The Week of The Red Bumps Part 1

The Week of The Red Bumps Part 2

At first I thought it was just irritated skin from my overzealous eyebrow tweezing the day before. Then I imagined the pest ridden garden apartment was to blame; who knows what crawls over my sleeping face? Now, I'm not sure, but I think I may have some sort of facial rash of the sort that will require me to visit a dermatologist.

For those who know me fairly well, you will remember that having no health insurance means I tend to avoid any and all doctors even at great risk to my own health. I'll never forget the pseudo pneumonia I barely survived in 2003. Neither will Eric; I complained excessively. Somehow, vanity holds a higher calling card and I am desperate to visit a dermie. I'm even walking a dog for a week--a task I pretty much loathe, from having done it regularly for a year--all in an effort to make some extra cash to pay a doctor. Ugh.

Just like all of my affairs, I have asked lots of people about this horrible set of red bumps on my right eyelid and everyone seems to have their own secret treatment that I worry about implementing and possibly making things worse.

It's strange to feel that my skin has some horrible flaw. I imagine eyes being drawn to those bumps, I feel like a monster. I haven't been wearing makeup because I'm not sure if that was the source (and I imagine covering the rash up with a bunch of makeup can't be good for it.), but without makeup, I feel naked and awkward.

I wonder if all of this is punishment for the way I encountered the woman at Whole Foods who I asked about neem oil. I walked up to her and as I was asking my question, "Excuse me," she turned around, and her face was terrifically scarred from a fire, "Do you happen" a terrible fire, "to know" focus on her eyes, for fuck's sake, "where I can find neem oil?"

And then instantly wondering what a main character with horrible scars from burns would be like, how she would cope with life, a lifetime of people avoiding seeing what is so obvious, that haunting feeling that people are always staring at you a little too long, wondering what happened and how you had the misfortune to be there and survive.

Then again, I know my body has been holding small rebellions, slowly disintegrating into bone on bone devastation, to dust. I know my body hates me and this is just more proof that I cannot manage to exert the discipline I don't have to keep it in good working order. And now my face is just part of the mutiny.

Six weeks later...

The garden has a prettier side, and it's this one. The broccoli are doing well, the brussels sprouts are gigantic and the snap peas are climbing up the fence. Things at the other end of the garden are a little sad, the peppers are floundering from the lack of sun and warmth, the green beans are stunted and the watermelon is taking its sweet time to grow. I highly recommend that everyone try a little gardening, even indoors if you can't do outside, it's really gratifying to watch something you planted growing.

the show stealer

This broccoli is on the end and gets unobstructed light, so it's doing really well. Next year we'll have to get a bigger plot, since we didn't follow the recommended space between each of the broccoli and brussels sprouts, they are quite crowded.

my broken heart

Packing for a move reveals the things that fall into the cracks and crevices; today it was photographs of the children I used to babysit for. I wept with much bitterness and realized that even though three months have passed, my heart is still broken up over the loss of them from my lives.

Now that the anger I had is gone, I imagine that there might a solution to this ache, that I might be able to see my boo boo and squish once more. There is no reconciling that I can have with her, the mother, so that will be impossible. She cracked through my veneer maliciously and left me ruined. I cannot ever see her or speak nicely to her again.

The photographs from each year of the older child's life and random ones I happened to take were the most difficult to look at. Her year old picture that was sent out to family and friends is one I took of her in the garden pressing a finger to her nose (in response to the question, Where's your nose?), which was deemed by her, the mother, a cute way to show that she'd turned one. As for the squish, there is an ever present ache, for the adoration we shared was quite intense. I do not need photos to show how absolutely adorable she was, how responsive and curious she was, how she clung to me and was relieved to see me most days.

The entire matter of our breech is still a mystery to me, how my behavior was so misinterpreted, how every thing I did was seen as a move against them, despite the fact that I gave up my life for three weeks to be there. Futhermore, the absence of her husband from all of this means that this was entirely her decision that he supported her in and that might be the biggest hurt of it all.

literary milestone

So I bought Absalom, Absalom! less than a couple weeks ago and I finished it today. I read it while travelling on the bus to and from work. It's the third or fourth Faulkner book I've read in the past year. I was amazed by how different it was structurally, but it still had the same tone and themes I've come to know from old Bill. Basically it's one person telling another a story, but at a glance it can be extremely long sentences and paragraphs that sometimes leave two facing pages with no anchors for the eyes, no pause or rest from a paragraph break. Essentially, it was like drowning in words.

Every so often, I would have to stop reading. I'd still have lots of time left in my bus ride, but I just couldn't do it anymore. Midway, right before I was just about ready to toss the book aside completely, Faulkner connected the dots between the characters that had me flipping through the next chapters earnestly. It was probably the hardest book I've read in a while. But it was worth every frustration.

I realize that reading a book makes me no better than anyone else. It's not like I read Moby Dick, which I hear is beastly to slog through. I think one of the things about reading that I love is that I so often finish the books I start, which I rarely do in other arenas. I have loads of unfinished projects and floundering attempts at things. I even have a few books I've abandoned in my library. So I do feel a small sense of accomplishment when I actually finish a book, especially a Faulkner.

further entanglements

So it is finally official. After receiving my lease under my door (how fancy and professional of them) I have been forced to finally make a decision regarding moving in with Eric. My general decision making process usually involves me putting it off until the last minute or carefully avoiding the subject as long as possible.

Imagine my surprise when I drunkenly stumbled into my apartment after traversing the city with a large red duffel I'd packed to remove all evidence that I'd ever been to Eric's place and finding two paper clipped copies of my lease and the demand that I make a decision on the heels of the one I'd just made. I was just angry enough and just stunned enough to sign them both and throw them under the office door (at two a.m.) but something in me could not close the door on him (again), so I put them on my dresser and went to bed.

In the light of day things looked different, of course. After ten hours of sleeping it off, things seemed different. But still I wondered: Can I spend the rest of my life trying to convince this guy that I'm not a fucking asshole, and can I stop acting like a fucking asshole (on the rare occasions when his idiocy rears its ugly head), and can I just accept that we bring out the fucking assholes in each other, but we also do bring out good things too?

The truth is, we make each other crazy, but we're crazy about each other.

So I will move in with him and we will add another layer of commitment to quell the deep sense of pride we have in needing no one, but desperately wanting someone, and perhaps this will do something, this will break something inside me that attempts to ruin every good thing I have in my life.

Sometimes I wonder what our relationship would've been had I moved in with him when he'd first wanted to, when we were fresh and new and my many opionated older friends warned that moving in with him would be a complete diaster. I'm sure I would have found a way to destroy that scenario anyway.

For now, it sort of feels like I'm on a high cliff and climbing and if I look down it's scary, but if I keep thinking about the up, the journey, the adventure then it's exciting, but not in a happy way, if that makes sense. And if I can just keep my mouth shut about the bad parts, maybe I'll get somewhere.