Sick Day

Stayed at home from work today with a massive headache. In between putting my head on ice and ransacking the cupboard for more drugs, I watched a bit of daytime tv. I do love What Not to Wear--it's like "Hints from Heloise" for people who leave their kitchens occasionally. So cheery and affirming. Today's subject was a young woman on the heavier side of plump--or, in Clint and Stacey's eyes, an "hourglass figure" and "great boobs" and "wonderful curves." A shorter skirt here, a splash of color there, the right little jacket. . . and golly gosh darn, she was ready to take on the world.

But the best part were the commercials. Did you know that every household needs a Martha Stewart craft scoring board? So that you can make your own envelopes and paper party centerpieces resembling gigantic disco balls? The mind boggles. I try to imagine a life in which I would make my own envelopes. I fail.

My favorite commercial today, tho', was for one of those law firms that sues drug companies:

Have you ever taken XXX?
If you have ever taken XXX and your answer is YES to any of the following, you may qualify for compensation!
Do you now or have you ever suffered from

• heart palpitations or irregularities?
• shortness of breath?
• heart attack?
• death?

I had no idea daytime tv was this much fun. I may become a professional invalid.

A Moment in a Marriage

The pinched nerve still has Keith in its grip. Pale and pained, he steps gingerly, as if he expects the floor suddenly to crack open and tumble him into the abyss.

Meanwhile, my decision to resume my morning walks against the podiatrist's advice means I'm now limping; my too-enthusiastic return to yoga has triggered a massive three-day-and-counting headache, and the vulvodynia continues to lurk. Crippled on the bottom, burning in the middle, aching on the top. Pathetic.

The living room looks like a cross between a sex toy shop and a physical therapy treatment room, littered as it is with weights of varying sizes, heating pads, lavender-scented microwavable neck buddies, freezable gel packs, and the vibrator-wanna-be massage tool.

We update each other on our symptoms, exchange prescription ibuprofin and muscle relaxants, and watch massive amounts of tv. We kiss chastely, celibate siblings-in-pain. "We are not this old!" I tell him. He smiles. We take more drugs.

A Headache Day

A Headache Day.

A day spent on auto-pilot, waiting til the absolutely-must-do stuff is done, so one can go home, take drugs, and vegetate in a darkened, quiet room. A day punctuated by deep breathing sessions and self-massage and failed efforts at self-distraction.

If I were a more spiritual person, I would use these days to deepen my journey toward God. I would use these days to remind myself what life is like apart from God and how every pain-free minute is a moment of grace. I would use these days to develop empathy toward the suffering. At the very least, I would use these days to cultivate a grateful spirit, to be thankful  that I have a job that allows me to go home in the middle of the day and crash.

I aspire to be that person. But I'm not there yet. Instead, I am grumpy and pissed off. I have Plans, goddammit! Things  to do. People to impress. Books to write.Plus, I hate hurting. I really do.

A couple of years ago, I actually took almost an entire semester's sick leave, in an effort to solve the Headache Problem once and for all.  I spent the months on a futile quest to convince my insurance company to pay for my treatment at a headache clinic ("We can only pay for treatment within the network area." But there are no headache clinics here and my doctor says-- "We can only pay for treatment within the network area."), waiting on hold for various lab techs and doctors' secretaries (not, by and large, happy individuals, I discovered), and keeping a headache diary (basically a fulltime occupation, as you have to log everything you eat, every shift in the weather, every activity you undertake, and every little twinge of pain with details RE the locus of the pain, the type of pain, what you were doing when the pain ensued. . . You become completely self-obsessed. You spend all your time watching and documenting yourself. It is Not Good for You. Jesus, I am sure, would never keep a headache diary.) I spent obscene amounts of money on massage therapy, physical therapy, chiropracty, various types of yoga, hormone testing, neurologists' visits, vitamins, and herbal supplements, Gregorian chant cds, and massive quantities of drugs. I alternated ice packs and heating pads. I watched "What Not to Wear" and discovered I was wearing it.  I still had headaches.

So I try something now and then--a round of acupuncture here, a set of stretching exercises there, an occasional consultation with a new doctor--and none of it makes a difference and I muddle through. It's just that days like today seem very muddley, not a lot of through, you know? Except at the end there's this gentle guy who rubs my neck and makes me dinner and lets me go to bed at 8:00 without laughing at me and seems to be ok with muddle. And that helps me through. Which seems enough, for now.

Pigs' Ears

My dog is dying. Maybe.

He's had two tumors--bone cancer--in his paw, and a toe amputation. And now he's on painkillers, and the vet says he has to stay on painkillers the rest of his life. Which means, I think we can assume that the vet believes my dog will be in pain the rest of his life.

Massive moral dilemma. Serious self-examinations.

Surely it's best to send Rowan gently into the good night, painfree evermore. Except. . . I take painkillers. When I don't, I hurt. Yet I like my life. I enjoy it. I would fight really really hard to keep it. If any higher life form were to decide that I'd be so much better off dead, I would resent it, to put it mildly. So if Rowan needs drugs to get him through the day, is that so bad? He's done his doggy duty; all he asks is to sprawl on the rug next to us, take the occasional quick walk, and chomp down a regular supply of treats.

And then. . . what if there's a part of me that wants the dog to die---no, no, I am not that bad, but what if there's a part of me that just can't cope with what it means for the dog to keep on living? The part of me that's sick of mopping up the regular piles of vomit. That retches at the sight of his mangled paw. That clenches at the sight of the blood splotches winding their way throughout the house. That crumbles when he looks at me, trusting, in pain, sure I'll fix it.

I dunno. How do you judge when life is no longer living? Especially when it's not your life, but a life entrusted to you?

Rowan still likes pigs' ears. Is that enough? Is that a life worth living? How do we decide? Must we decide? I dunno. Maybe a nice crunchy pig's ear is all one can really expect, all one should really want, from life. I look at my poor mangled dog, and I just don't know. But he's still crunching. Damn. More than I can say for myself on many a day.

On the Bike

I've bought a bike. I am Woman. Biking Woman.

Really sore Biking Woman.

Good lord. Amazing what happens to one's post-50 body when one does little to move that body (blame the foot surgery) for several months.

Still, aching thighs and sore butt and all, I'm feeling good. (Even though I meant to buy a moderately priced old lady bike and instead shelled out an astounding, horrifying, yay downright embarrassing amount of money for Le Ultra Light Totally Cool Sleekly Silver Moderny Metallic old lady bike. All our retirement funds now ride on this bike.)

You see, I used to ride a bike. A 1970s bright blue ten-speed. I worked all summer at Moy's Chinese Carry-Out to earn the money to buy that bike. I faithfully oiled and greased it. I conquered the frontage roads of west suburban Chicago on that bike. And then, in graduate school, I realized one of my deepest dreams: I became a city cyclist. All over the North Side and downtown Chicago, I dodged taxi cabs and behemoth buses, streaked through red lights, careened across sidewalks and onto the lakefront bikepath, sped through clusters of tourists and lost pods of Cubs fans, and pedaled like fury past the Juneway Jungle, a notorious gang hangout on my way home to my studio apartment in Rogers Park. I was young and life was good and Chicago was amazing and the future was wide open. I have never been so happy as I was on that bike in that city.

And now I'm middle-aged and life is complicated and Baton Rouge ain't Chicago and the future is all hemmed in by the past and the present. I have spent much of the last two decades learning to negotiate happiness in the midst of chronic headaches and bouts of clinical depression.

But I can still ride a bike.

And--pedalling in the lowest gear, at a pace barely able to keep the bike upright--I remember what it was like to feel, to feel, goddamn, to feel like me.

Outa control

You know, it's bad enough that I can't control my pee, but at least it just drips out, a drop here, a dribble there. In contrast, my verbal peeing constitutes a torrent; my words, once firmly restrained, now gush forth like a creek after the first real thaw, bursting past dams and over levees, pouring foul-smelling water into basements, engulfing innocent passers-by.

Take the other night: Hugh was on the phone to his on-again, off-again girlfriend. Think of a strobe light, a disco ball. That's Hugh's relationship with this girl. Onoffonoffonoffonoff. Sometime Sorta Girlfriend finds Hugh's large number of "girls who are friends" very upsetting. Sometime Sorta Girlfriend thinks Hugh should hang out with only one girl. Ever.

A few nights ago, then, Hugh and SSG were talking on the phone. (For reasons I've never been able to discern, Hugh bellows when he's on the phone. In other words, I was not trying to listen. It was impossible not to listen.) They were arguing. Hugh had gone to the movies the night before with two girls from his church youth group, girls he's known since he was a baby, girls who fill the roles of cousins/sisters in his life. Now I'll admit, I find SSG hard to take and I'm revolted by her "I should be the only double X chromosome in your life" stance.

But what sent me over the edge was overhearing Hugh cajoling, wheedling, even pleading. My confident, assertive, beautiful boy, reduced to sniveling. Plus I was on Hour 56 of the Headache From Hell, and I was tired, and my damned old-lady foot hurt. So, really, is it all that surprising that as I walked past yet one more time and heard yet one more round of this awful, endless phone conversation, that I thought to myself, "Oh, geez, just tell her to fuck off, would ya?" Except I didn't just think it. I said it. Um, well, actually, I pretty much shouted it. Hugh just stared at me, then muttered into the phone, "I'll call you right back," and ran upstairs. I went into our bedroom, shut the door, lay on the bed, and said to Keith, "Really Bad Parenting Moment."

The next afternoon, Hugh came into my home office. "You know last night, when you told me to tell SSG to fuck off?" "Oh, Hugh, honey, I really--" But before I could launch my apology, he continued, "I told all my friends at lunch today. They said, 'Dude! Your mom is awesome!'" And he grinned at me.

Shit. Now what?

Have mercy on me, a sinner.

Goddammit. Bloody hell. Bugger all.

In the past few weeks I've signed contracts to write two books. Let me be clear: I want to write these books. One might actually be read by ordinary folks and even make me a wee bit of money: It's about Margaret Thatcher; I mean, who's not interested in Margaret Thatcher, total she-devil and anti-feminist persona?

The problem with signing book contracts is that then you actually have to write the damn book(s).

Which means: one must not lose entire work days because one has a headache. Even if it's a nonstop motherfucking killer I'm gonna die headache.

Sooooo, what does one do, when one loses several entire work days because one has said nonstop etc. headache?

One gets depressed. One gets tired and cranky and bitchy. And one feels really really sorry for one's self.

Except:

Ordinary men and women and (God help us all) children are fighting for their freedom and their lives in Libya. And oh dear God, those beautiful Bahrainis are being mowed down by Saudi troops. And Jesus Jesus Jesus, entire cities destroyed and hundreds of thousands on the move and a nuclear holocaust impending. . . and one's heart and one's soul and one's spirit reaches across continents and oceans to Japan. . . . and I bet not a one of those Libyans or Bahrainis or Japanese cares about their literary legacy or their professional careers right now. I bet "Damn, my head hurts" is not a phrase of much meaning out there, on the edge of cosmic significance, right at this moment.

And yet, there's the Lucipherian ego, the Satanic self, the demonic part of me that screams, "Excuuuuse me!!!! I'm having a rough time here! My head really hurts! I don't wanna think about you people." And I feel so guilty for such horrible, self-obsessed, oh-so-trivial thoughts, and then, in the ultimate confirmation of Original Sin, I find myself utterly absolutely furious at the Libyans and the Bahrainis and the Japanese for making me feel so goddamned guilty. . . .

Jesus Christ. Oh dear God.

Have mercy.

Unacceptable

Five days into my resumption of white wine drinking, I have to admit, I think maybe perhaps it could be it does kinda look like there's a chance I was sleeping better and less headachey while I was teetotalling it.

Bloody hell.

Dutch Treat

I.
The setting: last August. Owen is home for a short interlude between his cross-country bike trip and his D.C. internship. (Ah, the glamour of youth.) It's mid-morning. I've been doing errands and am now heading into the office. Must. Write. Damn. Book. Must. Get. Promoted. I pass by Owen, who has just put in a dvd and is now settling down on the sofa.
"Hey, Mom. Where ya goin'?"
"Work."
"Oh, don't do that. Watch Season 2 of Robin Hood with me. We can bond."
"Umm. OK."
I flop onto the sofa. Owen bursts out laughing. "You know, you're the reason I have no work ethic!" He sees the look on my face. "No, no--it's great! All my life, whenever you have to choose between family and work, friends and work, you always choose family and friends. And I think that's great."
So do I. It was one of the nicest things he could have ever said to me.
We settled down on the sofa, two satisfied slackers.

II.
Yesterday, Owen sent me the following link: http://www.slate.com/id/2274736. If you do not want to bother reading the article, the following excerpt pretty much sums it up: "Dutch women . . . take a lackadaisical approach to their careers. They work half days, meet their friends for coffee at 2 p.m., and pity their male colleagues who are stuck in the office all day. . . . 'We look at the world of management—and it is a man's world—and we think, oh I could do that if I wanted,' says Maaike van Lunberg, an editor at De Stentor newspaper. 'But I'd rather enjoy my life.'"
Owen added the message: "I knew you were born in the wrong country."

Damn straight. Plus, if I were Dutch, I could smoke weed to relieve my headaches. And eat really good Gouda and that amazing chewy salty rye bread.

Actually, I'm 100% ethnically Dutch. I could have been genuinely Dutch, right now, had my great-grandparents not been completely selfish and decided to leave all they knew and emigrate in search of a better life for themselves and their descendants. Damn you, you work-ethic-burdened ancestors. Why couldn't you have just have toked up and chilled out?

Where's the knife?

I'm in Hour 26 of a Really Bad Headache. Almost 20 years ago, I was in Hour 26 of utterly fruitless labor when the doctor came in and informed me he was doing a C-section. I gotta admit, I thought, "Oh, thank God." So now I'm trying to figure out what's the headache-fixing version of a C-section. All I can come up with is a lobotomy. Which would be just fine, really.

Pale Tongue

I have a pale tongue. I didn't know that my tongue was paler than most; I guess I haven't paid much attention to tongue coloration. I know now about my pale tongue because my acupuncturist told me so. Yes, my acupuncturist. I now have an acupuncturist. And I am now ingesting massive quantities of Chinese herbs. I feel so totally alternative, like I should dress in flowy, ankle-long, brightly colored skirts and hiking boots while I grind my own flour. This plunge into alternativity is motivated by my never-ending quest for relief from chronic daily headaches. Western medicine has failed me; I turn to the East.

But back to the tongue. Turns out possession of a pale tongue is Bad. So Acupuncturist Guy is hopeful that sticking me with needles and plying me with herbal concoctions will help with not only the headaches but also clogged sinuses, insomnia, menopause, depression, and my inability to understand football. OK, not the last one.

Am I hopeful? Hmm. Over the last several years I have worked with many a hopeful medical-type person, ranging from the Svaroopa yoga therapist to the neurologist, the sleep specialist to the TMJ dentist to the chiropractor, the osteopath, and the deep-tissue masseuse. I have learned much. I have spent much. And still I am more of a Headache with a person, than a Person with a headache. "Hopeful" means "full of hope" and I can't say hope is sloshing over my brim, but still, yep, there's a bit of it swirling around in the bottom of the cup.

Baby Love

A couple of days ago, I found out that a friend of mine, who's older than I am, has just adopted a newborn baby. I'm happy for him and his partner. Really. So very very happy. Honestly.

Excuse me, it is possible for one to be be genuinely happy for someone while at the same time consumed with jealous rage. One is a complex being. One is capable of multi-tasking one's emotions.

One really wants a baby.

Ridiculous. One is a menopausal mother of two teenaged sons.

So--Babies? Done and dusted. Shoot, I've even done it both ways: the birth-via-my-body thing and the adoption-via-massive-bucks thing. (Tho'--full disclosure here--I didn't actually go thru with the entire birthing process. I tried. I did. 24 hours of labor before the doctors jumped in with great glee, wielded those knives, and C-sected that baby outa there.)

And I have so many friends who've been unable to have a baby either way. I've hoped with them, screamed with them, cried with them. And I've mourned with friends who have lost their babies and agonized with friends who struggle daily with the horror of watching disease devastate their kids. I know how very very lucky, blessed, rich I am. I know I've had my share, more than my share, of beautiful, healthy babies, gorgeous sons with the world wide open before them.

I know all this. But. Dammit. I. Want. A. Baby.

It's sick. I find myself in the wee hours of the morning secretly hoping one of my boys will knock up a lovely young girl who will bravely decide to have the baby but will recognize she/they can't provide the baby with all that she/they want for that baby, and so, yes, I will get the baby.

Part of it is that I just really enjoy babies. Some people like football. Or Coen Brother movies. Or Andy Warhol. Me, I like babies.

But there's also the sad and dirty fact that when I had my babies, my beautiful boys, I was fairly fucked up. To put it mildly. (Not on drugs, mind you. Never done those. OK, yes, I've done lots of drugs--for allergies and tummy disorders and headaches and vulvadynia and depression and anxiety and chronic strep throat and yeast infections. But none of the fun stuff. ) Nope, no drugs, not that much alcohol. Just, well, basically, back then I was a total wingnut. Torn apart by the demands of scholarship and teaching and motherhood and wifedom and sisterhood and friendship and daughterdom and sex and laundry and lawn care and the desire for a really good brownie. I do not regret, then, that I returned to work right after the boys came into the world. Had I stayed home with them, they'd have ended up fairly fucked-up little fellas as well. Instead, I gotta say--despite the fact that neither seems capable of shutting a cabinet door, closing a dresser drawer, hanging up a towel, or flushing a toilet; despite the march of tattoos across Owen's body; despite Hugh's Republican leanings-- my guys are all right.

And, even in the context of total wingnutdom, I enjoyed them as babies.

Most of the time.

Sometimes.

When I wasn't crying because I feared that any kid with a mom like me was doomed.

But these days, despite menopausal mania, I think it's fair to say my wingnuttiness has moderated. I'm no longer shredded by the various demands of my various roles. I've learned to say, oh, what the hell. I've accepted that I will never be a Scholar Star. And (most of the time), I'm ok with that. These days, I could and I would stay home with a baby. We'd hang out, chill in the mornings over Cheerios, nap on the sofa, watch some Baby Einstein, do some park swings, snort some formula, while Springsteen played in the background. I do know that you're supposed to flood a baby with Mozart if you want him or her to be a math wizard, but the world has plenty of quantitative geniuses. Me and the imaginary baby, we prefer quality--political passion, concern for the underdog, respect for the way words work, sound narrative sense, and thumping rock 'n' roll. So we'd scrap the Mozart and follow Scooter and the Big Man into the swamps of Jersey.

Instead, I'm heading to the mall. Gotta go buy a baby gift for my friend. Which I will send with lots of joy, much love, an abundance of good wishes, and a hearty helping of good, old-fashioned, deep dark green envy.

Postscripts

Just so you know, I'm quite enjoying being an Ornamental Pillow Person . Every morning I make a new and different pillow pyramid. It's very exciting.

Maybe I need to get out more.

Or maybe I really do need to start using marijuana. No, haven't yet, despite my every intention and my discovery that you can find this stuff in some pretty surprising places. The thing is, it's illegal. And I always always always get caught when I try to do something that everyone else does all the time. I must just exude guilt. So I want to be sure that when I am caught, I can mount a really convincing defence, buttressed by all kinds of evidence showing 1) my long history of chronic headaches, and 2) my equally lengthy list of attempts to find a legal remedy. Which means acupuncture. I keep talking about trying acupuncture but, apart from the expense--fairly hefty, tho' honestly, what does weed cost these days? --

--"these days, she writes, as if back in "other days" she knew the cost of marijuana--

there is the little matter of needles. Nevertheless, needles be damned, acupuncture it will be. And then I'll be able to say, "But your honor, it's the American medical system that should be on trial, not me."

I also, despite every good intention, haven't yet killed my cat. The peeing one. Instead, I have banished her to the outdoors. Well, duh, you say. No, dear reader, not duh. Peeing kitty has no claws and so little chance of defending herself against predators and competitors. Plus she's one of those long-haired kitties, meant to decorate the living room, not live in the wild. Entire ecosystems of fleas and tics could flourish in her fur; shoot, birds could nest in there and we'd never know it. But--I've put her out, and after a few days of adjustment (punctuated by much mewing), she seems to be having a good time. Actually, she seems to have gone feral already. I know that sooner or later she'll be run over by a car or mauled by a stray dog, and I'll feel terrible, but at least she'll have had these days of unrestrained beastiness while I soak the sofas in cheap vodka. (Kitty shrink tells us it neutralizes the cat pee smell--not sure yet--I do worry about, well, flammability. Combustibility. Someone lighting a match and our alcohol-laden furniture igniting. Could make our parties a bit more interesting, I guess.)

The Potter and the Clay

I'm about to become a pot-smoking cat-killer.

The pot-smoking is fairly straightforward. My headaches get ever worse, which I really didn't think was possible, as they seemed pretty damned bad before. I have exhausted all the legal options and I have depleted my admittedly fairly scanty emotional and spiritual resources. That leaves medicinal marijuana.

Of course, it's not actually all that straightforward. I live in Louisiana, where pot in all its forms, medicinal or not, is illegal. And I've never smoked pot. I've never smoked anything, in fact (the result of growing up in a household of cigarette smokers--it was truly vile: one of my most vivid childhood memories is my disgust at having to wash dishes because my dad and brothers would stub out their dinnertime cigarettes on the plates. . . those crumpled butts, squished down into leftover puddles of ketchup and meatloaf grease. . . and then there was the horror of car rides in the winter, all the windows rolled up, the cigarette smoke swirling around my head like a thick woolen scarf). So, I don't know how to smoke. And I don't know how to get pot, other than to ask certain of my sons' friends, which of course I cannot do. Good lord. Can you imagine: "Hey dude, tell your mom I got a new supply in and it's really sweet"--??

But I will surmount these problems and I will score some medicinal marijuana and I will, at last, find relief from the pain. And I will live a happy and successful and productive life.

Except for the cat-killing.

I wrote in a previous post about our peeing cat. All cats pee, of course, but this one pees on the sofas and beds. Constantly. And I just can't take it anymore. I have tried everything. Really. Truly. I'm a historian. I research for a living. I have researched peeing cats. I do not believe in discarding animals because they are inconvenient, but. . . this is beyond "convenience." As Laurie, my very wise nail lady said to me on Saturday morning as she clipped away at my cuticles, "We're talking about your home here." And my home reeks of cat piss. But the cat has no claws and couldn't survive outside and is not exactly adoptable. Who wants an incontinent indoor kitty?

But if I have my cat "put down," aka killed, I will also become a liar of the worst kind. Because Cleaning Sarah, who has cleaned our house, babysat our kids, petsit our dogs and cats, and basically been a solid part of our family life for 20 years, will never speak to me again if she knows what I've done. So I will have to lie. A really Big Lie. One I will have to think about, concoct and then sustain for years to come. It will be like a Victorian novel. It will go on and on and on.

So the Scripture text in church this morning was the famous passage from Jeremiah about God sending the prophet to watch the potter at the wheel and saying, "Look, go tell Israel [or is it Judah?], you've all really fucked up and I'm going to throw you back on the wheel and start all over." (Yes, the "fucked up" is in the original Hebrew. . . OK, not really, but you know it's what God wanted to say except He/She/They knew there'd be all those kids listening in.) And I'm sitting there in the pew and I'm thinking, "Oh geez. I'm 50 and I've got a headache and do I really need to be reminded that I more and more resemble a lumpy, squishy, lopsided pile of clay?" And then there's this continual reshaping, this constantly-on-the-wheel thing, round and round and round and round. . . . I mean, no wonder I have headaches. But I gotta say, the shapes this funky cosmic Potter comes up with--well, they are surprising, to say the least. I truly never expected to be a middle-aged, weed-toking, cat-killing, cleaning-woman-deceiver. I mean, couldn't I be a nice, graceful salad bowl? Or perhaps a butter dish with pleasing lines? Or even a gravy boat?

Wrinkles in Time

I have eye wrinkles. Not wrinkles around my eye--I mean, yes, I have those, but I'm talking about wrinkles in the eye. The left eye, to be precise. And actually only one wrinkle, but big enough, considering that the eye is, you know, really small. (If you peer closely at my eye, you can see the wrinkle, by the way. It's fascinating, in an oh-ick sort of way.) Anyway, this big wrinkle in my small eye means I have to settle for 20/30 vision in contact lenses--"good enough," said the eye doctor. Clearly I've reached the age where "good enough" is as good as it gets.

Meanwhile, there are the more noticeable wrinkles around the eye. And scattered around the forehead. And clustered around the lips. But--not for long! Cruising thru Macy's on my way out of the mall Saturday, I remembered I needed blusher. Zipped by the Clinique counter. Got Super-Efficient Aging Saleslady with Frightening Amounts of Eye Makeup. She takes one look at me and says, "Now I'm sure you've heard about our new amazing wrinkle corrector."

Well, no, have to admit I've been slightly distracted by the temporary presence of college son. And the start of the school year. And the occasional yet increasingly frequent existential crisis. And the Gulf oil spill. And headaches. And my new commitment to pursuing life as a Total Sex Goddess. And the obvious conflict between those last two.

Of course I don't admit to Scary Saleslady that I haven't been keeping up with the latest breakthroughs in skin care. I just nod. So of course I'm doomed. I buy not only blusher but also a bottle of "Repairwear Laser Focus." Now, by the standards of department-store anti-aging cosmetics, "Repairwear" (not sure where the laser comes in, no obvious laser in the package) is not all that expensive. $40. But that's more than twice as much as I've ever spent for skin care.

Previously, that record was held by an English product: Boots' "Protect and Defend." No. That's not right. "Protect and Survive." No, shoot, that was the name of the English government's official civil defense campaign of the early 1980s--how to survive a nuclear bombing. "Protect and Perfect"! That's it. (I just think of it as "Lock and Load." )

Does it really work? Um, well, I admit that year by year, I look older. But I tell myself that without "Protect and Perfect," I'd look really old. I do have moments of sanity, however, when I recognize that all of this is about as useful as covering your windows with black paper and sandbagging your doorways so that you'll survive a nuclear holocaust.

The thing is, isn't it better to die deluded?

Individually wrapped packages

Am in the car, nearing the end of three days of a pretty much non-stop, searing, make-you-vomit headache. Not driving, thank God. Fifteen-year-old Hugh has his driver's permit; he's at the wheel and I am grateful. Really. He's a good driver, alert, careful, already probably better than me on a good day, let alone a Headache Day. We have been to the mall and I have bought him clothes so he's in a good mood. Me, I'm just barely hanging on.

And then I lose my grip and plummet downward. Don't know why--it all just adds up, I guess. Hugh is chatting pleasantly and I want so hard to listen, to respond well, to be a Good Mother. So many of our interactions are hostile, hurtful, fraught, and I long to appreciate this moment, to enjoy his company and the fact that we are Getting Along. But I can't. I just want to be home, in bed, alone, without light or sound or heat or expectations. And then, God help me, I start to cry.

Hugh's a cheerful, live-in-the-moment, it's-all-about-now sort of soul. He doesn't believe in planning or consequences or regret or apologies or any emotions, really, other than enjoyment and a fierce loyalty to friends. And I am sitting in the passenger's seat next to him, crying.

I blurt out, "It must be crummy, having a mom who always has headaches and feels rotten."

Silence.

Then, Hugh, quietly: "It's not so bad."

Me, through the tears: "Geez. It's gotta be. I mean, I don't like being with me, and I'm me."

Hugh: "Well, I think you should smoke pot."

I'm astounded. So he's been paying attention to my discussions with Keith about medicinal marijuana? Lurching into Unknown Territory--conversation with a sympathetic Hugh--I regress into total self-pity: "I don't even know how to smoke!" I wail.

"You can try a pipe," he suggests, helpfully. "I guess I could bake pot into brownies," I admit, and Hugh is exultant "Yeah! In Colorado, you can buy weed cookies! In individually wrapped packages!"

And suddenly, the pain recedes, just for a moment, and I am in a place of grace. "This is My body," in the form of individually wrapped packages of Colorado-produced cannabis cookies offered by my teenaged son.

Dull

It's been a headachey week. I suppose that seems an odd thing for a person with "Chronic Daily Headache" (yes, that's the official name) to say; I mean, surely every week is a headachey week for a person with CDH (no, that's not a common abbreviation--I just made it up). True--but there are headachey weeks--weeks when I'm a person with daily headaches--and then there are headachey weeks--weeks when I'm a headache with an occasional outburst of personhood. This week was the latter.

I really hate being That Person Who Always Has a Headache. People get impatient. The first time you bow out of something, they're sympathetic. The second time too. But by the third, the fourth, well, then, you're just dull. I hate being dull.

But that's what chronic headaches do. They grind and grind and grind away, until all one's sharpness and shine is gone. Until one is just simply, utterly dull.

One of my mom's favorite sayings (she has a saying for most occasions) is, "Pain will make you either better or bitter." She never warned me that it can also make you really boring.

I changed my mind

Despite a raging headache, a Hurricane Katrina of a headache, I dragged myself to the office yesterday. Had a full plate. Much to do. Deadlines. Important stuff. Oh, not really. Actually, totally stupid, waste-of-time-but-you-have-to-do-it-anyway stuff. But lots of it.

Two hours in the office, and I realize if I don't go put my head on ice, the consequences will be severe. At least for me.

So, back to my car I schlep, which means walking past the LSU Indian Mounds. Yep, real Indians. Real mounds. At least 5,000 years old, these grass-covered mounds spring up like gigantic scoops of ice cream in the middle of the campus. Here in the flatlands of south Louisiana, these mounds serve as a magnet for kids; running up them and rolling on down is a key part of any Baton Rouge childhood. Not surprisingly, then, even with the 100-degree temperatures yesterday, kids dotted the mounds.

As I walked by, a little girl about 4-years-old came careening down and yelling,
"I changed my mind! I changed my mind! I want to be a PRINCESS!!"

Yeah. What she said.

Recovery

Hi. My name is Allison [chorus of "hi Allison"] and it's been 16 months since my last Advil.

Aspirin was my gateway drug. By college I was hitting the Tylenol pretty hard. Then one fateful day in grad school someone offered me some Advil and I was hooked. Whereas aspirin and Tylenol often had little impact on my headaches, Advil took care of them instantly. As long as I had a bottle of Advil on hand, I was invincible. And I never went anywhere without that bottle.

Turns out tho', that if you use a lot of ibuprofin, your brain comes to like it. And brains are a bit like toddlers; they figure out pretty quickly that the best way to get what they want is to throw a tantrum. By my 40s, daily headaches were my brain's version of a 2-year-old throwing himself on the floor and screaming. Brain needs ibuprofin; brain gets headache to get ibuprofin.

So, yes, I'm a recovering ibuprofin addict. Is that pathetic or what? Most addictions at least begin with pleasure. You get a high, a kick, a buzz, a rush. Or so I'm told. But what would I know?--my addiction began with a headache. "Well," said Keith the other night, "when you first started taking ibuprofin, your headaches went away. So that was a form of pleasure." I glared at him and explained in my "I'm talking calmly and slowly but say one more wrong word and I will hurt you" voice that the absence of pain is not, in fact, an equivalent for pleasure.

At least if I were recovering from some other sort of addiction I'd have the memory of good times, of late nights and dancing and gales of laughter, of the delightful and the delectable. . . you know, life on the edge, a bit of risky business. But no, no decadence and debauchery with ibuprofin. Just a total nerd addiction, a dweeb dependence. One neurologist told me that by taking too much Advil I have permanently bruised my brain. And I didn't even get to have fun.

The Dude abides--but not here

My 18-year-old son wants to connect me with a drug dealer.

Owen is in his first year of college in Portland, Oregon, where medicinal marijuana is legal. Well aware of my chronic headaches, he's decided weed is just the thing.

I'm touched that he's been thinking about me. But. "I can't smoke weed, Owen," I tell him. "I don't know how to smoke. I've never smoked anything." It's true. Weird, I know, but true. I grew up in a family of cigarette smokers so I rebelled in adolescence by not smoking.

"It's ok, Mom. You don't need to smoke. You can use an inhaler. I've thought it all through."

I remind him that pot remains illegal in Louisiana and that if he brought it home from Portland, he'd be transporting illegal drugs across state lines. And that's bad, if I remember my cop shows correctly.

Deep sigh. "Mom. It's not called pot any more. It's weed. Only people who say 'groovy' call it pot."

I'm thinking that if I don't know what to call it, I probably shouldn't smoke it. Or inhale it. But Owen's excited. He explains that he's talked to Neal and that Neal is absolutely psyched to procure weed for me. Neal is a high school buddy of Owen's and a great favorite of mine. Also, as it happens, a pothead. Excuse me, umm, weedhead?

Once again, I'm touched and a little teary. I mean, my son and his friends have plotted drug running on my behalf.

And I am tempted. I have daily headaches, and according to my research, marijuana would probably offer some relief. And even if it didn't, maybe I'd become more, you know, Dude-like. People do not associate me with the Dude. The words "mellow" or "laid-back" or "chilled" do not, somehow, feature very strongly in descriptions of me. Dudedom would be lovely, I think.

But I can't do it. I can't even drive by a police car without feeling furtive and guilty, though I've never had as much as a speeding ticket, let alone any more serious brush with the Law.

So, Dudedom must wait. I am, however, thinking about a trip to Amsterdam for my 50th birthday.