Survivors.

So the time has come to post again. I am still FRESH OUT, SON, of ideas. I mean, you can only blog about Purell and new Advanced Purell ("takes less to do the job"(TM)) so many times. So what now?

I think I'll free-associate here.

So my most recent meeting with Dr. P

As I was saying, my most recent meeting with DR MOTHERFUCKING P, went poorly. We kind of have nothing to talk about anymore. Kind of like me, and this blog. Nothing to talk about. He asked questions, but my answers to those questions we vague and were almost always "I don't know." Or, "I feel like, I don't know, it's complicated, I don't know."

So now what? He seems unwilling to delve deeper, like delve into the sources of my OCD (which I could easily explain to him, since I KNOW how they started). He seems unwilling to talk about much at all, except for my meds.

Now, I feel a certain, how do you say, oh yes, kinship with this man. 

I've been seeing him for at least a year and a half. So it would be traumatic to attempt to start seeing a new therapist, and having to explain the SAME SHIT ALL OVER AGAIN. So on one hand, I feel sort of bound to him. On the other, he's not really doing much for me. Other than carefully monitoring my medication--I can give him that much. (PS: Awesome sidenote--the meds I'm on, combined with a less-than-stellar diet, have caused me to gain approximately 2387438 pounds exactly. I am positively rotund. Bygones.)

So anyway, Dr. P. He seems to want to farm me out to another therapist--he's constantly on my case about seeing someone who specializes in CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy)--which is a whole lot of "be present in the moment, acknowledge your pain, feel grounded, put your feet on the fucking floor, know that this too shall pass." Good advice for normal people. But I'm not normal.

I will continue this later, because as heretofore mentioned, I have nothing to say. A lot of words to say nothing I have to say, but still. I must go wash bottle nipples. Yes my two-year-old child still uses and loves her bottle. What of it?

More later.

---

It's later. I've currently got cupcakes burning in the oven, where my five-year-old drizzle-dripped that batter right the hell into those cupcake papers, or near enough. And then she licked her fingers. Salmon-to-the-ella, what what? Oh well, I survived, she will too. Maybe that's my Luvox talking, but we'll be OK. After a small bout of diarrhea.

The other day, we went to a birthday party at, get this, CHUCK E. FUCKING CHEESE. As if anything could be any grosser. So my kids touched tokens, and went on rides, and climbed climbers, and then ate horrible pizza, and yet survived. So far with no ill effects. Except for the E. Coli. Bygones.

---

Today I plan to take the kids to the park. I'm only doing it because I promised last night I would, so I can't get out of it.

Edit: Mission accomplished! We actually went to two parks. Go me! The kids had an absolute blast. Here are a bazillion pictures of the cutest chitlins ever:

Lots of fun, right? I even let them play in the dirt and gravel. Although I did periodically Purell them and when we came home I made them strip naked and wash their hands for four hours.

Love,

Jo

101 Ways for an OCDer to Enjoy a State Fair.

So after my poor tot woke up sick, saying she had a tickle in her throat, she spent the early morning coughing and sneezing right and left, with a runny nose. This went on for like two hours, and then, voila, gone. We wondered, "Was this Sudden Onset Allergies?" It was weird. She seemed all better.

So after a very rough start to the day, when she seemed totally back to normal, we carried out our original plan of going to the fair!



...Another great choice for a mom with OCD. Why do I do this to myself? I get all KINDS of great ideas, don't I?

So we loaded up and went to the Evergreen State Fair. I've always loved the fair, LOVED it. Even just a few years ago, but that was before we had kids. (Because when I am responsible for only myself, I know that I'm not going to put my filthy hands in my mouth, or suck on the armrest of a ride, or drop my corndog and then eat it anyway.)

And actually, I still find myself looking forward to it, even WITH kids. But then we go to the fair and we end up dirty, dusty, sweaty, sunscreeny, and covered with possibly some of the most virulent germs around. Not to mention likely contact with other people's puke. And there's the smell of puke. And the smell of onion rings. The smell of puke PLUS the smell of onion rings. And I wonder, "What was I thinking??" Good times.

Anyway, we got there and the first thing we did was have a deep-fried Oreo or two. Because I'm health-conscious like that. Then we took Maya on the carousel. Well, my husband did, because that was how we spent the day--splitting up to take Maya on rides or go on one ourselves, while the other held down the fort with the baby. Sucks that when you have tiny kids, you and your mate can't go on rides together, but oh well.

MY CUTE KID, LOOK AT HER

 Doing her best Popeye the Sailor Man (actually, just showing off her matching tattoo):

And just so Naomi doesn't sue me for emotional neglect later in life, a picture of my other darling:

(I had wrapped the carseat/stroller buckle in a blanket, because when it's unbuckled, it drags on the ground. And I didn't want her touching it. More OCD Tips 'n Trix brought to you by Jo.)

My first ride was that one where you lay belly down and you go up and down around in a circle, like you're some kind of Superman. Exciting; thrilling; GERMS. You kind of had to rest your chin on the...chin rest, and grab the bar below you, but I'll have you know I did neither. I arched my back so that no chin germs would sully my person. Anyway, the ride, with modifications, was funnish. Except that, I had to take my flip-flops off before the ride started, and as I flew round and round like an enhanced Clark Kent, I saw pile after pile of human vomit on the cement below. And when the ride stopped, I had to tiptoe back to my flip-flops, trying desperately to avoid the omnipresent piles-o-puke. So that kinda sucked. Or blew, rather.

Then after that, I went on one of those thingers that takes you up into the stratosphere and drops you. You know, one of these guys:

Because I'm safety-conscious like that.

It was a blast, but of course, 90% of what I was thinking was, "OFUX THE GERMS ON THE HANDLES." Then 9% of me was thinking, "Dear sweet baby Jesus don't let me die." One percent of me had a blast.

At some point we foraged for food, and I had some fairly tasty nachos supreme. First I wiped my hands with two alcohol-based Sani-Hands wipes, then I followed it with a jigger of hand sani gel. I also wiped off the packets of hot sauce with Sani wipes. Then as I ate the beans, I couldn't help but think of how refried beans are a major source of food poisoning. Eh, a little of the old Clostridium perfringens never hurt anyone. Er, or something. Anyway, the nachos were yummy. And I'll keep you updated on the next 24-48 hours.

Maya, however, was being a little pest three years old, and her hands were everywhere. She kept touching the picnic table we were sitting at, which was literally filthy to the naked eye. It looked like it had bird droppings, drool, food driblets, nasal effluvia, and regurgitation all over it. It was FILTHY. I kept telling Maya not to touch it, but she was being a little pest three years old. It really bothered me. Or rather, bothered my OCD. :(

The baby was hungry, so I re-sanitized my hands 29837493 times, then prepared a bottle and fed the child. She also kept swinging her hands about and once actually touched the abhorrent table. I tried not to cry. And every time I held her (after using hand-sani, of course), I still felt like I was contaminating her. Like her legs and arms and bottom were germed out to the max because I touched her with filthy fair-hands.

Contaminating. That's a very accurate word. I feel contaminated every time I go anywhere or touch anything. And I feel contaminated BY my sick 3-year-old. When she's sick, I feel like she's poison. Every time she sneezed, I was like, "OMG SNEEZE INTO YOUR ELBOW!!" and every time she rubbed her nose I was like, "DO NOT TOUCH YOUR NOSE!!" That's just sad and miserable. I don't want to feel this way, certainly not about my own kid. But I do.

--

Anyway. After that it was time to walk through some of the exhibits, and I cringed at all the food samples where passersby hand-dipped pretzels into flavored oils and dips. But I put on my big-girl panties and the put my OCD in time-out so I could sample some salsa on a chip (I was able to do this because the vendor himself was spooning out the salsa onto a plate, and there was no dippage involved), and I ended up buying some. (It's a big old canister of dry salsa ingredients, and you mix it with diced tomatoes, FTW. Sooo yummy.)

I also bought a monkey-sock hat for Maya, but I will either wash it on hot first or put it in the freezer for awhile to ensure that it does not give us lice from all the kids that tried it on before we bought it. What, I didn't tell you that I have a massive fear of lice as well as germs? Let's save that for another time, shall we?

Sidenote: It must have been "Show Your Classy Upbringing" day at the Evergreen State Fair today, since 90% of the people were walking around wearing obscene slogan T-shirts. One such classy lady's shirt read, "I have the PUSSY, so I make the RULES." Niiiiice. I'd like to break me off a piece of THAT.

OK, so after perusing the exhibits, we ventured through the animal barns. We saw some gorgeous cows, sheep, pigs, and pygmy goats (which I call unicorns--don't ask). The stench was phenomenal, but the animals really were lovely. I asked Maya what one of the plain pink pigs was named, and she said "Hoinky." I asked her about the black pig. He was named Boinky. The spotted one? Noinky.

Then we passed the pygmy goats, and Maya explained that his name was Ngoinky. Not Noinky, not Goinky, but Ngoinky. This is Ngoinky:

He's all, "TOTALLY SIDE-EYEING YOU"

We also saw a cow named Beyonce, and for some reason this upcracked me so very deeply. You'll have to click to enlarge the photo to see her name:

Beyonce was having a bit of a lie-down. But she really was Udder-licious.

After the animal barn, it was time for another round of the screamy-droppy Big Shot thingy ride, more carousel, and a terror-filled ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl (I'm sorry, Maya, I thought you'd like it). Then it was time to head home.

We were disastrously dirty. I had worn flip-flops, and Maya wore sandals, and our feet were none more black.

The whole ride home, the baby cried. Screamed. SCREAMED. For 45 minutes. We were also driving Highway 2 in Monroe, and they don't call it the Highway of Death for nothing. Or, if they don't call it that, they should. Bygones.

(Wait, they really DO call it that. I thought I was making it up. Christ.)

Anyway, every time we drive it, we see the very grim, very stomach-churning sign reporting "No serious accidents in [X] days," and it's never more than 40 days. The last time we drove it, it was "No serious accidents in 2 days." My heart just drops whenever I see it.

And there are no "just accidents" on Hwy 2. If there is an accident, it's a fatality. :( I mean, it's a twisty, two-lane road with no middle divider, where people go 75 mph. Hwy 2 has been listed as one of America's most dangerous highways.

So I sit there, in the passenger seat, fingernails digging into my palms, saying a prayer to the Patron Saint of Hwy 2 (just kidding, seriously praying to the actual Jesus H. Christ), that we don't die in a head-on collision. And with the baby SCREAMING the whole way? Good times.

For this here OCDer, getting home is one of the most stressful parts about going anywhere. Because when we get home, we have to prioritize and figure out what the hell to clean first, where to start. Bottles, binkies, hands, our very bodies, where to begin? It's so much worse when I'm alone, too, and have to do it all by myself.

And we were filthy. Our feet, our clothes, our hands, our arms and legs. So I Clorox-wiped my feet (I love that you think I'm kidding), the carried Maya into the shower where we cleansed our persons. We washed like white demons.

And the feet got washed twice.

We were hoping to be able to leave Naomi in her carseat (inside the house) while my husband showered, but she was screaming so ridiculously that instead, he just stripped off his dusty dirty clothes and fed her a got-damn bottle. By the time she was done, so were Maya and I in the shower. I changed the baby's clothes and put her to bed while my husband showered. Then I washed the hell out of Noey's bottles and binky, and Cloroxed off the canister of salsa we'd bought.

Oh, and then I bleached the shit out of the shower.

Also? Because we are such awesome people and parents? We realized that Maya was actually still sick. She had done a good 180 earlier in the morning, and we thought she was just a wunderkind who had fought off her cold in mere hours, but really, turns out she was still sick. So I'm sorry, everyone at the Evergreen State Fair. But it serves you right--it's not like YOU stay home when you are sick, either, you bastiges.

My poor sweet sicky, just after her scouring shower. Look at those sad, sick, tired eyes. :(

It was a full, busy, fun, intensely OCD day. I mean, I guess we had fun, but these are the things that run through my head when we're out and about, trying to have a fun family day at the fair. Filth. Vomit. Colds. Flu. Food poisoning. Lice. Beyonce. But it's not my fault. I still try to have fun, but this is what fun is like for a person with OCD.

Anyway, maybe my next brilliant idea will be to take my kid to the ball-pit at the local play place. :/

Parks and Recreation, Plus Poop.

Yesterday was a tough day, anxiety-wise. We went Maya's little BFF's 5th birthday party, along with a zillion other little school friends of this little girl. The party was lovely--a gorgeous day at the park and splash pad, food, drinks, games, a fabulous hostess. I thought I would have an easier time of it, since we were outdoors with fresh air and such, but as always, OCD manages to make its appearance.

It first appeared when the watermelon was being sliced. It hadn't been washed first; in fact it had been sitting on the super grody cement floor of the covered park area. (And seriously, people, you really ARE supposed to wash your damn dirty melons, whether or not you have OCD.)

So there sat the unwashed melon, sliced up and sitting on a picnic table, mocking me. Mocking, I tell you. Maya kept asking, "Can I have some watermelon? Please? Please? I really want some!" And I kept trying to distract her. But finally I had to give in. Because who doesn't let their kid eat watermelon at a picnic? I said a prayer to the Patron Saint of Escherichia coli and let my child dive in.

Jo, 1. OCD, 0.

...Not that I'm sitting here on pins and needles, waiting 1-10 days for the first appearance of hemorrhagic colitis, which is characterized by the sudden onset of abdominal pain and severe cramps, followed within 24 hours by diarrhea, soon becoming watery and grossly bloody, along with vomiting and fever, bowel necrosis and perforation, progressing to hemolytic uremic syndrome, which then causes acute kidney failure in infants and young children, where the infection continues to move into the cells’ cytoplasm and then shut down the cells’ protein machinery, resulting in cellular injury or death, and subsequent damage to vital organs such as the kidney, pancreas, and brain. Nope. Not me. Doesn't mean I'm sitting here for 1-10 days on pins and needles at all.

Also, not that I noticed or anything, but...

On a hot tin table.

---

The second moment of panic came when the cake was served. She had handmade a gorgeous cake, but it came in segments that had to be placed together. The cake was totally stuck to the plate it was on, so it required massive amounts of manhandling with bare fingers to be smooshed together with the other parts. At one point my friend, recognizing what was going on in my sweaty brain, said, "I know Jo is having a heart attack right now." No, not a heart attack, friend. Mere palpitations. I answered, "Maya will have a center piece, please." And gave her my best, watery "I'ne jos keeding!" smile.

Observe, actual finger impressions:

I could have refused to let Maya have a piece, but come on. Look at this face. She is actually salivating, tongue out:

Friend, I love you, and you are beautiful, and your party was beautiful. But you gotta know how bad my shits were freaked. I know that none of this is news to you. ;) Because you love me despite my OCD, and I love you despite your lack of it. ;)

---

Anyway. The third offender of the day was...THE HOT TIN SLIDE!!

Today, it did not have fossilized human poop on it.

But it sure as hell did have baked-on, caked-on BIRD SHIT.

Dun...DUN...DUNNNNN

Sigh.

Just another day at the park, OCD-style.

Let's Take a Quick Break From Poop...

...and just have a little fun.

This picture was taken at THEE one and only Poop Slide Park yesterday.

First of all, a piece of plywood temporarily acting as a safety wall on the kids' "Bigfoot Slide." What could go wrong?

Second, notice the "TOP" arrow pointing left.

lol.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled bum-bums.

Poop on a Hot Tin Slide Park, Revisited. Also, Some Other Bullcrap.

So today my mom called up and said that she had a break from work from 11 am - 2:30 pm, and would I like to meet her at the park.

The park. THEE park. The one, the only, Poop on a Hot Tin Slide Park.

I said OK, because I am batshit crazy a masochist a fun-lovin' gal, and parks, ain't they just the funnest.

So first of all, just getting out of the house was bananas. Feed the baby burp the baby wipe up puke feed the kid put kid into play clothes change the baby's diaper put the baby in suitable clothes help my older daughter wipe her bum-bum and dump the poo-poo and MF sterilize the potty chair change baby's clothes again because she puked again and give older kid a snack get my own clothes on pack snack and juicebox and baby's bottle and sunscreen and hand sani but baby's hungry again so feed her, and on and on. Oh, and at one point, during one of the multiple diaper changes, Naomi decided to have a massive blowout...out both ends. Diarrhea shot out her bum-bum just as huge quantities of milk gushed out her mouth AND NOSE. And she was choking, but how was I supposed to turn her on her side with poop everywhere? Oh my God why.

THEN, when we were finally set, I couldn't find the Got. Damn. Baby Bjorn. Which I need, when we are at the park. I'm not going to lug around my huge heavy hulk baby all day, nor am I going to tote her about in her 289347-pound Graco seat. So I needed the Got. Damn. Baby Bjorn. And I knew my husband had something to do with the fact that I couldn't find it.

---

Let us pause for this interlude. My husband, he is a purger. And I don't mean he's got an eating disorder. He can't stand things lying about the house, so he "gets rid" of things, and by things I mean clutter, and by clutter I mean objects that I STILL OMFG USE!! JC FUUUUCCKKK!!!*

*Sorry, I'm still a little upset [raging] over the time five or six years ago that he "donated" a bag of clothing to charity, without even looking inside. Had he looked inside, he would have seen that it contained all my most lovely, and very expensive, clothes. Beautiful dresses, including the one I wore to my brother's wedding. All kinds of other dresses, fancy skirts, gorgeous sweaters, etc. All my best things, hundreds and hundreds of dollars' worth of fancies. They were in the bag because we had only recently married, and thus I had only recently moved in, and I hadn't had the need to wear anything fancy since then, so hey, "my bad," they were still left in a bag in the garage. But come on. You don't expect your husband to look at a Mystery Hefty Sack and think, "I think I'll put that there bag of unknown origins containing unknown contents on the curbside during donation pickups, without even looking inside, because why the shit not?" /rage

---

So OK. This morning after all the nonsense of trying to get both kids ready to go at the same time, then at the last minute not being able to find the Bjorn, I tore apart the house, trying to find where my saintly husband might have stored it, thinking it was just clutter lying about. I called his cell phone no fewer than 344 times, and of course it went to voicemail every time (like it always does when I need him, but I'm not bitter), and I left messages saying "WHERE. ARE. YOU. I. NEED. YOU."

I was breaking a sweat and I hadn't even gone out into the hot sunshine yet. Running so late, I had to sprint to my neighbor's house and say, "Can I borrow your Baby Bjorn?" Bless her heart, she let me use it. But holy crap MY heart[palpitations], because her Bjorn carrier was covered in a largely bit of baby pukage. OK. OK. I'll be OK. I can deal with this. She's doing me a favor. I love her. We'll just hang blankets over the Bjorn. OK. Let's get this show on the road.

Finally we arrived at Poop Slide Park and found my mom. Well, see, actually, I don't even know how I managed to find her, because there were approximately exactly 654,992,001 kids there. At noon-thirty on a weekday. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, it was "Take Your Entire Fucking Daycare/Summer Camp/Cub Scouts/Village/Bridge Club/Junior AA Meeting/Soccer Camp/Crocheting Camp/Fat Camp/Preschool Reunion To Poop-Park Day," and the place was positively swarming. It's a huuuuuge park, but it was full to the brim, and mostly of exceptionally rowdy, filthy boys age 8-11. The worst kind. I nearly perished.

So not only was it difficult for me to get out of the house, and obviously difficult for me to even agree to take the kids to Germville Happy Shiny Playland in the first place, but I'd had no idea what I was getting into and was just shocked and horrified and the sheer numbers of kids, surely carrying everything from malaria to mad cow disease to the black lung. And with so many kids covering every inch of the play toys at every second, there was no time for God's Disinfectant (sunshine) to do its job.

And the kids were all being so rough. They were practically knocking down my wee girl, and they were shoving ahead of her just as she'd get ready to slide (down a hopefully non-pooped-on slide), and they'd ram past me and knock into little Naomi, and they'd climb up the slides just as Maya was going down. I have no problem being THAT MOM who says, "Hey, take it easy, pal!" or "Slow down, dude, there's little ones here," or, "EVERYONE OUT OF THE SLIDE NOW, SOMEONE'S COMING DOWN." I am usually an extremely reserved person, and don't talk to people I don't know, and don't parent other people's kids, but when some 11-year-old monster is knocking down my kid, I will be that mom, because I am sick of kids that act like bullies at parks. So, just more stress on an already ridiculous day.

Also, I was a little pissed at my mom, who had been at the park long before I got there, and she didn't call to warn me and say, "Um, you might want to take a raincheck. This park is standing room only today, and veins will pop out on the side of your head and you will hyperventilate when you see this place."

Oh, and the borrowed Bjorn was still freaking me out, just a little, in the back of my brain.

But we played. My daughter had a great time, climbing and swinging and balance-beaming and sliding, though not sliding over any fossilized phantom dukes this time, praise Jesus hisownelf. But of course Maya kept touching her face and pushing wisps of hair out of her eyes and sticking her pinkie in her mouth (I swear as if to mock me), yea though I screamed as quietly as I could, "HANDS OUT!"

Then my mom brought up the idea of snack time. I'd brought some just in case, in the car, but my mom had them there at the ready, and they were the juicy sticky kind, like apple slices. (My snacks were dry and in wrappers you could hold as you ate them.) So I cleaned off Maya's hands (and, um, arms and elbows) with Kids' Sani-Hands the best I could--twice--then let her have some apples and carrots and such. My tension was so high it was ridiculous. Normally I'd never let her eat after playing at the park until we'd come home, washed, and then used hand sanitizer (unless it was Emergency Hunger, in which case I'd use 8 mile of hand-sani GEL and then give her a NutriGrain to hold by the wrapper).

So I'm sitting there, sweating from stress and from holding a hot Naomi in a borrowed barfy Bjorn, praying to the Patron Saint of Poop-Parks to just get me out of there. At last my mom had to return to work, and I had to get to work too, sterilizing the kids.

All told, and I'm sorry Mom, but I had an absolutely positively terrifically bad time.  Fuckin OCD. So unfair.

We got home, we stripped nekked, we washed, we hand sanied. Fed the kids, put them down for naps, and then got on my elliptical to manically burn off some of the intense, agonizing anxiety I had felt for the last couple of hours.

So that was the "Poop on a Hot Tin Slide Park, Revisited" part. 

What follows is the "Other Bullcrap" section.

Instead of trying to kill my fear with exercise, I would have just taken some of my prescription Xanax, but guess what? They don't work for me. Nothing does. Medications do not work in my body like they work in yours. Vicodin? Pssh. Percocet? I laugh in its face. Codeine? Nothing I've ever taken has ever touched my pain. Valium?

...Klonopin?? Let me tell you a tale about Klonopin.

Back when I was seeing the shrink, he thought Klonopin was just the thing I needed. I said, "Well shit, that's kind of rad!" I had told him of how prescription narcotics have no effect on me (NONE WHATEVER), and he said, "All right, now, I usually start my patients off with one-quarter of one pill. But with your history, I'm going to let you start with one full pill, and we'll go from there."

Throughout my time seeing him, I rapidly had increased my dose to six. Bish I said six. Six motherfucking Klonopin. Six, all at once. Do you understand the words that are coming outta my mouf?

And do you think they had any effect on me?

Because we were increasing my dose so immensely (he had only ever had one patient take this much Klonopin, in all his years of being a Mr. Dr. PhD Shrinkydink), Mr. Dr. had me go in for a blood test, just to make sure we weren't about to kill me. When the results came back, he said, with a bit of confusion and hesitation in his voice, "For patients taking Klonopin, the range of the amount of medicine in their bodies should be between 20 and 90. I like to see them at the upper end. Your results...well...they came back at 21."

AND THAT WAS AFTER TAKING SIX OF THEM. Six. Not one-quarter of one tablet.

I felt kind of vindicated. All my life I've been saying, "Pharmaceutical shit don't work for me, son." Not ibuprofen, not harder stuff. Percocet not only doesn't touch the pain, but it doesn't give me "a good time," either. Just zero effect. Alcohol doesn't affect me. (Well, I'm either unaffected, or puking, nothing in between. No fun stuff.) Caffeine doesn't affect me. Sleep aids don't affect me, whether OTC or prescription (and that sucks, because I've had terrible insomnia for 10 years).

I've always said that painkillers don't work and that surely there's got to be something more, and I've always felt like people think I'm just drug-seeking and that I want to get my hands on some oxycontin or something, but I'm so serious about meds not working that when I go see the doctor for something painful and they offer me percocet, I say no thank you. I say don't even bother. I don't want them. They don't work. So doctors can take their vicodin and just place it up their bum-bum for all I care.

Years ago, after having my tonsils out and my broken nose surgically repaired simultaneously, and the pain was so immense, my mom finally got my doctor to try something else. It was an intramuscular injection.* I was to take it alongside two percocets, AND two prescription strength Motrin.

*I can't remember the name of it, but it's the kind that is supposedly so strong and gives you a "spectacular sense of euphoria" (according to the doc) that addicts all across the land go to the ER and feign headaches or something, just to get this shit. And here my doctor prescribed it, ALONG with percs and huge amounts of Motrin. And do you think it did anything to touch the pain? Do you think it even gave me this highly-desired and highly-sought-after sense of eufrickinphoria?

So anyway, back to my Klonopin tale. After this very vindicating blood test, my doctor said, "Your levels of Klonopin are nowhere near I'd like them, and nowhere near where they should be. Your body obviously just metabolizes meds at an incredible rate."  No shit doc, I knew that ten years ago, now here's $300 for your time.

As for Xanax...I almost fear even admitting this. (Will the Feds lock me away?) But I have tried taking seven of them at once. SEVEN! And do you think I felt anything? Calmer, happier, more content, less anxiety, even just plain old sleepiness?

If I were the criminal type, I should just be selling this shit. Instead of swallowing millions of percs, vics, klons, and xans, in the hopes that they will somehow MAGICALLY work this time, I should just be selling this nonsense and making thousands of dollars off it. But of course I am not the criminal type. lol.

But on that note, and I'm just curious...see, I'm not exactly street-drug-savvy, but what the hell do hardened drug criminals take? Like, how much do they buy on the street? What is a typical "fix" for someone who wants some Xanax? Because surely they're not out there popping seven. Are they??

I have a couple friends who, every now and again, post on Facebook, "Ugh, worst day EVER. So stressed. I just had to take half a Xanax." And my only reply to that:

It's just unreal. I have severe anxiety, and the best anxiety meds out there don't do anything for me. What am I to do?

Oh, and my antidepressant? I literally don't absorb it. I won't tell you how I know, but I think you can figure it out. Oh don't give me that look, come on. This is a blog about poop.

So no small fucking wonder I'm not "better" yet. Meds slide through me like a greased hog through Farmer Jedediah's eager hands, and my Super Liver processes things out so quickly that there's not a chance anything could work.



---



Sooooooooooo...I'm not entirely sure what the point of this post was. I just kinda sat here and vented about my day, my purge-happy husband, and the crappy way my body doesn't respond to meds. Today sucked, and while there was no Raw Chicken a la King, I was paralyzed by fear at times.

All because I was at a park. :(

...Well, but I mean, it was the Poop on a Hot Tin Slide Park.

'Least my kid had a good time.

Now That We've Got That Cleared Up, Let's Continue the Introduction.

I thought I should probably explain the title of my blog. Poop on a Hot Tin Slide. It's all very cryptic. See, this one time, I took my oldest daughter Maya to the park, and there was this big curving metal tube slide, see, and it was a hot day, see, and Maya wanted to slide. See? And there's poop involved. So like I says, cryptic.

So up to the tip-top of the slide she climbed, and I waited at the bottom and peered anxiously up the slide tube to catch my darling dear as she slid down on her bum-bum. Instead, halfway up the slide, I was faced with what could only have been a baked-on, caked-on, solid as the rock of ages, poop. On the hot tin slide. My world went slow-motion as my mouth opened and I began to yell to Maya, "Noooooooo! Dooon't gooo dowwwwn the sliiiiiiide, Maaayaaaaa!" But it was too late. She had slid. Right over the poop on the hot tin slide. I flew into such a panic that I thought I would perish. I imagined my child exiting the slide with some other child's diaper-dump all over her adorable, pristine clothes. I didn't even know what I would do if that were the case. My mind went wild with the horrific possibilities. Thoughts of dumping the pants, and the child herself, in the trash bin crossed my mind.

I gingerly but thoroughly examined her pants for evidence of excrement. I found none. I checked again. I saw no crap. One last check yielded no evidence that Maya had picked up any traces of shittery. I could only assume that (1) the poop had been on that baking-hot slide so long that it was now fossilized; (2) the child who had donated the poop had also at the same meal consumed latex, cement, silicone, papier mache, Gorilla Glue, Magic-Shell chocolate ice cream topping, and God knows what else, giving the poop an instant, rock-hard sheen and a stick-to-it-ive-ness the likes of which have never been seen (I'm almost positive that Post-It Notes were created in a similar lucky accident); (3) the heat and friction of so many tiny bum-bums sliding over that same pile of poop had seared it, nay, ground it, into the slide itself; or (4) the poop had been shellacked for posterity.

So I don't know what evil, hateful mother knowingly sent her child down the slide with a pantload, or what child would be so Damien as to stop mid-slide and take a giant duke, but either way, Maya's trousers somehow escaped duke-free.

However. That didn't stop me from stripping her naked from the waist down when we got to the car, before I'd dare put her in her carseat.

Just in case.