Confession #52

I love giving gifts.

Maybe a little too much. This time of year, any time I have a little extra money, I'm always tempted to spend all of it on Christmas presents. I don't even need to have extra money! Even when I really need to save what little I have, I want to buy things for people. Half the time I have to stop myself from buying presents for people I have already shopped for. And the urge to buy things doesn't stop when Christmas rolls around. I usually stay in the shopping mindset through January. I'll be out and see something cool and think, "I should get that for <insert friend/family member here>, (s)he would love it!" Then I have to remind myself that Christmas was three weeks ago and I only have seven dollars to my name.

The only thing I like more than giving gifts is wrapping them. In fact, I have actually gone out and bought things just because I ran out of stuff to wrap. When I wrap gifts that my parents got for my siblings, it isn't because I want to be helpful; it's because I can't stand knowing there are naked presents in the house when I have wrapping paper, tape, ribbon, and bows. It's actually a little ridiculous how excited I get when faced with a bare box.

(In case you were wondering, yes, I have started Christmas shopping this year. I started two weeks ago.)

Confession #51

I really want to learn to speak Welsh. 

(Reading/writing implied.)

I can hear my grandmother now. "Why on Earth are you wasting your time with that?! You're never going to use it!" She didn't even approve of my taking French in high school, arguing that if I wanted to be useful in today's society, I would take Spanish.

Well too bad, Grandma. This is going on my bucket list.

Confession #50

I'm a neurotic test taker.

I double-check the answer on the test page before filling in a bubble on the answer sheet. And then I triple-check it. And then I check it again as I fill in the bubble. And sometimes once more when I'm done. And if I don't fill in the bubble just so, I have to erase it and start over again. Then I repeat the process with the next question. Needless to say, I'm never the first person to complete a test and hand it in.

Confession #49

Up until about a month ago, I frequently had dreams about high school.

Bad dreams. The kind of dream where I'm lost in a sea of people, late for a class I can't find, and depending on the night, either nobody notices me or I'm met with people I used to go to school with and they treat me like I have no right to be there.

I had those dreams for six years. Never mind the fact that I wasn't even enrolled in public school for three of those years. The feeling of being an outsider was just that deeply engrained that first year or so and it never really went away.

I still struggle with the feeling, but nowhere near the degree that I did a few years ago. I think having friends in close proximity again (and just having friends, period) helps. And the dreams, as far as I can tell, have stopped. Huzzah!

Confessions #47 and #48

I didn't post anything last week; that fact didn't occur to me until Monday. Saturday was slightly insane and my head got all jumbled.

Confession #47: Even though I love to write, I don't have a lot of faith in my writing.

I'm (beyond) highly critical of myself, so I don't know if my writing really is average-to-mediocre or if I'm just imagining things. One thing I do know, however, is that my writing has improved drastically over the years. Reading things I wrote when I was fourteen (things I was quite proud of at the time, mind you) makes me cringe. Cringe isn't even a strong enough word. It's that bad.

Confession #48: It has been eight and a half months since I started this blog, and I still don't feel like I'm anywhere close to reaching my goal.

The goal, of course, is rather relative. Be less shy. Be more open. Looking at it plainly, yes, I've succeeded, huzzah! I've stepped out of my comfort zone several times, I've shared things I wouldn't normally share, and I've spoken with people I normally wouldn't speak to. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but what I really wanted to accomplish this year was actually changing my comfort zone, not just stepping outside of it.

I really have made progress on a number of fronts. For instance, I've been putting a lot of effort into making eye contact with people. I've also been answering (some... meaning very few) questions in class, which I haven't done in... man, probably at least seven or eight years. Making small talk is easier, at least with people I see regularly, such as nurses who give me my allergy shots each week. Hooray!

But, part of me wonders if that's really enough, given that I've had forty-seven weeks to get to this point. Part of me wonders if I've still been chickening out of too many things. The kicker here is that nobody can even answer that. There is no right or wrong, so long as I keep going forward rather than backward. That's what I'm trying to tell myself. Just keep swimming. I have three and a half months left in the year.

Confession #46

I get really nervous about requesting friendships on Facebook.

Not much to add to that. I'm fully aware of how silly it is.

Confession #45

In the past two weeks, I have met more new people than I have in the past five years. Small talk comes a little more easily than it has in the past, but I still frequently find myself wanting to run away and hide. 

Because of this, I'm not the world's best conversationalist.

If someone were to ask about my major, for instance, right now I can tell you that the obvious and polite way to respond would be to tell them I am an English major and then inquire about their field of study (assuming I'm speaking to another student). However, when an actual person asks me this or any other question, I'm so busy forcing myself to speak (and make eye contact... I've been working on that one!) that it rarely ever occurs to me to use the manners I learned when I was little. It's only after conversation has dwindled and I am left to my own thoughts that I realize I should have shown interest in the other person as well. Those thoughts then haunt me for eternity...

Okay, not eternity, but a really long time. Three recent incidents are gnawing on my brain right now. (On the off chance that you, dear reader, are someone I have ever offended with my poor social skills: sorry 'bout that.)

After obsessively proof-reading this post about fifteen times, it has come to my attention that depending on how you interpret my confession, it might sound like I don't care what anyone has to say and that I would only reciprocate questions for the sake of sounding polite. That isn't the case at all! If you speak to me, I will genuinely devote all of my attention to you. (Even if I'm avoiding your gaze and nervously staring out the window, I'm still listening.) I'm just terrible at keeping the conversational ball rolling.

Now I feel all awkward about awkwardly confessing my awkwardness and having to give an awkward explanation. I should stop typing now.

Confession #44

I completely forgot today was Saturday. Yep. And my brain is fried. I can't think of anything good to confess, so I'm going to lay down some numbers instead. I see people on Facebook with hundreds of friends and think how pathetic I must look with my piddly little friend list. Just to see how social I really am (not), I broke my list down. 

Out of 55 Facebook friends:

• 49 are people I have actually met. (The others are people that added me, presumably when they saw we have friends in common.)
• 35 are people I have had an actual conversation with. That means more than just small talk.
• 4 are family.
• 4 are parents of friends.
• 13 are people I have seen in person in the last year.
• 6 are people I would consider to be genuine friends.

Six friends. That's all I have. But when people have nine hundred "friends", I have to wonder how their lists would break down.

Confession #33

Despite being older than most of my friends, I often feel like the youngest of the bunch.

It probably has something to do with the fact that I've spent the majority of the past six years under a rock.

(It's my birthday. That means my blog is now inaptly named. But I'm not changing it. Partly because I'm lazy and partly because I can't think of anything else that will roll off the tongue well.)

Confession #32

I'm terrible about buying anything and everything on a whim.

Giant bags of yarn. Scented wax that I can't even smell unless I'm right by the warmer. Decorative notebooks and folders. A robotic mouse. Impulse control is not my strong point. Not. At. All.

Confession #31

For an English nerd, I have read surprisingly little.

I'm trying to change that, slowly but surely. Tomorrow I plan on diving into a treasury of Sherlock Holmes.

Confession #30

I'm not good at hugs.

My first instinct is never reciprocate embrace but instead:

I don't know why. It isn't because Mommy and Daddy didn't love me enough or anything, because my parents hugged me plenty as a kid and my mom still does. My dad prefers sneaking up behind me and goosing me in the ribs while hollering something incoherent to startle me further. Actually, it may be his fault after all.

Confession #29

I will do almost anything to keep from running out of shampoo before conditioner or vice versa.

It's easy enough to use equal amounts of both, sure, but only when you aren't currently sharing the shampoo and conditioner with your twelve-year-old sister, who apparently has no concern for such things. And so, I have come to realize just how highly this annoyance ranks on my list of pet peeves. (The answer is very highly.)

Confession #28

I compulsively count things.

It started out with trains. Any time I see a train, I have to count the cars. Always. And if I lose track because it's moving too fast, or if someone says something and distracts me, I get really frustrated—more frustrated than I ought to considering it's just a train and it doesn't matter how many cars it has. I think I was about eleven when the counting turned from just-for-fun into a must-count-now sort of thing. For years that was the only thing I counted, but in the last several months, I've started unconsciously counting more and more things.

I don't count anything and everything; usually I count non-static things or things that are moving/appear to be moving from my vantage point. In other words, if you spill toothpicks on the floor, I'm not going to pull a Rain Man, but if you send me up a staircase, I will count the steps. Similarly, I often count floor tiles as I walk by. (This is especially true of patterned floor tiles, in which case I count the offset colors.) Sometimes I count the stripes painted on roads. (I once made it all the way past sixty before I realized what I was doing.) If you've seen the movie Stranger Than Fiction, you may recall that in the very beginning, when Harold's character is being introduced, there is a clip of Harold brushing his teeth with the narrator saying, "Harold counted brush strokes." Michelle counts brush strokes too. In fact, that was first thing I noticed myself counting months ago.

It usually doesn't bother me to stop counting once I realize I've started (train cars being the exception), but it worries me a little that the counting has gotten worse lately. I find myself counting more things, more often. Not too long ago, as I was lying in bed trying to sleep, I suddenly became aware that I was counting each breath I took. That's something that had never happened before. The same goes for counting heartbeats when I'm still enough to take notice of my pulse. I've also begun counting the ticks of any clock loud enough to hear, and even the beats in music when I'm not singing along. (Interestingly, the band nerd/dancer in me always takes over in those instances, making it 1-2-3-4, 2-2-3-4, 3-2-3-4 etc or 1-2-3, 2-2-3, 3-2-3 etc, etc depending on the time signature of the song.) I'm wondering if it has anything to do with stress. Though the past six years have been stressful, the last year has been particularly so. Plus, there is a history of OCD in my family, so there's that. Counting, from what I've read, is a fairly common symptom of OCD. However, I know that people with OCD tend to have a very difficult time fighting the symptoms, and like I said previously, it's usually pretty easy for me to stop counting. Although sometimes after I make myself stop, I just end up unconsciously restarting... Hmm...

At this point, it isn't a major problem and does not interfere with the quality of my life, so I'm trying to stress out about it. I think stressing might only serve to make it worse.

Confession #27

I find it amusing when people assume that, because I behave, speak, and dress conservatively, I must also be completely naive to the ways of the world.*

Puhleeze.

I remember one time when I was... oh, fourteen or so, I went into my brother's bedroom for something and got distracted by his TV. He was watching one of those "mature" cartoons which always fail to entertain me but which everyone else seems to find hilarious. Seeing my frown, my brother—being two years older and "wiser"—decided that the reason I wasn't laughing must be because I simply didn't understand the show. So he proceeded to narrate the entire show, explaining every single thing that happened. I guess I had nothing better to do, because I humored him and listened to his interpretation of each joke, right up until one of the characters started snickering about a dog named Boner. At that point, my brother said something along the lines of, "Yeahh... sometimes it doesn't really make sense why the characters are laughing, but they're dumb so you just have to go along with it." And he thought I was the one that needed explanations.

*I'm not claiming to know the ins and outs of everything of all time, but gimme some credit, will ya?

Confession #26

As much as I dislike talking to strangers face to face, I find talking to them on the phone to be much worse.

Especially when I'm the one making the call. Especially when I'm returning a missed call, and I realize that the person I'm trying to contact left neither a direct number nor a last name, and if the secretary comes up with more than one Linda, I'm done for. </rant>

Confession #25

It's been years since I've felt any sort of school spirit.

In fact, by the end of my time at public high school, I hated everything about the school and the district (aside from select teachers, of course). However, now that I'm enrolled and can officially say I'm a college student, I am happy to report that I love my school.

Confession #24

I am pissed off.

This is significant because I rarely get truly angry about anything. Right now, though, I'm upset enough that my typically mild-mannered tongue doesn't even mind saying that I'm pissed off.

I won't get into all the details since it's mostly little things that have snowballed to get me this upset, but the main thing is I've been feeling like a doormat. I've felt this way for a long time, to a certain extent, but it's been especially bad the past couple of days. This evening I tried to speak up for myself and take a stand on one thing, but no, I can't have a voice can I? So I got yelled at, and now rather than only being frustrated, I'm just plain pissed off.

Confession #23

I love my great-grandma, but I don't like going to visit her.

I used to love driving all morning to get to her house then staying all afternoon to visit, but it just isn't the same since she moved into a nursing home. It's all just very... depressing. The whole atmosphere of the place. My great-grandma, of course, is still sharp as a tack and probably wouldn't even be there if her body wasn't giving out in her old age, and that's sad to think about. At the same time, though, I want to go see her, and I know she enjoys seeing our family. So naturally I hate that I don't like going to visit, and it makes me feel like an awful human being.

Confessions #21 and #22

Yes, I failed to post last week. I blame it on the (little sister's) sleepover hangover I had. I was so exhausted that I was going cross-eyed while trying to stay awake during the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I couldn't sit the movie out though, because YAY SOCIAL INTERACTION! I did, however, pass on a more significant social gathering yesterday... but that's because eight hours with ten babies and toddlers is more powerful than any house full of twelve-year-old girls could ever hope to be. After I got home from work, I collapsed in my bed and did not crawl out until after dinner. Now my original train of thought seems to have been derailed...

My apologies for not upholding my promise! This week gets two confessions to make up for last week, and I'll do my very best not to skip a Saturday again.

Confession #21:

I am afraid of the things that go bump in the night. (Not to be confused with potential aliens, which I no longer fear.)

Well, "afraid" quite the right word. It isn't like I think something in the room is out to get me the second I close my eyes... but anytime I hear something after I've crawled into bed, I feel entirely uneasy and can't rest until I've looked around the entire room at least once to try and locate the source of the noise. I know it was probably just my air filter blowing sheet music off the stand of my nearby keyboard, or my fan rustling the bag in my garbage can, but despite scrunching my eyes shut and silently telling myself "It's NOTHING," over and over, I have to look. All around the room. Never mind that it's dark and I'm blind as a bat without my glasses. I think the only thing I've ever actually identified was a balloon, and that was years ago. (When I was little I discovered that the air conditioner will blow a helium-filled balloon around the room, with it bouncing against the ceiling. While completely innocent during the day, that repetitious thumping sounds quite ominous at night. After I figured that one out, balloons were always banished to the hall at night.)

Lately this paranoia—if that's even the right word, since I'm not actually scared of anything—has been getting worse, and I really can't explain it. Honestly, it's more of a compulsion that anything. I know whatever caused the noise is harmless, but I can't not look. Having typed that out, a thought just occurred to me. Any experts on OCD out there? Could that possibly be the cause? I've always suspected I have OCD, albeit mildly. My sister has been diagnosed and is being treated for it, so it's not that big of a stretch to think I would have it as well. I have a handful of other quirks that seem to fit the bill, but we won't get into that this week...

Ha, look at that. My blog is forcing me to rationally examine my flaws, and is resulting in revelations. Have I mentioned that there is never any planning involved in these posts?

Confession #22:

I don't count my blessings as often as I should.

That fact slapped me in the face this week and left a nasty handprint.

Confession #20

I hold grudges more frequently  and for longer periods of time than I would like to admit.

The biggest grudge that comes to mind is one that I've been holding for about four years now. It's particularly stupid because I haven't even seen the offending person in almost as long. I've tried, but I just can't let go of it.

In brighter news, I had the opportunity to hang out with someone new last night, and I didn't feel nearly as awkward as I could have—or would have, had I met this person, say, six months ago. However, I still spent most of the time fidgeting. Baby steps.

Confession #19

I'm a proud nerd, and it's all my friends' fault.

When I was in middle school, I was a huge fan of Hilary Duff. I loved her acting, her music, and generally everything about her. I think that's perfectly acceptable of a twelve-year-old, but I had one friend who disagreed. She seemed to believe we were much to old to enjoy Hilary Duff, and she made it known fairly often. One instance in particular has stuck with me for years. I had a slumber party for my thirteenth birthday, and at some point during the night, we were all flipping through the numerous "teen" magazines I had hoarded. In the fan-submitted artwork section on the back page of one magazine, this friend found a very crudely-drawn picture of my favorite actress. She pointed it out and asked, there in front of my closest friends, "How old do you think that kid was?" Or in other words, "Why don't you GROW UP?" She was supposed to be one of my best friends, but she utterly humiliated me at my own birthday party!

Flash-forward about a year into the future and I had outgrown my Hilary Duff phase. I discovered, however, that even with my (somewhat) broadened horizons, I still wasn't watching the same shows as the rest of the kids my age, or listening to the same music. I tried to tell myself that there were plenty of people out there who liked the same things as me, but I could always hear my friend's voice in my head, criticizing my taste. It made me feel like an even bigger outcast. (I already felt like one, you see, because I was rarely in school and hardly knew anybody.)

Jump forward another year and I felt completely isolated and alone. Being so sick and missing so much school caused me to repeat the ninth grade, so now I literally didn't know anybody in my classes, and the whole situation was just miserable. To top it off, my further-broadened horizons still didn't mesh with the rest of the kids my age. Then a funny thing happened. Four new people friends wandered into my life and turned it upside-down. For the better! Not only did they approve of me and my company, but they didn't even care that I spent my free time writing fanfiction, or that most of my favorite music was forty years old. They didn't find my love of Superman strange, or make fun of me for having a huge crush on an actor who is old enough to be my dad. All of those things that certain other people would have rolled their eyes at, these new friends accepted! I hadn't felt accepted in so long!

So now when I go ranting about whichever old sci-fi show is currently on my mind, or start singing songs nobody else knows, or dance in a very outdated manner (Hand Jive, anyone?), you can blame them. They're the ones who helped me learn to be proud rather than embarrassed and ashamed of who I am.

Ha! A meaningful post published with two minutes to spare!

Confession #18

I forget about this blog every single week.

Seriously. You'd think after four months, I would remember my self-imposed obligation, but no. As soon as I hit [PUBLISH POST] each Saturday, it completely leaves my mind. Luckily, I always remember it again, usually just in the nick of time. Of course, by the time I do remember, it's late at night and I'm too tired to think of anything good to write, which is why so many of my posts are silly superficial things. And I'm OCD enough that I must post on Saturday, so composing a thought-out and well-written post on Sunday is not an option. (I'm also OCD enough that using OCD as an adjective bugs me... but such phrasing is apparently socially acceptable, and it's faster to type. And no, the irony is not lost on me. I realize that my parenthetical comments are taking much more time to type than it would to simply rephrase "I'm OCD." Oh well. Too late now. This is what happens when I wait until late at night to type a confession. I feel rushed and begin to type faster than I can think, and what should be a nice, organized post turns into my rambling internal monologue, typed up for the world to see.)

Next week I'll try for something with substance!

Confession #17

I have a nasty habit of starting projects and never finishing them.

Artwork for my bedroom walls. Various cross-stitch patterns. Learning to play the guitar. Learning to play the piano (keyboard, technically). Countless stories on my hard drive (most of them not even having a complete first chapter, let alone an ending). My first real knitting project (though I've completed two scarves, two pairs of leg warmers, and one and a half tea cozies since then). Organizing my music collection. At least six books sitting on my shelf. The list goes on...

Confession #16

Some updates first: Wednesday I had my appointment with the nephrologist. Good news! He said that the people in radiology were just reading too much into the ultrasound, and while my renal cortices are on the thin side, he isn't worried about it at all. He said he doesn't see anything wrong with my kidneys at all, but I'm going to have some more lab work done to check one last hormone, just in case. After crossing out the kidneys, we're left back at square one when it comes to finding the cause of my wacky blood pressure. It's been a few years since I've had my heart looked at, so the doctor wants me to have an EKG done. That's no biggie. I've had at least three done before.

In other news, it seems my obsession with t-shirts may actually be good for me. I wore this on Sunday when my mom and I went shopping, and everywhere we went, people commented on it. I would have never spoken to those strangers otherwise, so I guess my shirt collection is providing me with a much needed swift kick in the rear.

And now for this week's confession...

I sometimes think that, given my age and romantic history (which is literally nonexistent), I will wind up being a crazy old cat lady.

You know the type. 

But, sometimes when I find myself thinking that, I think Pfft, what do I need a boyfriend for? and revert back to the grade school belief that boys are dumb.

Confession #15

I introduced my little sister to my favorite shows (and movies) just so I would have someone to fangirl with.

(Yes, I'm using fangirl as a verb.)

I told her that it was because I wanted to show her some quality programs (kids' shows these days just keep getting dumber and dumber!) but for the most part, I just wanted somebody to watch TV with me and squeal and aww over the same things I do. Most of my favorite shows have a cult following, so I know I'm not the only one that enjoys them, but most of my favorites are also no longer on TV. (That or they're British and not on basic American channels.) This means that most of my friends either haven't heard of or just haven't seen most of my favorite shows. I could turn to the internet to find other fans to fangirl with, but it's so much more fun to do it in person! Enter my little sister.

My little sister has listened to me obsess over this and obsess over that for years, so she knows how wonderful I find certain things. Impressionable eleven-year-old that she is, it wasn't hard to get her to find all those things wonderful too. 

She now wanders around the house singing songs from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Slong Blog* and quoting Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She laughs and rolls her eyes at Edward because she knows that Spike would eat him for breakfast. During spare time at school, she doodles characters from Doctor Who, and reenacts scenes from Firefly despite her friends having no clue what she's going on about. If I walk into a room and ask "Who ya gonna call?" she shouts "Ghostbusters!" without missing a beat. She sings odes about Star Wars and pities those unfortunate enough to be wearing a red shirt. She even knows how to properly greet a visitor from Ork. In short, I have turned my little sister into as much of a nerd as me. 

And she loves it. So, despite my sneaky selfish motives, it really is a win-win situation.

*Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is one of the few things that many of my friends enjoy as well. I'm slowly but surely converting all of them though. Given enough time, they shall all see that I'm not just loony and obsessive... I actually like great stuff!

Confession #14

I am a little embarrassed to be starting my freshman year of college this fall, at the age of twenty.

However, had I started last fall, I seriously doubt I would have survived. I spent most of the winter on antibiotics for sinus infections, and my allergies have only gotten worse since everything started blooming outside.

But what can you do?

(Hey, look at that! I can be concise!)

Confession #13

I may not always speak my mind, but I express myself loudly through my t-shirts.


I think it started about the time when my mom stopped helping me pick out clothes. I have very little fashion sense, you see, so I tend to find the nearest clever t-shirt and say "This one!" then head for the registers at the front of the store. Over the years, I have amassed quite a collection. In fact, I have more shirts than I care to count. I can't bear to give any of them up though, because each one says something about me. Well... Some of them say something about me. Most of them advertise television shows or music or movies that I love. But those can say a lot about me too.


Just a few of my favorites:

• The Beatles (x6)
• The Who
• Superman (x2 at least)
• Batman
• Mighty Mouse
• Where's Waldo
• Alice in Wonderland
• Forrest Gump
• Soylent Green (Unprocessed, Free Range, Life-Size, 100% Organic!)
• The Wizard of Oz (x2)
• Firefly
• Doctor Who (x2)
• Fisher-Price Little People (Classic style, not the newer ones with hands and feet and everything)
• Lite Brite
• Hungry Hungry Hippos
• Pac-Man
• The Phantom of the Opera (Souvenir from the musical!)
• D.A.R.E.

Confession #12

Superman changed my life. (No, really!)

When I was about ten, I woke up from a bad dream one night and was scared out of my wits. Thinking some light would help, I turned on two nightlights and a lamp. (That was all I dared due to my little sister, who had the nerve to continue sleeping, perfectly calm on the bottom bunk, while I was shaking in my boots.) No such luck. I was still utterly distressed. I then got it in my head that music would be comforting, or at least distracting, so I hobbled back down the bunk bed ladder, tiptoed across the floor with ninja speed, jabbed at my stereo to turn on the radio, then flew back up into my bed. Unfortunately, in the process of turning on the radio, I had pressed the seek button and abandoned my favorite preset station. What I was now listening to was a report of a UFO sighting.

If I were to hear the same report today, I would snicker or maybe roll my eyes and blame a weather balloon, then take just a couple seconds to ponder the existence of alien life before forgetting it and going on my merry way. Back then, though, I was too young to discern UFOs (that is, any object up in the sky that cannot be identified but in the end is more than likely a very common and perfectly explainable thing of Earth) from alien spacecrafts. Being that I was already scared from my nightmare, I assumed the worst and was sure there was an invasion and we were all in terrible, horrible danger.

Naturally I ran as quickly as my little legs would carry me and didn't look back. When I skidded to a halt at my parents' bedroom door, I knocked and begged to come in. When my mom opened the door, I caught sight of the television. By coincidence, the show was talking about aliens, and the screen currently featured a still image of a very grotesque little gray man. The gravelly voice that crawled from the speakers was rambling about alien sightings, which I immediately believed was connected to the radio report I had just overheard. This solidified my belief that the world was doomed, but rather than stay in the safety of my parents' room and have to listen to the TV talk about it, I allowed my mom to convince me to go back to bed. Once there, I tossed and turned and shook and probably whimpered a little.

Before you laugh this off as a kid just being a kid and being overly dramatic about a bad dream one night, you should know that the fear didn't stop there. From that night on, I was terrified, terrified by the thought of aliens. I couldn't sleep at night because every time I closed my eyes, I saw that creepy gray thing from the TV. When I finally did fall asleep, I would dream about them. In addition to plain old bad dreams, I had severe nightmares two or three times a week for months, and my parents stopped letting me watch anything even slightly creepy on the TV because I tried to crawl in bed with them so often.

I was afraid to be outside at night, or even look out a window, because I just knew that the blinking red aviation lights atop transmission towers, or the small but constant beam of light from an airplane were really flying saucers coming to get me. Just the sound of an airplane flying overhead made me shudder, even in the daytime. I started insisting that my mom leave my bedroom door open at night so I could see the light coming from the living room and hear my parents moving around, and make a quick escape if need be. When I was in bed, I pulled the covers up so far I could barely see out from under them and refused to let so little as half a toe hang off the side of the bed, because I was convinced that if the aliens couldn't see me, they would leave me alone.

At one point I decided that it wasn't safe at all to be alone at night, and that I had to be with somebody at all times. Obviously my three-year-old sister couldn't offer me any protection, so I started hanging around my parents once the sun went down. Around eight or nine o'clock my parents would go to their bedroom to watch TV and unwind before bed, and I would beg to watch TV with them. At first they obliged me a handful of times a week, but after a while (I don't even remember how long it was, but it was probably at least a few months) they started turning me away more often than not.

When that happened, I would sit outside their door, flat up against the wall, as low to the ground as possible, because if I couldn't see out the front door in the nearby mirror's reflection, nobody and nothing outside the door could see me. For a while I would beg and plead over and over until they got aggravated enough to yell at me to go away, and when that happened I would just sit there silently until it was my bedtime. (Then I darted to my room and jumped under the covers as fast as I possibly could.)

 In the seventh grade I made a new friend, and I spent the night at her house often. We both enjoyed hanging out outside and roaming around her neighborhood (I think we actually spent more time outside than inside) and she enjoyed being outside after dark. I tried to play it cool, but I was petrified most of the time. It literally made me shake with fear. (Luckily it was dark, so I don't know if she ever noticed.) Once we got really close, I broke down and 'fessed up about my fears. She then took it upon herself to cure me. This involved more playing outside after dark. I didn't like it one bit, but I slowly got to where I could at least enjoy myself most of the time without constantly glancing behind me every time a tree's leaves rustled in the wind.

This excludes, of course, the night we were playing make believe in the drainage ditch (one of those really deep concrete ones, deep and steep enough that I had difficulty climbing out) and she brought aliens into the mix. Lots of aliens. And a mother ship. And eggs and spawn. That night, I was silently (maybe semi-silently) flipping out the entire time. We were as far from her house as we could possibly be without actually leaving the neighborhood, and I just knew that real aliens would hear us talking and swoop down and snatch us before we could flee to safety. My voice kept wavering and cracking because I was so scared, and she kept telling me "Calm down! We're fine! Nothing is going to happen!" I didn't calm down until well after we went back inside for the night.

After that she tried fixing me with a different approach. "Why are you afraid of aliens?" "I... I don't know. I just am." "No, that's not good enough. Tell me why." Well, I really didn't know why, and her attempt at finding the root of my fear failed, and I continued to be frightened.

I really can't express just how scared I was. This fear haunted me daily (and especially nightly) and made me nothing short of miserable. I can't tell you how many nights I woke up crying or how many nights I just didn't sleep period. For a long time, I was even afraid to look at the moon! All because of aliens!

And then I saw a rerun of the show Smallville on ABC Family.

Once when I was eleven, I was home alone on a dark, stormy, cliched night, and I scared myself watching it. (Pete almost got eaten! Ack!) I never tuned in again after that, but I was thirteen now, and after finding it while channel surfing, I decided to watch and see if it was as scary as I remembered it being. I was rewarded with a sweet scene between Clark Kent and Lana Lang up in the loft of the Kent farm's barn.

It was just minutes from Clark's birthday and Lana presented him with a tiny cake. He got all angsty because it wasn't really his birthday but rather a date his adoptive parents had chosen from the calendar, and Lana murmured, "Maybe some of us want to celebrate the day you came into our lives." Awwww. Hopeless romantic that I am, I watched on. "I never thought of it that way," Clark grinned. Lana told him to make a wish. "I've been wishing for the same thing ever since I was five," he said, looking deeply into her eyes. "And now?" "Now I don't have to. She's standing right in front of me." They kissed and I squealed with glee because they were just so cute. I decided then and there that the show was worth watching.

As it happens, I had jumped in during a marathon. I got sucked in and watched it all. The first two episodes I saw were the two-part finale of the second season, where a bunch of stuff happens, but mainly Clark learns more about his alien heritage and defies his dead-but-still-controlling alien father. It should be noted that at this point, I had not yet realized that I was watching a show about a young, pre-Superman Superman. I don't know exactly where I thought Clark had acquired his superpowers, but it certainly never crossed my mind that he was an alien.

 Upon learning this, I faltered for a few minutes, shifted uncomfortably in my seat, then kept watching. The more I watched, the more I loved the show, and after the marathon ended, I tuned in every weeknight for a rerun so I could catch up on the whole series. I grew more and more addicted until it didn't bother me at all that Clark Kent was an alien. Some bizarre logic in my mind must have decided that if he was an alien, then I didn't need to be scared. Just like that, four years of sheer terror and sleepless nights were undone. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!


I haven't been afraid of aliens for six years now, and it's all thanks to Superman!


Side note: Unfortunately I grew to dislike the show's writing, and after sticking it out for three years, I forced myself to quit watching in the middle of the eighth season. I bawled like a baby with my last episode, but I never looked back. (Except that one time I turned my TV on just a little too soon, and instead of a new episode of Supernatural, I was greeted with Clark and Lois kissing, and it made me want to puke. Don't tell me Superman belongs with Lois Lane because I don't want to hear it. Any other time I'd agree, but with Smallville's writing in the first several seasons, and the chemistry between Tom Welling and Kristin Kreuk, Clark jumping into Lois's arms the minute Lana is gone just isn't believable! Especially since Clark and Lana never wanted to part in the first place! </rant>)

 Side note #2: Looking back, I have come to the conclusion that my parents were watching a show on the History Channel that night when I was ten. They run programs on aliens and theories about aliens and whatnot fairly often, and my dad frequently watches that channel for hours on end.

Side note #3: I entered all of this into OpenOffice.org Writer to check the word count, and this post is longer than the minimum daily goal for National Novel Writing Month, but it took me less than half the time it would have taken me to write that many words for a novel. So not cool.

Confession #11

I'm afraid to be left alone with my dad for extended periods of time.

My dad doesn't scare me, of course; I'm afraid of his diabetes. My dad is kind of stubborn about checking his blood sugar, so he doesn't always know what it's at, and because of some of the medicines he takes, he doesn't always have an appetite. When he doesn't have an appetite, he tends to skip meals. You can see why this would worry me.

Everybody knows that when I diabetic person's blood sugar gets low, you're supposed to give them sugar, but it isn't that simple. When their blood sugar gets too low, they don't function like they normally would, so you can't always just say, "Here, eat this," and think the problem is solved. My dad, for instance, has a handful of particular behaviors when his blood sugar gets too low.

Much of the time he gets really giggly and goofy, like a happy drunk. He'll make odd noises and say things that he finds hilarious but which make no sense to anyone else. When he gets like that, he's too easily distracted to focus on eating candy or drinking Kool-Aid that you secretly stirred a ton of sugar into. (Beverages get the sugar in faster!)

Sometimes he behaves like a two-year-old and gets really ornery. When that happens, he likes to slap your hand away when you try to give him candy or Kool-Aid, and he really likes to seal his mouth up tight and shake his head. Just. Like. A two-year-old.

Usually he just gets completely disoriented and becomes unsteady on his feet, but when you try to get him to sit down he insists that he fine. Once you get him to sit down, he'll try repeatedly to get up and walk around. He also tries to deny any candy or Kool-Aid, because he really does think that he's okay. Or, he puts the candy in his mouth but doesn't chew and swallow. Sometimes he doesn't even seem to register that you're speaking to him, so you have to repeat yourself and wave the candy or Kool-Aid in front of his face until he complies.

To add to all of that, my dad is more than twice my weight and almost a foot taller than me, so trying to force him to do anything is difficult. This is even scarier when his blood sugar gets so low that he has trouble just staying upright, let alone eating candy or speaking coherently. One time he flopped over on his bed, and before I could do anything, he fell off head first. I couldn't get him back up because he was too heavy. At that point, I felt completely helpless and on the verge of tears. (That's when you call 911 if the person's blood sugar isn't on it's way up, just in case you ever find yourself in that situation.)

See, just knowing what to do when his blood sugar gets low isn't enough, and I'm always afraid I won't be able to actually do it.

(I have found, however, that if I order pizza in the absence of my mom being home and preparing a meal, he will eat and his blood sugar will stay at a normal level. So hooray for that trick.)

Confession #10

First, some updates on previous posts:


I signed my housing contract for college on Sunday, and I have officially decided that I do not want a roommate. I also decided to apply to the Honors College. The cut-off for automatic acceptance was at the beginning of February so I'll only get in if they still have room for me. No word on that yet.

In regards to my recently-discovered kidney problems, I have an appointment with the nephrologist in April. That's a step up from May, I suppose.


Now, as for the confession:


I may gripe about them being stuck in my head, but I actually enjoy little kid songs.


I don't mean things like "Baa Baa Black Sheep" or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". Those are boring. It's the creative, fun songs that make me stand up and dance! Just to be clear though, I only sing and dance to them while I'm at work, where my only audience is a group of babies and toddlers. I don't go dancing down the street singing "Willoughby Wallaby Woo" or anything. That one is on Raffi's Singable Songs for the Very Young, by the way, and that was my absolute favorite album when I was little. As far as children's music is concerned, Raffi is the king.

In case you don't know who Raffi is, or in case you do know and you love him too, here is "Banana Phone":

Naturally, finding this parody made my week:



Confession #9

One Saturday when I was fourteen, my best friend and I memorized the Kryptonian alphabet.

I went to school the following Monday, still giddy from my accomplishment. I scribbled down any and every random thought that popped into my head, just admiring the sharp angles and smooth circles in the foreign letters. Very proudly, I showed one of my closest friends. She stared at me, clearly unimpressed and disapproving, and said something along the lines of, "You have a ton of make-up work to do for school, and you spent the day memorizing a fake alphabet?"

Well... yeah. I did. And I would do it again if given the chance.

At that time, my days were filled with severe, never-ending headaches and my nights were filled with vomiting and wishing I could sleep. I rarely had an appetite and was losing weight—right then I was probably down by five or six pounds, but I eventually lost about sixteen or seventeen—and to make matters worse, my hair had started falling out. When I felt absolutely horrible, I stayed at home, bored out of my mind and longing for company. When I only felt really awful, I went to school, where I was still miserable.

That Saturday, though, I was running on a little more sleep than usual and my headache was not as terrible as it could have been. Anyone in my shoes would have jumped at the opportunity to hang out with their best friend, regardless of the mountain of schoolwork they had building up at home.

My best friend and I had always been fond of walking—walking around my neighborhood, walking around her neighborhood, walking to the park or 7-Eleven or Mazzio's, always with an iPod tying us together, never letting us stray too far apart. On this particular adventure, we walked to the school that's conveniently placed next to her neighborhood.

We sat outside the main doors, on the dusty sidewalk and up against the hard brick wall, completely ignoring the bench that glared at us from just a few feet away. We each had a stash of loose-leaf notebook paper and an English-to-Kryptonian key we had printed off beforehand. I would write a note in Kryptonian for her and she would write one for me, then we would translate them back into English. We did this over and over until we no longer had to look up each individual letter as we translated back and forth. By that point, the hardest part of writing a note was getting the S's and exclamation marks to look right. We were bursting with pride once we got it all perfected.

This may have been one of our duller days compared to some of the other times we've spent together, but it's one of the best memories I have from that year, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

A tiny bit of info...

My mom spoke to someone at the nephrologist's office today, and they said that even though they aren't really accepting new patients at this time, they will see me. I suspect this has to do with the fact that if they don't see me, my dad will most likely leave them and see somebody else, and then they would be out two paying patients. So, with my ultrasound results, medical records, and a referral from my endocrinologist, I'm in.

My mom also spoke to my endocrinologist today, and he has been looking further into my situation. Apparently my ultrasound results show indicators of chronic kidney disease, meaning (A) chances are I'll be dealing with this for the rest of my life, and (B) this is something that has been going on for a while and isn't an urgent problem. It's because of that last part that I'm not stressing out about not being able to see the nephrologist until May. MAY.

Oh well. I'm not on my death bed, so I guess I'll be okay.

Disclaimer

This has been bugging me since Sunday, so I just want to say that even though my posts may sometimes make me sound like I'm depressed, I'm not.

When I was fourteen, I spent most of my days at home, alone and in a great deal of pain. I felt as isolated as I was, and looking back, I think it's safe to say that I was clinically depressed. Being on my own led to me learning a lot about myself though, and it made a huge impact on who I am today. That's why many of my posts will probably focus on that point in my life. Luckily, I met a handful of incredible people the next year. They turned my life around and continue to be my biggest source of happiness today, so please don't worry about my mental stability. I assure you that I am just fine. (Aside from the whole shy/antisocial thing. But I'm working on that.)

Now here's this, because it makes me smile:


I especially like the bit at 1:45.

Confession #8

I have very little recollection of my first year of high school.

To clarify, I remember quite well all the emotions I felt, but the details and events escape me. It's true that memories fade over time, and this was almost six years ago, but I remember my second freshman year, and I remember the eighth grade well enough—seventh and sixth too, for that matter. The only explanation I can come up with is that it was such a bad year that I mentally blocked it out.

My most vivid memory, depressing as it is, is the time I was nearly late to class after lunch one day. That day I had managed to worm my way onto one of those abnormally tall chairs placed along a bar rather than at a table; I didn't need a table anyway because I had nobody to sit with. I ate my hamburger and drank my Sunny D and had my trash thrown away before the line for food had even disappeared, because when there isn't anybody to talk to, eating doesn't take very long at all. After climbing back up into that annoyingly tall chair, which actually took me a try or two, I reached for my favorite binder. This was not just any old school binder—this was the binder that I pulled out at every spare moment in class, the binder that occupied my lap for the entire bus ride home each afternoon, and the binder that I took everywhere with me when I wasn't at school at all. This binder was my best friend.

It was an old binder that I had lovingly rescued from the depths of the storage cabinet in the study, and it looked as if it had been shoved into a locker one too many times. I'm sure it had been a crisp white once but it was now a dingy shade of gray. Its corners were bent and the plastic torn, exposing the fuzzy and worn cardboard within. Tucked inside the clear front cover was a folded piece of notebook paper with the quote "Never underestimate the power of eccentricity" scrawled in my handwriting. It looked ratty and unappealing, but I loved that binder. It was the only constant thing I had in my life at that point, and I could always trust it to be full of clean college-ruled notebook paper, pages just waiting to be filled with whatever I chose to write.

That particular day, I am not ashamed to admit, I was working on a fanfiction. This was during the height of my obsession with the show Smallville, and I was currently rewriting the events of the third season. It pains me to say that the fanfiction, in reality, was atrocious, but I was proud of it at the time, and it took my mind off of how lonely I felt. That is, it took my mind off of it right up until the point when I glanced up and saw that I was literally the only kid in the cafeteria. I had been so absorbed in my fantasy world that I didn't even notice the loud roar of voices had fizzled out and everybody else had gone off to class. The shock and terror didn't subside until I scooted into class just seconds before the bell rang, and then I was hit with a horrible sense of being completely alone at the school. Not just lonely, but utterly alone.

That's about all I took away from that year. That in mind, I'm actually pretty glad I don't remember most of it.

Actual information from a test? What?

For the past five—almost six—years, I have been poked, prodded, x-rayed, MRId, CT scanned, shocked, put on a bike, and strapped to a tilting table. I've also had urine collected, and blood drawn countless times. Through all of the tests, the answer was always the same: Nothing is out of the ordinary. It's always beyond frustrating, because clearly something isn't right. However, I had an ultrasound done on my kidneys on Monday, and we finally found something that isn't normal.

I have renal cortical thinning, which is basically just a fancy way of saying a thinning of the outer layer of the kidneys. This can cause low or high blood pressure, both of which I have had, and makes sense when paired with the back pain I have had lately. The endocrinologist who ordered the ultrasound said he doesn't know much about the condition (after all, he's an endocrinologist) and has referred me to a nephrologist. We don't really know anything yet, except I might have a biopsy done. I'll keep you posted.

Confession #7

First, some news: All my lab work (see previous post) was normal, as usual. I'm going in for an ultrasound on Monday just to be sure, though. The doctor says I could have cysts that just aren't big enough to influence the lab work yet.

Now, on to business.

When I was young, I was afraid of the Energizer Bunny.

I'm not exactly sure how old I was, but I know that I was still small enough that I couldn't reach the light switch in the upstairs bathroom at my granddad's house. (That was ridiculously annoying, by the way.) I had the bone mass of a three-year-old when I was six, though, so that still doesn't give a good idea of how old I was... Anyway...

I'm not sure why I was afraid of it. Maybe because it's such an outrageous shade of pink? Or perhaps I just found it disturbingly unnatural for something to keep going and going in such a manner. Or maybe I just didn't like the fact that the deceivingly cute little guy wears sunglasses, keeping not only his eyes but his motives concealed. He could have been plotting world domination, after all! Haha. Whatever the reason, I thought that rabbit was freaky as all get-out.

A Visit With The Vampires

As I said in my first confession, I keep lots of things to myself. Lots of things. Especially how I feel physically, not just emotionally. I have a happy mask and I wear it often, regardless of how much pain I'm in, because I really don't want people to see the truth. (Admittedly, this is not always wise. When I was applying for a 504 plan in school (for students with special needs/disabilities), one of the reason it was denied was because my teachers and the psycho-logist who interroga—interviewed me said I appeared to feel fine. Oops. Shoulda moaned in agony.) My happy mask is most often in use when I'm hanging out with my friends. Some of the choice gathering spots are the park and the theater. Well, I'm allergic to the outdoors, so the park is not so fun after a while. Also, I'm allergic to both the local theaters. The older one makes me slightly itchy and coughy, and the newer one gives me massive headaches. I put on a smile and pretend it isn't so, though, because I want to hang out with my friends and just be normal.

Generally my complaints are caused by my being allergic to the world and my not sleeping, which everyone knows about, so I don't feel so bad about lying about/hiding how I feel. However, when major things happen, I don't want to keep people in the dark. So, here's an update.

At the end of December, I had an appointment with the endocrinologist who put me on medicine to raise my blood pressure. He did this because my BP was averaging around 90/60 and I was passing out and having all sorts of problems with my stomach because of it. When he took my blood pressure at that recent check up though, my BP was too high. Okay, reduce the meds. "Perhaps you're just outgrowing the hypotension." Well, two weeks later I was off the medicine completely and my BP was still high, reaching 182/115 at one point. I went back to see this doctor today and he said that blood pressure this high is "uncommon and definitely not good in a wisp of a nineteen-and-a-half-year-old like you" and he decided that some lab work was necessary.

Down I trotted to the diagnostic lab on the first floor to have my blood forcibly removed. They wanted urine too but... that was not taken by force. They're going to check for problems in my thyroid, kidneys, and liver. (Not all as causes for the high BP... also checking for damage from all the ibuprofen I've taken in the last six years.) Kidney disease runs in my family, and he seemed to think that that was a very likely cause for my high BP. Depending on what the lab work shows, there may be an ultrasound in my future.

We should have the results back tomorrow. I'm trying not to stress about it.

Confession #6

I am addicted to downloading free stuff.

Seriously. I will spend hours at my computer doing nothing but downloading things just because they're there.

My hard drive is littered with stock photos that I don't even remember, just because I saw them and thought, "I might use that one day! Better save it!" I have hundreds upon hundreds of fonts installed because once I find my way to dafont.com, I go into a dowloading trance and cannot be pulled away until my stomach cries for food. Earlier this week, I visited Amazon.com and sampled their free MP3 samplers. I downloaded 219 songs just because I could. I only stopped because I glanced at the clock and saw that it was after two in the morning and I figured I ought to go to bed.

Is there rehab for people like me? My hard drive will only last so long...

Confession #5

I'm utterly terrified by the prospect of going to college.


Today I mailed my transcripts and test scores to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at Oklahoma State University, and suddenly this is all very real. HolycowtoosoonstoptheworldIwanttogetoff!!


Stop. Breathe.


Okay.


I want to go. Really, I do. I want to be back in a proper school, I want to learn, I want independence, and I especially want to be back among friends on a regular basis. (Well, friend. When my tiny group of close friends split up last summer, only one landed in Stillwater. But that's immensely better than being alone all the time like I am now.) I'm very excited about all of that. But, there are certain things that have me digging my heels in.

1. I really can't afford to have a private dorm room, but I'm completely absolutely positively NOT comfortable with rooming with a stranger. Seriously. My heart starts racing at the thought. Yes, obviously I would get to know my roommate and thus not live with a stranger, but until then, I'm pretty sure I'd be an awkward and miserable mess. So, I could take out a student loan and start out my independent life already in debt, or I could put on my big girl panties and deal with it. Part of me reeaally wants to go ahead and take out a loan, but then a nagging voice yells at me to be reasonable and room with somebody. After all, my New Year's Resolution was to get over my shyness and social anxiety, and rooming with a stranger would be a huge step. But I don't know. I'll probably make up my mind and change again it four hundred times before all is said and done.

2. I have a horrible feeling that I'm hopelessly underprepared for the classes. English doesn't worry me, but anything with math or science will be the death of me. Excluding Consumer Math, the last complete math class I was in (that is, I attended class for a solid year and did every single assignment) was Algebra in eighth grade. And I have slept since then. Science is almost as bad. When people ask me if I'm ready for college, I mention that I'm "kinda worried" about being unprepared, but they all say "Oh, you're so smart, you'll be fine!" But being clever won't get you by in something like math. If you don't know how to do it, you don't know how to do it! End of story. So, yeah... I'll probably have nightly panic attacks every single day of my first semester.

I'm sure there will be plenty more for me to freak out about in the coming months, but for now these are the biggest stress inducers.

Confession #4

For someone with high self-esteem, my self-esteem is pretty low.

That is to say, I am extremely confident in myself as a person. I'm proud of who I am, and if you don't like the music I listen to, the vocabulary I use, the shows I watch, the books I read, the jokes I tell—if you don't like ME, that's fine. Go away. I don't need you. I'll randomly break out in songs from the 60s if I want to. I'll quote Shakespeare when I feel like it. I'll read the dictionary purely for entertainment and there's nothing you can do to stop me. If that displeases you, that's your problem not mine.

However, I dislike a great deal of things about my body and the way I look. I hate trying on clothes because they never seem to fit quite right. Many of the clothes I have in my closet have been hanging there untouched since I bought them, because even though I really like them, I'm too self-conscious to wear them. I see pictures of celebrities and wish I could look a little more like that, then remember that they're all airbrushed and fake, so I look at pictures of people on Facebook and wish I could look a little more like THAT. It's a dumb and a common affliction, I know, but it's something I've been sitting on for years. So there it is.

Confession #3

I realize that I am late with this confession, but I think the insanity of the last four days gives me a reasonable excuse. I won't bore you with the details though. Straight to business:

I occasionally have otherwise dull dreams in which everyone—myself included—speaks with a British accent.

It's not just a typical American-trying-to-sound-English-by-failing-to-pronounce-any-and-all-Rs accent either. Nope, my brain goes all out and hands people specific regional accents and everything! (Some hold the opinion that I watch too many British television series. I say that's rubbish.)

The first time it happened, I woke up and thought, “Huh. Well that was odd...” then wished it would happen again so I could enjoy it more. It has happened numerous times since, but in my dreams it seems perfectly natural to have a mom from Cardiff and a brother from York, so I don't even realize that it's funny until the dream is over and I'm awake. But, I suppose if I were lucid in the dreams, the accents would fade away and it wouldn't be amusing anymore. (Yes, lucid dreams are controllable, but the most I've ever accomplished without accidentally waking myself up was making my shoes disappear. Trying to maintain all the fun accents would take too much effort and I would just give up and awaken myself out of frustration.)

On another note, I've also had dreams in black and white, and once I had one that was all cartoonified. Most of them are just so bizarre and twisted that I can't even begin to describe them. I think my brain must get bored when I go to sleep. Perhaps that is why it tries and tries to keep me awake all the time...?

Baby Steps

Today I made small talk with the lady at the allergy clinic as she gave me my allergy shots.


That's not an extraordinary feat for most people, but considering I've been going to the clinic for seventeen weeks now and I've never said anything more than "Hello," I'm fairly proud of myself. My nerves tried to get the best of me (something I paid for, as injections in a tense arm hurt more) but I kept talking. And blushing. I'm positive my face was red. But hey, baby steps.

Update 01/12/11:

I had an appointment with my ENT this morning. Anyone who knows me knows I have great issues with my allergies beacuse I am, as Dr. Visor puts it, allergic to the planet. With massive allergies come massive sinus troubles, so I see Dr. Visor fairly regularly, and have been since (I believe) late 2007. Dr. Visor is a very friendly man who clearly genuinely cares about his patients, and as often as I see him, he has gotten to know me fairly well in the sense that he knows what to expect from me health-wise and personality-wise. On more than one occasion, he has mentioned how quiet I am. Today, however, he smiled and said, "You're being more talkative than usual. I like that."

I like that too.

Confession #2

I speak to my dog as if he has good sense.

Jude. Also responds to Pup and Noodle Butt.

 

I know. Lots of people talk to their pets. Big whoop. “Aww, look at the cute wittle doggy! Who's a good doggy? Who's a good doggy?! That's right! YOU are! You're a good doggy! Does doggy want a nummy treat? You do?! Here, have a treat! Good doggy! Aww, such a cute doggy!” No. Just... no.

When I'm home alone every day, it's quiet. Very quiet. So I talk to Jude. More than that, I converse with him—that includes posing questions and waiting for a reply. He does reply, too. In fact, he helps me make many very important decisions throughout each day. Okay... so they aren't important decisions. Mostly he just gives his opinion on what TV shows I should watch.

But wait a minute, Michelle! Dogs can't talk! He can't specifically tell you what to watch!

Well, no, he can't voice his opinion like a human, but Jude lets me know what he thinks. For instance, the question “Jude, do you want to watch Supernatural?” often gets answered with a tip of the head and a thump of the tail. However, “Pup, do you want to watch House?” sends him flying to my bedroom and onto my bed, eagerly waiting for me to turn on the TV. When he sees something he likes, he watches intently. When he doesn't care for what I choose to watch, he simply falls asleep.

(Thus far, the things I have found that intrigue him most are Buffy the Vampire Slayer (mostly the scenes with snarling vampires), Doctor Who (the TARDIS is fascinating), and Band of Brothers. Also, for whatever reason, he is enthralled by Stephen Fry and Emma Thompson. He watched the film Peter's Friends with me a while back, and any time either of them had a line, his ears perked up and he sat up a little straighter. Can't say I blame him.)

And, on the off chance that he doesn't want to watch anything, he just stays where he is while I slink off to my room, my feelings hurt and my tail tucked between my legs.

It's hard not to treat him like a furry little person that comprehends everything I say to him. I mean, he follows me around wherever I go and displays such personality! (Just to prove that I'm not insane in thinking Jude actually responds to me, I've tried talking to my dog, Rascal. It doesn't work. He just sits and stares and looks rather dumb. Sometimes he rolls over and shakes.) Since I have such a social pup, why shouldn't I talk to him? It makes the days feel a little less lonely.