Cowboy .. take me away

Alright guys.. I am in a moment of weakness here.. and I am writing through a veil of tears.. I MISS THE SOUTH!!!!!!!! I miss the country and the way things were.. I miss the Brad Davis era of the Vineyard and all the amazing kids I sweat with and worked my ass off with just to get to that afternoon off at the mall on Saturday so I could spend my $35 paycheck on splitting a Steak Escape sandwich with Amin and getting a second hole in my ear with Margaret... by chance I am listening to a mix cd that Stacey Mervin made for Stephen and damn.. it hit me hard. New York may be great for some people but damn it people I am NOT a New Yorker!!! I miss grass!!! and NO a cemetery at the end of the block is NOT cuttin' right now ya'll! I miss the silence of a night in the mountains and the simple pleasures of just sittin' on the porch at Barb and Keith's. I miss my front yard.. I miss YARDS!!!!! and NO.. New Jersey yards do NOT count!! New Jersey is New Jersey .. its not North Carolina and that's what is home to me... I don't know where we will land when we finally reach our destination but I know one thing.. it ain't here. I wanna be where people just sit... and stare out at the world.. with their families and their grills and their Krispy Kreme donuts .. I am homesick in a big way right now.. so all of you who have ever felt this .. say a prayer for strength for the feisty brunette in Brooklyn who tries so hard to be the New York girl but who right now.. just wishes she was home.

let's pretend we don't exist

"..Let's pretend we're in Antarctica.." I am currently obsessed with Of Montreal more specifically with the song "wraith pinned to the mist and other games" off of the very entertaining "The Sunladic Twins". I know there is some way to put songs up on this thing but sometimes I find it annoying when you go to visit someones blog and some random song comes blaring out at you - startling. So if you are an iTunes junky or even just a recreational user check it out and see for yourself. One of Stephen's really good friends from Ringling made a video go with this particular tune and it is.. just .. addictive. I would post it but for copyright violation etc.. don't wanna push that envelope so you will have to take my word for it.

So let's see.. it's Saturday morning.. Stephen is off in midtown (ICK!) putting up Nathan's show for next week (YAY!) .. we had waffles this morning and Oli and I just finished watching Lady and the Tramp and we are now hoping that our oh-so-hip neighbor downstairs is either awake... or did not come home last night (most likely the latter) so he will not be disturbed by our blasting our current fav repeat. If we are waking him up.. sorry Sean!! Please bang on the radiator in future if we are disturbing - thanks!

I am pain free this morning which, frankly, makes me a little giddy!! I have not had a bad migraine in almost 3 weeks.. um.. that calls for some major celebratory behavior! AND waffles for breakfast. Now that I have spoken this antimigraine declaration.. well I hope I have not jinxed myself but.. since I don't really believe in that jazz I should be ok.. moving on..

I have had a pretty rough couple of weeks.. well.. like 2 months or so.. post holidays.. pre-holidays.. during holidays.. those of you out there who share my affliction know that chronic pain can do strange things to your mind. When you are down with a migraine (or other chronically painful affliction) the pain is enough to occupy your mind.. and make you wish you were dead.. or similar.. then there is the regret.. what did you do to make this happen? Stay up too late.. ? Red wine? Not enough water today? Stress? Did you get pissed at someone and hold it all in? Dang!!! Can't a body just live in freedom like everyone else !?!? Well.. no. So you get to end of your rope and you call the Neuro.. who has no appointments.. huh?!?! Tell me again why I have a specialist?? Ok.. he can SQUEEZE me in tomorrow.. even though the 3 day migraine I have is happening .. TODAY.. may not be tomorrow.. what the hey! I will take whatever I can get. So I go in and the good doctor gives me a syringe full of magnesium right in the vein. Mainlining Mg is not for the faint of heart. It makes you very HOT - as in just entered a sauna fully dressed and they turned up the heat. What it does is open all your veins and vessels really wide to let more blood through and WAMMO! Your pain just melts away.. yeah I said it.. its gone. Pretty amazing. So after 6 weeks of back to back migraines and feeling so depressed it was all I could do to get out of bed and get dressed for work.. I have had a good solid 2 weeks of clear thinking and productivity. Its been pretty fabu. I also decided it was time to break my TV addiction and have recently become slightly enamored with NewsWeek.

I think part of the cause of my TV addiction was the depression brought on by the pain.. but another contributing factor was and is .. Midtown. The dreaded Midtown. I can honestly say I hate that place. I would rather be in ANY OTHER PART OF THE CITY. But alas, my paycheck grows there so go there I must. The overstimulation of that materialistic HQ numbs my brain rendering it incapable of thought. So when one has an unfeeling, unthinking mind what better way to pass the time than to sit in front of the inane chatty commercialism that is network television. As some of you know - we do not have cable. That's right, we have a prehistoric existence here. So we can't TiVo out the commercials or watch good channels like Discovery, History, Bravo, TLC or IFC. We are subject to whatever those 4 giants decide we should watch and ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS have some really bad taste. OK ok so I do watch a lot of NBC (being a fellow resident of 30 Rock it seems inevitable) and they are better than most but none-the-less I was unable to find a reason to control my constant TV consumption. I tried putting myself on a TV diet. The news and 1 hour.. yeah that did not work since as soon as my tail hits the couch and Oli jumps in my lap it seems I am attached as though I sat in Epoxy. ENOUGH! I ODed on this behavior last week and now the mere thought of it makes me sick. This week it stayed off (I watched a couple of pre-bed Netflix with Stephen but that does NOT count) and low and behold.. we had conversations and the house stayed clean and we ate freshly cooked meals all week! What a concept! I am not sure why the effects of that Midtown environment affect me so much. Perhaps it is owing to my quiet Southern roots. Or to my introverted personality. It has taken a lot of purposeful self examination and growth to get the point where being crammed into a subway car with 120 other people and joining the throngs of iZombies on their various ways into work can be endured with a happily blanked out expression instead of an anxiety attack. For that I thank God and Apple for the iPod. I know that its not a very individual expression that I have the same white earbuds decorating my lobes as the other subway sardines but.. frankly I don't care. I tried going sans iPod and just reading.. but on those extra crowded days I found myself almost unable to breathe with a racing pulse at being touched by someone else's arm/leg/tail/coat/bag/Times.. I much prefer the hypnotic effect of my own personal tunes and do not mind being completely and unequivocally antisocial for those 30 minutes.

The point of all this jawing was just to say that it's nice to be awake on a Saturday with not pain and no depression, and as I am prone to both that is reason to celebrate. Both drain me of life and as I am currently full of it I am going go out and walk around in it and hope that my fellow lurkers do the same. Happy Saturday all you lovelies - Check out Of Montreal if you are not already a fan - I promise you will not be disappointed!! MUAH!!!!