meg smitherman

You know vision boards? It’s the idea that if you make a visual representation of all the things you want in life, those things will manifest in reality. Because of like, vibes and shit. What a load of nonsense, right??? Wrong. Fuck you. Vision boards are real.

You know what else is real? The vision playlist that I made today. I figure, if I listen to it enough and think about romantic love, it will manifest in my life. Cuz Tinder hasn’t worked so far.

To be completely serious though…! I am so over being bitter and jaded about love. I may be old, and I may have experienced failed relationships and a seemingly endless cascade of shitty men in dating contexts, but I refuse to give up on the notion of that dreamy, idealist soul mate shit. I refuse! Better a series of bitter disappointments than sitting around in acceptance of defeat for the rest of my life. So I made a playlist of songs that make me feel happy about love, and excited for it, and nostalgic — in a good way — for love I’ve had in the past.

I figure even if my soul mate never shows up at my doorstep, at least I’ll be putting good energy into the world. I’m okay with that!

Anyway, here it is on Spotify, if you want to listen. It is unapologetically cheesy and includes at least one track by Coldplay.

If you don’t have Spotify and are just dying to know what songs are making me happy-cry lately, here’s the track list (so far):

1. Marble Halls – Enya
2. Unchangeable Love – Through Juniper Vale
3. goodnight n go – Ariana Grande
4. pete davidson – Ariana Grande
5. Ordinary Day – Vanessa Carlton
6. Saturn – Sleeping at Last
7. Favourite Colour – Carly Rae Jepsen
8. So Far Away and So Near – Erutan
9. I Don’t Wanna Grow Up – Bebe Rexha
10. Us Against the World – Coldplay
11. No Storms Come – The Innocence Mission
12. A Thousand Years – Christina Perri
13. I Will Always Return – Bryan Adams

Lately life feels like a series of isolated joys and sadnesses. I would say rollercoaster, but that implies at least some level of heightened experience, and at the very least, screaming. Instead, I find that I’m either feeling generally content (as content as I can be when I live with two people I don’t really like and when I can just barely afford to live), or mildly depressed.

I’d rather be cycling through intense enthusiasm and deep sadness; at least that way I’d feel excited about something. Part of it, I think, is the summer doldrums. I’m never happy in August. My only big breakups have occurred in August. I almost always have a bout of serious depression in August.

So maybe, relatively speaking, it’s been a good August, and I’ll come out of it feeling especially relieved that I made it through only slightly scathed.

On the other hand, it still sucks. I seem to have lost the ability to stay entertained by any piece of media, I haven’t been sleeping, and when I do sleep it’s too deeply or too fitfully, and I wake up with a sore jaw. Work is stressful, the weather is hot, I seem to have a million unpaid bills and expenses that I’ve put off until the last second, and everything I eat tastes vaguely disappointing.

It doesn’t help that I’ve been dating. The worst is that these dates aren’t hilariously bad or terrible. They’re fine, and the men have been fine, but I haven’t felt a spark with any of them. I’m beginning to think I’ll never feel a spark, and I’ll end up as I always expected I would: middle-aged and alone, sharing a house with a dozen or so senior chihuahuas. Not that I could afford even an apartment in LA that could fit a dozen chihuahuas, let alone a house.

It’s not as if the year so far has been a total bust. I wrote a book and got promoted, due to an office relocation my commute time has halved, and I can finally afford to live without putting expenses on my credit card (which is maxed out now anyway). But it’s August, it’s interminably hot, and I feel like I’ve run out of things to be happy about.

God, that sounds depressing. But it’s true. Without a project or a goal, I lose my joie de vivre. Unfortunately my project lately has been dating, and interacting with strange men is a hobby that’s doomed to result in disappointment.

There are things I know I want, but which are so out of my control that I’ve pretty much despaired of ever having them. I yearn for a home of my own. I yearn for cool weather. I yearn to publish a book. I yearn for a boyfriend. I yearn, I yearn.

I’m just stuck, I’m stuck, and I’m ready to move forward but I don’t know how. Isn’t that always the way, with me. And, as always, I will meditate and read tarot and cry and write to let it out. And eventually, something will jolt me out of this empty drifting, and I’ll be happy, and I’ll think, “I have to remember this for next time. I have to remember I wasn’t always adrift.”

Until that time, I’ll continue to sleep poorly and I’ll wake up tired and I’ll watch half an episode of something and read half a book and lie in bed listening to Patrick Wolf, and I’ll wonder what the fuck I’ve done with my life.

I write pretty much the same things about my mom every Mother’s Day, but I have a sneaking feeling that she doesn’t mind. So I’m gonna do it again this year!

The thing about my mom is that she is the best one. I realize a lot of people say that about their moms. And I know that a lot of people don’t. Not everyone’s mom is in their life, not everyone loves their mom, and some people just put up with moms who aren’t as great as they could be. Which is why I feel beyond-words lucky that I couldn’t improve upon my mom even if I was given the option (unless there’s an option to make your mom a multi-millionaire, in which case I would make that change).

For real though. My mom is the best.

I grew up feeling completely and unconditionally loved, every single day. I always felt safe and happy. My passions were nourished and encouraged, I was given everything I needed and more, and I was surrounded by love and affection. I was an only child, thank god, so all of my mom’s motherly love was directed right at me, and no one else — lucky me!

I feel like I’m bragging, but I’m just being honest (as all braggarts say). Truly, I am so grateful for the love my mom has given me every day of my life.

And not just love. She makes me laugh, we have fun together, and she knows me like no one else ever could. So many of my weird traits and quirks are shared with her (genes are wild), so when nobody else understands where I’m coming from, my mom gets it! Who else in the world, when I email her a link to a YouTube video of dandruff removal, would reply with “Omg!! I’ve watched this very one!!!”

Even as an adult, I may go days or weeks without texting my mom, but I know she’s there for me in whatever way I might need her, whenever I need her. She’s there to talk about spirituality, the totally shitty day I had, the Great British Bake-Off, my extremely frustrating digestive health, or our ongoing plans to one day visit Ireland together.

My mom is the strongest support system in my life, both in terms of lending a hand when I’m in a tough situation, and in cheering me on when I pursue my passions. She’s the first to read my books as I write them, and even though she’s extremely biased, she always has nothing but kind words to offer as feedback. (Yes, Mom, you’re biased!)

One of my favorite memories with my mom happened when I was in college. I was 21, and had just broken up with my first boyfriend. I had ditched class in the middle of my English lit lecture because I felt nauseous and heartbroken (and back then, any strong emotion made me wanna throw up). My mom worked in a lab on campus, and since I didn’t know where else to go, I went straight there to find her and cry. She produced some crackers from wherever moms keep all the stuff they happen to have exactly when it’s needed, and took me outside to sit at a shaded picnic table. I ate crackers while she offered words of wisdom, and told me about all the times she’d behaved like a total pathetic weirdo after her breakups. They were hilarious, ridiculous stories that she’d never told me before. It reminded me that everyone, even my mom, goes through the same heartbreak shit I was going through just then. Plus it made me laugh, which was exactly what I needed, and it made her feel that much more relatable, which strengthened our bond as not just mother and daughter, but as friends.

It seems like a small thing, but my mom dropped everything at work to sit with her adult daughter for a while to calm her down during a difficult time, and it meant (and still means) everything to me.

So, on this Mother’s Day and on every other day of the year, I am very grateful for my mom and her ongoing presence in my life. Thanks for being such a strong role model and loving parent, Mom. I love you!

So I just finished the first draft of my second novel. To some people that may not be a big accomplishment. Some people have done way more stuff!! But to me, with only one other finished book to my name, it is a LOT.

I’ve written about this in past posts, but to be brief: I genuinely didn’t know when or if I’d ever have the time, energy, or motivation to write another novel. I truly didn’t think it would ever happen. My first novel was written during grad school, so I was working 10 hours a week and writing the rest of the time. Honestly, I didn’t think I had it in me to write a whole book while working full time. But you know what? I fucking did. I DID!!! And I’m so, so so so so proud of myself.

I’m proud of myself for letting go of the self-imposed pressure to be perfect. This was a book I wrote for myself, purely because I wanted to. I’m going to polish it up and make it more readable and try to get it published, sure. But if it never gets published, honestly, I’ll be okay. The reason I wrote this book was to write it. That’s it. I wanted to say, at the end of 2018, “I wrote that goofy fun sci-fi novel I always wanted to write! I fuckin’ did it!”

And now I can say that!

I’m also proud of myself for writing even when it was hard as fuck. I’d get home at 6:00 PM every night after an hour in LA traffic, take my dog for a walk, change into my lounge clothes, make dinner, watch an episode of whatever show, and by then I was ready for bed. But I didn’t go to bed, or keep watching TV, like I really wanted to; I wrote. I wrote during my lunch breaks at work. I wrote on the weekends. I blew people off to write. I think I have carpal tunnel growing in my left wrist now.

But I did the work that I needed to do, and now I have a first draft.

AAHHHH!!! I’m just so proud of myself???

I did a thread about this on twitter, but I am proud of myself and very grateful for the steps I’ve taken away from comparing myself to others all the time. I still do it, but in the past year I’ve found a sort of peace with working a full-time job to pay the bills, and just writing for fun. I used to feel an intense urgency when it came to my writing, like every second I wasn’t published or famous was a second wasted. Maybe it’s because I’m getting older and more tired, but I am happy just sitting here writing bad novels on my own time until one of them is maybe good enough to publish.

Anyway, I don’t know, I’m just… really fucking excited about this. I did what I set out to do at the beginning of the year, and it is no small thing. It’s an amazing feeling, setting big goals for yourself and then meeting them.

And listen. You can do it too. I don’t know if my garbled words here will find purchase anywhere, but if you’re reading this, and you have a creative project you want to do but you’re not sure if it’ll be good or if people will like it — UM, FUCK IT?? Just do it! Just do it for you, because it’s in you and you were born to do it. It’ll be a lot of work, but at the end, shit, you will feel good.

And truly, you owe it to yourself. I’ve realized, after years of inner conflict and self-criticism, that I’m still a writer. That’s who I am. The pure joy and sense of fulfillment that I got out of writing this book is the evidence I needed. I’m a writer, I always have been, and I didn’t grow out of it like I’d worried I had.

Is it dorky to say it’s my calling? Yeah. But I genuinely feel like it’s my calling, whether or not I ever make a dime from it. Writing is my goddamn shit. It makes me feel like a whole person.

I’m so proud of myself.

Nothing about this museum makes sense, including its name.

It’s called a museum, but it feels more like a portal to another dimension. A reality similar to our own, but with details off kilter here and there. The question that kept running through our heads during the hours we spent inside: Is this real?

And not just the aesthetic of the museum itself, which was strange enough — dimly lit, rickety in parts, esoteric and bizarre. But each exhibit, presented as fact, and often narrated in some foreign language overlaid with English, or explained by backlit plaques in otherwise near darkness, was steeped in otherworldliness. Everything seemed to balance delicately on the line between fact and fiction. It was as if we’d wandered into a parallel version of our world, such that while we were within the walls of the museum, every bizarre thing we saw and read and heard was true, even if logic and sense demanded otherwise.

The feeling in the museum was dreamlike, as of being caught or frozen in an unknown time. It evoked a distinct unease, but with it a sense of wonder. Everything was eerily quiet, other than the distant sounds of muffled opera music from a nearby exhibit, or the murmuring of other museum guests. At one point an old borzoi wandered through, ignoring us when we tried to call to it.

Is this real?

Upstairs, at the effective end of the museum, is a tea room offering cookies and tea, with hot water poured from an ornate silver jug. And up a short flight of stairs beyond that, you’ve entered yet another world: a Moroccan-style courtyard filled with the soft cooing of doves and the gentle bubbling of a low fountain, overgrown with lush curling ferns and spring blooms and vines, rustling in the soft breeze. Beautiful many-stringed instruments perch on cushioned benches, and wooden stools line the courtyard’s shaded outer edges.

Sipping our tea as doves fluttered over us and white awnings snapped in the wind, I overheard a girl say to her friend, “Is any of this real? Are we going to wake up in a minute, asleep in the car, where we’ve been this whole time?”

I truly feel as though, for the few hours we spent inside the museum’s walls, we were transported to a pocket of reality other than our own. I believe that everything presented therein, whether it is “true” or not in our reality, was factual within those walls. Some say the museum is a hoax, or a fiction, or an extensive art installation. But in the moment, with nothing to convince us otherwise, those histories and lives and theories were true. We accepted them as fact. And so, in a way, they do exist in our world: as a story, an idea, or a dream, maybe — but they are real.

So rarely do I revisit stories that I loved as an adolescent and find that they resonate with me just as deeply now as they did then. It almost never happens.

Because there’s something incomparably magical about being on the cusp of adulthood; it’s like everything has the glow of approaching dawn. You can finally understand things more fully and realize the implications of life and relationships, you can analyze, but childhood’s magic still clings to you. You’re in a limbo where every feeling is amplified, So Important, and every sadness is a life-ending tragedy. Every joy is a reason to run down the street, singing. Every book you read is a life-changing masterpiece.

But when you’re grown, it fades.

When I was a teenager, I read a book called The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee. I had read her book Biting the Sun, which was my favorite book at the time (and still is). When I first read BTS, it struck a deep chord in me. I read it many times. It made me long for things I couldn’t name, just like the protagonist longed. I related to her, and understood her, and felt for her. But when I read The Silver Metal Lover, I’m not sure I felt the same way.

I don’t remember much about my experience reading TSML. Which is odd, because even if I can’t remember an event or even the plot from a book, I can almost always remember how it made me feel. But I had no memory of my feelings about TSML when I decided to reread it. I did know that I liked it, enough to own two copies, and enough to have recommended it to all my friends when I read it. Other than that, it was a big emptiness. Forgotten.

I’ve been reading a lot lately, and I’m trying to work my way through my favorite Tanith Lee books. She’s my favorite author, and I find her work to be so beautiful, and I want to emulate her style in some ways, but make it my own. So I’ve been reading to be inspired. That’s why I picked up The Silver Metal Lover again, thinking I’d probably read it and enjoy it like I enjoy most books now, and move on.

I just finished reading it tonight.

I’m absolutely shocked that I had remembered little to nothing about the story. I recalled nothing about the relationship between Jane (the protagonist) and Silver (the robot she loves). I had no idea. I’m kind of baffled to the point of being amazed that, having read this book again as an adult, a jaded old adult who finds it so difficult to be moved to tears by books anymore (when as a teenager I could fly into a fit of emotion over the smallest thing), I am infinitely more moved by TSML now than I was as a teenager.

Why didn’t the book reach me as a teenager, when it should have shattered me? Maybe it was because I had no comparison to draw when it came to romantic love. I didn’t understand what it felt like to be in love; I had to imagine, so maybe it didn’t connect. Or maybe I hadn’t experienced enough of life to be affected by the poignancy of how fleeting it is (I was still invincible, then). Or maybe it was because I hadn’t discovered myself yet, so to read about someone coming of age felt foreign, or unknowable.

Whatever the reason, I didn’t connect with the book then the way I connected with it just now, as a grown-ass jaded old woman. I can’t describe the way it made me feel. It’s impossible.

The Silver Metal Lover is a romance, but only in that it’s a story that revolves around two people who are in love — a teenage girl, and a totally lifelike robot. What it’s really about, at the core of it, is Jane’s journey into adulthood. Her relationship with her mother. The nature of true friendship. Finding happiness. Finding herself, and learning to love the person she becomes. Above all, though, because this is a story about a girl in love with a robot, is the question of what it means to be alive. It’s a love story because the tension is all wound up in Jane and Silver’s mutual tragedy. And yes, it’s tragic. I cried countless times while reading. But I think what really cut me to the core, what moved me so thoroughly that I sat in bed and sobbed uncontrollably for ages after finishing the book, was how truly life-affirming it was, while still reminding us that life is fleeting. Life is amazing because it is fleeting. And sometimes love is just as fleeting, but the things we learn and the ways we grow in each relationship are necessary to live.

I don’t think I understood that, as a teen. Or maybe I did. Maybe I don’t give myself enough credit. Maybe I really did forget sitting in my bed at sixteen, holding this book to my chest, crying and crying. But I don’t think so.

What I really want to say is: I’m grateful. I’m so grateful that I read The Silver Metal Lover again, at a time when I could appreciate it. And I’m even more grateful that it gave me that feeling again — that feeling of being young, with the last remnants of childhood’s golden magic clinging to me, where everything is so much Bigger and More, and everything I see or feel or read or hear is a galaxy of feelings and experiences that I can barely begin to access or understand.

I’m grateful that I was able to feel that again, even for the briefest time.

Hey, remember when I was paralyzed with self-doubt and a whole bunch of garbage nonsense when it came to writing fiction? As expressed in my previous post on this very website?

Well. Never mind.

Literally two days later I started working on my book again. I say “again” because I’d been working on the outline, and because years ago I’d written the first chapter and just never came back to it. I still liked the chapter, so I kept it, and just fucking started writing again.

What happened between that blog post and me actually getting my shit together, against all expectations? A friend who writes for a living told me that writing, for said friend, had always felt like pulling teeth. The muse had never come to visit, the words didn’t ever stream out effortlessly as though guided by some unseen hand — no! It was always work, a chore, a thing that had to be done or there would be no career in writing. That was just a fact, for this friend.

So what the fuck was my excuse, then? I had none! I had literally absolutely no excuse to not be writing. So I figured fuck it, I’ll just sit down and set a timer and see how much shit I can churn out in 35 minutes. 35 minutes of torture isn’t that bad. I can do it!

So I did.

And I did again the next day. And the next. I kept writing! And it wasn’t painful! I mean, it wasn’t and is never easy. I’m constantly referring back to my outline to tell me what the fuck is going on. And most of what I’ve written is actual trash (that’s what editing is for, I remind myself CONSTANTLY). But I’m actually enjoying it, and I’m starting to think about the characters when I’m out doing other things, and I just…!

I’m writing again???

I’ve had to aggressively ignore my inner critic, who is a huge bitch, and ignoring her is easier said than done. Every time I feel myself starting to panic and freeze because a scene isn’t good enough, or because I haven’t included enough backstory or context or whatever, I have to remind myself that it’s okay. All of that can be fixed later. A manuscript is a living thing for a while, and the main goal now is to just write it. Plus it’s not as if anyone is going to read this. Right now, it’s just for me.

I also think that having written an entire novel before has given me confidence. When I wrote my first book, I didn’t even know if I could do it. For all I knew, I possessed a recessive gene that would forcibly block me from ever finishing any manuscript I tried to write. Like I’d have a stroke or something just as I started writing the last chapter, I dunno, who knew? It was an unknown road I walked those years ago.

But now, I know I can do it! I can write an entire 90,000-word first draft in less than a year. It is a task that I can physically and mentally accomplish. Not an easy task, but one I can do 100%.

Listen. It’s possible I’ll get stuck somewhere in this manuscript and never finish it, and that will be okay. It’s also possible that I’ll finish it, and that will be great too! For now, though, I’m just feeling really good to be writing again. And I’m enjoying the story as it unfolds. I’m enjoying getting to know my characters! I wrote 5,000 words this weekend! That’s not nothing! I’ve written 10,000 words in a week, and I’m enjoying it.

I honestly can’t believe it.

Anyway, before I go, please direct your attention to the illustration at the top of this post. It’s just a little doodle, but her name is Georgiana, and she’s my book’s protagonist. Maybe one day you’ll get to read about her! If not, well, just know that she’s very sarcastic and runs away from all of her problems. Exactly like me. (She’s very easy to write.)

I wish I could write fiction like I used to be able to write it in high school. That is: all the time, for nobody’s consumption but mine, with absolutely no self-consciousness.

All the shit I wrote in high school was just that — shit. But it brought me joy, and made me feel like I was expressing a part of myself that needed to be expressed at any cost. Now, I almost never write fiction. I’m constantly self-criticizing, comparing myself to other writers, wondering what’s the point if I never get published, I suck at it anyway, world’s tiniest violin.

The last time I really put time and effort into trying to finish a novel was after grad school in 2013. I wrote about 30,000 words of a book that I remember almost literally nothing about. Maybe it’s because I wrote it while deeply depressed in Utah, but I feel weirdly ashamed when I think about that stupid thing. I tried so hard to write every day — sometimes only writing a few hundred words to keep my streak of daily writing going — but there was absolutely no passion or joy in it. I just mechanically wrote word after word, hoping at the end of a year I’d have something like a first draft in my hands.

I quit working on the book as soon as I left Utah, and I have no regrets. It wasn’t good, and I wasn’t writing it for any reason but to try to do something as a distraction from my empty life. But even though I know that book was conceived in bad circumstances, I have this sort of terror that any fiction I try to write from now on will feel like that. A rote habit that serves no purpose but to fulfill my arbitrary self-imposed “need” to write.

I fully realize that writing only when the muse speaks to you is some kind of bullshit. I know that writing, if you want to do it professionally, requires dedication and regular effort and practiced skill. It’s a job, literally. I’m not under any illusion that it’s not under my own full control whether I write and finish a book or not. But the vast difference in feeling between book #1 (finished) and book #2 (unfinished forever) has thrown me.

It’s possible that I’m not cut out for professional novel writing, and I’m okay with that, I think. It’s true that as soon as you start doing something you love as a job, it begins to feel like — surprise — a job. And while my dream was always to write books for a living, I know it wouldn’t be the blissful experience I always fantasized about while growing up.

So maybe my “calling” is just to write fiction for fun. For myself. Okay, I can do that! Or can I?

My goal for 2018 was to write a book. Not a book to publish, or even necessarily share with anyone, but just for me. To remind myself that I still love fiction. A project to lose myself in, characters to love, a return to a cherished home. This is what I want for myself — I am dedicated.

But here I sit, a few days into the third month of 2018, and I have nothing to show for this dedication but an incomplete plot outline.

I realize I’ve been busy and heartsick and then actually sick, but I can’t help but wonder what the fuck my problem is. Isn’t this, like, your passion, Meg? Your dream? Didn’t you drop tens of thousands of dollars on an overseas postgraduate degree specifically for NOVEL WRITING, the most self-indulgent purchase you have made or will ever make in your entire goddamn life? Yet you just ~can’t get in the right mindset~ to write. Okay.

But it’s, like, hard.

Listen, when I was writing in London, I worked about 10 hours a week and had nothing else going on! I spent every waking hour (when I wasn’t trying to catch mice in my room) thinking about my book, drawing characters from it, plotting scenes, immersing myself in the world I’d created. It was so easy to just pour words onto the page when I was living there with the characters all the time.

Now, though, I’m trying to live a whole life outside of my fictional worlds. I’m working 40 hours a week, taking care of a dog, maintaining a social life, eating real food (kind of) (I only really ate crumpets in London), doing a podcast, following hockey. And sure, I have time to write. I could fit it in. But when I’m only able to sit down for a couple of hours a day, switch to writing mode, and finally be present in that story after a day of focusing on other things — it doesn’t seem to work for me. It feels empty, just like it did when I tried to write that stupid book in Utah.

Maybe, as I said, I’m just not cut out for writing unless I can do it full-time. I have such an obsessive personality that I like to lose myself completely in whatever I do, no matter what it is. So when I wrote my first book, it was my entire life. I’d get impatient on social outings because I wanted to go back home and write. But now, even though I’ve created characters and a setting I truly love for this new book, I just can’t get emotionally involved when I don’t have time to get emotionally involved. If that makes any kind of sense? Which it really doesn’t now that I write it.

I feel like a failure, to be honest. I feel like a failure in many aspects of my life, but mainly the writing. I enjoy writing here, and I’m so glad I decided to start blogging again, because it gives me an outlet for my writing urges, even if these words aren’t exactly good or useful or interesting. But with fiction, I just don’t know if I can do it anymore, not right now. Not for just myself and just for fun.

This is a problem I’ve been dealing with for probably the past… oh, I don’t know, 10 years, so maybe there’s no solution for me. Maybe I’ll just have to wait until I’m retired to finish my next novel, and accept that that’s just the way it’s gotta be.

I wish I knew what I was supposed to do, so I could stop beating myself up over this for no reason.

Fucking christ. I’m alive, I guess.

So. Can I just recommend never having any weird medical conditions? Like, just don’t get one?? When you hit up the weird medical condition store, leave empty-handed.

God. So it’s been a long… what, fortnight? A fortnight of misery? I was going to do a whole timeline of the dumb shit that happened leading up to this, but honestly it’s just so boring and frankly distressing for me to revisit in any great detail, so fuck that.

In short: I had my wisdom teeth removed, the surgeon made an error, the error resulted in more pain during recovery than was necessary, I took a lot (A LOT) of pain medications, and just my luck — the meds aggravated my weird medical condition: chronic idiopathic urticaria. Or, in normal terms, ~mystery hives~.

You can kinda see them on my arm and ankle in the cool pic of me above at the ER! These hives are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. What’s neat about them is that I will never know what caused them, they may never go away, and I am currently on no less than 6 different medications to keep them under control! They’re not related to any external allergen — it’s just some kind of fucked up shit my immune system decided to do on a whim a few years ago, I guess. Thanks, immune system! Doing your job exactly as intended, I see.

So that’s pretty much the gist of what three different allergists (one specializing in mystery hives) have told me. Supposedly the postoperative opioids, NSAIDs, and antibiotics all worked together to get the hives riled up, and despite the many medications I take every goddamn day to keep them in check, they boiled over and decided to ruin my life again.

Anyway, the hives didn’t manage to reach their full potential — thank god — but they were, and have been, an absolute fucking nightmare to get back under control. I got a butt shot and an IV of steroids and antihistamines, you guys. A BUTT SHOT! I thought butt shots cured literally everything, yet here I am, over a week from the onset of these babies, and I’m still at some level of miserable during most of my waking hours.

I feel like it’s weird to blog about medical issues, because nobody really cares and it always feels like I’m complaining, but my social media has been nothing but weird allusions to my illness lately, so I figured I’d better like… explain?

So! I’m working again as of yesterday (albeit from home), which is a massive relief. I was truly unable to focus on anything requiring higher brain function for several days, which, let me tell you, was a hoot and a half! If you’ve never had hives all over your entire body, face and crotch included, boy howdy YOU SHOULD TRY. I spent my days in and out of a pain/itch haze, eating entire pints of ice cream in a sitting just to distract myself, draped in cold damp cloths, watching Frasier and New Girl like my life depended on it.

And, to be perfectly honest, it kind of felt like it did. I wasn’t in a good mental place. I’m still not in a very good place. But I am coming out of it; the hives are now just super itchy red blotches on my skin instead of swollen raised bumps. I can actually sleep for a significant portion of the night, only waking up once or twice instead of being completely unable to sleep at all. It’s these small improvements that are keeping me sane.

According to my allergist, I should be back to normal sometime next week. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the small things, like being able to have a conversation or brush my teeth without shaking uncontrollably. I’ve even cut myself off the ice cream pints (for now).

Sorry this was such a depressing post? Better things later. More thanks to come, because even in this hellish nightmare of a fortnight, I have a lot to be thankful for.

Until then, POSI VIBES~

I just bought a yoga mat in desperation.

$21.99 at Target isn’t the worst impulse purchase I’ve ever made (one could argue that my entire postgraduate education was an impulse purchase), but it was for sure a cry for help, even if I know that the only person who can help me is me.

I’m lonely, y’all. And I’ve come to realize that this is not, as I previously thought, because I don’t have enough close girl friends here in LA — I do have close friends here! It’s just, ever since this non-breakup occurred, I’ve felt increasingly melancholy. The pain of losing a relationship in its infancy, the possibility of happiness together suddenly gone, is a lot more painful than I expected. And while I’m proud of myself for knowing what I want and not making compromises that I know would make me miserable, I feel overwhelmed by the unknown road that lies ahead of me.

Dating sucks. It’s not my favorite prospect, the idea of doing this over and over again until I find someone I connect with enough to actually date. I’m not super jazzed about going on dates with strange men, making so much effort to get to know them, the pain of ending it — because let’s face it, this is going to happen again. I’m gonna meet someone I like, and then it won’t work for whatever reason, again and again until someone sticks.

Goddamn it, I am fucking pissed off about this. I wish I still wanted to be single forever; it was easier to just shut myself off than it is to open myself up emotionally for an incoming slew of random men.

The realization that I’d have to truly enter the dating pool in LA sent me on a sadness spiral, I don’t mind telling you. I spent most of this weekend feeling sorry for myself, gorging on carbs, and binge watching sitcoms in bed. But that is over now! At least, I’m hoping it’s over.

Regardless, starting this week, I’m gonna put myself out there.

I mean, I bought a fucking yoga mat. Not only do I need to get off my ass and move my body for once in my life, but I need to meet people and do things and stop living my entire life inside my room with my dog.  It’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll meet anyone I wanna date at a yoga class, but it’s a first step in the right direction. And who fucking knows!! Maybe the man of my dreams will be there at the studio, taking a break from his video games and hockey, thinking it’s time to make a change and move his atrophied limbs after years of disuse.

At least yoga will get me out of the house, expand my comfort zone, and all of those other dumb things people tell you to do when you’re lonely and sad. I considered looking into writing groups in LA, but I think I’d probably rather die than date another writer. We’re the worst, truly, and based on previous writer’s group experiences, these events are not typically brimming with eligible bachelors. Maybe a D&D group? A cooking class? Guys, I don’t know. I have no idea where people meet other people! You got me, okay?? All of my friends are from the internet! HELP.

Why don’t I use a dating site or app if I’m so into Online, you ask? I’ve fucking tried, and it is impossible. If a guy posts even one unflattering pic, I swipe left. If he says he likes one stupid thing I don’t like, I swipe left. If he misspells a word, swipe left. If he’s too hot, swipe left. Not hot, swipe left. Links to his Instagram, LEFT. Featured pic is of him shirtless? LEFT SWIPE. No hikers, surfers, partiers, adventurers, or models. No actors. Not funny? Left swipe. Trying too hard to be funny? Left swipe. Actually funny? Probably also rolling in pussy already, LEFT. SWIPE.

GUYS!! This is why I’m single! I want to hate literally every man I meet before I’ve even met him! Every possible partner is at a massive disadvantage from the get go. It’s a rigged system.

I’m fucking doomed.

Ugh. My blog has become a goddamn wasteland of complaining and oversharing, and I’m so sorry about that. But I’ll tell you right now, I’m not that sorry, because this is not the end of my pathetic ramblings. It’s only just begun, assholes.

Please stay tuned for upcoming humiliating yoga and probably not dating experiences.

But until then, I’ma just go ahead and finish my binge watch of New Girl.