I’d feel safer inside the chambers of an MRI. I may not know what’s wrong, but the machine would know. I wonder up to what depths can it find a disease. Is it in the muscle? Is in the heart? Is it in the mind? I would be able to climb out everyday and go about my business with the usual pains and aches with much more confidence if I knew I be zoomed into it every night . I wish I had answers. I wish I could afford any and all tests necessary. Actually, I wish I wasn’t sick.

If you know me, it’s common knowledge that I don’t buy nice things. I’m very practical unfortunately, you can tell in the shades of my wardrobe and the plainness of my accessories that I tend to be average on a daily basis. I ruin things easily and soon after they’re bought. I’ve irreparably damaged hundred dollar dresses and broken gem bracelets within minutes of their new scent wafting out from a designer bag. But every blue moon, during my incontrollable impulsive sprees where I’m somehow hyper focused, I buy an avant-garde piece that shows the root of my truer colors.

Wrinkle cream changed my life. Sure, the lines aren't erased; simply the appearance thereof is 'diminished'. The aging process is not in the least reversed or even stretched in time like the ever extending dimple around the smiling lip. Marketing managed to word their advertisement indulgently, as to make us feel better about getting older. But... I must admit just a little bit of moisture and hydration was lacking and I love that taut pulling sensation across my face. In regards to the slow decay of youth, I can't say anything that wouldn't deepen the creases of a terrified expression.

First time in a decade-plus, that I rode on a carousel. We climbed up to the second level. She rode the giant panda and I mounted the mangle tailed horse . The groaning mechanisms whirred into a counter-clockwise rotation as we looked down on all the miserable shopping drones of this dingy middle class city. My joints will continue to stiffen and it'll be harder for me to recognize a good day from a hard one, but I'm glad I narc-ed up and went for a spin. If not for the thrill, for a reminiscing of carefree rides.

It's not as complicated as I was led to believe. It doesn't even have to be poetic and mysterious. It's as simple as he is in love with me, despite myself. I am in love with him, despite himself. He respects my opinions and individuality. I respect his history and shortcomings. He waits for me to stop crying, I wait for him to stop running circles. We come face to face, motionless and focused... I love him. Unconditionally. He loves me. There is all that magic and chemistry I've ever wanted, but I don't even care. I simply love him.

Flesh. Peach. Nude. Rose. These are my usual colors. After a lifetime of neutrals, it's time to break out the red. It's time for a Carnal Rouge. There will be blood. There will be bleeding, although not on my part. Somebody will be poisoned, red apple'd. The lone clue will be the crimson lip print painted on the invisible wine glass, almost intentionally, as if to advise all that there was a dangerous seduction that began where the lady sat, and ended in a place where no man has gone. Thank you Kon Von D and your love for hues.

People just want to be listened to. They might not really need your undying companionship, because they're so lost and lonely they're unable to conceive connecting on a relative scale. First, they need someone to remind them of their existence and what role they play in the world. The next step may be awareness that you've responded back with genuine attention. But what I've noticed lately is that the majority just keep wandering, talking to random people, expecting a specific response. It's okay, I've decided. I'll let them load off despite poor eye contact. I was them at some point.

Something's going on. On a cerebral level. Describing words fail me. I feel as if I've lost my ability to put things together, to think in depths. I'm forgetting things. Using intellect wears me out. It's not dementia. Maybe it's memory loss. But I still remember things...it's the connections. Everything seems very broken. I know its not love, because that would spark connections. Learning is different, it's arduos and unnatural, yet the craving for new neural pathways remains. The neurology appointment is in a few weeks. I believe its as simple as an inflammation of the 7th cranial nerve.

Attention to detail was never a strong point, but this is ridiculous. I wanted to say soymilk and instead blurted toymilk. Sometimes I realize I'm not talking when I thought I already voiced a thought. I skip letters and switch things or stand in the grocery store hoping the jalapeños can give me some insight into why I started dialing my phone. Thoughts aren't skipping, because the mind race has ceased. It's as if they're not computing to begin with. Few days I'm in the zone. I love listening to him stories when I'm all there. Heart and mind.

So I'm not very artistic lately. This may be old age, this may be disease. Or this may be the way I experience love. I live it... then tell it. It's the same way I don't have tons of pictures to post on facebook or albums to lay on coffee tables. Not yet. I am more busy kissing him, making stupid jokes and solving problems with him than taking pictures of us. It's not that I don't want documentation. It's just me. I'm on full tilt, madly distracted by him. Hopefully the detail will resurface so I tell the story.

My belly has softened. My calf muscles have smeared into soft bouncy things. Other areas succumb to gravity. It's hard adapting to change you didn't consent to. I never chose to stop running. A life without high-intensity fitness didn't even cross my mind. Regardless, this obstacle has been imposed. Whether I can return to a routine of non-stop activity, I don't know and might not get a straight answer. The victory here...is that I'm not freaking out like I thought I would. I still feel attractive and healthy, because I'm still putting in my best efforts.

How do you live with pain, even if it's tear-worthy? I certainly refuse to cry everyday. It somehow became a part of me where I can ignore it with acknowledgement. It becomes discomfort, not a stiffened joint that barely bends when you walk. When they ask if it hurts, I automatically think and feel that it doesn't...yet I finally admit to exhaustion. And at the end of the day they ask how I feel. Even though I'm happy, I leak out an achy suppressed sighing sob, followed by a broken smile. I'm handling it. That's all I know.

Soon I'll have to make that gut-wrenching step in life...birth control. I've been in dire need of it for years now, but I have plenty of mood issues already. Now I have no choice unless I want to reproduce another generation of unstable little mini-me's that forget to take their birth control. I'd rather he go snip-snip, but even though he's not going to risk a generation of mini-he's that light things on fire, he'd rather keep his junk intact. Something about manhood, shooting blanks, huevos. He'd consider it if the pill makes me psycho.

My never-ending book needs a new twist in the story-line. It usually writes itself unless I get into that mode of expectation. Then the pages are mostly blank with gibberish and meaningless random scribbles strewn about the untouched leafs. You fold to the next and the next and kind of stop reading, start skimming, then get accustomed to pictures only. That's when I sink my head underwater, reverse brainwave cycle and go back to writing without expectations, but with plenty of wonder. Great things are happening, but I gotta keep making them happen. Maybe I'll get married. Ha.

Why complain about being on amphetamines forever? They do keep my curves in line. They do help me hyperfocus. But once they're out of my system they're out and multi-tasking is a pipe dream. It's impossible to daydream and walk at the same time. I can't hear music and smell baked bread at the same time without feeling like I'm having a sensory overload. I just want to sleep it away until the next dose. If our health system was the slightest bit decent maybe I would afford a time-released med that wouldn't spike my time and efforts.

We brought wraps, gauze, bandages and stabilizers...all to mummify as many joints as possible. I'm going to tighten my wrists, support my elbows and I'm hittin the ground for sets of push-ups. Every day. (Every other day so the muscle can restore, but by every day I emphasize the determination of regularity). I hope nothing will smack, crackle or pop more than it is and the mound of plush that forms under my arms reduces to that slim look I had worked so hard for. If it still fails, and I flail, I'll simply try again another day.

I'd like to learn something new, but I don't know where to start. I don't mean take on college courses or transform my interests. I'd like to be exposed enough so that something mind-blowing falls in my path. From the heavens. Or something devilish rises from the earth right in front of my face. I'd like to effortlessly be amazed. The snag in that is that it makes me boring for not going out myself and hunting for what I like. I do know what I want and need, I just haven't figured out how to resourcefully achieve it.

Minesweeper has taught me a lot about myself. Foremost and obvious: I'm obsessive until it seeps from my system. I'm hasty and a little judgmental although I checking myself to make sure I calculate precisely. I can't help getting ahead of myself, therefore falling into an algorithmic pattern, growing confident since no bombs go off. Picking up speed here and there until calculations are forsaken, and then...kaboom! I rarely guess the location of a mine wrong if only I'd just stop trying to beat the clock/myself. I want to overachieve so much I set myself up to explode!

We're it only legal to march up to his saggy, crotchety face and mildly say, "I think you should die." Let him respond, rearrange a facial expression or two while he's processing the kind mannered young lady who smiles at everything converting into a nasty bitch. "I have no wish to kill you. It's merely a proposal that you cease living. Plug your breath and fight the urge to circulate oxygen. Don't bother with any last words. It'd be for the greater good of all mankind." If the shocking suggestion knocks the wind out of him, he just might oblige.

At our conventions, the predominant audiences are families, whole or broken. Nevertheless, they are units trying to survive by learning to create a functional atmosphere. The point is every seat in the house is bound find you behind a row of bobbing baby heads. Big, round absorbing brown and blue marbles wobbling in front of you while their mothers (or fathers) hold them backward to spit them. If you accidentaly stare long enough, whether you're resisting or not, they'll break you. They'll send you into a smile. At best, soften your jaw line and forehead tension. Damn. I'm going soft.

The speaker ranted on. We scanned massive crowds, lending an ear to the speech and entertaining the remainder of our available receptions by people watching. He ogled at newborns; I scoped out the floor seating with the elderly. They seem distant and sleepy-eyed, the only pristine leftovers on their faces while other features weather. But through intent observation, this far off look they have in common is their meditative scanning through years of endless connections to be made. They intake the same words of encouragement we do, but they're hanging tight to every last memory. They're still living strong.

This city is designed to distract from God's creation. I didn't even have to contemplate on that statement and my chest sunk. I couldn't swallow. When I first moved here, I was too busy running around, getting settled to really perceive that something was missing. Then I find myself breathing shallower in traffic, desperately searching for large parks, praying for a nearby lake, despising the sky littered with power lines and smog. I have to drive for at least 20 minutes just to get a good, portioned look at our moon, misplaced in a starless canvas. I need to escape.

It wouldn't kill me to recollect a bit on todays events. Just like it wouldn't cost a dime to crawl over to my handbag and grab the Mederma to rub on my shin. If I refuse to do such a simple task, that ugly scar tissue would be visible on my leg eternally, simply because I was in a rush to expire towards my dreams. Same way I might not retain the memory he created for me if I don't just take a few seconds in aiding the cortical consolidation process by rehearsing it a bit right before dozing off.

Practicing humility does not equate actually being humble, does it? When braggin rights abound, I have to contain violent excitement from blurting out my accomplishments and triumps. Although nothing wrong with moderately mentioning one's personal attributes, when I share them I feel I come off as an invisible monster megaphone from my lips to the world. I prefer it be dragged out of me without requiring direction to hint at my proud potential, carefully avoiding inflated misperceptions of grandiosity. It makes me a bigger person.

Nutshell: I act humble, but essentially want all to know I'm capable of great things.

Three months dating this almost perfect guy, in my less than perfect life and I still can't bring myself to spread the news. Now that it's starting to come out, it seems I inteded to be secretive about it. I've waited so long for this, earned it, am sanely maintaining the relationship AND myself , yet I if I show how excited I truly am about him they will think I'm thinking like a crushing schoolgirl and I'd find I made this out to be more storybook than reality. Rubbish! In love, you don't care what anyone thinks. Not even myself.

Things gone wrong lately that I've not forgiven myself for yet:

Losing my new KatVonD eye shadow palette at the public bathroom, with shades still untouched. Purchasing Transformer IMAX movie tickets to surprise Boyfriend, arriving at the dome at the completely wrong showing. Spilling a tub of blue-gray powdered pigment on the beige carpeting in the living room. Paying 6.95 for guilt-laden frozen custard that I barely ate. Losing the cash envelope from second hand sales raised for vacation food.

All these thing in themselves are not major losses. It's my flaws at their best.

Absolved!

There's so much more I would say, if only my sister didn't read this occasionally. Not that she's judgmental. She's already accepted I'm a bit of an altered breed in the family genes. But my deepest thoughts are boundless, as anyone else's are. I think anything goes as long as it's in your head and restricted to some moral code once said and done. But my twisted musings are even more gnarly in the life I've chosen to live. They seem prickly and dangerously unruly among the lifestyle I fasion...so I must find means for another outlet. No biggie.

I'm thinking of taking a red and black crayon and coloring a little snapshot of the devil on my shoulder on a post it. I'll stick and unstick it everywhere I go in plain sight. It's so easy to forget an evil force is up against me, attacking my weakest points. Maybe I should buy accordion stickies cause I forget Satan works with a legion of imps. I could always color a white angel with a gold harp and silver wings but I focus better on the defensive. However, the MVP could knock em all out with one heavenly strum.

It's really hard to think of anything else when it feels like someone's taking a hatchet to your ovaries and parasites are sucking out the chemicals from your cranial nerves. When you're eyes are stuck blowfishes and light beams are evil alien laser beams. Sounds are the screams of demons. And everyone else is capable of smiling, but it feels like my jaw is lifting weights every time I talk or bite. I'm all against woe is me, if only I could break through to a different level of perception right now I'd tell you that deep down I'm happy.

Today is scheduled to be uneventful, but boring days are flipped over by him. I can almost predict when he'll act sponteneously although there is no true pattern to it yet. I think he'll swing by tonight. Even if he doesn't, I'm ready to have a very still and quiet evening and see if I can remember what I used to feel like on lonely days when I was absolutely certain nothing wonderful would happen. Then again, I've always been waiting for a sudden twist of fate. A call from someone I ignored in high school or a hurricane evacuation.

Rooftop or treetop. I can't decide which one I want to yell it from.

I have migraines!
With stroke like symptoms!

Fret not. That is a joyous cry to echo through the winds of the earth.

I have validation for the last five years!

I have answers!

I'm not dying! I don't have nerve damage!

No ruptured aneurysms!

No MS!

I'm still a mother-fucking youngun with a non-degenerative brain to keep thinking shit up!!!

But first, let me turn down the volume.

Adjust the shades here a little bit.

Sleep for a few hours.

Shhhhh.

Sweet Aural Dreams.