2005-08-08
Finally! It's the nervous stomach I've wanted my whole life!
As a kid, I never had a nervous stomach. I was a nervous kid, no doubt. I had rashes that were 100% attributed to nerves, I got adult acne at 26 that was also 100% attributed to nerves. I've had nightmares, fevers, cysts, hair-shed, teeth-grinding, stuttering, tremors, and relentless nail-picking, and fevers at various times in my life and each of those was a manifestation of my really shitty nervous system. A really shitty nervous system that was set at Auto-Freak well before I was old enough to have anything more than "What time is that bottle?" to worry about. With all of those maladies at one time or another, you would think that a nervous stomach would have made the list before I hit thrity and supposedly developed "coping mechanisms", aka "Zoloft" to help me with my born-frayed nerves of crap. But no. This is the first time that I can honestly say throwing up without the aid of Ipecac and without eating a whole dozen of Mel-O-Creme donuts, is happening on a regular, non-alcohol-related basis. "Neeeeeervouuuuuuus Stomaaaaaaaach!, Come on down! oOu're the next contestant on The Nerves Aren't Right!"
Well into my teenage years, and particularly as a college student where I probably have more credit hours in beer consumption than in my minor, I never really felt the urge to purge. I didn't really puke when I ate something like old milk or pork carpaccio. I threw up from drinking too much but who hasn't? I mean, please.
As a budding bulimic after college, I still sucked at the upchuck. Basically, once it went down, it wasn't coming back up.
Save your slut jokes, Springtucky 'Hos. I know what you're thinking and it's not very nice.
Well, it used to be that way.
Now, I am gagging audibly at the smell of the tuna salad that my friend is eating in the next cubicle. She really needs to wrap up lunch, or I will prove, in Technicolor, my justification for going home early last Wednesday and telling everyone that it was because I got sick at lunch.
I did and I did, in case there remain any questions and although my bitching and eye-rolling may lead some co-workers down the wrong path of belief about my work ethic, I don't abandon ship unless I am sure that all my decks are swabbed, ya dig. Unless I am about to throw up at work.
I'll take every hour of paid time off that I can get but I'll only take it when there's not something due. Unless I weighing, in a split second, the pros and cons of hurling into my trash under my desk and trying to make it to the ladies' room without draing too much attention and without clamping my hand over my mouth to keep the pop-tart puke from spilling onto the new carpeting.
Lately, the slightest weird smell makes me taste bile and there are only a few short minutes before I have to assume a position that I seriously believed was limited to a few distinctly drunken nights in college.
Last week and this week, I am the reigning queen of vomit. If you want to see it again, have lunch with me. Or even more effective, let's cruise home to let my neighbors' dogs out, only to discover that their roof is leaking and one of the dogs dookied on the towel that I put down to deal with leaking.
Moldy smells make me yak. Dog shit makes me yak.
I barely made it out the door and into a discreet pile of brambles and now here I am, back at my desk.
Happy eating birdies! And way to go get 'em tiger... barfed and then came back to work. That's a new one, for me.
Right now, I am about four breaths away from hauling ass to the ladies' room and being extremely unlady-like when I hunker down, my face entirely too close to the exact spot where the people I work with have had their ass acne sitting.
Yes, I could life the seat but then I'd have to touch it. It seems to me that, given that I can't barf in the bushes at work, it seems to me that the best solution would be to hover my face a safe distance from the actual seat of the john and then, holding my hair back, aim well and hope for a projectile style session.
The worst part of about puke is that it comes out your nose.
The best part is that you don't gain the weight from your carb-ridden breakfast.
Don't get me wrong, this is not a life-style that I want to maintain. It's just that lately, I can't stop barfing when I smell something that my nose arbitrarily text-messages to my brain: "U R gros barf x 3"
And I guaran-damn-tee you that I am not suffering from morning sickness, and yes, I know that morning sickness is inappropriately named since it really means, "Sick all the time from the disgusting tumor in your uterus."
However you want to call it, this spade has nothing to do with babies.
I think it's most likely either the early stages of possession, in the demonic sense, or nerves.
I have to figure out a new and less TV-oriented schedule and I also have to do something about this barfing. Those two things are wearing me out, man. It seems to me that, although demonic possession is not something to rule out this early in the game, most likely, the barfing is yet another way that my body has turned on me in the face of the financial, spiritual, and personal terrorism that I experience every day.
In my head.
In other news, I'm thinking about quitting my meds!
Opinions?
I don't really need to barf at home unless I am minusing in my check-book or hearing my mom not trust me when I answer a question about myself honestly.
For the record, I offer the following: "Why don't you want to jump in start teaching? You can get your certificate while you're teaching!"
"Oh, I'm not ready. I wouldn't have a clue where to begin and I need to get my fett we..."
Interrupting, "Well, I think you should quit your job and go teach - do a program where you get certified while you teach."
"I can't. Schools don't teach insurance, reality television, or novels starring Dr. Kay Scarpetta, lawyer AND doctor. I really need to brush up on my school skills before teaching them to children."
"Well that's silly. Your cousin Robin is jumping in and teaching while she gets certified."
ASIDE: This is where I was tempted to point out that I could be certified, just not the way she's thinking. More like in a way that prohibit me from working with children in this, or any other, American state."
But instead I replied, "Robin has a child and has been working since she was 8. And she worked with the public. By definition, she has infinitly more patience. And she's living with her mom while she does this. There's no fucking way that I would move in with you so that full-time, I can be second-guessed and made to feel, whether on purpose or not, that I should be doing something the way someone else you know is doing it. Can I do things my own goddamn way or is that like, something you are allergic to? Do I look like I am anybody else but me? And by the way, when I bring this up jokingly and you get all offended? I am going to send you a bill for all of the time I spend at the shrink, at the doctor, and at the pharmacist trying to fix the symptoms and causes of your constant torture-infliction. Those 'other kids', the ones who you seem to think are perfect? Yeah. Believe me, their parents are not telling you about their drug problems, the times they asked for thousands of dollars of credit card debt to be paid off, and the 2 weeks they spent on the pleasant side of a mental institution. Trust me, I am NOTHING but a perfect daughter and your conitnued belief otherwise? Makes me do things like start to not care about a dui, night-after-night in front of the television, the fact that I may never have children, and my own psychotropic drug addled future in a home."
"Well, I'm going to let you go now."
For the love of god, LET ME GO.
So, I guess the barfing is warranted.
Instead of the help that was previously offered to me to return to school, I am going to go all out on student loans.
Again.
And I'll do great.
Again.
And three years from now?
I'll be having the same fucking fight about fill-in-the-blank and who knows what the nervous reaction will be? I have yet to get heartburn, flatulence, cavities, failed vision, sores, a real death wish, or a hobby at the target range but seriously?
They've got to be on the horizon.
arizonasarah at 12:16 p.m.