Laurustina

… on trying to remember how it feels to be OK.

* On Sunday, I bought a new battery for my car.

* On Monday, J. and I installed it. We also washed and cleaned out the car, something that hadn’t been done since before Ash died.

* This morning, we borrowed my nephew’s air compressor and pumped up the flat tire, which held long enough to get the car to the tire guy that my dad had recommended.

* And oh, I drove today. Which was kind of a big deal, since the whole reason  my car’s battery went dead in the first place was that one day, like eight or nine months ago, I just stopped driving.

* So with four used tires @ $25 apiece, and a battery for $90, I have rejoined the ranks of the self-transportational.

Early this afternoon, I was curled up on the bed with Mr. J. and the pups. We were drifting, half napping, half awake until J. got up and said that he was going to get into the shower. He went into the bathroom and closed the door. I shifted positions and then my cell rang, and I wasn’t aware of answering it, but somehow it was on the pillow and this loud, so loud, and horrible music came out of it, crescendoing until I though it was going to burst my eardrums and then nothing except a whisper of hushed voices from the same source. I tried to turn the phone off, but couldn’t move and the music got loud again, shook the inside of my head again, so loud and long and then the whisper, so quiet I could barely make out words at all.

All through this, I was calling for J. and after the second bout of terrifying loudness, I started to fall over the edge of the bed, still calling out for J. to help me. Then suddenly, he was there, at the side of the bed, having just come into the room from down the hall.

He’d heard nothing except for me calling him, just that last time. The pups were still sleeping. My cell phone was out on my desk and not on the pillow beside me. I was not falling over the edge of the bed, and other than the cold sweat and my racing pulse, everything was as it should be.

A little while later, when I had calmed down, I came in to the computer and looked up auditory hallucinations, wandering around a bit until I found an entry on Wikipedia about Exploding Head Syndrome. It reads as follows:

Exploding Head Syndrome is a condition that causes the sufferer to occasionally experience a tremendously loud noise as originating from within his or her own head usually described as the sound of an explosion, roar, waves crashing against rocks, loud voices or screams, a ringing noise, or the sound of an electrical short circuit (buzzing). Sufferers often feel a sense of fear and anxiety after an attack, accompanied by elevated heart rate. It can also cause the sufferer to feel an extreme rush or adrenaline kick going through his or her head, sometimes multiple times. In most cases, it occurs when they are in a state between light asleep and wakefulness and can be accompanied by Sleep Paralysis.

Well then. Welcome to my exploding head syndrome. I suppose that the good news is, it is not (as one prone to finding new things to fear and worry about might immediately worry about) a sign or symptom of encroaching madness, a brain tumor or some spooky poltergeist.

If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier
She left here last early spring, is livin’ there, I hear
Say for me that I’m all right though things get kind of slow
She might think that I’ve forgotten her, don’t tell her it isn’t so.

“Ain’t no shame in holding on to grief, long as you make room for something else”

- Bubbles, The Wire; Season Five finale

I am leaving tomorrow morning on a road trip with my sister Morticia, heading East, over the mountains and into the Nevada desert. Our baby sister Little G. flew down from Oregon on Sunday and awaits our arrival at Dad and E.’s house in Fallon, about an hour outside of Reno. It will be the first time in years, that all three of my father’s daughters will be under his roof at the same time. I am looking forward to the trip, but am also apprehensive at being away from home, even for two nights, right now.

Bliss and Pea have arrived, therefore all is as well as it could be tonight.

My dear old friend Geraldine has many quirks, one of which is that she bristles whenever anyone greets her with the words “how are you?”. She has this little speech of admonishment and explanation, which she will deliver upon the occasion of your first offense. After that, if you ever ask that same casual, non-specific question (out of habit, which is part of her point) she will merely frown and grunt and walk or turn away. I wish right now that I could remember the words to that whole speech, because it was brilliant.

How I am right now is compartmentalized and for the moment, I am desperately thankful for that.

Forgive me if this makes little sense. I am well beyond coherence tonight. I am on my way to Oakland Children’s Hospital where they transfered Ashlie by helecopter in the night. She has suffered a major brain injury and the prognosis is not good. Mr. j. will be available by e-mail (via his cell phone) jvilmur@gmail.com but i will be off-line until further notice.

me

Mr. J. took me to see the new Friday The 13th this afternoon. It is, best I can remember, the first time I ever actually saw a slasher flick in the theater. And I would like to give a giant pissed off shout-out to the two late-twenties-or-early-thirties women who in line ahead of us, buying tickets to the show for their two itty bitty little girls (and here, itty bitty means children old enough to walk five blocks to school by themselves in most neighborhoods, but whom you wouldn’t send into a bus station bathroom by themselves), because as much as I intended to enjoy my first ever in-theater slasher flick, at the tender age of thirty-nine, I found myself pulled out of the moment again and again by the thought of those two little girls. It blows my mind to think that to the ratings board and the ticket takers, there is no discernable difference between that woman’s six-year-old and my sixteen-year old. The sex was graphic the gore was horrific, and the melding of sexuality and violence, which is the cornerstone of the genre, a theme grown adults can discuss politely at length over espresso and pie, is so far beyond inappropriate for small children that I honestly wanted Child Protective Services to be standing outside the theater to whip those girls up and away to have their fragile psyches wiped clean.