The Importance of Names

My name is Jessica.

Shakespeare invented it for a Jewish girl in A Merchant of Venice. When I was fifteen I received the Oxford Complete Works from my 20 year old boyfriend for Christmas. I relished the texture of every syllable. Because I am a touch/feelings=color, and pain=color synesthete, texture is very important to me. If I could perceive colors with words, the play would be gold. Here's why:

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

I read it cover to cover, but there are only two plays I've paid much attention to since: A Merchant of Venice (of course) and The Taming of the Shrew. The one which made my name is important to me because names are so important, too. My interest in the other is purely didactic. Shrew is a name I take for myself. But I tame myself, now. I do not need to be tamed. Maybe I, for a woman, for a man, for a human being or cat or carbon based life form, have an unusual ability to compartmentalize my feelings. This has broken the hearts of nice boys who liked me, because though I am kind, I have no intention of emotionally investing in anyone nice. If you lined all of my love interests up in a row, I would pick the mentally diseased drug addict over the super nice doctoral candidate every time. If you knew my narrative you, like I, would see the evidence of this story arc. It re-makes itself over and over again. I don't have feelings for nice guys. Nice guys are my brothers, and to kiss them is incestuous. There are a great number of good reasons for this behavior, which is why I intend to separate my love interests from my life interests for as long as I can bear...for the sake of my daughters, who have not yet been victims in their childhoods. Who must never be victims if I am to reverse the cycle in of my history in their lives. They will never see Mama reject the right choice. Because they must grow to make right choices. So Mama. Shrew. Bitch. INFP. Woman Who Does Not Care to Let You Know She's Probably Got A One Up in the IQ Department. These are names I accept for myself. But I am still kind. I am still sweet-natured, too. I'm a nice single mom. But I do not intend to get lonely about it.

But back to names.

High school is a confusing place for a girl from a trailer park who felt victimized by "ability grouping." There were not people from my class in said ability group, or if there were, there were very few. I was the president of a few clubs there, and an over-achiever in areas which interested me. I do not, however, test well. I only made a 30 on the ACT. I say "only" because, while a 30 is a perfectly acceptable score, the scores I made on the Language Mechanics and Reading Comprehension sections were almost perfect. There was more than a ten point spread between those scores and the score on the Science section. I do not have a difficult time understanding science, if it is interesting. The problem is, I find science just about as interesting as doorknobs.

When I made this score, my high school principal suddenly became incredibly interested in what I was doing with my life. I was just a weird poet-actress-Christian girl who he probably thought was on drugs. But after that score, he started calling me Jess. Not Jes, as my friends would have known because my friends knew my disdain for superfluous letters, but Jess. Jess Generic. Jess. Generic Jess. He did not ask for my permission to do this. He simply started calling me Jess. It drove me crazy. Not literal crazy, but a little crazy. Jessica is a very common name, Jess is a very common diminutive. But I didn't want to be considered common, because I knew I was not. I was only as common as I let myself be, and those antisocial personality traits made me disdain him even more for not accepting me until I had over-achieved.

My maiden name starts with a B. I share this name with my mother and two of my siblings. The culture of the town in which I grew up meant that most people knew my mother was "crazy." And crazy is such a dirty, dirty word. She is not crazy. She suffers from a chemical imbalance in her brain which causes her to make poor decisions. For most people, this can be remedied with a simple combination of medications. For my mother, who is what they call "treatment resistant," these medications do not always work. She has also had electro-convulsive therapy and currently has a Vagus Nerve Stimulator, which is a fancy pacemaker for her brain.

Anyway, when my mother divorce this B fellow, she fell apart. He married his high school sweetheart. They publicly humiliated her at football games. My mother became a whispered wisp of womanhood. A rumor. A pariah. I am not my mother, and I will not be those things. After I got married to Mr. W., I kept my weird last name. According to the federal government, my last name is still B. When I registered for a tax ID number for my record store, they made me hyphenate because my W name had become something like an alias. So I have been a hyphen for years. Now that I am getting divorced, I'm making it official. My degree will say B-W.

I used to write under B-W. My friend Russell gave me a nickname. Be-dub. I will continue to use B-W until I die, because it is a name I have chosen for myself. My ex-stepdaddy might have been a sack of shit, but my siblings are not. My ex-husband might have done many, many things wrong, but his stepdaddy did not, and neither have my daughters. So names, names are a complex system of symbology. Names are semiotics for beginners. I am Jessica B-W to those who don't know me well enough to call me Jes. Be-Dub. Or Jes Be-dub. But if you are reading this from a facebook link, you have seen more sources of shame than I wish you had, and for that reason, you may call me whatever you like.

Except crazy, behind my back.

Or bastard, to my face.

Though jokes are funny when they're funny. To my face, please. That's all I ask.

Because those are not names I have selected, and names can hurt the feelings of any carbon-based life form--no matter how profoundly compartmentalized her feelings may be.

What the Hell Happened.

December 11, 2002: I unwittingly marry a young philosopher/musician who just happens to have the same chronic degenerative mental illness as my mother. I will not name it, but if you know, you know. I don't want to stigmatize him since my daughters have the genetic potential for that same disease. With treatment, they are fine. Like a diabetic on insulin.

2003: No one loves me like him.

2004: Child One is born.

2005: Child Two is born.

2006: Marriage Counseling.

2007: I train myself to stop having panic attacks without the aid of mental health professionals or meds.

2008-2009: I don't even want to talk about it. He gets a degree in the end. I get a job at a bank where I am undervalued and miserable.

October 23, 2008: Unnameable Event.

October 24, 2008: Youngest Child's birthday party.

2010: I go back to school.

Present Day

January & February 2011: SICK! So, so sick. Losing weight and blood and no one knows what's happening to me.

March 14, 2011: I am diagnosed with severe Ulcerative (pan-)Colitis. A diagnosis of arthritis (large joints and ankylosing spondilitis) follows shortly after.

March 15, 2011: I turn 27.

March-April 2011: Antibiotics + Steroids.

May 2011: I take a job working retail because my medical issue has caused my beautiful savings account to be depleted. I am still not in remission and the combined stress of financial worry plus working a retail job with nasty arthritis causes the flare to worsen, causing more extreme rapid weight loss.

June 2011: The rapid weight loss causes "gallbladder sludge" to back into my pancreas, causing pancreatitis.

July 2011: I am still recovering from pancreatitis. My husband betrays my trust in an extreme manner because he also has a chronic degenerative disease (in his brain), but I am forced to stay with him anyway because I am too weak to make my own sandwiches and I have been sick so long I'm terrified of death. His goddamned mother who has approximately the sense of a ham bone tries to have him kick me out of my own house AFTER she has been made aware of the history of abuse which took place before he was medicated...all over a panic attack brought on by pleurisy.

I am put on an SSRI to help me cope with the chronic pain since NSAIDs might cause my colon to ulcerate, and because my whole life is falling apart.

August 2011: I am strong enough to walk around, and I return to school. My husband's job is too stressful for him and he has a "flare" of his own.

September-October 2011: My third remission hangs in the balance because of my fear of losing the life I had finally planned for myself (daughters, home, supermom+eventual PhD) due to his instability.

November 2011:

We file for bankruptcy because of the pancreatitis.

Chronic joint pain is terrible, the SSRI is upped to 60 mg. I can walk around again. I become euphoric about still being alive.

Husband quits his teaching job.

I realize he will never be stable and decide to leave him as soon as I am financially able.

I do not yet realize that the reason for his instability is that I've treated him like a child for the duration of his adult life. But that's true too.

My UC begins to flare. AGAIN. I drop weight very rapidly.

I enter a "Manic Episode" because of the SSRI and electrolyte imbalance.

I begin to think the stress of his disease will kill me if I don't leave him right away.

He tries to intimidate me (as per usual when I try to leave).

11-16: I file a protection order against him so he will not convince me to come back to him.

After having to own the shame of my marriage, I decide to own the shame of my childhood abuses. This is because I have entered a "Manic Episode."

I decide I'm not afraid of being crazy anymore.

I stop eating.

I stop sleeping.

The flare is really, very bad.

I forget to take my SSRI. Abruptly.

I become psychotic. (But I prefer to think of it as a nervous breakdown.)

I humiliate myself on facebook and at school.

11-23: I am arrested. I am kept under psych evaluation for six days in a box with no light switch, no mattress, no food I can eat, and no contact with anyone. I do not even know my own name when I get out.

My children are taken by DHS because I am incapacitated and the protection order tells the truth about my marriage...but also because senseless hambones and their children couldn't keep their damn mouths shut and leave the children where they were.

November30-December 18: I am involuntarily committed.

My husband files for sole custody and for me to have SUPERVISED visitation with my own daughters, and gets an ex parte order to that effect.

I am diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and "both dependent and antisocial characteristics." It turns out I'm not a narcissist after all. I did meet a real one though.

Recovering from psychosis is like if you shattered your brain and must make a mosaic from the tiles. My personality took a long time to come all the way back. BUT IT'S BACK NOW! YAY! I can be MEAN! AND SWEET! And funny, too....at the same time if I want. My life after psychosis will be better if I can know my narrative and hold my head up under the oppressive weight of the shame I now feel.

December 20: I regain physical custody of the children.

I am neither manic nor psychotic now, and I do not intend to defame anyone. Mental illness is like a heart condition, and my daughters, should they suffer it, will know their mother is not ashamed of her brain....because it's a twisted gnarly tree...but it can make some pretty flowers, can't it?

The parties involved know their culpability, who deserves which names they have been called, and that by discussing (and not discussing) the medical conditions of involved parties, I have not breached the trust two parents must have if they are to raise well-adjusted children. The divorce will be virtually uncontested, I get the house and primary custody of the girls. I will probably also get to stay in school, even. BUT OH! how I wish my stupid joint pain would lay off so I could go out into the world and bring home my own bacon.

Having said all that, it was probably out of line to call her a ham bone. BUT! No one will ever call me white trash again. And, because I have lived a life confronting the reality of mental illness in my own mother, I will be careful to keep my own diagnosis to myself and not try to apply labels to people I don't understand properly. I will never ever ever threaten suicide on facebook where my granddaughters can read it...but I will sit quietly to wait for the next byronic hero to wander by so I can break his poor heart while pursuing my terminal degree with help from those who love me and hate from those who don't.

Seeeee....still an atheist, too. It's hard to tell my personality from my diseases, huh? Try combining that shit with serious introspection and you've got some gnarly poetliness on your hands, whether or not there is actual poetry about it. ;-)

Why oh why then must I pull all this out into the open in this irrational manner, when I should simply stay home and get depressed about how wounded I feel that all these things have happened in the same year?

...because I'm Jessica frakking Weisenberg. I have two exquisite daughters. I live without shame. I will not be a rumor or a whispered wisp of womanhood. I have not yet failed when I could work hard to succeed. That's why.

OH! and also....I can delete this entire blog whenever I want. I can edit, rearrange, and sing old songs with new, exquisite verses. I am unemployed and not currently applying to grad schools. So, for the very first time in my entire life, I am a free woman. I no longer carry the weight of the world on my shoulders...because no one's fucking dying for a long, long time...and my various diseases all respond to the weight I put on myself.

I'm currently in remission number four.

On Being Fat

Here's the end of my Fat Studies paper on The Silence of the Lambs:

"To be a “big, fat person,” then, is to be simultaneously impotent and un-feminine, it is to only be worthy of male attention when on display as a mutilated victim. To be fat is to be alone in the pit with no hope and no power. To be fat is to have a mother who will not describe your body. To be fat is to be coveted for your skin and not your whole self. To be fat is to be an inappropriate embodiment of womanhood, to be rescued from your squalid pit by a sexually attractive functioning subject of the patriarchal structure. To be fat is to be the fatted lamb, bleating in a pit, “Fuck you! You bitch!” while the more appropriate woman stumbles around in the dark."

This is not what it was to me to be fat. Being fat was the avoidance of the male gaze. It was wearing whatever clothes I wanted without worrying about the wrong message. It was to be considered jolly, sweet, non-threatening, friendly, maternal, soft, loving, wise--and to be taken for my merits instead of my assets. It was to be valued for my cleverness and not my measurements. I do not care if I am beautiful. I recognize that I have been called that word many times. But I will never identify as beautiful, and though I recognize beauty in the bone structures and color schemes of the women in my life, I do not value it. It is either the possession of something not worked for or it is the preference of straightening irons and surgery over books and comfort. And very often, it is the performance of self-loathing.

I didn't realize that self-loathing part until after the Disease deflated my body a bit. I loved my rotund mounds of flesh. I hated the sagging skin left behind by rapid weight loss. I bought LOTS of lotion. And belts for my funny, high, wasp-waist. This is because I needed self-soothing to deal with the dreadful new body. Since things have evened out a bit, I love my body again. It is soft, after all. It has mass and takes up space. It is the home of my brain.

I still identify as a fat girl. Yesterday, though, I took a picture of myself that made me realize once I'm down one more dress size, that fat-girl identity will be wrenched away from me. I do not know how well I will do without it. AND, now that I can shop in the Misses department in earnest, I find that the male gaze is turning my direction again. It burns my flesh. I cannot be sweet to strangers in the supermarket anymore, because there is a gap in the perception of that sweetness. I think I am only kind. Men (and sometimes, their wives) think I am only becoming. I really ought to make myself a t-shirt that reads "You and I will get along a lot better if you'll just think of me as one of the guys."I would wear it with tights, a pencil skirt, and a sweater. And then I could help single redneck stranger-men pick out hairbows for their daughters without being asked for my phone number.

Pathos, Pain, and Percentages (Or, My Masochistic Machismo)

I don't know how the cat knows. Maybe I start to smell weird. Maybe he's as good at reading my face as my grandmama is. Whatever cat hoodoo he's using to divine my pain level, it's incredibly accurate. He adds his weight to the heating pad. He licks my worst ankle. I am grateful for his attention.

To make a long story very short, I've condensed this summer's events into a numbered list:

1. I gave myself pancreatitis this summer because I stopped eating.

2. I stopped eating because of a particularly nasty flare of my Ulcerative Colitis.

3. The UC flare was caused by an urinary tract infection.

4. The doctor who found the UTI neglected to run a full blood panel and sent me home with pancreatitis to writhe on my couch with the most painful condition a human can stand for a full week before my mother forced me to go to a different ER.

Now that we're caught up, I need to tell you what the other not-incompetent ER doc told me, "I know you're in a lot of pain, but some people with Ulcerative Colitis present this way while flaring." If I had been able to draw a deep enough breath, I would have laughed in his face.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, I will tell you what Ulcerative Colitis is. I will not discuss the more unpleasant symptoms. If you want to be thoroughly grossed out, google it. Ulcerative Colitis is an autoimmune disease which effects the colon, joints, eyes, and less frequently, the liver and skin.

What that means: my immune system is homicidal. It interprets the good bacteria and food inside my large intestine as an invasion force. So, like any strong, healthy immune system, it bombards the living shit out of the invader until the invader backs the fuck off. The problem is, I need food and bacteria to live. In its war on those things, it creates millions of open sores along the full length of my intestine. In addition to this joyous circumstance, my super-strong-yet-entirely-insane immune system also attacks my joints and causes my eyes to swell. Some days I can barely wear shoes and can't manage my contacts at all.

Now that we all understand the science, let me tell you what it feels like:

Take an empty sausage casing. Stick a million razor blades through it. Twist.

Ask your best friend to jump up and down on your ankles.

Poke yourself in the eye.

Better yet:Acquire road rash. Scrub road rash with steel wool. Then give yourself epic food poisoning.

Now you understand what it's like every time I eat during a flare.

And that's all pain I can put into words. The pain of pancreatitis isn't like that. It is unspeakable. It is death in your belly. It is boiling alive in acid. It eats you up.

The problem with my face is that it's too expressive. My instructors always know when I am thinking something. If I know I am going to make a face, I can control it. I walk around most of the time pretending it doesn't hurt, that I'm just an average 27 year old woman. I actively think, "When you hurt, you show the tension in your eyes first. Smiling creates similar lines. Smile and people won't notice." This works out most of the time. It takes a discerning eye to see the pain on my face. My grandmama can always see it. My friend Kara, with her artist's eye, can see it sometimes too.

I go through a lot of trouble to carry on as if things are normal. Because I don't want to talk about what it's really like. Because I want to win. Because I want to understand myself as someone who is strong no matter what. Because I despise weakness--most of all, in myself.

Tuesday my doctor asked me what percentage of the time I spend in some kind of pain when I'm flaring. It never occurred to me to consider it in those terms. But there was a time before the pain, when I never hurt at all. Now the pain is a person who lives inside my body. I am not without her, and she is never far from me.When I asked my doctor what I could do to help my left ankle, which is by far the worst of my joints, she told me that my colon and my joints are "wound up tight like a ball of snakes." My tattoo nearly tingled, because those snakes are just going to keep eating each other up until I die. And I deceived myself if I ever thought any different. I just need to smile through it, give myself a chance to value my own strength, keep my life stress free, and eat plenty of calories--even when every bite becomes a sacrificial gesture on behalf of my daughters. Because food is not my enemy. Anorexia is. And right now, she's eating me alive.

I can't let her win. I can't retreat to my heating pad and sleep through the flare. I must stay up to stay alive.

Why I NEED a New Tattoo, in 4,000 Words or Less

If you're just joining us on DiseaseTalk with Denise Disease, we here at Set Your Jaw recommend that you reference these three posts:

"Well, fuck."

*various words on why I hate my body*

"My Tattoos, Myself"

In fact, it would serve you well to read all posts from March 2011. There's some interesting back story there, anyway.

Jessica Weisenberg is a sensible girl. It's true. My Aunt Ruth told me so, and she never lies. Jessica does not spend money on herself frivolously. She turns in her homework on time and she braids her daughters' hair before bed so it won't tangle by morning. She is the picture of femininity because self sacrifice is the apex of the feminine existence.

Okay, maybe none of that is true. Certainly, that last bit is not. 

Lately I find myself to be quite a bit less pragmatic than usual. Instead of buying myself clothes that fit, for example, I bought an iPad and a new tattoo. Why? Well for one thing, I'm still losing weight. Secondly, iPads and tattoos are forever and frankly, I don't care enough about bodies to keep clothes that long. Thirdly, we're all going to die, people. Your family, friends and children, they will die. This is true. I've been a little closer to it than I hope most of you have, and let me tell you: there's nothing there but nothingness, so you best enter into nothing with the best, least regretful self you can manage.

The tattoo I am getting is AURYN from The Neverending Story. I'm going to go against my nature and tell you why in as explicit terms as I can bear:

1. AURYN, the thing itself

As a child I knew I was, for lack of a better term, Other. I was a bastard, a girl, very smart, very poor, imaginative, outspoken, and I had many, many reasons to be precocious in ways I wish no child ever had to be precocious. I watched The Neverending Story approximately 15,000 times. Because the fantasy appealed to me as means of escape.

Later, when I began to realize I would be a poet, my greatest fear became The Nothing. I have many references to Nothing in my notebook. Sartre is responsible for some of them. Sebastian is responsible for the rest.

I began to rekindle my admiration for AURYN wholeheartedly when I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, because of the concept of eating ones' inverse, which I equated with microscopic cells eating my full vibrant life--but also because is an infinity symbol, ouroboros and pisces all rolled into one. 

2. The Earthling Symbol for Everything

Many years ago, I was introduced to a girl who said, "You must be the infinite Miss Jessica." At least, that's what I thought she said. It is entirely possible that she said "infamous." Infamous would be more likely. Nonetheless, I heard Infinite. 

At the time, I was 18, at a creative low point but rapidly racking up experience points. I realized, whether or not it was true, that I considered myself infinite. I was sure the universe provided infinite substantive amusement. I was sure I would never run out of thoughts. I was sure I would never run out of words. Then I wasn't 18 anymore. And I was scared I'd lose my infinite qualities. I began to think of every day of my assimilation into adulthood and the middle class as a sanitation process, whereby the bacteria which provided my access to the Force was bleached from my being.

I am not worried about that now. My deep brain is full enough of gender/class/race that I know I'll always have one thing or another to consider and many things to make from each consideration. So maybe I am infinite after all.

2. The Ouroboros

If you didn't already know, the ouroboros is an ancient alchemy symbol which represents infinite creation and destruction, much in the same way my cells will infinitely keep destroying each other and recreating themselves. Really, there are too many things to say about this guy. So, I'll let Carl Jung do it:

The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros, the snake that eats its own tail.

The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that the prima materia of the art was man himself.

The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This ‘feed-back’ process is at the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the prima materia which unquestionably stems from man’s unconscious.

4. Pisces

Yes, my birthday does fall on the ides of March. Yes, that does technically make me a pisces. No, I don't believe in astrology. Because I believe astrology, like all other beliefs outside of my own belief system, is bullshit. Please, let's not pretend any other kind of believer (or cynic) thinks differently about their beliefs vs. other beliefs. If it weren't bullshit to them, they'd believe that thing and not the other thing.

I do, however, believe in personalities. As for myself, I am an INFP. What astrological sign corresponds to the INFP? Why, Pisces, of course.

In addition to the COINCIDENCE that my personality lines up with my sun sign, (and I cannot stress the word COINCIDENCE enough,) I identify strongly with the duality of pisces.  You see, the fish are supposed to be swimming in a circle of fantasy/reality, which is what I am doing all the time: Bookkeeper Jessica -->Arty Jessica --> Mama Jessica --> Poet Jessica --> Filial Piety Jessica --> Least Possible Scenario Jessica --> Pragmatic Jessica --> English Major Jessica--> White Trash Jessica --> Masquerading as Middle Class Jessica--> PTA Jessica--> Chanteuse Jessica...ad. infinitum. Frankly, it's exhausting. But I've come to the point now where I realize that most of us can only ever hope to be self aware versions of the stereotypes we always were but thought we weren't. 

So yes, a tattoo. To symbolize my defeat over the HellSummer. To tell myself I've accepted my disease and it's time to move on from letting it ruin my life. To remind myself that I am strong. To symbolize that however much time I spend eating myself, I am recreating myself in equal proportion. 

In ten or fifteen years, after I get cancer, lose my colon, and I become okay with all of that, I will get another tattoo. It will be this:

Because then I will have become a master of death.

The Apotheosis of Eve & Her Sister

They confer in secret sister syllables,

But Lilith will say it aloud, if I ask.

She will say that God never made green,

That green is a wavelength. Green is a frequency.

Eve will laugh.

But I do not ask.

When we get home, Eve will take my face

In her hands and tell me I'm her favorite mama.

I will stare into her eyes and see her there,

As she was and is and is to come.

I become Theotokos.

They become mothers of all that I have thought,

The jewel-toned bearers of what I dreamt,

As we, the three, hovered over the waters.

Yes. It was like this when the world was made.

"There's no glitter in the gutter. There's no Twilight Galaxy."

I typed a whole post. It was really good. But the internest hates me. So I'm replacing it with a crappy post. Sorry guys.

First, let's get caught up...

June:
Pancreatitis. (It's the most painful thing ever. No...really, ask your doctor.)
Mother Bitch of All Urinary Tract Infections. (Took six bags of IV antibiotics and three oral doses of anti-Bs to kill the Bitch.)
Seriously devastating Ulcerative Colitis flare.
An additional twenty pounds of weight loss, bringing my total weight loss since the end of January to almost 60 pounds.
A month in bed.
Serious muscle atrophy.
Crippling depression.
Problems in my personal life that I don't want to talk about. Ever.

July:
Got out of bed.
Got myself an antidepressant.
Got myself some awesome insomnia as a side effect.
Got sore walking around my house.
Getting stronger everyday.
I hate my new New Edgar Suit even worse than my old New Edgar Suit. I have batwings, which is not as cool as it sounds. Put me in a knee length belted black dress and I feel pretty good about my body. The rest of the time, I am miserably self conscious.
My pancreas still feels like it went a couple of rounds with George Foreman, Sr. AND his grill. This is what happens when an organ tries to dissolve itself in acid.
My Ulcerative Colitis is in remission, for the first time ever.
Because of the remission, despite the residual pancreatic pain and lack of physical strength, my body feels better than it has in half a year.

Some stuff about feelings:

It's easy to forget, when someone strong becomes weak, that eventually they will gain their strength back. This is why you must always double tap zombies. After they aren't stunned anymore, they'll be stronger than you again and then they'll eat your effing brains. That's what zombies do with their strength. They eat brains. I don't eat brains. I'm only allowed 25 grams of fat a day (which, if you didn't know, is about 1/4 of a cheeseburger) and I'm afraid most of the people in the world have big lumps of fat for brains. I'd be back in the hospital if I ate brains. Here's what I do with my strength: I hold up the sky.

I know this about myself, because as I was writhing in pain, too weak to even stand on my own, watching my body and resolve melt away, my entire life came crumbling down on top of my sick bed. I was too weak to stop it or move out of the way when it happened. I just laid still and let it crush me. There wasn't anything else I could do. I have never been so helpless as I was in the month of June. So those who loved me helped me until they couldn't anymore. Those who were selfish helped themselves and could not see how hard I was trying. Because, you see, it's easy to forget, when someone strong becomes weak, that eventually they will gain their strength back. I did not forget. I remembered, even at my weakest points, that strength is not ever-lasting, but it is regenerative. I am strong again. And again, I am holding up the sky. This is my job, you see. I am the Atlas of my own world. I have been since I was old enough to Know.

What I learned through this horrific, ridiculous summer is that there is no place in physical illness or ensuing depression for forgetting that the only place of refuge you can always depend on is the fortress you build for yourself. When the sky falls on your head, you can either be a Titan or Chicken Little. I know, it sounds like some goddamn Chicken Soup for the Soul bullshit, but it's true. There is no hero but you. There are no search and rescue teams to dig you out of the rubble. No one will save you but yourself. If you're really lucky, like I am, you'll find there are people in your life who can soothe you when you stagger under the weight of things. Maybe they'll bring you flowers or apple slices when you are sick. But you must always remember: They cannot bear your load for you. If you have a sky to hold up--and not everyone does, because not everyone is strong enough--then you have to use your own strength. Keep that in mind, people. Someday, it might save your life.

On Whether or Not It's Lady Like

Gender Theory: I love it.

No, really. I LOVE IT.

Why do I love it so much, you ask?

Here are some reasons:
"You're beautiful. Really beautiful...but women are supposed to have long hair." --7 foot tall high school senior, Mr. Football Player Guy. (He said this to me when I was a freshman, brushing my hair out of my eyes while he did so. True story. I blushed first, then choked on the other half of the statement.)

"Boys will never like you unless you learn to keep quiet." --Friend's mother.

"I don't even know why you'd want to get married. How are you ever going to submit to your husband?" --Same friend's mother.

"You'll never get married unless you get submissive." --Other friend's mother.

"It's just hard to decide between the girl I can have a conversation with and the girl I'm attracted to." --Dude friend I had begun to crush on, until that moment.

"Why can't I find a smart, hot girl in this school?" --Dude friend in whom I had no interest beyond Conciliare.

"J is a boy. She likes boy stuff, so she's a boy." --My four year old daughter, speaking of my six year old daughter.

"Isn't it hard for you to run this record store by yourself? You know, because women aren't as bright." --Customer. (My response: Get the fuck out of my store.)

"Where's your daddy? No daddy? Well, where's your husband? I want to do some business." --Various Customers X 3. (My response: I'm the boss, here. You're welcome to do business somewhere else, if you want.)

For contrast:
"I think your whole empowerment thing is super hot." (My husband of eight years. I'll leave my response to your imagination.)

I have other reasons too, of course. Including, but not limited to: my daughters, the unfortunate popularity of the Twilight series, plastic surgery statistics, the APA report on the sexualization of young girls, my mother, my sisters, romantic comedies, dude friends, girl friends, the irrational bias against homosexuality, rednecks, Fox News, misandry, the objectification of sitcom men, the infantilization of EITHER sex, the designation of men as pigs or fools, AND the idea that masculinity is threatened if a man isn't a "man's MAN."

What, you ask, is an example of a man who isn't a man's MAN? He is arty, educated, loves musicals and romcoms, reads books, has complicated opinions on politics, hates sports, doesn't have a damn clue how to fix anything, wouldn't be caught dead in Hooters, likes babies, loves gossip, doesn't care who makes more money and thinks empowerment is hot. Who is this mythical non-man's MAN man? By this definition, my husband. Now, my husband also provides for his family and would never ever dye his hair or paint his nails. HOWEVER, if he did, he wouldn't not be a man. Fingernail polish is not penis remover. I REPEAT: FINGERNAIL POLISH IS NOT PENIS REMOVER. So, what's the reason for this mostly meandering rant?

TOEMAGEDDON 2011. John Stewart, in collaboration with a fb friend, is the reason. Apparently, a J. Crew ad which featured a mom laughing with her son after having painted his toenails neon pink, has drawn some fairly insane criticism from the mainstream media. One Fox News contributor called this "an assault on masculinity." Painting a 5 year old's toenails is an assault on masculinity. That's what he said. Here are some equivalent statements: Letting your daughter play tee ball is an assault on femininity. Dressing your infant in yellow is an assault on heterosexuality. Giving your son a teddy bear is an assault on masculinity. I could go on and on. There is no civil rights issue that doesn't fit into this model. Specifically, there is nothing folks haven't been historically prohibited from doing that couldn't worded in this way. It's the model of ignorance everywhere: Electing a black president is an assault on the white population. The existence of Islam is an assault on Christianity. Immigration is an assault on the current population. Gay marriage is an assault on heterosexual marriage. These ridiculous accusations are statements I heard less that two weeks ago while sitting in a cafe in my hometown. My grandmother loudly asked me if we should leave since "they let all kinds of horseshit in." I said no, since she had already ordered. But I wondered aloud: "How does it hurt my marriage for someone else to marry? How am I affected if migrant workers pick fruit in California? How is my race diminished by the prominence of one member of another race?" The old men at the offending table stared at us, ate quietly, then left.

I am not even-minded enough to think we aren't in a culture war. I think maybe all open societies are in perpetual states of culture war. That's what keeps us in balance. That's what keeps outrage over fingernail polish from turning this country into Iran. They don't like polish there, either. Sometimes they put people in jail over it.

I know I have to fight every day to make sure my daughters are able to call bullshit when they're spoonfed the same hegemonic ideals I swallowed about what it means to be a woman.

I didn't know to call bullshit until I was 23. This caused a lot of misery, because if there is any place where I don't excel, it's traditional femininity. Maybe that makes me a gender bender. I think it makes me well-rounded. I'll keep to my action movies and maybe sometimes I'll watch a romcom because my husband likes them. We will remain perfectly balanced: the man's woman and the woman's man. And we'll be happy. Maybe the little boy in the J. Crew ad is happy. It's possible that he's a little culture warrior, too. But then again, he's 5--he's probably enthralled with the wonder all around him, and happily ignorant of the truth that there are those in the wide world who think his toenails have something to do with sex.

An Open Letter to the Wife of My Mother's Ex-Husband.

Dear Madam,


It would be easy for me to call you trash. It would be easy for me sit on my leather couch, in my nice home, with my educated, productive husband and my gorgeous, excessively intelligent daughters and tell myself that I don't associate with trash. It would be easy to tell myself that I am a well-adjusted, well-respected, generally successful person, or even to chant to myself that I am a liberal feminist with an I.Q. of 155 who could wear your sons' testicles as garter belts if they tried to engage me in scholarly debate, if they did anything but mispell, misuse and name call. It would be easy sit in silence and console myself with the knowledge that there is not a single way in which I am not superior to you...but I've never been much for easy, anyway.


The truth is, I've always thought of you as a woman of average intelligence. My estimation in that regard has fallen somewhat now that I know you think you need an apostrophe to make a word plural. Still, it would seem that you are at least intelligent enough to know the story of your own life, and thusly, that you should know the sources of your shame. I will not add additional shame by recounting who you are and what you've done. I simply mean, here, to respond to some of the things you said, in public, on DW's facebook status, about me.


First of all, with regard to the assertion that I need to remember where I came from, I would like to reassure you that there is never a day when I forget. My husband says that I should not write this, now, and especially that I should not send it to you. He says that I am out of my hometown culture in my real life, and that I need to get out of it in my head. He is right. But I do not toil under the weight of guilt for abject hatred. I do hate that town, and several of its inhabitants--because I still care about it, because I still think it has potential, and because really, deep down, I believe people need to be delivered from its dominant doctrines. And, most of all, because I care about some of the people I was a girl with and I don't want to see them waste their lives in factories. As to the metaphysical implications which rest with that missive: I will never forget that I am the bastard child of a crazy woman. I will never forget that I am very odd, that I was trailer trash, that I use my intelligence to overcompensate, that I think more highly of myself than I ought. I assure you, ma'am, there are other things I will also never forget.


Secondly, it is true that I have never lived anywhere but Arkansas. I abandoned my opportunities. My siblings were still at home, you see. I felt my honor was more important than my ego. I felt loyalty to those to whom I found myself committed.


I have no doubt, however, that no matter where else you have lived, your mind stayed right at home, in Alma, in the smallness of the small town's delusion of grandeur. There are, after all, Almas all over the country. I am, in that respect, more well traveled than you--no matter where I have lived. You said that people from all over think I am a redneck. I don't care if they do. Redneck isn't about physical location, it's about the culture of ignorance. I am close-minded, yes, but no one could accurately describe me as ignorant.


With regard to your "medical license" as evidence of your intellectual prowess, I was very glad when my sister told me that, in your 40s, you had finally found a vocation. Kudos on making yourself better than you were before. I mean that in all sincerity.


I am sorry that you took offense to the term "Common Man." I thought I was very kind in my little concession speech. There is nothing wrong with being common. Most people are common. You should consider yourself lucky to be counted among them, and that here, on this blog, no one knows who you are and will be substituting some other common woman's face with yours. Maybe you will be lucky and they will use the face of someone who has moral fiber.


With reference to the last name: if I were you, I would fall before my feet and worship me, because someday, someone might mistake your youngest son for one of my relatives. I was the first good thing that ever happened to that name. I became so fond of the idea that my teachers praised me for surpassing my "dad," that I kept it. My legal name is hyphenated. I considered it "hailing the subject," a term which means to appropriate a negative word and reverse its meaning, applying it to oneself in a positive way. It, like you, reminds me of where I came from. I love to be reminded of how much I have overcome. There is no better food for my ego than thinking of you, of your husband, of your culture.


For the record, I did not call your son a redneck. I said his attitude caused him to be "stuck in redneck hell," which was not a slam. It was the truth. I do appreciate that you people all stand up for yourselves, even when it is not necessary. I was making philosophical conversation with an old friend from high school, before you all got country about it.


My husband says you are irrational, and a lost cause--that I am stooping to your level by writing this at all. I do not agree. I think you deserve to be confronted. I think you deserve to know that you are, in fact, important enough to be a blip on my radar--because you are the stepmother of my siblings, even if you never call them on their birthdays. So, no, I will not sit in silence and think that you are trash. I will not objectify you. I will say to you, straight up, that you are worth standing up to. Even if I have to stoop to do it. I will even say: Sometimes, you are right. But mostly, you are sad. And that you may have bullied my mother, but you will not bully me--on Facebook or anywhere else. I'm Jessica fucking B-W, with a good reputation, accomplishments, success, IQ, a savings account, and a nice, middle class life. Who the fuck are you?


Sincerely,


Jessica F. B-W.

New News is Bad News

Choosing the right specialist is a little like choosing the right grad school. That is to say: it is vitally important to your success, and choosing the wrong one can negatively impact the course of your life. No pressure. Luckily, I already knew which specialist I wanted because he came with a modifier. When my other two doctors, some family members and a few friends talked to me about which GI guy to see, they said, "Well, there's Dr. D, he's the best." I started to think of him as Dr-D-He's-The-Best. I was told it would be six months before I got in to see him. My appointment was two weeks from the date of referral. I considered myself fortunate.

When I arrived, I was the youngest person there--by about 40 years. The age disparity highlights my sense that none of this is fair, my sense that I'm too young to spend THE REST OF MY LIFE sick. I begin to feel not-so-lucky. I sat silently and read my Denis Johnson stories, looked at my shoes, wrote some lines in my head about them both, and the old people, and the spots on the carpet...

My surgeon, who I am so very fond of, said to me, "GI docs are not as personable as you and I."

He was not wrong. But maybe not very many people are as personable as the two of us. We did, after all, discuss what I would call my disease inspired punk rock band: "Toxic Megacolon." Every time he mentioned a new horrible possible outcome, he added "And that should be the title of the first single," or, "You should make that the album title." During my last appointment with him, he told me I would probably be disembowled and that I might just lose my liver and my vision as well. I walked out of his office feeling awesome. He's the bedside manner master. Like I told my close friend Jack, I say we throw that man a parade.

Now, let me say: I like Dr. D. He's one of those superduper smart people I can admire--BUT I walked out of Dr. D's office feeling like shit. Mostly because of some miscommunication. You see, I was high on drugs the day of my diagnosis. I don't remember a damn thing about what the surgeon said. I only remember cursing, weeping inconsolably and telling the surgeon "MY BODY REALLY DOES HATE ME!" in between sobs. My husband, mother and grandmother all three had conflicting stories about what the diagnosis actually was. I understood it to be severe distal ulcerative colitis. I was wrong. After talking to me about symptoms, pushing on my belly, reading the surgeon's report, examining the biopsy report (which, btw, "could not rule out infectious agents" i.e.: was inconclusive) and looking at pictures of my horrendous little wound-friends, Dr. D said "Well, I am certainly convinced. Your pictures are like a textbook." He then proceeded to tell me that my entire colon is involved. All the way up to the cecum. I still have Ulcerative Colitis, but now it's severe pancolitis. Which is the very worst damned one to have. Lucky me.

He also said, "You don't need to start worrying about cancer for eight years." I thought: I'm 27. I'm 27. I'm 27. In eight years I'll be 35. I don't need to start worrying about colon cancer for 8 years?! Thanks for being so flippant about it, D. Then I remembered the waiting room, considered that maybe he thought he was talking to a 90 year old, and forgave him.

In other news: Apparently the specifically-for-my-disease drug is not currently at a therapeutic dose. All of the improvement I have seen is the result of that Devil, Prednisone. He upped the dose on my 5-ASA (Asacol)--which moved the price from $250/month to $362/month. I will only just be on the therapeutic dose at that level, and may have to bump up again.

So, yeah, when I left his office I felt like shit. He did make one ass joke: "This disease is the proverbial pain in the ass. But it's manageable." I am currently a big fan of ass jokes. But I need more than one a visit to balance out that much unpleasantness.

FURTHERMORE, surgeons AND specialists sure know how to push on organs. I feel like I've been stabbed again. I managed to keep my energy up and did the troop leader thing tonight, in a new dress I bought to console myself about the fact that I still hate my new Edgar Suit. I'm trying to buy myself one clothing item a week, until my birthday money runs out. It'll be at least two years before my skin is ready for a new tattoo anyway. Have I mentioned how very lucky I am?

Actually, it's a good thing I don't actually believe in Luck or Anything Else, or I'd have some real anger issues. I'm so glad my life sucked enough to purge me of belief before now. I don't think I could handle adding Existential Crisis to my list of Things To Overcome.

I may post the poem I wrote today. It's not ever going to be good enough to save for anything.