LaurieWrites

On not seeing Molly Ringwald and Meghan Daum but not dying

So what I really wanted to do almost as soon as I got to California was to think I was dying on the side of Highway 101 with a gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean, and to make Suebob stop the car and call 911 so I could go check out the emergency room of a local hospital.

Wait.

Actually what I really wanted to do on my second night here was to go to Santa Monica and see Molly Ringwald and Meghan Daum in a writer's talk there last night. I'm a fan of both, but I haven't read Molly's book yet, so she's still actress-first, to me. Meghan is a writer whose voice in memoir/essays I came to appreciate long ago, and she's since gotten a gig as a columnist for the LA Times. I just really like her, and the two of them together was a bonus.

I did not get to see them. However, you're welcome to ask me what I think of local health care delivery, now that it turns out that I'm okay. (I really am. It was just a little dicey for a couple of hours.)

I had had a perfectly delightful day here, happy to be in cooler weather, just to be here. I worked with the door open, with a view of some parking lot palm trees, until Sue came over to drive us to Santa Monica.

I had never been there or to Malibu before. I was so excited about the drive and the ocean and the event. Then around one bend and up a big hill I started to feel really strange, in a way that I had never felt strange before. Pressure clamped down on my head, and my vision blurred. My heart started beating really fast. I hate complaining about being ill, and I tend to stay in denial for a period of time before I'll even admit it to myself. But I knew something was not right, and I asked Sue in a somewhat hysterical fashion to stop the car.

I got out, and that is when I decided I was dying, and couldn't breathe, and my heart, and the pulse, and all of it together. I felt terrible more than I felt like an idiot, so I asked Suebob to call 911. I couldn't calm down, couldn't catch my breath, couldn't feel better. Approximately 15 firefighters showed up a few minutes later, with a few smallish trucks and one ambulance along the side of this strange highway, which, ugh. They fanned out around me like an NYPD Blue ambush. I helpfully told them I was afraid I was dying, which I was, by the way, still convinced that I was.

Gonzalez, the unfortunate member of the crew assigned to be my ambulance butler, told me that I was not, but I didn't believe him. My blood pressure was extremely high, which isn't new, but its been so under control that I haven't paid enough attention, I guess. My pulse was very fast, as well, and I couldn't help him with an explanation of why. Not stressed, no, no more than usual. They seemed unconcerned with my changes in environment and climate, so no, no idea. Also he is not a doctor. He told me that several times, which I understand is his responsibility, but I can't say that made me feel any better at the time.

This is important: remind me never to be half an hour from a hospital by ambulance in case I pull this shit again.

I've also never been in an ambulance before, so remind me not to pull that again, either. It's not enjoyable at all.

It took a couple of hours to get my vitals down, and being terrified the whole time that they're not going to do that doesn't help that, it turns out. My eventual not-acutely-dying diagnoses were very low sodium, and dehydration, which could be karmic payback for all of my dumb jokes about celebrities and their "exhaustion and dehydration" situations. I've lost another fallback crack, because it's really not funny at all, except the part about how I came to LA and that is what happened to me. That's a little bit funny. 

The ER was efficient and kind, except for a nurse who showed up late in the game, but he could have been irritated because by then I was one IV bag away from dehydration, Clinton was speaking, and I couldn't shut up about him or the speech or politics in general to Suebob, in my new euphoria that I wasn't dead and belief that it was actually, in fact, 1993. The first very nice nurse rejected my contention that I was having a heart attack, and I guess I should trust people who understand EKG results while I don't. The second was from Philly, which was some East Coast comfort, and she came with an unsolicited load of life advice that was very sweet, regardless.

I'm very disappointed and sad that this happened. I was so glad to finally have the trip done, and so bummed this happened on the other side of it, although I guess it's good that this didn't happen when I was alone with no phone reception on a highway somewhere. I'm also relieved in general, obviously, so relieved, that it wasn't worse, and a bit worried still, I admit it. How did I become this person who has to go to an emergency room twice in nine months? How? This is disturbing me.

I'm very grateful for Suebob. She was a champ in a crisis, stayed with me the whole time I wasn't freaking out in an ambulance, and generally helped me in every way that I didn't want to have to need help. This is a true, good, friend and person.

So. I'm still freaked out, and pretty tired, which is no unmanageable thing, but it's a thing. I'm going to work through my fear that this will happen again, and move on. I've been scared by my physical condition before. I was pretty upset by the initial visit to the ER in December that revealed the hypertension issue, honestly, but not like I was yesterday. I can't even rate how I felt over the two hours it took for things to settle down, give or take, and it's exhausting. It's also no treat to manage life review while I feel like that, it turns out. It was overwhelming, the people and situations and random stuff careening through my brain, most of it unresolved, and knowing there was absolutely nothing I could do about it where I was, and what the hell if I die on this road, poof, that's that. Forget about it. That will take some processing, I guess, and I am tired of nothing more than processing, so I hope it auto-processes.

My blog is my process for this trip, apparently. I wasn't that into the idea of writing this down, as much as I knew I had to for myself. I guess I'll just keep drinking water (I don't know how I can possibly drink more water, that's all I'm saying, but I will try), standing in some big gratitude that I didn't die, and that I have a very good friend who hangs in there when things get that awful. If I'm always a little bummed that I missed Molly Ringwald and Meghan Daum, I hope the universe understands. I think we all need some little rocks to cling to. 

California Next

I am going to California today. I am so excited, and so ready. 

In a way, I feel like I could dip my toes in the ocean and turn around and go home when I get there, but I know that that is not the plan at all. There is something there, too, and I have to spend the time I allotted to see people and things and to be in places until I'm ready to leave. I have had very little mapped out this whole time, by design, until I have to make the next decision. That was the central point, to learn to listen again. And I'm still hopeful, although I don't know about what. I'm nervous, too, but that's becoming standard, something to be worked through to get to the good stuff. 

I can't stop thinking about Georgia O'Keeffe. I keep thinking about courage, and creativity, and singular dedication to a craft that somehow shapes a life. I've been wondering if I have it, or if I just love it as an idea, a museum exhibit itself. I hope I do. I love how she didn't know she was looking for New Mexico and found it, how she just kept showing up until it all happened there for her. New Mexico was hers -- it's not mine, I know, and it doesn't have to be. It's just so useful as a guide. 

Image: Wikimedia Commons

I like that I don't know all of her story. I like how Christine and I sat on the couch last night and watched the dvd that I bought at the museum, listening to Gene Hackman narrate this pioneer artist's life, and how several times we looked at each other in some kind of amazement and also recognition of what that takes, of what it requires to make that kind of life come together. (And also the mutual acknowledgement that this lady was a badass. Just was, so much of one.) 

I have found a lot of solidarity out here. I have been surrounded by the energy of strong, compassionate, giving, people, some of the best of all of those qualities I've ever known, I'm not kidding. Everyone who has welcomed me has been a healer of some kind, which I didn't plan at all, except in my subconscious. I couldn't have done it better if I had. 

I have also found some bullshit and nonsense, both in and outside of myself. Life continues and connections begin,  reappear, and disappear in the middle of all of this activity. I do not take my best friend or my sister or my parents for granted, but I especially don't when those voices that know me the best come to me from far away. 

 

I haven't had any great revelations, just a few little ones, and I'm okay with that, because those were the ones I needed to get out of the way so the rest of the things will come along. I have lost some track of the things I wanted to document -- not pictures, there are plenty of those -- just thoughts about some of the things I'm seeing, but those are all in my brain for when I need them, too. Somewhere in the middle it just blurred, a lot of it, into signs and markers and mountains -- much of it beautiful, some of it desolate. I have loved seeing all of the things I've seen so far, even if I didn't love all of it. 

I've gotten reacquainted with some of my ingenuity, and the edges of my anxiety, too, and what I need -- not want, an important distinction -- to do to work with that. I have made some unwise decisions, but nothing too huge and damaging. I have carried some pain with me for a very long distance that is dug in pretty deep, and that's uncomfortable, but I am going to set that shit on fire as much as I can, every day, until it's gone. 

Finally, this silly picture before I get going again. I stopped in the dark and stood on a corner in Winslow, Arizona, in a huge puddle. I did this because I have this family who I miss so much, who once sat around a restaurant table and spontaneously sang "Take It Easy" along with the overhead music. It happened several years ago. It was one of the best moments of my life, easily, those endless rounds of "oooh-oooh-ooohs" with the people I love the most -- so simple and everything that mattered at the same time. And although I felt like the jerky tourist I was when I stopped to take this (plus, that puddle was disgusting, seriously) it was for a higher purpose, I swore silently to the cars driving by in the dark, slowing down to look, until I could get something that didn't make me look too bad. I wanted to say I'd done this silly thing, that I had a piece of my heart in the form of people in mind when I did. 

Lighten up while you still can. Don't even try to understand. Just find a place to make your stand, and take it easy. 

It's not a bad goal. I'm done with trying too hard, but I'm not done working, at all. I am really looking forward to the next stop. 

Leaving things in O'Keeffe country

My shoulders dropped below my ears for the first time in weeks on the first day of this trip, a couple of Wednesdays ago, on the highway outside of Ladysmith, Virginia. I started to smell the pine about 20 miles beyond that, so it made sense in retrospect. The pine point on I-95 South has always signaled vacation to my brain, or at the very least getting all the way out of the Washington area, which tends to make me breathe better. 

My head still wasn't right, though, not for miles and miles and states and miles. It's got so much to burn off right now. What else makes you pick up and leave but too much, even if it's too much of too little. 

On my way to Santa Fe, I wasn't sure this plan was working. I was tired and frustrated, triggered by a door closing the wrong way, antsy. I thought I wanted to go home, although I knew that wasn't the deal. I just didn't want to feel like this, anywhere. 

Then I got here. 

Somewhere in the space between Friday and Saturday, I felt things lightening. The turn of the month, the blue moon, exhaustion, boredom, dehydration, listening to some guy who sang beautifully (and oddly like Tracy Chapman, which was fun) -- I don't know what it was.

(Yes, everyone took one. No, I cannot take a moon picture to save my life. This is for the STORY.)

And then yesterday I drove here. 

Ghost Ranch was gorgeous and compelling. Every mile that twisted up on 25 North beyond where I'd intended to drive was different. The roadside memorials reminded me to keep my eyes on the traffic, but it was difficult not to gawk at every new shade of orange and brown and white painted, yes, it does look like it, onto the sides of mountains, at the greens and yellows all around. I can understand why an artist would want to become a part of this landscape, although the courage to try to interpret it is beyond me. Whatever Georgia O'Keeffe had, I'd like some in a bottle, please. My words have been flailing around in my head for almost 24 hours. 

When I left I intended to turn left to go back to the city. I turned right, and got this. 

Echo Amphitheater pops up out of nowhere on the road beyond Abiquiu. Better pictures are on my big camera (which is going to explode if I don't dump that card soon. I can't even imagine what going through that mess is going to be like.) This guy took a good one if you want to see the whole thing. It's a natural echo chamber carved out of sandstone cliffs. When I got up the stairs at the end where you have a 360-degree view of the whole thing, a very smart-sounding geologically-aware guy was explaining how it all happened to his friend. 

Then they left, and I broke down. I was alone in this place I had no idea existed until five minutes before, in a new state, in a logjam in many ways of my own making. The quiet out there is such that your ears turn inside out hearing nothing, even your own brain whirring. I looked up to the sky in what my religious background only permits me to describe as supplication, and I said, "Help." 

If you want to feel tiny, say that there. If you want to hear your voice say what it really needs to say, go to a place like that alone and speak. Weird things come out, too, but that's okay. Better there than in someone else's ear.

I do believe in God, I think. I'm not sure what it is, but I like to think that something works for good, even with all of the shitty and terrible things that happen every day. Without hope, which, for me, resides in a sense of everything being tied together somehow on a level I can't see or understand, there isn't any point. I haven't stopped to think about any of this in a long time, but I think the trick is not to think so hard, maybe. 

My eyes settled on this small outcropping at the way, way top, with green growing out of it. It reminded me of an altar. 

At the risk of sounding as woo-woo (and at the same time, incorrigibly culturally Catholic) as I'm feeling at the moment, I left everything up there, all the garbage that I'm tired of, bad feelings and pointless worry, this horrible space I've been in again of beating back reality with my mind. I'm just done. I can't do it anymore. All the things people say about letting go and ceding control are correct. It's so hard sometimes when I'm caught up in the fray, I don't even see it happening until it's too late, but it is very important, because days are rushing by regardless. 

This has been a rough stretch. I'll take relief where I can get it. 

I don't know how all of these pieces will reintegrate (Woo-woo. See? And I bought sage yesterday, too. Good God.) And I'm not stupid enough to think that some personal ritual in the middle of somewhere will keep me from backsliding. But at least I have a tag for it now, a place where it was recognized, a before and after. Those are always useful. 

I feel pretty sure that the winds that blow in a place that has been an execution site (I'm glad I didn't know that when I was there. Ignorance for the historical win.) can take care of some negative energy that a random person had to leave behind.

I drove almost 3,000 miles to give up, and to figure out why I'd done this in the first place. Sometimes the answers are very slow to unfold, and I've always worked harder than I need to on simple things, but I did not approve my wiring. I just have to work with it now. Some days, like yesterday, it seems like it might even be doable. 

I've been absolutely terrified every moment of my life - and I've never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do. -- Georgia O'Keeffe

Santa Fe, First Time

I am a water baby who gets sad when I haven't been to the ocean in long enough (mine, by the way, is the east coast Atlantic, preferably south of Virginia. I'll take pretty much any of them, but that is where I rest the best.)

So I don't know what it is with me and the desert. It's the opposite of water, obviously. I don't think you can get really wet in a pool here. I take showers and feel clean but not saturated. My eyes are a mess. My head hurts. I'm oddly full, although I can't eat that much, because as a transient the amount of water I need to drink not to just desiccate is ridiculous. I stood at my hotel sink tonight and gagged down glass after glass of water, because those two $5 Fiji jobbies on the mini bar were stupid in a place where I could actually use Niagara Falls for free.

Also why are we calling them honor bars now? Let us stop this right now. There is no honor in $8 M&Ms, for a dehydrated stranger, or for anyone. Delusional corporate America.

Maybe the overwhelming dryness and the need to replenish that can't be met at first, not really, is a plus for me. I like imagining the possibility of shedding so many layers of skin, recirculating blood, being different almost immediately.

But I really think my water and the draw here is the colors, my obsession with every shade of sunset, mostly the oranges, writ large, with deep green overlay in survivalist plants that just will not give up,and in fact will thrive, just watch them. 

Then just now I had to go outside to get something from my car, and the most peculiar, delightful security guard who also manages parking at night directed me to my space, and waved to me on my way back while he parked someone's car. The full moon shone that everyone was on about today (no, it's not necessarily, really, blue, but isn't that a nice idea?) And this air. It was thin and alive and cool, and as it hit my skin and I inhaled it like I would never breathe again, I said in my head like the dork that I am that this, this is why people who make things must come here and stay -- mostly night people, I'm guessing, although it's possible for anyone.

Everything elemental. It should be overwhelming, but it's not. There's a groove of sorts. And it seems reasonable that the colors in the daytime and the air like it was tonight -- like I can feel it a little bit from my window now -- could make you never want to leave. Even thirsty, I understand that already.

Middle of Somewhere So Far

I'll be honest, this whole living my way into my future thing is a little taxing. I am overwhelmed at least once a day, and I wonder what I'm doing. There may be tears. And then I tell myself that the pioneers didn't have iPods for their CRVs, or Sonic limeade, and I'm probably going to be okay. 

Yesterday I bought a rosary for $1.99 in a gas station convenience store on the edge of Fort Stockton, Texas. The Catholic belief in talismans is embedded that deep for me. I babbled to the clerk that it seemed the thing to do, that I needed all of the help I could get, I guessed. She smiled at me in a manner that indicated exactly how crazy she thought I was, because I'm sure she was way more aware than I was in that moment that if I was relying on that cheapo thing, I had best turn around. 

I have made it through West Texas to the very edge. It was hypnotic, and beautiful, and long. I liked it way more than I thought I would, and although I'm content not to drive that stretch of road again for awhile, I'm happy to have it imprinted on my brain. I also appreciate the 80 mph speed limit. Thanks, Texas. You get me. 

I've been taking notes on the trip so far, and I thought I'd dump them here just because there's really nowhere else, and it's obviously impossible to keep up a Twitter stream while going 80. (You're welcome.) Some of it is funny, some of it is stupid, and some of it is just my observations on the U.S. as it goes by my window. 

Favorite license plates so far: 

HATENYA

HEWON (Jesus should know that this guy totally cut me off.)

Favorite directions: 

Go left on Ahoy from Starboard

Favorite business names: 

Hillbilly Hair -- This sign was on a trailer in Pigeon Forge that appeared to be open for business. 

Fo Sho Italian Grill

Prissy Polly's BBQ -- I do not want to eat any prissy person's barbecue, I don't know about you.

Assassin Pest Control

Jackpot Portable Toilets 

Ho Tre Bien (A Vietnamese strip club in El Paso. The name is a perfect storm of post-colonial misspelled potentially unintended pejoratives.) 

Christian Outlet Center -- Best Buy For Believers (I am not making that up.)

Favorite Souvenir: 

(Austin, I love you.)

Favorite Church Sign:

GO PRAZEY NOT CRAZY (Caps not mine)

Favorite Mistake Avoided:

I did not get a tattoo at American Rebel Tattoo Salon in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Because I am almost an adult, I only considered it.

Favorite Billboard Trivia:

The purportedly "largest adult store in the South" is at approximately Exit 375 on Interstate 4oWest

Favorite Second Best Reason Not to Eat at Chik-Fil-A: 

"Babee Gifts. Partee Favors. Chikin!"  These billboards make me dumber every time I drive by one. Whomever comes up with these lines must drink heavily. Has to. 

Favorite Creepy Business Sticker on a Car: 

Fuzzy Fanny Farm French Paint Silkies

Favorite Massive Accidental Geek Out Moment: 

I drove by a sign for Hope, Arkansas. "Wait. Hope. Arkansas. I know who was born there!" I said to my slightly slow self. Exited, easy peasy, there it was.  

I sat on Bill's first porch swing. In my family, that means we're friends. 

That's a dork right there. A Clinton-loving, Democrat dork. I don't even care. Four more years! (Later. After these four. I love you too, President Obama. Chicago is on my list.) (I can't stop being political. I'm having twitches not being able to fully focus on the election, plus the hurricanes, plus the election, plus my friends who aren't in my car. I do miss my friends who aren't in my car. Okay, I admit it.) 

Favorite Thing I've Done That I'm Glad No One Was There to See But Now I'm Telling the Internet So: 

Passed a "honk if you're rowdy" sign. Totally honked.  

Favorite Sign That It's Time to Stop Driving For the Day: 

Mentally arguing with Jimmy Buffet over the veracity of his contention that "If we weren't all crazy we would go insane." My bone to pick with this was massive at the time. I've since softened my position. It's amazing what a little sleep will do. 

Favorite Meal (So Far): 

Salt Lick BBQ, in Driftwood, Texas, just outside of Austin. Thank you, Wendi, for making sure I got there, and Laura for coming out to have dinner. 

Seeing some of my people along the way of whatever it is I'm doing here has been the best part. 

Favorite Thing, Overall: 

Every day, I can start again. I guess that's a good thing. 

I am headed to New Mexico now. I'm not sure if I have to present a special password to actually exit Texas, because it seems difficult to get out once you're in, but I'm going to try. Also, if you have any questions about Interstates 95, 40, or 10, I can answer them or find out. Let me know. 

Middle of Somewhere

I had this whole post written about why I'm driving across the country and I read it over this morning and it annoyed me so much that I'm going to spare everyone else .

If there is a person who can do short story long, it is me. I'm not sure how I got out of journalism school or why I so much time on a communication platform with a 140-character self-expression limit. Masochism. Irony. It is a conundrum, is what it is. 

This is the summary (please may it be shorter.): I came back from New York and plunged into a disgusting day-old salsa bowl of despair, loneliness, anxiety, and isolation. I have respect like you wouldn't believe for depression, seeing as how it's done its best for lo these past 12 years or so to dance around in my cortex and keep me down, like the chemical MAN. I get it, and I understand it, clinically and emotionally. I do not, however, always do the correct thing in response to it, because when I get in the bad mental neighborhood, my already abstract-brain melts in the trippiest Dalian fashion, good ideas dribbling off to the right, common sense a tiger dressed like a courtesan enmeshed in a map of the world in the middle. (That is not anything he painted, to my knowledge. I also make things up sometimes.) 

After two weeks of this nonsense, I decided that I needed to do something. I felt like hell, and it showed no sign of abating, and one can only do so many yoga classes and read so many inspirational blog posts. Sitting in my apartment in front of my computer like it was going to start spitting out hundred dollar bills every second was not helping matters. Living at a standstill in an area where I have a walkable neighborhood but no community, roots deeper than most in the metro but increasingly no sense of place, and a family I love but cannot serve so well in my current state even though I live close by all started to fall into place as a reality that I could no longer accept.

Yes, I can take medicine and go to therapy, but this time felt different. It felt like I'd located a pain source and needed to rip it out with my hands, and that is not just an unnecessarily dramatic turn of phrase, I swear. 

I worried and fussed for another few days, then I accepted an invitation in California for the first week of September with no idea of how I was going to get there. I also threw out a question about cities on Twitter one night when I was particularly restless. It sparked the best response I've ever seen there, and that made me curious about how people had found their spot, not just where it was, but what it meant to them. 

(Briar has written a four-part series on Brooklyn in response. I love this.) 

I only told a very few other people about my travel goals, people I can count on to tell me I'm for real out of my mind this time, and they didn't say that. I don't know if this is the part where the universe conspires to help you if you open your mouth (Coelho? Emerson? Lady Gaga?) But people (and this  is the part that blows me away) started contacting me when they got some idea that I hoped to do some traveling, and started offering me guest rooms and tour guides. I sat at my computer for a few days and cried at these offers, partially because I'm so strange about imposing to an almost paralytic degree, and partially because it occurred to me, fully as it had not before:

A lot of my community, if I'm going to call it that, is out there (which is now to say out here, by the side of the road in Western Arkansas, I guess.) I don't know if that is because I've focused on the larger world of the web at the expense of my physical space at home, but I can't really undo that now, and I don't want to, either. It's just the way it's turned out. 

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I left last Wednesday, my first stop a Duran Duran show in Portsmouth, Virginia. I told myself all day that if I felt funny I could just go home the next morning, but the next morning I got up and went to Asheville and hung out with Robin, so I guess it was a go. I took a somewhat overwhelming Pigeon Forge detour after that, which I may have to detail later. Then I went to Memphis for the weekend and Faiqa's family welcomed me, and my mind was officially blown by the collected stories of civil rights and rock and roll, obviously in very different ways.

Now I am headed to Texas (I'm a little afraid to drive Texas. It is large, Texas) and to see New Mexico for the first time, which I'm very excited about. It was a lot of years ago that a boy tripping on acid stood on my front porch and dared me to go to Santa Fe.

I think it's better that I'll be there without him. 

Then there will be other places, and at the end I'm told there will be margaritas with friends. And then I will go another direction home. 

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Most of the time I'm feeling good, and I'm okay with most miles that roll under me, although fast lane ignorance and abuse makes me sad. I love the moments of traveling, road signs and tourist traps, recalculating routes and checking new states off of my list. I've heard ridiculous songs I haven't heard in decades but still know all the words to on better radio stations than we have in DC by a long shot.

Ex.: A child of my age shouldn't have been singing along to the sleazy terribleness that was Hot Rod Hearts, but that's a long done deal, and and a new listen to Meet Me Half the Way indicates that Crystal Gayle may well have been my first girl crush. So I'm learning things.   

I'm excited to be bumping something up on the life list (boy does this sucker already need editing) that I had no idea would happen this year. I have no problem driving alone, or doing anything else alone, for that matter. But sometimes, because I am me, I am nervous and uncertain. This morning a colleague and friend texted me from the campus opening meeting that I am not at for the first time in many, many years. It arrived shortly after I woke up, and I wept in bed like a freak who really, secretly loved the job I left and hated the environment and what it did to my spirit for the work.

The sadness I am feeling about this right now is deep and strange, a different layer of a heart that is honestly hurting some. I think teasing out the things you miss from the whole is the hardest part of leaving whatever that is behind, and the most important thing about not looking back too hard or, god forbid, going back entirely. But it's still rough. Nothing is all bad, and stability has its merits. 

All this movement signifies something, though, and it's what my friend Laurie said last week when I was whining about whether to do this or what to do or blah blah blah: You've changed everything else. Complete the transition.  

(I have to write down many things she says. Again, if you are the smartest person in the room, get out.) 

This year has been massive so far for me -- change after change after change. I set out in February to make things different because what was going on wasn't working. But the truth is that you can change the structure of your days like crazy, and if you don't catch up with you out here, it doesn't really matter. 

You go everywhere with you, so you may as well be tolerable to yourself, and to other people, at baseline.

I'm really committed to doing that. I'm not in search of a geographic cure so much as a reconfiguring of my perspective, a better lens on what I've got and what I want, even for the short term. The best way to do that for me is to get out of my own head and among people I like (And even people I don't. That has its significant merits.) The walls of my physical space closing around me like they were was the usual metaphor, so I'm going to ignore that I went for the obvious open road variety as a response. It's the first time I've ever done it on this scale, so for me it's new. I can claim that. 

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Now that I have told the story, I can get to the fun stuff, which is daily recaps (I hope. I can get tired from all this running around, honestly, plus I still have actual jobs to do.) of where I'm going and what I'm doing and seeing. I'm also taking a lot of pictures, naturally, but I'm not sure how fast I can get them on Flickr because my laptop is not so reliable. Meanwhile, feel free to follow me on Instagram, where my username is laurieanne. 

 

Duran Duran Live -- Encore

I grew up surrounded by music, an environment my parents provided out of their love for it that has served me well throughout my life. When I'm not getting enough of it, especially of the live variety, something goes sideways in my world that has to be put back on course. 

So it was that I drove to Portsmouth, Virginia, yesterday, to see Duran Duran live on the first day of a trip I'll tell you about soon. I had seen them in October, the latest in a series of their concerts I've gone to that altogether kinda sorta make up for the fact that I missed seeing them on the Seven and the Ragged Tiger tour in 1984/85. That one was special, as in off the crazy train of awesome hook special, because I got to shoot some photos of the show from the very front of Constitution Hall. 

Very front. As in, that is John Taylor's hand, and I took it, so, yes, that is where I was. 

 

So I can say I did that, one time. That was a pretty big deal for me.  

Sarah took that, and lets me use it when I want to. Thanks, Sarah. 

Last night I wasn't in the photo pit, nor did I even have my big camera with me, because I didn't know the venue well enough to know if it would fly to have it or use it, and there is nothing more aggravating than getting stopped with a camera and my car was all the way over by the Coast Guard building and, well, iPhone, it is you and me, as usual. (It turns out it probably would have been okay, but I was actually kind of grateful not to have to deal with it.) (Every time I walked or drove or parked by that building, I said "AHOY!" aloud to myself. Don't you wish you were there? No? Yeah, I totally understand.) 

Ntelos Wireless Pavilion is a cool spot, an outdoor performance space on the water that is covered with white tent-like things that make it look like a much tinier version of the Sydney Opera House. Except yeah, it's totally not, and it's in Virginia. I catch crowd vibes quickly, and these people were out to have fun. Portsmouth was drinking beer and watching music this Wednesday, you guys, and it was fun just to be among them.

I also hadn't road-tripped to a show in years, probably since I saw Pearl Jam in Toledo in nineteen ninety-something, when I was living in Dayton. I liked being a stranger in a strange land inhabited by some of the most vocal, devoted Duran Duran fans I have ever seen, men and women, young and as old as I am, maybe even older, if that's possible. 

My highlight was overhearing the guy in sunglasses who came bounding from the stage area before the show to show his friend his setlist AND the lyrics to Planet Earth. I don't know where he got them, but he couldn't have been more excited. He'd seen them at Hampton Coliseum in 1984, I know that much now, and they were AWESOME and are STILL AWESOME. Yesterday appeared to be his Duran Duran Christmas and high school reunion combined. Favorite part:"Let the Music Play" is in the band's pre-show house music rotation. He recognized it, and yelled, pointing towards the heavens, "LISTEN! It's SHANNON! From the EIGHTIES!"

I like being around happy people, and happy people on music? Better. He was incredibly loud and in my ear with this, and I didn't even care. 

So, the show was fantastic. It might have been my favorite of the five I've seen. I like that they bring the same level of energy and range and crowd interaction to every show. I like that they are fun. I like that they don't play to some less-than-two-hour phone-it-in standard. I like that they have a gorgeous stage production. And yes, I like that they are still cute. (Because they totally are.) 

But most of all, I love the music, the old stuff and the new stuff. Of course I'm emotionally wired to react to The Reflex and Wild Boys, Notorious and especially the oldest stuff, like Planet Earth, which still gets me moving like no other. But I really like Girl Panic,  The Man Who Stole a Leopard, and the title track from All You Need is Now. It's a solid album. My favorite artists are those who keep reinventing over the years. This is why I love Indigo Girls, worship at the Prince altar, and cannot wait to see what Lady Gaga comes up with in ten years. This is why I can't get with Chris Cornell's solo work, because it's not...good. This is why I mourn Janis Joplin and Jim Croce especially hard, and why I'm sorry Amy Winehouse couldn't kick her demons. This is why I took myself to see The Red Piano in Vegas. Yes, Elton John is one of my personal and musical heroes (it's deep, I'll tell you about it sometime maybe, how I even forgive him for The One.) And one of the reasons is that he has changed so much, and tried new things. The wealth and fame of a pop/rock/whatever career doesn't guarantee or necessarily motivate this, so I appreciate growth and change in artistry more than anything. 

I'm happy that Duran Duran stuck around, and that they keep making new music, and that they keep touring a central part of their lives at what must be rather a sacrifice to their personal lives, but hey, I guess it's good work if you can get it. 

I'm especially grateful that they played "Save a Prayer" before ending with "Rio" for the encore. They didn't play it in October, and I thought I wouldn't hear it again. Thankfully my phone died (the only time you'll ever hear me say that, I'm pretty sure) before that, so I could focus on the music. I hope the girl next to me wasn't too freaked out by the lady next to her crying like a fool through the entire damned thing, but I couldn't help it, and oh well, I'll never see her again. 

"Take a chance
Like all dreamers can't find another way
You don't have to dream it all, just live a day"

It's interesting how favorite songs can change meaning for us as our lives change. That was good. Just live, one day. I can do that, I think. 

I need a life that includes more music, and more experiences like this, is the thing. That's what last night told me. This show gave me what I needed to help put me back on course. It made me remember my better self, what feeds me inside, what makes me smile and sing and dance. I haven't had many experiences like that lately. You never know what will do it, but sometimes you do. You just have to remember. You just need a reminder. 

I'm hitting the road better for it, I know. 

Thank you to Sasha at Red Magnet Media for hooking me up with the tickets, and to Duran Duran for making a day in my ordinary world rather extraordinary. These shows burn into my brain in the best possible way, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share this experience with you. If you're in or near Atlantic City or Pittsburgh, they'll be up that way this weekend. Snag a ticket and go. I totally would if I could.

Because Todd Akin Is Wrong

I said yesterday that I feel like the world is one giant trigger alert right now, so consider this mine at the top of another post about Todd Akin, his evil and dangerous views, the ripple effect that I see throughout his political party (and, I can only therefore assume, a chunk of our society, as well), and above all, a desire I feel to wrap every woman I know and don't who has ever suffered sexual violence up in my arms to safety, if they would accept that from me. 

I wasn't going to say anything about it here, but I can't stop thinking about it, and I want to,  because I don't really know who deserves our advocacy, voice, solidarity, and love more than sisters known and unknown who have suffered the worst kind of physical violation, sometimes over a period of years? I do not know who. I go to Violence Unsilenced -- a site my friends have built, lovingly, on the words of many such women and men. I go to read and I leave a few words. I don't know when I started, or why I keep coming back, as distractible as I am. I think because it's the least I can do? Because I see the people who write these horrifying testimonies to survival and strength and courage -- some of the most honest, powerful, and certainly strongest and most important words on the internet -- come back and thank people, genuinely say that it helped to hear what people had to say.

It is, truly, the very least I can do.  

Likewise, I have read and read and read this week, post after post, news story after news story, tweet after tweet after tweet about Rep. Akin's statements. I feel sick and obsessed. I can't stop reading and I want to stop reading, but I feel like who am I to stop reading? I feel like the least I can do is bear witness to people who are stepping up and saying YOU DO NOT DEFINE ME OR WHAT HAPPENED TO ME, MAN. STOP. You don't know SHIT ABOUT MY STORY, JUST LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW SCIENCE OR INTEGRITY. 

By the time Mike Huckabee opened his huge, never-shutting-up, nugget-munching mouth (I do not like Mike Huckabee, at all. He is another evil, dangerous person) yesterday to announce that he had real, live actual proof of human beings produced from rape who had contributed greatly to society? I was sitting outside of the place where I was picking up my dinner, and I laid my head on the steering wheel, not because I was being dramatic for a change, but because it actually hurt and I was overwhelmed with sadness and frustration. 

Did he ask those people (the ones who were still alive, anyway) if he could name-check them in this context? Did he call them up after his intern found them through the Google and ask them if they were cool with this information being shared, not because it's anything to be ashamed of, but because it was highly charged, and it was their story to share and not his to make a rhetorical pawn?

Did he understand the hubris that it takes to use the names of human beings conceived through rape to advance his political message? 

I was guessing no, already. And just like every other time I heard some ridiculous, wrong, news this week, faces flashed in front of my eyes, of people I love who have survived rape, who have rebuilt their lives or who have, in one case, been killed in the immediate aftermath, so no she couldn't.  

I want every woman who has been raped who is listening to this twisted, sad, critical saga unfold from their television screens, computers, smart phones, and social circles to be protected from the exhaustion and emotion of hearing these uneducated, sick, uncaring fools talk and everyone else weigh in, even in support. I am devastated that we have reached a place in our cultural and political landscape where this is what we have to make women experience to prove that in spite of hundreds of years of progress, we live with the threat of Dark Ages mentality around every corner. 

I am pissed off that our troops die every day in war zones and there is no room to talk about it becauase we are embroiled in the shocking, baffling concept that our elected officials consider women chattel and would make laws for no reason other than to set us back whence we came. 

I am enRAGED that so many people I know who identify as conservative bleat about the economy and cannot put their megaphones down to hear the reality that awaits their daughters, sisters, lovers, and -- most confusingly, I admit it -- THEMSELVES, if these people continue to advance their views.

When did oppression become acceptable again? 

I want women who have been raped, who have suffered the ultimate violation of their bodies and minds, at the same time, to go only as far as they feel they can reasonably go now in disclosing or reliving their own stories out loud. Maybe they have done it, and they don't want to do it again right now. Maybe they are going through something else and the compounding of trauma is too much. Maybe they are attending to their lives and trying to work or get divorced or buy a house or plant a garden. Maybe they are busy and were operating under the assumption that you, sir, chosen by the citizens of your state to represent them, were not a walking, talking, uneducated trigger.

I don't want the women who don't feel ready, or who feel unable, or who feel done with it all, to feel like they need to speak up and share anything, while at the same time I feel grateful for the ones who do have the resources now to do so. 

I think the only good that can possibly come out of this -- besides not letting Akin or anyone of his mindset be elected, although I have to express my fear that, like ants, when he is removed another one, potentially worse, will pop up from whatever factory they're made in -- is that we understand again the gravity of speaking up. We get better used to calling bullshit on abusive talk and regressive systems.

I think there are probably women out there who have been carrying their stories around for a very long time, who felt motivated to share in the interest of educating people, not just about rape, but about the dangers of sitting by while people who would demean something so horrible are being interviewed on purpose on television, as authorities and public servants. 

I know there are. I am not one of them. I have never been raped. I have never had this experience. It has happened to people I love, however. It has happened to women today, women I don't know, and will never. It will continue to happen and to be excused, apparently, so we do what we must do. For many reasons, including what I have seen unfold in recent months, and, most critically, this week, I can only commit myself openly as an ally for the rest of my life. This has gotten out of hand. 

The "War on Women" is not a figment of the dirty liberal imagination or a fabrication of the Obama administration. That is wrong. Moving forward, how can we best help ourselves, and people who have suffered already? That is the only question I'm concerned about right now, besides saving the women of Missouri, and ourselves, from this kind of perverted governance. 

If you are a survivor of domestic violence, sexual abuse, or rape, you may find supportive resources at Violence Unsilenced here. You may read survivor stories here (please pace yourself, and be supported in some way, survivor or no.) and posts this week on their Facebook page. (For all the craziness, it has spurred some beautiful writing, and what I believe to be hope, community, and healing around this issue for survivors. I still wish it had happened in a different way, however, but I am a curmudgeon. :)) 

A favorite conservative trope is "taking our country back." It hasn't gone anywhere, and neither have many of us. We are still here, living our lives, facing our traumas, and, in the best of circumstances, supporting each other the best we can. We cannot allow untruths, abusive belief systems, harmful legislation, and insidious or explicit violence against women, to continue. We have truly, in many ways, come too far. 

If you are a survivor of any kind, I support you and salute you as I always have. If you are an ally, like me, I encourage you to speak up, particularly if you are a man, or know a man who may be encouraged to share his voice on this important issue. Hate and pain kill our hearts, our communities, our families, and our individual selves more than anything else. 

Thank you for supporting people who are trying to keep and make things better for all of us, especially those who need our help the most from day to day. 

Concrete jungle where exhaustion and spontaneous tears are made of, there's a lot of stuff you can't do.

Sometimes you stay up all night and listen to Elton (because he is your friend, OKAY?) and upload BlogHer pictures and think that yes, maybe things are just rolling along okay. 

It was in New York, so there were things like this: 

I met Margaret Cho and told her something I haven't told many people. She stepped back from me, put her hands on both of my shoulders, and said, "That's so beautiful, dude." 

I liked that a lot. 

I think we were both pretty excited about it. 

I also kidnapped Margaret Cho with my camera, and forced her to take pictures with Sarah and me (why didn't anyone take my hair down? I can only conclude that everyone hates me.) 

...and then with Tarrant and me.

Margaret Cho is gritting her teeth in exhaustion from me at this point. Except really, I don't think she is. She's a cool person. She may go out in the alley and punch herself repeatedly after these ordeals are over, but when she's in there, you don't know that. That's professionalism, man. 

I got to listen to Vikki read in Voices of the Year, and I loved it. I cried, because basically Vikki likes me to be in pain (Hey Vikki, typing your URL is painful. Do you know how confusing all of those p's are? 

No, seriously. I give Vikki a hard time, but that is because from the minute we Twitter-met, I got her. She's a spectacular human being, an interest in the game of Spoons aside, and although I really had no right to be, I was wildly proud of her writing something important and beautiful, and for reading it so well. 

Now I don't have to say anything nice about Vikki for awhile, right? Good. 

Spoons sucks so hard. KILL SPOONS WITH FORK FIRE. 

Let's see, what else? Oh. Schmutzie and Neil and I did a panel based on our Blog2012 chats, and it was so much fun. People filled the seats and had things to say, and at the end I ran around with a microphone like a fool for awhile, asking people what they needed help with from other bloggers.

Shhh, psst, y'all? Can someone pay me for that? Because it wsa invigorating as hell. I want to do it again, except I also need to eat. No? Okay. I'll just do it for fun. WHO NEEDS HELP?

The panel was pretty much everything and nothing we planned, but we took a lot away from it, and we are busily planning for more chats this year. I am so grateful to everyone who showed up. It was truly a highlight of my time online.  

I did not have my favorite conference year by far, but that was mostly me, because right now? I'm a hot mess. But it was New York, and so there was a form of twisted redemption after the second act, which is to say on Sunday and Monday after all you crazies got the hell out of Dodge. (I love you.)

There were buildings and slices of sky. 

Italian crudo I think about every day and wish to be shoving into my face (I am not lying. I don't think about any food every day, but for this one I make an exception, because it was glorious in every way. Please meet me in Eataly NYC, any time. Please.) 

There was an unexpected view of something so wonderful all I have is this to explain it. 

It was that wonderful. 

And yes, there was a vague, terrifying, memory of this. 

A promise of Chicago, too.

And always this:  

 

I'm pretty sure I'll see y'all there.

Happy

I am struggling with my chemistry, a lot. A lot a lot. It hasn't been this bad in a long time.

I had been feeling frustrated for a season of time, processing hurts and worry and assorted garbage. I think all of the transition -- the job change alone, plus the deep fears that my high blood pressure episode brought up in me, when I honestly thought I was going to die or be so impaired my life would never be the same -- got to be too much. I got snappish and pissy and overworked, angry again. I took on too many things after my job ended, piling on commitment after commitment in a panic, instead of stepping back, breathing, figuring out the logical and strategic way to manage this huge life change. 

I can tell you the exact tipping point.

When I got out of the cab at Penn Station on my way to the train last week after BlogHer, I rolled my unnecessarily gigantic suitcase up and over my ankle, ripped the skin off the side of it, and crunched my foot. It was a feat of totally involuntary and ridiculous clumsiness. Then the gate agent wouldn't take my e-ticket, yanked me out of line to go handle that, quite rudely. I was afraid that I would miss my train, and at that point, I needed to be home so badly that I freaked.

By the time I got on the train, I was done. My energy and adrenaline, all of the raw material I'd poured into the past three months, were gone. 

I came home, tried to sleep, and somewhere around day three, some familiar patterns emerged in my brain. And I got sad.

(Are you bored yet? I am. This whole thing is a colossal pain in the ass.) 

This descent is not new to me, but it is always jarring, frightening, and an inconvenient life and work killer. I am working my way through it every day, to try to make a plan, to take specific steps to accomplish the things I must do, to try to talk to my friends and family as I am always, still, entirely embarrassed and irritated to do.

"No, I don't feel so good. No, I'm not going to do that. Yes, I have called, yes. I know."

It is such a drag not to have good news. I want so badly to have good news. I'm surrounded by love but this is when it has trouble really touching me. I have angels on my phone and in my gchat, making me promise things and setting things up so I won't fall through this hole again. I can't tell you how hard it is for me to reach out and ask for help. I can't adequately explain the paralysis that hits me. The last time it was this bad was, honestly, 2005, which is when I started blogging, so I guess that's reasonable for what I know is a big transition year in terms of where the story goes from here. 

I'm making myself postpone radical decisions until I run them through my brain a few times, which means that I may take this trip I so badly want, yes, but in September, not tomorrow. Today I should send in three queries, but no, I will probably in fact send one. Today I will.

It is a bitch to know how to be a case manager when it's my brain. It feels like the most astoundingly reductive thing to do to myself, when in terms of clients all I've ever thought about (except for the occasional super mean one, full disclosure) is how to build up. 

But yes, I'm sitting with discomfort rather than racing around trying to make it go away. I am crying when I need to in hopes that the tear supply will run out and it will process my excess physical energy in a good way. (Apparently my eyes like to cry right now. It is incredibly inconvenient and I also have a chronic headache for the first time in months.) I am dragging my ass to yoga and om'ing as I'm told, adjusting the poses for hypertension, like a middle-aged boss. 

But the truth is that I would like a new Instagram filter for my life.

I would like to trade in these cards for some better ones right now.

I would like to avoid the parts that I know trip me up. I would like to push through the tangles of my neurons and synapses and just feel better. 

I am also trying to stay task-focused, because honestly I have a lot of stuff to do. So I was scrolling through pictures tonight, trying to get up my urge to post my images from the summer, none of them satisfying me at all in the way that they usually do. I came across this one. 

(Yes, these are pictures of me. It's a case study, kind of, if a lazy one.) 

This was Mom2 New Orleans, a couple of years ago. 

I'm sad I lost that ring on my right hand, but I know that I was happy. That night was so much fun. That was a great trip. I learned things. I  spoke. I made great connections and some new friends who are still in my life. My dad bloggers let me tag along in the Quarter, and it was the best of that place too, in spite of the craziness and gross puddles of God knows what (Sue me, I love it, even though I probably shouldn't.) I felt comfortable and secure in where I was and what I was doing.

Last year, I came home from San Diego and I looked like this: 

So tired. Kind of ridiculous. Still happy. Best trip, really, and there? I worked really hard, too. It was different, though. It made sense. I felt good about it. I came home strengthened in friendships and love, in my sense of myself in the work I was doing. 

I do not like how I look now enough to share it. This is no commentary on my physical appearance, honestly, but there's just an expression, you know? I don't know what it is, but I don't like it. 

One of the most challenging things about depression is actually the moments when the clouds break, when I start to feel better. It can be terrifying, striking a psychological chord much like "Oh, have you lost weight? I thought your face looked a little thinner." 

And then I might freak out because what did I look like before? What happens if you try to grasp onto this feeling of rare chemical normalcy, try to make friends with it, and then it leaves again? It's the classic taste of honey/none at all conundrum. 

It's worth it, though. It is. It just doesn't feel like it in the moment, even if it feels like it in the end. 

I know that the only way out is through, and that I can commit to the "through" so much. I know that this -- whatever this is -- is temporary, and that it maybe can even lead to something better.  I know that I am lucky to have friends who will check up to see if I'm writing for my own sake, if I'm going to post, if I'm going to go to the doctor, if I'm going to leave my house, if I need a place to stay if I do decide to just start driving. Lucky lucky lucky. 

It's just hard to feel the lucky sometimes, when it feels so bad, and finding it hard to feel lucky even when you know you are is a particular kind of guilt barn-burner, so screw that noise. It's just really important to get through it, to get through all of this. It's really important to make something better out of this stretch of days until they're over.

It can just feel so, so bad. And that is when hope is the most important thing.