Italian Lemon Cookies and the Mindtrap of The Culinary Graveyard

Picture me standing on a kitchen chair with my arm elbow-deep in the top shelf of our kitchen cabinet. Each item I move requires a little extra muscle to unstick from the peeling, likely lead-rich paint of the shelf, especially the molasses jar. All the necessary ingredients are present: lemon extract, shortening (one large container, one small), various bags of white sugar and flour, baking powder, sprinkles.

Also present and accounted for: panko crumbs (never used), almond flour (opened but barely used), crystallized honey - maybe two tablespoons-worth, and half a bar of Trader Joe's milk chocolate. I chalk these up as a perk of the roommate cohabitation experience and shove them aside for someone else's enjoyment.

Despite the plenitude of foodstuffs, a short grocery list forms itself in my head:

Shortening
Sugar
Sprinkles...

A glance outside reminds me that it's snowing steadily, great big fluffy flakes that melt as they splat on any surface like half-assed snowballs from heaven. Do I really want to go out there? Is it worth suiting up and limping eight blocks to the local StopNShop?

A glance at the "use by" dates on the shortening cans assures me that it's unavoidable. The big can: July 2012. The small one: March 2011. I'm not certain that the use of yellowing vegetable lard will harm my project or my friends' stomachs, but it's not quite in the spirit of the holidays, is it?

Upon closer inspection, the opened bags of sugar are all about one-third full of crusty, hardened clumps. The sprinkles are crumbly and the white ones have taken on a pinkish hue.  While I'm absent-mindedly sorting I find several shakers of sprinkles, all of them sticking to themselves in permanent candy colonies  or badly depleted (who decided not to use the last 8 chocolate sprinkles on her last project? Does this really absolve you from the duty of replacing them?).

And so I find myself zipping up my sweatshirt, stretching my knit hat over my haphazard morning ponytail, wrapping my scarf twice... and thinking.

Dammit! Not thinking!

The whole point of this baking adventure was to avoid thinking. And doing. And calling. And filling out forms. And, most of all, worrying.

But everything leads back to this place in my brain lately. I could be saying to myself, "Good for you, Jo! Go out into the world and get groceries! Get baking! Do something cheap and kind for others and join in the holiday celebrations with some kind of happiness!" The circle of thoughts (really, the Circle of Thoughts) at this point) pulls me away from those self-wishes and turn me back to the questions: "When was the last time you did something good? Why haven't you been useful at all? What is the point of you? Remember the Jo who used to do things? Make things? Enjoy things? What have you done to her? Do you even deserve to enjoy ANYTHING?"

My journey through the graveyard of the baking shelf seems to prove the self-doubt: it's been so long since I've baked anything. It's been years since I've even wanted to try. I used to love trading recipes and having friends over for dinner. I used to save my pennies for culinary treats, especially around the holidays. This time of year used to bring on a mess of cookie sheets and mixing bowls, not to mention sketch books of Christmas card designs and piles of stamps and ink pads and embossing powders.

Where the eff did JoBiv go?

Here's my promise of this moment, and I know it will require reprinting and repetition on my part: I will try, and I will remember that trying itself is progress toward something... more solid, I guess? More familiar, at least.

So I'm buying the damn sprinkles. I'm buying the tub of Crisco and the big bag of sugar. I wish I were getting paid for something at this very second, but I will fill this space in time with lemon cookies made for sharing. And, knowing me, I will probably wind up enjoying myself, even if it's just a leeetle lemony bit.

The cake incident of 1982

cake incident
Originally uploaded by JoBiv!.

People are always clamoring for pictures of JoBiv. Why, clamorers? Why?

Well, the day has finally come. I chose an oldie but a goodie, and I hope you like it. There I am in the middle, with Cripps on the left (funny, he's left-handed) and Smacks on the right. This telling photo comes from what was likely to be someone's birthday, because we didn't have cake often in our house. Can you imagine, three boys and a little girl in one house. Would you give us sugar? And you shoulda seen Smacks on sugar. Alarming, I believe, is the most accurate term.

Anywaysss, my evil mother always kept the camera on hand just in case we broke down in tears, or this is what I've come to believe after sifting through our albums. Many a life-affirming moment has been caught on Kodachrome - Smacks' head stuck in the next-door neighbor's deck rungs, Smacks post blue chalk-eating experiment, JoBiv giving herself a bath in the bathroom sink and getting stuck there... etc. Okay, Cripps and Tom didn't cry as much. Cripps wasn't on Earth with us, and Tom was high. Or somewhere else.

In this case it's impossible to know the true prompt for this bout of tears, but my brothers sure do look guilty. Happily guilty. I mean, could I really be that miserable when I was given a piece of cake and free reign - sans utensil or parental help - to shove it into my mouth? And my ear canal and nostrils, apparently. Perhaps I was protesting the busy wallpaper, or the hand-me-down pants, or maybe I was simply being a two-year-old pain in the ass. If it weren't for those smiles and the strategically hidden hands, I could believe it was just a moment of artistically inspired tempestuous moodiness on my part.

Or perhaps this is early proof of my disdain for posing for cameras.

Go outside!

Can't claim ribald health when I have to carry this card on me at all times.

Also, I now have a plastic port-a-cath in my chest. And a massive bruise on my boob, and two areas with super sticky bandages that are meant to keep the stitches in place. And a general, all-encompassing confusion when people say, "You look great!"

Bullshit.

And my ex (Sir Knight) decided we should get together to catch up and talk. About him. We did get together. We at least went to see Guardians of the Galaxy or whatever it's called - amusing, big-Hollywood style theater enjoyment - and that soaked up some time from my infinite, underutilized day. We talked, or rather he talked, about his upcoming schooling in Massage Therapy. I'm having difficulty comprehending... Well, he didn't like touching me, after all... I don't know. Something doesn't connect.

Not much connects at the moment. I'm just not capable of anything heroic, even in my own interest, and going outside seems heroic at this point. (Thus the reminder.)

I'm so easily hurt at the moment. I think hibernating may be wise.

Oh, manboys.

The manboy I'm trying not to love was sleeping with everyone. EVERYONE. I have been trying to salvage whatever was salvageable, discussing misunderstandings (apparently I wasn't clear about expecting him to reserve his body for me), attempting to spend time together, and it seemed to be going well. I tried to reach him yesterday, suggested hanging out, and lo, he was unavailable for hours. He tells me today, "Sorry about that. I was with someone."

"I'm thinking of giving up on you," I say.

"Honestly," he says, "I think you should. The more chances you give me, the shittier I feel about the whole thing."

The shittier HE feels. Hmm.

But, the timing... I had finally trusted him enough to talk about some Big Scary Things (psych history). I trusted him enough to talk about my family a bit (forced to, due to an impromptu trip to Rottenchester to see my brother who had drunkenly fallen into a fire pit and required surgery). I let him keep a toothbrush here. I let him keep deodorant here. I introduced him to friends and invited him to parties! Me! I did!

So, what now? Oh, right, obviously, stop talking to him forever.

But, what if the rest of your life is pukey (totally a word) and your friends are all distant and you have no steady income and your Dad is harassing you about abandoning the medical supports you have? What if you haven't left your apartment in three days and your symptoms are worsening and you're avoiding your roommates so you don't have to speak to other humans? What if you're getting a subcutaneous port surgically placed into your chest this week and already feel like you don't have much support, even a ride home from the hospital? What if you just need someone to hold, just for a minute... Just for a second...

Doesn't matter. Stop talking to him. Forever.

Or at least until he grows up. (Which could be Forever.)

Lists help.

Since firing the family I nanny for (doesn't that make me sound empowered?):

1. I've written most of a short story! Fiction! Creative-like! And I've been drawing, and mostly NOT crossing it all out in a self-hating fury!

Yes, that's a cyclops standing in a rudimentary rendering of the Frog Pond. Yes, it's gotten a bit beat up from being toted around in my journal. Yes, there's a story idea linked to it.


2. I've pulled out a ton of my own hair. Subconsciously, usually while watching Netflix. Don't blame Netflix, however. I do have strategies I should be acting on to prevent and/or reduce this nasty habit.

3. I have had phone conversations (note: plural) with my brothers and Mom. The phone rings and I answer it! Like an adult!

4. The man-boy I'm growing attached to has gone on a trip and I have noooothing to dooooo... besides tear my own hair out, paint my nails in needlessly elaborate patterns, weed through my entire wardrobe

4. I weeded through my entire wardrobe, which needed a good thrashing! I have picked out all the junk that was too big, was made out of that polyester blend that makes me sweat in public, or that I simply never wore, consigned about half of it and donated the rest. Aww yeah!

5. Dad and I are emailing and texting, despite his persistent attempts to make me abandon all the psychiatric support I receive in Boston. His latest evangelizing crusade; Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic, a book detailing how dramatically mental illness, and disability status, has increased in the United States, and positing that misuse of psychiatric medications is at the root of this epidemic. Considering one of my main hurdles in the course of my treatment has been the feeling that I lack the support of family and friends as I attempt more difficult - and life-interrupting - therapies, my father's rather loud proselytism is decidedly unwelcome at this very moment.

6. I had an appointment with my foot doc. He's leaving MGH forevs. Jerkface. But, I did get my brace refitted, and had a new one cast (by a veeery sexy dude who had no qualms flirting with me while casting).

7. Why not have 7? Hmm... now I have to think of something...  I'm missing Shane lately, and trying to work against my natural proclivity to doubt the friendship we had. Trying to simply celebrate and enjoy what we had. I made this to share for his birthday:

Yay lists!

The end.

Because who doesn't love rhubarb?

Oh yeah, lots of people. But isn't it beautiful? And the aroma is just lovely... Yes, I do have strawberries, but I feel it's somehow unfair to the rhubarb to force it to share the recipe with strawberries. I think of Rhubarb as the nerdy older sister, dependable and forthright, perhaps a little opinionated, while the Strawberry is the pretty little sister with natural talent; she gets all the praise and attention, and Mom insists that Rhubarb let her tag along every time she takes the car. Folks dutifully come up with semi-sincere praise for Rhubarb, but they go on and on about Stawberry with unsuppressed enthusiasm. How cruel.

Well, Rhubarb, I appreciate you for your own beauty and value, and I believe you can stand on your own. I've spent some time with Strawberry and can tell you; she may be pretty on the outside but she's only available at very short intervals and not consistently sweet.

Also, I'm crazy.

But! Writing about rhubarb has successfully distracted me from manymanymany current (and damaging) difficulties. So while I'm at it, let me report the following positive realities to which I am choosing to direct my attention:

1. My bed is covered with clothes that are too large and have volunteered to be donated. I'm losing weight. Somehow.
2. I have a new roommate who is lovely! (And makes life in this apartment far easier and generally happy.)
3. I am back in touch with several dear and positive people from my strange life, and I am enjoying being semi-social. Whodathunk?
4. I have additional nannying* gigs!
5. I have impending writing gigs!
6. I may not have to sell my body to keep paying rent!

Okay, back to baking. The rhubarb has soaked in sugar long enough, and I need to get my ass in gear for today's nannying gig.


*Nannying is a term I use to reassure myself that I have grown up to be something more than a babysitter. Yes, I am aware that it's a semi-pathetic self-deceptive triviality, but I'm fond of it. So there.

Longevity and brevity

Buying a new bedspread. Why? Because the current quilt has stains of depression all over it, literal and figurative, blood and tears. How do you explain that to the next man you allow past this threshold? Ha, like you'll be around long enough. Just make a gesture to live cleanly, away from these things. But what's the point? It will come back, in a fierce wave. It always does. Don't spend too much, because you may need money if you are to continue living, possibly without much income. Might as well get a nice one, though. the softness on your skin... that will feel good. In the moment. They're always saying to be in the moment. Don't be reckless. Don't screw yourself. Take the next step, knowing there are millions more to take. That's right. Don't do anything to alarm anyone. Act as though you're planning for life, for living. Just act, in the moment.


Buy a calendar, at least a new insert for your daily planner. To pretend to be living? To plan what you have so far. January work dates. Should you really be working? Yes, I guess... it makes the moments pass. Makes days pass, little breathers from solitude. You could sustain that! Maybe you could sustain that! But maybe you can't, and a little kid would be depending on you. A family would need you. Being needed sucks. Being needed is salvation. To be saved for what? Buy the damned calendar. Live and plan and see it all visually stretching out. Birthdays in April and May and July... Of people who keep forgetting you exist. Stay forgotten. Don't let the roots grow. They want me there for birthdays and graduations and weddings. I should be there for celebrations. Artificial celebrations that are actual torture. Does any day matter more than any other? Make it matter. It's on you to make it matter, to notice the bigger patterns and consciously enter into them. It will be easier once you decide to join in. Easier for a while, but the long-term always disappoints. I always disappoint.

Make dinner, enough for leftovers. Seriously? Why? You need to eat something, even if you don't feel like it. Sure, cereal maybe. Why cook? You need meals for the week, especially if you're feeling this way. I should just use up what I have. A cup of Rice Krispies is fine. But you should eat something green, something with protein. Why? To nourish a body I don't want? To encourage this disgusting mass to keep growing? I don't think so. Your nails are splitting. Your hair is falling out. You can't keep this up. I'm not planning to "keep this up." I'm not PLANNING. You should be. Just let me get a handle on the current moment. Let me breathe a little bit and see what it's like. You let a whole year pass while you were trying to breathe. It just passed, and you're still struggling. Start with something little. Make yourself dinner. I can't. I need to breathe. You can. Make some pasta, something easy. I can't right now... just for right now, I think. It's so easy and small, considering things you've accomplished, things you WILL accomplish. Just boil water and you'll have food for the week. The whole thing strikes me as pointless. As pointless as putting one foot in front of the other.

Home is where the ______ is

If I tell you about my annual journey home for the holidays, I will:

1. Cry

2. Hate myself for crying

3. Feel terribly guilty for any written attacks (direct or subconscious) that would inform you on the difficulty of being around my family

Instead I will tell you things (hopefully benign) that I remembered while I was home.

1. We used to have nougat at Christmas. Apparently this is an Italian thing, according to shops around Boston. My parents don't remember.

2. My mother developed a brilliant system for socks and hand-me-downs that she should have patented. It's not too late, actually.

3. Sunday mass, and waking, dressing, and getting there on time, was a predictably epic battle of Kids vs. Dad. Dad always won but he fought dirty. (So did we.)

4. Our phone would ring off the hook on holidays. Relatives and friends would call and whoever had the phone would call the next person into the kitchen to take a turn talking. It was torture, but it was explicitly forbidden to dodge the two-second conversation. Reluctance was tolerated. Hiding was not.

5. After we were already off to school, Mom would make herself a mug of tea with milk and a little sugar. Presumably she would carry it around the house while she put away laundry or cleaned, because we would find it on a closet shelf or a windowsill, half-full and cold. I use to love sipping it before I brought it downstairs to the kitchen.

If McLean Hospital would open up a Gift Shoppe...

Remember when I made things?

Tiny Oil pastel, circa 1998, found in the artist's closet

Oil on canvas paper, 2013 (with glare), made during an art class my roommate teaches and which I did not pay for.

I'm trying, dipping my shy little toes back into the pool of creativity. Can't say my orange is that creative, but it's loosening up the joints.

I had a friend basically yell at me because he saw my robot and toaster from last fall. He thought it was just a cute avatar, didn't know I'd painted it.

 Acrylic on canvas, 2013, baby shower gift for friend who teaches math

Then it went like this:

Unnamed friend: You should write a story about those guys.
JoBiv: I am, in fits and starts. Still working out a plot or two.
Unnamed friend: I could find you an artist to work out a few boards with you.
JoBiv: Yeah, that'd be nice. Painting in the buttons every time gets tedious.
Unnamed friend: Umm... are you saying YOU painted that?
JoBiv: Yep.
Unnamed friend: (Lecture on wasted talent, blah blah, "I never knew you were an artist" blah blah, "You HAVE to work on this story!" blah blah.)
JoBiv: Wow. I mean, thanks.

Of course, I look at this little piece and say, "The robot's sitting in the wrong place, and his femurs are too long and his tibias are too short. The table looks like it's made out of spongecake. The value of the gray robot and the blue background are much too similar. There should be a dot after the zero, because calculators don't work like that," etc.

Regardless, I bought a sketchpad, a cheap one. I dug out all my old art stuff and made it visible in my room. I'm staring at all of it now, and it seems dimly possible that I may be creative. Soon?

Status variabilis

Tell me how this melody can break out of white noise. How can an entire chorus stop a busy station in its... um... tracks?

My psychiatrist bought a used copy of the Carmina Burana and knew I'd be amused that he found it far more colorful than he'd expected. He also took a Lactaid in front of me, added milk to his coffee, looked at the expiration date on the little carton and read aloud "July 3, 2013." He looked into his mug. "Well, it didn't curdle." I'm in good hands.

He told me that the "Echay Grahtoom" is his favorite track. I resisted a lecture on Germanic pronunciation of Latin texts. Not that he would have minded; the man's a nerd of the first class, but by then my brain had corrected him and moved halfway through the piece at a nice gallop. Iamiam cedant tristia! Sadness has ended! Spring has come again!

I still get excited when I see those first green shoots of crocus and tulip and daffodil. I still feel my heart thudding in my chest when I hear a beautiful melody spun out of thin air. I have to believe in change, at least in a cycle, that sometimes plunges me under but will eventually raise me up again. Maybe my "up" is still below the surface, I don't know. I have to hope I'll be able to poke a finger through to the sunlight, that that will be enough.

Too soon?

Things that maybe one should never joke about:

1. Suicidal ideation
2. ECT treatment
3. Psychiatric inpatient stays

Well fuzz that shiz, I'm crossin' the line, people!

(If you haven't seen Mary and Max, perhaps you should. It has chocolate and insanity and poo-colored birth marks. Need I say more?)

I have been assured by many, nearly all, that Electroconvulsive Therapy has come a long way since, say, The Bell Jar (although it isn't portrayed terribly negatively in that novel). I will not be lobotomized, will not have my memory wiped, will not be communicating with aliens, etc. I have better chances of having SOME benefit, whether it's infinitesimal or not, than having any kind of bad reaction.

The doc asked me lots of nosy questions, most of which I couldn't quite pinpoint for him. Dates, admissions, prescriptions, attempts... I spend so much time batting all of those things away. They exist together in a kind of gnatty buzzing cloud that follows me around, the kind that makes me constantly fearful that I'll swallow a piece of it or breathe it in or have something get stuck under my eyelid. Gross. Bat, bat, batting away.

My patient psychiatrist is taking my latest dip a tad personally. "What's the point of me if I don't make you feel better?" he asked. I shrugged. He told me I usually laugh at his bad jokes. I told him I laugh at the good ones and he didn't have any this time. He took this as evidence that my sense of humor is still intact.

But there's another reason to live: so my psychiatrist will not see himself as a failure. I like the dude. How was he to know not to take me on? That I'm impervious to treatment, apparently? How could I make him believe that, but then how would that belief alter his sense of adequacy and effectiveness? How do I, Hippocratically, do no harm (and why do I adopt this as an oath)?

All of this aside, and sensing that this cloud is ever descending, I will try to be cognizant of others while I'm slipping away from myself. I will, perhaps, send postcards from the hospital. "Shocked to hear from me?" Or how about, "Thinking of you... and guess what Freud thinks about THAT." Or, perhaps the meanest of all, "Wish you were here!"

The Monologue (Dialogue)

I am capable of creativity. But only in sputters and starts. 
I have some natural talent. But I'm mediocre at best.
I have ideas to share still. But nobody wants to hear them.
My sadness isn't me. But it continually consumes me.
I'm blessed in ways others aren't. And I squander my blessings daily.
I can use resources to get help. But others deserve them more.
My family feels they still need me. But they don't know how poisonous I am.
Keep looking at their faces. They'd be better off without me.
Keep looking at their faces. I'll only continue to hurt them.
Keep looking at their dear faces. The little ones are young, they'll forget me.
Keep looking anyway.
Keep looking.

Adventures in Humiliation

Turns out I didn't have to worry or prepare for work nearly as much as I did. I suppose that should be a lesson to me. It would be if I hadn't been blindsided by an unforeseen (redundant, I know, but I'm shocked) demotion.

That's right. After four years of reinventing a system that was inherently broken, the very few but loud voices of the insecure win out over the many who offer logic and praise. 

It's the kind of thing that could send a girl to a mental hospital.

So here's the damage control mantra of the moment: They're paying me the same hourly wage. They're paying me peanuts, but still, I'm getting the same money for less demanding (I hope) work. I'm basically working the front desk, which seems eerily similar to working for the Bux. You can imagine, my master's degree keeps me up at night with its baleful sighs.

Or was that me keeping myself up with self-indulgent pity parties? Enh, six o' one, half dozen of the other...

Stepping forward, back up the down escalator for eternity, or to open doors, shining with light and possibility. We shall see.

Reechersall, In which our heroine tries on excuses to use at work whence she returns thither

I imagine it will go something like this:

Typical Colleague (to be referred to as TC from here on out.): Hey Jo, it's been forever! How have you been?
JoBiv: Oh, hi Typical Colleague, how are you?
TC: Good, but how are you?
JoBiv: Oh, you know.
TC: No, I've been worried about you. Where were you? You were gone for three months.
JoBiv: Ummm...

And this is where I should say something, don't you agree?

Here are some contenders, with some possible mind-read follow ups.

JoBiv: I had a sex change and I didn't like it, so I had it reversed. Kinda messy.
TC: No ya didn't.

JoBiv: I had not cancer.
TC: That's not funny.

JoBiv: I won the lottery and I took a trip around the world, and then a pageboy in Turkmenistan stole the rest of the money, so no, you can't have any.
TC: Bullshit.

JoBiv: If I tell you, I'll have to kill you.
TC: Do you own a gun?
JoBiv: I'll kill you with my mind.
TC: Doubt it.

JoBiv: I went crazy and wanted to kill myself and wound up at McLean.
TC: Tee emm aye.
JoBiv: You asked.

JoBiv: I've been ill but I'm getting good care now.
TC: Sooo you went crazy and wound up at McLean?
JoBiv: AGHH!!
TC: You know that's selfish and we were screwed and everyone hates you now.
JoBiv: Sigh. I know.
TC: Whelp, I have to get back to hating you with every fiber of my being! So long!

 Possibly that last one will go better than I've imagined, but it's nice to have a few backups. Suggestions welcome, of course...

We're Marchin' on

And yes, that was a pun.

I decided it was high time to buy a calendar, it bein' March n' all. I'm going back to paper. Why? Because I frankly don't care for the many ways my iPhone and Google calendars require maintenance and nudging.

Or, it could be that I'm getting lazy.

At any rate, there is something comforting in seeing the pages flip, looking at an entire month laid out in front of you without any nasty surprise linky things. Aha, I can say, on this day I have promised to eat waffles with Spen (International Waffle Day is March 25th, dontcha know). On this other day here I will get a haircut, providing I can afford the tip. Yes, everything's looking quite nice on paper.

Lookit, all of this is to say that I bought a calendar, which means I suppose I have decided to be alive. I decided again, today, consciously. Buy a calendar, fill it with appointments and concerts and birthdays. Be here on Earth with People for 2013. And so I shall try.

Where, oh where has my poetry gone?

I have poetry in me yet, don't I? I have committed myself, yet again, to the writing life. I have been unfaithful, or purely negligent. It's time to start paying attention again.

I'm making art, however. That's the easy stuff. And happily messy.

The crux

My grandmother passed away, finally*, at age 94 back in October. She died in her sleep. More importantly, she died dreaming of my grandfather (or rather in a haze of dementia) and repeatedly mentioned that he had asked her to marry him.

"What should I say?" she asked my father.

"For godssake, say yes, otherwise I won't exist," said my father. She laughed as though she got the joke, and she may have, because she was a sharp lady.

I love to think of her suspended in that giddy moment of young love, the moment just before her life settled into its track and took off barreling toward pregnancies and houses and addictions and celebrations. I see it as a conductor raising her arm for the downbeat, the gesture before the music, the instruction to draw bows and breath.

Yet, when my grandmother died, I had a sudden and explosive thought; I had been waiting for her to die before allowing myself to consider suicide. It was a simple rule, and it worked for years. While she was alive I could spare her needless pain and confusion. How would this woman, who only knew the kindest, most patient side of me, ever reconcile that image with the desperation of my truer self? Why force sobs from her? I assumed, too, that my father would very likely lie to her, and how could I make him do that. How cruel would I have to be to force him to make that decision?

And so she fell asleep, and so she never woke, and when that word popped into my head I had nothing handy to bat it away.

Suicide.

At first, the thought itself was so upsetting that the anxiety swept me into fits. Every moment of solitude or quiet brought on hyperventilation and tears.

Then I started really thinking about it; how I had drawn away from friends and I could recede even more, how I could sell my things, throw away papers. We already had a temp at work, which just proved (in my mind) that everyone is replaceable. I had already stopped enjoying the usual pastimes; reading, writing, singing, hanging out with friends, even eating. The world had become two dimensional, blank cardboard cut-outs of the actions of living. And so it was time.

Of course, I'm an asshole, and this is why.

My father hinted to it on the phone but I didn't believe him at the time. He was drunk. But then again, he had just lost his mother. I cut him a little slack, at least. He mumbled something about Grandma's will, and I decided to dismiss it. Then my mother mentioned something and credibility came into the picture. And then I went home to see my aching family and touch them to make sure they were solid and okay.

Mom and Dad were puttering downstairs, clearly waiting for me to get ready. I came downstairs to the two of them on either side of the kitchen counter, suddenly hushing themselves. My father had something in his hand, barely hidden.

"Johanna Mary... your grandmother loved you very much." He then went on to describe the many ways I was good to her; sending cards and letters, insisting on seeing her on my trips home, making sure my brothers remembered her at Christmas time and her birthday. And then he talked about his mother meeting his father, how dear they were to each other.

And then he showed me the ring, and told me Grandma wanted me to have it. She only mentioned four people in her will, and I was the only grandchild. She left her wedding band to Aunt Depresso, her pearls to Aunt Klondike (I think), and her engagement ring, a cushion-cut diamond flanked by the tiniest chips of diamond in an art deco setting, to me.

I cried. A lot. My parents hugged me. They couldn't know that every part of me wanted to reject the gift. If I had really been a good granddaughter, I felt, I would have called. I would have sent the card I bought for her last week and she would have loved it. I would have gotten my license and seen her on my own, and often. But then again, here was proof that she knew I loved her.

Four months later, my brother said the thing I needed to hear, and maybe couldn't absorb until this moment.

"Grandma didn't want you to be buried with that ring."

He also soliloquized about how special I am and how important I am and blah blah blah - nothing I could believe besides that one thing. I was given a ring in hope that I would have a piece of her, know she loved me, maybe someday find my own love. She could never have thought that I would kill myself mere months afterward and scramble to think of someone more worthy of the ring. She was clear in her gesture: I am worthy. Whether or not I believe it, I am worthy of her love and love from any direction.

I still don't believe it, but I do accept that she believed it. In her honor, I live.

*"Finally" sounds harsh, however, Grandma was fed up with birthdays and suffering daily shame from merely existing in a facility where she did not leave her room or cultivate friendships. Some of that is her own fault. I also find myself saying "finally" to continue convincing myself that death is quite final. It's a one-way street. Unless you're Wesley from The Princess Bride and you wind up "mostly dead," but I digress.

What do you do with a broken JoBiv, what do you do with a broken JoBiv

What do you do with a broken JoBiv ear-lye in the mornin'...

To be honest, I don't care to hear your answers. I don't want to think or grow or challenge anything at the moment. I want to shrivel up and blow away. Alas, that only happens in Indiana Jones movies.

Let's talk about ol' Indy, then. Here I am at a facility where the VCR still works and there are such choices as Karate Kid I and II alongside White Chicks and Somersby. We chose Indiana Jones, which brought up the line (internally) from The Last Crusade, "You have chosen... wisely."

Of course I forget how unspecial the effects can be, how over-orchestrated the score can be, how completely bizarre the plot can be. For whatever reason, the lead actress wound up dressed in long silky white gowns - the better to be torn and frayed and reveal more skin? Clearly the production team looked at the story boards, loved the look of the shroud on the woman's body, and thought, "Hmm... but how can we get her in a gown? Officer's ball in Cairo? ... That's ridiculous. She's a... seamstress! And carries samples with her everywhere! ... No... How about we get a pervy Frenchman to dress her up like a doll in a random drinking scene! Yeah, that's the ticket!"

And then how much more ridiculous is it that I wound up incorporating this idea in my unavoidable nightmares? I have sets of them, to make it easier on myself. There are Exposure nightmares, Responsibility nightmares, Victim nightmares and Oh My God I Have the Sickest Mind nightmares. And then there are night terrors, but I digress.

So the Exposure nightmare goes like this: They (y'know, Them) ask me to put on the same dress this woman wears in the film. Of course it's a size 4 and I'm a size 40 and there's no spandex (was there spandex in 1981? I'll have to research. Or perhaps they were going for historical accuracy.) At any rate, the dress doesn't go on over my head or up my legs. I can't get in it sideways or backwards or upside down. But they're knocking on my door and asking to come in to complete the "fitting." I also have a large wound on my back that's bleeding and it's staining the dress and I know I will be in trouble on top of being too fat to fit in the dress. And then it rips. Ffrrrreep. Fuck.

Now the costume crew come in and they yell at me, and then I'm sort of stuck in this dress but I have to pee, and no one will let me leave the room, and I start crying and they yell at me some more, and there's no more material to make a new dress and it was spun from Chinese silk from the ancient Wang Chun dynasty or some shit...

In case you were idly wondering whether or not I'm able to see the humor in these dreams, the answer is... not while I'm dreaming them. I feel the red hot shame and misery and fear, and any comic elements elude me until at least the next day, sometimes two days later.

Did you know there's a med for nightmares? Or I should say there's a med for high blood pressure that has an off-label use as a nightmare cure. I'm on it now and it mostly works - that is, I've had fewer flashbacks and night terrors. But I still have these Exposure dreams and Responsibility dreams (where I'm juggling nine babies with brittle bone syndrome and the oven is on but empty and my grandmother is slowly but steadily rolling away in her wheelchair toward a massive cliff). Of course, this miracle drug makes me dizzy and - go fig - messes with my blood pressure, but I like to think these are just the adorable quirks of a new friend I'm gettin' to know. As long as it doesn't chew with its mouth open, I think I can take the quirks.

I suppose, then, we have our answer: What do we do with a broken JoBiv?

Fill her up with drugs that make her dizzy! Fill her up with drugs that make her dizzy... etc.  Or perhaps,

Send her to McLean and watch her closely?

Oh, gosh, these are fun... Verse three: Throw out all her shit and plan her funeral!

All right, that's not funny. Outside of McLean, anyway.

Send her off to sleep and never wake her
Make her eat her food and take her showers
Call her on the phone and make her blubber...

Tell her to go back to work already...

Honestly, I could go on. Laugh at all her jokes as if they're funny!