Sometimes, more acutely, other times...just differently. I should take people up on their invitations if they are safe people for me. I turn down too many invitations. We all need some kind of social life. And since my husband is sick and in a terrible mood, using me mostly for a go-fer, I need to branch out. Some people will never understand. And that's okay. Let them get along together. Me, I might need to work on making friends and allies a bit more.

That's the way it is.

I'm sitting around my program waiting to see my therapist. I thought our appointment was at 2, but it's at three. I might wind up being very naughty tonight after the poetry reading. I have an invitation to go to this guy's house and drink absinthe. Absinthe. How could that not lead to you-know-what? I have all this stuff to do involving paperwork and it's due by the first but I keep putting it off. I want to do it tomorrow, but I have no idea what shape I'll be in by tomorrow...I might need to sleep it off; who knows how long it will last and how much sleep I get? Almost don't want to do it, but we have been flirting for a couple of months now, and the cat's away for the week.
I have to go to the clinic and find out when my appointment with my doctor is going to be. If I even remembered to make the appt. I was going to do that today, but I'm almost out of cigarrettes and I have a pack at home. Don't want to buy more right now. I can go to the clinic Friday. The paperwork stuff might have to wait until next Tuesday. And then later Friday I have work and I already have a regular! He's a week early; I'm so glad after all the shit I've been going through there.
I just feel overwhelmed. I have too many doctors, work troubles, paperwork shit I have to do that I don't want to do, therapy appts. up the yin-yang.....why can't life just be simple? At least I'm not feeling too much pain right now.

As soon as I get home, I have to figure out what to wear tonight. I have a sort of retro dress, but I only put it on once...when I was trying to figure out whether I wanted it, and someone told me it looked good on me so I got it. I hope it doesn't make me look lame or unsexy. I need to do laundry; almost everything is dirty. I'm reduced to dresses. I usually only wear dresses at work.
What do you guys do to relax when you're overwhelmed?

I realize I have to keep my hurt and venom out of my posts here. It's just...by doing all those chores, I wasn't trying to just show the boss and executive staff that I could still work, even with fibromyalgia. I was trying to keep the place neat (it can get really messy) so night shift or Monday day shift wouldn't be stuck with a lot of chores. It was also a great way to keep myself occupied, and it totally backfired me. Others found the excess movement annoying - one to the point of wanting to quit over my behavior.
I go to see my general practitioner today. I'm a bit worried because I had a couple of ultrasounds and when they did the area above my gall bladder, it felt really tender. I don't want to have something wrong internally. I'm scared. The fibro is bad enough. People, for the most part, don't realize the amount of pain I walk through just to get through any given day. Now, if I have gall bladder problems on top of that...it's just too much. I have to try to talk my GP into continuing to give me my muscle relaxers. He had said at the outset that I could only have them for two or three months. Without them, my mobility is quite limited and I feel as though I'm living in a prison of pain. With them, I'm still in pain, but I can maneuver around better and can actually turn my head almost all the way to the right (I haven't been able to do that before in years).
All in all, a stressful time. But I'll stop ragging on these women. I know that a couple of you know them, and even so, I need to process this and keep going.
Kathleen

Okay, so we negotiated. She went on about all the things I'm doing that are wrong. She says I'm making progress, but she's still cutting my days. The thing that is worst, is she doesn't want me to stay over Friday night. To come to El Cerrito and back to the city on Bart is 8 dollars. If I have to do it twice, it's sixteen. That too much if she's taking away major chances to make money on my magic shift - Saturday day. Also, she says she doesn't want me to spend the night because I'm still tired and cranky in the morning when sessions start. She's heard me on the phone, she says. She doesn't know what is happening on the other end. The beginning of the shift can be stressful for anyone. If she sends me home, I have to wake up at 6:30 in the morning. Sometimes I don't even get HOME until eleven. Insufficient sleep is much more likely to fuck up my day than being a little sleepy still at ten a.m. after having eight hours sleep. I need to talk to her about it. You don't cut someones hours and then force them to spend sixteen dollars per week AND fuck up their sleep-wake cycle at the same time. Who am I really bothering by spending one night a week? Nobody. She's telling me I'm making progress with one side of her mouth and telling me everyone thinks I'm a drama queen and I'm always anxious (when I'm telling her that a lot of the time, I'm just over-energetic). We need to re-think the logistics of this, or she is going to fuck me up financially.

This is going to be hard for me to talk about, because I'm not sure anything I say is going to stop what seems like a horrible, poverty causing, mess that I don't really think I deserve to be in.  I signed up for Thursday today.  I called to let people know I needed to come in at four, because I had therapy.  I got the boss.  She was really pissed off that I had signed up for Thursday.  We had a little talk a couple of weeks or so ago about my not coming in at the beginning of the week.  She thought I was getting burned out.  I was upset afterward and cried for a few minutes.  I had asked her if I could come in at the end of the week instead of the beginning of the week, and she had said "yes".

So, anyway, she told me she wants me to cut down to one day a week -Friday night.  My magic day - the day when if I'm going to make good money that week, that's when it happens - is Saturday day shift.  There is a house regular who often asks for me.  He calls spur of the moment almost always.  I've been picking up Saturday day a lot.  Apparently, people on that shift have complained that I'm too tense.  I asked her what behaviors I'd done that I could change, and she said I'm tense, it's an emotion, and you can't change an emotion.  So, I'm the person on her hit list this month.  There's always someone, but I DON"T DESERVE to be cut down to one day a week.  I work my butt off cleaning, I just put great new pictures up on the website, I'm finding better costumes for myself, and I'm really throwing a lot (maybe too much) into the job.  I don't think I'm tense most of the time - I think I'm Intense.  In so many ways, I feel like my mind and soul have been liberated somewhat by the program I go to.  I'm learning so many things about myself and trauma.  I wake up excited, but maybe a little abstracted.  For example, I can really get into housework, and I spend a good portion of the day doing it.  I can tell her I'll slow down on the uneccesary chores and use some of the tools I use in group - like deep breathing and going to my "safe place" to calm myself down a little.  But she's kind of putting me in a situation where I can't improve myself.  My personality is wrong, and I can't do anything about it.

Does she see the fact that I'm in therapy as proof that I am crazy or maybe she thinks I was court-ordered over there?  Does she just not trust the program or trust therapists?  She knows I'm working hard, but she doesn't need to take my days away because I've been working too hard.  And there ARE ways to change your emotions.  There's deep breathing.  There's positive affirmations.  There's lots of things.  What I CAN"T change is my basic personality.  And apparenty, I'm rubbing people the wrong way.  Maybe my fear and my feelings of always being under scrutiny make me more tense.  But I am so willing to work with people.  Maybe I've been being a little sloppy recently.  But I can turn that around.  The last time I was brought down to one day was when I was finally allowed to return after having a long speed run and winding up on the psych ward.  I think I demonstrated how I'd changed.  And my boss let me work extra days.  This is nothing like that.  Okay, I've had some less than stellar days, and I've made small mistakes.  But nothing like before.  I've been off speed for going on two years.  I stopped doing opiates in January this year.  I only take the medicines prescribed to me - the only non-prescribed drugs I take are maybe two wine coolers after work, or - okay, pot brownies and fudge on nights I'm not at work.  That's nothing.  I control the dials on that one.  I'm going to tell her that.  I'm going to tell her I don't think my progress should be penalized because of small things.  I'm going to be totally willing to work with everybody, especially if she can tell me some of the behaviors (I KNOW there's behaviors) that have been bothering people.  I'm going to ask her please not to do something that would take away my best chance to make money.  It's harder for people to grow in therapy if they don't have any money.  They go into survival mode, and they don't grow.  I'm going to ask her to please wait three months.  That's how long it could take me to finish the job preparation program (one of the counselors said she'd try to get me into it as soon as possible) so I can work.  It's just a little more time.  Why can't they work with me?  I'm not bringing nearly as much drama to the job as I'm used to.

I missed my appointment with my case manager today.  I called the program, but nobody answered (maybe I called the wrong number) and left a message that I couldn't make it and I would try to make it to the eleven o'clock meeting.  I don't know if she'll get the message.  I can't find her card, so I called 411 information.  I hope it gets to her, because I'm not even sure I can make the 11 a.m. group today.  Crap.  I overslept.

So, today, is a holiday, so my groups won't be open.  I would really like to go to Kinko's and print out every chapter of the memoirs I've been writing.  I realized yesterday, that I've been printing them out, reading them aloud at readings, and then leaving them wherever.  I don't know how much it wil cost, but it needs to be done.  I'm e-mailing everything to myself, and then going to print it all out.  I hope it's all there.  Wish me luck!
Kathleen

I'm really having trouble with my knee.  I'd say for the past few weeks, it's been clicking and hurting when I walk, but it's getting worse.  It's harder and harder for me to get around with the pain getting worse and worse in my knee.  Is this a normal fibro symptom?  I need to go to the food back today, and I don't know how I'm going to carry heavy boxes full of food with my knee hurting and clicking every step I take.  It was hard just going to the movies for Mark's birthday yesterday.  We were both having trouble - Mark with his elbow and me with my knee.  IT keeps clicking, but the pain just gets worse and worse.
Is this normal?  Could it be something else besides fibro?
K.

So, yesterday was my birthday, so I am older.  My boss gave me a Lorena McKinnet CD.  I don't even know who Lorena McKinnet is.  I guess she's popular with some BDSM people, but that doesn't mean we're all cut out of the same mold - BDSM interests= Lorena McKinnet.  My client liked her.  I guess that's what really matters with music you play in scene.  It's not for me; it's for them. So it's a good thing.  I, personally, would rather listen to 70's R&B, but that's me.  My client has heard that CD four times now.  He's probably getting burnt out on it.  Sometimes, I wish I had clients who liked the same kind of music that I like, but I keep getting these older men who don't even know what rock-n-roll or R&B is.  They like classical music, if anything.  So, it's probably good I have some more scene music.
It's the only present I got this year.  My mom and my brother sent me some money.
So, birthday's over, I'm another year older,

I guess I just go from there...
Kathleen

 

I met with that poet guy I want to fuck, but I was in so much pain from the fibro.  We went to the pharmacy so I could get my anti-inflammatory pills.  Then we went to the Gold Cane in the Upper Haight and had drinks.  There were a bunch of annoying drunk guys on the smoking patio.  I could not relate.  I'm never so drunk I can't keep my eyes open.  Not for years.  I think he's going to come to my work when I'm staying over, it's easier.  We'd have the whole house, probably.
Tomorrow, work.,  I have a client.  I hope the pain goes down a bit before I have to commute and be submissive to a moderate corporal dominant client.
Arrrggghhhh!

I did my first EMDR trauma resolution therapy session today.  It was weird; I kept having to think about certain events while I followed her finger.  It's eye movement therapy.  It's supposed to reprogram the central nervous system.  It's very strange, but I stayed with the therapist and did 55 minutes of it.  I hope it helps.

I'm starting to read Chapter Two of my sex industry memoirs tonight at the Sacred Grounds Cafe reading.  I'm excited.  This is the one where I run away to Hollywood and get into all sorts of weird adventures in three day's time.  Hope they like what I read.  It's heavy stuff.  It'll take me awhile to get through this chapter; it's very long.  Wish me luck.

K.

I can't be nice to random guys who don't even know how to talk to a woman respectfully.  I mean, usually, I'm not so abrupt, but this dude is like, "I see you going down into the underground."  When I'm getting into the BART station.  So what?  He sees me.  And then I get out some Tic Tacs and he goes, "Eat those Tic Tacs.  Makes you have minty fresh breath."  So I just shook my head and walked on.  So then he's like, "if you don't smile at me I'm going to go down there and holler at you!"  WTF?  I told him "Go ahead.  I'll have the BART police on you so fast!"  He didn't come down.  What, does he think I'm some dumb young chick?  I'm in my mid-forties.  You don't come at me like that.  I would have shined it, but my body right now is like a prison of pain and I jusr wanted to get where I was going.  Okay, so I was wearing a tight, low-cut top.  But my expressioin and body language HAD to be saying "don't fucking mess with me right now."  I guess some guys only notice the tits.  Can't read even blatant body language.
If you're going to talk to me on the street, show some respect.  Don't you figure I must have heard ever low-class line by this time in my life.  Don't need to keep hearing them and then have some punk threaten me.

Today, I'm in so much pain it's hard to move around.  And I have to go to group.  Just one today; they don't have two groups on Mondays.  I don't know how I'm going to make it through the food bank.  I took a walk yesterday to the Upper Haight with this woman I thought was my friend, and she just left me there when I couldn't keep walking fast anymore.  She kept saying "Wow, K. that's serious," and then she bailed on me.  A friend in the cafe I went to just gave me two dollars to ride the bus home because I could barely walk and I told her I was going to walk home because I couldn't afford to take a bus.  I hadn't taken my book which had my transfer in it because I thought I would be with Nikki so I would be okay, and have someone to talk to.  What kind of friend bails on someone when she can't walk fast enough to keep up?  Someone who isn't really my friend, that's who.

I hope I can make it through group.  I am not at all comfortable.
I have to go.  Mark wants to use the computer.